Review: Avon Anew Clinical Eye Lift

I'm blessed with double eyelids but the depth of the cut was different on my two eyes.  As I get older, the droopiness seems to make this difference more obvious.  Hence, my search for a good eye cream began.

So far, the only eye cream I've used is the Olay Definity eye illuminator which only helps with discoloration.  After reading some reviews, I ordered this Avon Eye Lift gel/cream.

Lid off~ The container is pretty small and cute. 

There is a protective cover to prevent the gel and cream from leaking or mixing.

Top: upper eye gel, Bottom: under eye cream

Information on the packaging:

 Product information about the gel and the eye cream.

Ingredients

The first time i tried this, I thought I saw immediately result after sleeping with this serum on.  However, I'm not sure whether I was just seeing things.  I have been using this serum/cream for 4-5 months and I don't see too much difference anymore. 

What I found

• Nice texture: the lower cream is super moisturizing and very soft
• Upper gel glides on your lids nicely 
• Not sure about the lifting effect. 
• The duo-pocket packaging is not really practical.  Some mixing of the gel/cream near the lid occurs very easily. 

Score: 3.5 out of 5

Overall: I'm not sure what to think about this after so long.  I was using it continuously for a few months.  However, even after stopping for 2-3 weeks, I don't really notice much difference.  Maybe it wasn't that much effective on me to start with.

Having fun with nail art & rhinestones (LOTS!)

Recently, I became interested in nail arts. I found these packages of colorful rhinestones and beads from a local store and thought I just had to try these out.  Would you look at these gorgeous beads and rhinestones?  Seriously, click on it and look at the full size photo!  They are eye candies~

 If you see my previous gothic nails (3D nail deco with Konad), this would be my second attempt with these glue-on 3D nail decoration.  Without further ado, here are my nails...

I was going for an elegant style that mimics the feel of those Japanese/Korean acrylic nail arts, which couldn't (shouldn't?) be duplicated exactly by regular nail polish.  The decorating was fun but not so easy.  Mind you my 10 nails took a FEW hours to do with countless re-do's.

First attempt with Konad and nail decoration~

Work has kept me busy, which led to no posting for such a long time.  >_<  So here is a quick post about the nails I did today.  I have been dying to try the Konad nail art.  I was trying for a Gothic feel and here are the results.....

Pardon me for the cracked skin....I only remembered to moisturize them after I saw how badly dehydrated they were in the photos.

I'm still a novice in both Konad and 3D nail arts.  I realized half way through that the designs were a bit too different on each nails.  However at that point,  I just couldn't bare myself to redo everything again.  Any how, I'm quite satisfied for my first attempt!

Review: Clean & Clear finishes pore perfecting moisturizer

I can't resist showing you a lovely pic of my newly-acquired stuff animal. Ta da~  Squirt from Finding Nemo. Unfortunately he is not the main focus of this post. Look closer, closer, much closer! I actually want to talk about the moisturizer in its hands (or perhaps feet?).

So here it is...Clean & Clear finishes pore perfecting moisturizer

 

According to Clean & Clear, 

it softens the appearance of pores with light diffusing minerals to give you a beautiful, smooth finish. It’s lightweight, oil-free and won’t clog pores.

Active Ingredients: Avobenzone (3%), Octisalate (5%), Octocrylene (1.7%), Oxybenzone (3%)

What I like about it....

• SPF15
• oil free but fairly moisturizing
• no heavy or sticky feeling on the skin
• mattifies the skin
• very cheap 
• no sparkles (although it mentions about light diffusing minerals, not visible to my eyes at least)
• hygiene packaging: sleek squeezable tube

This moisturizer is fairly moisturizing even for the Canadian fall weather.  However, I did have to put on a bit more than during the summer time.  I am not so sure how it would perform during the upcoming winter time though.  I would say this is a cheap and effective moisturizer.  Don't expect anything fancy but it'll do the job.  I didn't experience any noticeable changes to my skin, which is not very sensitive to begin with.

Score: 4 out of 5

Overall: Great day moisturizer for the ones with skins that don't require special treatment.  I would recommend giving it a try.  I might repurchase it if I run out of my moisturizer stock.

Lastly, we have Squirt again...

Graduated and got my dream job!

Ever since I defended and officially stopped being a grad student earlier this June, I have been slowly job hunting and doing some more work for my professor.  Just as I was about to give up, I accidentally came across a job opening in the area similar to what I studied during undergrad.  I'm proud to announce that I have landed the job the beginning of September and have since started working at the company.  However, with my day day and night works (being one of the decoration personnel for my sister's wedding), I couldn't find any ME-time during the past month, let alone blogging.  Sorry for neglecting my blog. 

However, I have yet figured out a balance with my work and blogging.  Hopefully I'll be able to keep posting some odds and ends about makeup and skincare very soon!  ^________^

My First Trip to Disney World

The 2 weekends ago I went to Disney World in Orlando, FL with my sister and our 2 best friends.  I always thought that I should make a trip to Disney before I get too old and loose my interest in cute things.  Needless to say, I was really happy that we decided to go to Disney.

We ended up going to Epcot instead of Magic Kingdom.  It was fun but I wish there were more Disney related things.  My next travel wish list will definitely be Magic Kingdom or maybe Japan Disneyland.

Just thought I'll share some photos of the trip.  The weather in Florida is SOOOO humid and hot, much like how it was in Taiwan. 

On our first day...
we went to Daytona Beach, Universal Studio City Walk and Downtown Disney. It was raining for the whole weekend so our trip at the beach was very memorable (sarcastically speaking).  For some reason, we all left our swim suits at the hotel.  It started pouring heavily minutes after we got out of the car at Daytona beach, so our original idea to just walk into the water with our shorts was put to a halt.  Not only that, we managed to get our rental car stuck in the soft sand.  Since it took us an hour to get there, we felt so silly & shameful that we didn't actually swim in the water.  We managed to at least get our feet wet.  Other than that....well...the salad bar @ Ruby Tuesday in Daytona Beach was great! 

We spent the rest of the first day at Universal city walk and the night at Downtown Disney.

We were all super tired by the end of the day.  But I was really excited with my first encounter of Disney stuffs.  The Pleasure Island at Downtown Disney was in reality a Disney shopping mall masked successfully into a theme park like area for shopping and dining.  But I can't deny how excited I was when I stepped into those stores. 

We had a late night dinner after our visit to the Pleasure Island.  We were really hungry and finally settled with Pizzeria Uno nearby.  The food was so so and the wait at the table was quite long.  The decoration was close to 80s family restaurant style.

Crafty bridal shower idea

For my sister's bridal shower, the three bridesmaids decided to create uniforms for the four of us to wear.  So once the ideas were formed, the currently unemployed crafty person, which is me, was put to work under pressure.  We saw these super cute "Thing" shirts during the out-of-town bridal shower getaway trip at Orlando, FL.  Remember those creates called Thing One and Thing Two from Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat book?

What some creative dude at Universal Studio made these into four Thing shirts.

We thought it was the perfect shirts to have. So....I was put to work. I bought some normal tees from Michaels and used fabric paint to draw these adorable "thing" bubbles on each shirt.  They turned out to be pretty cool when you look at all 4 shirts today.  Noticed how the Bride-to-be has a little crown on her "thing 1" shirt? 
 
And we didn't just let the idea stopped here.  We decided to do a makeover for all four shirts.  Although the makeover was a lot harder than I imaged and I would say some shirts didn't turn out as I want, it was definitely fun. 

Of the four shirt, I like the makeover on the Thing One shirt the most.  It was more elegant and wearable than the other 3.  Consider I was given a short notice, I would say this is still a job well done.