Archive for February 2009

The sole reason I purchased this mascara was to use it for my bottom lashes. I wasn’t expecting much, just something small that I can use. I chose the waterproof version because waterproof mascaras usually flake less than their washable counterparts. This mascara is fine and dandy, but there was one big problem. The formula was dry as heck, fresh out of the tube. I would have thought that someone left the mascara uncapped for one week or something. I have a Youtube video up where I swipe the brush on my arm. There was barely any product. You can barely see it on my lashes, but on the bright side… it doesn’t clump I’m going to try exchanging this for the washable version and see how the formula is. edit* The nonwaterproof version is a bit more wet. I’m going to play around with it some more.

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Perfectly voluminous lashes with the power of Nordic nature! A mascara which combines unique Finnish blueberry seed oil with the exceptional characteristics of an innovative plastic mascara brush. Product size 7 ml / 0.24 FL. OZ.

Effect: Finnish blueberry seed oil protects and nourishes eye lashes. Perfectly shaped plastic brush guarantees tidy, curled, thick lashes – at the first stroke!

Nature & Science: Innovative brush technology! The flexible plastic brush curls lashes perfectly and thickens them neatly and tidily with a single stroke. The Lumene brand will have the exclusive rights to this brush model until Spring 2008.

Usage: Apply the mascara onto your lashes from root to tip using a delicate zigzag motion. Curl the lashes upwards using the flat side of the brush. Use the tip of the brush for more accuracy and to apply the mascara to the lower eyelashes. If you want to give your lashes more volume just apply more layers. The mascara is easy to remove with Lumene Eye Makeup Remover.

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3 coats on.

Price: $28.50
Where to buy: Neiman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom, Sephora

A double innovation for a double lengthening effect: immediate and long-lasting. This performance is due to the association of a new generation brush with an exclusive complex – the LASH GROWTH BOOSTER – which favours lash growth.

After seeing Jen’s review on the YSL everlong mascara, I just had to have it. The price tag was the heaviest I’ve ever spent on a mascara. The mascara supposedly has a lash booster in the mascara as well, so you are essentially getting two products in one.

This is probably the most lush looking mascara tube I’ve owned. With the YSL mascaras, waterproof formulas are in matte gold packaging while the regular mascaras are glossy gold.

I very much wanted to love this mascara, but sadly, I didn’t. The brush is extremely big and a lot harder to use when compared to the Diorshow brush. Mascara being caught on my skin was inevitable. There was also some clumping going on, and you would think that with a brush with so many teeth, it wouldn’t happen. With one coat, my lashes looked extremely thin and fragile. I had never seen my lashes look like that ever before. The lashes looked great after three time consuming coats. I actually think my lashes have never looked better! Unfortunately, after all the time invested, the curl of my lashes were long gone by the end of the day. It’s a shame because I think the whole idea with a lash booster infused in the mascara is a great idea. If only MAX factor would do that with their mascaras…

On a positive note, this is probably the most easiest waterproof mascara to remove that I’ve tried so far.

That Darn guacamole song on Youtube prompted me to go grocery shopping and make some!

Mega-thin chips are the best, and I put lots of cilantro in the guacamole. I love cilantro!

With two coats on.

I wanted to try this mascara out since it had decent reviews on makeupalley. I did not like it at all. The formula is very wet. For a waterproof mascara, it did not hold my curl all that well. Thickening was so so. I’ve tried a lot better that are equally affordable (MAX Factor Lash Perfection).

Well, macface2adore tagged me for a 10 random facts video. Tao then tagged me for a 5 random facts video. Since I’ve already done a 5 random facts video on Youtube, I’m going to compromise by adding 5 more facts on my blog I feel more comfortable writing about myself more than talking about myself anyway.

1. I never use the drive through for anything. Fast food, ATMs, Starbucks, never! You know when you first get your license, your driving still isn’t all that great. There I was, newly licensed, and my first endeavor driving by myself was to go to Carls Jr. and get my dad a burger. So I go to the drive-through and was too far away for my short arms to give the person the money. It was embarrassing, and since then, I’ve always parked to get fast food. I don’t get fast food often anyway. When I do, it’s usually McDonald’s breakfast (mmm hash browns), however, I rarely bother to sacrifice the extra 15 minutes out of my morning routine to get McDonalds I know Burger King has veggie burgers, but to be honest, the veggie burgers I make are more delicious

2. I never carry any cash on me. In the event that I do have cash, I try to deposit it whenever I can. I find cash to be too time consuming to handle, especially when you get coins back. I use my Visa for everything, even for $1 purchases (because I just don’t have cash!). I do carry about $10 on me sometimes, just in case.

3. I do not know how to work a lighter or light matches. Yes, seriously. I sort of have a fear of fire. When I have to do labs that require a burner, I have someone else start it for me. I’m fine with gas stoves though. You can assume that I don’t smoke anything. I wouldn’t know how to light it lol.

4. I used to play the violin when I was younger. I had violin lessons I think once a week, for two years. Obviously I’m not a violin prodigy. I had two choices, violin or piano. Stupid me wanted to be “unique” and play the violin. Now I could care less about it. I wish I played the piano instead. Now I see all these amazing piano song covers on Youtube and I’m so jealous. I think the piano is my favorite instrument to listen to. It just sounds so beautiful. My goal is to one day learn how to play the piano, even if I have to wait until I retire. (photo above is a frame from The Fray’s “You Found Me” video)

5. I never drink diet sodas. People who drink diet sodas are such weenies. If you’re going to drink soda, go for the good stuff! If I wanted the carbonation without calories, I’d just drink club soda, which I find to be much more tasty than diet sodas. Every diet soda I’ve tried makes me feel sick. On that note, I wanted to add that I can not drink Dr. Pepper. It’s so gross!

By the way, I’m not sure if it’s me, but I’ve been drinking soda recently, and they taste more flat than they used to. Fresh out of a can too. The only reason soda is awesome is because of the carbonation. I wonder if sodas aren’t carbonated as much anymore or maybe my taste buds are dying I just talked to a friend about it too and she thought the same thing. Hmm…

6. Alright, I’m adding one more. Didn’t want to let another random fact go to waste Anyway, I am very anal about keeping my computer and emails organized. Things that are unused get deleted. Everything is in folders. Emails are labeled. A cluttered desktop drives me insane I need a good amount of unused disk space to be present at all times.

Finally the site is up! It took a lot of time and effort. In the end, I am so happy with the result. Isn’t the illustration just amazing? The concept was my idea and Claudia did an incredible job of turning my idea into the perfect illustration! She’s so sweet too!

I am very proud of this project because everything was catered to me, therefore being unique. No stock images that you see from time to time on websites or adverts! Well… okay there was some stock use going on with the background. The nebula was from salmon83 of istockphoto.

Isn’t Kenji just the cutest? I love how she even added the little white tip of his tail! Too adorable! And you might be wondering, what are those suits? Well, I was looking at traditional astronaut suits and I thought that they were too bulky and boring to create into an illustration. Then I remembered hearing, a year or two ago, that there was a skin tight suit in the process of being developed. I searched for it and found out that it is called the Biosuit, by MIT. Perfect! A real spacesuit of the future! 10 years from now, those old spacesuits will be looking prehistoric.

Like I said, Claudia is amazing. I sent her one long list of details and she pretty much nailed it on the first sketch! There were very minor adjustments, like the waist being too small and my eyes not slanted enough. Actually, I think those were all the adjustments!

Then it came to the designing and coding for the Wordpress template. Gisele (LOVE her name) is also a sweetheart. She’s known to design “cute” styled themes for Wordpress and Blogger. This process was a bit more tedious for I guess the both of us because I really didn’t have a vision for the template. I had a very definite image when it came to the illustration but I was absolutely clueless with the layout. I did tell her the basics, like what size the sidebar and such should be. One thing that I told her was that I wanted the style of the layout to be sort of like the changedotgov Youtube channel but combined with cute lol . Gisele started out working around the image and then we started going back and forth with adjustments. She really helped me with a lot. It was a long yet fun process. We spent a lot of time trying to see if the special commenting plugins and tweaks worked. Mostly it was me trying to figure it out. I do know a little about html and very very little about php you know! Now I and others can reply to other “Space Cadets’ transmissions”

Trying to find hosting was a actually the most complicated process out of this whole project. I wanted a safe amount of bandwidth but get a good deal as well. Once upon a time, I purchased hosting from Uzipp, which I had a good experience with. Unfortunately, they went out of business. I thought I had found a company I wanted to purchase hosting from, but after more research, their uptime was very poor. I then thought I had found another company, but it turns out that their systems got hacked big time and the issue has still not been fixed, over half a year later! On top of that, the company would not admit to it. There was also an issue where a lot of the companies provide a really good discount for new costumers, but they then hack up the rates once the hosting term is over. Another problem was that a lot of the hosting review sites are biased and even owned by hosting companies. It was tough to find honest opinions, but not impossible. A lot of the companies outsource their support team it was difficult to communicate with them. It was hard to really get a grasp on who really ran the company. In the end, I went with Dream Host. Their website gives a hospitable atmosphere. There are pictures of the team and biographies which made me feel more at ease. They are also a green company. They cost a bit more than some of the sites offering amazing deals, but I’d rather spend a bit more for the ease of mind of an honest and reliable company.

Do keep in mind that this is a personal blog first and a beauty blog second. None of that “I woke up and brushed my teeth” crap though. I’ll try to post reviews and hauls (if they exist) on this blog.

Okay, now that the intro is out of the way, on to the giveaway! I know it’s not much, but I wanted to do something to celebrate the launch To check out the prizes check out my video on Youtube.

Basically, there are two prizes. Each person gets a Stila tinted lip balm and an Eyeshadow. Open to anyone in the world! You know it’s serious when I’m willing to wait in line and deal with the grumpy government workers lol.

So just leave a comment on this entry and only comments on this entry will be considered in the giveaway. Comments submitted after February 27th 2009 21:00 PST will not be considered towards the giveaway. BE SURE TO USE A VALID EMAIL ADDRESS WHILE ENTERING COMMENTING INFORMATION. It is the email that I will contact you with if you win. One entry per person PLEASE. And of course, no whining

For those wanting their own icon while commenting, go register at Gravatar.com. Everyone’s dewin it I made the new default icons (space cadet)

If you actually took the time to read this entry, then I sincerely thank you.

I found this fabulous clothing site as an advert on Perez Hilton (I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t read that site!) and they have the nicest vintage style clothes! I fell in love. I love almost all of their dresses; I’m a huge fan of dresses. They all have such beautiful silhouettes, but these are my two most favorites.

LOVE IT!! It’s sold out and I can see why. $64.99

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