Loving this lip scrub!!! Tastes sooo good. Yum. 



Having an official love fest with lip products now. I never would have thought I would one day be into lip products (esp when I was in my blush junkie phase) but sadly for my pockets, I now am! Despite that, my lip philosophy hasn't changed much - I still tend to prefer neutral tones (all my 3ce lipsticks are crying now - they are super neon hahaha) and stay away from sticky, shiny formulas. I usually like my lipsticks to complement the rest of my makeup rather than it being the highlight.

I just did a count of my lippies and I currently stand at.. 50+? Its not really a lot considering I only tend to use about 10 of them more frequently than the others. And honestly... you can never have enough. There's tons of different formulations and technologies on the market now, and so many shades! One thing I realize about lip products in general is that performance really does correlate with price. It is very obvious when you pay much less for a drugstore lippie which usually streaks or have really poor colour payoff. The only drugstore brand who does good lip products (and by a large margin) is Loreal. I've almost all their colors in the lip caress range and also some lipsticks in the color riche range, and they perform very closely compared with expensive brands.

Not just, I don't know know why but drugstore lipsticks just have cheap and flimsy bullets which I hate. Its like those companies never bothered to think that women are very easily duped into buying stuff they don't actually need or necessarily like - as long as they look good. High end brands, on the other hand, put much more thought into their packaging. Tom Ford is perhaps the best exemplar:





I solemnly swear I've never seen lipsticks so sexy. Doesn't it make you want to buy them all? And I mean all. I go a bit goggle eyed when I reach Tom Ford counters and swatch their lippies in a trance like state. Heck, why do I even need to swatch them. I'd buy them anyway.

I own an Estee Lauder from their signature range and it comes in this amazing weighted gold case that's super classy. Would fit right into a boudoir from the 80s. They also do amazing nudes. I have my eyes on no.21 from their signature range.



YSL is always, always on the top of my go to brands when I think about buying lipsticks and I love their packaging... so so much. It's a crime. I know some people think their excessive use of gold is tacky but it's so pretty! They also make sure their brand is ostentatiously shown - to me its not a deal breaker. After all, I did spend $50 on a lipstick, I might as well let people know its from YSL.



Too much love here. My eyes hurt from their beauty. Not a great fan of the rouge volupte formulations though, I'm currently loving the glossy stains a lot more:



Yummy.



Now this is a really interesting product that is very suited for my needs. Dior's lip glow uses a colour transforming technology that reacts to your lips to give you a customized pink shade (subtle, mind you. it is a balm after all). Sounds gimmicky I know. This tech is not new and I tried smashbox's o-glow range a few years back and was very unimpressed. I was in Sephora that day and my lips were deathly pale (the aftermath of three hours of tuition with two energetic kids). I saw the lip glow and picked it up, Meh? Looks like any other lipbalm - but I ate those words when I tried it on and after about a min or two it transformed into this lovely pink shade on my lips. Looked like I tried, or maybe I didn't? It's the type of pink you can't buy off a lipstick because its too natural. This means it'd go even if you're not wearing makeup, or when you want to complete your makeup look but want the lips to take a backseat. Inwardly I was throwing my hands up and shouting Hallelujah! Lip Glow!! What a godsend. I mean, what was I thinking, cult products are cult for a reason. Silly me.

The fun thing for me is that my natural lip color does vary depending on how hydrated I am or the weather; sometimes its colorless and sometimes its very pigmented - and so I can never quite know the end result after using the lip glow because it reacts differently each time. Sometimes its a light pink and sometimes rose. If my lips are a little more beige that day I'd even get a slight coral tone. It's also less emollient than burt's bees or fresh balms and so stays on the lips for a longer time. The biggest reason, I think, why this sells so well is probably because it is technically universal. It'd work on the porcelain fair to the olive skinned. Very smart, Dior. Very smart.

Eyeing dior's lip polish next, hehe!

Missed these folks too much so Amanda and I went back for lunch with them today. Funny enough out of the picture above, one is transferring, one has changed departments, 4 has left, one is leaving :'( I miss the big asm family! Very very much.

Even today the conference room in the museum still holds so many memories for me. The meetings, green room for weasley twins, birthday celebrations and drinking sessions. It's really therapeutic and I'm glad we both visit often enough for most of the staff there to get used for us to just pop by whenever - and it kind of feels like we never left.

So as per our routine we'd always check out the new exhibits while we're there - I've seen dino the last time I was there so I just went in to see Anne Leibovitz's photo exhibit. I'd come right out and say I don't know who the heck she is, being a complete photography outsider but her works are really quite impressive, even to the common layman. My attention was drawn more to her celebrity works, particularly her Johnny Depp and Kate Moss/Scarlet Johansson/Leonardo/Obama/Bill Gates shots.

We stopped for a while in front of the Obama family portrait and I noticed the portrait of the bearded man Obama had in the office. He looked so familiar but I just couldn't think of his name and in the end me amanda elise and kelvin stood in front of the portrait collectively racking our brains to solve the mystery hahahaha it was really funny. The conversation went smthg like


B: Who the heck is he? I know I've seen him before and for many times!
A: Yeah..... is he like a philosophist? (At that point Socrates came to mind HAHA completely different times I am embarrassed) Or something?
B: Huh no I don't think so?? More like.. an economist? OMG who is this!!
K: He's a president right? or politician
B: No la! No. (God forbid I said this lol)
*a lot of mumbling* elise keeps quiet because she doesn't even find him familiar bahahaha
K: Aiya just google!

In the end he solved the mystery by simply googling "famous people" and we realized he's Abraham Lincoln. Hahahaaaa

I had to hurry off to hotel side so I didn't have much time to really look through all the portraits, which was a waste. Would love to go back soon and see more!




Well today while I was scrolling instagram I came across this post:


This is nothing really worth sharing, but I'd do it anyway since I'm so bored. A bit of context: the necklace is from a line of jewelry made by Sun Yun Yun, one of taiwan's most famous socialites. This series features scribbles in both english and chinese of her intimate thoughts and feelings. Most likely in this situation she gifted this necklace to him. The owner of this instagram account is Sunny Wang, aka mr smouldering hot (in my eyes).



I know, I know.

In my time in comms mbs I met him during a press conference for In Time with You which was held in one of the suites. So it was a pretty small press con with selected media and I guess there were about... 70 odd people in the suite including photogs, journalists and staff? He sat on stage with the other main actors and actresses. So obviously he was very handsome and suave and damn those chiseled cheekbones and jaw ok so I was looking at him all through the press con. And he pretty much did what the necklace says. Just innocuously looking around the room but with a very smexy gaze yknw? While the other actors just focused on cams and media who were asking questions. At one point when he was doing all the looking around our eyes locked (or maybe I was dreaming, wouldn't put it past myself) and it was just. It knocked me out. In that infinite moment the noise and other ppl in the room just faded away and inwardly I was like



Yup like that. I blushed so much I look away. Somemore his look is not just poker face ok? He always looks around with a hint of a smile and slightly raised brows. This guy. Electro-machine. So unfair.
Did I ever mention there are times I look at a girl and wonder how much better she would look if she tried? What if she bothered plucking her brows, learnt the art of makeup and thought about what type of clothes look best on her body type?

I actually wanted to write a really long blog post about this but somehow my brain isn't functioning tonight.

Maybe another time.