Tag Archives: cosmetics

Shu Uemura Eye-Need-Shu Liner in Midnight Black review – the most purr-fect holiday cosmetics collection

Posted on November 20, 2014 | 2 comments

Calling it! The cutest holiday cosmetics collection this festive season has to be the Shu Uemura x Karl Lagerfeld collaboration, Shupette; themed around Uncle Karl’s princess pussycat, Choupette, it’s a pun made in make-up heaven!

The second of Lagerfeld’s collaborations with Shu Uemura (you may remember his similarly adorable Mon Shu 2012 Holiday Collection), Shupette amps up the Christmas cute factor with a range of products encased in highly covetable packaging featuring sweet sketches of Karl’s famous fluffy white kitty, bearer of the most famous baby blues this side of Sinatra.

However, one of my favourite products from the Shupette 2014 Holiday Collection is actually one of the more understated items – the Eye-Need-Shu Liner in Midnight Black.

Rather than featuring a drawing of the old fluffball herself, this pencil eyeliner instead has teeny-tiny silver paw-prints dancing their way around the black casing – subtle but sooooo cute!

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Tagged best blue eyeliners, best eyeliner, cosmetics, EOTD, Eye Need Shu Liner, eyeliner, FOTD, Karl Lagerfeld for Shu Uemura, make-up, Midnight Black, review, Shu Uemura, Shu Uemura Christmas Collection 2014, Shu Uemura eye liner, Shu Uemura Eye Need Shu Liner in Midnight Black, Shu Uemura Holiday Collection 2014, Shu Uemura Midnight Black eye liner, Shu Uemura Shupette, Shu Uemura x Karl Lagerfeld, Shupette, Shupette Christmas Collection 2014, Shupette Holiday 2014 Collection, swatch

Clinique Quickliner For Eyes Intense in Intense Clove, Intense Truffle and Intense Peridot review

Posted on October 27, 2014 | 2 comments

#BeautyBloggerProblems – having such a mega stash of make-up hidden away that you forget what products you even own in the first place!

Back in 2012, I reviewed Clinique’s Quickliner For Eyes Intense eyeliners… loved them… then promptly forgot all about them in favour of my usual Urban Decay 24/7 Eye Pencil and Clinique Brush-On Cream Liner combination. But one day recently, when I couldn’t be bothered to faff with my eyeliner brush or go crazy with colour (funnily enough, the exact circumstances I predicted myself using them in my Quickliner review – well done me!), I spotted them sitting forlornly in my eyeliner tub – and remembered exactly why I fell in love with them in the first place. They’re so easy to use! The colour is so intense! They’re great for sensitive eyes!

… Which is how I found myself in Clinique buying another three Quickliner For Eyes Intense pencils – this time in Intense Clove, Intense Truffle and Intense Peridot. And I found myself smitten all over again, like a grown woman surfing Friends Reunited only to fall back in love with her teenage crush.

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Tagged Beauty, best eye pencil, best eyeliners, Clinique, Clinique Intense Quickliner, Clinique Quickliner for Eyes Intense, cosmetics, EOTD, eye liner, eye pencil, eyeliner, FOTD, Intense Clove, Intense Peridot, Intense Truffle, make-up, photos, review, swatch, swatches

Essentials by Cinci handmade soaps review – land of soap and glory!

Posted on October 20, 2014 | 6 comments

For me, soap is something old people use. It sits on your soap-dish for ages looking unattractively scummy, it doesn’t lather up properly and it leaves you feeling almost too squeakily clean. Suffice to say, I’m a shower gel girl all the way.

However, bringing the humble soap into the 21^st century is Essentials By Cinci EC Soap. The brainchild of qualified Chinese medicine practitioner Cinci Leung, these soaps are handmade in Hong Kong from all-natural ingredients – and look absolutely gorgeous to boot.

Before you start imagining Leung as some wizened bearded old man concocting noxious-smelling brews in a ye olde style apothecary, let me tell you that she’s actually a bright young woman with a more modern approach to Chinese medicine – a philosophy which is totally reflected in the Essentials by Cinci soaps themselves.

Leung explained to me that many shower gels are formulated with ingredients that end up stripping off your skin’s natural oils as well as the dirt and sweat we want rid of. Her soaps are much milder and have been created to both cleanse and moisturise – sudsational stuff!

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Tagged Beauty, Cinci Leung, cosmetics, EC Clinic, EC Clinic Hong Kong, EC Soaps, EC Soaps Hong Kong, Emerald Mist, Essentials by Cinci, Essentials by Cinci Hong Kong, green beauty Hong Kong, handmade bath products Hong Kong, handmade beauty Hong Kong, handmade soaps Hong Kong, handmade toiletries Hong Kong, Happy Baby, locally produced beauty products Hong Kong, locally produced skincare Hong Kong, natural beauty Hong Kong, natural skincare Hong Kong, natural soaps Hong Kong, natural toiletries Hong Kong, review, Silky Rose, skincare, Smooth Lavender, soap, Spicy Ginger, where to buy handmade soaps Hong Kong

Benefit The POREfessional: Agent Zero Shine finishing powder review – your secret weapon against sticky summers

Posted on September 29, 2014 | 4 comments

“Girls don’t sweat, they perspire.”

… Said no girl who lived in Hong Kong ever.

Hong Kong is not the place to come if you’re scared of a bit of sweat. Our summers basically read like the keywords for an x-rated video – hot, wet, sticky, sweaty – and there ain’t much you can do about it. However, there are a few secret weapons you can deploy to help you look a little more fresh-faced and fragrant even in the stickiest of summers, and one of my favourites is Benefit’s The POREfessional: Agent Zero Shine powder.

“Secret weapon” is a totally apt phrase for Agent Zero Shine. Not only is the packaging officially the cutest – adorned with Benefit’s cartoon Spy Gal, a secret agent “porefessional” whose mission (should you choose to accept it) is to combat the appearance of pores – but like many of the best cosmetics, when applied right, no one can even tell you’re using it… just that you look extra awesome instead.

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Tagged Agent Zero Shine, anti-shine powder, Beauty, Benefit, Benefit Agent Zero Shine, Benefit Agent Zero Shine powder, Benefit Cosmetics, Benefit The POREfessional: Agent Zero Shine, best anti-shine products, best complexion enhancers, best complexion products, best finishing powder, best loose powder, best pore minimisers, cosmetics, finishing powder, loose powder, make-up, pore minimiser, review, setting powder, Spy Gal, The POREfessional

Christian Louboutin nail polish launches in Hong Kong – head over heels for designer lacquer

Posted on September 22, 2014 | 5 comments

Would you pay HK$450 for a nail polish? (International readers – that’s approximately US$58 or GBP£36!) Well, now’s the time to find out as Christian Louboutin’s nail polish line has just launched in Hong Kong.

First things first, these are no average nail polishes. The bottles – with long pointed caps reminiscent of a sharp stiletto heel, and chunky geometric cut-glass bottles – are practically works of art in themselves. The signature polish in the collection is the Rouge Louboutin, which is of course based on those all-iconic red soles and boasts a longer black cap (designed to be the same height as Louboutin’s tallest ever heel, the Ballerina Ultima) with a beautiful ombre tinted glass bottle.

Fashion legend has it that Louboutin’s very first red soles were created by him painting red nail polish directly onto the shoes… so it’s kind of cool that things have now come full circle and the brand is actually producing the lacquer itself!

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Posted in Beauty, Hong Kong

Tagged Beaute Louboutin, Beauty, Christian Louboutin, Christian Louboutin Hong Kong, Christian Louboutin nail polish, cool mani ideas, cosmetics, Lady Twist, Lane Crawford, Louboutin Beaute, Louboutin manicure, Louboutin nail lacquer, Louboutin nail polish, Louboutin nail varnish, mani, nail lacquer, nail polish, nail varnish, Ni Toi Ni Moi, review, Rouge Louboutin, The Nail Library, where to buy Christian Louboutin in Hong Kong, where to buy Louboutin Beaute in Hong Kong, where to buy Louboutin nail lacquer in Hong Kong, where to buy Louboutin nail polish in Hong Kong

MAC Mineralize Rich Lipsticks in Be A Lady and Lady At Play review – drinking the coral Kool-Aid

Posted on August 25, 2014 | 3 comments

Cometh the summer… cometh the coral.

In some weird beauty blogger version of Pavlov’s Dogs, as soon as the sun starts poking its head out for any prolonged period, I find my fingers automatically itching towards my stash of coral lipsticks – and usually, the brighter the better! There’s just something about coral in the summer… It feels younger and more fun than red, breezier and easier to pull off than orange, and juicier and happier than pink – instead being some exotic, eternally flattering love-child of all three.

This summer, MAC’s Mineralize Rich Lipsticks in Lady At Play (above left) and Be A Lady (above right) have been on higher rotation in my make-up routine than One Direction and Taylor Swift on a tweenager’s Spotify playlist. These lipstick ladies are definitely for turning… turning heads that is!

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Tagged Be A Lady lipstick, Beauty, best coral lipsticks, best lipstick formula, coral, coral lipstick, cosmetics, FOTD, Lady At Play lipstick, lipstick, Mac, MAC Be A Lady, MAC cosmetics, MAC Lady At Play, MAC lipstick, MAC Mineralize Rich Lipstick, make-up, Mineralize Rich Lipstick, non-drying lipsticks, review, swatch

YSL La Laque Couture Bleu Celadon nail polish review

Posted on August 18, 2014 | 4 comments

Short review of YSL Bleu Celadon: It’s pretty damn perfect.

Slightly longer review of YSL Bleu Celadon: No really, it’s pretty damn perfect.

OK, just in case you need a couple more words…

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Tagged Beauty, best blue nail polish, best Tiffany's blue, Bleu Celadon, blue, cosmetics, favourite nail polish, make-up, nail lacquer, nail polish, nail varnish, NOTD, review, swatch, Tiffany's blue nail polish, YSL, YSL Bleu Celadon, YSL Bleus Lumiere Collection, YSL La Laque Couture

MAC Shimmerfish nail polish review, Alluring Aquatics Collection

Posted on July 7, 2014 | 8 comments

Couldn’t get enough of the a-ma-zing packaging for MAC’s Alluring Aquatics Collection? Yeah, me neither… so I thought I’d bring you another shamelessly covet-worthy post on the collection’s other nail lacquer, MAC Shimmerfish, for you to drool over! [Polish geek side-note: the third lacquer from MAC’s Alluring Aquatics Collection, Neptune, was not released in Hong Kong.]

Shimmerfish is a super shimmery (surprise!) silver with teeny-tiny flecks of light copper also swimming in the mix. It has the same kind of mottled glittery foil finish (a la Chanel Graphite, OPI Warm & Fozzie and Butter London Wallis) that is absolutely my favourite kind of complex molten metallic; in fact, it reminds me of OPI’s Designer De-Better, which was from the same Muppets Collection as Warm & Fozzie – check out my friend Eugenia’s swatches of that here for comparison.

Just like the sun sparking on ocean waves, Shimmerfish totally dazzles when the light hits it – resulting in brightly glistening flashes of silver at your fingertips. But those coppery flecks keep things equally awesome in the shadows too, delivering a coolly complex shade that you just can’t quite put your finger on – is it a silvery bronze… a bronzy silver… a rusty rose-gold… a champagne-taupe… or some equally intriguing new shade that doesn’t even have a name invented for it yet?

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Tagged Alluring Aquatic Collection, copper, cosmetics, limited edition, Mac, MAC Alluring Aquatic Collection, MAC cosmetics, MAC Shimmerfish nail lacquer, make-up, metallic, nail lacquer, nail polish, nail varnish, photo, review, Shimmerfish, silver, Summer 2014, swatch, teal

THANN Eden Breeze Collection – Aromatherapy Shower Gel, Body Oil, Body Scrub and Body Butter review

Posted on June 23, 2014 | Leave a comment

Now I love me a spa day as much as the next lady-of-leisure, but sometimes time – let alone bank balance – simply are not willing. In which case, don’t listen to that Mohammed fellow and simply let the mountain come to you… via some lovely spa-tastic skincare products instead! Case in point: the THANN Eden Breeze Collection.

THANN is a Bangkok-based beauty brand that boasts award-winning, uber-relaxing THANN Sanctuary spas dotted all around the world, including Hong Kong. But for a little taste of spa-style luxury in the “comfort” of your own home (i.e. smaller, nowhere near as nice smelling, and with inquisitive puppies often crashing your zen), their line of body and skincare products totally do the trick at injecting a luxurious dose of pampering into your general beauty regime – even if they don’t come with your own personal Thai masseuse (rats!).

THANN’s beauty products are largely based around essential oils and aromatherapy properties, meaning they all smell blooming gorgeous and nicely evocative of a sensuous spa day – and the latest Eden Breeze Collection, based around jasmine and rose essential oils, is no exception.

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MAC Submerged nail polish review, Alluring Aquatic Collection

Posted on June 20, 2014 | 2 comments

As soon as I saw the amazing packaging for MAC’s Alluring Aquatic Collection – turquoise (squee), metallic (double squee), gorgeous pretend water droplets sprayed onto the casing (stop, seriously, can’t breathe) – I already knew I needed all of it in my life. In fact, I barely even bothered to look at the colours of the make-up itself before snapping each piece up, as every single synapse in me was squealing “BUY, BUY, BUY”.

Thankfully, the colours are all actually very nice, and my top nail polish pick – MAC Submerged – very much leads the flotilla of fabulous!

Submerged is absolutely the kind of stunning colour you would hope to find in a collection inspired by all things seductively sea-like. A deep metallic ocean-blue that flashes brilliant teal and dark indigo-violet in different lighting and angles, it’s what us nail polish folks call a duochrome (or more accurately here, a multichrome) – lacquer geek speak for a polish that shifts colour in a similar way to an oil slick. For Submerged, I’d say the colour shift is a bit brighter and more obvious in the bottle, but it’s still very pretty on the nail too.

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