Haul, January Empties and EOTDs

This would be the last makeup haul for me as I'm in self-imposed makeup shopping ban until May. I ordered all this stuffs from several sprees last year and it just arrived this month.I got...

• ELF Essential Feather Proof Moisturising Lip Liner in Natural Blush
• Kryolan TV Paint Stick in 4w and V14 (actually someone ordered it through me and back out last week. A bit pissed off about it, but the damages has been done)
• ELF Studio Blush in Blushing Rose.
• NYX Concealer in Jar - Medium. I ordered another in Glow, but it's a lil too dark for me, so I swapped it with Aisyah.
• ELF Studio Cream Eye Liner in Plum Purple.
• ELF Mineral Blemish Kit
• ELF Essential Clarifying Pressed Powder in Spice, Toffee and Apricot Beige.
  

Influenced by Gaby, I decided to this type of post every month. I'm gonna share products that I finished up that months and a lil bit of my thought about the product.

1. ELF Mineral Blemish Kit sample - This sample is one of my 10 Pan Project item. I used it mainly as facial mask when my face very oily. As replacement, I will used the full sized product from haul above.
2. ELF Cream Eye Liner Black in sample jar - Alright, the eyeliner in these sample jar are results from my experiments to revive the eyeliner. I still have a lot more in the original jar to use.
3. Maybelline Eye and Lip Makeup Remover - Also one of 10 Pan Project Item. A good makeup remover, I had started to use another bottle that I bought last December. I'm considering of not repurchasing this makeup remover as I learn Maybelline is not cruelty free.
   
4. ELF Seductive Lipstick - Okay, I cheat for this one. The lipstick was depotted as it was broken, but I used up the left over in the original container.
5. Color Sense Mineral Eyeshadow - This one not technically empty, but I gonna throw this away since it is already more than 5 years old.
6. Guardian Wet Wipes - I used this up when I do swatches pictures. Very handy, but most unlikely to repurchase at the moment.
7. Constance Carroll conditioning Nail Enamel Remover - Another 10 Pan Project Item. This nail remover works well. I have another back up for replacement.
8. Vaseline Healthy White Skin Lightening Lotion in travel pump bottle - I brought this bottle of lotion during my trip to Johor last December, but I hardly used it up. I managed to finish it up this week since my skin unbearably dry. The original bottle still have tonnes of lotions left, so I wouldn't repurchase this any time soon.
   

Lastly, here are few EOTDs through out this week.

Review and Swatch: ELF Essential Clarifying Pressed Powder.

ELF Clarifying Pressed Powder is my favourite pressed powder. It's cheap and it works! It claims to mattify skin and treat breakouts. I don't really think this product contribute much in reducing or treating break out, but it does works in eliminating shine by absorbing oil.

I used it most of the time to set BB Cream or foundation that is too dewy. I have oily skin, so dewy look looks good for the first 30 minutes only. Longer than that, I would look line frying pan. What makes this powder works great for that purpose is the ingredients. It contains talc, mica, kaolin and cyclomethicone. I think most of you already know how kaolin works wonder on oily face.

Packaging of this product aren't that good since it's only price $1. It comes it cheap flimsy plastic container with useless powder puff. I use brush to apply this product. The lid of this product comes off easily and the hinge breaks with little amount of pressure. The powder have no noticeable scent and the texture varies, I think depending on which batch it was made. I have some that are just okay, some that is to hard to pick up using brush and some that crumbles with the slightest touch.

Finding the right shade is months long quest for this powder. I first started with Rosy Beige, but it's too light and too pink for me. So I tried Honey for the next spree, but it's too dark eventho it have correct undertone. So I thought Apricot Beige would be a good match, and yes it is. I also bought Spice and Toffee as I thought it might work as matte contouring powder. I haven't properly used the two for that particular purpose, but from the swatches below, you can see how orange Spice is. So I might used Spice for blusher or something. Toffee shade is okay for contouring.

In swatches picture below, the product applied over UDPP on the lower half (across my arm horizontally) of the swatch and over bare skin on the upper half of the swatch. That's why the bottom part appear a little darker.

Powder in the pan and swatches.

Top: Natural light. Bottom: With Flash

I would definitely recommend this product, especially if you can find shade that works for you.
I wouldn't repurchase at the moment since I'm still on makeup shopping ban, but once it over, I'm gonna restock tonnes of Apricot Beige.

Review and Swatches: ELF Studio Complete Coverage Concealer.

I ordered this concealer on the very week it was first available in ELF website. So, there are no reviews available at that time. While waiting for the concealer to arrive, more and more review of this concealer can be found online, I'm a lil bit disappointed since the reviews are mainly negative review.

The shade that I picked was light. I was actually going for medium, but my friend convince me that light is a better match. She's actually right.

The product come in typical ELF Studio packaging, and a very tiny concealer brush. When it first came, I can see clear drops of moisture on the product surface. This drops of moisture make the concealer become very runny when I first try it on. After sometime, when the top layer been used up, the concealer become a lil bit better. but it is still hard to work with (gonna explain that later).

The palette comes with 4 concealer in different shade. The first two from the left is two light for my skintone, while the other two works okay. However I prefer the one in far right (in picture below) as it have yellow undertone while the second one from the left is a lil too pink for my skintone (I have strong yellow undertone). I'm not that good at describing color/shade. So let the picture below do the talk.

The concealer have weird creamy consistency. I tried a lot of application technique, over the period of two weeks, to make it work.

• Swiping it on caused the concealer to be extremely streaky
• Patting it on would make it become very cakey and streaky after 5 minutes you applied it.
• Stippling is the only way to make it work. I use Everyday Mineral Eye Kabuki brush.
  

IMO, this concealer coverage is sheer. It work well brightening my under eye dark circles, but not good enough to cover it. It help reducing redness on my cheek and around my nose. But no matter what I do, it would crease around my nose. I tried building the coverage up by layering the concealer, it could be done, however it would start being streaky and cakey.

I tried to use this concealer under and over BB Cream, it didn't work. It become patchy and cakey. Then, I tried apply it after moisturiser and set it with pressed powder (again, I need to stipple the powder on). It looks fine. But I have to control the way I apply pressed powder so that the concealer won't look cakey.

With all the tedious work to make this concealer work, I had facepalm moments when it come to how long this product last. One hour later, the concealer settling into fine lines. 3 hours later, it starts to look cakey. 5 hours later, I removed it altogether and went makeup free for the rest of the day. I tried it again the next day, the very same thing happen again.

As conclusion, not recommend at all and unless the formulation become much better, I would not repurchase this product.

p/s: Noticed that I used the 'cakey' generously in this post? XD

Swatch: ELF Essential Brightening Eye Color over UDPP

I'd done review and swatches for ELF Essential Brightening Eye Color here. Honestly, I'm not that happy with the swatches picture. Especially the one without flash.

I bought Urban Decay Primer Potion in pro size last December, so I got lots to use for swatches.
Since I recently depotted all my ELF eyeshadow quad in to a CD case, I changed the pans position, but still group within its original quad.

All swatches done over UDPP. First row-natural light, second row-with flash, third row-eyeshadow in the pan.





I hope this post is useful for those looking for swatches picture of this quads since the one in ELF website is very very inaccurate.

p/s: I try my best to get the picture match as much as possible to RL color. As usual, different screen show the picture color slightly different.

DIY: Reviving Dried Up Cream Eyeliner.

Gel and cream eyeliner for me is one of the best makeup product for eyelining. Pencil liner, regardless of quality smudge on me, liquid eyeliner? I wish I have steady hands and I always managed to transfer the liner to my upper lid. So gel/cream liner is the only thing that works for me.

Typical gel/cream eyeliner packaged in jar with very large opening. The opening cause moisture in the product evaporated and we're left with dried up liner. Any gel or cream eyeliner will dried up, it's just matter of time. Even MAC paint pot dried up in its glass jar. There are even cases when the eyeliner arrived to the customer dried up (this happens a lot with Coastal Scents gel liner)

There are few tips on preventing gel/cream eyeliner from drying up

1. Keep in glass jar. I don't really know why, but I keep hearing people talking about how gel or cream product in glass jar didn't dried up as fast as the one in plastic jar.
2. Cap the jar tightly.
3. Store it upside-down.

At times, even with all those prevention measures, the eyeliner still drying up. That's what happened to my ELF Studio Cream Eyeliner. I had it since June/July and boy, it actually shrink significantly since it starts drying up. The eyeliner become harder and harder, and I had to swirl my brush and waste so many product to make it soft enough to line my eyes. I'm not willing to throw it away. So I take out some and mix it baby oil, it become creamy again, but it smudge terribly. I wanted to try using MAC Fix+, but then I have to go out and buy one.

And then, one day, an awesome makeup guru uploaded a video in YouTube and it's the very video that I need to revive my eyeliner! Koren aka EnKoreMakeup come up with a way to revive gel eyeliner, so I thought it might work for cream eyeliner too. Go and watch the video, you'll see what a genius Koren is :) In the video, he explains what actually happen, how to solve the problem and share some useful tips.


After I watched the video, I was too excited to try it, but I don't have any product that he actually used in the video. So, I have to postpone it. Luckily, I thought of using Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Gel. Why? Because it contains a few different silicone derivative, glycerine and it's in gel form. Everything that I need to revive my liner in one product!

Number referring to picture below:

1. Dried up cream liner - can you see how it shrinks away from the jar wall. It's hard and I have to really swirl my brush to soften it up.
2. I add about 4 pumps of Clinique DDM Gel [pic 4]. And the I mix the DDM Gel and liner and heat it up hair dryer.
3. It would turn out to something like this.

If you didn't heat the mixture long enough, the liner will smudge/transfer [pic 5]. So, heat it up a bit longer (make sure it doesn't boil), until the liner melt and mix nicely with the DDM Gel. In pic 6, you can see no smudging and the liner pigmentation is still good.

I had tried my eyeliner few times after I revived it. It works well, just like when I first started using it. The pigmentation is still good, it doesn't smudge and long lasting.

Hooray for Koren! Hooray for revived eyeliner! Hooray!!!

Review E.L.F. Shine Eraser

E.L.F. Essential Shine Eraser, nice and catchy name for a simple oil blotter sheet. It comes in nice flap case made of paper with 50 sheets inside. The paper case is decent and last on me for few months. I like the slim case of Shine Eraser which make it convenient bring around.

Side by side size comparison to E.L.F. Studio Complexion Perfection.

It's an oil blotter, so it does absorbs oil and reduce shine, thus mattifies my skin. But I think pore minimizer, re-texturize skin and imperfections masking are outrages claim. Even with green tea extract, it is still only an oil blotter to me.

As comparison, I got a box of 300 sheets of oil blotter for Daiso for RM 5 and I bought the Shine Eraser for about RM4. So Daiso version priced a lil bit more than Shine Eraser, but it got 250 sheets more than Shine Eraser. I forgot to take picture of the Daiso version box. Hehehe.

In the picture above, I haven't blot my since 10 am, and it's almost 4pm when the picture was taken. You can see that my face has become grease ball. My forehead especially shine like crazy.
Noticed how badly Maybelline Great Lash Mascara smudge.
I blot left half of my face using E.L.F. Essential Shine Eraser and right half using Daiso oil blotter. Both works just as fine.

Picture with and without flash showing used and unused blotter sheets. Both Shine Eraser (left in pic) and Daiso blotter (right in pic) absorbs quite a lot. Usually I only need 1-2 sheets at one time. On very hot and humid weather, I could used up to 4 sheets to fully eliminates shine.


Since the Daiso blotter sheets box quite bulky and a lil impractical to slip into my wallet, I moved some of the sheets into the Shine Eraser case.

Final verdict: Shine Eraser is just a normal oil blotter, it works fine. However I would not repurchased as I find cheaper alternative.

The best Bohemian Rhapsody is by Queen.
The next best thing?
Cover by The Muppets. Even Brian May loves it.

Shoes Kidnapper.

Last year, two of my shoes was stolen, and one of my heels gone for few days, and come back broken beyond repair. Today, I know who's the culprit. She's my housemate! She stole my clothes and shoes, and broke my heels...damn girl, you're surely one hell of a bitch.

OMG!!!!

OMG!!! Finally I'm done with progress report nightmare. It was really annoying, trying to submit my progress report. They introduce new online system to submit the report. Sadly, they didn't test the system thoroughly. Imagine, sending a research progress without all the symbol. I have to type "degree celcius" "inch" "equal or less than"...really, I hate how my report turn out.

First time I saw my supervisor evaluation for my work. They used rank system, 1 - 6, where 6 is the highest rank, in other word, excellent.

Out of 7, I only managed to get five '6's. The other two, which are 'attendance' and 'quality of work' are '5'. I admit I'm a lil disappointed, but heck, it's my fault actually since I'm lazy and place the wrong order and stuff. Now, I'm determined to get all '6' for the next evaluation.

Progress report nightmare over, time to indulge myself with makeup. I have tonnes of thing to do, I want to do swatch picture, write review and DIY, testing out product and stuff. I can't wait for weekend!

Kuku Nail Paku - Blue

I used 3 The Face Shop Nail Color purchased from The Face Shop store at the Spring Kuching. Each bottle of 11 ml cost RM5.90, sometimes they are on promotion, costing less than RM4 when I bought them.

Apply two coats of BL605.
My hands are not that steady, that's why the application quite messy.

One coat of WH003 applied to thumb nail, middle and pinky nails.

With and without flash picture to show the glitter effect of WH003.

Extreme close up. Both looks pretty.

Apply BL604 to the tip, like French Manicure.

The finished look with and without flash. My skill still lacking, but I'm still loving how it look like. I love the color combination. I messed it up a bit when I clean up the mess. Wait, is that a pun?

DIY: Depotting Broken Lipstick (Featuring Rain paperbag XD

If you read this post, you know that my ELF Essential Lipstick in Seductive was broken on its base. It makes applying the lipstick straight from the tube cumbersome. So I end up using lip brush to apply Seductive, and I find that still a lil cumbersome. What I did to fix the problem was depotting the lipstick to a jar.

Depotting the lipstick into jar make application using lip brush much much easier.

You'll need a hair dryer, a clean jar, something to scoop the lipstick out (spatula or any long tool can be used) and of course, a broken lipstick. First, transfer the broken lipstick into the jar and break it down to smaller pieces. Remember to scoop out the rest of the lipstick in the container.

Then, heat up the lipstick using hair dryer. This may take 15 to 20 minutes. When the lipstick melted, stir with your tool (ex.: spatula) and even out the lipstick surface in the jar by picking up the jar about 15cm high and drop it to the table top few times. Once you're satisfied, close the jar and stick the lipstick label to the bottom of the jar.

One thing to take note is not to overheat the lipstick until it boil because it will change the lipstick texture.

I learn this from Koren of Enkore Makeup in YouTube. You can find a lot of DIY tutorial in his channel that are useful in cases like this.

January Giveaway

http://superficialsydney.blogspot.com/2011/01/whats-that-you-say-50-all-holiday-items.html
Ends 20th Jan 2011

http://curvesahead14.blogspot.com/2011/01/urban-decay-naked-pallet-giveaway.html
Ends 31st January 2011

http://www.beautycrazed.ca/2010/12/i-love-burberry-beauty-and-want-you-to.html
Ends 14th January 2011

http://www.beautycrazed.ca/2011/01/if-you-win-this-contest-you-really-will.html
Ends 4th Feb 2011

http://lalasworldxo.blogspot.com/2010/12/100-followers-giveaway.html
Ends 14th January 2011

http://kekechristina.blogspot.com/2011/01/first-giveaway-thank-you.html

http://xarabianeyesx.blogspot.com/2010/12/400-followers-arabic-giveaway.html
Ends Mid January 2011

http://aliceinwonderland348.blogspot.com/2011/01/birthday-giveaway-win-diego-dalla-palma.html
Ends 21st January 2011

http://brittanylovex.blogspot.com/2011/01/valentines-day-big-giveaway.html
Ends on Valentine Day ^_^

DIY: CD Palette and Depotting.

There nothing original about this post, you can find all sort of information regarding DIY palette and depotting all over the internet.

I have few CD cases at disposal and I thought, why don't I depot all of my ELF Brightening Eye color quads.

You will need empty CD case, palettes to depot, tweezer, pointed tool, super glue and lighter.
First, remove the middle part of the CD that nest the disk, and now you have your empty palette. To remove the pan for its casing, heat up the bottom of the pan for 20-30 seconds. Long enough to melt the glue. To be on the safe side, I would recommend using candle or hair dryer instead of holding the lighter like I do. Oh ya, remember to remove the palette name sticker at the bottom of the palette first before you started depotting.

Using pointed tool, slip the pointed end in the gap between the pan and the casing, and try to lift the pan out. If the pan won't budge, heat the bottom a lil longer and try again. Next, apply super glue to the bottom of the pan and place it in your DIY palette accordingly. Tilt the palette to see if the pan sticks to palette.

Now repeat as needed. As you can see below, I arranged the eyeshadow according to its quad group and place the name label next to it.
A test to see if all the pan sticks nicely to the palette. One lesson I learn is that to be patient while depotting, don't force the pan out too much. I forced it and I got few eyeshadows cracked and broken.

FOTD and NOTD: 12th January 2011

Today I'm showing some love to my ELF Essential Brightening Eye Color in Blue Moon that I rarely used. I pair ELF Essential Lipstick in Classy with Super Glossy Lip Shine in Pink Kiss.

Here are swatches for Etude House nail polishes that I got from my last haul in 2010.