Lancome La Roseraie Illuminating Smooth Powder

I actually bought this Lancome La Roseraie Illuminating Smooth Powder for my mum, but with her permission took pictures and even a swatch of it ^.^ She always complains of a dull complexion, and she wears blushes and highlighters faithfully everyday so I bought this for her to try out.

Lancome La Roseraie Illuminating Smooth Powder. All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

The Body Shop Buriti Baby Massage Gel

The last of the The Body Shop Buriti Baby Mini Essentials Kit is this 60mL/2fl oz. bottle of Massage Gel.

The Mini Essentials Kit includes 60mL/2fl oz. each of Buriti Baby Body Wash, Baby Shampoo, this Massage Gel, and a 50g/1.76oz. tub of the Body Butter, which I absolutely love!

The Body Shop Buriti Baby Body Butter

After sampling small 50g/1.76oz. tub of the The Body Shop Buriti Baby Body Butter from the Mini Essentials Kit, I was hooked and bought multiple full size backups.

The Mini Essentials Kit came with 60mL/2fl oz. each of the Buriti Baby Body Wash, Baby Shampoo, and the Massage Gel which I will post next.

The New Black Jewel Heist Collection

From the Beauty.com GWP promo that tempted me to get the Stila Seeing Stars Smudge Stick Set and a full size Dr.Ci:Labo Enrich Lift Cleansing & Massage, I got a full size nail polish from The New Black Jewel Heist Collection in the Duochrome Gray color. I have to say, this freebie is probably the first nail color I own in a long time. The last time I painted my nails was, umm, a decade ago?

I'm surprised how little this "full size" bottle is! Isn't it cute and tiny? I'm actually really glad it's mini sized in comparison to the giant nail polish bottles at the drugstores. Small as this bottle is, it'll probably dry out before I can use up even a fifth!

Tarte LipSurgence Part III

Picked up these Tarte LipSurgence Lip Creme when they were on sale back in May. I only saw 3 colors Admired, Loved, and Carefree so I bought all 3.

From left to right: LipSurgence Lip Creme Admired, Loved, and Carefree. All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

Stila Seeing Stars Smudge Stick Waterproof Eye Liner Set

During the Beauty.com promotion, I took the chance to get Stila Seeing Stars Smudge Stick Waterproof Eye Liner Set I've been eyeing since it was released last fall. It was a nice selection of colors, and I wanted to see the difference between these Smudge Sticks and the Kajal Eye Liners. There are 5 full size twist up pencils in this set and I'm happy to have the opportunity to try these out.

I love eye pencils. Having said that I must confess I'm also scared of them. One big reason is that my brows are sparse and my lashes are short and thin, so pencils and gel/cream liners often look very harsh or overly dramatic on me. Even after blending, I still can't smudge a pencil to the soft blurry lines I get with a powder shadow. So when I'm out and about for work or play, I almost exclusively line my upper and lower lash lines with a powder shadow. 

From left to right: Stargazer, Angelfish, Tetra, Moray, and Oscar Fish. All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

Canmake Cheek & Cheek Part IV

Bought this Canmake Cheek & Cheek in color 08 Love Trap Flower late last year when it came out. Happy to report this latest addition to the Cheek & Cheek line is going back to the original contrasting color scheme that made its first four releases so popular. I much prefer the contrast of colors over the similar looking 05 Peach Petal and 06 Antique Rose with two tones that are too close to make much difference once blended.

Canmake Cheek & Cheek 08 Love Trap Flower. All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

Stila All You Need is Love Cheek Palette

After the block of waxy chalk that is the Stila Positively Pink Cheek Palette and the floating shimmery dryness that is the Love at First Blush Palette, I was almost scared to try this All You Need is Love Cheek Palette, which is the limited edition release of this year's Valentine. But I couldn't skip it. Seeing the gold overspray led me to think I'd strike luck again like I did with the Make Me Blush Cheek Color. And on top of the gold overspray, I get 4 different color cubes to mix and match. Tempting, right?

Thank goodness this blush is neither waxy or chalky like the Positively Pink, or dry like the Love at First Blush. That said, it's not as soft and silky as the Make Me Blush either, falling somewhere in between, although thankfully more towards the soft and smooth end of the spectrum and less dry. And for some reason the left column is softer than the right column, perhaps having something to do with the pigmentation used? 

All You Need is Love Cheek Palette. All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

Stila Love at First Blush Palette

Along with a few tubes of Maybelline ColorSensational Color Whispers (will get to soon I hope...), I bought this Stila Love at First Blush Palette when Ulta had the Spring 2013 GWP promotion. The blush was the 2012 Valentine's Day limited edition with a cute design of 3 layers of floating hearts in 3 different colors, which I couldn't resist.

Love at First Blush Palette. All pictures taken in natural light without flash. 

Stila Positively Pink Cheek Palette

Stila Positively Pink Cheek Palette was a limited edition 2012 Breast Cancer Awareness product. I picked this up last fall while I was in Taiwan, which is why I didn't get to play with it until a year later ^.^'

I started paying attention to Stila limited edition blushes after the Make Me Blush Cheek Color came out on Valentine's 2011. I was even more excited when I finally got around to using that blush and realized how kick ass it is in all aspects, texture an pigmentation!

Positively Pink Cheek Palette. All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

Kiss Mix Moon Highlight

Been eyeing these Kiss Mix Moon Highlight since they came out in spring 2012! In the end though, I skipped them in favor of the Mix Heart Cheeks and it wasn't until the newest Mix Heart Cheeks 05 Strawberry Pink did I finally caved.

Mix Moon Highlight, left to right, 01 Pink Sherbet and 02 Pure Beige. All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

Stila Tres Pink Lip Shine Trio

This Stila Tres Pink Lip Shine Trio is one of the newly "rediscovered" goodies after sorting through my boxes, and I haven't even open them all up yet, still. Yes, these Lip Shines are long discontinued, which makes this set ancient. But hey, they are brand new in box and have been stored well so here's to hoping they won't burn my lips off. Or something.

Tres Pink Lip Shine Trio, from left to right, 01 Pink Shine, 02 Rosey Shine, and 14 Icicle Shine. Pictures taken in natural light without flash.

Suisai Moisture Lotion and Emulsion

This pair of Suisai Moisture Lotion and Emulsion 20mL was a freebie from when I first bought my Coffret D'Or Smile Up Cheeks. The Lotion comes in 3 types: Type I Refreshing (さっぱり), Type II Moisturizing (しっとり), and Type III Very Moisturizing (とてもしっとり). The pair I have is Type II Moisturizing.

I didn't know it at the time I bought the Smile Up Cheeks that Suisai is a whitening line. If I did I would have picked a different set of freebies. The reason being most whitening lotion and emulsions/milks I've tried so far ended up being sticky. I still remember the horrible sticky mess that was the pair of Kose Sekkisei Lotion and Emulsion. I read how great they were, so I forced myself to keep trying until I couldn't deal with the tackiness on my face and neck anymore, and they ended up going to my mum who loved them. I'm not so crazy about whitening products anyway.

DHC Face Color Palette Highlighter

Along with DHC Face Color Palettes I also picked up this Face Color Palette Highlighter, which is available in only one shade, WT01, which makes things easy for me. When it arrived, I was happy to find it has the same pretty packaging as the blushes

WT01 Highlighter. All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

DHC Face Color Palette

Here are the DHC Face Color Palettes, which I bought mostly also due to their cute packaging ^.^ These are pressed powder cheek colors in a 3-shades gradation and are available in 4 variations, PK01 Poppy, OR02 Coral Bloom, RS03 Honeysuckle, and RD04 Cherry Blossom. 

From left to right: PK01 Poppy, OR02 Coral Bloom, RS03 Honeysuckle, and RD04 Cherry Blossom. All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

DHC Moisture Care Lipstick

It's been a while, hello there ^.^' Sorry for being gone for so long. Life and work are just kicking my a$$, though I'm still going through my skincare as usual, so my list of drafts is growing out of control again :(

I'll start with DHC Moisture Care Lipstick. I haven't bought anything from this brand for a while so I revisited them back in May with the Imperial Green Tea Shower Gel. Since then I have branched out to try a few other things, including these lipsticks, a few powder blushes and highlighters which I will get to posting soon, I hope.

There are 8 colors available, and I have 7. However, in this post I will only review 6 - OR03 Clementine, PK04 Sweetpea, PK05 Whisper Pink, RD01 Pepperberry, RD10 Camelot Rose, and WN01 Sugarplum. I got BE07 Hint of Honey just a few weeks ago and haven't gotten around to even take pictures of it yet.

From left to right: OR03 Clementine, PK04 Sweetpea, PK05 Whisper Pink, RD01 Pepperberry, RD10 Camelot Rose, and WN01 Sugar Plum. All pictures taken in natural light without flash.