Jill Stuart & Esprique – precious gems

Living in a bustling modern city like Hong Kong, where the next beauty and fashion finds are to be discovered as soon as it’s released in the market, it’s no wonder that glamorous ladies are seen everywhere. Not too mention the many successful and career oriented ladies that are dominating the job market, to fulfill such impulsive splurges.

While I’m not one of those top notch CEO or Director, though I wouldn’t mind the salary minus the stress, I surely do have my impulsive beauty shopping splurges once in a while. As a little treat for myself to celebrate the end of 2012, I purchased some cosmetics from Jill Stuart and Esprique, two brands that I’ve never tried before. My friend’s friend actually works in the cosmetics industry and was able to hook me up on these products at a cheaper price but the down fall is that they’re not the newest collection, which doesn’t bother me at all.

I’ve heard of the brands Jill Stuart and Esprique for a long time, and was always curious about their cosmetic products. So I took the opportunity and bought an eye shadow palette and lip gloss from Jill Stuart and another eye shadow palette from Esprique.

The packaging of the Jill Stuart products has always been quite girly and I admit that I do fall for this trap, I mean, who doesn’t??? The eye shadow colors are really shimmery and I am super excited to try them out. I absolutely love how its palette looks like a jewlery box as well (as shown in the second photo abo

I also got the custard lip pot, which is a lip gloss packaged into a cute pot. Although I normally don’t go for lip glosses that require using my finger for application, due to hygiene reasons, but I found it too cute to resist! I really like the small detailing of the red sparkly crystal like decoration on the lid, it just adds that bit of glamour to it.

The Japanese cosmetic brand, Esprique, which not everyone may be as familiar with, is another brand that has caught my attention a few years ago. My favorite Japanese pop singer, Namie Amuro, is the sponsor behind this brand, and being her fan for more than 10 years, I had to support and try out Esprique.

I really like how their eye shadow palettes have step by step guidelines using English alphabets along with an image, teaching you how to apply the eye shadow. The packaging of this eye shadow palette is less girly but I actually prefer the selection of colors over the Jill Staurt eye shadow palette. I’ve not tried any of these products so i am really looking forward to see what these beauty gems are all about.

For details on the products i purchased, please see below:

• Jill Stuart illuminance eyes, model # CC917A
• Jill Stuart Patisserie collection, custard lip pot, model #C4, chocolat custard
• Esprique Precious dress on shiny eyes, by Beaute de KOSE, model # C-3

What are your favorite cosmetic brands that you turn to?

Trend Alert: Bring on the brights please!

Bright colored eye shadows are a big hit this spring and summer as shown on the catwalks of Dior, Etro, and  Betsey Johnson and i have to say, i’m loving it! These bright and bold colors are all soo cheery and makes me smile from the inside, hehe.  I especially love the  lime green from the  Betsey Johnson catwalk and the shimmery metallic gold as seen on the LAMB catwalk. These bright and fun colors are just what we need during these hot summery days!

I personally tend to always go for blue but last week i went daring and bought a shimmery green from M.A.C. (as show in my previous post).

What about you? What colored eye shadows do you tend to buy?

Dior SS2011

Etro SS2011

Betsey Johnson SS2011

LAMB SS2011

Nicole Miller

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Shop til you drop!

As i mentioned in my previous post, i did some light shopping over the week with a friend.  It was nothing planned and we just spontaneously decided last min to have dinner and enjoy some shopping therapy after a hard day of work! We all deserve to have a shopping break once in a while right? hehe.

My friend has been in search for an eye liner and I’ve been told that there’s this waterproof eye liner from M.A.C. that works wonders and so with that, we headed straight to M.A.C.  We went to a M.A.C. shop that was located inside the Sogo shopping mall and my gosh, that shop was super tiny and crowded with women everywhere! I managed to squeeze in the crowd and headed straight to the eye shadow section and there were so many colors to choose from that i almost died. I felt like a little girl inside a candy shop and was drooling over everything! I ended up getting a shimmery green called “Swimming” and it’s absolutely gorgeous! It’s actually not as shimmery as it looks in the photo so it’s not too over the top.

"Swimming" eyeshadow by M.A.C.

My lovely M.A.C. eye shadow and a copy of Elle June 2011

I’ve also been meaning to look for a nail polish with the crack effect and so the hunt for crack nail polish began that night. I managed to find this small shop inside Island Beverly shopping mall that sold a great selection of crack nail polish colors from O.P.I. and China Glaze  (they even had Essie!!!). I was told that China Glaze is a younger line from O.P.I. I never knew that, what about you guys?

After looking and deciding for what seemed hours, i decided to go for grey. I haven’t tried it yet as i’ve been super busy but i will definitely post a photo of the final product when i get a chance! We were gonna leave after that but then i spotted this cute dirty pink (that’s what the sales girl said the color was called!) bag that was a great size to use for my casual weekends. To be honest, you can’t put a lot of stuff in it but it looks really cute so that’s all that matters, haha.

China Claze (Crackle Glaze) in grey

My new cute casual weekend bag in "dirty pink" color, lol

 Before we knew it the time was already 11:30pm and with that, we decided to call it a night! It was a late night but i had loads of fun so it was really well worth it.

Alrighty peeps, i better get going as i’m off to have dinner with some friends tonight at this lovely Vietnamese/Thai restaurant called Rice Paper. I  actually go to this restaurant quite often and i’ll try to snap some photos tonight and share it with you all, hehe.

For now, I wish you all a fabulous weekend, have fun!!!

Time for smoky cat eyes



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So it seems that it’s time to try out that smoky cat eyes effect again, my girls!!!! It has been seen on celebrities such as Rachel Bilson, Jessica Szohr , and model Kate Moss, and even on the runway for Lanvin F/W 2011. Now I know it’s kinda a “been there done that” thing but it never fails to make me look fabulous, seriously! In fact, i do the smoky cat eyes whenever i can’t be asked to put make up on, lol. Some say it’s hard to master but for me it’s really easy to do with this eye shadow kit i bought from Kate (subsidiary brand of Kanebo).  Since it’s so easy, i thought it would be a great idea to show you what make up products i use for my smoky eyes look. 

First is the Kate eye shadow kit. They’ve got great varieties of colors to choose from and they are pretty cheap too! I think its roughly around US$17, not bad eh. You’ll see on the photo below that one of the palette is labelled A,B,C,D, and E, and this is for reference only so it’ll be easier to explain how i do my make up. So far, I’ve bought the blue and green palette.  I tend to use the first 3 colors only (A,B, and C), where i mix the light (C) and medium shimmery (B) shades as the base and then apply the darker (A) shade over it. Sometimes i’ll  add the silver shimmer (E) to give my eyes more shine and glitz.

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Next i use the Majolica Majorca (subsidiary brand of Shiseido) mascara to give my lashes that volumized look for a more dramatic effect. It seriously does some volumizing!!! Majolica Majorca has come out with many versions already, where there is the lash volumizer, lash extender, glitter top coat, and lash base. For more review on these products, you can check out the blog Musings of a Muse, where the blogger provides  lovely and descriptive details on all the products. Unfortunately, the bad news is that MJ is only available in Asia, including Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Thailand.

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Then we go further down and work on the lippies!!!  I use the Fresh Sugar lip balm that i just recently bought as a base for my dry lips. It has a really rich moisture to it, where it’s sweet and blackcurrent oil is enough to make my lips sing!  Afterwards, i just apply a touch of my magical Becca  “Champagne” lip gloss. I love this color and i just found out from their website that it’s out of stock! Good seller indeed:)

Finally, i leave you here with my style inspiration to get that smoky cat eyes look when you are feeling it. Meowwwwwww…..;)

1. Givenchy Black Lamb Leather Motorcycle Jacket, $2,755, farfetch.com 
2. Yuki Rust Diamonte Pocket Shirt, $105, bunnyhug.co.uk
3. Acne Kex low-rise skinny jeans, $230, net-a-porter.com
4. Burberry Prorsum Aviator shearling platform boot, $1,100, brownsfashion.com
5. Burberry Studded leather Knight bag, $2,195, net-a-porter.com
6. Stila eye shadow trio,$20, stilacosmetics.com
7. YSL Rouge Pure Shine Sheer Lipstick, $28, prontostyle.com  
8. Bobbi Brown Kohl Eye Liner – Black, $20, barneys.com
9. Ulta Eye Liner Pencil Indigo, $7,  ulta.com
10. Gucci – Guilty, $75, macys.com