Semi-Precious

AC needs to stop coming out with limited edition products. I'm a HUGE sucker for them.

Even after my ginormous haul at my work's beauty sale I still couldn't resist getting some makeup from MAC's Semi Precious Collection. I wanted absolutely everything. I know Christine from Temptalia wasn't that impressed with this collection, but I quite liked everything. Mind you, I still have to try it out for myself... I'll do that tomorrow.

I picked up 3 things. I could have picked up more, but I couldn't do it. However, I REALLY want to check out the blush from this collection as well as a few lipsticks and lip glosses. Yikes!

I picked up 3 eye shadows. Aren't they just gorgeous?

I got Faux Gold (A mix of coral, gold, bronze. When mixed looks like a gold-ish copper colour; Unsurpassable (A mix of green, teal, silver, copper, purple. When mixed looks like a silvery green; and Clarity (A mix of light pink, white, gray, gold, blue, and black. When mixed looks like a charcoal gray with green shimmer).

Here they are in the pan.

I did a quick swatch on my hand. I didn't use a primer. Clarity and Unsurpassable goes on a little sheer and there's a lot of glitter particles. Also, I can see it having a huge fall-out problem when I apply it on my lid. HOWEVER, I want to use these 2 colours as my inner 1/3 colour so I didn't want it to be super pigmented. One of my all-time favourite inner 1/3 colour is NARS' Nouveau Monde Duo eyeshadow palette (from the 2011 Spring Collection). More specifically, the silver-y purple side of the duo. Clarity and Unsurpassable reminded me of that type of colour. That's why I got it.

Faux Gold is super smooth in texture and is probably the most pigmented out of the 3. I loved this colour because I saw the model wearing this on the promo. I can't wait to try this one.

I tried it wet very quickly. You can see it on the top swatch. You can see it's a little more pigmented. I did try a swatch of it over my MAC Soft Ochre Paint Pot and the colour was much more vibrant. I definitely recommend using a base of some sort to make the eye shadows stand out. I would also pat the colour on the lid instead of dragging your brush back-and-forth to prevent huge fall-out.

I think I'm going to go back tomorrow and check out the Golden Gaze and the Rose Quartz MSF. I would also like to try Pure Magnificence Cremesheen Glass and Gem of Pink lipstick.

On another note, I tweeted last week that I got a whole bunch of stuff at my work's beauty sale. I brought home the stuff in batches because I got so much stuff. I just wanted to give you a sneak peek at what I got. This is minus the Keurig coffee maker that I also got for $35! Regular was over $150!

Excuse my gross-looking bathroom floor. I don't know why it looks like that on camera. It's actually pretty clean.

I'm too tired to post what I got at the beauty sale, but I took some pictures of some of my favourite things that I got. I will try to post it tomorrow or in the next few days. Stay tuned!

MAC's Wonder Woman Collection

AC's Wonder Woman Collection dropped today and I put a reminder in my calendar to go check it out at lunch time. I've been checking out all the beauty blogs prior to this to see how each items rated and I was most curious to check out the blusher, Mighty Aphrodite. It's already sold out on the MAC website and I can see why. It's a great blush! I was also interested in the lipstick Marquise d' and the lipglass Emancipation, but then when I swatched it the lipstick was a lot sheerer than I thought. Plus, I have so many colours similar to that in my collection. I'm still debating whether to go back and get it. We shall see! As for the lipglass I thought the colour Emancipation was nice, but I hated the toy-like quality of the lipglass. If you have seen the lipglass in person then you will understand why. It's humungous- almost double the size of a regular lipglass and the wand was really hard to pull out. Temptalia was saying how because the wand was getting caught in the tube she had to yank it out and then the lip product splattered all over her. Of course I had to see it for myself and she was right!

The last item that I was curious about was the Mineralize Skin Finish in Pink Power. However, the top and bottom colour came out pretty sheer on my hand when I swatched it and I'm not much of a bronzer person. So I ended up just getting 1 thing from the collection.

Here's the box that my blusher came in. I think it's cute, but I know some people will think it looks tacky... I never watched Wonder Woman growing up so I didn't buy it for the sake of being nostalgic.

The inside of the box has a star pattern.

Here is the blusher. It's made of plastic and is very retro looking. I don't mind it. Looks more like a toy than makeup. I think those of you who love Chanel, Guerlain, and Dior will probably not like the look of this.

The rim on the inside of the compact is gold. The blusher has 2 shades. The larger (top) colour is a pink, coral colour with gold shimmer. I've heard it is very similar to NARS' Deep Throat. I have NARS' Deep Throat and I don't particularly like that blush. I find it's a little too shimmery and peachy for my skin tone. But this one is more on the pinkish side. The smaller (bottom) colour is a more vibrant pink than the other one. It has a bit of shimmer on the compact, but when swatched it's not as apparent as the top colour. Both these colours have a little bit of duo tone to them. They feel silky smooth to the touch.

Here is the back of the compact. It is 0.38 oz. The MAC website says these blushes are 0.43 oz... Not sure what happened there. Did I get ripped of?!

Anyways, regular MAC blushers are 0.21 oz so you are getting more for this, but you are also paying more. I paid $29CAD for this blush.

Here's a swatch on my finger.

Here is a swatch on the back of my hand. It's a lot sheerer than on my fingers.

Beauty + clothing haul

esterday I went to the mall to use a Club Monaco gift certificate that I had gotten for Christmas. I wanted to wait until all the new collection came in. However, as usual, I got sidetracked and bought a lot more than I had bargained for. I wanted to see if MAC had the Caviar Dreams palette from the Cham Pale Collection (they did not) because Ms. Molly Lolli Pop was raving about it in her YouTube video. So I ended buying other stuff at MAC.

I bought the pro palette for eyeshadows. I already have a UNII palette, but my white one was getting sooooo dirty. I just liked the sleek, clean look of this palette.

Here's all the MAC eyeshadows I have accumulated so far. I don't have a lot, but I really like the ones I have so far. From left to right, top to bottom: Vanilla, All That Glitters, Texture, Satin Taupe, Woodwinked, Mulch, Twinks, Smut, Sketch, Beauty Marked, Sumptuous Olive, Stars 'N' Rockets.

I finally got a concealer! I got colour matched to NW25. I thought I would be an NC since a lot of Asian girls are NC's... However, the colour matched me perfectly.

I got the Studio Finish Concealer.

I also dropped by Sephora to pick up more samples of Nars Sheer Glow. I still haven't found my colour. I tried so many that I've lost count. I'm pretty sure I already tried one of these already, but I forgot. Doh!

I got my first NARS Duo Eyeshadow palette. It's from the 2011 spring collection and it's called Nouveau Monde.

Although I loved it when I swatched it in the store (even Chef Caffy on Twitter told me she loved it. She's a huge NARS fan), I'm still not sure if I should keep it. The reason being that I just ordered a bunch of eyeshadows from Rock & Republic and I'm thinking that one of the colours is going to be similar to the purple one. I'm going to hold off on using this palette until that order comes and decide then. Nars eyeshadows aren't cheap so I want to be sure it's worth it to keep. I also wanted NARS' Charade so if I return this one I'll get that one for sure!

And now onto my Club Monaco haul. I wasn't able to find anything in the new collection that I loved.

I know it's hard to see here because the jacket is black, but I've been wanting this jacket since Christmas. It was on sale then for $79, but it got marked down even further to $49! How could I pass it up?!

The jacket is beautiful because it looks like a cropped tuxedo jacket, but is super comfortable. It's not made from a stiff material like most jackets are. It's 100% silk. It also has shoulder pads so my shoulders look really structured, but not over-the-top like the 80s shoulder pads.

See? It's ridiculous. It was $229 regular. I never buy anything regular price at Club Monaco because I find that their sales are crazy. It goes to show you that they mark up their clothes like crazy.

Last, but not least, I stopped by Hugo Boss to looks for something for the husband. I know Valentine's Day is fast approaching and I decided that I wanted to get him something nice. I originally wanted to get him a winter jacket, but I couldn't find any that I liked. My husband is the type of guy that never buys anything for himself. I felt he deserved it.

I bought him a beautiful purple (it's actually coming out more of a bluish purple in these pics, but it's actually more of a pinkish purple) checkered dress shirt & tie for work. Did you know that I love picking out men's shirts and ties? I love finding the perfect colour/pattern combination. I picked this out because he doesn't have a shirt like this in his closet. Most of his shirts are solids or stripes. I felt that this was so different and on trend for this year. Plus, the collars are a bit different. It buttons up more wide than the classic ones. The tie is also a slimmer tie than the classic ties. It's a beautiful dark blue with white polka dots on it.

Dr. Jart BB Cream and my foundation journey

nd this is what my face looks like with Dr. Jart's Silver Label BB Cream. All I did was dot a tiny amount of BB cream all over my face and blended it out with my hands. I dotted more in areas where I needed more coverage. Lately I'm suffering from major acne (I don't know why!) so you can see how well this BB Cream does in covering imperfections. I thought it was going to be too light on my face, but it wasn't that bad. Plus, I set the BB Cream with MAC's Mineralize Skin Finish in Natural Plus. All in all, I'm really liking this. I have combination skin and my T-Zone gets really oily, but it's doing pretty well so far!

My holy grail foundation is Revlon's ColorStay Foundation in Fresh Beige (for winter) and Medium Beige (for summer). The colour Fresh Beige is supposed to be darker than Medium Beige, but for some reason it looks lighter on my skin. Weird. I use the Combination/Oily Skin formula. I have tried many foundations and none can compare to the staying power of this foundation. I work really long hours and this foundation stays put without feeling oily. Well, it does get a little oily when I work 12 hour days... I was recently given Chanel's Vitalumiere Aqua to try from my co-worker because she's a Chanel addict, but I found that it's just okay. It feels really nice on my skin after applying it, but I find that it doesn't 'stick' to my face. It feels like it's just sitting on top of my skin. That's why I feel very oily when wearing this foundation. It's weird because it's supposed to do the complete opposite. It's a water-based foundation so it's supposed to feel really light and non-greasy on your face. Oh well. Plus, the coverage is very sheer and I tend to like foundations with a better coverage. Then, I tried Guerlain's Parure Gold foundation (I also have the Lingerie de Peau one). The coverage is good, but I think the colour I got is too dark on my winter skin. Plus, it looks REALLY dewy. I tend to like more matte foundations. I have so much more in my makeup collection (the new Lancome foundation- Teint Miracle, DiorSkin Nude cream foundation, Dior Capture Totale Foundation, another DiorSkin Nude Natural Glow Hydrating Makeup liquid foundation, but I don't want to try it until I've gone through the ones I've opened so far. I have tried samples of NARS Sheer Glow foundation, but I'm having a hard time finding my shade. I've tried Ceylan (too light and yellow) and Barcelona (too dark). I can't remember if I tried Punjab...

I liked Makeup Forever's HD foundation, but again, I'm not sure if I should be changing foundations if I already like the Revlon one... Can somebody explain that to me? Why am I always on the search for a better foundation when the one I use works??? And it's cheap?!