Dior Garden Party Haul; Garden Clutch & Rosy Glow

I already find it difficult to resist buying new makeup, but always find it near impossible to stay clear of Spring Limited Edition products. Spring makeup generally consists of my favourite makeup shades; romantic fresh pastels as well as colours inspired by florals.

A strong case in point would be Dior's Spring 2012 Garden Party Collection, inspired by Christian Dior's garden in Granville, Normandy. The 2 products from this collection I could not resist were the Garden Clutch and Rosy Glow blush.

Dior Garden Clutch 002 Granville Garden

Makeup Palette for Glowing Eyes and Lips. Eyeshadows and Lip Gloss.

'A pale pink case with a delicate woven decoration, and two silver-plated rosebud clasps: The Dior Garden Clutch is a precious accessory inspired by Dior's jewellery-making expertise.

The case opens to reveal the must-haves for fresh, radiant eyes and lips: three eyeshadow shades to light up and emphasise the eyes and two lip glosses, one to enhance the lips, the other to give them color.'

I hope you can see why I found this difficult to resist. I adore the cute clutch packaging, with two roses acting as a clasp.

I chose Granville Garden 002. It comes with; 3 eyeshadow shades (taupe brown, champagne pink and mint green), 2 lip shades (one Lip Maximizer and the other an Ultra Gloss), and a double ended applicator brush. The 2 lip shades are in the hidden compartment protected by any stray eyeshadow powder.

The shadows are embossed with a smattering of roses.

A view of the lip gloss shades. They are very sheer and glossy. So sheer in fact, that I could not take a decent picture of the swatches. However, allow me to redirect you to fruitylashes who has an amazing swatch of the lip glosses for those of you who are interested.

Swatches of the eyeshadows. Each shade contains fine satin-like shimmer.

Dior Rosy Glow 001 Petal

Healthy Glow Awakening Blush.

'Dior creates its first blush that enhances your unique cheek color for an ultra-natural and customized healthy glow effect. Rosy Glow intuitively adjusts to the moisture of each skin to make the cheeks blush with delight, as if revitalized with a breath of fresh air. Its ultra-fine powder texture and its irresistible rose fragrance offer a moment of pure indulgence with each application.'

I love makeup that reacts with the individual's skin for a customized effect. This is usually found in lip products, so I was very happy to come across one for the cheeks - and in powder from too.

The blush itself looks beautiful. Embossed with 'Dior' all over it, it looks a very bright, very vibrant bubblegum pink. (Please note: Due to poor lighting conditions, the blush actually looks a lot brighter in real life!)

A close up of the blush.

On my skin, the blush does not actually look as bright (which to me was a bit of a relief). Instead it turned a soft pink with slight red undertone.

What I love best about this blush is that it gives the skin a lovely radiant glow. Cheeks look instantly brighter, a whole lot pinker, and looks fresh and healthy-looking too.

*Tip: I always make the mistake of putting too much of this one, and after a minute or two of reacting my my skin it becomes its customized shade and I've realized -too late- that I have applied too much on. So apply only a tiny bit, wait to see what colour it changes too, and only then apply a bit more if needed. *

Wishlist: Dresses I Can't Afford

I was feeling low one night and decided to cheer myself up by looking at dresses I can't afford on shopbop.com. This had an unsurprisingly effect of making me feel even more blue as I came across some pretty cute dresses!

Allow me to share some of these with you:

Nicholas

Reem Acra

Matthew Williamson

Nanette Lepore

Robert Rodriguez

The Reem Acra dress is something I would have really loved to get married in. I chose a classic looking dress and part of me sometimes which I chose a more vintage inspired one instead.

♥ Surprise Package from Riya ♥

It's always lovely to receive a surprise package in the mail. I was truly not expecting it and it definitely made me week! As I've mentioned in my previous posts, I've been feeling super stressed and down lately. Sweet comments from you all and thoughtful packages like this really makes me take a step back from it all and realise just how kind people can be out there. Especially when I feel i'm in a world where it's every man for himself!

Riya is an absolutely gorgeous beauty blogger, and exceptionally sweet and generous too. Do check out her blog, she's actually hosting a birthday giveaway now with a whole host of prizes.

Her package to me contained numerous goodies, too many to mention each and every one of them! As you can see from the pic above, these goodies included; a Nars eyeshadow, Missha Lip and Cheek Duo, Castledew eyeshadow palette, Dollywink eye products, Hello Kitty face mask and an adorable bunny mirror.

I love the packaging. It cheered me up and brought a smile to my face. I remember admiring the Missha blush duo on Riya's blog and the kind girl went and got me one!

The shades she chose for me were all colours which I would have chosen for myself!


I'll leave you with a close up of this adorable eyeshadow palette. Thanks again Riya for such a sweet gift that brightened up my day.

Winter FOTD (fail)

Hello everyone! Thanks so much for your kind words in my previous post. Here's hoping that things will look up for me in 2012!

I had a look back at my previous FOTDs and realised they all look a bit the same. So today I tried a different look.. I wanted to create a wintery 'just in from the cold' look, but it ended up looking the same..again!

That's my husband making himself a snack in the backgroud.

I decided to post this look up anyway, and try the wintery look again another time.

Products Used:

Shiseido Integrate Eyebrow Pencil

Bobbi Brown Gel liner in Black

Nars Multiple in G-Spot

Dr. Hauschka Lipgloss in 04

The obscenely named multiple is a new acquisition from Nars' Holiday 2011 Collection.

It looks like quite a dark rouge in the stick, but on the skin it looks more subtle. It gives the skin that lovely rosy cheeks look. Due to poor lighting, the shade is not to obvious on my skin. So I'll do another FOTD for you featuring this multiple.

The multiple swatched on my arm in 2 different lighting conditions to give you a better idea of the colour:

Korean Beauty: Peripera Review

Hi everyone, hope you're all having a brilliant start to the new year. Mine has been pretty good but extremely stressful. I've been so stressed and worried about things that my sleep is suffering, I'm not eating healthily and my skin isn't looking great. So part of my New Year's Resolution would be to not stress too much, get plenty of sleep and eat healthily.

I recently came across a Korean brand called Peripera. I'm terrible in that I judged this product by it's name and wasn't too impressed with it (it reminds me of Para Para, a plant in the Amazon that is used to cure erectile dysfuntion.) But then I read rave reviews on these products and decided to give them a try. I'm so glad I did as I have extremely happy with my purchase!

I bought the Peripera products from Prettyandcute. First up is the Peripera Wonder Talk Lip Balm in Wonder Red. The packaging is really fun and it comes with an interesting applicator (the pink think stuck onto the side). The applicator sticks to the lip balm tub magnetically, which is handy or else I would have lost it already. Applicator may look funny, but it applies the lip balm really well and prevents sticky fingers and badly applied balm on the lips. Although I did get entremely funny looks from my husband and in-laws with them actually asking 'What ARE you doing?'

The colour of this lip balm is a sweet cherry red. It applies sheer on the lips, though colour pigmentation is actually quite good for a lip balm. With heavy application lips can actually look a bit red.

The lip balm has a semi-sweet, light, fruity scent. It feels a tiny bit tingly on the lips, a bit the the sensation you get with fresh mint. It does not feel sticky at all, and the texture is definitely more of a balm than a gloss. It also gives the lips a slight shine. Here's the product on my lips with just one light layer. It looks nice and natural yet giving me slight rosy red lips which makes me look a little bit healthier (I look a bit ill with a nude lip).

Next up is the Peripera Smile Fit Blusher in Rose Pink (no.3)

I love the lace pattern on the packaging. Really cute. It comes with a portable brush in a separate compartment underneath the blush.

I'm impressed of the quality of the brush. I prefer it to a lot of brushes which comes in the palette of luxury brands (Chanel in particular). The brush is lovely and soft. The bristles are packed dense, and feels silky soft on the skin.

The blush itself looks a tad brighter pink than in the picture above. On the skin it's a bright, yet soft pink. I especially like this blush as it brightens up my whole complexion nicely.It gives the skin a nice 'soft focus' glow and gives the impression that my skin is a whole lot nicer than it actually is! This is the first blush I've come across that does this.

I'll end with a pic of a recent FOTD that featured both the blush and lip balm to give you an opportunity to see what it looks like in vivo.

Korean Makeup FOTD

Hi evreyone, hope you're all haveing an amazing start to the new year!

Here's a look I created using the Peripera Korean makeup that I bought recently.

I decided to do a softer, more sublte natural look. This look is super easy to create, with just 4 products used. The main ingredients are a soft pink blush and a rosy tinted lip balm.

Products Used:

Shiseido Integrate Gracy Eyebrow Pencil
Bobbi Brown Gel Liner in Caviar Ink

Peripera Smile Fit Blusher in 03 Pink Rose
Peripera Wonder Talk Lip Blam in 04 Wonder Red

I've used this Peripera blush before in my lazy 2 product FOTD. (Click here for post). It's a lovely pink blush that isn't vibrant, yet it does brighten up the complexion nicely.

A close up of the blush on my cheeks:

I know I look a bit horsey in these pics. I hope it's not indicative of how i'm going to look like for 2012!

Blogger Christmas Love

Happy New Year to my lovely readers. Hope 2012 is a special year for you all with hopes and dreams coming true.

I know this post is long overdue. I've received a couple of Christmas cards from my fellow bloggers. The first is from Julie at Pop Champagne. Check out her stunning blog to see her amazing sense of style!

An adorable card from her. Inside the card were lots of goodies including yummy teas and an glorious Japanese bath salts.

Nic Nic from bangbangsheshoots (one of my favourite beauty blogs)also sent me lots of goodies. The sweeties were so scrumptious. All of them.

She sent over another of my most favourite brow pencil of all time, as well as the new Canmake lipgloss. The bath salts turned my bath a wonderful purple and had a lovely smell of apples! And amongst many other goodies she also sent me an adorable cat hand warmer!

Thanks Julie and Nic for your lovely Christmas wishes!