Olay Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream Review

Olay has reformulated and relaunched its much beloved Regenerist line, and nothing excites me more when an old favourite is given its due in the spotlight. After all, the original Regenerist line was highly popular when it was first launched ten years ago in 2003, and was further propelled to greater heights of popularity when a widely reported 2006 study showed the Olay Regenerist beating out other more expensive brands as in efficacy (I can't seem to google the original survey, but a newspaper reporting on the results can be found at the Daily Mail, albeit in the tabloid's typically sensationalist fashion, of course).


Knowing the history of Olay, both corporate and personal (is there anyone whose mother or grandmother doesn't use it?), I was keen to give the new Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream a try. After all, this is the stuff of legends. Annnd, they now claim to have "20% more anti-aging ingredients"! Sure, why not, right?

Yellow Nails: I Actually Lurve Them! (AKA NOTD With Etude House Glittering Bloom Yellow)

Summer is coming, and all the brands are starting to put out their summer collections, and my nails are officially yellow! This is actually a really rare thing for me. If there are any longtime readers of my blog (love, love, love you guys!), you may vaguely remember that a long, long time ago, I had actually painted my nails yellow before, and I couldn't actually quite make up my mind as to whether I liked it or not. So I painted it that once, decided that maybe it wasn't really my cup of tea, and then I never wore it again. Or at least, I thought I would. You can see how that one turned out!

Chamos Trouble Skin Solution Magic Powder: Double Layer Acne Product

I've recently found out about the Korean skincare brand, Chamos, and one of the products that intrigued me was the Trouble Skin Solution Magic Powder. As you might guess, I have pimples (don't get me started, now), so any pimple product that claims to do wonders for pimples is definitely something that would be up my alley.


Now there is a Chamos English website based out of Singapore with perfectly gramatical description, but it was the funny Korean translation on the Chamos Korea site that caught my attention - "It is a 2-floor skin trouble product that improves skin troubles instantly". 2-floor skin trouble product? Well, I'm not quite sure exactly what that meant, but sign me up!

Kiehl's Actively Correcting & Beautifying BB Cream: Review, Swatch, and FOTD

Kiehl's has launched a new BB cream - the Actively Correcting & Beautifying BB Cream. While BB creams are no stranger to the market, and are starting to feel to me like a marketing fad that has overstayed its welcome (I've actually previously blogged about how BB creams mis-market themselves), nevertheless, it is good to see that even though I have a "meh" attitude to most of the BB creams on the market, along comes a BB cream that does manage to impress me on multiple counts. And so, I took it upon myself to share it with you guys!

Sleek Showstoppers Palette: Swatches and Review

Yes it is indeed another Sleek Makeup Palette! I love their palettes, so this is a welcome addition to my growing collection of Sleek palettes! This time, the palette is the Showstoppers Palette, and it is indeed an apt homage to all the stunning palettes the UK-based drugstore brand has put out.


The palette is perhaps one of my favourites so far, in terms of colour selection. While some of the earlier Sleek Makeup palettes tended to be rather one-note (e.g. all brights, all neutrals, or almost all dark shades, and so on), I do think Sleek Makeup has gotten better at curating the colours of the palettes they put out. This is definitely a good palette, with multiple colour bases covered - there's everything from sultry purples to lovely browns, to stormy, smokey blues and greys, and even a couple of rust-inspired reddish brown and coral shades. There are also highlight and lid shades to complete the palette. There aren't any neon shades, so excepting that colour family, I think we're mostly covered here.

Laura Mercier Spring Look: I Had a Makeover!

Laura Mercier has launched some exciting products, which are already starting to be pushed out to stores, and the collection features colours that are both artistic yet wearable. I visited the Laura Mercier counter at Tangs Orchard recently to get a makeover, kindly done by the extremely skilled and personable Global Makeup Artist Benjamin Ruiz. And I really liked the results, so I just had to share!

St Patricks Day Nail Art With Glitter!

Remember my failed St Patrick's Day gradient nail art the other day? Since I wasn't totally happy it, I decided to fix it up the way most of us nailphiles do - add on a layer of glitter! Aaaannnd, I think it just got better! Glitter FTW!

Apivita Natural Serum Radiance: Natural Skincare That Works!

Let me introduce you to my newfound skincare BFF - the Apivita Natural Serum Radiance with Bilberry & Vitamin C. I've been trying this out, and now that I'm almost halfway through the bottle, and have has too results, I thought I'd share my thoughts on the product with you guys!

Apivita is a Greek brand emphasizing the use of natural ingredients, and holistic body care - while I'm most interested in skincare products, Apivita has a whole range of products, including haircare and body care, which is really impressive. Apivita has also consistently used natural ingredients that actually work in their products - and although I'm not a particularly big follower o the "natural" trend, I'm still really keen on their products as they perform really well based on standalone evaluation. This makes them, to my mind, far better than those "natural" brands with crappy products that offer only scaremongering as a selling point. In contrast, Apivita's products stand up to scrutiny, whether or not you are a proponent of natural skincare. My previous experiences with Apivita products has been very good, so the efficacy of their ingredients is well borne out by my own personal experience.

Biore Aqua Rich UV Watery Essence Sunscreen: SPF50 Protection thatFeels Light

Biore, one of the Japanese drugstore brands under Kao Corporation (which is also the owner of brands like Curel, Molton Brown, Asience, and Jergens), has just launched a new sunscreen, the Biore Aqua Rich UV Watery Essence. I'm a big sunscreen nut (remember my sunscreen tips post?), and I had heard that this product was a hot seller in Taiwan too, so I was very excited to try this.

St Patrick's Day Gold and Green Gradient Manicure!

St Patrick's Day is coming up, and I always love any excuse to wear green! This time, for my St Patrick's Day nails, I decided to attempt a gradient manicure - sideways!

For this look I used three shades - a darker green, a lighter green, and a gold. The darker green was Etude House Petit Darling Nails GR609, the lighter colour was Nicole by OPI One Time Lime (OMG Yes I actually own a Justin Bieber polish! Well it was on sale and I was in the US on holiday...), and the gold was Collection 2000 (now known as Collection Cosmetics) Aztec Gold (which I really love and have worn before as an NOTD by itself).

Beauty Blog Link Love

Beauty Reflections is in love with these three bright eyeliners from Lancome, Stila and MAC! Perfect brights for spring!

Who doesn't love an awesome beauty find? If this sounds like you (and, seriously, we hope it does), don't miss theNotice's Week of Awesome, which covers only products that Rae is absolutely smitten with.

Phyrra is in LOVE with Virus Insanity Eyeshadows! Check out the beautiful duochromes and holographic sparkles.

Krasey Beauty has got the scoop on the latest from MAC, the Archie's Girls Collection!

Musicalhouses checks out the latest Sleek Lagoon Palette from the Aqua Collection, and it is gorgeous!

Beauty Asia 2013: Highlights and Haul!

Beauty Asia 2013 just happened earlier last week, and it was three days of excitement! Occuring somewhere in the early part of the year, this annual event showcases some of the latest and greatest in beauty. This year, when I went for Beauty Asia 2013, there was a lot of salon equipment for nails, hair, and so on - it was exciting.

There was a lot of highlights this year, featuring all manner of items - from UV protective clothes to hair wax to home sauna systems, so I just zoomed on the ones which interested me the most. First, Hakuhodo brushes. These are the Rolls Royce of makeup brushes, and a brush is not cheap! Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you view it), these weren't available for sale. Instead, these were just demos, which had super soft and dense bristle quality, and no weirdo kinked or bent hairs. Every bristle on the brush was perfect. The company appeared to be looking for a distributor. I hope they come to Singapore soon!



Another of the highlights for me includes Niks Cover Cream, which is a highly pigmented camouflage cream that is meant for covering scars, moles, tattoos, and so on. The amazing thing about it is that it comes in a range of 18 shades, which is pretty cool. I mean - how many concealers do you know which have 18 shades? Cool!


There were also Novalash lash extensions. I'm not big on this area, but from what I can tell, this booth was quite popular. They were apparently doing free demos.


More highlights. This is PureGel, a gel-based nail polish with organic ingredients. The star product being showcased was the base coat. This still requires curing under a UV or LED lamp, though the product is supposed to be better to your nails, and easier to remove.


And, Denman has brought out scented hair brushes! There are various scents - strawberry shortcake, lemon sherbet, wild dewberry, green apple, and so on. It was a bit gimmicky to me, but the idea is that the brush makes your hair smell nice. Ideal if you have skipped a hair washing session, I suppose!


I guess for me as a beauty fanatic who doesn't own a salon or do nails freelance, perhaps the most interesting thing for me was the nail polish! They were cheaper than buying retail, so lots of girls were zeroing in on the nail polish and just buying their fill!


I bought Deborah Lippmann's Ray of Light (OMG! Blurple! OMG! Jelly! OMG! Flakies!) and Across the Universe, which has been a long, long lemming of mine.


I also bought Zoya's Adina (another old lemming), and Faye, which has a gorgeous glass-fleck type duochrome.


I also got China Glaze's Glitz N Pieces, which stunned me in the bottle with its funky glitter! And also some pRecision brand colour called (I think) Sage.


And, and, and, I absolutely HAVE to show you this kit I bought, from Sur Co. Ltd., a Korean company specializing in nail art and nail care items. They had all kinds of cool stuff in their booth, and I was really impressed by it all! But what struck me most was this Nail Transfer Set. They call it "Printing Nail Polish", and the crown jewel of this set is a nail transfer solution, which alllows you to transfer any printed design (printing with laser printer is preferable) onto your nail! Basically, you paint your nail with the transfer solution, and place your desired printed design over the nail, printed side down. You paint another layer of transfer solutiom It's super cool, and I can't wait to try it out!


Anyway, that was my experience at Beauty Asia - fun, entertaining, and eye-opening. Beauty Asia 2014 will probably be occuring in February next year too, so stay tuned for that!