Small winners haul

Pretty sure you know that I'm obsessed with Winners by now but I'm trying to conserve my money for BOXING DAY SALE! WHOOO I can't wait! Anyways, so lately I've been just avoiding going out the house all together XD.  So for the past four days, I literally didn't step outside the house.  The only time I actually went out was to get the letter at the mail box.  I'm going to turn into a vampire! Well not that I'm not already pale HAHA, but I might start to sparkle :O.

I think I did pretty good, got three small things in the past four weeks.  That is actually a huge improvement! Before I would go almost everyday since they restock their store everyday so it's always a surprise to see what they have.  Well I only go out on the weekends with my boyfriend and all of these trips were with him so he can control me.  Sometimes I can't control my wants so i tell my boyfriend "STOP ME NOW!" He's like my red button! ALERT ALERT!  HAHA okay enough rambling...

 I found this gorrrrgeous lace dress which caught my eyes when it was peeking out of the rack of dresses.  What caught my eye was the lace and the material.  Usually a lot of lace dresses have really crappy materials where if it was hooked onto something, it would rip right away.  This one is so high quality and has a good weight to it, it surprised me that it was only $40.  Not bad not bad.  My camera doesn't do it justice but there is actually a sliver foil finish on the lace! So pretty in person.  The inside has this semi lingerie looking top.

 The one problem I have with the dress is just the tie, it makes the whole dress look super cheap.  I was thinking of doing this kind of necklace backdrop to make the dress a little more glamourous and expensive looking.  Was thinking of using some Swarvoski crystals and everything, SPARKLE :D.  Yes I am like a crow, shiny things!  Hopefully I can find all the materials I need to make it happen :).  The back of the dress is a low "U" with an invisible zipper going down the dress so I can actually get in. I will do a outfit of the day for you once I can find the perfect accessories for this dress so watch out for that!

Has anyone heard of this brand? Its called Lipsy London, I'm assuming this is an European brand, from Britian maybe LOL. I checked up the retail price on this and its $115 CAD which I only paid $40 + tax for this so I think this was a complete steal. I was trying to talk myself out of buying this but I just couldn't let it go since it was the only one!

 Winter is already here for us in Vancouver and it has been sooooooo cold! My car feels like a freezer! Omg.  I just couldn't stand it anymore and went back to Winners to get the Ralph Lauren leather gloves I was lusting for for a while but didn't want to get them since they were $30 (compared to $80).  Thats not a bad price for Ralph Lauren but I couldn't really justify for just gloves :/ but it got way too cold and my hands were freezing! 

These are 100% leather and has a really cute bow detailing on the bottom.  I'm usually not a bow girl but these were small bows which had that hint of femine touch but not too much to the point where I would want to puke! The bow tie came in four colors, dark cofffee brown, light sand brown, cream and red.  There was only the red ones in my size and these fit really nicely, not too tight and I could actually move my whole hand without any struggle :D so i just settled for these.  There is also the Ralph Lauren stamp on the bottom of the stamp.  I have an absoulte soft spot for Ralph Lauren since the brand is really simple, semi high class, and i can see myself wearing it until I get old so i don't mind shelling out a little bit more money for them :).

I was in Metrotown waiting to watch Wrack it Ralph with my boyfriend so we had some time to kill so naturally I strolled into Winners.  Nothing peeked my interest until I went to the little skincare section and saw these little boxes.  The design on them were so cute and retro! I absoultely love it! The brand is called Tokyomilk which...well I never heard of or saw them anywhere before.  They were little pots of solid perfume and each of them had a different number.  The one I picked up was #61 Sugar Plum.  I really wanted to get the cupcake one since it smelled so yummy.  This actually surprised me since I don't really like things that smell like food, I'd rather make the food and eat it so if i had a perfume that smelled like food.....I might actually bite myself out of confusion :/.

Each little box came with small card.  They were cute but I didn't really find any  use for them.  The men swimming and the chinese looking ladies were another scent.  The swimming men smelled sooo bad....I don't understand why anyone would want to smell like that.  It smelled like a dirty washroom, UGH! The chinese ladie one smelled like a grandma that didn't shower for ceuntries and smelled in flowers...Not good flower, really strong and stinky flower. LORD!

The side of the box.  I wonder what one note is...

 The lid is pretty cool :D.

The solid perfume itself smells divine! It just striaght up smells like sweet plums! Ughhh So yummy.  The sad thing is that the smell doesn't last and isn't strong enough to be an actual perfume so this kind of sucks :(.  Even when i rub a lot on my wrist, still can't smell it but I am happy I have this because the smell just makes me happy :). So when there is a stinky person in an elevator or someone farted, just whip this out and bam! Oh yea!

Hope you enjoyed my little Winners haul.  I absolutely love my white lace dress and didn't really mind adding another lace dress to my collection since my other lace-ish dress is black and skin tight.  What was your favorite item in my haul?

Studio baked eyeshadow palette in California review and swatches

I still remember when Elf first posted their sneak picture on instagram, i completely freaked out! I absolutely loved their baked eyeshadows they came out with earlier and if i could get it in a palette and a smaller size, i'm up for it.  The price for these was a little high considering all of their other products are less then $6 usually.  So $10 made me a little bit hesitant. :) Please enjoy my review on these.  I have been using these for a while now.

Elf's description of the studio baked eyeshadow palette: "Each Baked Palette features 10 gorgeous baked eyeshadows so you can achieve a flawless look whenever, wherever. The silky and bendable formula of our Baked Eyeshadow provides smooth and even application with each sweep of color. Baked in an oven, these eyeshadows offer rich pigmentation for a beautiful effect. Infused with active key ingredients Jojoba, Rose, Sunflower, Apricot and Grape to nourish and hydrate the skin. The long-lasting and shimmering color can be worn wet for a vibrant effect or dry for sheer pigmentation, offering a variety of gorgeous eye looks!"

Product packaging:

This palette comes in a sleek black little case. I do not really like how thick the palette is though (14cm length X 6cm width X 2 cm thick). Each color comes in a pressed dome shape which is quite typical for baked products. I do understand that the shadows are domed but thickness of the palette is still not justified for its thickness. I did actually take apart the palette and the whole bottom of the palette is empty. Fail! The palette has a nice snap which isn’t too hard to open but it closes perfectly so it would be safe to leave this palette in your purse.

Color pigmentation/ payoff:

These palettes currently come in two versions: California which is all neutral palettes and NYC which is a smoky palette. I choose to only get the California since I thought that I would get the most use out of but I know you guys don’t care about that LOL. Okay I’ll try to get to the point how. The color pigmentation of these is only average but with a primer it is a little better. Most of these colors have a satin finish with a hint of shimmers, few have shimmery finish and only two has more of a matte finish. I wouldn’t bring this palette with me to a trip hoping that this would be the only palette since a lot of these shades are only shimmer/ satin and has no matte color which is one of the downsides to it.

Top row (from left to right)

1) Light beige skin tone highlight color with sliver shimmers; satin finish with slight shimmers

2) Warm toned bronze shade with golden shimmers; satin finish

3) Beige peach color with golden shimmer; satin finish

4) Rose gold color with peach shimmer; satin finish

5) Light coffee color with sliver shimmer; shimmery finish

Bottom row (from left to right)

1) Sliver shade; frosty finish

2) Dark brown shade with small sliver shimmers; matte with slight shimmers

3) Golden bronze color with golden shimmers; frost/ satin finish

4) Burgundy plum shade (very comparable to raspberry truffle from their studio single eye shadows); stain finish

5) Amethyst color with purple sheen; satin finish

Dupe to Sephora moon shadow in The nude:

Once these came out, everyone couldn’t stop comparing these. I had to see these for myself so I went to the store. The palette was basically 95% the same!! The palette case for the Sephora is fancier but the color selections of these are so similar, I’d say go get the elf one. Colors are almost all the same. Texture and packaging. Wow…elf you are awesome and stepping up your game :).

Texture:

Baked eye shadows usually are somewhat dry to the touch since they are baked and doesn’t have that silky texture like MAC eye shadows. But boy was I surprised. These were actually quite silky and doesn’t have too much fall out. Yes you will have a little bit of powderyness but I mean what eye shadow doesn’t right? Fallout I mean once you dip your brush into the domes and not when you use them on your eyes.

Smell:

I’m happy to report that this has no smell :). Sometimes with some products from elf, they have a really bad plastic smell to them but these have absolutely no smell!

Lasting power:

These doesn’t have the best lasting power on bare skin so I would suggest you use a good primer before you step out the door. Those would stay about 3-4 hours on bare skin but if you use primer, they would stay on for about 5-7 hours. Using these wet is an option for these too but not my favorite method.

Price:

These are $10 which I find it a little bit expensive for ELF since everything else is $3 and $6 and a whole palette is $15 for 144, so $10 to me for a small ten color baked eye shadow palette seems a lot LOL. I did get this for $5 since I used a 50% off studio line. There is going to be a cyber-Monday 50% off everything sale so watch out for that.

Hope you enjoyed my review on this palette. If you have anymore questions, don’t hesitant to comment down below, or if you want to see a review on a certain product. Would you get this palette for yourself? Which colors do you usually prefer? Neutral or smokey?

Dolce and Gabanna Waist belt

 Last week when I went to go return the pillow cougar boots, I thought I would just stroll around Winners once again for the last time for the next three months since me going to Winners has gone out of control. If you check my receipt pile, every two to three receipt is Winners. I call that an addiction. I don’t NEED to go there so much, I just like to go there to look around: /. It’s basically like walking in a park to me, but it cost me money LOL. So I pledge to not go to winners for three months just to clean it out of my system. I’ve been trying to build my belt collection and when I saw a really cool Matt and Nat double belt with a chain detailing, I was intrigued. I tried to find a belt that was small enough for me and had enough holes to fit my size zero waist but there wasn’t any. The smallest one still needed four holes just so I could wear it without it making my pants fall off. Right when I was digging through the rack for the different sizes, I saw a black box with the lid underneath it just sitting there. Whenever you see a box in Winners, something is up. Winners don’t display their products in boxes usually so my mind just jumped on it. All I saw was the beautiful ruby (it’s not real ruby obviously) brooch on a black thick waist belt with black ribbon detailing. The brooch was very well made, gold setting, very well made. That was all that was going through my made. Then when I went to pick up the little black box, I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. DOLCE AND GABANA?? Holy cows! I never in a million could think that winners would have such a beautiful belt. I mean yes, Winners in downtown has a lot of nice pieces and has a lot of designer clothing and bags but I have never think they would have accessories too :D. The biggest shock was that I could actually afford it! It was $79.99! I was expecting at least $200 and I’d have tear face going out of the store because I can’t afford such a high price. Original price was $150 but even then I don’t think that is a bad price for D. I also wondered why this belt wasn’t bought already but I’m happy that I could lay my hands on it :).

 The belt is a thick black suede with a black ribbon going all around the middle of the belt. Where the red brooch lays is a bow-estiqe black ribbon sticking out of it and the right side of the belt has two sliver chain detailing which gives a nice chic touch. In the back of the belt, there is two three rows of snappies to keep the belt on. Super nice quality and heavy duty. This is exactly what I think top quality should be like.

One thing that really annoys me is that I can’t find out about this belt! I love to know where my clothes and products come from. I can not find out where the belt is from, as in what season it came out or anything! If anyone can find anything about this belt, please tell me! I’d really love to know. I can’t wait to wear this belt for the holidays and special occasions! It just screams Christmas to me.

 I paired this belt with my French connection high waist pencil skirt.  The thing i love about this skirt is that it has pockets! Not a lot of skirts has pockets but I found out at Winners! This skirt was only $24.99, not bad espically for the brand too.  One thing about this skirt is it is true size zero so I almost can't breath HAHA.  I'm a tiny girl but dayumm! Why so tight~  I also have my H&M puffy chiffon blouse that has a giant slit on the sleeves which is sometimesn  not so comfortable since it feels like i'm flying LOL but other then that, i love the design of it and the fabric choice is perfect :).  I usually wear a strapless bra since there is some shoulder details that i don't want to disturb so I'm wearing a full body suit.  I don't really like strapless bras since it always feels like its always falling down :/.

What do you guys thing about my purchase? I have absolutely no regrets on buying this belt. :)

ELF fall haul featuring Jumbo eyeshadow sticks, blush and contouring cream and mineral pressed eyeshadow

I know I know…I have been going crazy with the elf hauls. They are like back to back, but this is the last one I swear. Okay maybe I might get a few things on cyber Monday but I swear! LOL I even banned myself from going to Winners since I’m basically get prepared to go on a shopping spree on Boxing Day! First store I’m going to hit is Nine west for more heels! I’m eyeing this really cool black heel with a wedge, but its not exactly a full on wedge and it has really beautiful, somewhat indian-estque gold sun embellishments on the wedge but it is $345. Geez :/ That’s a lot of money. Anyways back to the elf haul!

Since they had a 50% off all eye product coupon code and I really wanted their new jumbo eye shadow sticks, I thought this would the perfect opportunity to go ahead and order. When I found out that elf was coming out with jumbo eye shadow sticks, I freaked out! And since it was just a sneak peek on instagram, I just couldn’t wait! Sad thing is that they are $2, not $1 but still good! They came out with nine colors but a lot of them are frosty. Only about two are matte. The biggest disappointment was the two lightest shades since I was hoping it would be a matte skin color like the soft ochre from MAC. Nope, it’s a shimmery mess and it doesn’t even show up on the skin. What a bummer. My first impressions of them are that they are really creamy, really pigmented (well at least the darker shades), and easy to blend. I was somewhat hesitate about getting these since I did not like their past cream eye shadows. They were greasy and just plain gross. I still have to experiment with them but overall I like these :). Oh yea, these don’t need sharpening! Stupid NYX jumbo eye shadow sharpening cough cough*. They twist up, how convenient.

Another really new product was their contouring blush and bronzing cream! Now everyone already know and love their powder form but they have it in cream version now! I don’t know why but I kept thinking that these would be just like their cream blushes, which has the same texture as the Maybelline bouncy blushes. So when I opened the compact, I was surprised it wasn’t that formula! It’s just the typical cream texture, easy to blend and pigmented! I think you guys would like it. This goes for $3 from their studio line.

Some other random eye products I picked up was their essentials custom eye eye shadows for $1. I really do love these eye shadows but the one complain I have with these is that it isn’t pressed tight enough cause them to be somewhat powdery fall out city! This I can easily fix with pressing it myself so I didn’t really mind. They came out with a lot of new colors so I picked up three of the ones that interested me the most, Wheat (light brown wheat color with golden brown shimmers), Taupe (taupe gold with a hint of warm green; shimmery finish) and a bright teal. I might pick up the rest when it comes around to cyber Monday but I am pleased with these.

 

I also go some backups of my favorite eyelid primers from their essential line for $1, sheer and champagne. I love love love the color champagne since it is the least shimmery out of the three colored ones and the color is really natural. They came out with primer eye shadows a long time ago but I never got around trying it. Their cream eyeliners (in black and coffee) are a must for my since it’s so cheap but it works well and it doesn’t budge at all! Not bad for only $1.50. Not really liking the fact it is really frosty but we’ll see. Just like the usual, I got the free gift which is their hypershine lipgloss in Flirt.

The last two items I got were their newest pressed mineral eye shadows from their mineral line for $3 each. I didn’t want to go crazy with these since a lot of the colors were really similar and the swatches I saw online didn’t really excite me. I only got two shades which would be lunch break (light cool wheat brown color; satin frosty finish) and What’s your name (cool purple shade; satin finish). Not really excited about these colors but they would be a color I’d be comfortable using day to day.

Which products are you most excited about? Which ones do you want to see reviews on? :)

Cougar boots haul

Since the weather was changing drastically in Vancouver, I thought it would have been a good idea to get a rain boot for the upcoming horrors. And since Winners was having a boot fest, where they had tons and tons and tons of boots to choose from, I thought I would find myself the perfect pair.  Right when I got to the aisle with all the boots, my eye just shot to a pair that had the green and white lettering logo called Cougar.  I remembered when Juciytuesday on YouTube was doing a “What would you do for a pair of boots” video that spotlighted on these boots.  Cougar boots is a Canadian brand where they keep Canadian weather in mind so I thought this brand would be perfect!

The first pair I got was a pair called “Storm by Cougar”. It has the shape of a standard rain boot but it has a waterproof fabric for flexibility and then some leather on the top of the boot.  What really attracted me to these pair of boots was that it was fleece lined.  Sooo comfy and warm, it’s amazing.  It also had slight pillow happiness for my feet.  They are also guaranteed to keep you warm under -11°F (-24°C).  And they were only $50 which I happily paid for but my mom kept saying that it was ugly and the fabric part made my legs look chunky.  I thought these were finding but I really did like the other cougar boots that they had to offer, especially the pillow boots. And also the fact that these storm boots were made in China was kind of a deal breaker for me since it’s supposed to be a “Canadian brand.” I was hoping that I was actually supporting a Canadian brand.

 Before I went to school about two weeks ago,  I went and strolled around at the Downtown winners in Vancouver not really keeping in mind for the Cougar boots so it was a complete surprised when I saw the zip up pillow Cougar boots.  I didn’t really love them but I knew that I needed a really warm boot for the upcoming winter.  The boot itself is a yellowish tan color which really screamed retro to me.  It comes with a metal zipper with stud detailing all around the zipper and the interior is bright red which peeks out a little on the top when you wear it.  The inside is what the name is called, “Pillow boots; zip zip and away.” The inside,  just like the other one, is super comfy and warm and these boots are supposed to withstand the cold even under  -11°F (-24°C).  The price point for these are a bit hefty since these are made in Italy and the whole exterior of the boot Is genuine leather; $159.99 (compared to $256). I was a little hesitant about these boots but I thought to myself; I’d have these for a long time, leather boots, super warm, non-slip bottoms even walking on black ice…fine I’ll get these.  I was really excited about these boots and I wore them to school the next day.  But once I started walking in these, I noticed that the zipper near my ankles would fold in and the whole boot is kind of slanted.  It really pissed me off because it was annoying to walk in them with the fold touching my ankles like that.  And also the fact that I accidently hit the cement stairs when I was walking up back to the skytrain and a little bit of the leather already chipped off, that was a totally deal breaker for me.  I really wanted to love these boots but it was hard to for the price….It wasn’t worth it.  I returned both of those boots in the end and I’m still on the hunt for the perfect boots.  I’m still happy with my Nevada brown boots I got four years ago at Sears for only $30 but I wanted to add another pair of boots for the harsh winter season.  Guess I’m still going to have to look for one.

Has anyone tried cougar boots? These were super popular back in the 80’s.  If they are really that good, I’ll consider getting the original lace up pillow boots for fill price but what do you guys think?