Today's look, swaps, new stuff etc. [Warning: Long with lots of pictures.]

*Hoping that all our blogger girls in the Philippines are alright & everything gets back to normal as soon as possible.

I've noticed that looks are quite liked ;D, so I'm trying to post more of them. Here's my look for today.

Huge eyes (enhanced ones :-P), peach cheeks, and nude lips ;). [Finally starring Revlon Nude Attitude. Took me a while >:-) - but better late than never :-P.]

This look's product pic is huge - I ended up using so many products that they barely fit onto my Hello Kitty bag. But they're basics & I don't think this is too hard to copy if you are so inclined.

Skin: Barbara Daly for Tesco Moisture Foundation in Porcelain (for the record, I've finished the Oriflame one ;D), Tigi Fixx-It Stick in Light, and Bourjois Mineral Radiance powder in Vanille. I applied powder with my Jemma Kidd kabuki brush this time. And I contoured with the MAC brush & Bourjois Miel Dore powder - a video I've seen recently recommends using a contour colour similar to the shade your eye lids are (they're usually slightly darker than most of the face), and this fits :).

Eyes: I'll write out steps 'cause this was a bit elaborate ;).
*Line the upper waterline with black (Oriflame Retro Chic Kajal pencil - not pictured, I forgot to add it >:-/), and the lower waterline with white (my ridiculously tiny Laurel & Hardy by Oriflame - will be needing a new one soon).
*Use a sheeny pinky peach colour (I used the bottom left from my Markwins palette) all over the lids.
*With a soft dark colour (top row, second from the right, Markwins), draw a fat line just above the crease. It should be visible but not fully when your eyes are open.
*Sort out the line. Make sure its shape is right. (This is why I recommend starting with a soft colour.)
*Once you have the shape you want, go over it with black powder liner (Revlon Bedroom Eyes in Fishnet Jet). If you don't own a powder liner, you can use pigment or eye shadow.
*With a smudge brush (mine's by Sephora, but the brand doesn't matter as long as it works :-P), blend the colours.
*Line the upper lash line with a black gel (if you prefer, you could use a liquid) liner (I used the Jane Be Pure mineral gel liner in black). Make it a thin line with a slight flick that should end about where the thick black powder line does.
*Use a brightening pencil (Wet & Wild Idol Eyes pencil in Pixie) on the inner corners.
*Curl, and apply loads of (black) mascara on all lashes.

Cheeks: Bourjois powder in Miel Dore to contour, Mary Kay blusher in Apricot Breeze as the cheek colour, and the mess I ended up with when the face products section of my Too Faced Love Lisa Beauty Battle Box palette smashed on me (lol) as a highlighter :-P.

Lips: Revlon Matte lipstick in Nude Attitude.

More pictures...

I never have a 'normal' expression, do I >:-)?

I forgot to take a close-up of my eyes. Sorry about that. I think they are visible enough on these though.

Shiny face, funny facial expression. I must've scared myself >:-D.

Kidding XD...

Here's the usual Swap Update.

Swap 1 [The USA].

(For my Benefit lip glosses in No Peeking and Who Are You Wearing?, and my Just Cavalli 75 ml shower gel.)

This swap was...

A pain. She wouldn't send me anything for three months, and only did after I threatened to report her. The funny thing is that I had a funny feeling about this swap before agreeing to it - so here's some advice to swappers: listen to your intuition, if a swap feels wrong, don't do it, and know what you need to do in case you do get tricked. I was lucky 'cause I did get my items eventually :). She even added extras.

We agreed to swap for two Mary Kay palettes (Floral Fantasy and Enchanted Garden), an Avon Daring Curves mascara in Navy, an Estee Lauder Pure Colour Gloss in Praline, and a Mark Gloss-Tastic See Through Lip Shine Hookup Stack in Crystal Clear. She added samples of Mary Kay gloss and eye shadow, an Avon quad in Blushing Raisins, an Avon Lip Delight gloss in Vanilla Mint, and two mini Avon wash-off waterproof (how that is supposed to make sense, I have no idea either :-/) coloured mascaras (a purple one and a blue one) as extras.

I thought the mini mascaras were black (there's no mention of their shade anywhere on them), so I gave one to my sister and put the other one into my swap box with the intention of adding it as an extra. Fortunately my sister opened hers and told me it was blue. I checked the other one, saw it was purple, and kept them ;). (It's alright 'cause she doesn't wear coloured ones anyway.)

Good: all shades work this time >:-D.

Bad: the bottom two shades aren't as pigmented as they look :(.

But I love the top left colour :D...So I'm keeping this :).

And I adore the Mary Kay palettes ^_^. The packaging is beautiful, they're slim and very portable, and the products work brilliantly ;). Each palette has three shadows, a cream-to-powder cheek colour, and two lip colours.

Swap 2 [The USA again, but a different swapper].

(For my unused Elf quad in Pretty 'N' Pink, two CDs, and a little something extra ;D.)

A Mary Kay empty palette and five lipsticks :-P. (Yes, I really like them.)

Pictured: my new palette, now containing duos in Cotton Candy, Ivy Duet, Jade, Tutti Frutti and Safari Sunset, and Mary Kay lipsticks in Cantaloupe, Downtown Brown, Frosted Rose, Paradise Pink and Shell.

Must post a look with Downtown Brown - it's so not what I'd expected, and incredibly beautiful.

Swap 3 [England, Kaleidoscope swapper].

(For two DVDs, my Revlon highlighter stick in Crystal Calm, and lots of extras as usual.)

Some skincare again ;). I really like the Nivea Gentle Cleansing Cream Wash & recommend it to anyone who likes creamy cleansers ;D. The Superdrug Vitamin E night cream's pretty good too :).

As for the make-up...I got the BeautyUK palette in 4 (most of the top right shadow broke off as soon as I touched it >:-D after taking the pic, but they're pigmented enough and the colours are really nice ^_^), my own L.A. Colours palette in Wine And Roses back ;D, Fyrinnae Lip Lustres in Bounce, Flavour Of The Day and Lollipop-Pop (I hate the packaging of these, but I suppose their inner beauty matters more :-P...), Prestige Total Intensity eye liner in Bold Brown (a cool-toned brown), Everyday Minerals minis in In The Garden, Mystic Night (probably the most stunning purple I have ever seen) and Starry Eyed, and MAC pigment samples in Dark Soul and Reflects Blackened Red. She also added Avon's Ideal Shade Smooth Mineral Foundation in Soft Ivory and a mini lipstick as extras :).

Swap 4 [The USA and yet another swapper].

(For my Estee Lauder DayWear Plus Multi Protection Antioxidant Creme SPF 15 mini, and some extras.)

A second tube of the Jane AguaCeuticals TM :), along with some really nice extras ;D. Tea ^_^ (fancy packaging too :-P :D), and fragrance samples - Missoni, and I've no idea what the other one is but I'll try it anyway :-P.

Will finish this off with things I've bought :).

I do shop :-P. It's just that swapping gives me more and better items for my money (and half the time, my junk) ;D. Plus, receiving a 'present' feels so nice :). As does packing one ;). Really ^_^.

So, more Tigi stuff...

Palette containing 8 full size eye shadows: 30 Euros, with Tools Of Attraction (5 mini brushes) and pouch free :D.

Incredible, right? That's a good deal even by US standards :-P.

Cyberoptics eye shadow in Jealousy: 13 Euros.

Blueberry liner: free :D, it was their tester (they had no actual Blueberry pencils for sale left) and they let me have it ^_^.

Tigi Tools Of Attraction:

[Wearing Revlon Not So Blue-Berry on nails.]

A mini face brush, shadow brush, liner brush, lip brush (that I'll be using for eye shadow anyway :-P) and baby kabuki ^_^.

Here's a close-up of Jealousy...

And two pics of the palette, in different lighting.

Peach, Brown, Wine, Passion, Copper, Natural, Black and Vanilla.

And some stuff from Sephora...

I paid 5 Euros for the Too Faced eye liner in Ruby Slippers (hey, it's red, I had to get it :-P), and 5 Euros for...

Five mini Sephora brand brushes, and a case (with a mirror). It's so cute too ^_^.

These have their uses written on them. Powder, shadow, smudge, concealer & angle brow.

I think this was my longest post to date. This is what happens when you neglect blogging...Sorry about that, and thanks for reading :).

I've won another giveaway, yay ^_^! Plus some nail pics & New Acquisitions. Including a must have product under 5 $ - really.

Blogspot Beauty e-mailed me...To tell me that I'd won her contest :).

Well, that's about as good as 'welcome back to the blogosphere' can get, right XD? Thanks so much BB ^_^. Everyone else, do check out her blog ;).

Here are the nail pictures. I'll do a look as soon as I stop feeling like a dried out pancake.

So, Nails Inc Victoria:

I'd swapped for this one ages ago, can't believe I'm only posting it up now.

Well...It's an autumn kind of colour :-P? Not that I personally pick my looks like that, but many do ;).

Nails Inc Victoria topped (in retrospect & as visible on there, sort of clumsily - sorry!) with Icing by Claire's Signature Runway (black with red sparkles, pics minus the sparkles >:-D here).

Can you see the red glitter on this pic? It just won't show up >:-/. But for the record (if you're planning on getting the Claire's polish, and you probably should if you can 'cause it's cheap enough to take a chance on ;D), they are there. And they're most intense under electric light. I think that topping a chocolate colour with this would look like OPI Midnight In Moscow ;) :D.

Alas, I don't own a chocolate colour XD. But I love this combo too :) - and it's even prettier in real life 'cause one can >:-) see the glitter. I think I prefer this to wearing Signature Runway on its own, and I'll be wearing it again ;).

Wet & Wild Bijou Blue...

Blue is my favourite alternative (that is, not red, white, pink or nude) colour to wear on nails. I feared that I might hate this (I don't really like teal), but somehow, with my skin colour, it works :).

[Here's a proper review ;).]

I've also worn my Essie Flirty Girl, but was too lazy to photograph it >:-). Will do next time though ;D.

On to my new stuff :D. I love things :-P. You can probably guess that by now >:-).

First of all, here are some things I actually bought >:-D.

A sharpener for my concealer (in my favourite colour, of course :-P), and two Tigi Bed Head brushes :D. They're hot pink ;D, and have names. Whoever came up with that is brilliant :). I don't like it when products have numbers instead of names & there's no real reason for it to be different with brushes. The liner brush is called Fame, and the other one's called The Love Brush ;).

These cost me 6 Euros each. If you can get them for that price, do. If you can get them full price, do it anyway if you have the funds, 'cause these rule :-P.

So far, I've used Fame with my Kate silver gel liner. (My black liners work fine with the cheap liner brush the Jane one came with, but this one called for a better tool ;D.) It works wonderfully :). I love it ^_^. And I'm sure I'll also love The Love Brush when I get around to using that ;D.

And now (you probably knew this was coming...), here are some swaps :).

Swap 1 [France].

(For my Maybelline Line Stylist in Jade Flash, and a few extras.)

An eye & lip liner from The Body Shop, in Chocolate ^_^. Also samples of a Crabtree & Evelyn hand cream and something anti-ageing by Guerlain - swapped that one off.

Swap 2 [England, Kaleidoscope swapper].

(I got her an Oriflame Radiance Energy cream and Beauty Balm, and as usual, added lots of extras ^_^.)

Palettes galore :D...

Profusion 36 Glamour eye palette, Sleek palettes (finally got my hands on these) in Acid and Chaos (which is upside down on the pic >:-D), the ArtDeco Beauty Box I'd originally bought for her (with two eye shadows in it ^_^), Coty Puzzle perfume (50 ml), Bourjois Violet Absolut eye shadow, and a metallic blues palette by L.A. Colours as an extra :). It's beautiful ^_^!

That shiny thing on the bag's top right is a pore strip, it was an extra too XD.

More pics...

The Profusion palette is a must have. I mean it. And it's only a few dollars in the US >:-). So freaking unfair to us all in other countries, but at least I managed to get one through this swap :).

It's got a lot of lovely neutrals and enough smokes, but also a red, some greens, a lovely periwinkle blue...A wonderful variety of colours :). And guess what: these colours go on metallic if used wet, and many are duochromes :D. See that pale orange in the second row (second from left)? It reflects white ^_^. This is for a single colour out of a 3.99 $ palette that contains 36 of them. If you have access to it, get it now ;D.

Oh, and it has the best and largest mirror I've ever seen on a palette XD. If you have a hard time justifying this purchase, tell yourself it's for the mirror's sake - and once you try these amazing shadows, you won't have any more issues :-P ;).

That's Acid on the left and Chaos on the right.

Well, only the middle four shades in Acid are true neons :-/. But the other shades are pigmented anyway - and I suppose that them not being fluorescent will be seen as a good thing by most people XD.

As for the shades in Chaos, they remind me of clay XD. But they're really nice colours :). Look at that orange, it'll be great for autumn themed looks ;).

You can also see my two new ArtDeco shadows on that pic: 82 and 217. But since I have 243 from the same collection the Beauty Box was part of, I put that one there. And to keep things green, I added my other two ArtDeco greens. It now looks like this:

ArtDeco eye shadows in 318, 243 and 390.

And this is a better pic of the Puzzle bottle:

It's so cute :). But in real life it's green, not blue :-P. (Though personally I would've preferred blue like on this picture, lol. But oh well.)

Swap 3 [The USA].

(For my mini Lancome Juicy Tube in Frozen Punch, and I added a few extras.)

C.O. Bigelow Soda Fountain Strawberry Sundae Mentha Lip Shine ;D. As you know, I love these - and this one looks so pretty :).

Oh, and it was brand new & still sealed. Not that I care XD, I don't mind used lip stuff. But I suppose it's nice to swap for something unused every now and then ;).

Thanks for reading :). I've got a lot of catching up to do XD...

My Make-Up Collection Part 1: The Rimmel Case.

As you may (or may not :-P) know, I have collected so much stuff that I need more than one case to store it in. Some bloggers keep their stuff in clear cases or train cases...Not me though - mine have to be cute :-P ^_^. In fact, two of them are Hello Kitty ;). (These, I will cover later.) But I chose to begin this series (yes, this will be on-going until I cover all my stuff ^_^) with another much-loved case...

This was a present from my sister for my 19th birthday :). I specifically asked for this XD, and not because of the make-up it came with (wasn't much: Rimmel mascara, nail polish, a shadow duo and a foundation sample that was too dark so I gave it to her, but it was too dark even on her and she had issues getting it off 'cause it was a long-lasting one so she had to go to school with a mismatched face - lol, sorry for getting off-topic there XD)...I fell in love with that case :). It's just so nice and black and red and lovely ^_^.

Close-up of the Rimmel logo 'cause it's pretty :-P.

So...What do I keep in there ;D?

Well, the top section houses this lot...

Yup. Pencils :), and whatever tools I don't keep in the Shoebox ;D (will do a post on that too eventually).

Read on for pictures and lists of everything I have in there ^_^.

Tools and similar stuff:

*A little Clinique zip-up case I use to store various sponge applicators, little brushes, spatulas, eyelash curler spare pads, and any tiny tools (so they don't get lost). There's also a lash & brow comb in there ;).

*My 2 sharpeners: Tigi for normal and fat pencils, and Styli-Style for their flat pencils.

*Mascara wands, I keep them ;).

*Brushes: a MaxFactor one that came as a gift with (lol) sanitary pads, so I'm not even sure it's genuine :-P, Estee Lauder (lip and eye - but my sister discovered that the lip one works great as a liner brush :-/) and Oriflame (eye and lip).

Styli-Style Flat Pencils:

Styli-Style Flat Pencils in Rio, Paris, Buenos Aires, Vienna, Venice, Cairo, Left Bank, Soho, Monte Carlo, Madison and Aspen.

Another pic of these, from the back:

For your information, I didn't steal that 'Tester' pencil, they let me have it :-P. They had no Left Banks left except the tester, so they didn't need it anymore ;).

Eye shadow sticks, and mechanical liners:

Avon Colour Trend Bright Lights Shadow Stix in Pink Pops, Orange Crush, Vibrant Violet and Totally Turquoise, Rimmel Lash Maxxx Shadow & Liner in Pink Impact, and Oriflame Daydream Eye Definers in Free Spirit, Escape, Wander, Peace and Serene.

Pencil liners:

Oriflame Visions Dynamic Duos in Laurel & Hardy, Jekyll & Hyde, Aladdin & Yasmin, Batman & Robin, Thelma & Louise and Tom & Jerry, Oriflame Retro Chic Kajal, Avon Arabian Glow liners in Gold, Turquoise and Emerald, ArtDeco Kajal Liners in 20 and 32, and Soft Kajal Liner in 68, Tigi Bed Head Big Fat Fun Liner in Lilac, and Styli-Style Line & Seal in Smokey Quartz.

Lip liners:

ArtDeco Magic Lip Corrector 01, Oriflame Visions Read My Lips lip liners in Don't Talk Just Kiss, Nibble My Ear and Loud 'N' Clear, and Styli-Style lip liner in Tangerine.

Fat and little pencil liners (lol) ^_^:

Oriflame Visions Eye Shimmer Pencils in Shimmer Pink, Shimmer Silver and Shimmer Gold, Oriflame Visions Snow Scene Glitter Eye Pencils in Pink Ice and Silver Snow, Pupa eye liners from the Optical Red palette (gold) and the Optical Rose palette (silver), Miss Sporty Eye Pencil in Sapphire, Rimmel Eye Liner Pencil in Big Blue, Styli-Style Line & Seal eye liners in Twilight Crepuscule and Tanzanite, the silvery grey end of an old Oriflame Visions duo pencil (I used up all of the white end), and ArtDeco Camouflage Stick in 3.

That ArtDeco concealer is too dark for me, so if anyone wants to swap for it, let me know ;). And it also was something they let me have, for the same reason as Styli-Style Left Bank :-P.

That was the top section. The lower section contains...

Lip balms :).

A whole lot of lip balms ;D. I tried to collect them all for the blog, and I think I have, but there might be another one or two somewhere in a bag or pocket, you know how these things are XD. But I think they're all there :). Except the Burt's Bees lip balm from my swap with Sarah, 'cause I took the pics before receiving that ;).

Lip Smackers:

Frosty Favourites Collection (contains 2 Lip Smackers and a clear gloss), Giant Lip Smackers in Cotton Candy and Strawberry, and Lip Smackers in Strawberry Kiwi, Vanilla Lights, Berry Heavenly, Magical Melon, Cool Raspberry Ice, Party Berry, Marshmallow and Spun Sugar Shine - these were all from a party pack.

Labellos:

Top row: Limited Edition Classic, 2 different Limited Editions of Pearl & Shine, Velvet Rose, Sensitive, Med Protection and Hydro Care.
Second row: Cherry Kiss, Strawberry Kiss, Passion Fruits, Sweet Melon, Mandarin Vanilla, Sun and UV Alpin.

Oriflame (the first four are from Visions):

Strawberry, Berry, Mint, Tropics, Lollipop, Cranberry, 2 Winter Balms, and the classic Oriflame Lip Balm. I think I'll swap one of the Winter Balms away, but the problem is that they look identical so I have no idea which has been used (I used one of these maybe once or twice, and the other one's brand new).

Others:

Neutrogena Norwegian Formula SPF 20 Lip Balm, Avon Care Vita Nourish Lip Balm, Avon Care Valentine's Day Special Edition Lip Balm, Softlips Cocktails Mexican Sunrise lip balm, and Bebe Young Care lip balms in Rose Tendre and Silky Vanilla.

That was the Rimmel case, ladies :). Next: Hello Kitty Eye - that is, the Hello Kitty case that houses my eye shadows...But I may have to move them soon, 'cause it's literally overflowing XD. I have so much eye stuff...And I still want more :D! Lol. They're all different though ;). Mostly XD.

Swatches and reviews on request ;).

If you want to swap for anything, you can ask...But I may say no :-P. Or I might say yes. Depends on the items ;).

Thanks for reading :D! I hope this post was pleasurable :-P...I know I love looking at other people's collections :), so I hope some of my readers do too ^_^.