My Top Beauty blunders of all time

What's your beauty and skincare mistakes?

We all made them... (hopefully we learned from our mistakes and no longer do them!)

Here are some of mine:

• Tanning - ill spent youth of spending hours sitting by the pool under the sun to get a golden brown. I never turned "golden", it was always grey and ashy or fried myself to a bright red and then peel. 
• Not wearing sunscreen. See above. I never wore sunblock or sunscreen as a kid and there are pictures of me as a brown kid.
• Sleeping without washing off my make up. Being drunk or too sleepy are not good excuses anymore to not wash off your face after a night out. I always have face wipes nearby. Even if I didn't wear make up that day, the grime from the day is enough to clog pores and wake up with a huge zit.
• Over drying my oily acne-prone skin as a teen. I had pimples as a teen - yea, I used everything to zap them away. Salicylic acid, benzoyl peroxide, sulfur, willow bark, tea tree oil, clay, even toothpaste! I tried to de-grease and dry everything out. This was counter-productive because if you strip away oil from the skin, more oil is produced thus creating clogged pores that lead to zits. Thankfully, I know better and get regular facials that have paid off  in the long term. I don't break out very often anymore. 
• Not moisturizing. See above. Because I had the oily skin as a teen, I didn't feel the need to put a moisturizer on my face. If it weren't for good genes and good skincare routine, I would have dry irritable skin with some wrinkles. 
• Dark black eyeliner all around my eyes. Panda eyes or Goth. I can't tell. Whoever said this was a good look growing up in the 90s needs to take a good look in the mirror. Dark black eyeliner lined on the upper lashes AND lower lashes closes the eyes instead of making them bigger. If the argument is that it makes the eyes more exotic or mysterious looking, it doesn't do either. Just makes you look a bit trashy or unaware that its not enhancing your best feature of your face. The eyes communicate a lot of nonverbal cues. Why would you want to mask it all with dark liner? There is a way to look smoldering with a nicely applied smokey eye and this is not it.  But ugh, I am guilty for wearing this look as a pre-teen.
• Frosted lipstick/lip gloss. Another unfortunate case of the 90s trends. Just don't do it.
• Matching eyeshadow with my outfit. When I started wearing make up out into the real world, I was probably in the 6th grade and there were a couple school dances where I tried to match my eyeshadow to my outfit. Luckily, I caught on early that this was not a good look and quickly rectified the unfortunate beauty blunder early on.
• Over processed hair with hair dye, highlights, perms. Healthy hair comes from doing less to it. But we're all a bit vain and want our hair to always be something its not. So we put it through extreme heat (ie. curling, flatironing, blowdry, etc.), highlights, hair dye, perms, straightening. Just leave it alone. All of that fussing around to make our hair look different causes lots of damage to hair follicles and creates even more problems. I first had highlights in my hair in 8th grade and throughout high school. In college there were periods of experimenting with hair dye and I would dye my hair with manic panic maroon shades as well as different shades of blue. These weren't extreme because I have dark Asian hair so those colors only came out in the sun as tints or under certain lighting. Post-college, I stopped but started curling my hair a lot which fried the ends. I had a bit of highlights here and there and bleached the ends of my hair then had it dyed fire engine red. That lasted about a good month and a half then the color started to fade and it took two years of constant trimming and growing it out to get rid of all the color. My hair was healthy again until I moved to Asia. The heat and humidity would not hold a curl for very long so I got a perm, it didn't do anything so I got another one a couple months later, then my hair starting rebelling and falling out! So now, I'm on a mission to make my hair and scalp healthy again. I pour serums filled with the promise of hair regrowth onto my scalp and shampoos that promise to exfoliate and cleanse my scalp so the serums work better. *sigh*

New Year's beauty resolutions

Happy New Year! I spent almost three weeks traveling Western Europe for the holidays and have amazing memories, stories, pictures, and met up with old & new friends. Its winter and my skin surprisingly did fine - I slathered lotion all over my body at night before bed time and if its extra dry due to the heating in the room, I'd slather lotion again in the morning. I did the same thing with my face: after cleansing it was always serum, moisturizer, sunscreen, then tinted moisturizer & a bit of make up.

So now its 2014 and a brand new year. What are your beauty care resolutions this year?

My beauty care resolution is simple: take care of my body by nurturing it with care and love. Stay healthy as much as I can, moisturize from head-to-toe because dry skin causes wrinkles, apply sunscreen more diligently, drink A LOT of fluids, smile, laugh, enjoy life!

Prost! Skål! Salud!

New Year's in Amsterdam

Winter Wonderland beauty

Its that time of the year when the Northern hemisphere gets a cold front and snow, ice, wind, cold rain is setting in. I live in a place where the coldest is 24 degrees Celsius - don't be jealous, I'm a snow bunny and like the colder temperatures rather than the hot humidity I'm engulfed in everyday. I combat this by blasting the AC so its always a cool 18 degrees Celsius.

While everyone else is planning a tropical getaway for the holiday season, I'm jetting off to the snow and will be skiing. With a little bit of tweaks in my beauty routine to deal with the drier, harsher, and frigid temperatures I should be able stave off dry flaky winter skin while on vacation.

Check out 3floz.com curated ski section!

A few things that caught my eye from the site:

1) Super goop mint infusion lip balm spf 30

Lip balms are rarely SPF 30 and UVA/UVB protection. My lips get terribly wind swept on the mountain so I always need to have lip balm on hand in my pocket.
















2) Malin + Goetz Eucalyptus Deodrant

I love all beauty care products that have Eucalyptus in them!



















3) EBoost Orange Natural Energy

Its hard to get all your vitamins in while on vacation and to remember to eat healthy so we stay healthy. I've written about this company before and they have this convenient sachets so just pop them into your backpack. This would be good for the air travel as well.














All opinions regarding these products are my own personal opinions alone. The pictures are taken from the companies websites which are linked to this blog. No companies or product endorsements here. 

Always Youthful

My Birthday is coming up. A milestone birthday I dread, but getting more comfortable with the idea. Most people I meet are shocked to find out my age. Here are some of my beauty tips for looking youthful.. I do credit a lot of genetics and race though because both my parents took a long time to look their age.

1) Drink Water
2) Drink Tea
3) Eat Greens
4) Dance
5) Yoga
6) Smile, Laugh, Joke around
7) C'est la vie! Be easy going
8) Invest in regular facials - about 1x a month
9) Good quality skincare - wear SPF!
10) Don't bake your skin in the sun - those years in SoCal didn't help my skin
11) No Smoking
12) Exfoliate 2-3x a week
13) Moisturize
14) Exercise
15) Sleep 6-10 hours a night
16) A face mask once a week

Make up for glasses

Applying make up is a little bit different if you wear glasses. The lens sometimes makes our eyes look closer and cross-eyed. The make up application for the eyes have to make the eyes appear wider, brighter, and bigger. The best part about make up is the fact that we can always play with light and shadow. Its an illusion.

My sister was doing her homework with her glasses on and I was inspired to do a make up look that is easy for young professionals working in an office environment. (Thanks to my sister for being my guinea pig!)

 

The main concern in a professional looking make up application is to make the whole look clean and bright. With glasses its easy to look frumpy and sleepy. I focused on making the eyes wide by adding light reflective eyeshadow base with the contour on the outer corners of the eyes. The eyeliner application is also focused on lining the upper lash line with a darker emphasis on the outer corner. The lower lash line is only half lined with the emphasis on outer corner. A peach cream blush, highlighter, mascara, and a reddish-rose lipstick. I prefer lipstick over lip gloss because in my opinion it looks more polished than gloss. 

Products used to create this look:

Make up forever Sculpting Kit: I used this as a highlighter for the brow bone and high cheek bones as well as a shadow base for the eyes. I contoured her cheek bones, side of the nose, outer corner of her eyes, and on her jaw line.

The Make Up Store microshadow in xocoatl: This was used to contour her eyelid in the outer corner only.

NARS eyeshadow duo in Misfit: I used the cream base eyeshadow in this palette for her lids because it has a bit of a shimmer to it to diffuse the light and make the eyes appear more awake.

Stila smudge pot in Brown: I used this to line her upper lash line and 1/2 of her lower lash line. Emphasizing the outer corners.

Becca Cosmetics jewel dust in xantho: I tapped this glittery bronze onto the middle of her lids. This creates a beautiful shimmery 'pop' in her eyelids.

Stila convertible color in Gladiola: Though the color make scare people away this is a beautiful peach blush and when applied to the apples of the cheeks a natural healthy flush is created. I prefer peach blushes than pink-y blushes because it looks a little more radiant and natural.

NARS sheer lipstick in Gipsy: This is a beautiful rose color that looks great on most people. It has more color than Dolce Vita (another fave of mine and my personal go-to lipstick) that will read sophisticated career woman without being intimidating like a red lipstick.

 

Holiday season 2013 sets to covet

Holiday season is coming up and with that are all the amazing beauty sets that will adorn the shelves of your nearest Sephora. As a beauty junkie and product hoarder (aren't we all?), Sephora is one of my favorite stores to get lost in. I get a kick out of making a mess of my hands with all kinds of testers of eyeliners, lipsticks, lip glosses, glitter, skincare, perfume, etc.
I am excited about all the holiday sets that are coming out for the holidays. Some brands like Stila have unleashed their sets already. Here are some of my favorite ones that are coming out!

1) Stila's Tools of the Trade 5 piece 5 piece Luxe Brush Set
$28

2) Stila's Color Me Pretty Lip and Cheek Palette
$28









3) Stila's Magnificent Metals Foil Finish Eye Shadow
$32
Technically not a holiday set but I saw these at Sephora the other day and was super close to purchasing a couple pots of these metallic foil eye shadows. They would make the perfect holiday eye make up.

4) Urban Decay's Naked Nail Kit 
$12

5) Urban Decay's Black Market 24/7 Glide on Eye Pencil set
$36

6) Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Lip Tar: Metallic - in Black Metal Dahlia
$18

7) Smashbox Wonder vision lip gloss set
$24

8) Tarte's Pure Delights 8-Piece Lip Surgence set
$34



















All opinions regarding these products are my own personal opinions alone. The pictures are taken from the companies websites which are linked to this blog. No companies or product endorsements here. 

Smell this

My favorite scents are a combination of peppermint, mint, eucalyptus, white tea, and citrus. Its no surprise that when I come across a body product that has any of these combinations, I end up purchasing it! These body products leave my skin feeling soft. I have soft smooth skin in general due to genetics and skincare.

I live in a tropical country with 100% humidity and the heat sometimes drags me down so I've got my AC blasting constantly in my room. The biggest problem when spending a majority part of my day indoors with AC is the fact that it dries out my skin. I was given a luxurious body lotion by a student of mine that smells like a spa!

This lotion is by Como Shambhala and is made without sodium lauryl suphate. In fact their ingredient list is pretty small. I like it because #1 it smells good with the combination of eucalyptus, geranium, lavender, and peppermint. It also melts into my skin without feeling too greasy within a couple minutes. There is also a nice tingling sensation from the peppermint.

The lotion is supposed to be an "invigorating" lotion but the reason why I like eucalyptus and mint is because they are calming scents to me. I use this lotion after my evening shower before I get ready for bed.










There is a local brand of home spa products here that have opened up branches all over the island called Mt. Sapola. Every time I pass their store, I can't help but take a deep breath in because the stores all smell like entering a spa! They also have a whole range of Rosemary-Eucalyptus body products that I adore. I am always replenishing my body wash from Mt. Sapola

This Rosemary-Eucalyptus body wash does not have an overpowering smell but just enough to get you saying 'aaahhhhh' in the shower. This body wash also doesn't strip my skin dry (unless I use scalding hot water - which sometimes happens because my shower head has a weird temperature problem) and works well with my loofah.

I have also tried their Rosemary-Eucalyptus salt scrub as well and prefer this one to Bliss's Hot salt scrub because the scent is not an overpowering Eucalyptus scent. I like to blend a scrub and a body wash together on my loofah so its an exfoliating body wash. I don't particularly like the oily residue that all body scrubs I've tried in the past leaves behind on the skin.






When it comes to perfumes and colognes, I have a pretty picky nose. I started wearing CK one when I was 11 in 6th grade when that scent was all the rage in the 90s and over the decades, I've collected quite a number of perfume bottles of different ranges of scents. Clearly, the scents that I loved, every little drop was used and the ones I didn't love were barely used. In college, I used a combination of Dolce Gabbana Light Blue (that scent still evokes memories of college), Coco Chanel Mademoiselle (really sweet smell), and Burberry Brit (which I still love and use on occasion). Post-college, I stuck with Burberry Brit but have mostly been drawn to natural scented oils that I could get at Whole Foods because my nose needed some calming scents due to living in New York. I discovered Jo Malone in New York and have loved her colognes since then. The brands colognes are meant to be mixed up and paired together to make something completely individual.

A bit sweet but mostly citrusy. This is a perfect scent for a hot summer day. Considering where I live now is mostly just hot all year round, this is my go-to scent for the day time. According to their website, this is a "Peppery basil and aromatic white thyme bring an unexpected twist to the scent of limes on a Caribbean breeze."

This scent is a light floral scent of White Jasmine and Mint. This is the scent that hooked me onto Jo Malone's line. The scent is described as "Just-crushed wild mint adds a dash of eccentricity to an exuberant bouquet of jasmine, lily, orange flower and rose."
Its a little exotic but mostly refreshing scent.




















All opinions regarding these products are my own personal opinions alone. The pictures are taken from the companies websites which are linked to this blog. No companies or product endorsements here.