Bath and Body Works Sale

I got dropped off at the mall while the bf put in some hours at work and I made a stop by Bath and Body Works. My favorite stuff from them has been the Ile de Tahiti line. I looove the wash, lotion and scrub in Tiare Flower. I'm afraid that it's a limited release so I went to see if it was on sale and I could stock up. I ended up buying my 3rd bottle of the lotion and wash (scrub was sold out)at 25% off. I never usually re-purchase shower stuff but I love this scent.

Anyway there was a huge 50%off sale section that had a bunch of name brand stuff like caudalie, murad, ahava and phyto. I was surprise to see that BBW also carried Sekkisei ~ a Japanese brand that was pretty expensive. I was tempted to try some facial items but I just recently invested in some ritzy facial stuff so I decided against it. I did pick up an Ahava body lotion. My sister use to travel a lot and when she would go to Israel I would have her pick me up a bottle of this lotion-it has dead sea minerals and it always made my skin feel softer, even when my eczema was really bad I could still use this stuff and it wouldn't irritate my skin.

Another brand I didn't know BBW carried was Deborah Lippmann. I ended up picking up 3 bottles of polish at 50% off. I got purple rain (frosty lilac), diamonds and pearls (light beige with gold shimmer) and rhapsody in white (frosty white). I'll have to scope out some of the other BBW and see if they have any other colors.

It appears that this sale is in stores only, online there doesn't seem to be much discounted so if you haven't been to a bath and body works recently and/or are interested in brands like caudalie, ahava etc ~go make a visit for some pretty good deals.

Dior Electric Lights + Polishes, nail art

Finally warmer temps have arrived, but so have my allergies. I'm glad I only have to endure a brief spell a the beginning of summer but its still not fun to be congested and have a runny nose. Anyway, enough whining~I had seen pics of the Dior iridescent palette in Electric Lights online and it was instant love so the minute I saw it available on Nordstrom online. I clicked right away so it will be mine.

Here are the pics:

Natural light


With Flash

I was glad that did palette did not disappoint. I've been in the mood for blue/purple eye shadows and it was a plus that this palette has both. There is a silver, a light aqua, a light blue, a medium blue and a deep purple (similar to Urban Decay eye liner in ransom). All the colors have a good pigmentation, lovely iridescence to them and were super smooth and did not crease. Swatches:

Natural light


With flash

There is also a new Dior nail polish called bubble gum which I ordered and I had also found a shade called paprika. You would think that bubble gum would be a shade of pink and paprika would be an orange-y shade (ok, at least that is what I thought) but the opposite is true. Bubble gum is an bright orange, coral color and paprika is a bright pink color. Regardless, I was happy with both polishes and I think they make good summer colors.

L to R: Bubble gum, paprika

L to R: Paprika, bubble gum

I had gotten a few new glittery polishes that I haven't been using much so when I read Eki's nail tutorial, I decided to put them to use. I ended up using 4 polishes to get my results and I was glad to also finally use the nail stickers I had gotten when I ordered my nail stamping machine. Back story on the machine: I had seen Lotus Palace's post on this gadget and I decided to give it a shot since it came with a bunch of random stuff. In short, I could not get the machine to work for me, I just ended up scratching up the plate I was testing with so I went back to my manual stamping ways. At least I ended up with a bunch of rhinestones which were ok (variety of colors but some stones are bigger than others), faux-nad stamping plates (including a hello kitty design), extra stamping polishes (I had the bf test for lead and it passed so I guess they are safe to use) and a bunch of 3D nail stickers. Anyway, I'm happy with my ending product:

Glittery goodness for the summer!

Wordy post-a bit of ranting and rambling

Sorry, no actual reviews today. I am awaiting my copy of CS4 so I can properly label my pics. I think I may be getting it tomorrow so this post is boring, wordy and rant-y.

I went browsing through the departments stores recently. It was so hard to encounter a decent SA. I'm not a very hard customer. I usually I know what I want to get and I just need to be acknowledged and then left alone. At one counter, I was acknowledged but not left alone. The bothersome thing was that the SA would point out random things that weren't helpful. I was looking at the new collection available and checking out the lip glosses so the SA points out" we also have these other lip glosses" riight I even said I was there to see the new collection. I was looking at the new pencil eyeliner and she points out they have a liquid eyeliner...which is nice but not of interest to me and it just seemed like she would point out any generally related product without really paying attention to what I was looking at. Then when I was ready to make my purchase, she tells me that another SA will ring me up. She then tells that SA to make sure she gets credit for the sale and not take the sale for herself-that other girl gets offended and it was a very awkward moment. She also proceed to ask me what nationality I was and then commented that she could never tell the difference between asians....niiice. I wasn't offended and I know it wasn't really meant to be offensive but dang, be a little more pc.

At another counter I was completely ignored. i had a hand full of lip gloss swatches and this SA could not bother to acknowledge me she was talking to a half-interested customer and at some point reaches for a tissue-I thought oh nice she's going to give me a tissue to wipe off the handful of swatches on my hand-No, she gives it to the other woman who had 1 swatch on her hand....thanks. I just walked away. I probably would have purchased something if I was even the slightly acknowledged but since I wasn't I just left that counter. So hard to get good service these days. Sigh.

I had gone to the company store to see if there was anything good. I ended up finding a mineral finish powder with shimmer that was really nice. I also got a concealer and fafi blush but when I got back to the office, I realized that the SA gave me the wrong colors. For the concealer, I might have given the wrong tube but for the blush, it was definitely the SA who pulled the wrong one. Now I have to make another trip over there to exchange those products. Sigh.

Er, more up-beat stuff. I had gotten my geo lenses from Mesmerized Eyes on Monday which was hella fast since it was shipped out on Saturday from Cali. USPS was definitely impressive this time around. Since I have a dang astigmatism, I only got Angel brown and Angel grey. I tried on the brown pair and .....my eyes really look no different a bit darker but it's not reaally noticeable, maybe if I was outdoors it would be more apparant but yeah, indoors not so much. I still have to soak the grey pair and try them on, hopefully they are much more noticeable. Since I was in the first batch I had also received the cutest hello kitty contact lens case.

I had ordered the new Dior stuff from Nordstrom.com (fyi-I reeeeally like the Electric palette). When I ordered it they were offering a beauty bag with samples. A day after I get my shipping notice, I get an email that the gwp was no longer available. Ok, it was weird I got that e-mail after my shipping notice and I thought that on my shipping e-mail it said the beauty bag was shipped. I got my package yesterday and the beauty bag was in it but no samples-booo, although I really did like the bag more than the samples anyway. Well guess what I got today? A big box from Nordies with just the sample pack....weird but there was some good stuff in it.

I need to start my make-up diet and focus on the stuff I have. I don't know when I'll start since summer collections are around the corner and being oh so tempting. ok, going to end this post; go look at Japanese mags and get to bed on time so I don't end up super duper late to work (again). Hope everyone had a better week than the one I had, yay for the weekend!

A bit of eki love and moto jewelry (updated)

A crazed day at work and gross rainy weather, but it was very nice that I received a bunch of goodies in the mail. First up is my package from eki. I had ordered a few hair decorations from her when she first opened her shop: a decorated flower and 2 mini flowers with stones. Here's the goodies that she sent:

Along with the flowers I ordered, she was very kind to included one of her barrettes, a eyeko make-up wipe, a pore strip, some hello kitty decals and one of her yummy chocolate pops. Everything is so cute and pretty.

Here is a better pic of the smaller clips:

I'm going away nice month so I figure I can wear the big flower as an easy way to upgrade my boring ponytail/bun if I'm feeling lazy (which I know I will be).

I can't wait till the weather is nicer and can I wear everything out. Thank you Eki for the fabulous hair decorations! If you're interested in some eki love ~ go visit her store.

My other very exciting package of the day is my cluster earrings from Moto Jewelry. I had asked Sarah to make some modifications to her original design and she was very nice in accommodating me. I had asked for fewer pearls in her "very girly" clusters, and swapped out the large pearl for a medium pearl. I also ordered "rainy clouds" cluster and asked to also swap out the large pearl for a medium pearl. I got a preview on her page but they are definitely much more gorgeous in person. Here's what my packaged looked like:

when I pulled my package from the mailbox, I was wondering why my 2 pairs of earrings would be so heavy...She had included a e.l.f lip gloss, candy, and a soothing natural body lotion in addition to the cluster earrings.

I am wearing one of the smaller flowers from eki and a dsk plumpy flower along with my earrings from Sarah. Yep, trying to support all my girls. =)

The Rainy Cloud clusters (along with a dsk star in aqua). It's pretty cool how in the pic with flash the blue crystals turn into a more purplish color:

To get your own cluster earrings (tons of different options) and see the other awesome pieces that Sarah have made go to her page.

And for actually reading/scrolling through this entry, here is a self portrait ~ a first for my blog (excuse the confused look, it was better than the mean look I had in my other pic):

**Updated: I had some pics I forgot to put up. I also realize that my pics become gi-normous if you click on them. I figured out why and how to stop it so I'm warning you ~ pics are waaay to big when you click on them. I was using a new program for photos and I forgot to carefully look at my saving details.

Givenchy Sun Reflection Quad

I have to admit, for the most part I end up getting eye shadow quads from Givenchy because I am a sucker for a packaging. They somehow manage to come up with such cute designs for their quads. The colors in the pan look great, but usually they are just ok when I actually try to wear them. I was hesitant to get the latest quad and when I received the product, I almost decided to return it but I am so glad that I kept it.

Here's what the palette looks like:

Without and with flash.
They line on the side of the pic with flash is a cat whisker. Yes, I have a nosy kitty.
(After I took this pic, I went to move my quad without closing it and promptly dropped it and broke 2 shadows~my favorite colors too =/)

I wasn't very impressed. They looked kind of muted so was really tempted to return it, I figure I would take a tiny swatch and I was pleasantly surprised. The colors (a mossy green, silver blue, silver and coppery orange) are gorgeous. Each has such a pretty shimmery metallic. My favorite is the silver blue color, followed by the mossy green color. Very beachy feel to these colors and nice for summer without being bright or pastel-ish.

I am absolutely in love with this quad. Along with the great colors, they blend nicely and I haven't had any problems with creasing. I ordered the quad from Sephora.com. There are a few other new givenchy items available but this was the only one I decided to try since I don't like the purfumey taste of their lip glosses.

Dsk plumpy earrings pt. 2

I made an order from Steph earlier this month. She was doing a sale on her plumpy earrings so I stocked up. My favorite are the stars but so I won't discriminate; I did order some other styles as well.

Plumpy stars in clear AB, Amethyst, Aqua


Hearts in Red and White

Butterfly in clear AB


Close up-ooo so shimmery

In case you were wondering what the white thing under the earring were:

I had gotten the recent issue of Biteki magazine, in part because they offered this freebie container. I didn't know what to do with it until recently. I decided it makes a good home for my earrings.

Here's the super cute back:

On that note, go order some jewelry ~ dskjewelry.blogspot.com

ck Calvin Klein set, lipstick and polish

I remember when ck Calvin Klein first come out and only had some lipstick and lip glosses, now the line has everything from primers to nail polish. I had purchased a few of their lip glosses in the beginning. There one eyeshadow palette I tried was decent but not amazing and some interesting nail polish colors that caught my eye but overall I was never in love with this line or completely interested. However with some of the new offerings I've seen have won me over.

I've been on a creme shadow kick, so when I was trolling the Sephora site one night I saw that the ck line had a few colors listed as new: glamour pink, tropical green and turquoise blue. I had tried tempting glimmer sheer creme shadows when they first came out and I thought these colors might be a bit sheer so I decided to hold off till I saw it in person. It seems that it takes forever sometimes for items on the Sephora.com site to show up in the actual stores but I was happy to see that they actually had these shadows available for me to stick my grubby fingers into. I was pleasantly surprised by the colors. Glamour pink is a nice pastel shimmery pink, tropical green is a nice medium green with golden shimmer and turquoise blue is more of a smokey denim blue, not the bright blue shown online.

Shadow pots and one of my kitties' fat paws.

L to R: Tropical Green, Glamour pink, Turquoise Blue (w/o flash and with flash)

I was also impressed by the delicious fusion moisturizing lip color. I was afraid that these colors would be pretty sheer but they turned out to be well pigmented. They go on smooth, creamy and they do leave my lips feeling moisturized. I ended up purchasing love vapor and orchid madness, both have good color payoff although love vapor is more opaque than orchid madness. I really like the bright pink of orchid madness and since it goes on kind of sheer, it's a bit easier to wear and control intensity.

L to R: Orchid Madness, Love Vapor

L to R: Love Vapor and Orchid Madness (w/o flash and with flash)

Love Vapor with Smile Dazzlegloss

When I was in the Sephora store, I also noticed there were a few new kits offered: a Splendid Glam mini nail polish kit, the Fashion's New Face Signature Collection and the Fashion's New Face Mesmerized collection. I ended up picking up the mesmerized collection since it I like the colors much more. There is a silver glimmer creme shadow, a mini delicious pout lip gloss in orchid, a mini creme lipstick in mesmerized and a nail polish in indigo blue.

Here are swatches of the colors offered in the mini polish kit and 2 of the newer colors. :

L to R: Hint of Pink, Indigo Blue, Heartbreaker, Aqua Splash (mini set colors)
Cashmere (nude color from Signature collection set)
(New Green), Silver Streak

Indigo blue is in both the mini polish kit and the mesmerized kit. For the dark green color: I've only seen in stores and it's not listed online yet.

Ranting, Shoes and flowers

Random post time. Today was just not my day. Nothing particularly bad happen, but nothing really went my way either. Work was busy, people were annoying and asking ridic questions. I got delayed on the train and had people would would insist on squishing into the middle seat next me. ugh. I get home and the bf is pissing me off and my cat is being needy therefore pissing me off. I am just having a foul mood type of day.

I did get stuff in the mail. I got some Jill Stuart jelly eye colors and I was impressed. They don't look very promising in the jar~in fact they look kind of gross but they shimmer like nobody's business. I got the shiny onyx and green butterfly. Will post pics next time when I am in a less crank-tastic mood.

My order from Steph also came in today. I had ordered some more plumpy goodness. These were the two I put on right away: plumpy flowers in rose and fuchsia.

I love these colors. I got a mess of other pairs to share, but atlas I will have to make another promise of pics in the next post.

It's finally going to warm up in NYC, about 50 degrees tomorrow and above 60 on Friday. I can't wait. I've been dying to wear these shoes out.

I'm a short girl (5'2 on a good day), I heart my heels although they go against my need to speed down a sidewalk-yep I get pedestrian rage. I go to spurts of being willing to deal with heels and spurts of not wanting to deal with the fuss. When it gets warmer I feel like it's easier to switch between heels and flats so I usually break out the heels more often although I often try to carry a pair of flats to change into at the end of the day.

Enough of my rambling, I'm in a slightly better mood now. I hate being hormonal, I become so easily irritable. Next time~more make-up and jewelry!

Mitsuwa and TheFaceShop

I managed to convince the bf to take a drive to Mitsuwa and stock up on some japanese goodies. I had lunch before I went but by the time we got to the market, I was getting hungry which resulted in snack overload. I got some fruit gummies, seaweed and salt chips (so addicting), chocolate and some non-giant pocky. Here's is the gummy I'm currently snacking on:

It's pretty good, I like that it's not overly sweet. They also don't have a fully smooth gummy texture, there is a bit of grit (?) to them that I haven't decided if I like or not.

Hee, I found a heart shaped gummy.

We did get some real groceries too and I got some lip balm and new shampoo. I've been using the Shiseido Tsubaki for awhile and I decided to try the Lux shampoo to change it up.

After Mitsuwa, we went to TheFaceShop. Correction, I went to TheFaceShop while my bf stayed in the car and played with his PSP or as he calls it "saving the world". It was awkward because I was the only person in the store. I always hate the part where they speak to me in Korean and I look at them confused or just start speaking english to them. They left me alone which is nice and I wandered quickly through the store since it was after 7 and I was worried they were closing. Here's what I grabbed:

Hoping this eye cream will help with the undereye circles, although it would also help if I went to bed earlier. =P

Some polish and rhinestones. I would have picked up some more polish (not that I need it)
but I didn't think I had time.


I have a few sheet mask so I decided to try some blemish patches and pore strips.


Inspired by Steph's shisem haul, I picked up a few myself.
I slooowly getting better at applying these and wearing them.


Samples that they gave me, I heart samples. Can't wait to test out their BB cream.

So it was a productive trip to NJ today. Afterwards we went to Tar-jay. Nothing exciting there. I got cheez-its and for once, I did not purchase any make-up.

I also want to share the cutest pillow cases that I found yesterday:

I adore tokidoki. I have multiple bags, a mouse pad, pins and now pillow cases. I don't like all the characters but I do like Adios, Ciao Ciao and their cats Skeletrino and Skeletrina. I first got the figurines of both cats and when my bf decided we should have Adios and Ciao Ciao, I found out Adios is discontinued so finding him will be tricky. Oh well. Hope everyone is having a good weekend. It's already after 2am and I have to get up early tomorrow. sigh.