Tutorial: Affordable way to get the lipstick colour you WANT!

Have you ever wanted a lipstick colour but didn't have the money to shell out for that specific colour?

Or have you ever felt like you wouldn't want to spend money on a lipstick colour that would only turn out to be a fad? That you'd only use it a couple of times and then never touch it again?

What if you just didn't know if you wanted to commit to a certain colour before you actually tried it out?

If you're somewhere around that category, then here's a trick I came up with just from experimenting a bit.

Lately, I've been in LOVE with plummy, magenta, and purple lip colours. But do I really want to go out and buy a new PURPLE lipstick? I know if I actually bought it I'd eventually regret it because it's not a very all-season friendly lipstick colour. Also, I didn't even know if it would even compliment my skin tone.

So this is what I did and it's REALLY simple:

1) Take a lipstick colour that's closest to the colour you're trying to achieve. If it's purple, take a pink lipstick that's on the blue side. If you don't have that just any pink will do. If you're looking for a red this will work too.

I chose Revlon's Pink Pout.

2) Take an eyeshadow or pigment of a colour closer to what you want your lipstick colour to be.

For purple I chose Wet n Wild's 248 Lust Palette. The matte purple shade. (excuse my yucky fingernail)

3) Use your finger and dab that shade on your lipstick. Pucker to blend.

Remember to start light! Don't pack on the colour cause you don't know how deep you want the colour to be.

4) If it's too light, add more!

So this is pretty much as dark as I would ever need my lips to be purple with.

Can't really tell the difference from the first picture here, but it's a lot darker.

6) Add some gloss if you want.

Here I just chose a clear gloss.

And there you have purple lipstick!

Now, if you wanted other colours you could also choose to use other colours for the same purpose. For example, if you wanted nude lips, you could use foundation or concealer and then build your colour from there. Add some rose/brown eyeshadow to make it not so close to your actual skin colour. 

You could also use nude lipstick for pretty much any colour you want. For purple lips I chose pink because it was closest to the purple. But if I had wanted to use a nude lip colour it would have been okay as well. Just keep playing around with shades until you reach your desired colour. I'm sure I don't need to talk about colour mixing =)

I apologize if the pictures I posted are not perfect, as I've never been too fond of my lip shape. But I hope whoever reads this get's the idea and just takes it in as information rather than telling me I have ugly lips or something hahaha. I hope this was helpful!

Until next time,

Love dove <3

Random Watsons mini haul!

Well I was feeling really upset about being cooped up at home almost all weekend so I decided to go out for a walk with my mom after dinner! I needed to grab a few necessities so we decided to shop around Watsons since it seemed like it was the ONLY store opened at that hour...

What I ended up getting were these:

Yeah, not a lot of stuff but enough to keep me happy for a bit =)

This is the Garnier Aqua Defense moisturizing gel for sensitive skin. It's supposed to replace my Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Gel...We'll see how that goes! (Excuse the asian packaging)

Now here's the Maybelline Eye Studio Eyeliners. I already tried them and they're surprisingly good for a drugstore eyeliner and stay quite long. I already bought the pearl white prior to today but I thought I might as well put them together for this post.

As you can see, REALLY pigmented and it glides on SO smooth. It says it's a 2-in-1 impact shadow liner, so it can be worn both as an eyeliner and an eyeshadow. And it's supposed to be "waterproof and stays all day". I'll see if the stays that day part is true. I'm trying to find a replacement for my Urban Decay 24/7 in Zero because we don't have UD here... and it's my favourite eyeliner!

Here's a baked eyeshadow trio by Bourjois Paris. I know people in the states can get this brand (not sure where) but I've never seen it in Canada so I'm sorry to those that wanna get these but can't.

This is the Smoky Eyes Trio D'ombres a Paupieres in 02 - Baroque

Yup, these eyeshadows are baked. They're extremely pigmented when swatched, but when I was actually going in with my brushes to put them on.... they wouldn't go on my eyelid! I had to really dig in and pack it on for pigmentation. But after playing with it a bit more I think it's just the initial layer that has maybe a protective spray or something over it that I had to just break into. Cause it was fine afterwards. I love the colours and these pictures really don't do them justice. I definitely recommend these shadows and might pick up other trios next time!

Now here is the Fasio eye color palette in I-2 (I swear that's the best I can give for colour description.. the rest is in Japanese)

I had this same pigmentation problem with these eyeshadows when it actually came to putting it on. Especially the shimmery cream colour! But after that initial barrier I broke through it got better but still not as pigmented as I had hoped. The darker colours were way more pigmented than the lighter ones (but that's always the case).

Okay, so the back story behind buying this palette was because I was running out of my Lancome 4dreaming palette which was limited edition. It used to serve as an everyday shadow palette until I ran out of one of the colours and started worrying and stopped using it completely! So I actually brought the 4dreaming palette to Watsons today to colour match. This palette came closest! Even though it doesn't look like it in the picture, the colours are a bit more reddish in real life than in the picture (I need a new camera or learn how to fix the settings)

This is the 4dreaming palette

I didn't care much about not finding all of the colours but it's the copper/reddish colour that I really wanted to find. If anyone knows a dupe or a colour that's exactly like it please TELL ME! I'm thinking of going to check out NYX's eyeshadow in copper next time I go to another part of town that has a full section of NYX products.

Here's the 2 looks I did to show the quality/pigmentation of the eyeshadow. Keep in mind again, that I had to REALLY pack on the colour. So I'll see what the application is like the next time I use these shadows.

Yes, I realize I do look like a crazy person. 

No, I do not do this when I go out just for the heck of it lol.

The left side is the Bourjois trio and the Right side is the Fasio palette.

Everything else is standard:

Foundation: Smashbox HD Foundation

Setting Powder: MAC MSF Natural - Medium Plus (Review to come)

Cheeks: MSF - Petticoat

Lips: NYX lipgloss - Natural

Brows - Covergirl Brow pencil - Dark Brown

Okay lovelies!

Until next time,

Love Dove <3

MAC Magically Cool Liquid Powder Review

I finally got my hands on the 2 things I REALLY wanted from the MAC venomous villains collection! I had been going gaga over it ever since I was in Vancouver and was really sad when I realized I wouldn't be able to get the Magically Cool Liquid Powder unless I hunted down a MAC store/counter. *chuckles.. that was probably the first thing I did when I got here! HA!

The good news: I was able to track one down!

The bad news: The one I tracked down was farther from my house and released this collection later than the one close to my house.

The worst news: I didn't know about that and didn't get it till TODAY.

BUT, that's okay! Because what's important is that I DID get it and I got to read a bunch of reviews on these things before actually deciding to buy it.

So which one did I buy? Truth & Light? or Cajun?

BOTH!!!

I was so excited!!! I literally ran into SOGO (department store here) and my peripheral vision was lost. It was IN --> lock eyes on MAC. Done. That's how persistent I was about getting this powder. My mom thought I was crazy cause along the way there were people doing their thing, passing out fliers and I just pretended they didn't exist and was speed walking to MAC MAC MAC!!

So here's a few pictures I took:

Now, the packaging is gorgeous, aside from the ugly man on the lid. By gorgeous I obviously mean the container and the box it came in. I was never a fan of Dr. Facilier and I think they screwed this one up because I feel venomous villains should be about all the CLASSIC villains that we grew up with. Why not the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland? Or Ursula from The Little Mermaid? How about Lady Tremaine (the evil stepmother from Cinderella)? I'd almost even prefer Jafar if we were to go on a "male" tangent, even though him and Dr. Facilier do kind of resemble each other haha.. 

But I felt like when they came out with Dr. Facilier every one was like "who?..wait what?" and when you say "Princess and the Frog" they go.. OH I didn't see that....

That might be why this product didn't sell quite as well as the other collections did. The main marketing was dependent on Disney, not really MAC. If you actually saw the collections you'd realize nothing in all four parts of the collection was really "special" except for this Magically Cool Liquid Powder. We had eye shadows that were permanent with different packaging and beauty powders that were just ...well.. beauty powders. So that's why I wanted this so badly. Not because I like the villain. But because this powder was unique. In fact, I'd probably go even MORE gaga for it if the Magically Cool Liquid Powder was part of any of the other 3 parts of of the collection. I do believe it would have received a lot more attention than it did if it were, say, part of the Malificent collection.

Aside from my dissatisfaction with the character it portrays, I have to say, I do like this powder. I was actually expecting some really fascinating WET highlighter that'd make me look super dewy. Honestly, if that's what you want when you buy this, you shouldn't get it. This has some shimmer but it's not enough to provide any sort of "highlight". It's more of a setting powder that finishes with an ethereal glow.

Now you're probably wondering why I went out of my mind and bought both colours cause clearly I could not possibly be that dark or that light at the same time. My initial thought was that I could use the Truth & Light as a highlighter/all over face powder and then the Cajun as bronzer. That's pretty much how it works out now. However, it's not as pigmented as I thought it would be so I could actually sweep the whole thing all over my face for both of the colours and you wouldn't be able to notice. I actually did half my face with Cajun and half my face with Truth & Light:

Can you tell a difference?

Didn't think so! They're both really sheer, but as you can see it gives a glow to the skin that normal setting powders don't give. AND, it's not shimmery so you don't have to worry about being a disco ball.

*Side note: the shine you see on my cheek is from MSF in Petticoat -- NOT the Magically Cool Liquid Powder.

Overall I really like the product. It has a nice cooling sensation that probably will get old over time, but it's still nice. These 2 tubs will probably last me a REALLY long time since they both do about the same thing. I can get away with using the Cajun as a bronzer if I use a denser brush with it though, but I'll have to test it out some more.

If you're thinking about getting it and your MAC store/counter isn't sold out yet, I say get it. You won't be disappointed. However, if you already have lots of setting powders and don't need another one, I say don't. If curiosity kills you, I hear it's going to become a part of the permanent collection so that's a plus in 2 ways. 1) you don't have to live with the ugly Dr. Facilier packaging and 2) you don't need to rush to buy it.

So that's my review, and I hope it helped you make a decision no matter how late this is. Taiwan MAC seems to have a lag from North America MAC stores. But I guess that gives me time to look at reviews and swatches before buying.

Until next time,

Love dove <3*

HUGE Sigma Haul + Random finds!

So I woke up this morning (afternoon in my case haha) to find out that my Sigma brushes arrived!! My excitement at the moment is through the roof! I've wanted these babies for more than a year now and was upset when sigma a) changed the numbering system and b) jacked up the prices. But I bit the bullet and ordered 3 sets of brushes: The complete brush kit, the premium professional brush kit and their newest SIGMAX High Definition brush set. I just finished washing ALLLL my brushes (including my old brushes so I'm exhausted from standing in front of a sink making my hands all prune-y from being under the water for so long. I put on lotion right after so don't you guys worry! ;)

SO...

Here's what came out of the smaller-than-expected package I received today:

Aren't they just adorable? I saved the bags and brochures cause throwing them out would be such a shame!

Here's their free gift (a travel sized E25 blending brush)

Now, I do think they could've done something a bit better for me since I do have the E25 in my premium kit and my order was quite big. But I guess this is better than nothing!

This is the brochure for the Sigmax HD brushes:

Here are the actual brushes. Really dense and really soft. It's hard to believe they're synthetic but I know I'll LOVE these brushes to bits! They have brush guards too to help maintain their shape.

Here's their congratulatory card and instructions on cleaning the brushes..

This is the brochure for the Complete Brush Kit (sorry for the glare - lighting in my room sucks, on top of my average point + shoot digital camera)

Here's the brush roll that says Sigma on it, and the magnetic clip that keeps it together:

 

Here's the Complete Brush Kit with all the brush guards and wrappers still on it (I still hadn't touched the brushes at this point:

Here's the brochure that came with the Premium Professional Kit

Now here's the actual Premium Professional Brushes (sorry it's so hard to see all the brushes):

Here's a few extra pictures of brochures and packaging:

Initial thoughts:

Overall, the shipping was super fast. I ordered it on October 18th and received it today (October 23).. and we're talking international shipping from the States to Taiwan. How great is that?! Even though Express USPS shipping was the only option available I'm glad I went ahead with it because waiting for these things would have driven me nuts, as I was checking the tracking every single day almost every few hours! 

I've read a few blogs and seen youtube videos that said they noticed a really strong smell when they got their kit. This wasn't the case for me. I didn't notice any strong stench of any sort. Maybe a little glue or plastic but nothing that I really would have noticed if it weren't for those blog post that I had read.

I'm also really happy with the quality of the brush rolls as they are really soft and seem very durable. However, I do know that if I don't clean the brushes properly makeup will most likely stick onto the brush roll.. forever. But I guess that's inevitable. Worst comes to worse, is just to buy a new brush roll. But that won't be happening anytime soon for me as I think I've bought enough in terms of brushes to last me a good many years to come!

I did also notice some shedding for the brushes with natural bristles. I'm hoping that will go away after a few washes and that I won't be picking off excess hairs from my face after doing my makeup.

In terms of washing, they were all quite pleasant to wash except for the Sigmax brushes! These brushes are so dense with hairs that I couldn't get all the shampoo out. It's still not all out so I'm going to have to continue rinsing them when I finish typing up this post =(.. I can't wait to be cleaning these every week (sarcasm intended).

I'm sure it also goes without saying that ALL the brushes are extremely soft. So I'm not going to comment on how soft each of the brushes are cause it just get's redundant. But I will say that no matter what kind of review anyone does with these, there's no way of escaping the inevitable comparison to MAC brushes. After all, that's what they were designed to duplicate in the first place (despite their new numbering system). I only have 3 MAC brushes so I can't really compare all the brushes but from what I've noticed is that the MAC 187 is a bit more dense than the Sigma F50 (SS187) duo-fibre brush. I don't know if they will work the same way but I'm probably going to continue using the MAC one and use the Sigma one for blush or highlight. The Sigma E55 (SS239) is quite different from the MAC 239 in that the Sigma one is brown and a lot softer than the MAC 239. It will probably do the same thing but I do think that the reason the MAC 239 packed on colour so well was because it was a bit harder. But I'll have to test it out later on to make sure. I do like that the Sigma one is brown because with the MAC one I was always scared of staining it with dark eyeshadows, so I'm glad I won't have to worry about that with the Sigma. The last MAC comparison would be the MAC 219 vs. the Sigma E30 (SS219), there's not a very big difference at all. The handles for all the Sigma brushes are longer than their MAC counterparts so other than that difference I can't see any other noticeable difference between these 2 brushes. The Sigma one has slightly longer bristles but I don't think that will differ in application when I use it.

So I've been living in Taiwan for almost 2 months now and the weather is a little hectic but I'm slowly getting used to it. I miss a lot of people back home but I have my parents here with me so I'm happy with that. Aside from that I've been going out quite a bit and looking at some potential beauty items I hope to snatch up in the near future. I ran out of my beloved Covergirl Lashblast the other day and decided to go to Watson's (an asian drug/beauty supply store) to go look for it. But unfortunately, they didn't have the lashblast... So I looked in the maybelline section and took what I though was the Maybelline colossal  mascara. It wasn't till after I bought it that I realized the packaging was different.

This is what it looked like:

Apparently, it's called MAGNUM here. I'm guessing asians find MAGNUM larger than COLOSSAL? Anyway I don't think the product is different, just the packaging is. I've never used the Colossal before so I'll have to try this out. I'm still trying to finish the last bits of whats left of my almost dried-out Lashblast so I'll update on how much I like this later on.

Another surprising thing I found was something that I had wanted SO BADLY that I hunted down every store that could possibly carry it when I was still living in Vancouver. But it was limited edition and sold out EVERY WHERE! When I went to Watsons, I was browsing through the OPI section and I found these babies:

OPI - Absolutely Alice

OPI - Mad as a Hatter

Yes, these are from the Alice in Wonderland collection that was out early this year and has been sought after by many nail polish fanatics because of their consistency and unique colour. I bought 2 bottles of Mad as a Hatter and 1 bottle of Absolutely Alice because I loved MAAH so much! It's basically a dark taupe/clear base with multi-coloured glitters of silver, magenta, turquoise, indigo, green, orange, and honestly there are probably more colours but there's so many. It's confetti galore! But on the nails it looks  so pretty. Like a dark purplish, greyish, silver.. That's a horrible description but basically, if you LOVE MAC's Satin Taupe eyeshadow, this is the glitterbomb nailpolish version of that eyeshadow!

As for Absolutely Alice, I wasn't going to get it at first but then I saw a bunch of amazing swatches online and decided to get them (yes, I shop with my iPhone). It's a Cobalt blue with lots of silver and turquoise glitter. The most fascinating thing about this nail polish is that it also has gold glitter suspended all over to match Alice's blonde hair. So it's really unique.

Both the polishes offer maximum opacity within 2-3 coats. They are a pain to take off as with all glitter nail polishes but the colours are so pretty it's almost worth the pain haha.

So that's all the new things I have at the moment. I will update on how the Sigma brushes work, how I like the Maybelline Magnum mascara and on top of that, I will be getting 3 shipments in within the next month or so. I ordered MAC's Stereo Rose from eBay which I know I'll love but I payed about $60CAD for it. HUGE rip off but I'm hoping it will be completely worth the hype, even though I know most people reading this are probably wincing and shaking their heads at me right now. HA but I don't care, I drove myself nuts for the past 3 months trying to hunt it down at MAC stores. I also have the pigment in Mauvement by MAC coming at the same time. Lastly, I have an iPhone 4 coming too! My sister received these things already and she's shipping them to me next week. I can't wait to get it! MORE MORE MORE EXCITEMENT!

I'll also start posting up pictures of my nail polish collection if anyone is interested in any of those. I have some OPI, some Sally Hansen, Rimmel, and a lot of e-nail which you can only get in Taiwan. I really wanna make a post about e-nail as they are eco-friendly nail polishes that come in a HUGE variety of colours!

So until next time,

Love dove <3*

Update + MAC Wipes Review

So it's been a while since my last update. But to be fair, I've been incredibly busy since I just moved to another country and we're still getting everything ready and I'm just getting settled in at my new school and it's just been all around pretty hectic!
Once I finish with all the moving stuff I'll start updating more often cause I have a lot more ideas for this blog and I'm pretty excited. Here in Taiwan, there are brands that I have never seen and might try a few. I was pretty surprised they sell NYX at my local Watsons, which is a cosmetics convenient store that sells mostly drugstore makeup.
I'm updating now because I have time and today was typhoon day here and there are parts of Taiwan that are flooded with water pretty seriously. Luckily, I live in the northern part (Taipei) and I'm not as affected as other less fortunate people. The wind was huge when I went to the mall to eat with my family though. There was sand blowing against my legs and it felt really prickly.

Lately, I've been really loving this one product cause it's convenient and it's an amazing makeup remover and a less expensive alternative to my Avene thermal water. It's not a new product by any means but it's...
MAC WIPES!!!
I love it so much. It doesn't break me out or feel harsh on my skin and it takes off every bit of makeup at the end of the day. That's really important because right now I live in a really hot and humid climate and if my makeup is not melting off my face, it's probably clogging my pores as I sweat. So I really wanted a really good makeup remover that wouldn't cause any breakouts or anything. My friend suggested these wipes cause she said they're actually not as expensive as you'd think (I bought the bulk pack) so it was a real bang for my buck. I think it was around $38 CAD for 100 wipes. So about 38 cents per wipe. I'm almost half way through the pack so I'll do an updated review when I'm done my pack.

That's all for now. I'll do an updated foundation review for hot/humid weather soon!

Till next time,
Love Dove <3

Day 04- List 15 songs that represent your life’s soundtrack.

I guess I can't really say for sure that the 15 songs I choose will be fully representative of my life but they are what I'm currently listening to that I can think of on the spot that I can actually relate to:

1) One Republic - Good Life
2) Jacks Mannequin - Spinning
3) K'naan - Take a Minute
4) Rihanna ft. Eminem - Love the Way You Lie
5) Florence and the Machine - Howl
6) Kristina Debarge - Doesn't Everybody Wanna Fall in Love
7) Rock City - Bad Day
8) Taylor Swift - You're Not Sorry
9) Taylor Swift - Forever and Always
10) Taylor Swift - Crazier
11) Taylor Swift - Tell Me Why
12) Taylor Swift - Picture To Burn
13) Taylor Swift - Cold as You
14) Taylor Swift - Come in With the Rain
15) Lights - The Listening

That's probably the best I can do right now.. I just switched PC to Mac so I don't really have a big playlist and this is what I could work with. As you can probably tell I'm a HUGE fan of Taylor Swift and can really relate to most of her songs.

Until next time,
Love Dove <3

Day 03- A habit that you wish you didn’t have.

Biting my fingers and lips when I'm nervous! I wish I had beautiful hands and lips but I do this unconsciously and don't realize it until someone asks me "why are you biting your lips?" or stares at me in a "why the hell is she eating herself?" kind of way.... Trying VERY hard to get rid of this nasty habit!