2011 Favorite Products

Hello Everyone! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas! I sure ate a lot... As I look into putting together my favorites this year, there are a few things I keep in mind as I pick the items. They need to be something I have no hesitation in selecting them and things I use frequently.

My Favorite Base Products:

• Missha Perfect Cover BB Cream #21- I use this only for my nose to control oil. This is my 2nd bottle and cannot live without this.
• Lancome Teint Miracle Foundation - I've been searching for a new foundation this year but cannot find anything like this. Really hydrating and has nice coverage that lasts for hours.

My Favorite Eye Makeup Products:

• NARS Pro-Prime Smudge Proof EyeShadow Base - I use this everytime I wear eye makeup. My HG eye shadow primer.
• Lunasol Sheer Gold Beige Brown EX01 - This is a limited edition from Kanebo Lunasol's Christmas Coffret 2010. It's just very versatile, neutral palette. I use this the most out of the 5 Lunasol palettes I own. 
• Urban Decay Naked Palette - I know some people keep seeing this UD Naked Palette on many people's favorite lists. The colors I use all the time are Naked, Sidecar, Smog, Darkhorse, Toasted, and Hustle. 
• Urban Decay Naked 2 - Wait a minute. Some of you may wonder this just came out. How can this possibly be on my 2011 list?? This palette compliments the Naked Palette a lot because it has lighter, neutral shades. I've been using this with the Naked Palette. I use pretty much all the colors except Half Baked and Blackout. 

My Favorite Lip Products:

• Dior Addict Ultra-Gloss Reflect 127 - This shade is no longer available for purchase. What a bummer. I've enjoyed using this in the past year and put on top of a lip stick. It's very moisturizing.
• Mac - Hug Me - I've finished the entire tube before getting a new one. This is in Lustre finish and in flesh pink color. Can't go wrong with this shade.

My Favorite Blush:

• Lunasol EX01 Sheer Gold Beige Pink - This is also from the 2010 Christmas Coffret. It just gives a sheer glow to my face. Love it!

My Favorite Body Lotion:

• Korres Body Butter in Vanilla Guava - I love Korres Body Butter and got one next to my bed. It's very moisturizing and I use this every night before I go to bed. 

My Favorite Hair Styling Product:

• Lucido-L Designing Aqua Hair Curl Lotion - I use this before curling my hair and this is my 3rd or 4th bottle. It helps to protect my hair from the heat and helps my curls to stay.

My Favorite Nail Polishes:
If you are my regular reader, probably won't be too hard to guess what I like.

• Butter London - Toff
• OPI - Planks a Lot
• OPI - Steady as She Rose
• Spa Ritual - Native Rock
• Essie - Lady Like

Hope you enjoy reading this long list. Let me know what you like too!

Lunasol Holiday Set: Party Coffret 2011

Be warned. Pictures heavy this time. I saw a lot of Christmas sets with great colors and are very good deals. But I did not spend much on Sephora F&F sale because I told myself I can only get 1 Christmas set this year. I only repurchased NARS Eye Shadow Primer and L'Occitane Supple Skin Oil. The only Christmas set I got is the Lunasol Party Coffret on the internet.


Kanebo Lunasol released its Christmas set on Nov 11th in Japan. HK began selling this at Sogo during their Thanksgiving sale over a week ago. Congrats to those who could push through the crowd and got one at the counters! My friend went there twice and gave up. No way to get inside of the dept store. I read the ad and they only sell 200 sets at the Causeway Bay location. In Japan, you have to wait in line. I think the marketing strategy in TW is the best because you can do pre-order.


I got this over the internet because I'm not in Asia, and no way I would wait in line to buy this even if I'm there. Because of this, I am willing to pay the markup. Here's the price difference in various countries:

• Hong Kong: HKD$620
• Japan: 6,825 Yen
• Taiwan: NTD$2,450

And on the internet, you can find them around USD$93 to $110 plus shipping. 


Now back to the set. The back of the box shows you what's in the package.

And when you take it out, the products are securely placed in the plastic mold in case you wonder whether the stuffs will move around during shipping.

The set contains the following:

• EX01 Tender Glow Beige Brown 3 Dimensional Eye Shadow 4g
• EX04 Tender Glow Pink Cheek Color 12g
• EX19 Tender Glow Pink Lip Gloss 5.5g
• 01 Glow Lunasol Skin Contrast Face Powder 6g
• A pouch

The eye shadow and lip gloss both have a 3 yr expiration date (11/2014) whereas the cheek color and face powder have a 5 yr expiration date (11/2016).

This quad is very pretty. I Love the shimmers in this palette; subtle and elegant. :) The regular 3 Dimensional Eye Shadow palette costs about $60 on the internet, so it's a good deal when there are other products in the set.

 And here are swatches. I swatched them according to where the colors are placed on the palette.

The texture feels better than the Christmas palette from last year and they are quite pigmented. I like the top and bottom far left colors. They are just shimmery and pretty.


And here's the cream cheek color. It's full size product and a little goes along the way. 

The cream cheek color is pretty easy to blend. I don't need a lot of this to make my cheeks look dolly pink. Just use a little bit will do.

Now to the lip color. It's a gloss and very sheer pink. Just makes your lips shine. I would use this over a lip stick instead of wearing this alone. Not a full size lip gloss, just slightly less than the regular size lip gloss (FYI. Dior gloss has 6g of product and this is 5.5g.)

The face powder is used to set the foundation. It contains some iridescent shimmers, so can't use a lot. It's mini size as it contains 6g. Regular size is 15g. But this is good for travel or put in your purse. You can get the refill when you are done with this. 

It comes with a puff. Pretty good quality.

And the set comes with a cute pouch. I like this one better than the one from last year. It's made out of synthetic material and feels quite soft.

It has two compartments with zippers.

In case you wanna know my nail color, it's Zoya Caitlin.
I am pretty happy with this purchase. If you like this, buy while supplies last... 
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Swatches: Revlon Diamond Lust - 115 Neptune Star

Revlon has 5 new diamond lust eye shadows. They are all shimmery with fine glitters. I got this at the drugstore when they had 40% off. Regular retail price is $4.99. I only got the deep turquoise color called Neptune Star because I wasn't sure if I will use all the shades. 

It comes with a sponge applicator. I think using fingers would be easier than using the sponge applicator to apply. It's probably not a good idea to use a brush to apply.

I swatched it first with my finger. The shadow itself is quite dry.  If you just apply this on without any primer or cream eye shadow, there will be fall out. Here's a swatch without any primer or cream eye shadow. It shows some fine glitters but not very obvious.

 

And here's a swatch at the bottom which I applied first with Mac Paint Pot called Vintage Selection. For glitter eye shadows, it's always a good idea to apply primer or cream shadows first. The cream eye shadow/primer will hold the eye shadow better, esp. to prevent darker shades from fall out and it minimizes the chance of messing up your base makeup.

As you can see, the camera picked up more glitters at the bottom, which I have the paint pot on as a base. And the paint pot itself does have some shimmers, so it helps to build up more color for the eye shadow. And here's a swatch from another angle. 

The shimmers just reminds me of Jill Stuart eye jelly. Of coz it's not close to the glitters Jill Stuart uses but this is a cheap affordable alternative. I think it's a great buy if you have cream eye shadows/primer to pair with this.

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.

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.