Archive for 2013

Surprise at Winners!

No Comments »

Today while out with my dear BF and his friend, I stopped into Winners to window shop. I walked upon their nail polish section and BOY did they have a section. I saw big name brands like China Glaze, OPI, Essie, Butter London, Zoya, and Orly. 



There was some nice colors and some that were obviously colors that only those daredevils could pull off. I came upon one that I really liked and was like hmmm. this looks nice. I spun it around and the price tag on it was different from all the others. While most other ones were priced at $5.99, this one was at $1.99!!! and it was a good color too. Ofcourse I had to snatch it up. Before I left though I made sure to check for any others, unfortunately, there werent. HOWEVER, I'll definitely be back more often. 
(Elfin' Around by China Glaze)

When I got back I found out that this nail polish is actually from their 2013 Christmas Collection!! I was really fortunate to find it for such a good deal :)

Parcel In The Mail!

No Comments »

I got more mail today :) who doesn't love that? Well, I've been expecting this one since there was already so many people online posting about it and people on the west coast always get it later than those on the east coast. 

I was really excited to open this up. It is a scented nail polish that comes in an array for smells. The one I recieved is called Italian Leather. While I was hoping for a red, (I have too much though) I wasn't disappointed with the color. It is a greyish color with a slight glitter to it. 


However, it is definitely not a color I would pick up for myself at the store. But I still like the concept! I probably will try some of the other colors, as I am really interested in Autumn Spice and Boredeaux

Maple VoxBox!

No Comments »

A couple of weeks back I received an email from Influenster telling me that the VoxBox was now available in Canada. Sign up was due within days and when I had read the email, I was already past the sign up date. But I figured it never hurts to try since the sign up sheet was still running.

Fast forward to two days ago, as I got home from work, my mom told me I had a small package waiting. I expected it to be a trade I had made, but much to my surprise, I got the VoxBox!


Whenever I get these things in the mail its like I’m a kid in a candy store. I love opening up presents.
Inside, was an assortment of goodies, both edible and non-edible. As I type, I’m eating one of the Ice Breakers Duo mint.








I stuffed all the edible products in my purse so that when I get hungry, I can just pull them out and have something to snack on. The snacks, besides the Ice Breakers Duo in Raspbery, are both Skinny Cow brand. One is the milk chocolate dreamy Clusters, while the other is a wafer bar called "Heavenly Crisp".

The product I'm most excited to try, however, is the Montagne Jeunesse mud mask! I'm a fan of masks so this will definitely be something to write home about ;)

To be honest though, besides that, I'm not so excited about the other three. They are the NYC BigBolf Mascara and Lip Gloss and Broadway imPress nails. Its not that the products aren't good, its just 1. I have too many mascaras, 2, I'm not a huge lip product person, and 3 I suck at applying nail stickers. they end up bumpy and peeling. :(

Overall, I'm happy, but I'd rate this box a 3/5


Disclaimer: I receive these products complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes!

One Year Goal! GANBATTE!

No Comments »

Wow. It's been a year. It was a horrible year, blogwise :( Every month, I keep telling myself that I need to make more entries and write down my experiences, but every month rolls by, and I forget, or something comes up. Disappointing to say the least. 

It has been a whirlwind of a year. Struggled a lot emotionally and indecisive on a lot of fronts. A year ago today, I started this blog aiming to improve my writing through blog. Also to have a record of my many experiences. This was a huge fail that I can blame no other than myself. Now, as I venture into the second year, I can only say that I will try to do this more. But this will not be for anyone other than myself. I want to improve as a writer/blogger and a person. Ideally, it'll be something great for me to look back on, years down the road and reflect on what I've accomplished <3

My trip is coming up.

No Comments »

So since I have nothing better to do right now and really long overdue for a post, I just wanted to say how excited I am for my trip coming up in five days.

Ill be spending ten days in Cambodia on a short term missions trip with my church ECBC, helping out three churchs in Phnom Penh. We'll mostly be dealing with children.

After that i'll be heading to Sri Lanka for eight days to attend a good friends wedding.  The best thing is ill be able to see so many university friends that I hadn't seen in over a year. Well be travelling around the island too with elephant rides and safari scheduled. I'm most looking forward to the elephant ride.

After that, its off to Taiwan for a week. Its very short lived, which I regret since I love Taiwan with all my heart. But ill be traveling to taichung with my parents and hoping to catch up with some other university friends in Taiwan at the time. Most of all, ill finally be to show respect to my grandpa's grave. Something I've been wanting to do for almost two years now. A decision back then not to return that brings tears to my eyes everytime I think about it.

A three and a half week trip that will go by so fast, it'll feel like its ended before its even started.

I look forward to posting about it.

SWAP Meet Haul!!

No Comments »

Someone recently posted about a SWAP, which stands for Style With a Purpose, being held in Vancouver in one of the trading groups I was in, and since I've never been to one of those, I really wanted to see it for myself. For those who don't know what a SWAP meet is, it’s where you rummage through your closet and sort out all the clothes you have that you haven’t worn and probably won’t ever wear. Everyone brings together all the clothing that they don’t need and swap the clothes. Like the old saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Whatever doesn't get chosen at the end of the swap gets donated to the various Women's Centers in downtown Vancouver. So it would be a good cause.


A few weeks ago, I prepared my donation bag, and the organizers were really great for coming to me to pick up my donation/swap bag. They would sort everything out and have it ready for the swap. When you arrive at the swap, they give you a big bag and everything you can fit into the bag is yours to keep. Each additional bag would be an extra $20. The actual swap was last night. One thing I was not happy about was they didn’t really explain the rundown of the night and left people wondering.  Their facebook event page said 6-10 PM but actually the swap wouldn’t start till eight.  6 – 8 PM was the mingle, the thank you from the charities and a small fashion show of some of the clothes. I had gotten there right at six and felt a little lonely with no one to talk to for a while.There was wine and catered food for sale with 10% of proceeds to the women’s centers that the leftover clothes would go to as well.  Overall though it was a great idea and I wish I had taken more pictures at the actual event.

I got there at 6ish and since I was one of the first, I got a first pick at jewelry. I didn't find much I liked so these were what I got. 


The swap started around 7:30 PM which was great, because I didn’t think I was able to hold out till 8 PM. There were a LOT of ladies there and a lot of things on the racks. Pretty close to the size of a small boutique I would say, except you really didn’t have to pay. I made a quick run at the accessories for some scarfs I had spotted earlier. I picked up three. A white one, a dark blue one and a grey colored one. 


I then went for the shoes, because if anyone knew me, I loved my shoes. I went quickly and wounded up with four pair of shoes, all of which were barely worn. First pair was a pair of black Freedman peep toe heels. 


I moved on to looking at boots and found a stitches store type pair of knee high boots.


Next pair of boots was a grey pair of aldo shoes boots. 


My favorite pair of boot from the bunch was this ankle boot. It's by blowfish. It had that edgy feel that I've been looking to find for a while now. 


I moved on back to accessories and found a bag I liked. While I didn't quite like the material, I grabbed the bag because I knew I would use it. 


I grabbed a pair of sunglasses that I thought was quite cute too.


 I then went on the difficult task of flipping through over 16+ racks of clothes. There was SOOO much to choose from. I didn't bother with the denims cause it always causes me trouble and I didn't want to try them on at the place. I went through the racks twice and these were what I picked up. There were lots of name brands and really nice clothes, but they were either not my size or just not my style. These were what I ended up getting. I didn't get that many cause I was sort of rushed for time. My favorite was the grey dress by H&M. 


  

 So in the end, I had a really good time. 

What did you think of my haul? :D

Happy Chinese New Year

2 Comments »

Just wanted to take a moment and wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year!! I want to wish all my friends a festive weekend. Hope everyone is having lots of good food and collecting lots of red pockets.

For those of us in BC I think its an added benefit that family day happens to be tomorrow so we get a long weekend.

This year is the year of the snake. Those born in the year of the snake are said to be intelligent and quick thinking. What this means for me is that I've already lived through two full cycles as I too was born in the year of the snake. Hope that this means I'll have a good year :)

as we asians, say Gong Hay Fat Choi (恭禧發財)

February Topbox: Benefit CNY Prive Box!!

1 Comment »


I got my Top Box yesterday, and low and behold, it was the Benefit Prive box!! While I was kind of hoping for the Miracle 10 Prive box, I’m not going to complain.

For those that don’t know what I’m talking about, Topbox is a monthly beauty box subscription that sends you about 4 to 5 beauty samples each month. It costs $12/month +tax. They recently introduced the Prive box, which is a box that features one particular brand. Each month, you can opt for that or a normal Topbox. The choice is yours.

This month, there were three different Prive Box choices. The most popular choice of the three was Benefit. The other two were Lippy Girl and Miracle 10, which also gives you the option of different content as well.


I was at work when I checked my tracking. It indicated that an attempt was made to deliver but no one was home so I had to pick it up at the local post office. I had thought they would safe drop, but that wasn’t the case. I went to pick it up after work even though the pickup notification said it wouldn’t be available till the following day at 1 PM. I was going to make up any excuse necessary to get my box then and there. I ended up not needing to because it was processed and ready to go!


The first thing I did when I got home was open it up. The box was gorgeous with a Chinese New Year Theme. I was really happy to get the benefit box because not only am I Asian and celebrates CNY, but I am also Year of the Snake!!


Opening up the box, you can see that it is jammed pack with goodies.


After taking out everything in the box, I was overall happy with everything in the box.  Inside the box was a 2.5 mL sample of Benetint, a 7.5 mL sample of POREfessional, an 8.9 g sample of Total Moisture Facial Cream, a Paper sample of Fine One-One wrapped inside of a traditional Red Pocket Envelope, an invitation to an exclusive event and Dandelion gloss and powder.


The POREfessional was my favorite in the box. I am never happy with my pores. They just appear so huge **I know, first world problems** and I’ve heard rave reviews on this product, so I am VERY excited to try this out.


I already have a small packet sample of the total moisture facial cream from an order I placed with Sephora last month, but I just love the packaging that this total moisture facial cream came in. It is literally a mini glass jar.

 

Not sure how or when I’ll get a chance to use the Benetint, I might give it away since it’s not the type of product I normally use, but it is interesting.


I was 50/50 with the Dandelion duo pack. I was happy with the Dandelion powder because it was something I needed, but I hate lip gloss. I guess it’s because I’m not used to using lip products. So I think it’s going into the trade pile.


The paper sample of Fine One-One is an interesting one. I’ve never seen anything like it. Personally, I think its stupid, since its only one use. But, then again, the other samples more than made up for it.


 Last but not least, there was an invitation for to an exclusive event to celebrate New Year. There were five locations listed and 2 of them were in lower mainland!!! I’m so happy that they listened and are hosting these events across the country now. One of the location is actually 5 min from my work place!! I can’t wait to go. There's suppose to be “Prizes and Gifts Galore!!”




There you have it. I think I saw someone post online that the value of this box turned out to be around $48~~ Considering I paid 13.44 for this, I am super happy with what I got. 

NOTD: Brisbane Bronze

No Comments »

Last month I bought a bunch of OPIs. While most of the colors were some sort of red in either a slightly didn't shade or tint or had shimmers. This was one of the few non reds. It also turned out to be my favorite color of the bunch. As its name refers, its a bronze color with a nice shimmer to it.


I applied OPI natural base coat and top coat that I finally got from my friend for my Christmas present.
What made me so happy with this bottle was it only took two coats. I love my OPI brushes as they have big and flat enough brush that application is flawless. And I finally started to get a better rhythm of how to apply my nail polishes. Now if only my left handed application was as good as my right.

Girls Night Out!!

1 Comment »

A week or so ago, a couple of old friends and I wanted to get together one last time before one of them headed back to school in California. We decided to go to dvc shooting range.

I had come across an ad earlier in the week for dvc indoor shooting range. It is located in Port Coquitlam. It normally costs $30.00 for admission plus the cost of ammunition. But DvC has two promotions. Wednesdays are two for one, which is cheaper and Fridays are ladies nights meaning ladies admissions are waived.

We went as a group of five ladies ons Friday night and bought ammunition (they usually come in pack of 50) for a 9mm gun, a shot gun and a rifle. It was truly an experience. Especially with the Connecticut shooting fresh in our minds. Even with ear muffs on every shot gave me a jolt.



In the end each of us only had to pay $16 each for ammunition. Which was amazingly cheap.
So if you're interested in this kind of stuff, or is like me and want to try everything at least once, go on a Wednesday (if you're a guy) or a Friday (if youre a gal).


For those that are interested, their website is 
Vancouver Gun Range: Indoor Shooting Center. DVC Ventures

NOTD: OPI Moonraker

1 Comment »

I got a new bottle of OPI the other from my secret Santa. This one is called Moonraker. It has a silver shinebto it with a hint of blue. I felt the application was a lot smoother than the ciate from before. Guess I'm still a OPI girl although I wasn't happy with the fact it took three applications AND it was still not complete opaque

My Very Late Glossybox!!

3 Comments »

So today, I finally received my long overdue Glossybox. This is my second and last glossybox. While I like the box. It is a bit pricey for my liking. The drama that went on with this box was too much for me too. Not that I had much issues with it personally.


I believe by now most people should know what a Glossybox is. It is a beauty subscription box mailed out monthly with 5-7 samples for subscribers to try. It can be purchased on a monthly bases or quarterly or annually.


So apparently, this month's products were selected by LOULOU Magazine. While there were a lot of full size samples in this box. I was really disappointed with this box. First reason was because my original box got lost in transit and I had to wait till now to get it. The second was that I noticed a lot of my samples had dust on it. Like it's been sitting there forever. 


The sample was the TRESemme Split Remedy Sachet, which soooo small it doesn't really count for anything. I also already have a sample of this so I really wasn't enthusiastic about it at all. It had dust on it indicating that it was probably sitting there for a while. Ughh.


The second I pulled out was the Glossybox Lashes which were set at $12.50 a pair. While these false lashes looked full and pretty, and when I took it out it was soft to the touch, I didn't feel its value was $12.50. I've bought better quality lashes for cheaper. On top of that the box came worn looking.


Next to be pulled out was a pair of studs. There was no value to this on the info card. But It doesn't look like something I'd pay a lot of money for. 


So one of the items to cause a lot of drama was the Revlon enamel. Indeed the bottle looked worn and old, however I am in a phase where nail polish is nail polish and I like the color I got. :)


 This TRESemme Fresh Start Volumzing Dry Shampoo was something I'm actually interested in trying. I've never had dry shampoo before so i'm interested to see how it works. However again like some of the other products, I was disappointed to see a layer of dust on it.


The Jergens Natural Glow is one I actually didn't care for even though I got a full size bottle. It was actually one that had no dust, but I've bought so many of this exact product and not used that I just don't care for it. 


My favorite of the box, the aveeno Positively ageless Day SPF 30 Mositurizer. I am a huge fan of aveeno so this will definitely come in handy. Plus I really needed a SPF Mosturizer. 


Last but not least my avon product was yet another nail polish!! I was so elated to find that there was two bottles of nail polish in my box. This bottle is called Midnight Plum and is a dark purple color. While I quickly glanced online and indeed it seems to be from a while ago, I am happy with the color and nail polish certainly can last so no complaints here. 




« Previous Entries
Next Entries »