My First Bloggers Meetup!

Hello hello ^_^ so I'm back after my first week of uni for the second semester and it was pretty chilled - I think I'm liking second semester more than the first! I'm all energised from the holidays and ready to take on anything that comes at me (note that I didn't say everything, lol). Semester two, come at me bro. I have at least two 1-hour breaks each day which means less running around and rushing to the next tutorial or lecture, and this also means that I can fill myself up during the day instead of having to wait a few hours until I can eat xD I remember feeling super hungry last semester when I had 3 lectures in a row T_T

Enough about uni talk. To keep up to date with my daily life and ramblings you can check out my Twitter - there's plenty of that there :D

Today's weather was absolutely beautiful without a cloud in the sky and a perfect day for bloggers to meet. I had the opportunity to meet some fellow beauty bloggers and I was very excited for this because this was my first time meeting any blogger in person! Talking to someone online and then seeing them in person is different, in a cool way - especially if you haven't heard them speak before =]

I'm so glad to be a beauty blogger in my city because there's a beauty bloggers meetup once every month, so there's always something for us bloggers to look forward to each month. Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend the previous meetups which was a shame but I was happy that I could make it to today's meet. Despite there being only a few of us since many couldn't make it today, I still had a really great time with the girls (and boy).

This month's ABBM (Adelaide Beauty Bloggers Meetups) was at a café called Scoozi and we ended up eating pizza for lunch. I was about 5-10 minutes late due to a traffic hold up (roadworks I think -_-) and not being able to locate it correctly when I was walking to the venue lol. I walked straight past it without realising!


I will list the three lovely girls that I met today. We didn't get any group shots but there'll definitely be a next time for that haha:

Celeste

Jeneara

Mae

I wish I could have also met the other wonderful beauty bloggers who reside in Adelaide but for a first blogger face-to-face meet, it's probably better to start out small, you know? As an introverted person, it's hard for me to open up when there are a lot of people around so today was great for me to become familiar with these types of meets and get comfy!


I think it's time to show some photos, yeah? I'm not used to seeing so much text together like this on my blog posts!

I was so hungry that I could have digged in and started eating away after the waiter gave us our food xD I forgot about taking pictures of the food until I saw Jeneara and Celeste getting out their cameras and taking pictures!

Did you think the above picture was it? Nup, we ordered two pizzas :) This one was nicer in my opinion. I love my meat, especially lamb

After we were done with eating, we cleared the table to make room for our swap items! In case you're not familiar with swaps, basically we just bring along some beauty items which are still in good condition but wouldn't mind letting them become someone else's possessions.

And behind the table you can see Jeneara and Celeste's elbows x) They're taking pictures too obviously!

It looks like quite a lot considering there were only a few of us =)

The process of the swap went smoothly, we'd all just randomly pick out an item and have a look/read/swatch and put it aside if it was something we wanted. It was interesting to discover new products that I hadn't seen before.

Other people at the café probably were wondering what on earth we were doing but I didn't notice any strange or weird looks from anyone :] For the swap I brought 6 items and left with 10 items! I was happy with what I picked out, here's a picture:

I'm pretty sure I took at least one item from everyone who contributed to the swap! Yay

Thanks guys for bring along your items, I'm looking forward to testing them all out. I ended up getting lots of foundation, just what I needed :D When I was getting ready for ABBM, I was putting on my foundation and I realised that I needed more foundation as my one and only foundation was near its end. Now I have 3 bottles of foundation, 1 stick foundation and one powder foundation haha ♥ I'm excited about trying the cheek/lip tint I picked up since I haven't used one before. Also looking forward to trying out the cucumber and pomegranate face masks and the Shu Uemura powder foundation! Asian brand skin care and cosmetics ftw ^.^

Oh and with the items that no one took away were all placed into a bag. I thought that we'd take home what we brought if they're still available. Instead we joked about putting all of the items together as one big surprise goodie bag for someone xD There were 3 bottles of spray tan stuff lol!

Afterwards we left the café and made our way to Rundle Mall (mall in the CBD) which was only in walking distance. First place we headed off to was David Jones to pick up some Kiehl's samples as they were having this promotion on their Facebook page. We visited the counter and a lady spoke to us about the skincare products as well as their hair care products which I found to be quite interesting. We then looked around at other cosmetics and parted ways a while after.

The others had to leave which left me and Jeneara to roam around for a bit before heading home. I could've headed off home as the others left but I thought, I might as well spend some one on one time with a fellow blogger :) Get to know her a little more and all. I enjoyed the one on one hang out for a short time, it gave me another chance to open up hehe.

Here's a little outfit of the day to show you guys. It's been a while since I last showed one:

I'm wearing a vintage top with a peter pan collar (Google it if you don't know what I mean) and shoulder pads. On top I'm wearing a pinafore which keeps me warm and still shows the floral detail on my top. I got this brown duffle bag from Dotti for only $9.95! Sorry I couldn't show my shoes... next time.

Clearer image of my top

 Listening to K-pop while snapping pictures

It's actually my mum's top that she doesn't wear anymore since it's vintage style and that's not really her thing anymore. I've never worn vintage anything before so it was nice to experiment with my style. Usually I wouldn't dare to wear a top with shoulder pads but because these ones were soft and not very bulky, they were okay for me to wear in public.

I forgot to say that I kept my makeup pretty simple because it was only a day outing. Lined my top and bottom lashlines and waterlines with black eyeliner, curled my lashes and applied mascara. I only put on one shade of eyeshadow which was a taupe colour.

Soooo that's all to my sort-of brief recount of my first blogger meet up. I had lots of fun and I can't wait for our next meet! Biggest thanks to Celeste for being the one to have started these blog meetups, we simply can't thank you enough :D The next time I'll see these girls again and meet the others won't be at the next ABBM, instead it will be in exactly two weeks time when we have our first Beauty Conference! I am extremely excited for this because it will be an evening event and there's going to be more of us attending. If you want to know more about the Beauty Conference happening next month, here is the official site:

http://www.adelaidebeautyconference.com/

Cool to see my name on the attendees list, and check out all the sponsors :o I can't believe there are so many of them, including some of my favourite brands *_* The excitement for me continues to build as it gets closer to the date of this awesome event!

Blogging is very, very rewarding indeed. I had no idea that there were so many beauty bloggers in my city until these meets were arranged! It might be because we're not all around the same age group (I'm probably the youngest or one of the youngest) however age doesn't matter. We all have one thing in common besides living in the same city - we're all beauty bloggers! Hence it's not too hard for us to get a conversation going, thank goodness (:

Here's what I came home with from today's event:

That's it from me, thanks for reading! I know this is not like my usual beauty posts but this is still beauty-related ^_^ I wish I could meet many of you other bloggers around Australia and all over the world - that would be amazing.

Another beauty-related thing that I have to share is that I will be having a photoshoot on behalf of Face of Australia cosmetics. This again is another one of my firsts as I have never done any type of modelling or had anyone put makeup on my face. It's happening this coming Monday and I'm nervous yet excited for it. Face of Australia were looking for Blonde and Asian models in my city to model for their upcoming Look Book so I decided to express my interest. I think at the moment I am all for new experiences. This is only going to be a trial shoot as the makeup artist and photographer are not part of Face of Australia so they will not be choosing the models. It'll only be natural makeup shots and I'll be notified the day after whether or not I have been chosen as a model for the Look Book. Wish me luck! I'm not expecting to be one of the chosen ones, at the moment I'm just hoping for the trial shoot to go smoothly and well :) If I do get chosen though, I would feel ecstatic. Let's just see how I go, shall we? Hehe keep updated on my Twitter if you want to know how it all turns out.

Back to having questjens of the week as I am back to blogging once a week:

Have you ever met someone in person which you had only spoken to online?

It doesn't have to be a blogger, it could be a friend. I know the saying about not meeting strangers but I don't reckon that online friends such as bloggers are complete strangers. I think it can be okay to meet online friends in person (unless they are a total anonymous, then that's too suss for you to take the risk).

I'd also want to know who you've met online and then met in real-life. Have you met any bloggers before? I'm curious to know! This is a little off-topic but I'm also curious to know if you have met/seen any celebrities in real-life. Unfortunately I haven't met any so I don't know exactly what it would be like to be feel star-strucked *~*

See you next time. Until then, take care.

Ulzzang and Gyaru Looks

[Photo heavy!] Hiya folks, so I'm going to be showing you two different looks inspired by two different Asian styles :) Judging by the title, you'd already know which styles - ulzzang and gyaru. I adore these styles very much and for my looks I was actually inspired by some well-known girls who follow these trends. Although I do no follow those styles on a daily basis, I appreciate the effort put into doing hair, makeup etc. to achieve these looks. 'Ulzzang' is a Korean style meaning 'best face' and 'gyaru' is a Japanese trend of being a 'trendy girl' where you can fit into many different categories. Correct me if I'm wrong, I did a little search on Google so I'm not 100% sure :/

I'm going to start off with an image I found online of a comparison between ulzzang and gyaru just for everyone to know the basics of them both:

So now that we're all on the same page, it's time for me to reveal my first look!

Ulzzang-inspired look using Geo Angel Grey lenses (sponsored by iCandyStyle Lens)

And my inspiration for this look was from...

Qri

When Qri from T-ara tweeted this picture, I just had to get myself a pair of Geo Angel Grey lenses! I know I mention her a lot on my blog (haha, do a search for her under ulzzang and there can be a picture of me to be found xD) but she is one of the prettiest ulzzangs *-* I think on her profile it says that she's a former ulzzang but I reckon she's still an ulzzang even after debuting as a singer :) I love how she's always wearing circle lenses in her pictures, performances and appearances.

Other K-pop girls who look very ulzzang are the rest of the T-ara girls and girls from the group Rainbow.

I didn't have bottom lashes like Qri's so I err, improvised with what I had...

... which I know, didn't turn out so great... so I took them off

If you're interested in purchasing Geo Angel Grey lenses, here's a mini review

[GEO] CM-835

Series: Angel

Colour: Grey

DIA: 14.00mm

B.C: 8.60mm

Water Content: 38%

Brand: GEO

Life Span: 1 year disposable

I think this time last year I was never looking for an enlargement but instead I just wanted a colour change. Times have changed - I don't mind enlargement! I've been curious about the Angel series lenses for quite some time and I really want to collect the whole series haha.

They blend well in natural lighting and don't look too freaky in flash lighting. I reckon with the Angel series lenses, you either love or hate the colour/design as some don't like how they don't show up that well on dark eyes. I actually don't mind since I prefer natural-looking lenses over dramatic ones.

Since these lenses have a thick black limbal ring, they give plenty of enlargement for 14mm lenses. To have some more enlargment, you could opt for the 14.8mm Angel Grey lenses. These lenses were very comfortable to wear and I had no problems with them at all :)

Now back to the camwhoring~ I used my iPod Touch to take the rest of my ulzzang-inspired pictures as my digital camera didn't give the look any justice. I took quite a few pictures but I looked more like myself than ulzzang (ulzzang is a fairly natural look but to successfully pull it off, you have to look more than natural... better than natural).

I used an photo app called 'Pudding' which gives your pictures different effects. It's a Korean app so I'm guessing ulzzangs would use this for their selcas =]

 I don't need BB cream to make my skin milky white, just use the Pudding app!

Ulzzangs don't normally smile but I can't help but smile...

 Rilakkuma ftw!

Now onto a look that has been anticipated since I showed a preview/half a face picture of my first attempt of this look.... gyaru!

Gyaru-inspired look using Geo Angel Green lenses (sponsored by iCandyStyle Lens)

The inspiration for this look was inspired by the famous...

 Tsubasa Masuwaka!

 Inspired by her picture for the Dolly Wink No. 4 lashes which I have

In her look, Tsubasa is wearing baby pink blush and pink nude lipgloss. My brows and hair colour do not match hers so I kept them all natural. I filled in my brows, that's about it. Maybe I should have arched them, maybe next time.

 Wearing two pairs of of the No. 4 lashes here, one on top of the other

 Wearing half bottom lashes since my top lashes are half lashes too

I'm also wearing double eyelid tape to raise my crease

 Since I was lazy with styling my hair (by the way, gals should never be lazy with their styling!) I put on my clip-in wavy black extensions to test it out but eh, it looks bad against my dyed, straight hair. I took them out.

 Wearing these cute nails that I got from Amanda ♥ using temporary adhesive

Totally suits the gyaru style! 

My outfit - pretty plain, mehhhh

 I recently bought this white lace top and I love the sleeves! I know gals love their lace hehe

 I think I've seen this pose before on a gal. Well I know for sure that I've seen it used by CindyTang ♥

Now to review the lenses for those who may be interested in purchasing them

[GEO] CM-833

Series: Angel

Colour: Green

DIA: 14.00mm

B.C: 8.60mm

Water Content: 38%

Brand: GEO

Life Span: 1 year disposable

 They make my droopy eyes (when wearing eyelid tape) look better

I like how the green does show up in natural lighting despite it being rather dark. I don't mind it not looking too vibrant on my eyes, as long as they blend in alright without making me look like a freak then I'm cool with it. 

I barely took any pictures without the flash on because well, my nose contouring wouldn't have been noticeable and I think flash makes my lenses stand out more and hence make me look more dolly. Flash also does wonders to your skin complexion and makes pictures clearer. I don't have the most steady hands and you can tell with the natural lighting shot of my eyes. Again I apologise for the blur, that was the best shot I had unfortunately.

These lenses give the same amount of enlargement as the Angel Greys unless you're one to believe that darker lenses make your eyes pop. I can see how that can be true with black lenses, they can sometimes make people look posessed lol. Anyway, these lenses wouldn't give a very natural look as the green is a deep green colour and no one has eyes that colour haha, but in natural lighting it would blend with dark eyes and so it could come across as 'natural'. Same limbal ring to give an enlarging effect.

I found these lenses to be really comfortable and at times I would 'forget' for a second that I had my lenses in. They don't slide around in my eyes and I didn't experience any problems with them. I'd recommend them for a dolly look, as well as the Angel Greys. If Tsuabasa Masuwaka wore them, that must mean that these lenses are gal-approved, right?!

If you want even more of an enlargement then you could try the same Angel Green lenses in 14.8mm

I took wayyyy more pictures on my iPod Touch of my gyaru look however I will definitely not be uploading all of them xD Just a few that I can make comments on~ I didn't use any special app (because I don't know any for gyaru-style) and I didn't want to use Pudding again for the same effect as ulzzang. If you know any good apps for gyaru pictures, please let me know!

My best impression of Tsubasa's smile on the Dolly Wink No. 4 lashes package xD

She's known for the duck-face/pout. Have you seen her Milky Bunny/Bunny Days PV?

 After I cry my eyelids look like this, true fact.

 Her smile is contagious, I'm doing it again

 Collarbones that stick out, yes or no?

Back to looking like my usual, plain self with no makeup. What a difference.

Recently bought these glasses and I wish I had bought them earlier to incorporate into my looks.

My hair is shorter now! It's just above my chest and my hairdresser took off around 15cm of my hair. Yes it's healthier now and less messy/tangly but I loved having long hair *sniffs*

That's it for this rather photo-heavy post! Thanks for reading, it means a lot to me :D I'd love your feedback on how I went with my looks. The ulzzang one took less time to do than my gyaru one but that doesn't mean that one is better than the other. I really do appreciate these styles and even though I am such a noob, I enjoyed giving them a go - it was fun! In the future I hope to put in some more effort with more drastic changes such as better contouring, shaping the brows and wearing wigs etc.

Until next time, take care! ^.^

And the winner is...

Helloooo all, I know it's been a bit over a week since I last blogged but I promise that I will have a lengthy post later today :) In the coming week I will no longer be on holidays as I will be going back to uni for the second semester D: I do look forward to seeing friends but nothing beats sleeping in everyday, being stress-free and doing whatever you want!

Time to announce the winner of the Sigma Miss Taylor Kabuki Brush. I just closed off the giveaway less than half an hour ago which means that all of the entries have been counted and finalised. There were just under 150 entries and over 50 participants - thank you everyone who entered and also for your efforts with your entries.

It's funny how as I am writing this, I haven't picked the winner yet haha. As soon as I am done talking I will go onto random.org to generate a number which will match up with someone's entry number. Ok let's do this!

The winner of the Sigma Miss Taylor Kabuki Brush is...

Who is number 73? I wonder, who could it be...

Congratulations, Dharla J.! You are the winner of the kabuki brush ^_^ I will email you shortly and please respond within 2 days or else I will have to choose another winner.

After each giveaway I host, I always need to address the following:

- Please don't feel too disheartened if you didn't win, I will host more giveaways in the future so do not worry :) I've had a few snap giveaways in between my posts for my regular blog visitors and I'm thinking of doing another some time (I won't say when) so be on the lookout for those!

- I know it's common to unfollow a blog after finding out that you weren't a winner of a giveaway and it's happened plenty of times to me before. Anyone is free to unfollow but the consequence of that is that you'll be immediately disqualified from future giveaways of mine. I've already caught at least... 20 people out of all the giveaways I've held! And yes some have come back to following and entering my giveaways thinking that they'll have a chance to win when in fact they have none :P

So that's pretty much all to it. I've appreciated the comments about my detailed review for this brush, thank you :) I always like to put in the time and effort into all of my blog posts because I really enjoy it and it's also my way of showing you guys that I care ♥


OH and one last thing - there were a few entries for the blog header design and I just want to say a big thank you to those girls who made some cute blog headers for me!


I've decided to pick out one to use that was created by Elle. This was the first blog header design that was submitted to me and I was sooooo impressed by it! Elle enjoys digital scrapbooking and so with her digital scrapbooking skills she was able to create this header:

I love how it has a vintage feel to it and I love the heart with the wings :) It definitely looks pro and much better than what I came up with (referring to my previous blog header haha). Thank you Elle! There's got to be a way to 'repay' you for this, hehe.


I am open to random header submissions if you'd like your piece of art to occupy that space - just email me!


I have a feeling that many of you are going to like or maybe love my next blog post :D Can you guess what it'll be?


As I always say,


STAY TUNED!

Bohemian Lace Look Inspired by Son Ga-In

Hi everyone! I haven't blogged in a while due to unexpected busyness during my uni break and tiredness from work etc. but I have been taking pictures for upcoming blog posts (I am organised haha). Oh and a big hello to my new followers *waves* and of course to all of my current followers - good luck to everyone entering my Sigma giveaway! If you haven't entered yet, you have a bit over a week to do so - just look over to your right and you'll see it on the very top of my sidebar :)

I've decided to do another inspired look from a K-pop celebrity because they're always so fun to do and I love the eye makeup that they have in their music videos, guest appearances and photo shoots. It would be so awesome to be a makeup artist for K-pop stars hehe *_*

This look was inspired by Son Ga-In from the girl group Brown Eyed Girls. There are 4 members in this group and they are/were the faces for the Korean cosmetics and skincare brand Tony Moly. To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of Brown Eyed Girls and I am only familiar with a few of their songs... but that doesn't matter. I am going to be focusing on the makeup look that Ga-In had for the Tony Moly photo shoots.

There's a shop here (actually, there are 5 of them here) called Morning Glory had these makeup/photo cards of Ga-In so I helped myself to one just because I was curious and there is hardly any Kpop-related stuff in Morning Glory :/

 Front

Back

I can't read Korean fluently so I wasn't able to understand the steps or instructions on the back but I could see that the images next to them were Tony Moly products used to achieve the look. I only have the Tony Moly black gel eyeliner pictured (I may do a review on it) and I would love the other products too but eh, maybe next time I'll consider purchasing them. I created the look without using those specific products.

So basically, it's a smokey khaki/army green look with white shimmer on the inner corners of the lids and baby pink lip gloss. Ga-In has monolids and so for this picture, I do think that the eyeshadow suits her despite the fact that she doesn't have a noticeable crease. If her eyes were more open i.e. looking up at the camera, maybe the look would be too bold. I don't know... I tend to think that monolid girls suit more subtle eye makeup with winged eyeliner. Another facial difference between me and Ga-In is that she has milky white skin whereas I... don't. Oh and she has short hair and I have long hair!

Please note that this is only an inspired look - I don't think that I look like Ga-In at all, in fact we are almost totally opposite with our facial appearances, we have different characteristics! I just really admired the look on her so I decided to give it a shot. It gave me a great opportunity to use green eyeshadows which I seldom use.

Here is my look side-by-side with Ga-In's look...

 Taken with my webcam to try and get the right angle etc x] How's my posing ;) ?

You can already spot so many differences with me and Ga-In... my brown hair and her red hair, side fringe parted opposite ways, flat and pointed nose, double and monolid, medium and fair skinned etc. I just wanted to nail her look =]

I ended up using my 88 Shimmer Palette and blended various greens to achieve the right gradient. My eyeliner was thicker than usual (almost up to the fold of my lids) to match the thickness of hers and I put some white highlight from my Contour/Blush palette on the bridge of my nose. I wish I had the same pink lippie as Ga-In, I don't have one like that unfortunately :(

Some closeups of the look with my camera. Be warned - I don't photoshop any of my pictures - imperfections may be seen!

In flash it looks rather golden-green, hm...

Green is less subtle in normal lighting

I look super tanned compared to Ga-In :S

Colour comparison - I'm close, right?

This flash makes my skin colour closer to milky white :) But then everything else is washed-out

 I also made my brows more defined like Ga-In's to complement the look.

I used Tony Moly's Lovely Eyebrow Pencil in Black/Brown. It sort of matches my hair colour

For this look I didn't bother with circle lenses, lashes or blush since it was mainly about the eyeshadow. I did curl my lashes though, and I used the Maybelline The Falsies mascara (review for that might be up next week or the week after). I used NYX Mega Shine Lip gloss in Beige which actually isn't 'beige' at all lol... it's like a nude bubblegum pink.

 With webcam pictures, my lips look my vibrant than my makeup!

PS: Spot my mini Domo-kun :)

I could do a tutorial for this look if anyone requests it, I'm up for anything. I initially only wanted to give this a try and see how I'd go. By the way all of these pictures are of my first and only attempt of this look.

Did you know that I can make my double eyelids turn into monolids? It's not as complicated as you might think ;P

Here's me with a puffer fish face and my eyes widened to show you how thick my eyeliner is! For my eyeliner to be clearly seen, I have to open my eyes wider because I have small double eyelids -_-

PS: Spot Winnie the Pooh :P

 Now my eyelids have disappeared and I am left with monolids D:

Haha I kid - I have pretty (not using it as an adjective, using it as an adverb) hooded eyelids which can appear and re-appear when I make particular faces. I reckon my eyelids make me look very Chinese, which I am.. but I always get mistaken for other nationalities.

You may have noticed that I also tried to dress like Ga-In and to fit-in with the title of the look, I wore a white lace t-shirt! I rolled the sleeves up to make a singlet but then that got annoying so I took it down.

I know my brows look way too dark and thick here, I did it for the look haha~

Did you notice that my regrowth hasn't been showing in these pictures ;D Yay

Twitter followers of mine may have known that I've recently changed my display picture - and the photo was taken after I did the look. I purposely cropped my brows out because they looked too bold -_- Never again am I going to define my brows to that extent for photos unless the inspired look includes bold brows, hmph!

I hope you guys liked seeing my inspired look. Remember that inspired looks aren't intended to be the exact replica of the original. They can be, but you can also put your own personal touch to it. This look has inspired me to use green eyeshadows either as a smokey look or to blend in with another colour.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to request any looks or posts that you'd like to see from me (: I am open to requests and the requests that I have received from previous comments are:

- Tutorial for applying false lashes

- Tutorial with my 88 Shimmer Palette

- Tutorial with my Contour palette (contouring/highlighting etc)

I will keep all requests in mind and I may or may not do posts about them, however it's likely that I will because I do love you guys hehe :D They can be anything from reviews, looks, tutorials, quizzes and so on.

I haven't forgotten about my gyaru-inspired look, I still need to perfect it and take pictures so bare with me on that one. Gals would know that gyaru styling (makeup, fashion, hair) takes time and effort!

So far with my inspired looks I've dealt with some 'out-there' eyeshadow colours like blue (Park Bom), purple (Qri) and now I've dealt with green. That's why it's so fun experimenting with bold colours, I wonder what will be next ^_^

Take care everyone ♥ Until next time,