Well.. not in the environmental sense..

But tomorrow I will wear green eyeshadow!  But Lillian (the coworker) wants a light green that's not too pastel, like an old fashion dress type of green.  Yea, I don't get it either.  So I found 2 of my light green eyeshadows and I'm having her decide.

I also got a bit crazy with photoshop so er, yea..

So tell me what you guys think?

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.

 

I've set my eyes on Lavshuca's Color Select Palette in PK-2 to be the palette for this holiday.  The soft shimmers along with the gorgeous pink and grayish purple just screams winter and Christmas to me.

I first used it to create this smoky eye look for my company's holiday party.  I was completely rushed getting ready for the party, so I didn't get to take proper pictures before heading out.  At the party I didn't take that many pictures of myself, and by the time I did get around to taking pictures, I was a tad tipsy.  So really, I apologize for the redness and er, out of focused eyes.  Next to me is my friend L

Here, I had used the gray liner shade on my outer crease to get the smoky look.  Since it was dark (in person when bright flash isn't going off), I defined my eye shape with black liquid liner from Urban Decay.  Ugh, I looked so bloated here.  Please note, I only slept about an hour before I went to the party with an open bar.

I'm going to TRY to remember what else I had used.

For sure I used my Nars Oil-Free Foundation in Santa Fe, Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage to cover my pimples and dark circles, Susie NY Jewel On Multi Powder as highlighter, Urban Decay Primer Potion, some sort of bronzer, and false lashes from Laura Mercier.  I want to say I skipped blush that night since I figured my cheeks would be uber red from alcohol, but I may have went ahead and dusted on Orgasm.

Anyhow.. Here's the night look I created with Lavshuca's Color Select in PK-2.  I used the same palette to create a day time appropriate look, which I'll show tomorrow.  I wasn't so rushed, so I took some proper pictures before heading out, and I even photographed the items I used so I remember exactly what I used.

Oh.  If you want to purchase this outside of Asia, AdamBeauty.com sells it for 115 HKD, which equals to about $14.83 USD, and Ichibankao sells it for $24.00, which includes the shipping.

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.

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Taiwanese actress and model Lin Chi-ling poses as she arrives to attend the screening of US director Steven Soderbergh's film 'Che' at the 61st Cannes... Nothing to do with post except she's Taiwanese and gorgeous!

Sorry for the lack of posts this past week.  I ended up going to my parent's house on both Tuesday and Wednesday, which resulted in severe lack of sleep due to major noise distractions.  Oh yea, I sleep in the middle of the day and work at night, so with the dog barking and the mom playing puzzle games that pings and pongs on the computer, sleep does not come often.  Plus, everytime I go home, I just want to talk and spend time with my mom and sister!  Then my wrists, knuckles, forearm, and back started cramping/spazzing from work, so I took muscle relaxers to help with the pain.  That stuff knocks you out cold.  5 minutes after I wondered into work and my supervisor asked me if I wanted to take a nap upstairs before I work.

BUT, I do have so much things to write about and take pictures.

I'm going to my company's Holiday party tonight, so I'll be doing some simple yet cute Holiday looks.  One of them is going to be a purple/pink look inspired by Ms. Precious, over at Precious and Makeup.  But tonight, I think I'll play with my new Lavshuca palette to get a very light and shimmery pink/white/bluish purple look.

Speaking of a new Lavshuca palette, I have tons of new makeup, and thus reviews coming up, from Taiwan!  Taiwan carries most makeup that's produced solely for the Japanese market.  All the drugstore brands by Kanebo and Shiseido?  It's all available from Taiwan.  So what did this gal instruct her sister to do when she visited Taiwan?  Yep, to get anything and everything I might ever like.  Lavshuca palettes, Majolica Majorca mascaras, Kiss Me mascaras, highlighters, and I don't know what else!

Lastly, I'm going to try to do a hair tutorial.  I was trying to curl my hair with my flat iron today, and while I managed to get some nice curls on the left side of my head, I could not get my hair to curl on my right!  In the heat of frustration, I did something, which resulted in gorgeous big hair that's uber sexy.  Plus it was SO easy!  Think of Sexy-just-got-out-of-bed-and-I-look-gorgeous type of va-va-voom hair that you can get in less than 5 minutes.  This however, might have to wait until next weekend or even next next weekend, since I'm going to need time to record and edit a video.  Sorry, but I myself find written tutorials for hair too difficult, and taking pictures with 1 hand while holidng a piece of burning metal 1/2 an inch from my scalp with my other hand is simply not an option.

Toodles for now.  I'm going to try to nap a tad before the Holiday party!

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*