a hoarder's blog

This is a bit overdue, but I just had to say that I had a very nice Christmas this year. These were the gifts from my Secret Santa who turned out to be none other than Sophia. I received my first Chanel nail polish and you can't tell how excited I was when I saw the small Chanel paperbag. She also gave me this Secret Santa box from Lush.

Chanel Paradoxal

Li'l Lush Pud Bath Ballistic - looks like a pudding, smells like a pudding, fizzes like a spicy Bath Ballistic

Snowcake Soap - hand and body soap, smells like delicious icing off your Christmas cake, feels like almond mousse on your skin

Popcorn all over the place!

I love my gifts. Thank you Santa!

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.

It has already been over a week (ok lah, almost 2 weeks) since coming back from my short trip to Taiwan and Hong Kong, and I've just been too busy to do this haul entry earlier. But I'd better get to it before I forget.

TAIWAN

OK so we shall start with some stuff that I bought whilst in Taiwan. The following were bought at night markets (Raohe and Shilin). I used the exchange rate of SGD1=TWD25 for easy conversion on the go, when in reality it was about TWD23.

• Misc hairbands: all, except the middle one with the thicker braid design, cost TWD100. The middle one costs TWD40.
• Socks: 6 pairs for TWD100 (cheap or what?)
• Card holder: TWD100, hairclips (1 for TWD15), bun holder TWD40 (I don't know how to call that, it's something that helps you hold your hair in a bun and you can do it real fast apparently. The seller demo-ed on me and I was so impressed that I bought it, but I haven't tried it myself. Haha! But it was so cheap anyway)
• A pair of flats (super soft and comfy): TWD199

NEXT!....

• Masks! These were bought at the 7-11 opposite the hotel I was staying at (Rainbow hotel which is in the heart of Ximending). There was some promo going on, 2 boxes for TWD378 (U.P. TWD199 per box). I randomly chose Japanese Cherry Blossom, Black Pearl, Mixed Berries and Q10 rejuvenating masks just cos I can't read a word of chinese and didn't really know which ones to get.

Took a few trips to Watsons and I brought back...

• Neutrogena oil-free eye makeup remover (TWD299, apparently it's BOGO. I don't know how much this costs in Singapore)
• Neutrogena Hydro Boost mousse cleaner which was on sale at TWD199 (again I don't know the retail price locally).
• Carmex in Jasmine Green Tea flavour TWD99
• MM mascaras, each going for TWD340. And if you buy a mascara, there was a promo where you could buy the Eyes Reset Gel for only TWD99 (Bought a set for Kim too).
• MM Skin Lingerie Pore Cover also at TWD340 I think.
• One Lavshuca Melting Eyes quad at TWD400. My most expensive drugstore purchase! At first, I didn't wanna get it, but everytime I stepped into Watsons, I went to swatch it, so I finally gave in. They had 5 or 6 quads in this series and I bought one in OR-1. I also wanted RD-1 but it was OOS at the store I was in. The reason why you see two quads in the pic is cos I bought the other one in Hong Kong for HKD98. So I managed to get the ones I wanted in the end.

HONG KONG

Currency conversion SGD=~HKD5. Again, I used a rough conversion rate.

• YSL mook from the news vendor at the corner of the street from the hotel I was staying at. HKD148. I haven't opened it yet..Oops.

• My first LUSH items! Mask Of Magnanimity (HKD109 after 30% off) and Lemony Flutter (HKD99). I was looking around the shop so hard for more stuff to buy, but couldn't decide. I thought of not getting soap bars cos I didn't trust myself to use them. So yep, that was it. Maybe next time.
• Clinique moisture surge in travel size jars HKD50 from a shop round the corner.
• Davidoff Cool Water HKD105 from the same shop round the corner.
• Gosh in Purple Heart and Blue Monday HKD 78 each at Watsons.

I do still have 2 major hauls from Taipei and Hong Kong to update. Will do so in the next entry. Hehe. Anybody wanna guess what else I bought?