Look: Natural FOTD using Nars Lhasa, and my Pear and Honey Cake

Here's a look I did recently using natural looking shades of makeup.

I don't normally wear base makeup, but for this look I'm using Liz Earle's tinted moisturiser. I have small sample of it and was giving it a try. I'll write a review on it soon.

Nars Lhasa is a recent purchase. I've seen some beautiful swatches of the eyeshadow in various beauty blogs and just had to purchase it. Lhasa is a smokey lavender brown-grey.

Products Used:

Liz Earle Sheer Skin Tint in 01 (sample-not pictured)

Becca Beach Tint in Fig

Shiseido Integrate Gracy Brow Pencil

Clarins Instant Definition Mascara

Nars Eyeshadow in Lhasa

Bobbi Brown Gel Liner in Black

Mac Patisserie

I love Becca Beach Tints. This shade in Fig is a pretty and subtle nude pink which looks great on both cheeks and lips (for this look I am just using it on my cheeks).

Here's a picture of the Pear & Honey cake that I baked recently. I had some friends over for our weekly mahjong session and thought I would bake them a cake while my husband cooked them Hainanese Chicken Rice. As you can tell from my poor craftsmanship, I made the crystallized decoration myself. The cake consists of 3 layers with cream cheese and honey icing.

Mac Fashion Flower Alpha Girl & Mac Semi Precious Rose Quartz

I bought two items from MAC recently. Their Beauty Powder in Alpha Girl from their Fashion Flower collection, and their Mineralized Skin Finish in Rose Quartz from their Semi-Precious collection.

(Above: Rose Quartz, Below: Alpha Girl)

I love the promotional pic for MAC's Fashion Flower. It looks fun, pretty and summery. Though it does look a bit like the flowers are trying to envelope her into the ground.

I couldn't resist the Beauty Powder in Alpha Girl when I saw it. Not only does is it embossed with a cute flower design, but it's a gorgeous shade of pinky-peach (my favourite shade for blushes).

You get a lot of product, about 1.5-2x the size of normal MAC blushes.

A swatch of the blush. I would describe it as a pale peachy-pink with a hint of coral and slight shimmer.

A swatch of Alpha girl on my cheek. This was taken on a particularly sunny day, and the sun casted a warm yellow glow on my skin making it slightly harder to see the blush.

On my complexion it looks fairly subtle. It gives my cheeks a wash of healthy-looking, flushed, summery colour.

I wanted to give MAC's Mineralized Skin Finish a try, and so bought one in Rose Quartz from their Semi-Precious range. Like Alpha Girl, the product itself is really pretty to look at. At the centre is a circle of a myriad of shimmery shades which include lime green, silver and pink.

Swatches of the blush; blended together (left), the outer shade (middle) and the inner circle (right).

Blended together, they colours make a devine medium pink shade with champagne-gold coloured shimmer. The blush on my cheeks:

Now this picture was taken on an overly cloudy dull day. I rely on natural lighting for my blog, so picture quality is 100% depended on weather. Rose Quartz is a lot more shimmery than Alpha girl and not as easy to wear, but I do love the pretty pink shade.

Mac Quite Cute Bubble Tea and Giggly Swatches

Hi everyone! When I first saw preview pics of Mac's quite Cute collection (ages ago on numerous beauty blogs), I had made up my mind to get one thing, the Mineralize Blush in Giggly. The preview pics of it the mineralize blushes with their little hearts just looked too adorable!

When the collection came out, I caved and also bought the Plushglass in Bubble Tea. I've been looking for a nude gloss for the past 6 months, and the name and shade of this gloss is so cute!

Here are some close up pics of the Mineralize Blush in Giggly:

It's a duo toned blusher (I love how the second shade is in the form of a heart!), in light pink and pearly plum. Blended together, you get a pinky-violet shade with subtle sheen. This blush is quite pigmented as the colours show up strongly. A slight downpoint to this blush was how powdery it was. When little bits of powder would get all over the packaging when swirling the blush with a brush. you can see an example of this in the pic above, powder is collecting at the edges of the blush.

Below are swatches of the blush:

L-R: Pink shade, Plum Shade (the heart), and mixed together

And the blush (both colours mixed together on my cheek):

I really like this shade as it brightens up my skin and gives me a fresher appearance.

Next up is the Plushglass in bubble Tea. This is my first Mac Plushglass.

The Plushglass glosses have plumping properties which are apparent with the tingling sensation my lips got when I applied the gloss. Bubble Tea is a creamy pale peachy nude with subtle micro-shimmer.

Here are swatches of this gloss on my hand and lips:

This gloss is really sheer and gives a nice 'nude' look to the lips.

MAC Wonder Woman Mighty Aphrodite Powder Blush

Hi everyone! Hope you are all having a great week. There have been numerous posts on the internet of MAC's new Wonder Woman collection. I've managed to resist many MAC collections in the past 6 months, but couldn't not resist purchasing their Powder Blush in Mighty Aphrodite.

I'm a huge fan of Superheroes. My favourite being Superman having watched The Adventures of Lois and Clark when I was younger, as well as the more recent Smallville. Wonder Woman is an empowered Amazon. She's super gorgeous, fights for sexual equality, and with her bullet-proof bracelets, and Lasso of Truth, has amazing accessories to boot!

I bought my powder blush from the MAC stall in London Selfridge's whilst accompanying my husband to his last ever exams as a Doctor. Until available nationwide, the Wonder Woman collection is sold exclusively at Selfridges.

The packaging of the box is super fun, bright and colourful. The packaging of the blush itself is a bit chunky looking, and the primary colours makes it look a little like a toy. It comes with a great sized mirror. The blush itself is a lot bigger than normal MAC blushes.

This blush contains 2 absolutely gorgeous shades; a warm peach coral with gold pearl, and a bright coral pink with gold pearl.

Swatches on my skin; without flash (above), with flash (below)

It's hard to use the bottom shade alone, unless you use a small blush brush. I like to swirl the two shades together (using more of the lighter top shade) to create a fresh looking, bright peachy-pink shade with a satin sheen. A really light-handed application is needed, anything more and I start looking like a clown.

In the pics below, I used a too much of the bottom shade and too heavy-handed application, resulting in overly bright colour on my cheeks.

Here is a pic using a slighter lighter application, and using more of the lighter coloured shade:

Happy Chinese New Year & Quick CNY Inspired FOTD

Happy Chinese New Year Everyone!! Hope you all have a very wonderful and auspicous year ahead!

This year, it's the year of the Rabbit. In Asia (or Chinatown), you can see lots of cute little rabbit decorations for sale. Not to mention adorable Chinese New Year cards with little bunnies, like this one my husband's grandma sent us.




In the spirit of Chinese New Year, I have decorated Ollivander, our little Olive tree with little chinese lanterns.

My family (but not me!) will be in Sarawak, Malaysia for Chinese New Year this year as there will be a huge reunion on my father's side. I'm not attending as I just came back from there. Somehow, I didn't find out about the reunion until a few weeks ago... I feel a bit left out of the loop!

Anyway, my family will be in my hometown of Miri to celebrate CNY with my Dad's side of the family, then Kuching to celebrate with my mum's family. I haven't been back to Miri in about 5 years, so it'll be nice to see what it's like nowadays. It was a quiet little beach town ~20 years ago when I used to live there, but it was a bustling city the last time I went!

I've done a quick FOTD to go with this post. I used my YSL Pur Couture red lipstick stained on my lips using my fingers, to create a more subtle cherry colour.

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to completely forego foundation this year (not sure how long this will last). Foundation tends to irritate my skin a lot and I feel I'm more suited to tinted moisturisers or light BB creams. Better yet is to not wear any base as then my skin will be irritant free. My previous FOTD was made before the New Year, so I've not quite violated my resolution yet!

For this FOTD, I'm using Shu Uemura's Instant Glow Skin Perfecting Cream instead of foundation. It gives skin a nice radiant look, however, I found it did irritate my skin a little bit.

Products Used:

Face
Shu Uemura Stage Performer Instant Glow Immediate Radiance Skin Perfecting Cream
MAC Blush in Peaches

Eyes
Dior Earth Reflection
Bobbi Brown Gel Liner in Black
Max Factor False Lash Effect Mascara

Lips
YSL rouge Pur Couture in 01

Please excuse my very messy hair. Sadly it was kind of deliberate. I was trying a messy, just got out of bed look, but realised it did not go well with my type of fringe. So I ended up looking like a deranged witch.

One of my favourite blushers is Mac Peaches. It gives skin a nice peachy colour, while imparting a subtle glow. It makes me a little healthier looking. I'll be reaching for this blush more in the Summer.

It's tradition to wear red on CNY. I'm just wearing a simple red T-shirt in this FOTD as I realised I don't own many red clothes. I could have worn a cheongsam for the pics, but they are in very un-CNY colours of either white, blue or black.

FOTD with Nars Strawberry Fields

Hi everyone! Here is another FOTD that I've done recently, incorporating Nars lipgloss in Strawberry Fields (my HG lipgloss!)

The products I used for this FOTD are shown below:

Face:

Max Factor Second Skin Foundation

Bobbi Brown Extra Soothing Balm

MAC blush in Peaches

Eyes:

Bare Minerals eyeshadow in Cultured Pearl

Chanel Eyeshadow in Taupe Grise 87

Bobbi Brown Gel Liner in Black

YSL Volume Effect Faux Cils Mascara

Lips:

Nars Lipstick in Honolulu Honey

Nars Lipgloss in Strawberry Fields

The Max Factor foundation gave a nice sheer coverage. I used the Bobbi Brown balm on my cheeks to add an extremely natural healthy looking glow, with no shimmer.

On my lips, I used Nars Strawberry Fields. To make the colour a little more muted and easy to wear, I teamed it with Nars lipstick in Honolulu Honey - a natural looking beige colour - which I used underneath.

My bird necklace is from Accessorize. I love it so much! It's a really pretty necklace that I can't get enough of wearing.