a hoarder's blog

Yesterday night was a good night, filled with great company, food and makeup goodies. A big thank you to Sophia, Kim, Amy, Jerlaine and Kas for the presents and the awesome cake, and also to Gwen who came to meet us too.

Dinner was at Everything with Fries (EwF) at Orchard Central. We each had a Har Jeong Kai burger meal with either sour cream and onion fries and garlic fries. The serving is pretty generous for a $9.90 meal and I personally couldn't finish this.

(Most pics below taken with my iPhone3GS)

The birthday cake! The girls had lighted a candle and were waiting to surprise me with this yummy looking chocolate cake on the table while I was away in the washroom. This cake is from Awfully Chocolate which, as it turns out, are the same people behind EwF.

The presents! Urban Decay Mariposa palette and fresh Brown Sugar edp. I am so happy with my gifts. Been lemming for both and now I can strike them off my wishlist.

That was not all. More goodies were exchanged and passed around. Everytime we meet it's like Christmas.

Benefit velvet eyeshadows from Jerlaine's mini spree. I chose a couple of neutral shades in Fawn Over Me and Tickled Mink.

Beauty.com F&F 20% sale spree items from Gwen. I got a large Z-palette after I filled my first one with Inglot eyeshadow pans, and also bought the Cargo Safari collection that Kim recommended to me. It comes with a full-sized blush in Coral Beach, an eyeshadow duo in gold and olive green shades, an eye pencil in khaki, a lip gloss in Serengeti and a mascara. Not bad for USD34 when a blush by itself costs USD28. Comes in a cute little pouch.

My first Cargo blush:

After dinner, we trooped to Lush which had just opened at Wisma Atria. It's just like a candy store. Everything looks so yummy and smells good. I didn't buy anything there and then, but I'm sure I'll be back to check out the store soon.

Last stop for the day was Sephora and I walked out with 2 tokidoki palettes.

This box was waiting for me in the mailbox yesterday. I wasn't expecting it just yet as I wasn't sure of the estimated date of delivery. Coincidentally, I had been thinking of checking the EDD just so that I could update the people who had placed their order with me. Well, looks like there's no need to wait anymore. I'm also glad that the postal person decided to shove the box into my mailbox (it fit just nice!) instead of leaving me a delivery notice that would have required me to collect from the post office. (Btw if you're interested, delivery was estimated to be on Feb 15, that's like 3 weeks in advance. I placed my order on 10 Jan, and it was shipped out on 11 Jan and received on 20 Jan).

Now to the juicy stuff! Inside the package were 5 boxes of Bella Bamba (awesome holographic print), 1 box of Sugarbomb (oops didn't notice it was upside down during photo taking) and a few sales items that I had gotten for myself.

Bella Bamba is the latest to join Benefit's stable of boxed blushers and is described as a 3D brightening watermelon pink face powder laced with shimmering gold undertones. I believe it is currently being launched at Tangs and Sephora, and is retailing at SGD55. We got ours online for around SGD37, so that saves us quite a bit.

For me, it wasn't even a question of not getting it, just a matter of when. As you can see, I have quite a few of them Benefit box o' powder blushers and it would have been impossible not to add this one to my collection.

Bella Bamba (seriously though, I gotta say that I'm not a big fan of the name) is a bit different from the previous box of powders. The box has been redesigned and now comes with a flip-top cover with a magnetic clasp instead of the usual cover that you can remove and place aside. This makes it tons more secure than the removable lid which can just slip off if you're picking the box from the top without holding the bottom part as well. I read from makeupandbeautyblog that the old type of box will be phased out and that the other blushers will soon come in this new type of flip-top packaging.

The lid also contains a mirror, so you can touch up your cheek colour anywhere with the accompanying brush. This time round, the brush sports a rounded shape instead of the usual square one, and appears to be much softer. And omg, did I mention the smell of the blush yet? It smells sooo good. Totally in line with whole watermelon-y pink theme.

temptalia mentioned on her review of Bella Bamba that she was a little disappointed with the size of this new blush as compared to other Benefit blushers. Indeed, Bella Bamba only has 8g of product as compared to thrrrob, coralista, sugarbomb, dallas which have 12g each, hoola and georgia which have 11g each, and 10 and dandelion which have 10g each. They each have a different weight, yet they all cost the same price (USD28). Can't figure that one out.

Here's how the box looks like:

The blush sprinkled with gold

And here's a swatch, really pink and pretty. I tried looking for dupes. Gave up after a while, so I just swatched it against other Benefit blushers.

Ok have not been updating lately. These hauls were not bought all at once, some are from quite a while back, some I have just received, just that I was too lazy to post. :p I won't go much in detail abt the products, just enjoy the pics. LoL. And needless to say that most of the stuff was bought during a sale of some sort. I rarely buy anything full-price.

BENEFIT

Matterial Girl

creaseless cream eyeshadow/liner in busy signal

velvet eyeshadow in dandy brandy

Miss Popularity highlighter (free gift)

lipsticks in la la land (nude rose), thrillin' brazilian (spiced chai) and passionista (rich garnet).

Benefit Girls Night In set (lipstick in lady's choice (caramel pink) + creaseless cream shadow/liner in birthday suit + skinny jeans + talent brush + magnets)

Lipsticks in sugar rush (spicy caramel - pearl), fruit cocktail (spiced cider - pearl) and sassy frass

silky powder eyeshadow in soft shoulder (free gift)

creaseless cream eyeshadow/liner in get figgy and gossip

Sugarbomb

BADgal pencil (free gift)

That Gal primer and mini Dr Feelgood (free samples)

URBAN DECAY

UD Hi-Fi 24/7 set (zero, 1999, flipside, mildew, Heavy Metal glitter eyeliner in Distortion)

UD Stereophonic 24/7 set (zero, underground, crash, gunmetal, Heavy Metal glitter eyeliner in Midnight Cowboy)

UD Get Baked palette

UDPP sample

MAC

MAC Eyeshadow Palette MYSTIC

MAC Face Kit in HOCUS FOCUS and FAB-RACADABRA

MAC Softsparkle Pencil in NIGHTSKY and IRIS ACCENTS

All at 20% off at Nordstrom (still have 2 brush sets coming!!)

LA GIRL

LA Girl RockStar in Groupie and Party Animal.

Damn I have a lot of LA Girl polishes now..haha..thanks to the JL sale.

For someone who usually doesn't usually wear eyeshadow to work, I have been using Benefit's creaseless cream shadow/liner in Skinny Jeans (pewter) almost everyday for the past week simply cos I love it so much. It's creamy, buildable, blendable and smudge-proof, and it lasts me the whole day! Loves!

I remembered I had this body cream only yesterday. How is that possible you ask? Haha. Well, I had originally bought this online as a set which consists of the body cream, body balm and shower cap, and the box set was stashed under a pile of paperbags. So it was only yesterday that the box caught my attention. I smeared it onto my legs after my bath and the smell was so amazingly divine and sensual. It really does live up to its name. Loves.