Stuff I've Used Up: Skincare, Nails, Makeup Empties!

Hooray! I've used up more stuff, since my last "I actually use up my beauty products" post. I don't know what it is about being a beauty junkie and a beauty blogger, but it's safe to say that over my more than 5 years of beauty-junkie-ness, I've accumulated more beauty product than I can ever use up in a lifetime. But every now and then I hit pan on things, and I just have to crow about it - because, you know, I actually use things up! (First world problems, I know. It's a little embarrassing, to be honest.) This round, I've accumulated quite a few empties, so I thought it's time I do a collective post for all of them!

Look at all these empties!

Yup, that's quite a few empties right there! So without further ado, let me walk you through them, as well as give you my quick one-liner reviews on each item!

Happy Chinese New Year!

Wishing you all a very Happy Year of the Horse! 新年快乐! I don't have any exciting posts for today, so it's just me wishing you all the best! 恭喜发财, 万事如意, and 心想事成!

Happy Chinese New Year! 新年快乐!

In case you're curious what products are in this post (I just randomly assembled a bunch of red nail polishes and lipsticks), the names are after the jump :)

Top 10 Most Popular Blog Posts of 2013, and 3 Honourable Mentions

Now that it's almost the end of 2013, I thought it might be good to do a recap of some of the most popular posts from the year. Some of the results are expected, some were unexpected, meaning that when I wrote them, I didn't think too much about it - it was just a post I threw together that surprisingly did well among my readers.

I've chosen the top 10 by raw number of blogpost views, because it's the simplest way to go about doing things, but I feel like this method invariably leaves out posts that are popular but were written at the end of the year, or posts (like posts on classic topics like skincare, foundation, etc) that may not garner as many initial views, but tend to do very well over a longer period of time. I tend to think of these as "evergreen" versus "trend" posts, e.g. a post on sunscreen, versus, say, a post on MAC's latest collection. But regardless, every method has its flaws or is just too much work, so I'm just going to roll with the raw views. (As an aside, I briefly thought of roughly pro-rating the number of views to length of time post was up, but that seemed quite problematic because the pro-rating wouldn't be linear for all posts, and assigning linear vs non-linear pro-rating would be an on arbitrary basis, and even with pro-rating, it's impossible to predict posts with long viewership tails anyway.)

Alright, without further ado, let's do a quick recap of what you guys read in 2013!

New Blog Design From Ling Yeung Design!

If you haven't realized yet, I have a new jazzed-up blog design! This design is from Ling Yeung Design, whose talent has graced some of the loveliest blog designs I've seen to date - she also designed for Noveau Cheap and Chalkboard Nails among others. Her portfolio includes not just website and online work but also print and design work, so yes she not only has mad coding skillz, she also has a good eye for colour, style and function. I love the colour scheme, the nifty bar at the top, as well as the side bars with the sorted labels! And she's really helpful and easy to deal with, even with the fact that I'm literally halfway around the world from her, and I couldn't be happier with my awesome blog template. I'd absolutely recommend her if you're looking for a web designer (although I think just looking at her portfolio will convince you of her talent - you won't need me to convince you!). So thanks Ling! And I hope you guys love the new design as much as I do!

The Thing About Applying Face Masks When You Have A Guinea Pig

Last weekend, I tried applying a face mask to relax. And I realized that guinea pigs really influence the effectiveness of your face mask. No, really! As you know, I also now have a guinea pig (I introduced him in this post, but he is a lot bigger now). And I realized that before Blondie joined our family, face mask time was spent applying the face mask, relaxing on my bed/in front of my computer/doing my nails/doing whatever relaxing girly solitary activity I felt like doing. I apply the mask, wait, and wash it off. Like so:


But then, after Blondie came, face mask time became an-extra-half-an-hour-to-sit-around-Blondie's-cage-and-pet-him-and-coo-over-him-or-play-with-him-because-he-just-gave-me-that-cute-begging-look time. So now I apply the mask, scuttle over from the bathroom to wherever Blondie is, pet him/play with him/feed him/whatever Blondie wants. And my mask will start melting off because I'm moving around. And then Blondie will pee (it's quite hard to toilet train guinea pigs, so if you do get one, they may or may not be able to learn where to potty - just sayin'!), so I will have to clean up after him. And pet him some more after that (no point scolding him since you can't potty train him anyway). And then the however-long-period-of-time-I-was-supposed-to-leave-the-mask-on-for will be up, and then I will wash off my face mask. But since I just played with/petted/cleaned up after Blondie, my hands probably shouldn't touch my face. So I will go back to the bathroom, give my hands a good cleaning, and then wash off my face mask (which was already starting to drip off my face because like I said, I've been moving around).


So, what's that about guinea pigs influencing the effectiveness of your face mask? You never sit still enough to let it dry if you're attending to them. And you have to be prepared that your face mask will drip off your face while you're doing so. That's all I really wanted to say today. Obviously I have products to review and beauty trends to write about, but sometimes you just gotta take a step back and enjoy the little things. Including cute little guinea pigs! Sorry if you're not an animal person - regular programming will be back with the next post. Promise!

PS - if you want to see what Blondie looks like now, I have photos of him on my Instagram feed. Because you can't keep a guinea pig who is SO SUPER CUTE without posting a few photos of him. Just not possible. (I now understand parents who post copious pictures of their babies online. I try hard not to do that with my guinea pig. He is kinda like the baby of the house now.) But anyway, here is a photo of Blondie (plucked from my Instagram) anyway, because OMGZ LOOK AT THAT CUTENESS!