All the Pretty Shimmers

To whomever I gave an award to, you must give the award to 7 deserving people.

Big “thank you”s to Fuzzie and blu3 for the award! My turn—–

Listed in alphabetical order:

1. blu3/Arashi at A Watercolour Sky: Hehe I love how she spells “colour.” Anyway, I know her from the early days at ABB and I always look forward to her posts. She has gorgeously pale complexion that I *wish* I had and looks just stunning when she uses bright colors like blues and purples. Oh, and I also like to look at all of her pretty Japanese makeup!

2. Chiara: This girl is adorable AND she has adorable grandparents! I love her silliness and her gorgeous skin that doesn’t require a drop of foundation. Not to mention she’s from San Jose, Bay Area represent!

3. Christiana at Memoirs of a Shopping Addict: She is such a sweet girl and so helpful too! I know she’s already gotten like a million awards, but it doesn’t hurt to award one more right? This girl owns every single pigment color under the rainbow, and always pulls off the most creative and colorful looks. Everytime I go to her blog I am just bombarded with pretty colors, it’s always a visual feast!

4. Emilee at Girl Meets Makeup: She has some seriously good reviews and one of the best blending skills I have seen! She’s not afraid to use colors and her tutorials are always very thorough. And she looks HOT in red eyeshadow!

5. Fuzkittie: OK where do I begin? This girl is seriously HOT STUFF, makes me drool over her pretty face AND her hoards of Dior and Chanel. She is truly classiest of them all, making the big bucks and spending the big bucks! Love her blog and always wait anxiously for updates.

6. The Muse at Musings of a Muse: This girl has some seriously good reviews and never fails to crack me up with her humor. She has more MAC, Lush, Japanese and Korean makeup than anyone can imagine, heck she can give Sephora a run for its money! Always so thorough and detailed with every new product that she tries, and she tries tons of them, all the time! I love ogling at all the pretty products she has and her frequent updates never disappoint.

7. Aileen at Shades of U: She is the QUEEN of all things mineral, and also collects a little MAC on the side, and when I say “a little”, it is a huuuge understatement. She always has great pictures and informative reviews, love her blog!

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Last weekend I was left all by myself at the apartment: the roommate went to Vegas with some friends, and I really wanted to go as well but I declined when she asked me a month ago because I was supposed to have a midterm the following Monday and wanted to be a good student. But guess what?? A week before the supposed midterm, my professor tells us that he has moved the exam to Wednesday instead of Monday!! It was too late to change my mind and go to Vegas (super expensive ticket), and the boyfriend (Mr. D) had to work overtime the whole weekend so I was left to spend the weekend by myself.

What’s a girl to do?? So I called up the only friend that was still around in the summer to go shopping! There were SO. MANY. SALES. everywhere. Nordstroms was madness of course, I snooped around the shoe department and the beauty department, but nothing really caught my eye that was my budget, so I left. Then to Zara, and HALF the store was on sale!! I almost died, and spent more than an hour in there picking out and trying on stuff, but nothing really tickled my fancy, not to mention the line for the dressing room was half an hour long. I was so overwhelmed by all the sales going on that I didn’t know where to look or what to do! There were just too many people to fight over stuff with that I just gave up on clothes shopping and stuck to my safety zone: Sephora lol. It’s not like Sephora has massive sales ever so the level of crowdedness was pretty normal.

Feeling pretty bummed that shopping was so unsuccessful, I decided to pick up some stuff from Sephora so at least I don’t go home empty handed lol. I ended up getting a NARS blush in Lovejoy (hmm this is not good I am becoming addicted to NARS blushes!), and a Calvin Klein Beauty foundation:

OK so the watermark still says petitebelle, that’s because I edited and uploaded these pictures before I change names.

NARS Lovejoy. The flash really brings out the red tones in this, but under normal light it is more of a rosy bronze color with subtle gold shimmers. When applied the shimmers hardly show up, which is good because I prefer matte blushes over shimmery ones.

Under natural lighting:

The color looks more bronze here, although this is a bad picture because it was taken when the day was very overcast :/ I’m going to have to do a FOTD with this so you get a better sense of the gorgeous bronzey color.

The blush was a compulsive purchase, whereas the foundation was actually something that I have been wanting to get. Recently I’ve discovered that after almost 2 years of using mineral foundation, my skin has suddenly decided that it doesn’t like it and is starting to get irritated by my foundation. I think it’s mostly due to the fact that I mix so many brands of foundations together instead of just sticking to one brand. So I have been looking for a liquid foundation to use instead. After reading Emilee’s review on DiorSkin Forever, I wanted to check it out, so I swatched some shades and none of them seemed to be a very good match, plus on top of that it has this heavy fragrance which I’m not fond of, foundation shouldn’t be scented! AND to top it off, the 2nd or 3rd ingredient was Alcohol!! That’s a huge no-no for me, I hate products with alcohol. What a disappointment, I really wanted to like it too since the bottle was so pretty I have read some good reviews about the Calvin Klein foundation, so I tested it out and the shade Soft Beige matched me surprisingly well, and the texture was also very nice, so it came home with me!

Calvin Klein Infinite Matte Oil-Free Foundation

Don’t be fooled by the color from the bottle, the actual product is not that light. The only bad thing about this foundation is the chunky bottle, it is HUGE, although the design of it looks very nice and I like that it’s sturdy and not made of glass, but still, unnecessary waste of plastic.

I got the shade in Soft Beige, and it matches me very well. I would describe it as a light beige shade.

The dispenser pump is fantastic! It is not one of those pumps that squirt out big globs of foundation everywhere and requires you to press down really hard to dispense. This one requires the slightest press and an even amount of foundation will come out, and it is so easy to control how much you dispense, I love it!

As for texture and coverage, although this is a liquid foundation, it is a bit on the thick side so I would say the coverage is medium, and can be full if you layer it. It dries to a very natural matte finish that is not drying or cakey whatsoever, and I like that it does not accentuate any flakiness on my cheeks like mineral foundation does. It works best applied with fingers instead of a brush, unless you want sheer to light coverage, then apply with a brush, but I prefer a light to medium coverage so it works better if I use my fingers. The texture is really really nice, very smooth and just glides on and blends in very easily, no streaks at all. It also lasts much longer than the mineral foundation I used to use, which would just be gone halfway thorugh the day, this one actually lasts for 8-9 hours on me without a primer! The best thing is that since it is oil-free, it doesn’t make me greasy and actually seems to control oil! So far, I love it, although it does take more time to apply in the the morning than mineral foundation, but the result is so much better that I say it’s worth it, I’m a convert!

OK enough of me blabbering on, let’s get to the EOTDs.

Subtle Purple Eyes:

Shadows used:
- MAC Lovely Lily pigment foiled on lid
- MAC Nocturnelle on outer corners
- MAC Claire de Lune to highlight

Silvery Eyes:

Shadows used:
- Urban Decay Strip on lids
- MAC Carbon on outer corners
- I think another color….I can’t remember.
- MAC Nylon to highlight