Amongst the goodies my sister brought back from Taiwan was this little blue tube of Mascara, "Kiss Me Goodlash Power Beam Eyes."  The packaging tauted that it was waterproof AND smudgeproof.  Smudgeproof you claim?  We've heard that claim before countless times.

Now.. I really DO need smdugeproof mascara because well.. I have the really awful habit of rubbing my eyes.  So of course I was curious to see if this little blue tube was really smudgeproof.

The first time I put it on, I thought, wow.. OK, this lash offers pretty darn good lash separation and extension, but lacks a little in volume.  A whole day later, I was happy that black smudges were no where to be found.  Then, I tried to remove it.  Now, I'm no stranger to waterproof mascara, and from my previous experiences, it's best to remove mascara with an oil cleanser.  So I used my trusty DHC Olive Oil Cleanser, and guess what?  Kiss Me did not budge at all.  I splashed more water on it and tried to smudge it off, but it was truly smudgeproof!!!!  Oddly enough, Shu Uemera's High Performance Balancing Cleansing Oil Fresh takes the mascara right off.

Anyhow..

• Drama - 9/10 - This baby offers seriously long and curled lashes.  It offers some volume, but it mainly separates and lenghtens.
• Stay Factor - 10/10 - like I've already raved above, this baby stays put.  NO smudging whatsoever.  I wear this to work, work in a heated uber humid room (my company decided that water baths are the best technology for PCR.. when infact, water baths have gone out of fashion since oh I don't know.. 1995?), then go to the gym where I sweat for an hour, and guess what?  NO SMUDGES!
• Ease of Application - 8/10 - the wand is curved, so it reaches all your lashes quite easily.  It does curl my lashes though, and my lashes always ends up hitting my eyelids.  But overall, it's really easy to achieve great lashes with this.
• Ease of Removal - 6/10 - this is SERIOUSLY hard to remove.  It will not budge with most cleansers or wipes.  BUT, it doesn't smudge off during the night either so...

 

Overall, I CAN KISS THIS BABY THOUSAND TIMES, KISS ME GOODLASH POWERBEAM EYES!!

So I tried to take some pix of it, but I don't think the camera captured how well it lenghtens my lashes.  So I tried again, this time pressing that flower button, and the pictures came out better.

No mascara

With make up and black eyeliner

This btw, is AFTER I went to the gym and had used a wipe to remove my eye makeup.  Look at the curl!  You can click on these to enlarge.

So now are you convinced to get it?  If so, it's available at Sasa.com for $9.70.  That's about the price of a L'oreal or Max Factor mascara, as well as Lash Blast from Covergirl.  But the results?  It's worth a lot more than $9.70.

 

I'm baking cookies prior to heading home, so this post shall be quick and simple.  In the prior post, I had used Majolica Majorca's Lash Gorgeous Wing Mascara in black, and I figured I should do a proper review.

Picture from Ichibankao

When it comes to mascaras, I look for

• Drama - does it voluminize and lengthen well?  Will it curl my lashes or hold the curl?
• Stay Factor - will I be sporting racoon eyes within an hour?  This includes flake/smudge factors
• Ease of Application - is it easy to apply?  Will I get it all over my eyelids?
• Ease of Removal - will I end up with racoon eyes the next morning even after using an oil based remover?

 

The Lash Gorgeous Wing Mascara is a decent mascara, but not one I'll be buying again (not that I bought it myself).

Drama - 6/10.  It does not give my eyes much drama.  It lengthens a tad, but it's barely noticeable, but the lack of volume was so noticeable that my syster made a comment about it.  My lashes are naturally curly, but some mascaras seem to weigh it down.  This one keeps the curl where it is.  The color however, is a glossy black, so it helps draw attention to my eyes.

Stay Factor - 9/10.  It doesn't flake or smudge until about say, 10 hours later.  When it smudges, it's barely noticeable.  You don't get a real racoon eye.  Then again, this is about 10 hours after applying the mascara and nothing else, so my lids were super duper oily, and I was rubbing my eyes to stay awake.

Ease of Application - 7/10.  The wand is average size, but somehow I still end up getting some mascara on my lids when I apply it.  But removing it is pretty simple.  Your lashes don't clump as your applying it, which makes life slightly easier.

Ease of Removal - 10/10 - Removes easily with an oil base remover.  No problems there!

Here's a close up sideway view of my eye so you can see my lashes.  Click on the pictures to enlarge.  My eyes are red from a lack of sleep (which is also why I don't post as much FOTDs as I'd like.. my eyes are always red and puffy from a lack of sleep).

Alrighty, my cookies should have cooled by now.  I have to remove it so I can bake another batch.  I don't have an actual cookie sheet, so I'm using my pizza tray, which only holds about 10 cookies at a time.  =D  Have a great Christmas!

 

Earlier I wrote about how I'm using Lavshuca's Color Select Pk-2 for my Holiday look this year.  On Sunday, I had a chance to do a light "day" time look for my mom's birthday dinner.  Well, at first there was no plan to go out to dinner since her birthday is so close to Christmas, but on the actual day of her birthday, all of us kids forgot to call her to wish her Happy Birthday.  That's not the worst part.  My dad, being extremely busy and stressed from work, forgot too!  So my mom calls my dad, reminding him that this wasn't the first time he's forgotten about her birthday, and in return, my dad calls my sister, and gives an order to do something!  The something ended up being dinner at a local Chinese restaurant, and well um.. my mom didn't show up.

She called in sick.

BUT, not wanting to waste a chance of getting dolled up and eating good food, my sisters decided we should still go eat to celebrate my mom's birthday without her.  *roll eyes*

Anyhow.. here are the ingredients I used for the overall look.  Note that I forgot to add primer.  Half of the time, I forget to apply primer before applying foundation.  But the NARS Oil-Free Foundation wears so well that you don't necessarily need a primer.  I'm also breaking out, so note the Neutrogena Skin Clearing Concealer in Green.  That baby really helps to cover up the red, but it is green, so you want to apply this underneath your foundation.

In the end, I ended up with this.

With Flash

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Without Flash

Close ups of eyes

The color is more vibrant in person.  I'm a retard when it comes to my digicam, so I can't seem to capture the color.  The lighting is better in the morning too, since my bathroom lighting kinda sucks.  Plus I really need to trim my fringes/bangs.  I love saying fringes since it's the way British gals say it.  Just like how they call blush blushers.  It just sounds so much sexier.

 

Here's a picture of the haul my sister got from Taiwan for me.  As I've said before in another post, somewhat offhand, is that in Taiwan, you can find pretty much all Japanese brand cosmetics at a lower price due to the currency conversion rate.  The New Taiwan Dollar (NT) is weaker than the Yen, so you definitely get a steal if you're visiting Taiwan.  If you live in Taiwan and earn Taiwanese work wages, then it's a whole different story.

Here's a picture I took after I dumped everything on my mom's bed.  I wanted to take more pix before I open anything, but my camera died after this one shot.  I'm such a doofus, I know.

Click for full size picture

Some obvious items include Lavshuca eyeshadow palettes, MJ eyeshadow palettes, and mascara.  That blue package is from Kiss Me, which I'm thinkng is the same brand as those Heroine mascaras, but I can't find it online anywhere.  I've been searching and searching so when I review it, people outside Asia can actually get it, but my searches has been fruitless.

I think my sister spent about $100 USD for all these.  I've only opened the blue Kiss Me mascara, the Susie NY powder on the bottom, and the MJ mascara (which I have to figure out which one it is before I review).  I've also tried that small eyelash curler on the right top corner, but I'm the worst person to review eyelash curlers.  I've also taken that pink Lavshuca Color Select palette to be my X-mas 2008 palette.  It is so pretty!

Oh.. my sister went to various drugstores like Watson and Sasa to buy all of these.  She didn't bother going to department stores for any high end Japanese brands since she figured that this haul was more than enough.  Little does she know, I could have bought so so so much more.

Lavshuca is a Japanese drugstore brand that's sold throughout Asia.  I first heard about them through PJ at A Touch of Blusher last holiday season, where I proceeded to hunt down their 2007 Holiday palette.  I ended up finding it on AdamBeauty.com, which is a Hong Kong based website that sells all your favorite Japanese brands, and to this day, I haven't used the palette yet.

I have however, acquired a lot of other items from Lavshuca, and one of them is their Eye Color Select palette in PU-2.  The Eye Color Selects contain 4 pots of colors, and the pots form this pretty multi color heart shaped flower.  The PU-2 contains a light lavendar, a dark purple, a light champagne, and a brownish taupe that contains tons of shimmer.  As with most Japanese eyeshadow palettes, Lavshuca will print a diagram showing you exactly where to place each color.  I have since discarded the packaging that held the diagram because what's the fun in doing the expected?  Sure, you are guaranteed results if you follow the printed diagram, but isn't life, and subsequently make up, all about risks?

So do what I do and play around with all 4 colors!  Put them anywhere and everywhere!  Use the dark purple as a eyeliner, or use it for your crease!  Use the dark taupe as an all over color!  Use the light purple to highlight!  Apply the champagne over the brownish taupe and blend!

Oh, speaking of blending and flaking and all other pertinent things that you probably want to know before buying, Lavshuca's eyeshadows blend extremely easily.  The colors are all quite pigmented and finely milled, so the quality is more like Urban Decay vs Wet n Wild.  It could be applied for a sheer finish, but the pigments are easily buildable.  The giant shimmer/glitter particles do fall off and land on your cheeks, so take care when you use it.  The crease factor is quite low, even without a primer.

And how do you say the brand name?  My sister and I figured that Lavshuca is a very Japanese way of saying "Love Sugar".  I think my sister was imagining her old Japanese teacher from high school talking when she thought of it, and I agree with her.  Afterall, the logo of the brand is a heart, so LOVE must be somehow related to the brand, right?  *wink*