Fighting against PMS

You wouldn't want to listen to a crazy b**ch rambles on how she suffered from terrible PMS, so let's get right down to business.

How I fight against PMS - "Medicated" sanitary pad, black sugar ginger tea, pain killer and chocolate

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NOTD - OPI Samoan Sand + Essie Vanity Fairest

A clean, nude NOTD, it's actually more pinkish in real life

Base coat - Poshe fast drying base coat
2 coats of OPI Samoan Sand
1 coat of Essie Vanity Fairest
Top coat - Seche Vite dry fast top coat

Last week I wore a dark polish to my first makeup class, I saw my hands in the mirror when I was doing a face massage on the partner, I made a mental note of "don't ever wear dark polish to class again, that look scary on other people's face!" Though we don't have any class this week, I'm going to practice with a classmate on Sunday, so there you go, a nude NOTD.

OPI Samoan Sand is a neutral color with a red undertone. Having that said, it's not a foundation color (well, at least not my foundation color) but is pretty close to my skin tone all the same. It's a nude color that make me feel safe enough wear alone, but today I want it to be more pinkish, so I top it with a thin layer of Essie Vanity Fairest.

Vanity Fairest is a sheer light pink with very subtle silver shimmers. It's a polish that I would not wear it alone usually, it takes forever to build up the color.

What I've been up to lately

Hey guys! It's been a while, I hope you all are doing well. Here's are some reasons (or excuses?) why I haven't been posting in the past week:

1. Setting up my mini home studio

One thing that I don't like my apartment most (besides it doesn't have 4 bedrooms, 3 washrooms and a garden haha) is that there is not much sunlight. It is well lit for daily living but not enough if you are a blogger who like to take pictures or if you have lots of plants. 

FOTD and makeup tutorials take a large part in my planning for this blog, so I have finally (after much struggle) decided to invest in a few equipments in the hope of taking better photos.  Each of these lights can hold up to 4 light bulbs, that means I can take super bright photo in the middle of the night. BUT I don't know when I can start using these light because I don't have the light bulbs yet! And this leads to the second thing that I've been occupied with.

2. Dealing with problematic online purchases

I LOVE shopping online, 70% of my shoppings (save for groceries and stuff) are done sitting in front of my trusty iMac and wearing my comfy pajamas. I've been very lucky that I didn't have a lot of problems in the past for damaged products or lost packages. Seems like I've used up all my luck and things are changing in a bad way. 8 light bulbs purchased with the lighting were gone missing in the package, had to ask seller to send those again. Received damaged makeup from another store, had to ask them for a replacement. 

I am not particular fond of ranting but I have to warn you: DON'T EVER BUY FROM makeupmania.com !! Yes, I'm that angry I have to make it all cap and in red. 

They are extremely unprofessional - to make a long story short, I placed an order, waited for almost 3 weeks and took me many efforts to contact them for an update on shipping status, they were simply unresponsive. And then I stepped things up to opening a dispute case on Paypal, finally I got a response from them. Their reason for not contacting me sooner was that the person in charge of customer service had left and they were short of personnel in doing so. While that might sound very convincing, they were regularly updating their website and facebook! I wanted to proceed with my order anyway, but then they made some unreasonable requests that made me decided to cancel it and have my money back in the end. 

To conclude, I am very very disappointed with their services and would not recommend this store if you have never ordered from them before. Maybe it was just my luck and there are many happy customers ordered from them and don't have a problem. But if you are planning to order from them for the first time, I would say stay away from them, stay away from the possible hassle. 

3. Reorganizing my kits

Trying to get more room for new stuff, I started to depot eyeshadows, blushes and lip sticks into palette. I was also trying to pressed pigments and mineral eyeshadows, but that is more difficult than I expected. The proportion of alcohol and binding agent (glycerine in my case) was completely wrong that I ended up with a dozen pans of eyeshadow pigments that would never dry!

I'll keep experimenting until I get it right, in the mean time, I would really appreciate if you could share with me your experience.

4. Makeup lessons

If you have read my first post, you may probably know that I am enrolled in a professional makeup class taught by a well known (locally at least) makeup artist. I've been waiting for almost 2 months and the class started last week (about time!).

As expected, there's nothing much going on in the first lesson. Most of the lesson was on the basics - something about the industry, what your kit should include, introduction to different types of makeup products.

Highlight was the last hour of the lesson - we practiced prepping the skin and applying liquid foundation on each other. I have never worked on other people before and I felt like I have never used a cotton pad, sponge nor brush before. The experience was completely different from working on my own face! I'm so looking forward to next lesson.

That's pretty much it, and I'll come back with a "real" post soon,

Make Up For Ever Smoky Palette

When it's still like 100 degrees outside, let's talk about fall/winter beauty! How about the limited edition Smoky Palette from Make Up For Ever?

MUFE Smoky palette contains 8 shades from matte black to shimmery white. According to the advertisement, it can be used to create 5 different smoky looks.

Wanna see some swatches? Keep reading!

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My first Inglot freedom system

Yay! I finally get my hands on these famous Inglot eyeshadows! These babies came straight from where they were born - Poland. 

Freedom system 10 eyeshadow round

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July favorite - Invisible Zinc Environmental Skin Protector SPF 30

July is coming to an end and I can't wait to show you my favorite of the month - Invisible Zinc ESP Environmental Skin Protector SPF 30 (quite a mouthful, isn't it?)

It was completely unexpected - I bought this for my boyfriend who never wears a sunscreen. But as a beauty junkie who is still searching for her HG sunscreen, it's downright unforgivable not trying it out. So I gave it "a try", like everyday for two weeks, and I can now officially announce that I have finally found my HG sunscreen.

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Stash - Kate eyeshadows

As I am dangerously running out of storage space for my cosmetics, it's time to depot those bulky eyeshadow quads into palettes. To no one's surprise, there are so many products I couldn't remember buying. Here are some of those:

Kate Gradical Eyes S 

Keep reading for swatches and reviews

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My nail care routine Part 1

In my book of "History of Beauty Obsession", nail polish is the latest addition yet it is by far the most fast-growing one. I couldn't remember exactly what sparked off the addiction, all I could remember is my collection grew exponentially from less than 5 to a fully occupied Ikea Helmer cabinet. At the beginning, I found applying polish to be very frustrating - I could never get it dried evenly and shiny. With tons of practice and some very useful advices from the blogging world, I don't afraid to show my painted nails anymore.

In this post, I will show you how I shape my nail and how to apply nail polish. You will see some of my essential tools, favorite products and tips & tricks. If you are just starting to like nail polish and as lost as I was, I hope this post would help you out.

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How to choose a quality eyeshadow? Rae Morris' 'one wipe trick'

Here's a quick tip I read from Rae Morris' Makeup: The Ultimate Guide on how to test an eyeshadow at makeup counter.

1. Wipe over the eyeshadow once with a clean fingertip

2. Look at the intensity, if it is not as intense as it looks in the package, then don't waste your money on it. It will take you forever to build up that color on your eyes.

To test a deep metallic shadow, it takes one extra step. After the 'one wipe test', lightly dust your fingertip with a cotton bud to see what color your are left with. An inferior shadow will left you with the black only while all the rich color is on the cotton bud.

Have you ever bought any eyeshadow you regret buying simply because of its poor quality?

Makeup brush cleaning for less

Once or twice in a month, I always find myself starring at my makeup brushes, trying to make up some lame excuses so that I don't have to do the tedious work - cleaning some 20 makeup brushes. This is alway proved to be a waste of time, however, as I would just end up standing in front of the sink playing with water, bubble and brushes for an hour or so. How fun is that.

Cleaning brushes is something I care about a lot for 2 reasons. For one, I don't want to put germs on my face - my skin condition can get unstable at times, germ is the last thing I want to break me out. Another reason is that those brushes cost me a fortune, I would love them to last as long as they can. Some people may suggest using those fancy brush cleaners which also have a fancy price tag, with little research I found some cheap and convenient alternatives to brush cleaners. They work miracle - I have been using them on some of my brushes for several years now and they are still as good as new.

Let's get our hands wet and dirty after the jump

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