Giorgio Armani eyes to kill silk eyeshadow #12 Moonlight swatch/ review

Here's the Armani Eyes to Kill Silk eyeshadow in shade #12, there's no color name printed on the box or container but according to the official website the corresponding shade name is "Moonlight".

I did not see swatches before getting it, but the rainbowy mixture got me curious since it looks like a pale silvery blue base with fine pink and green flecks of pigments through it.

Here- you can see the color looks rather complex in the jar.

As mentioned in my previous reviews, these eyeshadows have an interesting moist powder/ cream texture. It's very finely milled and intense pigmentation and is meant to be buildable in color.

Swatch, more densely on left and blended out on the right:

You can see how it's almost slightly lumpy on the finger tip.

Here you can see it being a bit uneven on the left, but it blends out easily.

Well at the end of the day- this is really a shiny silver shade. It's not flecks of silver but does blend out to a sheer silver shimmer. It's not a 'white' silver but more a mercury silver, and capable of being blended out to a really sheer layer which gives more a shimmery finish with translucency. Can be layered to a true mercury silver too.

It's a rather metallic shade which means it's not very forgiving on the eyes, sort of accentuates and creases and a bit too glaringly silver. However it sheers down as a nice eyeshadow base and adds a real sparkle to any eyeshadow you apply on top.

Overall rating 3/5. It looks more amazing in the pot than applied for sure.

MAC Together-ness, Making it Easy and Calm, Cool and collected mineralize eyeshadow Trios review/ swatch

MAC in the groove collection was probably quite popular back when it first came out in 2010- the mineralised eyeshadow trios and mineralised blushes all offered an array of colors in a single compact at a decent price.

Here are quick swatches of three of the trios:

Together-ness:




Features: - pale pink lilac, extremely pale, on velvet side with very light iridescence, not really shimmery.
- Greyed-blue based lavender, it's almost like a navy purple , again, it's shiny but not shimmery or metallic
- Medium charcoaled grey, applies like a true grey, not very dark


Making It Easy
- peach beige, looks more matte than the other shades.
- middle is champagne peach, still a neutral peach and not too warm. it's more shimmery than the other 2 shades.
- right is a coppered brick (not so red as to turn into brick red). can be a bit harder to wear.

 Calm cool collected- sorry I must have misplaced the product pictures!
- off-white with a tinge of green, the green is really subtle (not sure if it was intended to have green inside, might just be because the other two sides pigment migrated on this side).
- shimmery grassy green, it's not really yellow based so looks like a neutral green. it's more shimmery than the other two shades, again, the shimmer is pretty subtle.
- Mossy green, it's medium-dark but not blackened, it's very winter sort of green, a bit forest green.

swatch only:



Overall I don't really any of them are must haves- the pigmentation vary and the finish is not really as silky as I like. Some of the metallic sparkles are uneven and sparse.

Rating 2.5/5

What I liked from Japan: Rohto Z!, Lion Cooling Sheet for Legs, Tokyu hands Woodyhouse brush, Lycee Rohto Eyewash reviews

Well it's been ages since my Japan trip, where I bought quite a bit of random beauty gadgets. Some I saw from magazines, some I just saw in stores and was interested in trying.

Firstly, Rohto Z! Refresh you eyes eyedrops. There are a few versions (by box color), like super minty vs mild etc. These are a step up from the pink bottled Rohto Lycee cooling eye drops. They give really great cooling sensation to the eyes and clear any redness. I use it in the morings a few times a week as I get allergies regularly (as with all eye drops, not recommended for prolonged regular long term use).

In Japan these are not prescription products so they are available in most drugstores alongside other eyedrops. I think you shouldn't use this with contacts, but if I recall correctly there might be a special version for contact wearers as well (same with Lycee eyedrops- there's a contact lense version).

I like how it's plastic sealed internally too. the square/ triangular bottle shape is also easy to hold.

Next is Lion Cooling Sheet for Legs. The brand is "Lion". This always received rave reviews in many beauty magazines and are recommended as a holiday treat when you are in Japan after too much shopping and walking. Basically it's a leg mask that's aimed at cooling and refreshing the legs and soothe that tired/ sore feeling. 

I was very sceptical but it really does work- it's like an improved version of those traditional medicinal plasters and pastes.

Each pack contains 3 individually packed sachets (see left of box in pic below). Each sachet contains 6 sheets (each use is 3 sheets per leg).

Basically you stick the masks on your legs like in pictures below.

The sheets are 13cm x 8.5cm, they are a bit like a pink 'gel' look (but it's not runny and doesn't drip). You peel off the separator sheet on top and stick the pink gel patches on the foot, back of leg and ankle. Leave for 15-20min (or longer like 1 hr if you want, they stick on fairly easily so you can still walk about).

You can feel an immediate cooling and soothing sensation on the legs, it's hard to describe, but it's such an "ahhhhhhhh so nice" moment after a long day of walking and shopping. 

They are not reusable. Each box retails for about USD15 so I consider them to be for special occasions only. They don't exactly have skin treatment properties either so it wouldn't leave your skin moisturised etc etc.

I also went to Tokyu Hands (which is like a medium sized department store that really specialises in selling random things, from hairdryer to cosmetics to cute garden tools to calendars etc).  I've always wanted a boar bristled round brush for blow drying my hair (especially doing the slightly curled inward look for the ends of my hair). Having looked at mason pearson then I decided I didn't want to invest that much just yet. 

I bought this one instead, which says it's made with natural boar bristle and the brush is heat resistant and static resistant, sounds perfect for blow drying. 

 (and made in Japan with real wood handle, the actual brand is called "Woodyhouse") 

It was 1470 Yen so about 16USD. Made in Osaka I think.

Personally I thought it's a very nice and reasonably priced brush, I wish I got a slightly bigger diameter size, but it still works quite well with a hairdryer to avoid that messy hair look where the ends sometimes curl at a weird angle. I still haven't quite grasped the technique for a perfect home blowdry with beautiful inward curls though.

The varying length of the bristle (at the base there's more densely packed shorter bristles, then mixed with longer bristles) also meant it was great for smoothing down hair (to avoid that static flyaway finish).

Only thing to complain about is that it's slightly difficult to clean (i guess with any similar hair brushes though).  A lot of fluff and hair gets trapped in the very root of the bristles. Sometimes I spend a good 2-3 minutes with a tweezer to clean it. However a good trick to clean your hairbrush (one that's well made), is after a thorough shampoo and while your hair is still full of foam, use the brush to brush your hair (through the foam) without tangling it, then the shampoo will clean any dirt or oil in the brush as well.

Lastly Rohto Lycee eye wash. I've been meaning to try this for a while. The Lycee line is not as super cooling as the Z! line (I'd actually prefer the Lycee eye drops since they are cooling enough for me and comes in cute pink bottles).

See the plastic strange looking cap on the top of the bottle- that's the holder for the eyewash. You squeeze some eyewash liquid into the holder, then put the holder over your eye, press against the skin, then squeeze the bottom of the holder while your eyes are still open, it then rinses your eyeballs easily.

I know it sounds silly to wash your eyeball with a special product, but this really works especially if you are one of those people who always find you wake up with gluggy eyes or after removing your eye makeup, it still seems a bit foggy or there might be random mascara residue or shimmers that's floating around in your eye. This gets rid of the last bit of it (and is really soothing and cooling when you use it). It really does feel different to using just plain water.

I got the smallest 80ml size which still lasts a good 3 months (used a few times a week). There's also a giant 400ml size but I just prefer to use my eye products within a few months to ensure everything's clean. 80ml retails for like 10-12USD.

This works great with those who suffer from hayfever or slightly bloodshot eyes.

I like most items above and would happily repurchase most of them. Quite a few items are probably available online too like ebay or adambeauty.com etc. Definitely take a look, I love fun Japanese gadgets.

Kanebo Kate Designing Eyebrow N EX04 (eyebrow powder palette) review/ swatch

I was on a quick business trip overseas then realised despite having already brought my usual arsenal of massive makeup bag, my eyebrow pencils must have both fell out at home somewhere, so I desperately tried to find a safe and cheap substitute in a random department store. 

Then I spotted the Kate counter, with the designing eyebrow compacts again, which I've had at least one of that I can recall (several years ago). It's also very similar to shiseido "ff" brand of eyebrow compact even more years ago. These eyebrow compacts last almost FOREVER, I find I use the lightest and medium color far quicker than the darker color, but you'd easily get more than 18 months use out of it even with daily use.

Personally I think I overpaid- it costed me almost 12-13AUD for the compact (it's rather small, but lasts forever, but Kate being a drugstore brand I kept on thinking it shouldn't cost more than $8 especially in Asia). They retail for 330NTD in Taiwan which is 11AUD, but sometimes goes on sale for 10-15% off.

Anyway, here's the Kate Eyebrow compact below , shade is "EX04" which is printed on the back of the compact.

There's also EX05 from the line.

Shade colors per their website. EX04 is slightly lighter than EX05, but personally I dont think the difference is huge.

EX04 below:

The compact is just a long rectangular plastic compact, with mirror inside. I think it's extremely portable and well designed, because you can hold both the compact vertically or horizontally to utilise the mirror with just one hand.

There's a dual-ended brush included. The brush end is a rather soft bristle. It doesn't feel scratchy.

The smaller end is a more firmer and shorter bristle so you can do a precision eyebrow especially for the arch and the ends.

EX04 feels like a warm toned palette to me, but if you are Asian I think the slight warm undertone is rather flattering no matter you have an ash or yellow based hair color or a more reddish dark brown hair color. From top to bottom it's a dark chocolate, a muddy brown, and a muted beige. All shades are finely pigmented and densely packed and more matte than satin (in a nice way). No shimmers.

Here are multiple swatches, darkest color on left and lightest on the right. I used my fingers to swatch, you can see  how subtle the colors are. But they are very buildable, once on the eyebrow and applied with the brush you can really build to a darker eyebrow. 

Now my eyebrows- they are naturally a bit longer and slightly sparse, so I really like to just pluck a few stray ones and fill in the gaps to give more definition. Because of my face shape, I suit a more wider natural brow than a thin, well defined one, so eyebrow powder are the easiest thing to use for me. 

I can see why this has been a staple in many Asian blogger's makeup bags and has been one of the Kate product line for as long as I can remember. The powder texture is really suitable for an eyebrow powder, it's firm so as to allow precision application, so it doesn't fly away everywhere, yet it's finely pigmented so it looks "natural", rather than the "look at my obvious brows".

In addition Kate's designing eyebrow N is also designed to be a contouring powder for the eye area. Due to the face shape of many Asians, one of the common makeup technique is to slightly shade the area between bridge of nose/ underneath the beginning of the brow, to give a more defined eye look. The lightest shade is amazingly good for this- anything other than something just a tinge darker than your natural skin color would look really silly in contouring this area. 

I also like using the lightest shade (sometimes mixed with the shade in the middle) as an eye socket shade to add more depth. The overall finished look is polished and contoured and very very natural.

Below I'm using the medium and lightest shade over most of the brow using the bigger bristle end of the applicator, then mixed the 3 shades together and used the smaller end bristle to define the end of the brow. (Usually I'd go even slightly finer and longer at the end).  Then used the lightest shade at the beginning of the brow, and also just the small 1cm area under it for the shading/ contouring I mentioned.

Overall 5/5. A nice compact to have and I'm quite glad I'm using an eyebrow powder again (strayed previously to a MAC eyebrow pencil for a while).

Chanel Blue Illusion d'Ombre Apparition/ Destination review/ swatches

Here's a quick review of the 2012 Chanel Blue Illusion collection which included 2 Illusion d'ombre shades. Apparation and Destination. 

As they are limited edition numbers there are no color codes in front of the shade names.

Apparition on the left, Destination on the right.

In the container Apparition is a deep deep marine/ navy blue sort of shade. It's not quite 'blackened' but still very dark. 

Destination is a lighter blue, more like a lake blue color. It seems like there's a touch of silver inside.

As with all Illusion d'ombre, they are like a souffle consistency, it's like a moist powder/ cream sort of finish, which can yield a highly metallic shimmery finish if applied more densely.

Swatches below, the blackened-ness of the Apparition shade is more obvious once applied, which makes this more wearable for a dark blue. It's not those in-you-face 80s blue eyeshadow sort of shade, instead it's rather understated and easy to wear. There's some shimmer inside, but if you apply more heavily it is still rather understated.

Destination on the other hand, applies lighter than expected- you can layer for more color but again, the silvery shimmer is more obvious in this shade and I really cant think of suitable ways to wear this for myself other than a subtle wash. It's also slightly 'greyed' so it's not a very vibrant spring sort of pastel blue shade either, it's more muted than I expected.

Overall nice and interesting shades from Chanel. I don't feel they are must haves because unless you like blue eyeshadows these aren't very versatile (other than the Apparition shade which can be easily worn as a liner shade or crease shade on a daily basis). Rating 3/5.

Nars Hollywoodland / Goddess Soft Touch Shadow Pencil reviews/ swatches (eyeshadow liner)

Nars soft touch shadow pencils are chubby cream eyeshadow pencils with a Nars signature (i.e. disintegrates quickly and attracts a lot of dust) plastic cap. You need a thick sharpener for these as a usual eyeliner sharpener would be too small for it.

Top is hollywood land and bottom is Goddess. The colors match the end of the eyeliner pencils.

Top (or left) is Hollywoodland and Bottom (or right) is Goddess.

Goddess on left two, and Hollywoodland on right two swatches.

Goddess is a peachy pink shimmer, while hollywoodland is a more champagne gold shimmer. I liked goddess much better since it's a softer looking color and hollywoodland is a bit too yellow even for my Asian skintone.

Without flash:

Blended out:

Honestly these look far prettier on smooth skin than on my eyes- any minor skin creases make these look creased as well and the shimmers can look uneven or a bit chunky. I didn't really intend to use them as an upper lid eyeshadow or liner, but rather as a lower lashline highlight or liner for that dewy eyed look. 

Unfortunately I think the textures are just not refined enough to give a totally natural look and any skin lines or creases will make the shades look stark and uneven.

As a cream eyeshadow for upper eyes, it still will accentuate any skin lines you didn't think you had- even with eyeshadow primers like urban decay.  The textures are just a bit too 'thick' to be blended out evenly on eyelids.

Really wanted to love these, but for the price they just don't perform up to expectation. Rating 2/5.