Work Appropriate Neutral Brown EOTD on the Cheap!

Today's EOTD is a rather boring, basic one - it's just a simple brown EOTD that you're supposed to be able to wear to (most) work places. And it's pretty good example of how you don't have to spend a fortune on makeup to look good!



This simple EOTD (Eye of the Day) was done with my awesomely cheap 26 Colour Eyeshadow and Blush Palette, which I got from KKCenterHKa, a Hong Kong-based retailer of various brands of affordable Asian makeup. Over the past week or so, I've been playing around with this deceptively cheap and simple palette, and I've been quite happy with the variety of looks it can produce for the cheap price of the palette. Sure the palette's no MAC, but it's good for what it is.

The two shades with the "X" on them are what I used for this look. The lighter brown shade was used on the lid, while the darker brown shade was placed in the contour area.



Here's a look with the eye closed, so you can see the shades and the blending. I really am quite fond of the light brown, for some reason. It's a light matte, malt brown, which looks deceptively boring, but is so wearable. For some reason, the darker brown seemed to pull quite red on me, but not so much that it became unwearable.



Pigmentation and texture of this palette was pretty good - the shades showed up, although the lighter brown required a bit of layering to get it to that intensity that you see in the photo. The dark brown was quite pigmented, and blended easily.



You know I'm a neutrals kind of girl, so this look is totally up my alley! I absolutely love this look, and I hopefully haven't bored the colour addicts out there with this one. I guess after all the brights, everyone could use a little palette cleanser now and then!

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Deep Purple EOTD with a Cheap Palette!

Ah, purple - one of my favourite colours both on the nails, as well as on the eyes. This gorgeous deep purple eye look is courtesy of my awesome 26 Colour Eyeshadow and Blush Palette, which I got from KKCenterHK. This time, I decided to go for placing the darker colour on the lid, instead of in the contour area, and I think it worked!



Here are the two colours that I used. The purple is was used on the lid, and the shimmery brown was used on the contour area.



The colours were pretty good, pigmentation-wise. The purple, having a more matte finish, had less pigmentation than the brown, but can still be built up for a more intense eye look.



And here's a look of the eye from a weird angle, just so you can see the blending of the eyeshadows. For some reason, although the purple is a bit more matte, it looks shimmery in the photo due to the blending, and the shimmer from the brown shadow got into the purple colour.



I like this look a lot, I think it's dark enough to be smokey, but not dark enough to look like you have a black eye, so it's quite versatile that way. I'm starting to like that 26 Colour Palette, as it can be used to produce quite a variety of looks.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Sunset Orange and Red EOTD: Budget Beauty

OMG, I'm wearing bright eyeshadow! This is so atypical, but I thought, why not? In my last post, I swatched the cheap and cheery 26 Eyeshadow and blush colour palette from KKCenterHK, and I thought I'd show you guys an eye look I did with it. Since the palette has a bunch of "sunset" colours, like rusts, oranges, reds, and bronzes, I thought I'd go along those lines, and do something vaguely sunset inspired.



For this look, I used just two colours. Unless I want to do something outrageous or complicated, I rarely ever use more than two or three colours. The two colours I used were shown below. The burnt orange colour was applied on the lid, while the bright russet red-brown was applied on the contour area. I also used MAC Dazzlelight on the browbone area as a highlight, but that was just to balance out the look a little bit.



Here's a shot of the eye look with the eye closed. As you can see, the shimmer shades in the palette have a pretty good pigmentation, especially with a base underneath, and can be blended out to acheive a gradiation.



The texture of the shades also wasn't too bad. Fallout wasn't as nightmarish as I thought it would be - there was some, but actually not much more than usual.



While this is perhaps not exactly one of my usual looks, I thought it would be cool to do a more dramatiic look out of a mostly neutral palette, as it shows how versatile the palette is. I also love how bright and shimmery the look is, it's just like a sunset on my eyes!

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

26 Colour Eyeshadow and Blush Palette: Swatches

One of the items that has been gaining popularity in recent years has been makeup palettes containing large number of colours, like the 88 colour eyeshadow palettes that have been popular in various forms. The reason why these are so popular is that they are cheap, and have a large variety of colours. I couldn't help but end up with one myself - the ES 26 Colour Eyeshadow and Blush Palette, from this page on the KKCenterHK site.

As you may know, KKCenterHK has been gaining popularity with some makeup fanatics for its wide array of cheap and cheerful makeup items. The 26 Colour Palette cost US$15, which works out to less than a buck per colour. Not bad at all, price-wise. But I was curious as to the quality of the palette, so I thought I'd provide some swatches for a start.



The palette itself comes in a plastic case, that, while not luxe-looking, certainly doesn't seem cheap and flimsy. The palette is also of quite a substantial size - sometimes, with these palettes with humongous numbers of colours, each individual colour can be the size of a dime or something like that. But each individual eyeshadow pan size is only slightly smaller than that of a MAC eyeshadow, which is pretty decent. Here's a photo for comparison. The MAC eyeshadow, Dazzlelight, is placed in between two eyeshadows on the palette. The two larger pans below it are blush colours.



Altogether, there are 21 eyeshadow colours, and 5 blush colours, making that 26. As you can see from the photo below, the colours are mainly warm neutrals, with some bright "sunset" colours (e.g. rust orange, gold) thrown in. Some of the blush colours look a little similar to eyeshadow colours, and a few of the eyeshadow colours are quite close to each other. Generally, though, I'd say the palette colour range is quite decent if you like these types of colours.



Here are swatches of the palette, row by row. The first row is below:



Row 1, L-R: bright orange with shimmer, light tangerine orange with shimmer, warm brown with slight shimmer, matte light pink, bronzey brown with shimmer, brown with a tinge of red with shimmer (think along the lines of Stila's Barefoot Contessa), medium brown with shimmer, which I really like - it could almost be a taupe!



Row 2, L-R: pinky-peach with shimmer (sort of like NARS Orgasm blush in eyeshadow form), burnt orange brown with shimmer, muted neutral brown with no shimmer, rust-red-brown with shimmer (it isn't as red as it looks in the photo, but it is quite rusty in colour), medium warm matte brown, deep matte brown, shimmery brown-gold.



Row 3: Warm orange-pink, shimmery burnt-orange brown, muted matte brown, deep purple with the slightest hint of shimmer, muted neutral brown, slightly darker and less warm-leaning than the previous brown in this row, midtone purple-magenta, and a gorgeous taupey brown shimmer, my favourite eyeshadow colour in the entire palette.

Lastly, here are the blushes.



Row 4: Light peach, pale baby pink-beige, medium pink, deep purple (sort of like the second-last purple in Row 3 of the eyeshadow range), and russet red-brown (similar to the middle colour in Row 2 of the eyeshadows).

Pigmentation and texture of the eyeshadows was actually very decent. In general I didn't have too many problems with pigmentation, and texture was pretty decent. As with some of these palettes, the shimmer colours for some reason were of better quality than the mattes, being softer in texture and better in pigmentation Still, the palette in general was of better quality than expected.

Over the next few days, I'll be showcasing a few EOTDs (Eye of the Days) using this palette, and we'll see what looks I can come up with! In the meantime, if you're looking for a palette of decent quality at a cheap price, and if you like warm colours and neutrals, this palette would definitely be worth checking out.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Insiti Eyeshadow Pencil: EOTD and Review

I'm a demanding customer - I hate high prices, but at the same time I can't tolerate lousy quality cosmetics. Thus, I always find myself trying out various cheap-as-chips brands to see if they fulfill my desire for something cheap but good.

My latest experimentation with cheap makeup comes from Insiti. Insiti is a drugstore cosmetics brand hailing from Asia - although to be honest, I don't exactly know which part of Asia it's from. My guess would be Taiwan or Hong Kong, because their Facebook page is in Traditional Chinese. I got mine from KKcenterHK, the Hong Kong-based online purveyor of cheap Asian cosmetics and other related products (false lashes are one of their specialties). The website may look a little dodgy compared to other more sleekly-dressed online counterparts, but my dealings with them have been trouble-free and pleasant.



The Insiti Eyeshadow Pencil itself is a simple dual-ended eyeshadow pencil with a plastic cap at each end. I got shade no. 12, which consists of a simple light pastel pink and a medium-toned purple.

Here are some close-ups of the two ends of the pencil. As you can see, the pastel pink is actually pretty frosty-looking in the tube, and the purple looks like it might have this interesting blue sheen.





Here are swatches. The pastel pink shade is indeed quite frosty when swatched, but the blue sheen is only very slight, which isn't bad, but is a bit of a pity.



I did an eye look with the pencil, just to test it out. I'm afraid working with the eyeshadow pencil was slightly tricky for me, and the eye look wasn't the best. But I hope it's demonstrative of how the product might look like on the eye.



One of the things I found about this product was that it's very emollient. It does slide around the eye and feel a little greasy on, which means, yes, it does crease, and would fade and shift if you didn't use a base under it. In fact, I'd suggest using a base under this, and then perhaps setting the eye look with some transparent setting powder for better lasting power.



Colour-wise, the pencil was decently pigmented, but I had to build up the colour a bit to get the colour intensity that you see in the photo. Building up successive layers of colour can be a bit tricky, though, since the product does tend to move and shift around the skin a little.



Would I recommend this? I guess it's cheap, and if you were willing to use a base and a setting powder on top, it could be worth it. But if you're lazy like me and don't have the patience to fiddle with a base or setting powder, then this may be a bit more trouble than it's worth.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Bright Summery Teal Eye Look on the Cheap!

Summer is coming soon, and in light of that I've decided to do an aquatic teal eye look, inspired by the brights and shimmers of the season! Yes, I'm wearing teal eyeshadow! What has the world come to?

I gave my awesomely cheap Love Alpha eyeshadow palettes a whirl for this look, just to see how the colours would hold up on my eye. I got these from KKCenterHK, and the colours were just begging to be used!

Here's a shot of the palette, so you can see which of the shades I used for my EOTD (Eye of the Day). As you can see, for this look, it was all about the teal-green shades!



And here's the final eye look. Somehow on me, the teal colours pulled a little more green. Well, it's not a bad thing, and the colour's still stunning. And still pretty summery!



The two teal shades I used were rather close together, although one looks significantly darker in the pan. I used the darker teal shade on my contour area and at the outer corner, while the lighter teal shade was used on the lid. They are pretty similar, except that the darker teal shade is a smidgen darker, is more green, and has more gold shimmer.



As with my previous post on the Love Alpha eyeshadow palettes, in order for these to look their best, care must be used when applying the eyeshadows. A sticky base of some sort is definitely needed, and it's also a good idea to dab or pat the eyeshadow on with a brush, rather than swiping it across the lid with sweeping motions, as most of us are usually prone to do. This allows the glitter to really "stick" to the eyelid, and build up pigmentation on the eye.



I love how it looks, but to be honest, I don't think I'd wear this very often, or even somewhat often, because teal eyeshadow is stretching my comfort zone a little. But if you are looking for a cheap palette that has some kickass teal shades, and you can work with glitter-laden eyeshadows, this one would be definitely something you could check out.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Budget Beauty: Simple and Natural FOTD

Today's FOTD (Face of the Day) has a budget beauty theme. I decided to try using the US$3.80 Love Alpha Summer Gradually palette I got recently to see how the palette would look on. Yay for cheap makeup!

Love Alpha seems to be a generic brand of makeup that is available through various cosmetic wholesalers, and I got mine from KKCenterHK. My experiences with them has been good so far - customer service is prompt, and packages arrive without delay.

I decided to go with a girly, more natural look this time round, since my previous EOTD was a little more intense. Here are the shades I used:



The blush, despite looking really intimidating in the pan, actually applied sheer, and could be built up for more colour. So if you're worried about having too much colour on your cheeks with this palette, don't! It isn't as bad as it looks.

And this was the outcome. Not too bad, actually. Although I do apologise that you don't see enough of the eyeshadow, and see too much of my undereye circles.



I actually like this look - to me it's as simple and as natural as makeup can get, while still being pretty. Lasting power of the blush and eyeshadow was pretty decent. They faded after a few hours, but for $3.80 I'm not going to complain.

This palette would be pretty useful for occasions where you're not concerned with the lasting power of your makeup - for example, if you're just running errands, or dashing out for a couple of hours. It woudln't make sense to use your expensive makeup then, right? (Well, not to me, at least. Did I say I'm cheap?) So palettes like that would bridge that gap where you want to wear something on your face, but it's only just for awhile.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Budget Beauty Shimmer Purple Eye Look

I always love trying out cheap makeup and seeing just how good it is. Sometimes, it's actually pretty darn good (like one of my loves, Wet n' Wild), sometimes, it just sucks, and sometimes, it's actually pretty decent. The Love Alpha Eyeshadows I got from KKCenterHK awhile back were finally put to the test today, when I decided to finally test drive those pretty palettes.

Here are the shades I used for my Eye of the Day (EOTD). I decided to go with my favourite purple shade (but of course!), and that gorgeous taupe shade I last got all excited about. I also use the light yellowy-vanilla shade as a highlight.



The EOTD I put together with the KKCenterHk product was this. A shimmery, glittery purple and brown look that would be pretty darn awesome if you did like shimmery metallic purples and browns:



I know I previously mentioned that the shadows were essentially a bunch of coloured glitter, so when using these, care is required. With a sticky base to hold the shadows in place, such as UDPP (Urban Decy Primer Potion), TFSI (Too Faced Shadow Insurance), or Fyrinnae's Pixie Epoxy, the colours show up much better. I was lazy, and just used my MAC Studio Finish Concealer. I wouldn't advise you doing this, though - if you have oily lids, it's more likely than not that the concealer will slide off your lid, taking your shadow along with it. But you get the idea - this was just to demonstrate the difference in colour payoff when a based is used.



Another tip I found useful when applying such shadows is to apply the shadow using patting and dabbing motions, as opposed to the sweeping, brushing motions we're usually taught to use. This will help to minimize fallout, and further help the colours to show up better, since they're packed on the lid, not brushed outwards. Blending, of course, still has to be done with sweeping motions after the colour has been packed on. As you can see from the pictures, the shadows are actually quite blendable.

Once you get the hang of application, it really is pretty easy to get the shadows to look good. The glitter-laden nature of the eyeshadow means that when patted on successfully, the eyeshadow looks very vibrant.



I'm really loving my eye look right now. It has that foiled, metallic look of a loose pigment, but actually is a pressed shadow, so yay for decreased mess and spillage! And from the vibrancy of the colours in this EOTD, I don't think I'd be able to guess that the eyeshadow palette was actually just US$3.80 in reality!

PS: Apologies for the appearance, disappearance, and re-appearance of this post. There was a glitch in Blogger's auto-post feature that made it go live earlier than scheduled.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Swatches: Love Alpha Summer Gradually Eyeshadow from KKCenterHK

As a girl on a budget, I'm always on the lookout for cheap makeup options. Is it possible to find cheap makeup products that are just as great as more pricey brands? As a cheapskate, that's a question I always seek to answer. And in the process of doing so, I somehow ended up with not one, but two, eyeshadow and blush compacts from KKCenterHK, a Hong Kong-based online retailer of wholesale cosmetics you probably have been seeing around online.

The compacts, although procured from the site (KKCenterHK has the entire range of eyeshadow compacts, by the way), appear to be rather generic-brand makeup, and are called Love Alpha Summer Gradually Compacts. These come in 3 sets of colours, and I ended up going with 01 (listed as M176-A) and 03 (listed as M176-C).



The compacts arrived all whole and unharmed in the post (thank goodness!) after a slight delay - you know, international post is always a little bit iffy, and it was Chinese New Year over on this side of the world, which wrecks the same havoc on the mail system as Christmas does over in the West. Both times I received packages from them, they arrived quick and intact, which is definitely a good thing.

The Love Alpha Summer Gradually compacts are quite small, and are around the size of my palm (as well as my digital camera!), and come with no-frills, no-fuss, basic black shiny plastic packaging. The lids have clear windows, though, so you know what colours are inside without having to look inside the palette. The palette itself consists of 8 eyeshadows and 2 blushes in a colour-coordinated little package.



When I saw the cheap-looking plastic packaging, I didn't have high hopes for the product inside. (Although at US$3.80 a compact, they're actually pretty cheap.) But the two palettes are actually not too badly colour-coordinated. They're actually colours that would go together, and they even seem to have colour themes for each of the palettes.

Palette 01, or M176-A on the site, is what I'd call a girly neutral summer theme. The colour scheme for this palette is mainly warm, summery neutrals that are wearable for daytime. Here's a close-up shot of Palette 01:



Palette 03 (or M176-C on the site), on the other hand, is a palette that has a much more intense colour scheme. This is composed primarily of jewel-toned blues, greens and some teals - perhaps a smokey mermaid theme?



The first thing I noticed about the compacts when I opened them was - OMG GLITTERBOMB EYESHADOWS! I was quite worried that these were clunky, glittery, un-pigmented crap with lots of fallout. Oh well, I thought, what did I expect for $3.80?

But I decided to put them to the test, and swatched them. Here you can see what the swatches look like - not as fantastic as the high-end brands, perhaps, but definitely better than I thought. I would like to caveat, though, that these shadows are packed with tons of glitter - and by glitter I mean big discrete specks of glitter, so you'd really want to use a sticky base with these to prevent fallout, and help them adhere to the skin longer.

It is my personal experience that with these types of eyeshadows that are primarily composed of glitter (very common in the Asian market although less so in the West), it helps to foil the shadows, or use a primer or a sticky base to make the colours really show up. Without the base, you'd just end up with glitter and no pigment. So moral of the story is - don't forget to use a base for best results!

Here's Palette 01. I've swatched the eyeshadows on the left, and the two blushes on the right, in the order that they appear in the palette. As you can see, the shadow colours show up, and give a metallic, almost-foiled finish, with some gold sheen. I did use my fingers to swatch these, though, and I imagine with brushes they'd look different.



The colours in Palette 01 are very pretty, and quite feminine. I especially love that eyeshadow in the bottom right corner (fourth from the left in the second row), because it looks like a gorgeous browned taupe! We have a taupe, everybody! Taupe Alert! Taupe Alert!

Other attractions of the palette are the blushes, both of which are wearable and devoid of glitter. I think that's a good choice - if the blushes had as much glitter as the shadows, I'd end up looking like a glitterbomb if I used the palette.

Here's 03. As you can see, the eyeshadows have the same frosty, metallic finish, with a gold sheen. And the blushes are also matte.



My favourite colour in this palette is the teal, that's third from the left in the second row. You can't see it in the swatches, but it's actually teal with a gold flash. Very pretty, and very aquatic, and reminiscent of mermaids.

Over the next couple of days, I'm going to be trying out a few looks with these two palettes to see how they fare on the eye - in other words, OMG this neutrals girl is going to be using teal eyeshadow! Judging by the swatches for now, these seem very decent for the price tag (8 eyeshadows and 2 blushes for $3.80), and although they aren't of top-notch quality, are decent enough to work with, provided you use a good eyeshadow primer. So if you're on the market for cheap shades that could pop, these are worth looking into.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

False Eyelashes Before and After: KKCenterHK Review

I have to admit, I've never been a very big user of false lashes, despite my awfully puny lashes, which I've complained about before. However, sometimes, we just have to break out of our rut, and try something new. So, in the spirit of trying new things, I ended up getting a pair of false eyelashes from KKCenterHK.

KKCenterHK is an online retailer of various beauty accessories, based in Hong Kong. If you're a falsies kind of girl, they have like a gazillion lashes to choose from (if you don't believe me, you can check it out yourself at their website), so it was hard picking just one. But despite the distance, shipping was quick and efficient, and a box of lashes showed up in the mail soon after I had decided.



The order arrived safely and well-packed, although the paper box had gotten a little bit dinged up in transit. Nevertheless, the lashes inside were all fine. I had ordered false lahses model A218, which was billed as "soft heavy dark black eyelashes". A pretty accurate description, if you ask me.

The box contained 10 pairs of lashes - a good buy for any girl who wears them on a regular basis. The product picture on the KKCenterHK website is actually pretty accurate, too. Here's a close-up shot of the individual pairs:



With lashes as gorgeous looking as these, I was excited to try them out, and I'm pleased to say that these do add a dramatic flair to your lashes.

Here are some before pictures, kindly modeled by my sister. I had to bribe her for her to pose for me, so I hope you guys are appreciative of the effort that went into these photos!

Here's a shot of the eye without lashes, when the eye is open:



Now a shot without lashes, with the eye closed. On another note, have you ever tried getting a pet to stay still for a photo? You won't believe how many photos I had to take to get one which wasn't blurred. But then again, it could just have been my camera acting up that day.



And of course, the Cinderella moment we've all been waiting for - the eye shots with those lashes!



Looking at the difference, I was like, whoa mamma! These lashes really produce a very noticeable effect. I like that the lash hairs have longer strands of hairs interspersed with shorter strands. It gives a doe-eyed effect that is still more natural-looking than a set of lashes which consist of all long strands.

Here's a shot with the eye closed, just so you can really see the lashes on:



I'm not generally too much of a fan of falsies in general, but I really appreciated the comfort of wearing these lashes. The lash bone of this set of lashes is quite thin and flexible, making the lashes conform more easily to the contour of the lashline. I also liked that they didn't feel too heavy, or give me the sensation that my eye was being poked by plastic objects. I guess as far as false lashes go, these aren't bad.

So, are you into false lashes, or would you prefer to use mascara for the doe-eyed effect? If you're interested, these retail for US$8-9 on the KKCenterHK website.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my honest and complete opinion. I am not affiliated or compensated for this review.)