My Holy Grail Series (4) : Masks AND a GIVEAWAY!

Skincare is the first step to great makeup. Therefore, you may have noticed I covered more on skincare products in my Holy Grail series.

This post is about the masking products I currently use to supplement my daily skincare routine. While I have heard of women putting on facial mask every night, I personally do not have this habit and I do not recommend everyone to do so especially if you live in humid climates. For me, twice a week is enough when I am in Singapore. When my skin feels exceptionally dry in winter (during my travels), that's when I allow a daily sheet mask to tackle the hydration of my facial skin.

My Holy Grail Mask Products

Products Featured:

1. Innisfree Super Volcanic Pore Clay Mask
2. Bio-cellulose Hydration Mask (Specialist Skin Clinic and Associates)
3. Dermal Honey Grapefruit Collagen Essence Mask
4. Sunflower Point Pads
5. Laneige Water Sleeping Pack_EX
6. Laneige White Plus Renew Capsule Sleeping Pack

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Innisfree Super Volcanic Pore Clay Mask

This star product of Innisfree needs no introduction. The clay mask has barely-there tiny grains that acts like a gentle exfoliator as you smooth on the mask on your skin. After leaving on the skin for ten minutes and rinsing off with warm water, skin is noticeably cleaner and brighter, more even-toned and ready for the next step in the skincare routine. 

Tip: Follow up with a hydrating sheet mask or sleeping pack to reap maximum benefits for your skin!

 

Bio-cellulose Hydration Mask (by Specialist Skin Clinic and Associates)

This mask is slightly pricey, at SGD14 per sheet. However, the quality of the mask is indeed as it is valued. Made in Japan, the mask sheet is thicker than normal; and infused with goodies such as ceramide 3, vitamin C, squalene, hyaluraonate, soluble collagen and much more. Results after a single use: a significantly more rejuvenated and renewed youthful looking skin!

 

Dermal Honey Grapefruit Collagen Essence Mask

Costing less than SGD1 per piece (purchase in bulk from Korea), this is the cheapest sheet mask I ever put on my face; yet it is one of the most effective ones! It boasts of brightening properties and in my opinion, it's a promise well-delivered. I found my skin tone brightened by a shade immediately after use; it feels soft and smooth and the best thing? The effects last for at least 48 hours! It is available online at www.qoo10.sg. Look for the Korean seller, Breezy HERE.

 

Sunflower Point Pads

My hubby purchased this cutie in Hong Kong, ColourMix (a beauty shop similar to SaSa). I use it on my feet or any sporadic dry patches on my body; I have not tried it on my face. Feet looks smooth and feels moisturised after masking. What draws me is the cutesy printed daisy on each sheet. Doesn't it remind you of my blog? :)

Laneige Water Sleeping Pack_EX

This is one top-selling product that flies off Laneige shelves all the time . Since its first launch in 2002, Laneige has been revising and coming up with improved versions. So far there had been two updates. Soon, the latest revision will be launched in Singapore on 7 May -renamed as Water Sleeping Mask. The one I am currently using is Laneige Water Sleeping Pack_EX (third version). They currently also have another one which has a similar packaging, topped with an added benefit of firming; called the Firming Sleeping Pack.

Can't wait for Laneige's launch of the two new sleeping masks: 1. Water Sleeping Mask, 2.Lip Sleeping Mask (yes, they have a lip sleeping mask!)

Want Song Hye Kyo's flawless dewy skin? You know what to do!

This new kid of the block is gonna excite many beauty junkies!

Laneige White Plus Renew Capsule Sleeping Pack

This is yet ANOTHER sleeping pack by Laneige, and so far, my most favourite one. It promises two functions - brightening one's skin tone as well as hydration. BOTH promises were fulfilled on my skin every single time after I put this on overnight. I LOVE LOVE LOVE products that are multi-functional. Am sure many other busy women think alike as well!

Let me show you how this is applied, if you have not tried this before yet...

The reason why I only scoop half is because that's all I need for my entire face & neck. Depending on individual preferences, you may choose to use up everything and leave a thicker film on the face. OR you can apply thinner on other parts of the body. Just know that one capsule is MORE than enough!

Etude House Color in Liquid Lips Review

In the month of March, Etude House released its new line of lip products in Singapore for Spring 2015.

Introducing Etude House Color in Liquid Lips...

Priced at SGD 17.90 each, Etude House Color in Liquid Lips is a marriage between lip gloss and lipstick. It also feels like lip tint when you're applying it on and doing the Korean gradation lips. To be more exact, it is a liquefied lipstick that makes use of a cushion applicator. It works to give you an intense lip colour in one smooth application.

With a total of 20 shades to choose from, Etude House fans are now spoilt for choice!

Many of these colours are poppy bright, so if you're into the undying Korean trend of bright lip colours, then this product is for you.

I am a sucker for bright lips as well as Etude House adorable sweet packaging. That's why I took less than 5 minutes to purchase five tubes in different colours!

I was pleasantly surprised when I was told that with a purchase of SGD90 and above, I can receive free gifts of my choice. I also received double points as a member in my birthday month.

As shown above, apart from the five lipsticks and one neck firming sheet mask, the rest are ALL FREEBIES from Etude House! Super love the pink mirror! It says "All of You Are Born As A Princess." I can't help but nod my head in agreement! :)

A closer look at the cushion applicator.

Unboxing March '15 Makeup Haul!

March has always been my favourite month, coz it's my birthday month! :)

Every year around this time, I give myself treats and this year I found a great excuse to buy myself more makeup! I justify that since I started this blog, I need more makeup to review for you my lovely readers, right? YES, I am right. LOL.

I am thankful my friends & family pampered me with some of these these babies and now, I am going to unbox and show them to you guys! (Actually I have already unboxed some. Can't wait till end March. Heh.)

Before Unboxing

After Unboxing! (short of one item, because I left it at my second home)

Products featured in the After Unboxing pic above:

1. NARS All Day Luminous Weightless Foundation in Medium 1, SGD75.00
2. NARS Soft Velvet Loose Powder in Eden, SGD60.00
3. NARS Night Series Eyeliner in Night Bird, SGD36.00
4. Daiso Eyeshadow, SGD2.00
5. Tom Ford Cheek Colour Flush, SGD87.00
6. Urban Decay All Nighter Makeup Setting Spray, SGD48.00
7. Benefit Roller Lash Mascara, SGD 33.30
8. Real Techniques Bold Metals Collection 200 Oval Eyeshadow Brush, £15.00
9. Real Techniques Blush Brush £9.99
10. Real Techniques Silicon Eyeliner Brush SGD16.00
11. Lancome Cushion Compact Case & Refill in O-01, SGD20+55= SGD75.00
12. Tom Ford Eye Colour Quad Cocoa Mirage, SGD 105
13. Charlotte Tilbury Luxury Palatte Dolce Vita, £38.00
14. Lancome Le Crayon Khol in 01 Noir (sample size)
15. Clinique Even Better Makeup in 62 Fresh Beige (sample size)
16. Laneige Two Tone Lip Bar no. 2 Red Blossom, SGD34

Products featured in Before Unboxing but NOT in After Unboxing pic:

• NARSissist Lip, Blush and Contour Palette. (My mistake, this is Feb haul, not Mar. Review up HERE.)
• Soap & Glory Archery Brow Tint and Precision Pencil, £10.00 (Please check out my makeup tutorial HERE for closeup shots.)

Let's check out the products one-by-one now!

P.S: Please note that I am not going to picture swatches of all the products mentioned. Selected products will be reviewed in-depth on my other posts next month. Do let me know your requests which particular product you want me to review!

NARS All Day Luminous Weightless Foundation in Medium 1, SGD75.00

NARS Soft Velvet Loose Powder in Eden, SGD60.00

This is my exact shade, but I am used to using a shade lighter. :(

NARS Night Series Eyeliner in Night Bird, SGD36.00

This is a dark shimmery blue colour. 

 Daiso Eyeshadow, SGD 2.00

I am just so freaking awed by how pigmented and smooth the application went! Need to swatch for you guys!
What a steal at S$2!!

Tom Ford Cheek Colour Flush, SGD87.00

Buildable intensity. Super finely-milled powder. Feels very luxurious.
Looks exceptionally bright in the pan, but not so when swatched.
With a light dusting, the blush glides on my cheeks with just the right intensity. Really high quality blusher!

Urban Decay All Nighter Makeup Setting Spray, SGD48.00

This is a surprise birthday present from a sweet friend! 

Benefit Roller Lash Mascara, SGD 33.30

The only mascara that does what it claims - curl lashes without a curler!
Hook and roll - A technology that actually works!!
I'm impressed!

Real Techniques Bold Metals Collection 200 Oval Eyeshadow Brush, £15.00

Was so looking forward to this since it is not available in Singapore yet. Got my hubby to get it when he was in London for a business trip. I end up being quite disappointed by its size and quality of the bristles.

Real Techniques Blush Brush, £9.99

Real Techniques Silicon Eyeliner Brush SGD16.00

Giving you a comparison of sizes so you roughly know how big the Oval Eyeshadow brush is. It is a tad too huge for my Asian small eyelids.

Lancome BB Cushion Case & Refill in O-01, SGD20+55= SGD75.00

I am going to review this in a separate post. Check it out HERE.

Tom Ford Eye Colour Quad Cocoa Mirage, SGD 105

By far the finest eyeshadow powder I have come across! A little bit goes a looong wayyy...
I think I may take 10 years to finish this pan. LOL.

Charlotte Tilbury Luxury Palatte Dolce Vita, £38.00

This is still under my list of 'Untouchables' till now! It's been 3 weeks! But I will soon need to touch it, because I am going to do a comparison review of this with the Tom Ford one! Stay tuned for my reviews & swatches next month!

Lancome Le Crayon Khol  in 01 Noir(sample size)

Clinique Even Better Makeup in 62 Fresh Beige (sample size)

Fun-sized bits! I love tiny stuff like that, do you? They are great for sampling or for travel.

Laneige Two Tone Lip Bar in no. 2 Red Blossom, SGD34

This hero makes gradient/ombre lips super easy to achieve! Now I only need 10 seconds to do my Korean style lips instead of the usual 5 minutes!

Me in Laneige Two Tone Lip Bar No. 2 Red Blossom!
(My photo in the Laneige #RenewMySparkle Photo Contest.)

Thank you for reading! Hope you like this post! Comment below if there are any products mentioned here that catches your eye, and you'd like me to review. 

My Holy Grail Series (3) : Eyecare Routine

Some lucky gals have been blessed with good skin, pretty eyes, etc. Too bad, I am just not one of them. I am sure there are many souls out there feeling the same as me. Girlies, cheer up! There is an amazing invention called 'skincare products'! HAHA! Which is pretty why I could start this blog... to introduce some of these awesome products that I personally tried & tested (and to ramble about things I like. Heh.) 

This post is the third instalment of my Holy Grail Series. If you haven't read HG Series (1) and HG Series (2), please do so and share the love through your social media!

As you can probably guessed in the pic above, I do not load on skincare products around my eye areas. Yes you are right. I DO NOT and WILL NEVER use more than TWO products at a go, on my skin near the eyes!

You'd have already known by now, the skin around the eyes is much thinner and delicate than the rest of our face. That is why the skin around our eyes show first signs of aging.

Our mothers are usually among the first people whom we pick up beauty tips from. I am fortunate my mother has warned me to take care of my eye area, due to the fact that our family genetics seem to wreck havoc on our eye area prematurely. My maternal aunts & uncles all have wrinkles around their eyes when they hit late twenties. Sad.

Hence, I started putting on eye gel religiously at 13 years old, and never looked back.

I am not kiasu okay.

I am just vain. LOL.

After trying on NUMEROUS eye gels/eye creams/eye masks for a whooping 20 years, you bet I know what I am talking about when it comes to eye care products.

Blame on my acne-prone sensitive skin, the area around my eyes too is super picky when it comes to skincare products. I am prone to milia seeds ALL OVER my face, so you can imagine how cautious I get when it comes to selecting my eyecare products.

Because I do not want to look like this...

Image credit to trueaesthetics.net

So here comes... my holy grail eyecare products that I have been using for YEARS!!

 Products featured:

• Shiseido Sun Protection Eye Cream
• Kiehl's Midnight Recovery Eye Cream
• The Face Shop Raspberry Roots Collagen Eye Patch 

You may be wondering why are there only three products being featured?

If you haven't caught on by now, I will reiterate:  

You DO NOT need a ton of products on your skin, especially on the delicate area around your eyes. You only need a couple of quality products which are SUITABLE for YOU. 

Shiseido Sun Protection Eye Cream with SPF25

I don't know about you, but my skin is pretty reactive to products with high SPF. I am probably sensitive to high amounts of titanium oxide or zinc oxide. I break out or develop milia seeds overtime if I apply anything higher than SPF30.

BUT we all need some protection from the sun, don't we? Especially when we know our skin around the eyes ages faster than the rest of the skin, all the more we NEED some SPF in our eye care products.


That was why I chose Shiseido Sun Protection Eye Cream with SPF 25.

Unforgettable City of Bruges

Bruges, Belgium. A.k.a "Venice of the North".

Recently I was planning for my trip to Greece, and it suddenly struck me that I have not documented down my previous trip to Europe! So I shall do so here and share with my sweet readers the amazing travel experience I had. :)

My husband and I were too lazy to plan our itinerary this time, so we went for a tour package with  CTC Travel. We signed up with them two weeks before our departure date, so there weren't much discounts/freebies given to us as they were given to my fellow tour mates.

Learn from our mistake, do not leave your travel plans till last minute if you want to have more bargaining power with the travel agents. AND, do not sign on those unconfirmed tours like how we did with another travel agency prior to CTC. If they cannot confirm your tour, or only inform you your tour group did not meet minimum headcount at the very last minute, you may face some unwanted stress. (In spite of that my hubby & I were very chill about it. Since it's a leisure trip, don't stress lah ok!)

The tour is super comprehensive. We covered quite a number of cities:

1. Rome (Italy)
2. Florence (Italy)
3. Pisa (Italy)
4. Mestra/Venice (Italy)
5. Innsbruck (Austria)
6. Vaduz
7. Lucerne (Switzerland)
8. Black Forest (Germany)
9. Heidelberg/Cologne (Germany)
10. Amsterdam (Holland)
11. Brussels (Belgium)
12. Bruges (Belgium)
13. Paris (France)

In this blog post, I am going to introduce Bruges, because I find that many of the other cities on my itinerary are kind of overrated, but Bruges is less spoken of/reviewed about on my local (Singapore) blogosphere.

Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country. (Source:Wikipedia)

Although I love teaching, but I am not particularly excited about the idea of conducting a history lesson on my blog! LOL. So please click the links above and educate yourself more about Bruges' history & culture.

Letting the pictures do the talking!

Map of Bruges made of lace!

Streets of Bruges on a winter morning

My Holy Grail Series (2): Daily Skincare Routine

The year I hit 29, I underwent a facial skin pilgrimage. Plagued by the thought that I was approaching my Big 3, I vowed to start a suitable skincare routine in order to gear myself up for the coming Big 3. (I wasn't using a moisturiser prior to that. Horrors of horrors!)

I made a fatal mistake back then.

It just wasn't the right time to change my beauty products, at one go somemore. Back then, I wasn't aware that my hormones were holding my 30 year old birthday bash in my body! HAH!

Furthermore, I was stressed out by many nitty gritty stuff such as my life direction, my family, my relationship, my finances (okay, not that nitty gritty), and even my pet bunny's happiness index. Hah.

Coupled with all these factors plus my sudden change in beauty products, my face BROKE OUT with more than 15 pimples ALL OVER THE FACE, especially prominent on the cheeks!

Couldn't find the photo of my then bare face. Probably deleted it as I couldn't stand the sight of blemishes on my face!

In the above photo, my real face was hidden behind 3 layers of foundation, 1 layer of concealer and 1 layer of tinted sunblock. Total of 5 layers! And you can still see the active pimples!

I cried myself to sleep almost every night. I was so depressed because I spent so much money on various skincare products, new & better quality makeup, countless facials but my skin just betrayed me like that.

One day, I decided I need to visit a skin doctor for professional help. After reading online reviews, I tried an aesthetic doctor and another dermatologist. Eight painful months later, my skin was finally totally cleared.

Now, my skin occasionally still breakout when my hormones are in a mess, eg. before/during menses and around the time of ovulation. However, it is MUCH MUCH BETTER compared to the situation 4 years ago.

My recent face with no makeup.
Unedited shot, except to blur out my hubby. Was kissing him. LOL.

Our skincare routine needs to be regularly updated, because as we age, our skin needs will change. Therefore, I am constantly looking for good skincare products to add to my skincare routine.

So after a LONG term of trial & error and frequent tweaking, I finally put together a set of skincare products that I am certain will work for me for a long time. I believe they can work for you too if you have acne-prone, sensitive combination skin like mine.

Sharing my holy grail daily skincare routine in this post...

Inglot Eyeshadow, Eyeliner, Sculpting Powder and brushes Review

Inglot Haul!

As promised, here is a review of the Inglot products I purchased from Wisma Atria Singapore last month.

Inglot is definitely a brand that professional makeup artists should check out; or if you're pretty serious about makeup, it is also for you!

Why do I make such a claim?

One step into the boutique, you will sense something different from the usual makeup brands. It looks very down-to-earth, nothing too fancy or luxurious about it, yet it has a professional feel to it, just like the previous Makeup Forever boutique in Ngee Ann City. You will notice the lightings are white, not the usual soft or yellow lighting in some makeup boutiques. Speaking of which...I never get this: Why would a makeup boutique be fitted with soft yellow lights? The colours will never be accurate as we swatch them. What we tested in the boutique will look darn different when we apply and walk out in sunlight. OF COURSE I know why they do that. But STILL...

Anyway, back to Inglot. The boutique is splashed with different colours, textures and product types - you will be spoiled for choice. And the unique factor is the 'Freedom System' the brand offers. We can choose what we want and make it into our personalised makeup palette. It's like we can be our own "professional" makeup artist. Isn't that awesome fun?

The price point is another attractive factor. Inglot makeup products are reasonably priced. The brushes are good-quality brushes. Although the brushes are not exactly cheap, but they are still considered inexpensive compared to high-end brands. One thing I noted is, they do not have many options for synthetic brushes - most brushes are made of animal hair. Hence, vegan/animal lovers probably have to give this a miss. ( I found out too late... I already bought one brush made of pony hair when I realised it is not made of synthetic hair, and I was pretty upset about my blunder. )

Anyway, lesson learnt. So, let's move on and get down to the product reviews!

AMC Eyeliner Gel Matte, SGD25

Swatching the eyeliner with my Inglot brush 30T

Pros:

1. Long-lasting.
2. Doesn't smudge easily.
3. Very black -> gorgeous for tightlining!
4. Doesn't dry up too fast in the jar.
5. Good, study unbreakable plastic packaging.

Cons:

1. As with many gel liners, this may take some time to remove, since it is darkly pigmented. Solution is to use a good eye makeup remover! (Which I will talk about in my HG series soon!)

Overall Product Rating: