Category Archives: Favourites

Trigger-Happy Thursdays: Seeing Double!

Hello lovelies! It’s nearly December now which means my monthly empties post would be put up soon-ish! This month, I have found a few products to be nearing their end as I come so close to using them up. Also, being monthly favourites (or daily staples), a few shopping trips were done where I repurchased some of these favourites.

I thought I’d quickly share them with you today in place of my usual Trigger-Happy Thursdays post where I put up random photos that may not interest some of you. ;) However, I do post photos on a daily basis via my Instagram account here so feel free to check them out and follow me if you like! =D

Kicking off today’s post is a gift from my fellow #soulmate Steph who needs no introduction. Lovely Stephanie sent me a parcel filled with goodies when I was still in the UK and this was one of the many items she sent!

 

Cellnique’s Soothing and Hydrating Lotion which I reviewed earlier here. Close to 4 months later I used up every single drop of this and I liked it so much that I bugged Mum to get me another! =D This costs RM79 so it doesn’t do too much damage to the wallet. I’m actually tempted to try Melvita’s Floral Waters but I liked this so much that I just had to repurchase it. ;)

 

 

Shiseido’s Perfect UV Protector is a product I swear by. I am currently in the process of using up my third bottle and moving on to the fourth. Having used this since early this year (February/March), this is the best sunscreen I have used up to now and I have been through many sunscreens from various brands as my skin cannot live without it. I will not go on and rave about this product as I can go on and on all day. If you haven’t tried this, please give it a go!

 

 

Ah, an old favourite: L’occitane’s Lavender Vinegar. I am coming to the end of my second last bottle and I am incredibly nervous about using the final bottle up! This product has been discontinued and I will be sad to see this leave my table for good. :’( This works on the odd breakout but did not do anything for the severe breakout my skin went through. Still, it smells lovely – if you like the scent of lavender, that is. =D

The only mascara that doesn’t harm / irritate my eyes to date: Shiseido’s Perfect Mascara Defining Volume. I still have quite a bit left in my old tube but thought I should purchase a spare ‘just in case.’ This stuff rocks my boat: minimal next to no smudges at all, holds the curl and lasts all day. Only gripe? It can be a bit of a pain to remove. Without this lovely mascara I doubt I can ever bring myself to even curl my lashes, what more apply mascara.

Another staple! My all-time favourite hand sanitiser. Ever. I’m typing this and wondering why I do I sound like a bimbo. Anyway, I think it’s due to the fact that these are products I love so much and I can’t stop gushing about them like a child so bear with me, lovelies! The L’occitane Lavender Hand Purifying Gel smells heavenly and is non-drying. Most hand sanitisers I’ve used smell so strongly of alcohol and my hands feel taut and dry after use but this one doesn’t. Mum and I were once stuck in a place that smelt of smoke and she asked for a squirt of this for her to ‘breathe properly.’ Haha! I’m doing my best to squeeze the very last bits out before I move on to my spanking new tube. Before you think this costs loads and would not last very long, allow me to point out that I have used this close to a year with near daily use. I also share this with friends and family before we tuck into meals so it has gone a very long way for me.

 

These are the products I have repurchased this month and it’s quite an achievement for the fickle me who likes trying out new items! Have you repurchased anything this month? ;)

 

Rediscovering Favourites! Benefit’s Coralista and Laura Mercier’s Secret Camouflage

In my quest for an industrial-strength undereye concealer, I stumbled upon two forgotten products: Benefit’s Coralista and Laura Mercier’s Secret Camouflage in SC-2!

 

 

 

Coralista and Secret Camouflage were the amongst the first makeup products I bought with them being the first products in their respective categories!

Coralista was discovered in Westfield White City’s John Lewis where the enthusiastic Sales Assistant happily gave the then bare-faced me a quick makeover and convinced me into getting this blush as she said it’s the only product I should get before leaving the counter. The boyfriend gave his stamp of approval and was very encouraging so I happily walked away with my first up purchase – a blush! I purchased this in November 2010.

So in my makeup journey, Coralista was discovered before I started this whole beauty blogging craze although I have been following a few beauty blogs namely Paris B’s and Charlotte’s but I only started looking up the said product after I purchased it and was chuffed that it’s a much raved about blush! *beams*

Fast forward January 2011. I remember it being near Chinese New Year and I was suffering from a bad case of breakouts. In comes the amazing Lisa Eldridge who highly recommended the Secret Camouflage so I trudged through the blisteringly chilly winter wind and stepped into my local Fenwick outlet and walked out with this product.

Then, I did not suffer from the eye sack syndrome so concealing my undereye area was never top priority. Using a brush, the Secret Camouflage magically erases every single blemish. However, I had a problem. I had blending issues. Personally, I think I am a tad colour blind as I always had trouble mixing shades during art class back in school especially when the teacher gets us to paint the sky in different shades. My masterpiece would have the sky in a monotone. Baby blue. Art has never been a forte of mine and that’s why I put off wearing makeup for the longest time ever.

Secret Camouflage houses two shades, one yellow based and the other pink / salmony which is great for getting your perfect shade. Only if you are good at it. I never was good at it but as I was concealing tiny blemishes I used to get away with it just by using a lip brush and swiping each colour three times on each side of the brush before blending it on the back of my hand and finally tapping the brush on the offensive zit.

Phew that was lengthy. I shall re-write it then. And number them because I find numbered instructions a lot easier to follow.

1. Take lip brush.

2. Swipe the brush thrice on each shade, using different sides of the brush.

3. Blend on the back of your hand. This warms the concealer up slightly as it’s rather solid.

4. Tap lightly on the blemish.

 

Once applied, the concealer does not budge. Which is great! Then there are a lot of reviews online that mention that this concealer is too drying to use on the undereye area so I never saw the Secret Camouflage as an undereye concealer until… One fateful day.

 

 

 

Fast forward a good year and a half later, I would like to think that my makeup application skills have vastly improved and that I’m less of a germaphobe. :p I have never touched the Secret Camouflage with my bare fingers so it has been fairly clean as only clean brushes are used and I never dip a used brush into my products as I’m fussy like that.

I’m sure in all of my recent FOTDs all of you would have noticed those gargantuan eye sacks and I have not been able to conceal them as much as I would like to. I thought I found something relatively good in MAC’s Studio Sculpt Concealer but unfortunately my skin decided to react to it and was rewarded with bumps under my eyes. Thank you, reactive skin.

That fateful day came two days ago when I was going through my little drawer of long-forgotten goodies on my dresser and out came Secret Camouflage! I stared long and hard at the surface of the SC-2 (to make sure there’s no mould / fungus / shrooms growing on it) before whipping my concealer brush out. Just before the brush sweeped the near-pristine condition of this eye saver, the devil in me decided to use my bare fingers.

Germaphobes, look away. Shut the browser. For what I will be revealing is going to be nasty.

I did not only swipe my finger across the product. I gently rubbed my ring finger onto the product in small circular motions before transferring the stained finger onto the back of my hand and rubbed further to really warm the product up. I started with the yellow base. Then, I got my middle finger out and did the same with the salmony shade.

Both shades have been blended on the back on my hand, I pick up some of the pinkish-beigish mixture with my ring finger and gently dabbed it under my eye sacks. Not immediately under my eyes but under the eye sacks where the shadows are.

The effect stunned me. Where did the sack go?

No caking, no this did not emphasise the lines under my eyes and no, I did not find this drying at all.

I think the Secret to using this Camouflage is to really warm the product up because it’s a really hard concealer. The minute you successfully warm it up (try doing what I did with my fingers) it works so well. It goes on really creamy and blends right into your skin. Best bit? This doesn’t dry your skin out and just erases whatever imperfections you have.

Now onto the not so good. This conceals but does not brighten so you will need a undereye highlighter to give you that bright-eyed look. For me, concealing my sacks takes on highest priority so I’m more than happy to pronounce this my industrial-strength undereye concealer as it makes the sacks disappear. Right before my eyes.

I need to experiment more with the blending of the colours (am not artsy-fartsy, remember) before I provide you lovely readers with a FOTD sans eye sacks *fingers crossed* but for now, I happily announce that old can sometimes be gold and I am so happy I rediscovered a favourite and found an additional use for it!

Oh dear, this is becoming more of a review than anything else! :s

Back to Coralista! =D

What else can I say? Pigmented, smells nice and easy to wear and I happily wore this everyday for a long time until other blushes took over. I rediscovered this when I came back to the UK and have been wearing it nearly everyday and even featured it in some FOTDs. =)

So there you have it, me rediscovering oldies! Should you want a thorough review of either product please let me know in the comments and I’ll get straight to it! Other than that, have you been rediscovering old favourites yourself? Do share them with us!

Have a lovely weekend, lovelies!