What's in My Travel Makeup Bag? - Holiday Road Trip 2012

As mentioned in my last blog post, I went on a road trip for 8 days straight. There were 11 people on the trip in 2 cars. You can imagine how packed it was. With that in mind, I tried to bring minimal makeup products since we had quite tight schedule and would be on the road most of the time. I brought what I think essential to perk up my look only. I avoided makeup on certain days when I was on the road for hours. I felt more comfortable in "my own skin" like that.


I brought with me one makeup bag for all my makeup product and I stored all my brushes inside this container that I got for my birthday. I brought all the essentials for me except for my E25 brush. I really wish I hadn't forgotten this brush. So sad. It is hard for me to work without my favorite brush. =(
Regardless, I still am grateful to have these tools with me.

from left to right:
-Real Technique Foundation Brush
-Sigma F40 Blush brush
-Sigma F Powder brush
-Sigma E crease brush
-ecotools crease brush
-ecotools shadow brush
-myglam angled eye brush
-myglam eyeshadow brush

Face

Again, I kept things on the minimal side. I had with me my relatively new Laura Mercier Silk Creme Foundation. My shade is sand beige although later I found that it is a bit too yellow for me under certain light. I remember going to Sephora and asking for assistance in finding the right shade for me. The lady who helped me grabbed two shades and worked them on to my skin. I don't know whether it was the lighting or she was just off that day, but the shades were clearly too light for me yet she told me like I was a makeup newbie and assured me that one of them was the right shade. Anywhoo, I love the finish and coverage this foundation gives me. It has that glowy effect without making your skin look oily/shiny. I don't really use concealer with this foundation.
I also brought Maybelline Lumi  for my undereye area that tends to get darker.
I forgot to bring a powder, so when we stopped by at WalMart I decided to grab this Rimmel Stay Matte pressed powder. I've heard Tanya Burr/pixi2woo raved so much about this and she uses it on a lot of tutorials. I have to say for about a week I used it, it did a good job keeping my face stay matte throughout the day.
For bronzer, I went with matte bronzer as I always do. I chose theBalm Bahama Mama purely because its compact packaging. The same goes with blushes. I chose theBalm Hot Mama and Tarte because they were small enough to fit in my makeup bag and the colors were pretty versatile.
I also put my Urban Decay All Nighters into a mini spray bottle to set my makeup.

Eyes

I prefer neutral shades when it comes to eye makeup. That is why my customized MAC palette  (Arena, Twinks, Embark, Satin Taupe) is perfect for me when I travel. I used to bring my NAKED palette, but this one is more suitable for everyday use because the shades don't deposit a lot of shimmer like most NAKED shadows do. But I have to admit, I wish I had brought other shades because I got quite bored after a while. Eyeshadow primer is a must, and I brought my mini sized Urban Decay

Primer Potion that came with the NAKED palette. I finally tried out Tarte Gifted Amazonian Clay mascara per Emily's recommendation, and I liked it. I still like Almay Get Up & Grow slightly better, but this does the job quite well for wimpy lashes like mine.

I have been using matte black eyeshadow for my eyeliner instead of gel or pen because I find this type of product doesn't smudge at all. At least the one that I am using which is Wet 'N Wild Panther. This is even darker than MAC .. from the swatches I saw on youtube. Sometimes I use this as a base for my eyeliner, but I find it work great on its own. I just use my angled eyeliner brush to create wing effect.




Last but not least, my makeup remover towelettes from Target. This didn't fit in my makeup bag, but it sure played major role in cleaning my face and prepare it for tomorrow's look.

Thank you everyone for reading this post. I hope you all have a great first week in 2013. Weekend is coming up. Have fun! Ow, and don't forget to subscribe! =)

Happy New Year Road Trip

Hello fellow blogger buds! I have been MIA for the last couple of weeks. I was caught up with my vacation. I had two separate road trip with my friends, and now that holiday is over, I am back to my regular schedule. 

3 days toward the end of the year, I was in Las Vegas. It might sound all party and all, but I had a very low-key new year's eve instead. I chose to avoid the crazy crowd at The Strip and stayed in. I watched the fireworks on TV in my hotel room. Regardless, I feel grateful that I am here today and have the opportunity to celebrate the new year. I don't really make any resolution on new year because I know that I would end up ignoring them by the end of the year. But I do evaluate the past year and introspect myself on what I need to improve and fix. One thing that I know for sure is that I want to strictly hold on to my budget and not splurge. I also know for sure that I want to post at least 3 times a week on my blog. Fingers crossed =P

I went on a road trip with 10 friends. We drove all the way from San Jose to Los Angeles to Antelope Canyon to Bryce Canyon to Las Vegas and finally back to San Jose. It was a total of 8 days, and I had a great time. 

Here are some pictures from my recent road trip. 

LACMA Urban Lights

Santa Monica Boardwalk

Bryce Canyon, Utah

Met Donald Duck! 

My boyfriend surprised me with this Donald Duck when we visited Disney store at Downtown Disney.  He is our favorite Disney character, and it's just such a sweet gesture of him. Thanks for the love token!

Bryce Canyon, Utah

Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas

Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas

Blogmas 11, 2012 ❄ Worst Fish Noodle Soup, Gossip Girl and Cars Land

As you're reading this post, I'd probably already on my way to Los Angeles. Excuse my very late blogmas post. My friend just came from Indiana to visit. She's going back to Indonesia for good, so I am savoring all the time I have left with her here. Last night after picking her up at the airport, we went to this little place called Kopitiam. I purchased $5 for $10 groupon. I ordered Milo Ice and fish noodle soup. It was not a really pleasant experience. The soup tasted more like soap water even though the fish was quite tasty. We had to wait for about 30 minutes, quite a long time considering it was a small shop and not too many people were there. Kopitiam offers Singaporean/Malaysian cuisine. It's more like a cafe with small variety of dishes and some drinks and desserts. We got kaya toast on the house for waiting too long. The best thing we had there. It was really disappointing, and I wouldn't go back there considering.

I finally got a chance to watch Gossip Girls' very last episode. It is so sad thinking that there's no more Gossip Girl to look forward to even though it's been quite a while since I was eager to watch new episode of the show. The show has finally come to an end, and I have to say the ending was not bad at all. I won't spoil anything for those who haven't and want to watch Gossip Girl, but let's just say everyone's getting a long fine at the end. I do think there's a little too much impossibility like Georgina and Jack. Oops. Anyway....

My boyfriend and I had been wanting to check out the new Cars Land at Disney California Adventure in Anaheim. Having my friend here was the perfect time for all of us to spend time and have fun at the supposedly "happiest place on earth". I don't know if that's true, but I do feel happy every time I go to Disneyland. I will post more about my trip to Disneyland. Stay tune!

Blogmas 10, 2012 ❄ Weekend Getaway: Monterey

Hi everyone. I have been a week behind on my blogmas, and I apologize for that. It is harder that I thought it would be to write a blog post every single day. I had a weekend getaway with some of my friends. We stayed at a hotel in Monterey. My boyfriend's roommate had a Christmas party with his office and he invited us along with him to stay at the hotel. We didn't go to the Christmas party though, but it sure sounded like fun with the ravel and white elephant. White elephant is gift exchange you do with people and people want to can "steal" other people gifts. 

I didn't take many pictures because I forgot to bring my camera and the weather was really bad. It was cloudy all day Saturday and raining and cold, too. The very next day when we were leaving, the sun decided to show its face on our backs. Talk about irony. 

We got to see the sea as it was Monterey after all. It was windy and cold and cloudy. Not a good time to laying on the beach. =(

This was my lunch at a seafood restaurant near the hotel. I forgot what the place was called. This is Crab Louie salad. It was bland and tasted meh. 

I redeemed my awful lunch with yummy dessert from Ghirardelli which was also waling distance from our hotel. Everything was in walking distance as it was a small town. This is Very Berry sundae. It has. I think, vanilla ice cream with cheesecake and berry sauce with whipped cream and chocolate balls and wafer as the topping. It was good although not as good as I remembered. I have only tried it at Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco. I guess the taste was somewhat compromised. 

I found this weird sodas at a gift shop. My friend wanted to buy one just for the sake of trying it but decided not to after looking at the price. Yeah, we're cheap that way. =P

For dinner, we went to this chinese restaurant with lanterns and red things all around as decorations. My own personal statistics and experience, chinese restaurants with "too festive" decorations or what I like to call "trying-too-hard" decore usually don't have great food. And I was right. The taste was just okay. The dishes weren't flavorful as I usually prefer. I guess the taste here was also compromised for western style. I don't know. I got this bad fortune cookie with bad fortune inside. It just ridiculous. I don't believe in this kind of thing, but I do like to crush the fortune cookie to take what's inside. By far, this is the most ridiculous "fortune" I have ever got. 

Thank you for hanging out with me. 

8 more days 'till Christmas! 

Blogmas 9, 2012 ❄ Quick Update

Hi everyone. I haven't fulfilled my goal to blog every single day. Sorry for that. I'm running busy today.  It was my last day volunteering. I've been volunteering for SHFB's finance department for more than 2 months now. Time really flies, doesn't it? Then I went to the mall looking for a gift for my boyfriend but didn't get anything. Instead, I got myself a printed cardigan from LOFT which I believe you will soon see on Instagram. =P

I went to Costco for grocery shopping for this Friday's Christmas celebration at my youth fellowship. I'm going to cook spaghetti meatball for 65 people! It was supposed to be my friend's job, but I don't know why I ended up offering to cook the sauce.

Veronica also messaged me today asking if I want to shop online on loft.com because they are having really great sale and discount. Free shipping is eligible only for $125 purchase or more. So she was willingly gather friend so we all could get the free shipping since popular items at stores are always out of stock. It was really crazy how a 60-dollar-blouse can only be $18. How I'm thankful for holiday sale!

Sorry for the short update. I'm running late for dinner at St. John Burge tonight. Write you tomorrow!

Blogmas 8, 2012 ❄ My Story: How I Got Into Makeup

I have always been interested in makeup for as long as I remember. When I was about 11, my mom got me in a beauty workshop with Belia, an Indonesian youth makeup brand. I don't know whether the brand still exists or not, but it was the first time I learned how to apply makeup properly. A couple of years later, there's another beauty workshop held by Etude, a Korean beauty brand at the mall near my house. My sister and I participated in the workshop. I learned about applying foundation, powder, eyeliner, etc. I remember it was the first time I used a pencil eyeliner on my waterline and I could see a significant difference on my overall look. It made my small eyes look more defined and somewhat bigger. I tried it the next day to school and one of my friends came up to me and asked, "What happened to your eyes?" I never again wore eyeliner. At that time, I thought makeup was only for parties and other formal events. I also thought, as taught at the workshops, applying makeup consisted on fixed number of steps.

I also remember thinking I could never apply eyeshadows because it was just too hard making it even and pretty and all. A little over a year ago, I was hooked watching Blair Fowler or Juicystar07 on youtube along with her sister, Elle Fowler of AllThatGlitters21. I discovered them through my marketing professor who introduced the concept of 'haul' to me. I started watching their Forever21 hauls, makeup hauls and makeup tutorial. I really believed they were the only ones on youtube doing this kind of stuff if not the best. I then came across Bethany Mota or Macbarbie07 whom I thought was just copying Juicystar07 because of the name and the video style. I was really naive back then. I didn't watch youtube often. A lot has changed since then.

These two products was the first makeup products I purchased on my own. I bought the mascara because Bethany said that she loved it, and I bought the elf beauty clutch because I thought it was such a good deal for only $10. Little did I know that both products just didn't work for me.




Blair's video was the first ever makeup tutorial I have ever tried.
"Strolling by the Seaside"

And here's the result

It doesn't look good, I know.
It was the first time ever I apply eyeshadow on my lids on my own! I have come a long way since.

I then discovered Beauty Broadcast, a beauty channel and blog by Emily Eddington or emilynoel83. She really changed my life forever. I might sound a little bit exaggerating, but she really did. I literally spent hours watching her makeup tutorials back to back and learned how to apply my makeup, especially eyeshadows. I learned how to do smokey eyes from her. I bought things she said she loved and I loved them and still do! I find Emily is really passionate about what she does on BeautyBroadcast. Her reviews on products she's tried are really thorough and right to the point. She will say what products she loves or hates and why unlike many other beauty gurus who just say they love something without giving more details. Emily comes across really sincere and dear to my heart, and I thank you for all of her hard work making great videos for her subscribers.

After that, I just continue learning from my youtube experience. Here's a list of my favorite beauty gurus on youtube:

MakeupByTiffanyD by Tiffany
Pixiwoo by Samantha and Nicola Chapman
Pixi2woo by Tanya Burr
MissGlamorazzi by Ingrid

I don't use makeup to hide my imperfection nor do I think makeup should be used for it. I found makeup was a new hobby and now I am passionate about all things beauty, and I would love to share this passion with people just like those beauty gurus do. I am learning as I'm watching the beauty videos. I have friends come up to me and ask me makeup related questions. I first felt a little embarrassed knowing people I know actually read my blog, but then when I know I get to help them and answer their questions, I feel really glad and not at all embarrassed. I wish I can share my knowledge and passion with more people.
So thank you for reading. Write you on the next blogmas! =)

Blogmas 7, 2012 ❄ Target Finds

I'm sorry for the two-day delay. I was so busy that I forgot to publish my post. Last Friday I spent almost all day at Target. Target is having a coupon for $10 giftcard when you spend $50 so I thought it was a good time to stock up on essential things like toilet paper. But surprise surprise, when I go to Target, I never really buy things that I have planned to buy. I always end up buying more stuff. As I mentioned before, Target is on top of my list of favorite stores. I always find great things at Target. And here are some.

Mr. & Mrs. Owl.

They are so adorable. I almost got them just because the cuteness factor but I realized cuteness can't justify my shopping, so self-control wins. I currently don't have a Christmas tree, and I plan to get on in the future. I am one who is festive when it comes to Christmas. 

Print Pants

I finally got these. I went to two different Target yesterday because I forgot my coupons. I had to go back home, print the coupons, go to another Target that is closer to my next destination. Sadly, the other Target didn't have the size of the pants I wanted so I held back. I went to the first Target again later that night and found the pants were still hanging on the rack by itself. It was the only one, my size and on sale. You know what they say. If it's on sale and it's your size, it's meant to be. Haha. But no, I didn't buy the pants because of that, I bought them because I've been thinking about them for a week, and I know that I really like them.


Cloud-cut Blazer

dress-Urban Outfitters, T-Shirt-Loft

I still don't know why this type of cut, the wavy, cloud-like cut is called scallop-cut. Anyway, I saw this on MakeupbyTiffanyD's blog and I thought that it was really cute on. When I was browsing through the sale racks on the clothing section, I found this baby hanging. It was 50% off and was the only one and was my size. Do you see the pattern here? I like how it looks. It can dress up your entire outfit and it works great for dress too.

Clear Plastic Drawers

I've been looking for this type of organizers for quite a while, and I was thrilled to finally find these at Target. These are pretty great dupes for clear acrylic containers that are really pricey. I just love how they see-through so I can locate my stuff very easily. I will look even better once I have a real vanity. =P