My Growing Makeup Collection

Skincare:

L-R MUJI Cleansing Oil (pre-cleansing; budget alternative to the Shu Uemura favorite)
Shu Uemura White Recovery Ex+ Brightening Cleansing Oil (cleanser)
AHAVA Matifying Toner
AHAVA Matifying Moisturizer (Day)
Physiogel AI Cream (Heavy Night moisturizer)
Shu Uemura Whitefficient Brightening UV Underbase Mousse SPF 30++ (sunblock, makeup base)
On top of the AHAVA Moisturizer:
A Vitamin C Serum formulated by my dermatologist ^_^
Supergoop Winterstick SPF 30 (sun/wind protection for my lips)
PanOxyl (for emergency breakouts!)
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Primers/ Tinted Moisturizers: 

Majolica Majorca Skin Lingerie Pore Cover
Laura Mercier Foundation Primer
Etude House Precious Mineral Sheer Glowing Skin BB Cream
Laura Mercier Illuminated Tinted Moisturizer in Bare Radiance
Laura Mercier Oil Free Tinted Moisturizer in Nude
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Foundation:

NARS Sheer Glowing Skin in Mont Blanc
Makeup Forever Mat Velvet+ in Porcelain
Shiseido The Makeup Brightening Veil
Graftobian Cream Foundation Palette
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Concealer:

Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage in SC-02
Bobbi Brown Corrector in Light Peach
Laura Mercier Secret Concealer in 01
Benefit Realness of Concealness Kit
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Powder:

Laura Mercier Loose Setting Powder in Translucent
Laura Mercier Invisible Loose Setting Powder
Chanet Purete Mat Shine Control Powder SPF 15 in Faience Mat
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Highlighter/Concealers (my favorite!!!):

Benefit Erase Paste in Fair
Dior Skinflash Radiance Booster Pen in 001 Roseglow
Clarins Instant Light Brush-On Perfector in 00. - BEST CONCEALER/HIGHLIGHTER EVER!
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Contour/Blush:

Smashbox Contour Kit
Benefit Dandelion brightening face powder
NARS Blush-Bronzer Duo in Orgasm/Laguna
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Eye Color: (top to bottom, left to right)

Too Faced Natural Eye Kit - even better than UD Naked :)
Laura Mercier Caviar Stick in Amethyst
NARS Bengali
Sephora Colorful Palette in Abricot Pulp
MAC Metal-X Venetian Tarnish
MAC Ricepaper
MAC Metal-X Red Hot Copper
MAC Paradisco
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Eye Liners:

Prestige White Eyeliner
MAC Fascinating
MAC Engraved
Revlon ColorStay in Black Brown
Make Up Forever Aqua Eyes in Majorelle Blue
K-Palette 1 day Tattoo Real Lasting Eyeliner - HG EYELINER. NEVER smudges even when you rub it. Believe me as I have oily eyelids and I live in a tropical country. :D
MAC Fluidline in Blacktrack
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Brows/Lashes: (yup, I don't use Mascara. See why here)

Benefit Brow-Zings in Medium
MAC Brow Set in Girlboy
MAC Eye Brows in Brunette
Missha Dolly Eyelash in A-104
Shu Uemura False Eyelashes in Brown Cross
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Highlighters:

NARS Illuminator in Orgasm
Benefit Watt's Up
Benefit High Beam
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Lipstick:

Top row, left ro right:
Laura Mercier in Barely Nude
NARS in Belle de Jour
NARS in Napoli
NARS in Little Darling
NARS in Niagara
Bottom row, left to right:
MAC in Plink!
Elizabeth Arden in Wood Rose Cream
NYX in Tea Rose
NYX in Frappucino
NYX in Thalia
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Lipgloss + Lip liner:

MAC Lip Liner in Subculture
Smashbox in Radiance
Laura Mercier in Bare Peach
NARS in Chihuahua
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Nail Polish:

(i'm a little too lazy to swatch it all, so if you want to know a swatch, please leave a message by replying to this post or using the ask box. :) )

I also ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon today so I'll be expecting a whole lot of products next month :)

Coming soon:
Clarins Instant Smooth Perfecting Touch
Clarins Sun Wrinkle Eye Contour Care with SPF 30
YSL Touche Eclat
Urban Decay Naked2 Palette
Too Faced Shadow Insurance Anti-Crease Eye Shadow Primer
Estee Lauder Advanced NIght Repair Serum
... and whatever it is I pick up at the mall. heehee.

02/02/12 Mini Haul

Hi everyone! Here are some of the new stuff I got earlier today:

Shiseido The Makeup Brightening Veil, Benefit Dandelion, Shu Uemura Brown Cross False Eyelashes, Etude House Precious Mineral Sheer Glowing Skin BB Cream, Shu Uemura White Recovery Ex+ Brightening Cleansing Oil
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Shu Uemura White Recovery Ex+ Brightening Cleansing Oil Advanced Formula

I love how Shu Uemura has different sizes for their cleansing oils so if you just want to try out a product, you can just go ahead and buy the least expensive 100 mL bottle. The White Recovery Ex+ Line is a relatively new skincare line Shu launched earlier this year (if I'm not mistaken) so I was still a bit hesitant to get the big bottle which costs around Php 6000 ($133.00. YUP. It costs around $50 more here. I suggest hoarding all the Shu Uemura products you can in HK or Korea where they're cheapest) -_-. What made me even more hesitant was the name. "White Recovery"? I don't really care for whitening products as I'm already pretty light skinned and any whiter I'll start to look sickly. But the sales rep told me it doesn't really whiten your skin per se, but recovers a kind of glow that most people with dull skin have. I gave it a go since I'm a huge fan of brightening (not whitening!!!) products anyway.
And. WOW. This is an amazing product. It goes on as oil to remove makeup. But washing it off with water emulsifies the product and turns it into a foamy/soapy cleanser which leaves your face feeling clean and moisturized without a dry/taut feeling. The sales rep also told me this is perfect for people with combination skin (me!!!) so I think I've found my HG makeup remover/cleanser/moisturizer. Definitely repurchasing this one! Worth it! Perfect for lazy nights when I just wanna skip the my whole skincare routine.
I also have to recommend this to people with sensitive skin like me. My mom was right when she told me that Asian women should only stick to Asian skincare products. Western brands are too strong and almost always end up breaking me out or giving me dry skin in the morning. Shu Uemura, and Shiseido are perfect :) (another drugstore brand that I use is the Neutrogena Fine Fairness line because I heard it was formulated specifically for Asians and they don't sell it in the US.)

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I'm a bit sad I can't review the Shiseido The Makeup Brightening Veil, Benefit Dandelion and Etude House BB Cream because I just came from the dermatologist and I've been avoiding makeup because of the open pores/skin inflammation. :( Will post individual reviews when my skin fully heals!

(i finally caved in and bought a bb cream after seeing all these reviews online about how girls would get clearer skin after months of use. I used to dismiss all these claims because I love my nars foundation and it's sheer and lightweight enough for everyday use, but we'll see!)

Me, still fresh with derma scars/inflammation >_<

The only makeup I'm wearing here is MAC Eye Brows Pencil in Brunette and Burt's Bees Tinted Lip Balm in Tiger Lily. Two things I can't leave the house unfinished are my eyebrows and lips. XD I don't mind not wearing concealer or foundation, as long as my brows and lips are taken care of then I'll be fine. I learned that skincare is much much MUCH more important than makeup anyway. If you really want that "glow" people keep talking about, take care of your skin and make sure your products are suited to your skin type and complexion for maximum results. :) 

my skincare routine as of 02/02/12:
pre-cleaning: Shu Uemura Balancing Cleansing Oil
cleanser: Shu Uemura White Recovery Ex+ Brightening Cleansing Oil
toner: AHAVA Matifying Toner
serum: Vitamin C Serum
moisturizer: AHAVA Matifying Moisturizer
eye care: Clarins Sun Wrinkle Eye Contour Cream
sunscreen: Neutrogena Fine Fairness UV Block SPF 50++
Thanks for reading! :)

New MAC Eyeshadows

Well, I used to swear off MAC because I had a really bad experience with their Studio Fix Foundation and Concealer. (break outs!!!) But I only recently figured out why people love it so much - colors!
I've never been much of an eyeshadow person cause I've always thought it looks a bit over the top when you put it on. In the past I only wore eyeshadow when I went to special occasions like parties in the nighttime or weddings or other events where you had to really look dressy and pretty. (simply put, if slippers were a possible dress code for the occasion, eyeshadow was a big no-no for me. lol)
So here I am, shifting gears and trying out something new. (sorry for the low res pic, I just zoomed a picture in)

Here are the shadows I used for that look:
NARS Bengali
L-R: MAC Paradisco, MAC Ricepaper
L-R: MAC Metal-X Red Hot Copper, MAC Metal-X Venetian Tarnish

The Metal-X eyeshadows are limited edition eyeshadows from the 2011 MAC Winter Collection. The colors are housed in a much bigger pan than the normal MAC eyeshadows and have a metallic cream-to-powder finish. Pretty good if you like bold colors on your eyes. If you're the type who has a hard time wearing bold colors (like me) I suggest sticking to the traditional mac shadows. They're more natural looking and cost a lot less too. :)
Individual photos:
1.) MAC Ricepaper - Frost peachy gold with shimmer
Pretty sheer on my skin. (I think) my skin has the MAC NC20 tone (MUFE Porcelain, NARS Mont Blanc, Laura Mercier 1, Benefit Fair) and when I put it on it makes for a great shadow base/highlighter for the brow bone and the inside corners of the eye. I think the peachy gold shows for darker skin tones (according to other make up review sites) but on lighter skin tones it's a great pigmented highlighter :)

2.) MAC Paradisco - Frost bright pink coral with pearl
OMG! HG eyeshadow! I have really warm skin tone so I've been looking for a nice neutral coral eyeshadow for years. And it's really lucky that my sister and I were killing time at the mall so we decided to go eyeshadow shopping and this is the first thing I got.

3.) MAC Metal-X Red Hot Copper - Warm copper
A little too bold for me. It's a really warm copper color, bordering on a rusty kind of red. What's great about it though is that it's a buildable color that isn't too overbearing when you first swipe it on your lids.

4.) MAC Metal-X Venetian Tarnish - Golden tarnished bronze
This looks better on people with tanned skin (like my sister who practically lives on the beach). I just use this as an accent as it gives me a creepy unnatural spray-tanned look on my eyes when I put it on. -_- zzz

Step by step guide to this look:
1.) Spread Ricepaper all over the eyelid from the upper lash line to the brow bone
2.) Contour the eye by using a flat brush with NARS Bengali, only putting shadow on the edges of the lid fold and over the lash line (as you would an eye liner)
3.) Double the contour by layering Red Hot Copper over Bengali for a softer, more feminine look
4.) Color in the crease with Paradisco
5.) Dab a bit of Venetian Tarnish on the outer edges of the lower lash line to widen the eyes a little bit more
6.) Blend the colors using a blending brush all over the eyelid to finish
(o btw: i'm using Ardell 124 lashes here. hehehe~)


Hope you liked this review! :)
PS I couldn't help but buy another favorite makeup item of mine before exiting the store:

Ta-da! MAC Lipstick in Plink! (Lustre warm seashell pink) Maybe I'll do a separate review if I'm not too lazy XD

My Basic Look

Step 1: Cleanse, Tone, Moisturize, Sunscreen etc

Step 2: Pore Minimizing Primer (I'm using Majolica Majorca Skin Lingerie Pore Cover) *Note: I only discovered about this brand recently when I found out it was the (younger, cheaper and hipper) sister company of Shiseido. :D

Step 3: Matte foundation in areas you need it (T-zone, under eye circles). I'm using Makeup Forever Mat Velvet+Matifying Foundation in Porcelain.

Step 4: Eyebrows!!! I'm using Benefit Brow-Zings in Medium.

Step 5: Falsies. I'm a very anti-mascara person just because every time I wear mascara it smudges under my eyes making me look like I have even bigger under eye circles U_U. I've tried countless of mascaras from Lancome to Shiseido to MAC to Maybelline and.. GOSH just wear falsies it gives you the same effect without the hassle of checking for smudging every 2 hours XD (an exception though is the Helena Rubenstein mascara I was able to try from my friend Jen. Super wow exceptional non-smudge mascara) I'm using Japanese Fairy Eyelash falsies.

Step 6: Conceal/Highlight. I'm using Clarins Instant Light Brush On Perfector in 00, a 2-in-1 Highlighter/Concealer which does WONDERS for my face. Under eye circles, blemishes... gone! The best product I have ever used and I think that's saying a lot! I used to think my Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage + Benefit High Beam was going to be the best highlight/conceal combination I would have but I was dead wrong. Like I said in my previous post, even better than the YSL Touche Eclat. ^_^ A lot cheaper too.

This is my everyday look when I don't know where I'm headed for the day. It's appropriate for both day time and night time so if it just so happens that I'll be out til night time then it's alright. XD Just a swipe of Chapstick then I'm off!

What's your go-to look?

Inside My Makeup Bag

Hi guys! This is my first ever post and my eager attempt at beauty blogging. I'm not really a makeup or skin care expert, I just enjoy these things a lot and it'd be nice to find other people who enjoy the same things that I do. So okay here is my first post!

My make up bag (surprisingly it's not that heavy as it looks and it can fit right in my everyday bag) This includes all the makeup I need for retouching throughout the day. (If only all my stuff could fit in my bag, I'd throw it all in there. But since I'm limited, here are my essentials.)

Inside:

Top, L-R: Laura Mercier Undercover Pot, Chanel Purete Mat, NARS Lipstick in Napoli
Middle L-R: Kleenex tissues (^_^), Benefit High Beam mini, Chapstick, NARS Lipgloss in Chihuahua, Bobbi Brown Pot Rouge in Powder Pink
Bottom: Clarins Instant Light Brush On Perfector (!!! HG MAKEUP !!!)

I'll try to do an individual review of the Clarins highlighter/concealer brush since it's the one makeup item I cannot live without. (For everyone who's familiar with the YSL Touche Eclat, I prefer Clarins by a huge stretch :D)

What's inside your makeup bag?