Spa Ritual - Native Rock

Spa Ritual is a brand I just came across from surfing the net. It's DBP, Formaldehyde and Toluene free. It says Vegan as well but I don't quite get it when it's for nail polish??? This summer I've been loving lighter shades, like beige, light mauve or lilac color. This is probably my favorite color for this summer.

It makes my fingers look longer and this color is just very elegant. Lasts on my nails for about 5 or 6 days.

Urban Decay 15 Year Anniversary Eyeshadow Collection

Urban Decay has some good quality eye shadow palettes lately. The latest one is the 15 year Anniversary Eyeshadow collection. 15 colors and has very nice packaging. At first I wasn't sure whether I should get this because of the bulky box. Some colors are not the usual color I would use, like Omen (fushia) , Junkshow (blue iridescent color), Deep End (turquoise), and Evidence (deep blue). It's nice to try some new colors. I like the packaging, unlike their usual heavy duty paper box. $55 is quite a good deal for their highly pigmented shadows. My friend told me there's a smell on their shadows. I don't know if it will bother some people but I can't really smell it.

You will expect to have finger prints on the box. The details on the side are nice. 

Here's a look on the color:

There are many other bloggers who did very nice job on the swatches, so I won't spend the time to do that. I do like several colors from the palette, like Midnight Rodeo, Half Truth and Deeper. If you've read my blog entries, you will notice they are very similar to my other neutral color palettes... I guess it will be awhile before I spend again on an eye palette, maybe will till Christmas and see what deals are out there.


If you do plan on buying this, you can order online via Sephora, and use MrRebates to get some rebates back. I think I got 6% back, so it's a good deal if you don't mind waiting for the shipment.

Cheap Cleansing Solution - Cleansing Express Agecare

For removing makeup, I use cleansing solution. Generally only buy the ones without oil and don't need to shake. I don't like cleansing oil coz they are kinda oily for me. And I can't use any cleansing foam, just irritates my sensitive skin even more. I've done a comparison over a year ago on Bioderma, Vichy, and Aquamoist. You can view it here. I saw this Cleansing Express solution at the Japanese grocery store the other day for $14. They have various kinds, like for oily skin, moisturizing and this caught my eyes coz it says Q10 on it. It's produced by Mandom Beauty. The bottle contains 300ml. I have the Lancome one but will review that later. I prefer this to the Lancome one though.

 Here's how the back looks like with ingredients description.

 After removing the packaging film, the bottle looks pretty nice. 

The pump is kinda skinny but I don't press too hard coz may pump more than what I would need. I just use cotton pad and wipe my makeup off. 

Cleansing power is great. I use Maybelline Falsies Waterproof mascara and Mac Waterproof PowerPoint pencil and did not have any trouble taking them off. I just pad on my eye for about 5 seconds and wipe maybe once or twice, and everything just come right off. It does say you don't need to rinse but I rinse it off with some water and pad my face dry. This solution has no fragrance and it's pretty gentle. I have no irritation from using this. Would repurchase this for sure!

My Nail Polishes Display

I've been using bins from Daiso to store my nail polishes. Generally I use darker shades in the Fall and Winter time, so they are on 1 bin and another bin for lighter colors use in the Spring/Summer time. So I got this to put on my vanity table and display the shades I use currently. I looked up some websites on nail polish displays and they either are too big or too expensive for shipping. Spice rack serves the purpose and it's much cheaper than those nail polish displays on the internet. I stopped by the Container Store as they carry a variety, like plastic or expandable but this caught my eyes.

This is so sleek!! I can't find this on their website but it's around $8. It doesn't hold all the nail polishes but organizing them by color helps me not to overspend. As many of you know, if you like certain colors, you may tend to buy very similar shades (As you can see from the back row- all pastels and pink colors :D). I use the top tier to place my foundations, sunscreen and hair product in case you wonder what's hidden at the back. 

Esprique Blend Dimensional Eyes A-1

Esprique has a new line of Blend Dimensional Eye shadows. It comes in 5 different palettes and each palette contains 4 colors as shown in the box. I got A-1 about a month ago from Adam Beauty for $33. 

The packaging is very sleek. I like it a lot!

Here's how the inside looks like. It comes with a mirror (which I didn't take in this pic), a standard Japanese instruction on how to apply this palette, and the 4 eye shadow colors. A is use for highlight in the tear duct area, B for the brow bone, C for the crease area or I use on most of my lid, and D for the corners and some smoky effects :D. The sponge tip applicator on the top is bigger than other Japanese brands. I find that quite useful and you can just swipe less to cover your lid. The applicators are very high quality.

The shadows are very silky and not powdery. They do have some shimmers but quite subtle, not sparkly. Stays on all day and very versatile for work (if you just want a bit of color and not too dramatic). I wore a number of times and love it. Here's the swatches:

My First Inglot Purchase

I was surfing on youtube and came across Inglot Cosmetics. It's from Poland and the price is very reasonable. There's no store located at where I live, so I just went online and bought a few to try because it's very difficult to see what I was buying. They have full range of colors and depending on your computer screen, colors maybe off. So online buyers beware.

I've placed an order online. They never sent out an email confirmation with tracking to my email. On their website, my account didn't show they've already shipped the products out. I waited for about 10 days.

I could feel the stuffs inside were moving around as I carried the package. When I opened the box, the eye shadows were just inside the box loosely. For cosmetics mail orders, it's very important for the company to wrap their products and ensure products don't move around. I consider that as standard business practice! 

And guess what, after all the transportation and moving around inside the box, some of my eye shadows fell off from the tin. I'm very annoyed. For a brand new product to have a fall out like this due to poor packaging, I am quite upset...

Top row from the left: AMC Shine40, AMC Shine 43, AMC Shine07
Bottom row from the left: AMC 73, Pearl 420
Sorry I don't know what AMC stands for as the company did not send me any description about their products... Each shadow costs $5. if you purchase 10 or more, each shadow will cost $4.50.

The company is famous for its Freedom System. Basically they have various empty palettes to hold their eyeshadows or blushes. You can pick and choose what you like and fill up the palette. I got the 5 square eye shadow one. The package is pretty good with a heavy duty magnetic cover. This was originally $10 but somehow there's a discount for $5.

To open, it's better to slide from one side and it will just slip right off.

Sorry forgot to take a picture before I swatched the shadows. They are highly pigmented and very soft. 
I like the middle Pearl 420 the most. Below are the swatches:

I don't think I will repurchase from them online simply because they have too many colors to choose from. Since I didn't get any brochure from them and their packaging may potentially damage their products, it's very difficult for me to buy from them again. If there's a store near you, it's probably better to check out in person because I think the overall purchase experience will be much better. 

Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer

I had used Bobbi Brown's concealer for a number of years before trying out other brands. The old formula had pretty good coverage but it was slightly thick for me. When they recently changed the formula, I went and bought it.

Packaging is still the same. If you get the one with powder, it looks like a small compact but I don't like fine powder getting into the concealer, so just got the concealer only for $22.

If you open and close it for a long period of time (which will be quite likely coz this little thing can last forever!), eventually the tiny little piece of plastic will come off from opening and closing so much. 

My shade is Sand. The new formula is creamier and doesn't crease on my undereye. Need to use a bit of powder to set the concealer to prevent my eye makeup from transferring to the under eye area. A little goes along the way. Great buy!!