Through The Looking Glass

Harbour City Chocolate Trail 2013 – going cocoa loco!

Posted on February 13, 2013 | 4 comments

Anyone who knows me should already know about my sweet tooth. Well, it ain’t just the one tooth, I tell you! Dessert queen, pudding princess, sweet treat sucker – call it what you will, but I’m an addict… and top of the (cake) pops is my love for chocolate! So as soon as I heard about Harbour City’s Chocolate Trail, I knew I had to get in on the cocoa action.

Having read and drooled over That Food Cray’s chocoholic tour of the mall, I was lucky enough to be offered a similar whistle-stop walk-through from Harbour City’s awesome PR, Season. On emailing Season, I declared that my 90-minute window should offer us ‘plenty of time’ to look around The Chocolate Trail – turns out that Nicole (That Food Cray) spent three hours there! And having seen and sampled just a few of the dessert delights on offer, I can totally see why!

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Posted in Food, Hong Kong

Tagged Baruzzo, best chocolate in Hong Kong, best chocolate in the world, best chocolatiers in the world, best dessert hong kong, Chapon, chocolate sea salt, chocolate sea salt caramel, ChocoYOU, Christophe Roussel, dessert, dessert hong kong, Food, Gateway, Gerhard Petzl, Godiva, Harbour City Chocolate Trail 2013, HK, Hong Kong, Kapok, La Madeleine de Proust, macarons, Ocean Terminal, Prestat, Rannou Metivier, smoke salt praline domes, Thierry Mulphart, truffles, Tsim Sha Tsui, where to buy chocolate in Hong Kong

Clinique Chubby Sticks Intense in Grandest Grape, Broadest Berry & Mightiest Maraschino review

Posted on February 11, 2013 | 2 comments

It’s time to get chubby!

We all know how much I love Clinique’s Chubby Stick lip balms (I own seven and counting!), so it should come as no surprise that I have been awaiting the launch of the new Clinique Chubby Sticks Intense with baited breath… or should that be puckered lips?!

Clinique’s Chubby Sticks Intense are basically Chubby Sticks with added junk in the trunk. Whilst the regular Chubby Sticks are more mellow subtle sorbets, these new ones are in-yer-face intense shots of colour. For all of you who loved the old moisturising formula yet wished the shades were just that little more pigmented – well, the Clinique Genie has been at work and your wish is their command.

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Posted in Beauty

Tagged Beauty, best lip balms, best lip products, best lipsticks, Broadest Berry, Chubby Sticks, Chubby Sticks Intense, Clinique, Clinique Chubby Stick Intense, Clinique Chubby Sticks, Clinique Chubby Sticks originals vs intense, comparison swatches, cosmetics, Grandest Grape, make-up, Mightiest Maraschino, photos, review, swatch, swatches, tinted lip balms

Zoya FeiFei nail polish review

Posted on February 4, 2013 | 3 comments

Zoya FeiFei is absolutely one of my favourite polishes of last year. It’s blue, it’s silver, it’s black, it’s gold… ugh, screw it, it’s just awesome!

FeiFei is such an amazingly multi-faceted colour – like a sexy sparkling chameleon. It’s even good enough to make me overlook the fact that its name sounds like Canto for fat; in fact, “Fei Fei” literally was the nickname given to a chubby Hong Kong TV personality of yore, Lydia Shum… and I’m pretty sure my auntie has been know to call me it a few times too!

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Posted in Beauty

Tagged Beauty, best glitter nail polishes, best metallic nail polishes, best sparkly nail polishes, blue, cosmetics, Diva Collection, duochrome, FeiFei, glitter, make-up, metallic, nail lacquer, nail polish, nail varnish, review, swatch, Zoya, Zoya FeiFei

MAC Screaming Bright nail polish review

Posted on January 31, 2013 | Leave a comment

Metallic polishes are ten a penny and dime a dozen these days (phrases which would both make for decent metallic nail polish names actually!), so it takes something pretty special for me to sit up and take notice of one. And with a name like Screaming Bright – and a colour that lives up to it – MAC have achieved just that!

MAC’s Screaming Bright is part of their recent permanent collection of polishes – a pale yellow gold that is SO bright, it almost starts to look silver… if that even makes sense! This is some seriously SHINY shizzle.

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OPI Warm & Fozzie nail polish review

Posted on January 28, 2013 | 3 comments

Sometimes you just see a nail polish and know it’s going to be a classic. Such was the case with OPI’s Warm & Fozzie.

Part of OPI’s 2011 Muppets Holiday Collection, Warm & Fozzie was part of the first wave of mainstream interesting foil-metallic-shimmer-duochrome-awesomesauce finishes, that in my world at least was kick-started with Chanel’s Graphite (possibly my most referenced nail polish ever – I just can’t get enough of it!). Since then, we’ve seen loads of polishes with a similar finish in the same metallic colour family (including Butter London’s Wallis and Estee Lauder’s Nouveau Riche) but I still hold a soft spot for one of the originals!

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Posted in Beauty

Tagged Beauty, best bronze nail polishes, best copper nail polishes, bronze, copper, cosmetics, make-up, metallic, Muppets Collection, nail lacquer, nail polish, nail varnish, O.P.I, OPI, review, swatch, Warm & Fozzie, Warm And Fozzie

St Betty restaurant review – the roast of the town

Posted on January 17, 2013 | 10 comments

UPDATE: *Sniff sniff* Sadly, St Betty has now closed. In the meantime, try Sunday roast here instead!

Having recently returned to the UK for the first time in over three years, I can safely say that one of the (very) few things I miss about the place is the food. That’s not to say I don’t love eating out in Hong Kong – and trust me, do I LOVE eating out here and would miss it madly if I were ever dragged kicking and screaming somewhere else – but you just can’t get things like fish and chips, kebabs, Magnums, Penguins, sticky toffee puddings, smoky bacon crisps, Domino’s pizza deliveries, great big whacks of gammon, beef Wellington from the supermarket and the little family-run Italian down the road over here.

However, what you now can get over here is a beautiful top-notch Sunday roast – thanks to the wonderful Shane Osborn, head chef at St Betty.

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Posted in Food, Hong Kong

Tagged best restaurants in Central, best restaurants in Hong Kong, best roast beef in Hong Kong, best Sunday roast in Hong Kong, Betty's Kitschen, eating out, fine dining, IFC mall, review, Shane Osbourn, St Betty, Sunday roast HK, where to eat in Central, where to eat in IFC, where to get sunday carvery in hong kong, where to get sunday roast in hong kong

As If! The best fashion lookbook ever

Posted on January 7, 2013 | 4 comments

Sex. Clothes. Popularity. Whatever.

I’ll admit to not being the most stylish cat in town… but I am like, totally buggin’, because something amazing has happened. Something I am actually obsessed with has become fashionable!

Yes, apparently Clueless – one of my favourite films ever, re-watched religiously every few months [Boyfriend: Didn’t we just watch Clueless like… last week?], the script of which is committed to memory ‘as if’ I learnt it in Sunday school – is currently the hottest style inspiration for designers. Short of the catwalks being inspired by the wardrobes of Disney princesses or Jem & The Holograms, I am likely to never be this en vogue ever again!

Do you prefer fashion victim or ensembly challenged?

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Posted in Pretty Things, Random

Tagged as if, best clueless quotes, cher, clueless, clueless lookbook, clueless quotes, totally buggin, whatever, Wildfox, wildfox kids in america lookbook, wildfox lookbook ss13

TWG Tea Salon & Boutique review – bon appe-tea!

Posted on December 17, 2012 | 2 comments

At afternoon tea, it can be easy to lose focus… cute bite-sized finger sandwiches, scrumptious sweets, and of course, buttery yummy warm fuzzy-inducing scones (with clotted cream, of course). But it is called afternoon TEA for a reason – so who better to bring the focus back on your humble cup of char than TWG Tea!

I was invited for an epic afternoon tea of girlie chats, delicious nibbles, and pot after pot after pot of more tea than you ever thought existed with blogger BFFs Jasmine of Dress Me and Vanessa of All Things Indulgent, plus the lovely Renee from Flare and TWG’s Cathy. And for a truly special afternoon tea, you can’t go far wrong.

TWG started in Singapore and its Hong Kong Tea Salon & Boutique in the IFC mall has a Raffles-esque colonial feel, with rattan furniture, smartly suited and booted staff, and walls lined with iconic vintage-style tins of their signature 1837 blend. Afternoon teas are so ten-a-penny here that it’s lovely to find one that still feels special and a treat, without being in yet another five-star hotel. Time has a habit of standing still in TWG, and in hectic HK, that’s actually kind of a joy.

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Posted in Food, Hong Kong

Tagged afternoon tea, afternoon tea Central, afternoon tea hong kong, afternoon tea IFC, afternoon tea set hong kong, best afternoon tea hong kong, best dessert hong kong, best macarons hong kong, best tea hong kong, dessert, dessert hong kong, eating out, high tea, high tea hong kong, IFC mall, macarons, macarons hong kong, review, Tea WG, Tea WG HK, Tea WG Hong Kong, TWG Silver Moon tea, TWG Tea, TWG Tea Hong Kong, TWG Tea Salon & Boutique, where to buy tea hong kong, where to eat in IFC

The Saem Mint Foot Treatment Mask review

Posted on December 3, 2012 | 7 comments

Feet are just intrinsically rather gross, right?

People that post pictures of their pedicures… sorry. I. Just. Cannot. Even princesses and fairies probably have manky feet. Hey, I can cope with seeing the beatific Princess Kate’s boobs… but the thought of copping a glance at her feet – no thanks!

Suffice to say, my feet get very little love, hence explaining why they’re dry rough gnarled specimens that are kept in socks or slippers at all costs. (I still shudder thinking about how I had to go barefoot at school for gym.) So in the effort to try and make my feet bear less resemblance to those of a mountain goat, I decided to give this The Saem Mint Foot Treatment Mask a go.

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Posted in Beauty

Tagged Beauty, cosmetics, foot masks, foot treatment mask, Korean cosmetics brands in Hong Kong, Korean make-up in Hong Kong, Mom's Nagging, review, skincare, The Saem, where to buy Korean cosmetics brands in HK, where to buy The Saem in HK

Shu Uemura x Karl Lagerfeld Rouge Unlimited lipstick in Mon Shu Red review

Posted on November 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

Christmas is normally my favourite time of the year for make-up – lots of glitter and lots of gift sets! However, this year’s collections are kind of lacking for me, and so far, the only item I have actually bought is this Karl for Shu Uemura Rouge Unlimited Lipstick in Mon Shu Red.

I’ll admit now, this was an impulse purchase based TOTALLY on packaging! For his collaboration with Shu Uemura, Karl Lagerfeld created this super cute ‘mon shu girl’ drawing combining Japanese pop with European chic, which adorns all the items in the holiday collection. I wasn’t too impressed with the quality and colour selections of the palettes, the metal make-up box I wanted was out of stock and I already own Shu’s eyelash curler, cleansing oil and UV under-base mousse sans fancy packaging, so I ended up picking up one of the lipsticks in Mon Shu Red.

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