RMK!

A while back, our company decided to do a corporate video with a local celebrity as our ambassador. I was picked to be the [ke-ler-fare] in other words - an extra. I was her so called friend who accompanies her everywhere in the video. A side kick, a shadow, a busy body etc.

So anyway, the star has absolutely gorgeous skin. So dewy and smooth that it makes you want to reach your hands out and...and...feel it! Rub your sweaty hands on her porcelain skin and see if it's real or something.

I happen to ask her which foundation she was using and she mentioned it was from the brand RMK. It was then the choir of angels flew out and sang, "Hallelujah". I knew I MUST have that foundation too.

Unfortunately, it cost a bomb and even worst, we do not have a RMK counter in Penang. This sucks chicken ass.

That leaves me no choice but to search online. No such luck. Chance upon someone selling a brand new 15ml RMK make up base for cheap so I decided to buy it and try instead. The person (who will not be named because I don't like sellers who gives ONE word replies) also has a pre-loved blusher for sale for really cheap too.

When I tried to swatch it on my hands the colours hardly shows but when I used my brush, swirl it around and applied. I looked like someone drew on me with an orange highlighter pen. It was really bright orange.

I had to tone it down with lots of buffing and powder. After that, it looks really natural. Yay!

A few days later, I read Yana's blog on her #1 favourite foundation - The Laura Mercier Silk Cream Foundation which is also Make Up Geek's Top 10 Foundations.

One word. ARGHH!

Two very expensive foundations. Decisions decisions...

Learning a new language; Viola de Gamba and Harpsichord; NOTD

I must admit that I've been very distracted lately - lots of things to worry about but at the same time lots of things to look forward to. In about a month's time, there will probably be more post that usual.

A while back, I wrote in my 2010 resolution that I decided to pick up a new language. I was debating between Chinese Mandarin and Japanese. Being a Chinese (Malaysian Chinese to be exact) people has always looked down on me because I cannot speak Chinese. Sure I can speak my own dialect but it means nothing if I can't speak Mandarin and the amount of Chinese speaks seems to be increasing.

Not to mention almost every stranger I meet speaks to me in Mandarin. I suspect it has something to do with my extremely 'Mainland Chinese' face. So picking up Chinese would be the most logical move.

My colleague Jen is actually a Mandarin teacher. Lucky right? Er.. after a few lessons, I suspect she given up on me.

So far, I can say, 'Where is the toilet?' and 'I am hungry'.

I can't seem to get the pronunciation right. I turned to JH for help instead. A while later, he too mentioned that perhaps it was better for me to try Japanese instead since I can actually pronounce the words better.

Before my Japanese colleague left, she used to teach me and Jen simple conversational Japanese so that we could pick up her calls and tell her callers she wasn't in the office. Wait! Why do I suddenly feel like a monkey?

After she left, JH ended up helping me since he speaks Japanese as well. Jen lend me her Japanese language phrasebook so slowly but surely *fingers crossed*

April 16, I tagged along with JH and family to a recital. Never been to one. This was to a Viola de Gamba and a Harpsichord Recital. What on earth is a Harpsichord?

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.
-Wikipedia

It has a very unique sound that is a little hard to describe but easily identified. It does not sound like a piano but rather an organ cross with something or another.

Anyway the venue had poor acoustic and a big block of a man was blocking my view of everything. Not that I need to see it but it would have been nice to see something other than my own shadow on the man's back.

*toot toot tot!*

NOTD

I did a white cat before this so I thought why not a black one. Was debating whether to draw the mouth or not. In the end I did and it looks a little odd.

Faced with two packets of diamante, nail glue and boredom.

Ash: What do you think?
JH: Orange is not your colour.
Ash: *&^%$#@!

Alicia's Dare to Wear Charity Challenge

After seeing Pepper doing a ganguro look for FunnyFaceBeauty.com, I was curious. What is this Charity Challenge thingie?

Basically it is a challenge to all her subscribers to recreate a make up look inspired by non other than Japan.

I have decided to use my 'Dare to Wear' challenge to dare all of you to help raise money for Japan via The Canadian Red Cross. For every person who takes my dare to wear challenge, my family will be donating $10 in their honour (ie. 100 people = $1000 for Japan).

- Alicia

Hell, I paint my face silly for free all this while so to do a challenge and the $10 gets donated to Japan sounds good to me.

Unless you live in a hole, you'll pretty much know what happened to Japan. One disaster after another but it makes me glad to see that people from around the world are scrambling to lend a hand. I'm personally not too worried. I have strong faith that Japan will rise again and fast. They were never the type to give up to begin with.

Original Storm Trooper's pic is from here

Over in Penang, there has been many charity drives and jumble sales to raise money for Japan. The last one Pinky Doodle Doo, JH and I attended was at Straits Quay. It was funny to see Star Wars' Storm Trooper going around with a donation box though.

JH and I is also doing our best to support our favourite Japanese restaurant, Isaribi Tei. Despite the owner saying that business was not affected in an interview, we could tell it has been affected badly due to the radiation scare. We would hate to see it close down despite the fact that he called my colleague 'stupido' for asking for separate bills once..

Since I've done ganguro before I decided to try something different. I decided to try a geisha inspired look. Note the inspired; I did not end up looking anything like one. It took me 2 tries and it still failed. *sigh*

I used Elianto's white foundation. Don't bother looking for it. 1) It's been discontinued since the dawn of time. 2) It's oily and sucks chicken ass. It's extremely difficult to layer without smearing everything - literally. Powdering it is a feat of it's own.

Trust me when I say I lost a chunk of hair because of this. Once you look like you fell into a sack of flour. You're ready for the next step.

Pray no one walks into your room and sees you looking like this. If they do, 'Tell them you're doing an Edward Cullen look'. They might just believe you and leave you alone.

Apply pink eyeshadow to lids, a little gold as well, line eyes with eye liner. Wing it to elongate your eyes to give you the "Asian" look. Fill in eyebrows.

Despite looking dead, you want to look like the healthy dead. Add blusher, a little will suffice. Paint lips red. I didn't wanted to add the false eyelashes because I knew it would change the shape of my eyes to something more 'rounded' but because I was not blessed and born with lots of eyelashes, I had to put some on anyway. I put them only from the middle to the end to retain my eye shape.

In the end, I think I will audition for the next Pontianak film or something. ARGH!

Next! Must.never.give.up! *grunt*

Since the geisha's white make up was a *toot toot toot* to achieve, I decided to go tan. From Edward Cullen to over baked lobster.

I did my eyes first rather than my face make up. It's easier to wipe the fallouts. Using my 15 colour pro concealer, I painted my face with the 2nd darkest shade. I swear to God, even my mom would not recognize me.

I've always thought that people who has tan skin was a lucky bunch since acne scars and all are easily covered. How wrong I was. I have a bad break out recently and even all the make up could hardly cover the scars and bumps.

I'm still sane. I found the eye lashes freaky too.

NOTD of the week

Thanks Don!

Stage cosmetics; Le pliage

I'm still debating with myself whether Pepper from FLECKS is a cruel person. After reading her posts that Stage Cosmetics was having a fantastic sale and her reviews, I rushed off to Stage cosmetics myself. Happily spent a good amount of time and only went home with JH threatening to leave me there by myself. (JH, You know you did! Don't deny!)

I didn't get an insane amount of cosmetics this round but I did promise myself to go back and get more. AAHAHAHAHA! With or without you JH!

They are RM12 for a reason. This is the reason. It's nearing expiry.

Based on Pepper's review on the foundation, I had to get them too and I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised. It had good texture and coverage. I got it in 02 Take 1. 01 Take 1 was pinkier and this was more yellowish. I know for a fact that yellow based foundations fit me better than pink base.

I was initially worried about the coverage as the MUA mentioned that the coverage was a little sheer. Uh...okay. It's actually medium to build able. When applied, it's a little shimmery but after blending. Everything looks great and I love it!

Besides that I got an eye primer for Pinky Doodle Doo, a moisture lipstick for my mom that she likes and asked me to buy more of. Aye Aye Ma'am! Then the nail polish remover that I have yet to use and one nail polish in Delicate. It's a pale pink/peach slight shimmery colour. Definitely something I see myself using often.

However, there is no swatch of the nail colour for a good reason. After applying 3 coats of it, I realize it couldn't cover my fingernail's discolouration. I don't blame the nail colour but my nails were so yellow that lighter colours can no longer cover them. This is shocking. I've decided to not paint my nail for as long as I can to give them time to grow out. *sigh*
Too many years of abuse. My nails has not be NOT coloured for the past few years. Imagine that.

My only complains was that the lighting in the shop was horrendous. Everything was under soft yellow light. Don't get me wrong but under soft yellow lights, everything looks good. Your skin looks good, your foundation fits you, your eyeshadow soft and even etc etc. Under normal lights, you look like you fell into someone's birthday cake. Enough said.

Picture stolen from Sue of MyBeautyFeeds

I ended up swatching everything and placing my hand under the shelves white lighting to get an accurate colour which got tiring after a while. The white light was places behind the shelves where there is a small gap between the top and bottom shelves.

Edited 07/04: The MUA are unfriendly until you buy something. Seriously. Until you put something in your basket, will they give you a smile. Worst they hardly speak English.

In the end, I thank you Pepper for letting us know about the sale. :D

Mom's bday is coming soon and since JH's little brother was coming back from the UK for Spring break, I decided to get the Longchamp Le pliage bag for mom. It's much cheaper there. I can't afford to get it here in Malaysia or from Singapore where it's suppose to be even cheaper than Malaysia.

After thinking long and hard, I decide to eat grass and get one for myself too. I'm keeping the Le Pliage M in Navy for myself. Heeee~ I know this bag is definitely not for everyone but somehow I ended falling for it. Weird. So I got two bags from UK for the price of ONE in Malaysia.

Oh, I finally found you, you damned elusive, YOU!

Went to 1st Avenue and spotted a Hello Kitty shop and went in. Ta daa, the last one too. I suspect the so-called Hello Kitty shop imports everything from China and not Japan. So these are not authentic Hello Kitty stuffs, me thinks.

I spotted the pan from far but as I went near, the sales person's boyfriend picked it up, insulted the pan, 'What is this for? Eggs? What good is this, how useless. .. bla bla'. I was too embarrassed to go pick it up so I pretended to browse around. Before I could reach it, another customer picked it up, insulted it, put it down and by then, I grabbed the pan, walked to cashier, paid and walked straight out. GAH!

Pancakes, you idiots! Pancakes! Imagine cute little Hello Kitty pancakes! Cooking eggs on it will barely bring out Hello Kitty's face but with pancakes you can see it's Hello Kitty! Morons.

Ah well, one man's junk is another man's treasure. :P

Now to remind JH to buy me the Hello Kitty Toaster and Waffle Maker I saw on Ebay as a wedding gift. WHEN and IF, I get married. To him or someone else anyway.