Travel-Friendly Makeup and Skincare: What I Brought for my Holiday

If you've been following me on Instagram or on Twitter, you'll know that I recently went to the north part of Vietnam for a holiday! And I figure that perhaps some of you may want to know what beauty items did I pack along with me for my week-long holiday?

Travel-Friendly Makeup and Skincare: Here's what I packed!

The weather in Vietnam was good, ranging from just above 10 degrees Celsius in the mountainous areas at night, to a good mid-20s degrees Celsius in the city areas during the day. We expected it to rain when we were in the hilly paddy areas of Sa Pa at some point, but it didn't, so that was great! The next thing you know, though, it started snowing (a rare occurrence for that area) once we left the area, so there you go, the weather can be unpredicatable. But for the most part I brought along my usual staples when it came to skincare. And for makeup, it was a mix of usual staples, as well a "cheap stuff that I won't cry over if it gets lost/gets broken/get banged up and that does not suck". So without further ado, here you go!

Olympic-Inspired Eye Look: Gold, Silver, Bronze

So, I've been following the Olympics (who hasn't, right), and I just felt inspired by all the atheletes and the action to do a quick Olympic-inspired eye look! I just decided to go the easy way out and use gold, silver and bronze. Just like the mdeals!

Source
After looking at a few photos of the medals (above), I realized the medals were actually rather dull in colour. Not that the medals themselves are dull, but a lot of the metallic shades I originally thought of using were not quite the same shade as the medals - they were either too flashy-looking, too shimmery, or too orangey, or so on. So I ended up rummaging through my stash to find colours that were similar.

So in the end I used Urban Decay's Maui Wowie for the gold, and the silver and bronze were from the Sleek Glory Palette that I blogged about sometime back. The shades I used were Bakerloo and Jubilee.


My plan was to put Maui Wowie on the outer lid, Jubilee (silver) on the inner lid, really just at the inner corner, and Bakerloo (bronze) on the contour area. That was the theory anyway. In reality, I think the gold and bronze colours got kinda muddied up together, so you can't really see the contrast :( But there are too different colours there, I swear!


But anyway, that's my way of getting some of the Olympic Games fever out of my system! Is anyone else following the Games? What are your favourite sports?

Sleek Eau La La Eyeliner: Swatches, Reviews, and Comparisons

Sleek Makeup has just released their Eau La La Eyeliners, which are pencil eyeliners that promise vibrant, well-pigmented colour, and are touted to be long-lasting as well. I'm always on the lookout for a good and cheap eyeliner, so I was all over this like white on rice. Sign me up, already, will ya?

The Sleek Eau La La Eyeliners come with a really sleek (ha, ha) black casings, and look quite nice. These also have a cap that's really tight - when I opened the caps, I could literally hear a "pop" sound. I guess it's got some sort of airtight seal in the cap? That's usually a good thing, as higher end eyeliners tend to have more airtight caps, to prevent emollient ingredients from evaporating.

This is a wooden pencil, so you'll have to sharpen it. Here's a close up shot of one of the eyeliners (Tonic), to give you a better idea of what the eyeliner nib looks like.



The Eau La La Eyeliners come in a large variety of colours. I have three to show you - Canary Yellow, which is a bright happy sunshine yellow, Tonic, which is a gorgeous shimmery forest green with a metallic finish, and Noir, which is a matte black, pure and simple. You can see the swatches here:



As you might guess, Tonic is my favourite, since it has that gorgeous metallic, bejeweled quality to it. How pretty is that? All three eyeliners were very nicely pigmented, and felt smooth and creamy going on. In terms of pigementation and texture, these actually rival high-end brands with really good eyeliners, such as Urban Decay and MUFE.

So, we know they swatch well. But how do they hold up against other more famous brands when it comes to long-lasting-ness (if there's such a word)? Well, I knew that would be a question you guys would want to know, so I took the trouble to compare these with some of my other favourite eyeliners.



In the photo above, you see the Sleek Eau La La Eyeliners swatched. Next to them, there is Urban Decay's 24/7 Eyeliner in Stash, MUFE's Aqua Eyes Eyeliner in 3L, and GOSH Velvet Touch Eyeliner in Golden Moss. These are three of my favourite eyeliner brands, as I've found them to have the best colour range and quality, both in terms of pigmentation and lasting quality.

In order to test these eyeliners out, I drew the lines on my arm, and let the eyeliners "set" for 5 minutes (although I know in real life wee don't always wait 5 minutes before rubbing our eyes and so on). I then subjected them to three tests: 1. Frantic rubbing with my finger test (you know, like when you rub your eyes really hard), 2. Putting them under a running tap (so like when you wear them to swim), and 3. Rubbing them frantically while putting them under a running tap (so if you rub your eyes underwater, I guess).

So after these three crucial tests, how did all these eyeliners hold up? See for yourself below:



Wow. I have to say, I'm impressed! I'm already familiar with the Urban Decay, MUFE, and GOSH eyeliners, so I knew they would be good (that's why I tested the Sleek ones against these), but the Eau La La Eyeliners really performed just as well too! I think actually the MUFE one did the best, and some of the Sleek ones smudged a little more, but the difference is pretty marginal. I was expecting them to be all wiped off, but they're still there. I guess the only key differernce, thebn, would be how fast these set - so maybe I should repeat the experiment with a shorter waiting time, eh?

Anyway, I love these, and I'd definitely recommend them if you liked the Urban Decay, MUFE, or GOSH eyeliners, since the Sleek Eau La La Eyeliners are pretty similar. For me, I think I've just found another brand of eyeliners I love.

(Sleek product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Metallic Gold EOTD: Evil Shades Morning Star

Ooh, I'm finally stepping out of my comfort zone and wearing metallic shades on my eyes! OMG! What's next? Blue eyeshadow? LOL. Well, this came about because just awhile back I was raving about Evil Shades The Stars eyeshadow collection, particularly the shade Morning Star. I was going on and on about how it looked so cool once it was foiled, and I was just so excited that I had to do an EOTD (eye of the day) to show you guys.

So, ta-da! Here it is. I know it doesn't look like much, but I swear it looks better in real life. Photos seriously don't do this colour justice.



I'll be honest with you guys: being the glitter-phobe that I am, I seldom, if ever, wear glittery eyeshadows, so this was one of the few times I had to experiment with such a glitter-laden eyeshadow. Hence the fallout, so please pardon my newbie attempt! That said, I really love the shiny, sheen-y, shimmery effect this gave. Everytime the light hits my eyes from a different angle, I get all excited! It really does look much more vibrant and alive in real life...the photos just kind of flatten out the colour.



I paired Morning Star with Urban Decay's Twice Baked eyeshadow, a warm brown, because I'm boring like that, and it seemed like a sensible choice. I love Twice Baked, It's got some hint of shimmer, but not too much. I feel like it seems more of a matter to me than a true shimmer. It's awesome for pairing with zingy colours and for giving the eye a little bit more of a contour.

And another photo with my eye in this really weird angle. It was one of my failed attempts at capturing the complexity and blingy-ness of this colour.



Here's the breakdown for anyone interested:
Evil Shades Ice Star (applied dry for a highlight)
Evil Shades Morning Star (applied damp on lid)
Urban Decay Twice Baked in crease
Urban Decay Bourbon 24/7 Pencil Liner
Rimmel Lash Accelerator Mascara

I hope I did a good job at capturing the colour, and at not getting fallout all over my undereye and lashes!

(Evil Shades product was sent to me for review. Review is my honest and complete opinion. I am not affiliated with the company.)

MAC Coco Pigment and Urban Decay Eyeshadow: Dupes or Not?

If you love makeup as much as I do, you will probably have heard of the legendary MAC Coco pigment. It was released once as a limited edition shade in May 2005 (that's five whopping years ago!), promptly sold out, and was never released again. Right now, if you can find any, it goes for handsome amounts on Ebay and other scalper sites. It was hailed as the perfect complex taupey neutral, that looks good on almost every skintone. And it's runaway popularity and success was all the more impressive because it happened in the days when beauty blogging was still wearing pampers, so there weren't any bloggers to toot its horn and post photos (there were online forums, though).

Anyway, awhile back, I managed to get my hands on a small sample of the notorious Coco pigment. And while I cradled my precious in my hands, I couldn't help buy notice one thing: beautiful as it was (hello complex taupe!), it looked familiar. Eerily familiar. Like, don't-I-already-have-a-similar-colour-in-my-stash familiar.

Excited at this awesome possibility that Coco pigment might have a dupe, I went to my stash to dig out all my eyeshadows, and found the potential dupe - the humble and totally underrated Urban Decay eyeshadow in YDK.

Here they are in their containers. Similar, no?



L-R: Mac Coco Pigment (in sample jar), Urban Decay YDK

But of course, the million-dollar question is, how are they swatched? So here you go:



L-R: Urban Decay YDK, Mac Coco

There you go! I do think they are dupes, or at least on my skin they are. I think one might be a tad browner than the other, but I honestly think that if you already have YDK, and you pay insane amounts for MAC's Coco, you're going to be disappointed that you paid for something you already have a dupe for.

On me, they're virtually identical. It may vary on other people, as to some extent what passes for a dupe is partly dependent on your skintone. Not so much for nail polish, but more so for makeup products. Still, I think UD's (Urban Decay) YDK is going to satisfy a lot of lemmings for MAC's Coco.

Which might make some of us wonder - if MAC's Coco pigment was all that and a bag of chips, why isn't UD's YDK taking over the world and being sold out at Sephoras and other makeup stores all across the world? It could be that MAC has that hardcore fanatic fanbase that makes every LE item a must-have while UD doesn't, or it could be that Coco was such a long time ago that people forget they ever wanted it and have moved on to other things. I guess this just shows that some makeup products are just totally underrated. And UD YDK is one of them.

Anyway, to sum up my post - both colours are TEH AWESOMEZ, like SRSLY. LOL. No seriously - it's hard to fine such a complex taupe. It's taupe, sure but they have hints of other colours - bronze, plum, champagne, purple, brown - that make it so unique, and so universally flattering. And also, that if you missed the boat on Coco pigment, you can still catch the YDK one.