Packing makeup for travel// Bloggers meetup// Happy Holidays!!

Hi ladies! Since I will be leaving for Taiwan in 2 days, I figure I would do a post on what I pack for trips that last for 1 week. I planned on blogging more often but my daytime job is sucking away my time and energy (and daylight for taking proper product pictures)! Hence this condensed post :P

Packing for a 1-week trip is easy, and the choices are considerably easy to make compared to, say, packing for my stay in Europe for 6 months.

There is a separator which came along with the makeup bag and I use it to separate base/face products and point-makeup products.

On the far left is a close-to-finishing tinted sunscreen from Orbis with SPF 34, it will be used up after a few uses. Next to it is the MAC x DSquared Sculpt & Shape Powder. On top of it is a loose settling powder given to me by Georgina in our swap, love anything with high SPF. Next to it is Benefit I Lotused You Looking blush (lilac), Canmake cream blush in Vitamin Orange, and Lola's Refine Eye Mousse eye base and primer, which also acts as a makeup eraser when something goes wrong ;) I keep it in my bag all the time whenever I found something smudging.

Below is 3 foundation samples (Jill Stuart, Cle de Peau, Dior Snow). 3 foundation samples should be more than enough for a week, and they weigh much less than a full-size powder foundation.
Then the right portion of the makeup bag will be devoted to: Q-tips, Canmake nudy glow gloss 01, YSL mascara sample, Shiseido Maquillage concealer stick, Canmake Cover & Stretch concealer wand, Revlon ColorStay eyeliner in Charcoal (love this stuff), Urban Decay Bourbon eyeliner (brown with golden glitter). Shiseido Majolica Majorca lash expander, Benefit Miss Popularity Highlighter, Shu Uemura eyelash curler, mini concealer brush from a Benefit palette, and 2 face brushes, the dual-ended one for contouring + blush, and the other one for applying loose powder. It's really hard for me to decide which blush to bring (LOL do I need to explain this?), so at the end I think it'd be great to bring an orange and my HG lilac blush, I could possibly throw in a pink one too...bu I remind myself it's just 1 week. For eyeliners, I go for softer colors (versus all black), charcoal and deep brown are definitely on the list too.

Now move on to the skincare bag, I put it 3 pairs of eye masks + 3 face masks; dental floss; 2 bottles of contact lens solution, 1 contact lens case; a sample of body lotion, The Body Shop Tea Tree Blemish Stick (for you don't know when a pimple will come up), wet facial + hand wipes, Shu Uemura moisturizer samples (5 of them there, think it will be sufficient for 7 days?). Sara Happ Lip balm, Crabtree & Evelyn hand cream. Then notice the far left on the top: I use an old contact lens case to store my facial wash instead of bringing a large tube with me. I filled both sides with the facial wash and should be enough for more than 1 week. I also read that some girls will pump their liquid foundation into the case instead of bringing a large glass bottle, it makes your bag so much lighter. Next to the facial wash is a mini bottle of toner (container bought from Muji), a small tub of eye cream.

A few days ago I met up with Kay from Cosmeddicted! We went browsing and shopping for a bit ^^ and settled in a local restaurant serving typical local food! She was very kind to help me CP a few stuff from Korres in Sephora too, thankyou so much for bringing them all the way from Hawaii!

Hawaii-ness + Kawaii-ness = Hello Kitty! (Sorry for the bad pun, lol.....)

Apart from the Hello Kitty phone strap and memo pad, she got me a palette from Stila and a shower gel from Philosophy. I love gingyyyyy! This is way too cute *v*

She helped me CP a gift set from Korres, and their anti-aging primer, Korres is not available in HK. Thanks again Kay!

This was the third bloggers meetup I've had in a month :) the forth one is coming soon too!! hehe you know who you are :P

The following items are given to me by my friend: NARS Multiple in Copacabana, Sofina jenne moisturizer, the silver tube of eye cream next to the Carmex hand cream, and a beauty serum and tiny jar of cream on the far left from a brand called iS Clinical.

And this hugeeeee bag from Bobbi Brown....

....Which houses the deluxe travel kit (makeup traincase).
It's black and made of patent leather.
it's really HUGE (you will see why soon), the insides:
There are slots for keeping your makeup brushes in place:
The black makeup bag is detachable from the traincase:
When the cover of the bag is lifted, it revealed a very roomy space:
I put a blush compact next to it so you can compare the size of the traincase... I probably won't bring it with me to travel, not for a week anyway, lol it's almost the size of my notebook computer...
To end this post, I would like to say ♥Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas♥ to everyone of you reading this :)

MAC Tartan Tale Collection Follow Your Fantasy Eyeshadow Swatches

Wheee!!! The checker-and-stripe pattern on MAC's upcoming Tartan Tale collection has got me and my friend so excited, and I was even more excited when she handed this eyeshadow to me :) The eyeshadow is called Follow Your Fantasy, and is a copper-orange color with brown stripes imprinted on it. NOTE the eyeshadow is bigger than normal MAC eyeshadows, this contains 3 grams. Without further ado, let's reveal the gem!

Here it is!

Swatched in dark lighting:

Swatched in better lighting:

The texture feels very smooth and fine, and the finish is shimmery!

What are you planning to get from Tartan Tale Collection ? :D

Review: Jill Stuart nail polish in 106 Romantic Mararon + Another new release from Benefit

OMG I can't stop SNIFFING AT MY NAILS!!!!!! read on...

Ladies, this is going to sound crazy and you probably won't believe me. The day I used this nail polish coming from the 09 Christmas holiday coffret, a sweet candy scent lingers afterwards (I didn't smell my nails deliberately.). And i discovered this smell actually came from my nails after the nail polish has dried O_O!!! *Ahem* don't try to smell from the bottles directly, and don't even try to think about doing so at the counters lol!!! the smell only came after it's on your nails! :D

Most nail polishes are awful in their smells (you know, like Thinner liquid), the smell of thinner is still here in the polish but it has a kind of sweet scent coming from it as well, this sounds crazy coz I have never tried nail polishes that doesn't stink (that much).

Lets come to the color of the polish, it is a milky/pearly white and pink color with lilac shimmer in it, so in the bottle it looks like its milky pink, but after i painted it on, its like a purple-ish milky pink (really suck in describing colors, lol).

The color looks very natural =] Yet I should have put on a few more coats just to ensure it lasts on my nails...
I accidentally spoiled the coats of polish before they dried :( have to remove them and paint again...

Quote of the day: Nail painting is a patience training.

After 3 coats:

(my hand is actually not that big and long, I crooked it to make the nails reflect light, :D)

On another note, Benefit has come up with another new product, an eyeshadow primer called 'Stay don't Stray'. It claims to hold your eyeshadow without creasing and stuff like that, but I'm more interested in knowing the amount of product they have!!

Review: Jill Stuart Sweetness Collection Mini lip gloss in 101 Sugar Kiss

Normally I wouldn't be interested in trying out lip glosses from Jill Stuart, because I am not much of a gloss or lipstick person, but this came in the Sweetness Collection and when I first tried their jelly lip gloss, I must say I'm impressed.

The shade is a limited one, 101 Sugar Kiss. It has glitter in the gloss, but not huge chunks of glitter that you can feel with your lips, they're fine and I don't feel any glitter on my lips at all, the texture is very soft and creamy, its the most un-stickiest gloss I have ever tried. (compared to Lancome Juicy Tubes and Stila lip glaze, and a few others).





I feel I have put on a lip balm and not a gloss, this is good for me because I do not prefer glosses or lipsticks because they make my mouth feel sticky. Now I can see myself constantly reaching for this to complete my look. The shade itself is not a vibrant, neon kind of pink, it is a subtle one. The cute packaging is a plus to tell me I should use it more often from now on, lol!

Here are pics of my lips before and after application:

Before:

After:

This smells like vanilla and butterscotch.

The glitter reflects light and adds a slightly bluish or lilac-ish tint, and the part I care most about is that it seems to give the effect of a lip plumper.

New perfume launch from Jill Stuart; LE Aroma Candle; Christmas special offers

I am not much of a perfume-person, lol but the bottle is cute! (I actually like the model in the ad better). Here are some special offers, with any purchase over $700 including the 50ml perfume you get a miniature bottle, starting from December 1st. Purchase amount EXCLUDES limited edition products (how tedious is the rule...).

Here is the Aroma candle (True Lily), also on sale on 1st of December. 250g: $370.

It also comes with the tiny bowl, and this item is an LE.

And finally, special offers for Christmas! Starting from 1st of December to 3 January, you can pick a lip luster and an eyeshadow quad (can choose colors), with 2 LE nail polishes, for $615! The set will be put in a gift box like in the pic. With any purchase over $1000, you will receive a shimmer pressed powder in a compact, together with a drawstring pouch. Amount purchased also EXCLUDES limited edition products.

Jill Stuart 09 Holiday Collection

Here's a pic of Jill Stuart's Holiday Collection (official from their taiwanese website). Hong Kong's stores has no news released concerning the holiday collection yet.

The set includes: a multi-colored face powder compact with brush, an eye jelly, a nail polish, and a lip gloss, plus a christmas-cake-ish makeup case.

I"m excited - look at the face powder. The brush that comes along with it is a flattened one, and I bet there will be golden flecks on the surface of the face powder as well, as with the past's limited edition blush.

The whole set worths around $600 HKD (around $77 USD?) and this is ALL I need to have for Christmas!!