Makeup Tip 3

Model look from Estee Lauder


Smoothing Creme Concealer from Estee Lauder

This is a simple yet magical makeup tip. Magical in the sense that it is instantaneous, et voila la difference. Notice the eyes of the model above are tilted upwards? Aside from the perfect eye line, mascara and eye shadow, the lifting effect could be achieved by dotting concealer on the outer corner of the eyes.

When we think of concealers, we usually use it for covering blemishes on our skin. Our focus is almost always covering the eye bags and the dark circles, which are the most obvious spots. One place we miss though, are the outer corner of our eyes. The part that is closest to the rim of our eyes bordering our eye lashes.

If you look closely in the mirror, the rims of the outer corner of our eyes have the same shade or in a more terrible scenario, a darker shade than the dark circle. This is the most often missed spot but the most important one for an instant brightening and lifting effect on our eyes.

The rationale behind it is, even if we have sucessfully covered the eye bags and dark circles, our eyes are only san bags and circles. If you look closely in the mirror again, the eyes still lack that luminous look. This is when the magic takes place. Take a tiny dot of concealer and dab it evenly on the rim of the outer corner of your eyes. Now compare the one eye you have dabbed on the concealer and the other eye you haven't.

See the difference? An instant lifting effect! If you are lazy and don't want to put eye line or any makeup, this is the best you could go san makeup, but still have luminous and not drooping eyes. Now get your wand and do some magic!!

(Photos: www.esteelauder.com)

Makeup Tip 2

Ombre Eclat - 4 shades Eye Shadow from Guerlain


Eye Pencils, eye-liner and Kohl from Guerlain

Une empreinte de moi dans la memoire des autres....
A trace of myself, in the memories of others...

Makeup is a process and it comes in little steps, the last and most difficult being the eyes. I envy women who have no eye bags and no dark circles. So do women who have bright, large eyes that mesemerize and dazzle people. Unfortuately, I think these women only exist in air-brushed Vogue magazines.

If you use eye-liner and mascara, even water proofed ones, you might find yourself looking at a panda in the mirror after several hours. Even the best of water proofed eye makeup do smudge. We can only make it last as long as possible without smudging.

The trick to making eye-liner lasts longer, which contributes to smudging as well as mascara, is to put a similar colored powder on top of the eye-liner. The rationale behind it is that even if we use kohl pencils, they are still 'moist' on our skin. Since our skin is warm, it will slowly melt and smudge. Eye shadow, however, is dry powder. If we put a layer of eye shadow on top of the eye-liner, the staying power will be much longer.

Most ladies like to pick black eye-liners, but it's real difficult to find a real black eye shadow to dust on it. I have found a dark chocolate color eye-liner at Guerlain. The color is very dark for a brown eye-liner. The texture is dense enough for a fine eye-line and you can easily find a dark brown eye shadow to match the color.

I haven't used eye liner for a long time until this tip, mostly because of the panda effect. Now, I do put eye-liner and dot eye shadow on top of the line. Well, after 5 hours a panda is forming, but hey, at least I got 5 hours of bright eyes, which is not bad for a makeup tip. Try it, you'd be surprised.

(photos: www.guerlain.com)

Twilight

A few weeks ago, I read "Twilight" by Stephanie Meyer. It was entertaining, a teenage romance. The setting was high school, the main characters are all 17, well except the parents.....

As a novel in the vampire genre, it really differed from Anne Rice. There were no gory details, no preying and not a lot of blood. However, there was also not a whole lot of mystery and suspense that made your heart pulsate.

Despite that, I was still anticipating the adapted movie to be released in DVD coz there was a lot of hype over how good looking "Edward Cullen" was. He was good looking, but that was it. The movie was a disappointment. It took the last bit of suspense away from the book. The movie was also cut into different scenes taken from the book, but it was so piecemeal the movie was not fluid at all. I guess the biggest disappointment of all was the absence of chemistry between the main characters. It's a romance after all.

If you have time on your hands and reminiscent of your high school years, you might want to watch it, but the book is definitely better than the movie.

(photo: www.barnesandnobles.com)

Makeup Tip 1

This is one of the makeup tips I got from my makeup class. The main thing is picture a perfect oval shaped face, with the eyes, nose, mouth in perfect dimension. Ok just "picture".

Makeup, therefore, is to enhance our best features and camouflage the not so good features that do not fit the above. One very good tip to instantly slim the face and "make" it look oval is shading. Not a surprise.

Well, the magic is to highlight and shade at the same time, so this little box by Benefit is perfect for the job. The flat brush picks up both colors and the darker shade goes on the jawline and under the chin, while the other side of the brush, the highlight, will glide above the shade on your face, which will enhance your features.

I bought it and the first time I used it, I got a surprised but welcomed comment, that I looked slimmer!! Wow, a makeup tip and some camouflage did it. Now I am complacent into not losing the extra weight. Well, just a bit, hehe.

Love

I have been thinking of a way to write about "Love" for a long time. I did not know how to approach it. One part of me think that it's too sappy to write about it. Another part of me, which I dreaded to be a more truthful scenario, is that it would open the flood gates of memories.

For a better part of the past few years, I thought that love is very behind me. The reason being none other than that I have chosen to be single at this stage in my life, and most importantly, being single preserves my sanity. I am one of those people who falls hard and would totally lose myself in the other person, which is really suffocating. It didn't help that I was a very insecure person and I would do real stupid things to make the other person prove that he loved me. Well, let's just say it's not a pretty scenario.

I have a bout of insomnia the past week. Even with the little winks I could catch, I would be dreaming a lot. I am finally writing about it because I have identified it as an anxiety attack. What brought it on is that I am attending a wedding of a girl friend in three weeks. This girl friend happens to be a close colleague of the wife of my first boy friend.

Okay, it's been a long time ago....college, freshman year. Okay, if our baby were ever born he/she will be almost university age now. Okay, he is married now for 10 years. Okay, he has a little girl now. Okay, I wonder if our baby would be a boy or a girl....

Okay, I shouldn't get all worked up over this, except I keep dreaming about him. It didn't help that there's the gift and in this case, the curse of facebook. We have added each other on our friends list. It was all okay until I saw the photo album he posted a few months back of his 10th anniversary trip with his wife. Looking at the pictures, I felt stabbed over and over again. I am certain it's not pangs of jealousy. The pain came from "what-if ".

Certain to see his family at the wedding. I hope I could hold my composure. If I do have to wipe away a tear or two, I hope no one would notice. I hope seeing "what could have been" would not hurt too much. Then there is this other thing I have to remind myself of, that I am there to celebrate the happiness of my friend. I just find it a bit ironic with this bitter-sweet feeling.

Joanna

I attended Joanna Wang's concert on Saturday night. It was wonderful. The concert's theme is "The Adult Storybook" and it's organized into 6 "chapters". I loved the chapters on "Reminiscence" and "Love", with a lot of oldies plus her own compositions.

Although Joanna is only 20, her repertoire of songs is beyond her age. She has rearranged and sang songs like "Aubrey" by Bread, "Vincent", and "True" by Spandau Ballet. She is also a talented songwriter and the songs she has composed have become hits.

When I first heard her voice, I thought she is a black lady or another Norah Jones, coz her voice is so blues, jazzy and soulful. When I found out that she is an ABC, I was overwhelmed. She has this groove. Anyone into jazz should look her up on youtube or better yet, get her album. She is a real talent and what's rarer, she is only 20 and has a long way to go. I had a great time at the concert and it really made my weekend extra special.

Petit Tin Teas

3 Petit Tins Tea Leaves


Jingle Bells, Dacaf Carol, Tarte Au Poire

I received this gift from a friend for New Year's. It's a set of Tea Leaves in Petit Tins, as they were called, that come in 3 distinct flavors. I thought that I'll take a picture of them before I opened one of them for a nice afternoon brew.

The descriptions on the insert says.....

The Jingle Bells is a Christmas tea with images of snow and bells, which is created by yogurt and citrus fruit flavors.

Decaf Carol are decaffeinated tea leaves, flavored with sweet strawberrry and vanilla.

Tarte Au Poire is a sweetly scented Japanese green tea that will remind you of a freshly baked pear tart.

Now I have to make the difficult but pleasant choice to pick one for my afternoon tea and complement it with a nice dessert "to bring out the flavor of the teas". What a nice excuse to get some sweets!!