pre-birthday treat

Sheesh, I should never make public statements about my good spending habits because I rarely manage to follow through longer than 24 hours after making such statements! Got myself some pre-birthday gifts for me, myself and I as the title suggests. I had been lurking around the Urban Decay site for the past week or so as they had a spingtime "Friends and Family 20% Off" discount site-wide offer going on. Yesterday was the last day and I thought I could be good but I guess the deals to be had overwhelmed my fiscally responsible side and I ended up checking my cart out. It's actually my first attempt at shopping direct from the Urban Decay site so I wasn't sure if my faux US addy would stand up to the checks but I did get my order confirmation and all appears to be hunky dory for now. We'll see after the President's Day holiday if my order still stands the test of time (and more security checks - Tarte was quick to reject me :D).

Anywho, the sale extended to even the Sales items which is where my purchases came from. I got a bunch of eyeshadow palettes that normally costs between $38-$39 per box but were already on sale for about half off. Plus the extra 20% off and it became more than half off for these popular palettes. To round up the cost for free shipping, I decided to get another sale product which was th Lip Junkie in the shade Runaway. My haul....

The Mariposa palette, which is the main product I wanted - look at the shades in the palette, so totally gorgeous!, was on sale for 19 bucks. That was also the sale price for the Eyeshadow Ammo Shadow Box. The Deluxe Shadow Box was selling for cheaper at $16. The Lip Junkie was going for $9. Altogether, after the coupon code FFSPRING13 was applied was a very bargain door-buster $50.40. Also, Urban Decay threw in 2 free samples, a deluxe tube of the Naked BB Cream and a sample of their original Primer Potion.

Anyway, like mentioned above, I'm really unsure if the transaction will ultimately go through but fingers crossed it wil :)

DISCLAIMER:
Images screen capped from urbandecay.com. I do not own them.

UPDATE (20/02/2013):
As suspected from the moment I made the order, it got canceled, boohoo! Hehe, what surprised me though is that the email mentioned they're not against freight forwarders, they just support the one freight forwarder, MyUS.com. Oh well. I'm a happy camper with comGateway so I really can't see myself jumping ship just because urbandecay.com doesn't support the freight forwarder of my choice :D

turning another year older.....

Every year, my group of besties will buy each other a gift of our own choosing during our birthday. We each are in charge for the person whose birthday is right before ours. I am the person-in-charge (PIC) for the preggy one who wanted an iPad mini which is currently on the way from Shenzen, China to Homeland. Her birthday is on the 25th of this month and I put things in motion way back in January since her due date will be about the time of her birthday as well. I didn't want my PIC duties to get swallowed up by her having her first child and getting delayed. I know, selfish of me but great for her cos she gets her prezzie earler.

I, too, am getting my gift one month earlier to the date. Only because there was only one left of the main thing I wanted so the purchase needed to go through ASAP. This year, I decided to ask my besties for some stuff from that Homeland site I'm so addicted to. The PIC for my birthday is the bestie who is currently working in Singapore and when I gave her my list, she promptly got on it and my goodies are en route to my house in Homeland as I type. Everything totaled to about USD135.50.

The number one item on the list was the Kelsi Dagger Molly pumps. I am looking for another pair of appropriate shoes for work. The Jessica Simpson wedges I'm using are getting beaten up pretty good and I need to have a backup cos those wedges look like they're gonna come to the end of their life soon. Which dooes disappoint me slightly since I've had them for less than a year. Perhaps I shoould be kinder to my shoes :)

Then I decided I wanted the sleeveless blazer from the brand Something Borrowed. I've been wanting a more office-appropriate vest to wear and I feel this might fill my criteria. Another vest purchase was the long vest with pockets from the brand Musso. I've been completely relying on my waterfall vest I got from Thailand 4 years ago and although still in relatively awesome condition, I feel like I need to have a backup just in case. This vest might not be as great as my Jatujak vest but maybe it'll serve me well. Lastly, I decided to pick up this Ethnic Chic Isabella peplum dress. My love-hate affair with peplum continues. I've had quite a few missteps with peplum. The Cotton On peplum top was a tad too short but I overcome that by constantly stretching it longer. The one I got from Homeland site earlier last month was ill-fitting through the sleeves but I fixed that by cutting off the sleeves and making it into a sleeveless peplum top :D I'm crossing my fingers that third times the charm, hehehe. And it's hot pink!

DISCLAIMER:
All images belong to the Homeland site and not moi.

meet my other new love

Going back for Baby Danial's birth also gave me the opportunity to pick up a bunch of my stuff. After many moons moonng over the Rebecca Minkoff Morning-After-Bag, I finally have mine in hand. It's been a bit of a learning curve to get the bag to fall just right as it's very smooshy. Yes, smooshy is a common term used when in reference to the structure of a handbag and how that affects the way the bag "falls" :D

Also managed to get my hands on the F21 stuff like the mint green high neck blouse and black tapered pants below....

Wore this outfit to work the other day. The thing with F21 is that sometimes, you can buy the same piece in the same size but different hues and they don't fit exactly the same. But these pants, they don't seem to have that problem and for that I am very happy. The mint green blouse is also very lovely and cooling. And since the material is prone to show perspiration in all its glory, I made sure that I had myself covered in that area - there was liberal use of my Dove Invisble Dry anti-perspirant spray, hehehe.

Also, since we're covering an OOTD with apparel I've recently gotten, here's a casual OOTD of me wearing my new Cotton On sleep shirt, the RM MAB as well as my new leather Converse. I'm also wearing my waterfall vest gotten from Jatujak Market back in '09 when I went to Thailand on the company retreat and my Uniqlo jeggings.

I've been kinda great about not buying anything of late. When I was in Homeland, I did not spend on any clothes/beauty product and whatnot. Aside from groceries that is - a girl's gotta eat!

for the 4th time.....

I'M AN AUNTIE AGAIN! Baby Danial was born on 9th February at 9:27am weighing in at 2.93kg. I went back to Homeland for his birth so I've met the lil guy already. Mum and baby are doing okay. Congrats to moi!

drugstore shopping 2013

So I'm gonna talk about 3 seperate purchases I made on drugstore.com/beauty.com in the past month. Figured might as well lump them all in the same post, why waste space on the blogger servers :D

At the beginning of January I got my accrued drugstore dollars to spend which totaled close to 21 bucks. I think I mentioned I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend the money on something practical or something frivolous. When crunch time came, I opted for frivolous :D

My first purchase using the drugstore dollars was to get this Philosophy Falling In Love solid perfume.

I used the shower gel combo eons ago when I first made my foray into eBay. I loved the scent so much and always wanted to get the fragrance but since parfums and such are not viable products to get shipped via these freight forwarding services, I have continually had to forgo buying any EDT's, EDP's and the like. So finding this newly released solid perfume on sale for 21 bucks was amazing.

I had an email only free gift offer from Beauty.com. Spend $10 and above and receive this -

- a full-size IT Cosmetics Vitality Lip Flush 4-in-1 Natural Anti-Aging Lipstick Stain in the shade je ne sais quoi. That retails for 20 bucks. I essentially covered that free gift by getting that solid perfume.

However, for free shipping to be had, I needed to add 4 bucks more to qualify. It's kinda tough to find something useful to buy for 4 bucks on beauty.com. After searching around, I finally decided to get the Hollywood Fashion Secrets Hip Huggers in black.

Figured it might be useful :D Plus, it went for $8.99. Total for order #1 was $29.99 but with my drugstore dollars of $20.13, I was charged $9.86. LOVE IT!

Order #2 consisted of some supplements. I needed to replenish my L-Carnitine supply which I got at a discount for $34.19 but also decided to get these -

- to test out this theory my sister's doctor gave to her. Apparently all of us suffer from low thyroid which makes us susceptible to getting sick easily, blurry vsion and crankiness. Of late, since her "diagnosis", we've been blaming anything and everything on our "low thyroid condition", lol. But in all seriousness, my sis and I both decided to test out these NOW Foods Thyroid Energy veggie capsules. I had a 10% off of my total order coupon for drugstore.com purchases only (hence the seperate beauty.com order above) and got the pills for $10.79 per bottle. Total spent in this order was $55.77

And just a moment ago, I made my final drugstore purchase till April *fingers crossed*. I had a 15% off of my total drugstore.com order email promo which I invited preggy sis to partake in for gettng her last-minute baby essentials. I also decided to get some stuff of my own. Firstly, I got myself the CoverGirl Lip Perfection Jumbo Gloss in Coral Twist for $2.55.

As there was a CoverGirl 'Buy 1, Get 1 50% off' I decided I'd get another of the jumbo lip gloss but from the Queen collection. I got the CoverGirl Queen Collection Jumbo Gloss Balm in Radiant Rose. My 50% off was actually applied to the first balm so for this one I paid $5.94.

Next, Philosophy on drugstore.com was having a 20% off of some products so to complement the solid perfume I had gotten earlier in the month, I bought the 16oz 3-In-1 shower gel. This was the product I had used first when I came across the scent.

The RRP for this is $24 but with the 20% discount and the additional email discount of 15%, I got this for $16.32.

Next thing, I bought a prezzie for my future nephew. I'm coming round. I've been having rather tender thoughts about him. One night I even had a dream about him. He's not even born yet, hehehe :D I knew I'd get over it. He can't help who his dad is but that's only half of who he is. The other half, the better half and I pray to God Almighty, the stronger half, comes from my beautiful sister and that is enough reason for me to love him. Continuing on.....

I'd been trying to figure out what I will get the kid since my sister seemed to be buying all sorts of stuff for him already. I finally settled on the Fisher-Price Ocean Wonders™ Soothe & Glow Seahorse™ above. The reviews for this product are overwhelmingly good, I'm truly surprised that so many people like this one little toy. I hope my nephew will love it too. This went for $12.74.

Last but not least, I decided to get this value pack of Emergen-C 1000 mg Vitamin C in the flavour Cranberry Pomegranate for $9.99. I've always wanted to try Emergen-C, heard loads of good things about it so thought since I had 15% off, why not get it. The discount meant I paid $8.49

All in all, my total spent for this final order is $46.04. The actual total was close to $164 I think. My sis got some other baby stuff as well and piggy-backed on the 15% discount. For my end, that's a pretty good haul.

first SNet haul of 2013

I'd been holding off getting stuff from Strawberrynet as I had been counting on one of their "We-Miss-You" email discounts. And it came! I got an 8% "relaunch" discount on top of my usual loyalty discount of 7.5% and another 3% for getting a total of 4 items. Ooh, and because there was a week-long 10% off of all fragrances, I got that as well.

My portion of the order consisted of getting myself a HUGE bottle of what I'll call my new signature scent, Marc Jacob's Daisy Eau So Fraiche. I am down to the bottom of the barrel with the 75ml bottle I bought in Hong Kong 2 years ago and don't have any other parfums to replace. Since I love the scent so much, I decided to get the 125ml bottle :D I know, it's a huge one but I couldn't resist.

With all discounts combined, I got this for the very, very affordable price of USD74.30. Sans discount, the bottle was selling for $99.50.

Such lovely discounts can't go to getting just the one thing. Plus, I needed a proper eye cream. I am not sure but though I think the Lush Lovely Jubblies is helping somewhat, I can't really stand the strong scent so close to my nose all the time :D I was going to get myself my third pot of Kiehls Abyssine eye cream but when I saw the Cryste Marine firming eye cream, which usually retails about 3 dollars more than the Abyssine cream, going for waaaay less, I thought I'd give that a try instead.

After all discounts applied, this went for USD31.56. That's about a 8 dollar gain for me. I've currently reverted back to using the Kiehls Midnight Recovery eye cream at night and in the morning I put on The Body Shop's Vitamin E eye cream. I originally felt like the Midnight Recovery and/or Vitamin E didn't do anything for me but after being forced to use both, I feel like they're okay. I still love the Abyssine best. Here's hoping Cryste Marine will also be a good bet.

The order has been shipped and is on its way to Homeland. I'm really hoping the items wil arrive before my sis comes up here next Monday so that she can bring the perfume with her. I'm also hoping she'll drag along some of the stuff I sent home from Portland like my F21 black pants and the Asoya white top along with my pills I got from drugstore.com and the Philosophy Falling In Love solid perfume as well as the cute Korean bag that has finally arrived to my house and looks absolutely fantastic when I skyped with the sister. Also, my Rebecca Minkoff's are at the local Portland post office waiting to be delivered so I should be able to send that back to Homeland soon. Ooh, so many goodies!

DISCLAIMER:
All images were screen capped from Strawberrynet.com. Oh, and I'm still in love with Jesse Swanson :D And Josh Radnor, rekindled my love for him as well, hehehe. Just thought I'd put it out there. MUAHS!

i'm embarassed to say but i've been obsessed.....

I watched Pitch Perfect when my bestie was here. I downloaded a bunch of movies and I had been trying to get a good copy of Pitch Perfect for months now, not ever really knowing what the premise of the film was all about. I just thought the trailer looked fun. Then I watched it and now I can't seem to stop watching it. I have it on practically every day. I feel so sad for myself, lol. I know the main reason is because of this guy.....

I actually just screen capped that for the sole purpose of this post. I saw him and the first thought that came to my mind was that the dude looked eeriely similar to my ex, G. Then as the movie went along and I found myself thinking that this guy practically was G. I totally got transported back to my loved-up days where I was all innocent and sweet and the word jaded wasn't in my vocab, hehehe.

That Skylar Astin played that role to perfection. I don't know if he talked to G about it but for god's sake he channeled G like I couldn't believe. I could practically feel myself going through those first stages of falling in love all over again. Yes, yes, I know it all sounds crazy but trust me, I know what it was. That listlessness, that whole food-don't-taste-so-good thing, that butterflies-in-stomach feeling - it frickin lasted 2 WHOLE WEEKS! You think it's absolutely batshit nuts that I was exhibiting symptoms of falling in love with some fictional character, well I felt the same way too! Which is why I am embarassed and decided to put in on my blog so I am shamed into regaining my sensibilities. C'mon Zlena, G was over 10 years ago, girl! Get over him already! Sheesh! And btw, Jesse Swanson is fictional :D

P.S:
Loved the movie, very endearing (made more so by the utter ridiculousness of my crazy crush on FICTIONAL Jesse Swanson). And Rebel Wilson ROCKS!

just some randomness

My favourite drinking cup says it all.....

Thank you Cotton On for immortalizing how I generally feel on a travel mug :D

A grainy pic of my mum's feet encased in my Mojo Moxy Apollo Wedges (typing out Mojo Moxy has not gotten old just yet :D)

This was after she complained and told me to stop buying shoes that were so high. Then she had a go at them and said, "Hmm, well they are comfortable since it's a wedge heel" <- hypocrite much, Mama? Hehe, I admit, these wedges were surprisingly higher than I imagined them to be but like my mum can attest, the wedges do help a lot in maintaining relatively pain-free walking.

And last but certainly not least, my F21 ensemble I wore to Christmas lunch with bestie when she was up here in December.

Ah, I love those red pants, they are awesome and comfy. And I totally love pairing white/beige/ecru tops with them cos I feel it is an overall classy combo. I ended up wearing my Jessica Simpson black pump wedges with my BCBGMaxAzria quilted tote. I made reservations for us at a French restaurant that I love and we had the most scrumptious meal that has me salivating now as I think about it. Ooh, duck breast in blackcurrant sauce, I miss thee!

i feel i've found a HG product.....

Yes, like finally, there is one product that I feel completely and utterly does what it advertises - Cargo's blu_ray HD pressed powder!

I've been using it for close to 3 weeks now and I really cannot find anything bad to say about it! I got this on a whim, I had heard good things about it but the buzz around Cargo is so minimal it was rather hard to justify getting a pressed powder that went for 30 something dollars. I am so glad I went for the kit which was 10 bucks more than the individual price of the powder and came with a full-size foundation/concealer, travel-size primer and travel-size bronzer.

Honestly, I am amazed by the quality of the products in the kit. I haven't really used the bronzer but from the swatch I did, I like the texture and the shade isn't too orange nor too muddy. The primer is looking like a win for me as well - increases overall staying power of my face products which currently consists of the Too Faced Beauty Balm and Cargo blu_ray HD powder. I am also really finding that the combination of these products truly do cut down sebum production on my face. The foundation/concealer is just alright. I find that it provides light coverage which is okay for people who do not have hyperpigmetation to cover up but for moi who has a few dark spots to conceal, it doesn't really get the job done. In fact, since we are on the topic, neither does the Tarte Maracuja creaseless concealer do much in terms of covering hyperpigmentation due to acne scarring. It does a great job of undereye circles but zit marks - eh, not so much. Yet to find a concealer that would truly do the job well in that department

Anyways, I know it's really early days still but like I said earlier, I truly cannot come up with one thing I don't like. The texture is smooth and it goes on well. I use the ELF flat-top powder brush to put in on top of my Too Faced Beauty Balm. I usually have issues with powders settling in creases and looking cakey but it has not ever happened with this at all! I mean, I have been actively looking to see the product settle into the fine lines but have not yet been able to catch that happening. I don't have to touch up either, a simple blot of my t-zone area suffices. The shade 30 which comes in the Medium kit also suits my skintone really well. And I guess whatever ingredients make up the HD portion of the powder really does do its job because I looked at the pictures of myself during the Kick-Off/Company Training weekend and I have to admit, with some modesty, I looked real good despite coming off of some really sweaty activities :D

Okay, I am on the verge of hoarding the product, lol, though I am gonna be patient and wait it out for a few more weeks. I don't know how long the compact will last with regular usage so will need to factor in product longevity as well. But what of it I know, I'm totally loving!

Janus 2013 What's In My Bag

Yup, that's my mock croc TCS batchel. Been using it for nearly 2 months now since I did get it in early December. The straps are taking a lil bit of a beating as to be expected. I am lugging around a 2.xkg laptop in it every working day :)