IOPE Air Cushion XP SPF50+/PA+++ in N21 (Review/Swatch)

Hey all! Sorry that this post has taken some time to go up because I was actually in Bangkok over the weekend lol. 

To continue on with my 'BB cushion challenge', here's the second BB cushion pact I used everyday for an entire week - IOPE Air Cushion XP in N21. You can read about my review on the Innisfree Long Wear Cushion BB here.

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IOPE Air Cushion XP BB cushion comes in 3 different ranges - Natural, Shimmer and Cover. You can decide what sort of coverage you'd like the BB to do and purchase accordingly. I bought No. 21 from the Natural series or N21 as indicated on the packaging because I didn't want to look overly shimmery like Edward Cullen nor have too thick of a coverage (my guess is that the Cover ones have very high coverage - don't quote me on that lol). I went for the safest option obviously haha!

IOPE does not have a physical counter/store in Singapore so I bought mine off Qoo10 during a sale. It was a bundle option of SGD$49.80 for the BB with a lipstick. I'm not too sure how much this retails in Korea so if anyone knows do let me know in the comments below. I will also review the lipsticks that I bought from IOPE in another entry so stay tuned for it! :)

The BB cushion comes in the standard white packaging as you can see and when you purchase, it comes with a refill hence you're paying for 2 cushions basically but with 1 cushion holder/cover.

When you open the new BB cushion, there is a seal over the cushion as seen below. I actually had to snap these pictures with my phone before proceeding to use the BB cream xD

If the seal is not there, highly possible that the item is not brand new so make sure it is there!

The puff provided is the typical BB cushion flat puff which... in my opinion should be more durable. I tried to wash my old Laneige old but it completely disintegrated so I had to throw it away and buy a new one. Pfffft!

Hand swatch

As you can see, the coverage is very decent and natural looking. It doesn't give me the typical 'white' sheen that BB creams normally do and unlike the Innisfree one, I could go out of the house looking fairly normal and not have to use another powder so in this sense, I prefer the IOPE one over the Innisfree one.

Here I used the BB cream all over my face, using a patting motion FYI - please do not slide the puff all over your face as you would using a sponge to apply your foundation. Staying power is fairly decent and I surprisingly didn't blot my face throughout the week I used this.

Which do I like better? IOPE actually. Simply because the lasting power is better plus the colour matches my skin wayyyyyy better. That being said, you can go for the Innisfree one if you're budget conscious because it only comes with one BB cushion so you pay lesser for it as opposed to paying for the BB cushion with a refill for the IOPE one.
I liked that the IOPE suited our local weather much more than the Innisfree one because I noticed the colour fading off much faster from my face when I used the Innisfree BB cushion. So even if I mentioned that I liked the Innisfree one in my previous entry, I'd prefer the IOPE one over that now that I've tried both versions.

Alrights, that's all for this entry. I hope it's useful for you guys reading this.
I will be testing the newer version of the Laniege BB cushion next so stay tuned.
Till then, bye!

MAC x Maleficent Summer 2014 Collection

Hi everyone! This entry is kinda special because I have discovered my love for Maleficent thanks to the newly released "Maleficent" movie by Disney starring Angelina Jolie as the protagonist. 

The 2014 movie is actually told from Maleficent's point of view and how she came to curse Princess Aurora with the famous curse such that she becomes Sleeping Beauty.

To really up the hype for the movie, I actually saw this nail art tutorial on Youtube and recreated this look the day before watching the movie. Actually I was just bored and thought the tutorial was easy enough to recreate la #sadsociallife

Please check out her channel, I really love her nail designs! :)

And yes, I did manage to recreate most of the look save for the nails on my right hand because drawing the horns with my main hand was so tough I had to redo it twice :x #noskill #newbie

I didn't really make the horns as nice as Janelle in the Youtube tutorial but for a noob like me, it's quite a huge feat already la lol.

So without further ado, my Maleficent nails drawn by yours truly :D 

Angelina Jolie was on the cover of 8 Days that week. I subscribe to the magazine via their app because buying the physical copy is so wasteful. I throw them away into the recycling bin after reading actually.

Left hand with the My Dark Magic Mineralize Eye Shadow from the MAC Venomous Villains Collection in 2012 starring of course the cartoon version of Maleficent.

Right hand was much more simpler (polka dots for the middle finger!) pictured here with Revenge is Sweet Lipglass from the same MAC collection as the eyeshadow above.

Now onto the main objective of this entry - reviews and swatches of the items I bought from the MAC x Maleficent collection in conjunction with the release of the movie above.

The vinyl figurines you see here are from Funko Pop which Hidaya got me addicted to lol. The movie edition of Aurora and Maleficent are new releases and I told her to just grab it for me once they were in stock. Thank you Mas Hila :D :D :D (jangan membunuh saya ya! hoho.) You can purchase them at Simply Toys at Plaza Singapura level 7 opposite the cinema box office :)

Here's what I bought from the collection:

1. Natural Beauty Powder, USD$33.00

2. Anthurium Pro Longwear Lipglass, USD$22.00

3. Nail Lacquer in Flaming Rose, USD$17.50/SGD$24.00

I purchased the nail lacquer in the MAC Cosmetic stores locally because obviously nail lacquers cannot be shipped internationally but the other 2 items were part of my huge MAC haul with the Sharon & Kelly Osbourne Collections which if I have time I will do reviews on. They have not landed on our sunny shores yet. I hope they don't because I am tempted to get the eyeshadow quad from the Sharon collection but I am on a self-imposed makeup ban till September lol. Which kinda got broken last weekend because I caved into the YSL Fall 2014 collection FML

Ok, enough chit chat really!

Swatches :)

The nail lacquer in Flaming Rose is a true red polish and the bottle is adorned with the Maleficent wings that is on all the items released in this collection. I only purchased this colour because the other colours released looked..... plain oops! Black and beige, really MAC? I just got this for collection purposes. The packaging is really to die for! >_<

Swatches on my nails in natural daylight

Indoor lighting

Here I applied 2 coats of the polish with a top coat. I find that if you really wanna be really careful about it, you can achieve an opaque colour with one coat but I like to pile on the polish to even out things a little. Under indoor lighting, the colour shifts to a dark red (not as bright as it seems pictured in the first nail swatch pic).

Wear time was typical of most nail polishes - it lasted about 4 days before the major chipping appeared. A huge chunk just fell off this morning as I'm typing this entry lol.

Next up, the Pro Longwear Lipglass in Anthurium. Oh, be still my heart!

This is a true red that applies opaque and evenly on the lips. However, as with all lip products, you really need to exfoliate well because this really picks up on the uneven surface of your lips if not applied on clean lips.

Formula wise, it is not sticky upon application but it does fade off after I drank my cuppa this morning! So boo for that *reapply diligently*.

Applicator

I don't have much experience with prolong wear lipglasses nor normal lipglasses from MAC but this applicator is slightly flat on both sides and I find that this allows me to apply the product more evenly onto my lips.

Hand swatch

And last but not least, the Natural Beauty Powder.

I had initially wanted to pass on this because this just looks like a normal powder to me. But look at that casing!!! LOL, yup that's right, suckered in by the packaging *waves white flag to MAC*.

The powder is really a peachy, skin toned colour powder. I was unable to get a good swatch of it on my arm because the powder just blended in so you get my drift here right? Anyway, I used it all over my face as a finishing powder (you can it for anything - blush, highlighter, bronzer ya dah ya dah) and it didn't really have good oil control. I was shiny in about....2 hours? And I would only recommend this for fairer skin tones to use.

Well, that's all folks for the Maleficent products from MAC. I'm really excited for the Simpsons collaboration for Fall. Autumnal collections are popping up left and right now (in August wtf!!!) so.... pray hope I don't spend as much I did for the Summer collections D:

Till then, adios folks!

Laneige Birthday Treat!

Hello! I'm here to blog about the Laneige Birthday treat that I won last month hahaha.

 

We appeared on the Laneige SG's Instagram that night lol! Thanks for beautifying my face hahahaha!

Really glad to have actually won this because frankly speaking I wasn't expecting to win #sonegative

But my birthday month always seems to hold a lot of surprises for me (July babies FTW!!) and... yeah I won it despite the overwhelming response from many of the Club Laneige members born in July.

You can read about the birthday treat here or keep a lookout on Laneige SG's Facebook page where they will announce the registration for the birthday treat. Good luck to the August - December babies yeah ;)

FYI this is only available this year because it is Laneige's 20th anniversary so probably won't have such events from next year onwards!

Ok, let's move on with the entry! Eggcited much to be primped and pampered so well by the team of makeup artists from Laniege and hairstylists from Blow+Bar.

I invited the bff, Jace and Wanjun along for this treat because they were the ones I had in mind when I submitted the entry. So that Saturday after our Last Romeo class, we had lunch at Plaza Singapura before heading down to Raffles Place to get to Blow+ Bar.

We were gonna have a beauty makeover, express manicure and hairstyling as part of the birthday treat.

Oh and the cool thing about Blow+ Bar is that they actually have a bar concept where they serve alcoholic drinks to their customers. We all had either cider (Somersby!) or champagne (I was the only one drinking it).

Blow+ Bar
One Raffles Place
One Raffles Place Shopping Podium #05-18
Singapore 048616
Tel: 64387005

Jacelyn and I did our makeup first while Sinhui and Wanjun did their hair first and then we switched places afterwards. Pretty fun to actually be getting makeovers from professional makeup artists despite me being a makeup addict because the techniques they used are pretty different from us mundane humans LOL!

Started with my bare face. I only slapped on sunblock before heading out of the house. #braverymuch

Wanjun getting her express manicure while Sinhui disappeared to wash her hair lol.

Wohoo makeup galore!

The makeup artist who did my makeup that day is Cynthia. She's actually stationed at the Laneige store in Tampines. I usually patronize the boutique store at Plaza Singapura because it's on the NEL and more convenient for me to get home lol so it was my first time meeting her that day.

After putting on BB cream and foundation and.... eyeliner I think lol. Eye pencils do not work on my lids T.T

Here's the palette I picked out for my eyes - Pure Radiant Shadow in No. 5 City Khaki

I wanted to go all full out smokey because I'm not very good at doing smokey eyes so I wanted to see how the makeup works on my eyes. Picked this palette because of that deep navy colour in the bottom right corner. Prettay! :D

But I do have to say the staying power of these shadows seem quite weak in comparison to other brands. The oils in my lids kinda made the shadows disappear after 3 hours. Boo. Maybe things will improve if an eye primer was used - Cynthia only applied a BB cream all over my lids as a base.

 

Wanjun and Sinhui's turn to put on their makeup. I actually told Sinhui to pick No. 7 Miss Twinkle (pictured below). The moss green is really lovely, very autumn de feel hahaha! You will see her eye look later below.

pic cr to Yesstyle

Totally living the taitai life here haha! One person do my hair, the other doing my nails LOL! Best.life.ever.

And we all had a hair mask done during the washing. Relax max!

  

Opted for large waves at the bottom of my hair to channel my inner Kpop star LOL!

Cynthia touching up on my makeup here after my hairstyling

Laneige also kindly prepared 4 bags of goodies for us! THANK YOU LANEIGE SINGAPORE :D

Birthday girl gets the bigger bag hehe xD

This is the bag for the 3 of them

Ta-dah! All done :)

With Doreen, brand manager from Laneige Singapore who took care of us throughout the entire time. 

Thank you dear! :)

With lovely Cynthia who did my makeup

Jace and her makeup artist

Group pictures! We all really looked quite different with the beauty makeover hahaha. Oops :P

All primped up and beautified! :)

Individual shots of the girls - minus me because I was the photographer lol.

Sinhui

See!! The green is really lovely!! 

Waterfall braids for her

Wanjun

Colored contacts really make the look looks different! Why I have astigmatism... D:

Jacelyn

She went for a softer, more pinky look

Here's a closeup of my eye look

We left at approximately 6.30pm and went to the toilet to camwhore lol. Super zi lian leh we all but.... we were all dolled up and nicely made up so why not right?

I'm contemplating perming my hair to this for the Korea trip at the end of the year

Shoo-ed everyone out because we were attracting weird stares from everyone in the toilet lol and then we went out to the area outside and the sun was still up. Great lighting = photoshoot time lol! Yup, finished camwhoring in the toilet then headed to next location to continue HAHAHA!

This girl super know how to pose for the camera hahaha

Gizibes for life *throws greasy Woohyun hearts*

We were trying to imitate Yonghwa lol! See reference below.

Sidenote: This episode of Weekly Idol with CN Blue is SUPER funny! LOL

Possibly the longest friend I've ever known heh

Spent a good 30mins to an hour trying to catch the last of the daylight before the sun set by taking OOTDs. I kinda failed very badly due to me being unable to pose naturally. Makes me salute those fashion bloggers  (You as well Carol if you're reading this lol) who can pose so naturally for the camera.

So below were the... nicer shots we took that day HAHAHAHA.

Wanjun & Jace

Le bff and I

You mei you feeling huh? LOL

I really like this picture of Jacelyn. Looks very 女神 haha

See I told you this woman can really pose lor haha!

黄金右脸 (oops don't kill me!)

黄金左脸 (don't kill me x2)

Alright, that's all for this post! Thank you Laneige Singapore for giving me and my friends this opportunity. I really enjoyed it a lot and am really grateful that we were all well taken care of by the team from Laneige and Blow+ Bar. And also to Melissa from Laneige who contacted me and telling me I was picked as the winner haha! 

I'm really interested to explore more of Laneige's makeup range. I have been a loyal user of their BB cushions - in fact I am still using the older version Laniege Snow BB Cushion - so I did pick up a Serum Intense Lipstick which I hope to review soon lol. *screams* Cheon Song Yi colour everybody!

Have also always been a loyal user of the Water Bank Gel Cream and I did pick up the eye cream and essence using my birthday discount last month so hopefully they will work wonders and make me look like Song Hye Kyo okay? xD 

Anyway, do keep a lookout for my review on Laneige's Pore Control BB Cushion coming up in the next few weeks! It's part of my "BB Cushion Challenge" that I mentioned in my previous entry haha.

Alrights, annyeong! ^^