Lip Swatches

This page is to maintain lip swatches of the tons of lip products I have

NARS Joyous Red Lipstick (fluorescent office lights)

NARS Joyous Red Lipstick in natural day light

bareMinerals pretty amazing lipcolor in Courage (fluorescent office lights)

Review: Aniika Jewelry

There's a web site called Aniika (http://www.aniika.com/shop/) and I bought a pair of earrings from them. They sell a lot of items but their jewelry sucks me in every time. I follow the store on Facebook as well (https://www.facebook.com/aniikadotcom).

They post some of the most stunning pictures of beautiful, heavy, Indian jewelry. And I was sucked in deep by one and finally decided to roll dice. The items in general are heavily over-priced and they charge a ton for shipping. But to try out just once, I ordered anyway.

I ordered a pair of extremely ornate earrings for US$31(prce)+$5(shipping). They arrived in a box like this:

So pretty, right? Then I opened the box to find each of the earrings individually wrapped in bubble wrap.

Gorgeous, right? I turned it to try on and look what happened:

I don't like super-gluing brand new earrings together when I have paid so heavily for them. Also the plastic bead that fell out was very cheap looking plastic and not some gorgeous glass bit I imagined it would be. The metal used in the earring for the post and post back closure is also cheap looking with poor finish. This is not the quality I expect when I pay $36 for a product. But let's look at it as a price paid for a lesson learned.

Thankfully the crystals are pretty and I did this video to catch the glimmer:

Coming Soon: Maybelline Eye Studio Quads

Can you tell that I'm in so much trouble if I fall in love with these? These aren't exactly cheap at US $8+taxes for each palette. And they have so many such palettes with so many gorgeous shades...Look out for swatches and review coming soon.

REVIEW: Garnier Clean Nourishing Cleansing Oil

I had mentioned in my DHC Cleansing Oil Review that I would like to try the new Garnier Cleansing Oil to see if it works comparably well so that I may spend a little less. Here are the results.

 While the product is called "Garnier Clean + Nourishing Cleansing Oil for Dry Skin", I do not believe the usage of this should be restricted to dry skin only. I personally have oily skin and have enjoyed using this oil for makeup removal a few times in the recent past. It is fairly thin in viscosity (not as thin as water but thinner than the DHC cleansing oil). I cannot point out the smell exactly but it is very  heavily fragranced. This might be a problem for skin types which get irritated by fragrance in products. It does a great job of dissolving my heavy sunscreen and foundation. I still stick to using a separate eye makeup remover but the 2 times I tried using just this, the eye makeup (mascara, eyeshadow, eyeliner, the works...) came off easily. When I wash it with warm water, it does emulsify beautifully and gets rid of all the makeup. I do always follow-up with a face wash, though it is not needed.

It retails for US $7.99+taxes for 4.2 oz. (around $1.6/oz.) which makes it much cheaper than the $4.17/oz. of DHC cleansing oil. But when I use the Garnier one, I feel like I am using a lot more product in one use so I will probably end up using it faster. Does that make sense? Maybe the thin-ness of Garnier makes me think I need more to remove the same amount of makeup that DHC removes in lesser amount. I will use the Garnier cleansing oil every once in a while, but I recent stocked up on my DHC and will always keep the DHC one as my stable product of use.

SALE: DHC Cleansing Oil

Once a year DHC Cleansing Oil goes on sale. That time is NOW!!!
Instead of US$28 it is being sold for $23.50.
This is also my birth month, so I received a $10 off $30 purchase coupon from DHC (I <3 DHC).
So all in all I have hauled a few of these and stocked up for the year.
You can see here how much I LOVE these babies!