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Happy Lunar New Year everyone! It’s the first day of the Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival. So what better day to talk about the new NARS Spring Collection than on the first day of the Spring Festival!

NARS is one of my favourite makeup brands because the pigments are amazing. My collection of NARS items is small. I only possess the NARS Orgasm blush and bronzer on top of the awesome Pandora eyeshadow palette because they dont carry NARS here in Singapore, otherwise I totally would have more. I got the bronzer and blush from the Philippines while Arissa personally hand-carried the Pandora eyeshadow from the States.

So when they introduced their new Spring collection 2010 consisting of lipsticks, liners, glosses, shadows and polishes, you can imagine my excitement. A chance to own ALL of these at once! OooOoooo….

From the website,

The NARS Spring Collection starts with lips that signal the season, from the deceptively demure Easy Lover Lip Gloss in hot pink, to the nearly nude subtlety of Lipstick in Cruising. For eyes that demand center stage, NARS mixes rosy gold with luscious boysenberry hues and sparkling sienna with moss flecks. A sky blue Glitter Pencil makes the eyes pop. Highlight your mesmerizing new look with Orgasm Illuminator and finish with the next cult nail color, Purple Rain.

I love how the colours are cheery, bright and fresh; obviously meant to make you look as pretty as a spring flower.

The collection can be viewed at Sephora.com. Hooray for online shopping!

What do you think of the new NARS Spring Collection?

The party’s not over. I’m still giving out stuff!

For those who didnt manage to land anything during the first giveaway, here’s your chance.

I cant emphasize enough how mad I am over eye makeup and mascaras so I’m giving away items so you can share in my obsession. Haha. For this and the next couple of giveaways, SilkMineral has kindly sponsored several goodies for me to share with you guys!

In this giveaway, I am giving away part of the awesome-ness SilkMineral has included in their little blue box I received almost a week ago.

Eyes are the windows to the soul and if you want your eyes to pop, take a leaf out of the pages of them Japanese magazines and swear by your falsies. But it’s not glamourous to have half your lashes hanging off your eye unless you’re going for a sleepy eye look. If you have yet to find one that has met your needs, here are some great finds you can now try out before committing to them.

#1 – Ardell LashGrip Adhesive in Clear x2 Reserved for Ruby and Sue!
For strip lashes, this adhesive holds lashes securely in place and dries quickly turning from white to clear. No worries about your glue showing up on your eye makeup. Upon removal, makeup remover or baby oil may be used to remove residual adhesive on eyelids.

#2 – Gypsy Lashes Strip Adhesive in Clear
Reserved for Ruby and Sue!
This is also by Ardell and holds lashes securely in place. Goes on white and dries clear. Adhesive can be peeled off from lash band.

But for the conservative here’s something for you too!

Mascaras!

These are all brand new and honestly, with the huge stash of makeup, mascaras I have, I most likely will never get about to using them. So I’m putting these samples up for adoption. You might even say they’re all sorta branded. You can even use these on your lashes UNDER your falsies for extra va-va-voom!

#3 – Sephora Lash Plumper Mascara gonfleur de cils 3ml Reserved for Atiqah!
The larger brush, with slightly tapered edges is touted to reach from root to tip, for truly bat-worthy volume and glamour. I’ve never tried it yet but it says no clumps too!

#4 – LORAC Publicity Stunt Lashes Long-wearing Mascara 4.2g
Reserved for JoJo!
This is an ultra lightweight formula loaded with natural ingredients that create a long wearing, innovative new technology. However, the one I have is different from the full-sized one. Because mine is a sample, it doesnt come with the comb at the bottom of the mascara wand.

Again, all comments will be screened and I will randomly select 5 commenters for the giveaway. The lucky numbers are (machiam Toto) #2, #7, #10, #13 and #20.

Do note that the giveaway is limited to Singapore addresses.

You know the drill!

To qualify, leave your name and working email address in the comments below!

Entries after Friday 12noon will not qualify for the items.

I am a sucker when it comes to smokey eyes. Although my daily makeup routine is pretty fuss-free and consists primarily of light makeup, I do like to indulge and go a leeeeetle over the top when it comes to events and partying. It was thus hard to resist the Too Faced Smokey Eye Palette when it was dangled in front of me with a discounted price of $49.

I’ll tell you what happened.

I walked into Sephora hoping just to chill and look at the pretty colours that deck the shelves of the various makeup brands one fine and dandy day; I had no intention of shopping for anything. And then, I realised that Pop Beauty was having a 50% off their eyeshadow wallets. Okay… Breathe, I said to my already excited little heart. Let’s go see if they’re worth checking out.

Lo and behold, they were p r e t t y awesome.

For a 24 colour eyeshadow wallet (they’re called wallets cause they’re flat and long and well, duh, like real wallets) whose original price was $65, $32.50 was a pretty good price for that number of eyeshadows. And convenience came in the form of the wallet which had everything – eyeshadows, blushes and lipsticks sans foundation. Imagine going out in the day without makeup and having a last minute meeting scheduled for the afternoon. What do you whip out? Your makeup wallet of course. Just slap on some lipstick, blush and maybe some eyeshadow if you have time. Sounds really inviting to a lazy bugger like me.

“Okay, let’s think about it”, I told myself. Afterall I really had no intention of buying anything and wasnt going to go on a spur of the moment shopping spree. Whilst walking around and browsing the pink shelves of the Too Faced counter, the salesgirl approached and whipped this out.

HOLY COW!

Smokey eyes in a beautiful black and purple packaging! And check out the gothic font.

It was hard to resist. I can feel my inner goth rock chick slowly creeping out.

So I succumbed. I bought it.

There were three different types of smokey eye colours (9 colours in total) in the palette: day smoke, classic smoke and classic smoke. Perfect for use in all different occasions.

Had my brother’s 21st dinner party last night and I decided to break out the palette. So here’s my face of the day with the Classic Smoke from the palette.

Isnt it gorgeous!?

The colours really stand out on camera and is soooo pigmented.

Face of the day

Face:
Everyday Minerals mineral foundation in Olive Golden Medium (my holy grail!)
Benefit Dandelion blush

Eyes:
Too Faced classic smoke in Smokey Eye palette
Kate Gel Eyeliner
Beauty Buffet eyebrow pencil
Maybelline XXL Waterproof mascara
L’oreal Voluminous mascara

Lips:
Maybelline Fruity Jelly lipgloss

Get the look here.

Although the store opened almost a month ago, I finally have the time so sit down and write about my experience there. Based on my web-browsing experience, I can safely say that Sephora is THE beauty junkies’ playground.

With the various brands that it houses under its one roof, it never fails to make a girl hyperventilate when she sees the pretty collection of eye shadow palettes and what-nots from the various brands, even if it was via visual pictures from the screen! According the multiple sources, the store in the States is MASSIVE and I know I was absolutely psyched when I found out they were coming here. And too soon, they opened their doors here in Singapore.

Although size-wise the one here doesnt hold a candle to the original, they’ve introduced to Singaporeans at their flagship store in Ngee Ann City new brands like Too Faced and Pop amongst several others. The cute pink shelves and adorable packaging never fail to draw an endless stream of crowd to the brightly lit store. And of course, for me, the much anticipated Bare Escentuals line is THE other mineral makeup line that is a must try! I swear by Everyday Minerals.

Too Faced is known for its Too Faced Shadow Insurance which is an eyeshadow primer that promises to “transform any eye shadow into a perfectly blendable color-drenched intensified version of itself then locks it down perfectly until you take it off.” No wonder it flew off the shelves and people who are currently interested in getting it have to be put on a waiting list! BAH! And here I thought I could get my grubby little paws on it without waiting for it to be shipped all the way from the US. Hee.

Also, in my books, their Lash Injection mascara is a much anticipated product. Oh, I’m such a mascara junkie! I’ve got one in a sample size and will test it out soon!

The other new cutie in town is Pop Beauty. Check out the awesome eyeshadows. Arent they just adorable! The colours are pure LOVE!

Although I was thoroughly disappointed that they didnt bring in NARS or Urban Decay and the other major brands that I longed for, but instead housed some of the brands we were already familiar with (ie. Benefit, Sisley, Dior, Elizabeth Arden), they did however, bring in some organic makeup and a HUGE range of their house brand Sephora makeup.

With a vast array of makeup ranging from lipglosses to nail polishes, smoky eyeshadow palettes to everyday wear eyeshadows, mascaras, eyeliners and even special edition crystalised lipsticks, anyone who’s into makeup is spoiled rotten for choice! They even have brushes for sale! I was so tempted to get myself some of their makeup and brushes to try but decided that I’d be unadventurous and get my fix of minerals from the Bare Escentuals series which used to only be available online.

This awesome All Over Face Colour set comes with a 0.85g container full of A Little Sun (a mix of sunlit copper and undertones of pink) and an excellent fan brush to sweep the colour in all the right spots. It’s my current cant-do-without and I never leave home without 2 quick sweeps of the All Over Face Colour on my cheeks for the just-got-out-of-the-sun look.

Browse around the store and Im sure some little nugget from the shelves may just have your name on it. If nothing really appeals to you, and all else fails, cam-whore in the store with the pretty mirrors.