click here for swatches from karlasugar

the SA at the macy’s counter was an older woman and seem very knowledgeable in the LM products. i asked for a color match for a tinted moisturizer. she suggested the oil free version if i want a bit more coverage and i said go for it. she advised me to adequately moisturize my skin before i apply the TM. i always moisturize anyway so that was no biggie.

she then asked if i wanted to go for a bit of color or as close to my skintone as possible. i opted for getting a shade as close to my skintone as possible since then i can be lazy and don’t have to set with powder if i don’t want to. she looked at the shades and said “let’s try this newer shade on you” as she grabbed the tube in bisque. she started applying it on and exclaimed that this was just about perfect. i love the coverage!! i’ve used sheer TM before and this one is definitely medium coverage to me. not sheer but not full foundation coverage that i felt my skin cannot breath. i tried a couple of bb creams before and this is the coverage i wish some bb creams would give. i have to say i caught some glimpses in the big mirrors after i left and my face looked soft and even without looking like i have multiple layers on. i can still see my skin but the little imperfections are smoothed out a lot. anyway, she applied it all over, added concealer in #2 and secret brightening pen in #2. the secret brightener felt very very good on the skin. she gave me a healthy of dose of sample so i can try it for a few days. i will test this and make sure i do not break out. i also want to see if i’ll feel the same as that very first encounter.

i have wore this for the last two days and each day, i really really like the finish afterward. i love the even application and coverage it gives me. today i blew my nose a couple of times because of allergies so i should reapply a bit but i didn’t take the sample with me. i also did not set this with any powder since i really dig the dewy finish by itself. sometimes i think the color may be a lit light but after about 5 minutes it seem to blend in with my skintone and look very natural.

this is why i went to nordstrom the day after and ask the young SA to match me again. i have to have 2nd opinions. if they match me with the same shade i feel more comfortable wearing it. the young SA tried 3 shades on me and they seem a bit dark. this time my sister was with me too. she wiped them off (my sister did not say anything during this time) and tried bisque. they both said this one matches. alrighty then.

this morning using LM’s TM. i took this with my samsung captivate SOC.

SOC. hoping my face matches my neck in natural lighting.

just to make sure while we were in sephora, my sister went looking at some too faced stuff and i wiped everything off and applied a application of bisque. i then went to look for my sister and asked her what she think of the tinted moisturizer i have on. she asked me what i think instead. i replied that i didn’t know and so wanted her opinion. she looked at me side to side and nodded and said it looks good.  so there you go. my fear is going out wearing too light a tinted moisturizer or foundation and looking like a ghost or a vampire. neither one sound flattering unless i’m part of sammo’s “encounter of the spooky kind” crew or a character in “twilight” something.

so i still love this stuff. i’m going to use up the sample and see if my thoughts stay the same. if so, i’ll put it on my wishlist as this is just what i’ll been looking for as far as application, coverage, and finish are concern. i guess now i know what all the fuss about LM’s TM is all about and i’m not disappointed. if anything, i should have tried this a long time ago.

peace-keeper cause-metics lipsticks

on top of the $15, i paid an additional $4 for 4 tubes of lipstick. i like minimal makeup. a tinted moisturizer, a lipgloss or lipstick and i’m usually done. when i want to make up a bit more, i lined my eyes and maybe some shadows. my favorite products to hoard are lipsticks / lipglosses and blushes. i don’t think i will ever go through them all, honestly.

paint me healed, paint me healthy, and paint me content

anyway, i picked 3 peace-keeper cause-metics lipsticks and 1 mineral hygienics. the peace-keeper shades are paint me healed, paint me healthy, and paint me content. the mineral hygienics shade is magma. i love nudes, warm browns, peaches, corals, and a combination of these colors.

mineral hygienics magma lipstick

the peace-keeper lipsticks are matte and not as drying as the mineral hygienics. i found MH too dry so i applied it after a lip balm. it also have some sparkles to it. i do like the shade very much. it’s a bright peach rosey brown. very pretty. the lipstick comes in a much smaller tube inside a small black baggie so my first thought was, they sent me a sample instead! LOL they seem to contain the same amount of product though.

i did one swipe of paint me healed and 2-3 swipes of the other three. lovely warm shades! taken w/o flash

since i just received the peace-keeper ones i only tried paint me healthy. it’s a very pretty nude color. like your lip but much better. i love the tube containers that these lippies came in. truthfully, i like all 4 shades but i probably won’t purchase another MH because of the drying application.

my mini-haul from imomoko.com arrived today. that was fast! i ordered on sunday, it shipped monday and arrived today by priority mail. i ordered the hada labo uv moist spft 50, hada labo shirojyun lotion (toner), kose deep cleansing oil, my beauty diary french white lily masks, and some selena fresh cotton squares. the kose and my beauty diary were on special for 15% off.

the clarins hydraquench cream was from a seller from ebay. i’d got a small tube to try out when i was using the ddf brightening cleanser with the mario badescu 2% glycolic acid toner. my skin seem to really like it. it didn’t have any scent, absorbed to a matte finish and is moisturizing enough to calm my flaming skin after the ddf. i think a 1.7 oz container retails for $49!! yikes! i won this (3 x .53 oz tubes) for almost half that price. i am planning to use this at night and the hada labo milky lotion during the day. anyway, so far i think this cream is awesome! i’ll have to decide if i want to spend that much $$ when i run out.

cleansing oil…this is the first time i’m using a cleansing oil. i’m not sure i’ve ever really heard of that cleansing method until a few weeks ago. i bought the kose deep cleansing oil to try out and see for myself. cleansing oils are suppose to dissolve all your makeup before your regular cleanser. for some reason, i am starting to get clogged pores on my forehead and chin and neither the noxzema blackhead cleanser, ddf brightening cleanser, or aveeno smart essentials exfoliating scrub seem to help. i was ready to just scrap them off but unless i want to end up bright red and have inflamed skin, it wasn’t the smart choice.

without wetting my face, i squeeze out 1 pump and a half and started massaging it onto my face. it’s a clear liquid and i just kept massaging it upward for about 3 minutes. i get a slightly warm feeling from it. hehehe i washed it off and there was no greasy, oily or filmy residue, on my hands or face! wow! i love how my face feels clean but not tight at all.

love the colors and packaging!

after padding my face with a towel, i tore open the lily mask (it came in a set of 5) and i really dig the barely there floral scent of the mask. love it! the packaging is also well-made and i adore the colors. i believe this is the first sheet mask i’ve ever use but i’m not positive. i just can’t recall any other time. the fit of this mask is almost perfect! i put it on and it just seem to stick to my skin. the essence is kind of sticky but not bothersome. totally love it!  it fits my face well and throughout the 30-40 minutes i had it on, it did not slip off or bother me in anyway. it was just a cool, refreshing feeling.

when it was time to pull it off, it came off without any problem. the mask was still wet when i took it off and i sort of patted the essence still on my face so it’ll absorb. i’m so in love with this mask. i’m quite tempted to use it every day…LOL i have some other masks on order so i’ll see how those compare when they get here. for now, it’s my beauty diary.

i waited a few minutes until my face was almost dried again to apply the hada labo shirojyun lotion (toner). it is a whitening toner but i think it’s more to even the skin tone. i don’t know if it’ll work but i want to try. ^^  it’s a white waterly liquid and a bit more sticky than the milky lotion (moisturizer) but also absorbs well. there’s no scent so i’ll use this and see how it goes.

i don’t have pictures for everything because the camera battery ran out. oops! i’ll do a follow up after a week or so and see if i still feel the same.

anyway, today i received the kose seikisho mask white from beauty.com (20% off) and the hada labo gokujyun hyaluronic milky lotion from amazon.com. the mask is a peel off mask. the concept of it gets me all excited and giggling. i have never try one before and this was my first. the hada labo is all the rage in japan i believe, with 1 sold every 4 seconds. impressive! i have combination to dry to sensitive skin so i really need a good moisturizer and decided to try this.

in the interest of trying not to scare you. ^^

back to the mask. it’s in the form of a thick liquid. it is not running. it is easy to apply; take too long and it’ll get sticky. i did a not too thin but not too thick layer for the first application. i waited for about 20-30 minutes. after 10 minutes you can start to feel the mask stiffen and tighten around your face. there’s no scent that i can tell. i peeled off from the bottom and there was no pain. i did leave a bit here and there but nothing major and my skin feel super smooth afterward. i love the mask! you can see the little whiteheads and other things if you look really close once the mask is off. eeewww! i will definitely buy it again at a discount. i hardly ever buy anything full price.

my interest in the hada labo hyaluronic acid came about as i was researching the hada labo uv moist spf 50 sunscreen. one thing lead to another and i’m in need of a moisturizer as i had ran out of the zia. i still have half of the yes to carrots night moisturizer but i was itching to try this too. luckily, amazon had it through their prime shipping and it was in my hands in 2 days. i just love prime, don’t you?

again, this milky lotion (moisturizer) has no discernible scent, is in white liquid form and can be running. i’m starting to like these things with no scent as some of them are way too overpowering for me. one reason i never never use the stuff from bath and body works. i squeeze a dime size (per instruction) on my palm, smack it with the other palm and started “patting” it all over my face until it was totally absorbed. it only took a minute or too and this was a new concept too, patting instead of rubbing it on. my first impressions: it was kind of fun (patting). it is not greasy or smelling (did i say that already?). i can see myself using this unless my skin get some kind of weird reaction or it turns out that it’s not as moisturizing as i thought. it comes in a generous size, 4.7 oz. i’ll wait another week or so before i decide.

throughout all this, the hubby was right there along side me using the mask and milky lotion too. funny!

skin79 vip gold bb cream

skin79 hot pink bb cream

missha perfect cover bb cream

i bought skin79′s hot pink bb cream, the VIP gold bb cream, and missha’s perfect cover bb cream in #23. both the skin79 only come in one shade and the missha have several shades. unfortunately, i am medium-tone so both the skin79 were too light and there is a definite grey cast. the missha #23 is also too light for me but i love the feel of this bb cream more than skin79′s. with the right shade, i may really like this one.

the coverage is good and the cream can be a bit of a hassle to spread (must be because i’m so use to liquidy creams including tinted moisturizers).

frankly, i’m afraid to try anymore (except missha in #27) since they are all so light in shades. i have an order of a few samples from missha coming so i’ll test those out and then no more random bb creams.

top 4 frames – 16x20s from adoramapix

the only place so far that i’d ordered 16x20s from was costco and i have not order any for a while as i wasn’t so happy with the last batch. they were a lot darker than the originals for some reason. yep, i was quite turned off.

so, adorama’s last promotion that ended on 8/23 was all 16x20s were half off, making them about $4.60 each. i said why not as i have been meaning to make some enlargements of a few photos. james’ account also had a $10 credit for signing up a year ago. i was up until midnight of the 22nd (yeah, i’m a procrastinator…LOL) reading up on the best format, size, dpi, etc for the size i wanted to get. i ran each of the images through totally rad’s lux photoshop action, saved them in tif’s and sent them off with both my toes and fingers crossed that they would look okay once printed. total paid including shipping and applying the credit was $15 and some cents.

the prints showed up on saturday, via priority mail and i tore into it as soon as i got home from the dealership, which is another story.

i braced myself and took them out of the package with only myself looking at them. they blew me away!!! the paper was thick and the prints look so much better than i’d anticipated which is always always a good thing!! i showed it to my family and they all exclaimed about how nice it looked. i uploaded them in a 2000 x 3008, 300 dpi format. they had to be cropped a bit to fit the 16×20 frame. when that happened, the dpi went down on all to 120 – 150 so i was really preparing myself for the not so good prints. let me just say, they still look fabulous!! i guess i don’t know much about the dpi stuff but i’m just so glad!

the frames cost me a whole lot more, let’s just say. if anyone know of another way to mount, frame, etc photos cheaper, i’m all ears!!

adoramapix is totally recommended and i’m waiting for their next sale to get more prints.

talking about prints, i really want to get the canon pro9000 photo printer as my ip5000 can’t do prints anymore, not even 4×6′s. i ordered from adorama 6 packs of the 50 canon photo paper pro II 4x6s and 30 of the 13×19 canon photo paper pro platinum that i’m itching to print on but i need a printer first. LOL i paid $13.32 for all the 4×6′s and $32.85 for the 13x19s which is a steal considering the quality of the photo papers. i have tried the regular photo paper plus from canon and i wasn’t that impressed.

so, hopefully i’ll get my printer soon…one of these days.

Feedjuice – excellent for following your favorite reads/blogs

HD dolphin browser – the stock browser is great too but I love this one. There are add ons just like Firefox to make your web browsing more enjoyable.

Facebook pink – I tried the regular fb app and wasn’t impressed. I saw this one a month later and decided to pay $1.5 for it. It is wonderful and I love the pink color. Also it is for a good cause. I admit I enjoy going on fb pink more than the website. Lol

Angry birds – a very entertaining game! Also beautiful graphics!

WordPress – super useful when you have a few minutes between something and just want to jumpstart your blog post.

Appbrain – manage and sync all your Apps. And if you switch phones, you will have a list of all your Apps and can re-install them easily.

Quick battery – displays your current battery life. Very helpful!

Gtasks – just another app that you can add to-do lists, such as shopping. I put my notes in this app as I think of them so I won’t forget.

Watchdog lite – android is all about running different apps simultaneously so this comes in very handy. Kill the apps you don’t want running to save battery juice.

Dropbox – drop files here that you want to be able.to access anywhere, ie: your home PC, laptop, and phone. This way you do not need to transfer files back and forth. Is that easy or what?

Calendar snooze – this app makes your calendar really rock! It lets you customize ringtones, snooze frequencies, etc. Really cool.

Amazon - lets you scan barcodes to check on Amazon.com. very cool!

Target – same thing as the Amazon app. Since I shop mainly at these two places, I love the apps.

360Camera – choose an effect and snap! there are some cool effects here! There’s a paid app but there’s a free option.

fxCamera – same concept as 360camera. i especially love the polaroid option.

That’s my list for now. These apps have my phone acting like a mini-netbook. I totally love that it seems to simplify a lot of things I am already doing but doing it much more efficiently.

If you have some recommendations for android, I’ll love to hear it.