Cyber Monday Musings

Hi everybody,

I hope you guys had a nice and restful Thanksgiving. To me, I braved the cold dark morning of Black Friday and got in line at Best Buy to get a new laptop. For those who are my friends on Face Book, you already knew how I broke the keyboard of my laptop (I dropped it!) Until last Friday, I lived in panic of the sudden death of my dear Lappie (yes, laptop has a name.) Because my thesis and other vital things for my survival are inside Lappie, it was time to find a new laptop and smooth over the change of operation.

My Black Friday Best Buy adventure was actually really fun and I did get a new laptop at an affordable price. I hope this new one is going to last as long as Lappie, which has been with me for 5 years and counting.

Talking about irony: when this blog is taking off quite well, I am really busy with my thesis. This time around, I am determined to finish off this part of my journey and close this chapter down in my education life. Of course, this brings joy and fear to me: joy because I am finally finishing the thesis, and fear because I am going to be unemployed pretty soon. I hope the economy is going to improve so that I can get a job. Otherwise, I am going back to school (again) for a PhD.

But wait, we're not done for Monday yet. The GILTY Pleasures weekly blog tour is coming up next. This was supposed to be for yesterday but I was extremely busy. I hope to blog as often as I did last month, but don't be surprise if I don't blog a day or two. I really need to finish my thesis, guys!

Alison of The Advice Sisters shares some videos, photos & reports from Grace Potter & the Nocturnals at Terminal 5 in NYC a must-see , especially if you have never seen or heard Grace! !

Lisa of Bridalease suggests three wonderful wedding, or anytime options thanks to the Landings and Jetblue.

Dao from My Makeup Blog discovered Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, a wonderful website contains hundreds of perfume scents.

Gio from Beautiful With Brains shares some perfume shopping tips.



That's all for today. I hope you'll have a nice week ahead!



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Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

From the editorial team at My Makeup Blog (that means, me, myself, and I)

wishing you a joyful and peaceful Thanksgiving day.

Please drink responsively :)

Image courtesy of Lakejunaluska.com
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New Products Alert: EcoTools by Alicia Silverstone

Hi everyone,

So far, the best returns I have in term of product satisfaction when it comes to brushes is my EcoTools brush set I bought earlier this year. The brushes are very sturdy and amazingly soft. I feel gratuitous every time I use my EcoTools brushes (don't you?)

This season, EcoTools and Alicia Silverstone teamed up to create a line of limited edition brushes and bags. Like other EcoTools brushes, the ones in the LE sets are made of synthetic fibers, recycled aluminum, and bamboo. Also, the prices are really affordable.

5 piece brush set ($14.99)

Contains a blush brush, finishing brush, angled eye brush, brow and lash groomer, and an LE bag

Cosmetic brush bag with a blush brush

Makeup bag

Train case ($14.99)

Overnight bag

Currently, Target website has the brush set and train case priced at $14.99. The brush set has a dupe of MAC 187 but this brush is made out of 100% synthetic fiber. The bags are made of hemp and lined with recycled PET, which is a non-toxic plastic. The flowers and prints on the bags are made with non-toxic ink while paper tags are made of tree-free stone papers. This is so wonderful of Alicia Silverstone to promote healthy living and beauty. My prediction is this LE is going to sell like hot cakes once it hits the store. And yours truly is going to stalk Target until she gets her brush set. Once I do, you bet I am going to do a review.

For more information about this limited edition, click here.

It's T-1 to Turkey Day! Are you ready to celebrate Thanksgiving yet?



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A Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Stalker is Born!

Hello everybody,

While I vouch to myself that I am not going to buy anymore makeup until the end of this year, my eyes have been wandering to the perfume realm. I take pride in the fact that I want to smell nice and dandy. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, or BPAL to its devotee, has been the ground for my stalking activity these days. My love of perfume started before I began to use makeup and throughout the years, I’ve accrued quite a few bottles of perfumes. However, being a perfumista is a costly hobby, as currently a bottle of perfume hovers around the 65-dollar mark. Also, some of them may contain a vast amount of alcohol, which my skin does not enjoy.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

BPAL, on the other hand, produces only pure perfume oil. Starting at $15 a pop, it is considered a bargain as a little dab can go a very long way. On top of that, they let you sample in tiny vials called “Imp’s Ears”, or known as an imp by BPAL lovers. An imp costs $3.50 USD a piece or $19.50 for six. To add more fire to the damage, BPAL has many scents, most are impable, which is the BPAL lingo for sample-able.



My wandering eyes are fixated on some of the scents and when possible, I'll imp them:

1. (Old) Paris
2. (Old) Shanghai
3. Morocco
4. Ozymandias
5. Kyoto
6. Moscow
7. Havana
8. Liz from Hellboy collection

And guess what? BPAL devotees also has a BPAL board where all scents are reviewed. I consulted this board a lot when making my lemming list.

Love the website's artwork

While the sheer number of scents available can make my head spin, I do enjoy the black and white artwork the website has. BPAL website has a retro and intriguing vibe that makes perfume shopping more interesting to me.

Anybody out there are BPAL devotees? What are your favorite scents? Please share with me, I even consider to go headlong to this madness in the near future.

Note: all pictures in this post are courtesy of the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. I'm not yet a BPAL devotee but I may soon join the rank.



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The Basic Needs Giveaway Winner

Hello my precious!

Sorry for the delay. Today is the day to announce the winner of the Basic Needs Giveaway that I hosted last week. Thirty one of y'all joined in this giveaway and I am thankful for all of you to do so. If I had my way, all of you could have won already. But like many other games, there are many participants but only one who can get the gold medal.

Again, I depended on Random.Org to pick the winner and...

Lucky number 16, you just won yourself a set full of Unilever goodies.

Please come after the jump to see who the winner is!

It's Heather!

Congratulations!

Google Docs is really neat when it comes to this kind of thing. I really enjoy using this service to make giveaways run smoother. I will email the winner as soon as I finish writing this blog entry. Again, to all of y'all who participated, I really want to thank you for your effort. This is not the last giveaway of this year yet but maybe I'm done with hosting giveaways for this month.

I hope you'll enjoy your week ahead. It's getting colder and muggier in my neck of the woods. On top of that, my voice is feeling scratchier these days. Let's pray I'm not getting sick anytime soon :)

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Sunday Beauty Read: GILTY Pleasures Weekly Blog Tour Vol. 5

Hi everybody,

It's Sunday again, how are you doing? I think I am getting sick, this morning I woke up not feeling so well. The weather has been so horrible lately and I hope I don't get sick anytime soon. The holiday is slowly rolling in and next week is Thanksgiving already! This year, I consider spending some money to get a new laptop as the keyboard of the one I am using is not functioning properly anymore.

The ladies from the GILTY Pleasures blog tour and I have been compiling the best of the best of the week just for you. I hope you'll enjoy this week's blog tour as much as we do.

Alison of The Advice Sisters shares some videos, photos & reports from The ELVIS CRUISE a most memorable experience on the sea!

Lisa of Bridalease is offering a unique alternative where you can escape, get in-shape and give back at the same time.

Dao from My Makeup Blog found her new favorite eyeliners: L’Oreal HiP Color Chrome eyeliners are so soft and pigmented!

Gio from Beautiful With Brains finds a cream blush that lasts for hours.

The Informed Makeup Maven shares her good beauty habit that you should adopt during the winter. Find out what it is here.

Shop great Avon Holiday Gifts at Holiday Makeup!

Beauty and Fashion Tech picks her favorite products for a new shop at the OpenSky Project!



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Caress Evenly Gorgeous Giveaway Winner

Hi everybody,

Today is the day to announce the winner of Caress Evenly Gorgeous Giveaway. This is the second giveaway of the month and I feel very good about it. As usual, the winner was chosen by Random.org true random number generator. I would like to thank those of you who participated in this giveaway as well as Caress and their PR who sponsored it.

Without further ado, here is the result:

Lucky number 3 is the winner!

And who is s/he? Find out after the jump!

It's Amy!

Congratulations!

Amy, I will email you as soon as I finish writing this blog entry. For those who did not win, the Basic Needs giveaway is still open until Sunday. Please participate and I thank you in advance if you do so.

For those who are looking forward to the book review, I sincerely apologize. This week has been very hectic for me and I am sorry to cut it short. I will resume the book review schedule as soon as I can.

I hope you'll have a nice weekend ahead.

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Giveaway Galore: Basic Needs Giveaway

Hello, beautiful people!

Once upon a time, when I started this blog, I always wanted to have giveaways for my readers. Being able to give back is a nice thing to do and I am very grateful to have sponsors who are willing to help me to facilitate these events. As you may have noticed, we had one giveaway last week and another ongoing one that ends at 5pm EST today. On top of that, we are having this new giveaway called "Basic Needs" today. See, I'm looking out for all of y'all and if you want to look out for me, just participate in my giveaways and be my readers. That's very simple, right?

What are included in the winning package:

1. Dove Clinical Protection antiperspirant: I'm telling you, this stuff is good for people who sweat profusely. You can get this clinical strength antiperspirant at drugstore but it is not as cheap as the other antiperspirants or deodorants. The ingredients are skin-friendly as well.
2. Dove Extra-Hold hairspray: I love Dove haircare a lot and I'm glad one of you can try this.
3. Vaseline Total Moisture conditioning body lotion: this is the original Vaseline body lotion. It's not fancy but it does the job.
4. Pond's cleansing towelettes: this so far is my favorite makeup remover towelettes when I am on the go. Bonus point is I don't need to carry a tube of cleanser back home, which saves me some space for other things I may pick up during the trip.
5. A box of the new Q-tips: you may even get the winter edition one, which is really cute! I also did a review on Q-tips before, click here to read.

The whole prize package worth approximately $30 and if I were you, I would jump at the chance to join this giveaway. Although they may not be fancy, these basic items can help you survive this winter with ease. Come on, we all need body lotion, hairspray, Q-tips, right?

Please click after the jump to see how you can win this care package. Also, joining this giveaway does not impede your chance to win the Caress giveaway. So join on, join on!



There are two ways to win:

1. Be a follower of my blog via Google Connection:

This is super easy and won't take you more than 3 clicks. You take a look on the right sidebar closer to this column and the "Follow" button is right underneath my "Total Beauty Member" patch. Just click on this "Follow" button and it will take you to the rest of the procedure.

2. Be my email subscriber:

This is like sitting in the front row seat of my blog: you get an email delivered to you everyday, on the day I blog. If I don't blog that day, you don't have any new mail to alert you of the cool stuff happening at My Makeup Blog. It does not take that long to register, either, and once you do, please verify your email address. If you don't, your entry will be voided.

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Once you are a follower, just fill in this form and that's it, you're done! One entry per person, please!

To recap, here are what you need to do to join this giveaway:

1. Be my follower either via Google Connection or Email. If you follow via email, please verify. Addresses that are not verified will not be eligible to win. (If you are already a follower, you can skip this step!)

2. Fill in the form and that's it, you're done!

If you have a Twitter account, please retweet.
RT @MyMakeupBlog enter to win a care package filled with products from Unilever http://bit.ly/3BwowQ

Thank you so much!

And that's it, you're done! This giveaway is opened from now until 5pm EST or GMT +5, November 22nd, 2009. Winner will be randomly chosen and announced here next Monday so please check back to see if you win. It is opened for everybody who reside in the U.S and Canada only.




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L'Oreal HiP Color Chrome Eyeliner: So, So, So Soft!

Hello everybody,

Finally, I get to review something this week. Since last Friday, all that happened here were giveaways. In fact, we are still in the middle of the Caress Evenly Gorgeous body wash and bath bar giveaway. If you haven't joined, please click here.

About 2-3 weeks ago, my local Walgreens had a L'Oreal HiP BOGO sale and I gleefully came twice to purchase the new L'Oreal HiP Color Chrome eyeliners. Of course, to honor my Asian heritage, I had to come with coupons. After hearing so many great things about these liners from the big wig bloggers, I decided to get them myself and let me tell you, I made the right decision.

Purchase #1: Violet Volt (L) and Black Shock (R)

Purchase #2: Silver Lightning (L) and Gold Charge (R)

At $9.99 a piece, these liners probably are the most expensive things at the drugstore. However, the BOGO knocked them off to a more affordable $5 a piece. My $2 off coupon finally got me all four of these for a grand total of $16 plus tax! It's good to be patient and clip some coupons, y'all!

What can you get for $16 at the department store? Probably a single eyeliner that may or may not work as good as these guys. After living on drugstore liners for years, I've come to a conclusion that they are pretty good. However, these guys are exceptionally good and words on the street have that they are as good as Urban Decay 24/7 Liners that are sold at $17 a piece!

Top-bottom: Black Shock, Violet Volt, Silver Lightning, and Gold Charge

The swatch :)

These liners are really soft and pigmented. They glide very smoothly and have the same texture as MAC fluidline, which is a gel liner. The dark colors do not have that much metallic color in it but the lighter ones are pure metals. I felt like a rock star wearing Silver Lightning and Gold Charge. In fact, I've been wearing them quite often lately.

Here's a quick break down of the colors:

• Black Shock: black eye liner with a tiny hint of metal.
• Violet Volt: dark purple color with some metallic trace in it. If you don't use black liners, this would work well for you, too.
• Gold Charge: this puts my quest to finding a gold eyeliner to an end. It's pure gold metal and the pigmentation is great.
• Silver Lightning: mark my words, this is the greatest silver eyeliner from drugstore. If you've been looking for an eyeliner to line and brighten the lower lash line, please buy this guy.

 The one caveat I have is the softness texture of this pencil: since it is very soft, you need to use a light hand and let it completely dry. Otherwise, it can smudge before it dries. Right now, Walgreens also have another BOGO for L'Oreal HiP so please take this opportunity to get some of these eyeliners.

I think these L'Oreal HiP Color Chrome eyeliners are going to give the other liners a hard time. For me, I find no reasons to buy expensive eyeliners after this. These four liners already took care of most of my needs and I have the other ones available as well.

That's all for today, everybody. I hope you'll have a great day.

P.S: If you like my blog, please subscribe to my feed. Thanks a lot!

Caress Evenly Gorgeous Giveaway

Hi everybody,

How is your day so far? After finishing my latest giveaway sponsored by Skin MD Natural, I exhaled with relief. Giveaways are always fun and I am glad there was not so much hiccups along the way, although my front page was looking weird for some couple of days. It's back to normal now.


Recently, a kind publicist from Caress contacted me and asked if I wanted to get some Caress Evenly Gorgeous body wash and body bar to review. Since I already did it earlier, I had to decline but asked her if I could use that as a giveaway and guess what? She said yes!

Here are what one lucky winner is going to receive: one bottle of Caress Evenly Gorgeous body wash and two body bars of Evenly Gorgeous body soap.

Although I am very picky when it comes to the things that wash my body, I love this new line of Caress body product. The body wash is very yummy smelling and hydrating and the body bar is soft and smooth without leaving filmy feeling on my skin. If you haven't read my review yet, please click here.

Please click after the jump to see how to join this giveaway.


The deals are the same as of the previous giveaway but please follow direction very carefully. Incomplete submissions will be disqualified.

There are two ways to win:

1. Be a follower of my blog via Google Connection:

This is super easy and won't take you more than 3 clicks. You take a look on the right sidebar closer to this column and the "Follow" button is right underneath my "Total Beauty Member" patch. Just click on this "Follow" button and it will take you to the rest of the procedure.

2. Be my email subscriber:

This is like sitting in the front row seat of my blog: you get an email delivered to you everyday, on the day I blog. If I don't blog that day, you don't have any new mail to alert you of the cool stuff happening at My Makeup Blog. It does not take that long to register, either, and once you do, please verify your email address. If you don't, your entry will be voided.

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Once you are a follower, just fill in this form and that's it, you're done! One entry per person, please!

To recap, here are what you need to do to join this giveaway:

1. Be my follower either via Google Connection or Email. If you follow via email, please verify. Addresses that are not verified will not be eligible to win. (If you are already a follower, you can skip this step!)

2. Fill in the form and that's it, you're done!

If you have a Twitter account, please retweet.
RT @MyMakeupBlog enter to win Caress Evenly Gorgeous products http://mymakeupblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/caress-evenly-gorgeous-giveaway.html


Thank you so much!

And that's it, you're done! This giveaway is opened from now until 5pm EST or GMT +5, November 19th, 2009. Winner will be randomly chosen and announced here on Friday so please check back to see if you win. It is opened for everybody who reside in the U.S and Canada only.

I would like to thank Caress and their wonderful publicist for their generosity to furnish this giveaway. For those who enter this contest, good luck to all of you!



P.S: If you like my blog, please subscribe to my feed. Thanks a lot!

Some Quick Announcements

Hi everybody,

How was your weekend? Mine was very peaceful and quiet. We even got some free knives and Sunday newspaper yesterday just by being good :)

Did you join the Skin MD Natural giveaway? It actually ended yesterday at 5pm on my turf (Eastern standard time or GMT +5) and immediately after that, I had to close the book and choose a winner. 18 of y'all joined the contest, which was quite alright for a weekend giveaway.

As usual, I relied on Random.org to pick a winner for me. Google Docs provided me an Excel spread sheet with time stamp included, which made my life a whole lot easier. I got this idea from Stephanie since she used it for her giveaway as well.

You can see where you are in here

I have to black out some sensitive details such as your email address and last name so you don't get spammed!

And the winner, chosen by Random.org, is...

*drum roll*

LeeAnn!

Congratulations! I will send you an email shortly and hope you will enjoy this lotion as well.

For those who did not win, please don't worry. Another giveaway will come up pretty soon.

Sara from The Makeup Snob recently blogged about a fake MAC Cosmetics party. It's like a Tupperware party but instead of selling Tupperware, people sells fake MAC makeup! I've seen fake MAC on eBay and the thought of doing so already disgusted me. Now, people even take a step further and do it in broad daylight.

In her forum, she wrote of what she saw at that party:

heres a bit of what was there

-mac shadow in top knot (BBR), black tied bitter and others.
-pigments in humid? hahaha
-Fafi palettes. look just like the sleek palettes
-Hello kitty palettes. There are 6 different one. 4 with clear covers and 2 black covers. They were long like the real ones, but they had 5 shadows in each
-hello kitty mascara
-hello kitty blushes- This packaging looked really good. slick black with the pink splashes.. But it opened and there was a brush inside.
-A ton of blushes. They were all dome shaped like the mineral blushes. they opened with a brush inside.
-Temping Quad from Cult of Cherry. Colors were right now. palette looked good label the font was off.
- a whole bunch of lipgelees. I dont buy these so I cant really say what was off about them.
-Monogram compacts- Black packaging with the mongram logo as well as the logo on the powder. The box was blackish brown.
-Monogram lipglass. Lid was gold container was plastic not glass.
-a brush set. Gotta admit these brushes looked really good.
-barbie shadows. The shadow opened with a brush inside.
-mac zoomlash.
-eyeliners
-hello kitty shadow duo. was square and looked like how nyc shadows are.
-Studio Fix Foundation. This looked perfect! But no way this could be real in the middle of everything else.

Girls there was more too, this is all I can think of. It made me really sad to see all those people there. I told the girl I knew and explained to her why and showed her the differences and stuff. I really just didnt feel comfortable leaving there and ened up leaving before the presentation started. So I am not even sure how much the stuff was being sold for.

Let me tell you this. The pigmentation on everything was fabulous. The colors were spot on. All products were labeled and in boxes. Pigments had paper inserts, etc. I trully sit here in shock of it all! I feel sorry for the group that were there and the groups that are yet to be fooled.

I feel the same way, too. Although I understand the bargaining mentality, this is not a right thing to involve yourself into. If you don't have money to buy MAC, there are plenty of other companies that make fabulous products as well. I rely on NYX and L'Oreal HiP for pigmented eye shadows as well as other mineral companies out there for pigments. Seriously, you should watch out for this type of party as it may soon become a trend.

That's all for now. Congratulations, LeeAnn! Also, I would like to thank everybody who participated and promoted this giveaway. Please stay tuned as more opportunities to win free stuff are coming up really soon.



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Sunday Read List: GILTY Pleasures Weekly Blog Tour Vol. 4

Hello everybody,

It's been a month since I joined this web tour already! Time flies when you're having fun, doesn' it? I hope you enjoy this web tour as much as we do compiling it.

Alison of The Advice Sisters reports on LUCKY SHOPS the biggest, grandest discount shopping event, ever!

Lisa of Bridalease says give Vivabox the gift thatgives twice.

Dao from My Makeup Blog tried the new scent from Bath and Body Works called Twilight Woods and loved it!

The Informed Makeup Maven is giving away two Rimmel Smokey Eye Packs and shows you how to steal Heidi Klum`s look.

Gio from Beautiful With Brains reviews Collistar Eyeshadow Luminous Powder

Have you joined our latest giveaway yet? It's ending at 5pm Eastern Time so please hurry up!

I hope you're having a great weekend so far. Come back on Monday to see who wins the prize!
.



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Skin MD Naturals Shielding Lotion Giveaway

Note: This contest is over, please check back later to see if you are a winner. Thank you for your interest!

Happy Friday, everybody!

Remember my review of Skin MD Naturals Shielding Lotion from last week? Well, the kind folks from Skin MD Natural are giving away one bottle of this lotion to one lucky reader of My Makeup Blog. How wonderful is that?

So, do you want to win a bottle? It's pretty good stuff, I'm tellin' ya!


There are two ways to win:

1. Be a follower of my blog via Google Connection:

This is super easy and won't take you more than 3 clicks. You take a look on the right sidebar closer to this column and the "Follow" button is right underneath my "Total Beauty Member" patch. Just click on this "Follow" button and it will take you to the rest of the procedure.

2. Be my email subscriber:

This is like sitting in the front row seat of my blog: you get an email delivered to you everyday, on the day I blog. If I don't blog that day, you don't have any new mail to alert you of the cool stuff happening at My Makeup Blog. It does not take that long to register, either, and once you do, please verify your email address. If you don't, your entry will be voided.

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Once you are a follower, just fill in this form and that's it, you're done! One entry per person, please!

To recap, here are what you need to do to join this giveaway:

1. Be my follower either via Google Connection or Email. If you follow via email, please verify. Addresses that are not verified will not be eligible to win. (If you are already a follower, you can skip this step!)

2. Fill in the form and tell me about your favorite eye makeup product in the comment box with your email address.

If you have a Twitter account, please retweet.
RT @MyMakeupBlog enter to win a bottle of Skin MD Naturals Shielding Lotion http://bit.ly/42gc8S

Thank you so much!

And that's it, you're done! This giveaway is opened from now until 5pm Sunday, November 15th, 2009. Winner will be randomly chosen and announced here on Monday so please check back to see if you win. It is opened for everybody, regardless where you live as Skin MD Natural ships worldwide (awesome!)

I would like to thank Skin MD Natural and their wonderful publicist for their generosity to furnish this giveaway. For those who enter this contest, good luck to all of you!

Also, happy Friday the 13th! This is one grand way to celebrate it, isn't it?



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