Soap & Glory One Heck of a Blot

I've always heard great things about the Soap & Glory One Heck of a Blot and knew it was definitely something I had to try. So when I went back to London this year, this was one of the first things I bought at Boots since we don't have Soap & Glory in Hong Kong.

Laura Mercier Smooth Finish Flawless Fluide

I have been absolutely LOVING the Smooth Finish Flawless Fluid Foundation, the latest addition to Laura Mercier's roster. It's a long-wear, lightweight, oil-free liquid foundation with a smooth matte finish and buildable coverage. Perfect for every day wear and has become part of my daily routine.

NARS Audacious Lipstick in Carmen

So NARS recently launched the new Audacious Lipstick collection and one of lipsticks in this stunning collection is called - wait for it - Carmen - wait for it again - it's a bright red. I knew right there and then that I was going to be ALL OVER THAT! Literally a lipstick with my name on it and in one of my favourite shades of lipstick to wear.

diptyque Eau Duelle

The Essie Button Effect is real people! I'm not even kidding, right after watching Estee's October Beauty Favourites video where she talked about the amazing scent that is the diptyque Eau Duelle perfume, I had this legit overpowering urge to rush out to the nearest mall that stocked diptyque just to smell it for myself.... and I did.

Tarte Pin Up Girl Amazonian Clay 12-Hour Blush Palette

I finally have my hands on Tarte Amazonian Clay Blushes! All thanks to a little shop called Dudes, located in Causeway Bay. By the way, it kills me that we don't have a Sephora in Hong Kong anymore and that they don't currently ship to HK either...pains me so much but I won't go into the extent of this pain in this post. I'm just glad that somewhere like Dudes appreciates (and capitalizes) on the fact that it's difficult to get a lot of American brands in HK. If you're ever around CWB, go check out their store for a selection of products from Bath and Body Works, Real Techniques, Urban Decay, Anastasia, Lorac, Tarte, and much more. Bear in mind that the prices you get there will be marked up by quite a lot!

Now let's get to the good stuff. 

Clarins Blue Orchid Face Treatment Oil

Several weeks ago my face became really really dry and the skin around my cheeks was especially dry and became really scaly and itchy (apologies if that grosses you out slightly). I had been on the beach and under the sun over the weekend and didn't moisturize enough afterwards...which is terrible of me! I tried everything to re-hydrate my skin which included using the Laneige Sleeping mask, Origins Drink Up Intensive mask, hyaluronic sheet masks, Embryolisse Lait Creme Concentre every night...anything and everything I thought was intensely hydrating! Sadly, nothing was really working, at least not at the pace I wanted it to work. During the day, I would wear a hydrating BB cream for work but my skin got so bad that people at work started asking me what was up with my skin because the scaly dry skin was quite noticeable underneath the BB cream. So I started looking through my stash of samples and came across a tiny vial of Clarins Lotus Face Treatment Oil and I thought why the hell not and used up the whole vial to drench my skin...and BOOM. My skin was saved overnight! The extremely dry and scaly parts of my skin felt smoother, plumper and re-hydrated after using the oil. I was so impressed, I bought a full-size bottle the very next day since my skin was definitely still in need of this miracle worker.

NARS Smudgeproof Eyeshadow Base

I'm the kind of girl that will have liquid eyeliner smudged or eyeshadow creased across her lids if I don't have primer on...that's how oily my lids get towards the end of the day. It's my constant nightmare! After using the cult-favourite Urban Decay Primer Potion for a while, I wanted a change and having heard really good reviews about the NARS Smudgeproof Eyeshadow Base I decided to go for it.

D&G 3 L'Imperatrice Perfume

I've had my nose on the D&G 3 L'Imperatrice for years... and it's taken me years to finally buy it. You know how it goes...too many perfumes, too little time! I first found out about it from a friend and at the time, it was her Scent for the Year. Do any of you do that too? Just have one signature scent for the year/till its last drop? 

Dior Crème de Rose Smoothing Plumping Lip Balm

Confession: This is the most expensive lip balm I've ever purchased in my entire life.

Okay okay...fair enough I did purchase it willingly so really I only have myself to blame for spending HK$240 on a lip balm. Why? For the pure and simple reason: I am a beauty addict. And one of our many traits is that we love a good hype and we eventually always end up giving in. I have been seeing so many people rave about the Dior Crème de Rose Lip Balm for quite a while now, and at first I told myself "Oh helllll no Carmen, you are not spending such a ridiculous amount on a lip balm!" and "Seriously, Carmen. Do you really need more lip balms?" Then one day, long story short, I walked by a Dior counter and I left with this lip balm in my bag.

NYX Studio Finishing Powder

Hello everyone...it's been a LONG while!

I ran out of both my MAC Blot Powder and Prep+Prime Transparent Finishing Powder (well both of them hit pan pretty hard and subsequently crumbled into pieces), so I went on the hunt for a new setting powder because as much as I do like those two MAC powders, it wasn't really doing as good of a job for me anymore... I was getting super greasy, super fast.

I checked out the powders from Bare Minerals and Make Up For Ever but I wasn't in the mood to risk paying a huge amount for a product I wasn't 120% sure on. Continuing my hunt, I found myself perusing the NYX counters and ended up debating between their Mineral Finishing Powder and Studio Finishing Powder - both loose powders. Now I'm honestly not the biggest fan of loose powders, they are simply too messy to work with but I guess deep down in my subconscious I wanted a change from powder compacts. One of the NYX ladies recommended the SFP over MFP for 'a longer matte finish'... and when I heard those key words, I was sold.