Posts Tagged ‘beauty reviews’

25
Dec
2011

Singapore Beauty Blog Valerie Lim

The spirit of giving and sharing has aways been an important element in my life. Whether I share beauty tips, makeup tutorials on my blog or just parts of my life with each and every one of you here or on Twitter, it’s all part and parcel of gving back.

This Christmas, I want thank everyone, and yes that means you reading this, for being part of my life and blog.

Christmas is about celebrating what has been given to us and remembering the people who matter. In making me Singapore Beauty Blog dweam.com and Miss Universe Singapore 2011, that is every single person who has lent their support in one way or another. I thank you from the bottom of my heart and wish you all a blessed Christmas.

Have a Merry Kiss-mas!

With love,
Valerie

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17
Jun
2010

I have this nasty little habit when I go mascara shopping: I tend to pick up several mascaras at once and store them somewhere for a couple a months before I get to opening any one of them. Call me a mascara hoarder, but even when I got the Maybelline Colossal Volume Express mascara waaaaayyyy before it hit the shores of Singapore as the Maybelline Magnum Mascara, it took me about 8 months later before the mascara got to see daylight. LOL.

Please dont ask me why that happens. But perhaps it’s just knowing that after I’ve found the best mascara that I dub the holy grail of mascaras, nothing else comes close. Except maybe its sister mascara with an additional pulse.

Still, I’m always on the look out for new mascaras that promise to curl, lengthen and volumise your lashes. So when I walked into Duane Reade, the local drugstore, the first night here in New York, I had a bimbogasm when I saw the shelves of makeup. I picked out a whole bunch of mascaras, but decided I only have so many lashes that I can coat with mascara. So those we couldnt get back home in Singapore were the ones I landed up with.

Clockwise from top:
- Covergirl Lash Blast Luxe mega volume shimmering mascara
- Covergirl Exact Highlights eye brightening mascara
- Maybelline Define-a-lash Volume mascara
- Rimmel Glam Eyes Lash Flirt mascara
- Maybelline Pulse Perfection Vibrating mascara (review here)
- Maybelline Define-a-lash Lengthening mascara (review here)

Me picking up the same two mascaras time and time again is probably the best testament to how amazing I think they are. As for the rest, I promise I will get a review up for each of them within the next….. 3 months maybe? Haha. Or it might be better if you told me which one you’d like to see a review on and I’d get started on that pronto.

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11
Jun
2010

Sponsored Review

Carry my heavy as a brick bag, and the first question you’ll ask is, “What’s in your bag!?!” (exclamation marks optional.) I will admit, without hesitation, that I carry a truckload of beauty products in my bag on a daily basis. Heehee. I’m quite a smell person, so naturally perfumes and body mists make up the majority of the things I bring. But look carefully and you’ll wonder what a pink bunny wabbit is doing inside my bag.

Being a beauty junkie, when I was offered to try the Soap ‘n’ Sorbet Steam Cream, I jumped at the chance. Steam Cream! Is it anything like steam cake? Sounds yummy! Gimme gimme gimme.

It’s delish sounding name and the fact that it contains lavender oil made it hard to resist. Lavender oil has antiseptic components which can help heal and reduce inflamed and sore skin. It is also a known fact that lavender helps induce sleep on top of improving blood circulation. Take a deep breath with me now everybody. Ahhhh…..

Opening the screw cap, the cream is visibly slighty runny but smells absolutely delish. It is light weight and applies easily onto your hands, body or face. Massage the cream gently to your desired spot, and viola, it magically disappears leaving your skin softer to the skin and smelling oh-so-good.

This natural multi-purpose cream comes packaged in eco-friendly (yay for going green!) aluminium tins, each individually decorated with eye-catching art designed in Japan. Each design is run as a limited edition print, so presenting this to anyone as a present would be perfect. You wouldn’t be able to find another one like it! Porky Rabbit is now a member of my family of beauty products.

Chock full of natural and vegan ingredients like oatmeal infusion, orange flower water, almond oil, lavendar oil, organic jojoba oil and cocoa butter, SGD 26 is a reasonable price for quality skincare handmade in England. Using a steam-infused process, the result is this luxurious vegan cream that me, the skin nazi, would slather all over my body just to pamper myself.

Soap ‘n’ Sorbet, a delightfully easy-to-navigate Singapore website, is the first to stock this delish sounding Steam Cream for your enjoyment. The wide assortment of beauty and lifestyle products are thoughtfully categorised into various groups for easy searching. Be it bath, makeup, skincare or fragrance, you name it, they got it alongside the best-selling Steam Cream.

I already hear the beauty addicts cheering, but shopaholics, this is the best news for you. The Great Singapore Sale is still going on and will go on till the end of June. This means, A WHOLE MONTH of shopping! And on top of that, they just launched 12 new adorable designs that run in limited quantities. So, are you ready for some luxurious pampering? Let’s get Steam-y!

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1
Jun
2010

With the beginning of a new month, I can safely tell you that beginnings are just as difficult as endings. A beginning always holds uncertainty; a beginning is always full of pebbles along the way; a beginning is always where you start mucking about before you finally find what works for you. As much as you always plan for something, the unexpected never fails to happen and it’s these unexpected surprises that you have to deal with that make a simple beginning challenging yet so very exciting.

It is with the beginning of dweam.com as a Singapore Beauty Blog that I say goodbye to my previous direction. It is today I welcome a new beauty direction in my blog.

I’ve always toyed with the idea of starting a full fledged beauty blog. I can tell you it was difficult to do so. The beginning is always tough. I never thought that I was qualified to do so despite spending all my years in University on stage dancing; never thought that all the time I spent in front of the camera and on the runway was enough for me to tell anyone how to do their makeup. In fact, why would they listen to an ugly duckling like me?


Can you guess which one is me? Hahaha. Fresh faced into Uni. Taken when I was in Year 1 in 2004.

But maybe it was really when I finally ventured into the pageantry circuit and had to “fend for myself” that I finally got the courage to start. Afterall it was then that I had the most “drastic” changes in terms of how I looked. Hahaha. No, it was not plastic, but merely a refining of the basic techniques I already had. With this experience in dance, modeling and pageantry, yes, I’ve decided to give myself the go ahead. That’s not to say, up to this point, my beauty tutorials, makeup reviews and DIYs come from professional backgrounds. They are simply genuine reflections of what I do, use, experience and feel for the products on a regular basis.


Fast forward 4 years later, 2008.

However, beauty, to me, is not merely about who has the biggest eyes, the fullest lips, using the best makeup or having the most extensive number of products. I have to say that coming from a Psychology background (oh yes, I’m trained in Psychology. Let me read your mind now) that beauty to me is really just a mental state. I fully believe that we can and all should dream of the beautiful to be truly outstanding. My one month in the Philippines representing Singapore as Miss Earth also taught me that exact same thing. It wasn’t the girl who had the flashiest clothes, biggest eyes or the best hair that eventually won the crown. It was the girl who could compose herself well in times of duress that finally got crowned Queen. It was her who could smile despite not having things go her way. It was her who was a friend to all. Despite landing only Top 16, I have to admit, I learnt a lot during that trip to last me a lifetime.

Being beautiful is an art, but more importantly, being beautiful is a holistic development. As I share with you what makes me beautiful outside and in through my DIYs, reviews, tutorials, outfit posts, the not-so-newly conceived SneakerSunday and the occasional lifestyle posts, I hope new readers and potential followers will take my hand (albeit a virtual one) and join me in my beauty journey. For those who have been following me for a long time, I thank you for your unfailing support. There are so many people I have to thank, because without them dweam.com would not be where it is now. But, I will leave that for another day.

As an ending note, my dream for this blog is to inspire you, my reader, to become more beautiful inside and out as you explore uncharted territories with me, in this new chapter of dweam.


2010. Photo credits: Brad Lau

This is me. This is dweam now.

Not everyone can be a beauty queen, but everyone can be beautiful.

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28
May
2010

I’m sure many die-hard mascara fans would have already heard of the big name vibrating mascaras: Lancome Oscillation Vibrating mascara and the Estee Lauder TurboLash All Effects Motion mascara. But did you know that drugstore brand Maybelline, for a third of the price, has it’s own affordable version of the vibrating mascara? Yes, the Maybelline Define-a-Lash Pulse Perfection mascara is the powerful sister mascara of the Define-a-Lash series mascaras that knows how to give your lashes a good time.

When I crowned the Maybelline Define-a-Lash Lengthening mascara my all-time favourite mascara, I figured the vibrating version would probably be as just good, or possibly even better due to the 7000 vibrations per minute wand. The vibrating wand does what no hand can do.

Now girls, listen up. THIS is the secret weapon I use to apply mascara to my bottom lashes. Using only the tip of the vibrating wand, gently press it to your bottom lashes and press the on button. Your job is to wait and let the wand work its magic on your lashes. The wand does all that zig-zag work for you lengthening, separating and voluminizing your lashes in one simple sweep.

This mascara wasn’t previously available in Singapore (I had to order mine from drugstore.com) but a limited edition one is now retailing in all good department stores and Watsons outlets for SGD$29.90.

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13
Apr
2010

I’d been looking for a moisturiser for quite some time to feed some much needed hydration and moisture to my poor skin. So when the kind people of Skin MD Natural sent me a bottle of their highly raved about Shielding Lotion, I was stoked. Finally, maybe I’d be able to achieve that sort of a radiant dewy glow you only get when you skin is plump and hydrated.

Having never heard of this product before, I obviously had my doubts. I looked it up and here’s what they said on the website.

A shielding lotion is far more effective as a dry skin care treatment than mere moist­urizing lotions or protective creams.

If you suffer from dry skin, you know that just using a moisturizing lotion does not solve the problem.

This is an entirely new con­cept in skin care requiring a new classifi­cation: “Shielding Lotion”. Skin MD Natural keeps moisture-robbing irri­tants away while proprietary “super” humectants hydrate the skin throughout the day.

Skin MD Natural is promptly absorbed without the slightest hint of any greasy or oily feeling or residue, transforming the outer layer of skin into a hydrating invisible shield.

The Skin MD Shielding Lotion is recommended for dry skin and also said to be good for problem skin, eczema sufferers and people with latex allergies. Although I didn’t have any of these problems, I still decided to try it out since it’s paraben free and contains natural extracts. Really no harm in trying it because it’s over 90% natural – free of harmful fragrances and colorants. It’s also non-comedogenic which means it will not clog pores. Hooray! Maybe transforming the outer layer of my skin would prevent further loss of moisture and help improve my skin condition.

The first time I tried the Shielding Lotion, I really liked how it glided onto my skin and quickly dried up afterwards. I couldn’t believe how fast it took to dry compared to conventional moisturisers. It probably took a total of 2 seconds for the lotion to disappear. When it did, my skin didn’t feel tight and there was no sticky residue. WOW. The effect is instantaneous. You see your face looking visibly smoother and if you look carefully, it’s as though there is an invisible barrier on the outer layer.

The effect, however, doesn’t last the whole day. Depending on your skin condition you have to apply the lotion initially every 2 – 8 hours until moisture level improves, then just once every 12 – 24 hours.

As much as I loved how the Shielding Lotion made my skin look, I felt it worked better on my hands, heels and legs. Possibly because my skin’s primarily dehydrated and not completely dry. One application and my hands and heels were softer and smoother. I particularly love how the Shielding Lotion dries non-greasy, because I was able to get back to whatever I was doing in a jiffy without having to worry about all that stickiness. I could never stand just sitting around doing absolutely nothing waiting for stuff to dry.

Although the product wasn’t what I was looking for, it might work for someone with a different skin type. If you have dry skin and are looking for something to keep improve the moisture level in your skin, the Skin MD Shielding Lotion might just be the thing for you. A single bottle retails for SGD29.90 while a Twin Pack costs SGD51.90 at the DRM Concept shop.

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