Review + Swatches: Lipstick Queen Lip Nouveau

Hello beautiful strangers, I got a bit slack with my gift reviews didn't I... 
I've been so ridiculously busy and tired, anyway today I'm sharing with you the Lipstick Queen Lip Nouveau set. Lip nouveau is a set of three lipsticks, featuring Red Sinner, Saint Berry and Butterfly Ball in Fly.

I've never tried Lipstick Queen lipsticks before so this trio was a little taster into their huge array of lipsticks. Poppy King, the founder of Lipstick Queen found inspiration from the Art Nouveau movement when envisioning Lip Nouveau, so the colours in this set are suppose to evoke the decadent glamour of 1930s Paris. Umm, what? Anyway, I've swatched these on my lips for you today, so I hope, along with my comments, that you find this helpful if you too are looking to delve into Lipstick Queen lipsticks.

Zoeva Rose Golden Luxury Set!

Okay, so I know I pretty much start every post saying I have something beautiful to show you, but really, what’s coming is truly STUNNING.

The Zoeva Rose Golden Luxury Set is what I would consider the perfect brush set. Not only are they unbelievably beautiful, this set is just so well curated – these are the only brushes I’d ever need to use. This eight piece set, with rose gold ferrules paired with matte black handles, consists of a mix of synthetic and natural bristles.

Benefit's Cheeky Sweet Spot box o’ blushes!

OMG get excited y’all, because I have something seriously beautiful to show you! May I present to you, the Benefit Cheeky Sweet Spot box o’ blushes!

The Benefit box o’ blushes is so full of cuteness I can barely handle it. Looking at this makes me salivate – this truly is better than candy. I sat at my desk staring at it in a daze for quite a while when I got home…

Shop my Stash: Nails

As much as I love lipstick, nail polish is my biggest vice. Here are some favourites that I've rediscovered from my collection. :)

L to R: Bourjois Violine Hypnotique, Revlon Vixen, Revlon Facets of Fuchsia,
OPI Russian Navy, OPI Berlin There Done That, Essie Sand Tropez  

Shop my Stash: Lips

With the change of seasons, comes the change in lip colours, and since I really need to refrain from spending money on unnecessary things, I did a little shopping around in my collection and here are the six lippies that I've rekindled my love for.

Loves of October

Hello beautiful strangers, it has been a while hasn’t it…

October has been super packed - I worked at an art auction, went on a holiday to Siem Reap, studied for midterms, and then had another crap load of coursework to get done. But I’m alive and back with my favourite things from October, hey better late than never…

Luxola Haul :)

hello beautiful strangers, sharing a bit of online shopping with you today 

Luxola has got to be one of my favourite beauty discoveries this year! I used to mainly shop via UK based beauty sites and shipping restrictions were so frustrating! I really want to try Barry M and Nail Inc. nail polishes *cry*. So when I discovered Luxola I was beyond excited because they could ship me nail polish, amongst other things. Luxola is based in Singapore and currently they only ship within Asia, as well as Australia and United Arab Emirates (sorry my lovelies who live in New Zealand, Europe and North America) Luxola always has some really good coupon codes going, so I picked up some goodies that I was very excited to try!

Makeup Empties: Lancôme Mascara & K-Palette Eyeliner

Hello beautiful strangers! Apologies for the long absence I haven't abandoned you, I promise! Uni has started again and I've been busy adjusting to the real world. Anyway, today let's talk eye make up - I've used up a mascara and an eyeliner, so let's see what I thought of them...

I washed my brushes this morning :)

Hello Beautiful strangers, I washed my make up brushes this morning so I thought I would give you a quick run-down of the 10 brushes that I've been reaching for lately.

Jo Malone Wood Sage and Sea Salt

Escape the everyday along the windswept shore. Waves breaking white, the air fresh with sea salt and spray. Alive with the mineral scent of the rugged cliffs. Mingling with the woody earthiness of sage. Lively, spirited and totally joyful.

When I first read about Wood Sage and Sea Salt a month or so ago, I thought, oooh, how intriguing, I’d like to smell like that. So last Thursday when I was at Lane Crawford with my friend, about to go look at shoes, I was like, “No wait, we need to go to Jo Malone!” and there it was – Wood Sage and Sea Salt, sitting pretty on display.

Sunday Treat: Borghese Fango Active + Fango Delicato Active Mud

There is nothing more invigorating than a mud mask when your skin is feeling a bit urgh. Today we’re covering the Borghese Fango Active mud mask. This cult product is probably THE original deep-cleansing mud mask in the world.

Review + Swatches: Bourjois Colour Boost Lip Crayons

Hello Beautiful Strangers!

Everyone knows how important SPF is, especially in summer. And while we slather it all over our face in the hopes of preventing aging, we often overlook our lips. Putting on a lip colour as well as an SPF is so tedious, and in summer you just want something light-weight and fuss-free. So without sacrificing either, the Bourjois Colour Boost Lip Crayons are the perfect solution! These bright glossy lip crayons boast a waterproof formula that provides 10 hours of hydration and an SPF of 15.

Orange you my first love

Hello beautiful strangers, happy August 1^st! Today we're going to muse on my first make up loves...

Sunday Treat: Antipodes Aura Manuka Honey Mask

Hello beautiful strangers, hope you're having a lovely weekend. Every Sunday I'm going to bring to you one of my favourite indulgences. Be it a luxurious facial, a pampering body product, a delectable recipe, or even something as simple as a cup of tea. First up today is the Antipodes Aura Manuka Honey mask. If you're a frequent reader of beauty blogs I'm sure you've heard all about it already. 

The Slick Traveller – IPSA Face Color Designing Palette

Hello beautiful strangers, today I’m sharing with you one of my favourite face palettes. The IPSA face colour designing palette is such a beauty and possibly the slickest travelling companion ever!

The colour designing face palette was ranked the #1 cheek product for the first half of 2014 on the Japanese beauty site cosme.net, and it is currently still reigning as numero uno. This ultra slick compact contains the four essentials: Blush, Highlight, Shading and Finishing powder. It includes a full size mirror and a dual-ended brush. The brush is surprisingly nice, the bristles are so soft and the longer side is perfect for swiping on blush or bronzer and the shorter denser side is great for more controlled application. This palette contains everything you need for accentuating the natural contours of your face.

Review & Swatches: Tanya Burr Lip glosses

Wouldn't it be the life if we could just Picnic in the Park on a Chic, Exotic Island while we Smile, Dream, Sparkle all day every day? As idyllic as that sounds, sadly we all have something called responsibilities so we’ll just have to make do by indulging in lip glosses. If you haven’t guessed already, today we’re talking about some of my favourite lip glosses– the Tanya Burr lip gloss line.

Review + Swatches: Rimmel Scandaleyes Waterproof Kohl Kajal & Eye Shadow Sticks

I’m not much of an eye makeup kind of girl but these have got to be some of my favourite eye products ever! 

The Rimmel Scandaleyes are the best eye liners I've ever tried. They’re so easy to use and don’t drag at all and once applied, they do not budge. And not to mention how extremely budget friendly they are. The same goes for the eye shadow sticks, so creamy yet so long lasting!

Top-bottom: Eye shadow sticks in Bulletproof Beige, Bootleg Brown, Bad Girl Bronze. Kohl liners in Bronze, Nude, Black

Braziliant #nailgame

Hello beautiful strangers!

Can you believe it's the semi-finals of the FIFA World Cup already? This month has gone by way too fast. Anyway, it's Brazil vs. Germany tonight so I thought it would be fitting to paint my nails with Essie Braziliant. 

Braziliant is a bright hot orange with white shimmer. The polish has good opacity and is easy to work with. On my computer screen it looks more orange, but in real life I feel that it's even more intense with a strong coral hue. Essie polishes retail for $70hkd and are available in store and online here and here

The name captures it perfectly, this colour really is the epitome of summer in Brazil - if this nail polish doesn't make you feel as glam as Giselle then I don't know what will... 

Ball games I might suck at, but at least my #nailgame is en point, oui?

Empties: Kiehl's Skincare

Hello beautiful strangers, today I'm sharing with you mini reviews on two Kiehl's skincare products that I've used up lately.

Loves of June

Hello beautiful strangers, it's crazy how fast time goes by as you get older. Here's what I've been loving for the month of June.

Linzi's Lustlist: Pay-day Picks!

Hello beautiful strangers,

It's the end of the month, which only means one thing, that's right -  PAY-DAY! We're officially half way through the year, so a girl's entitled to treat herself, oui? So here are a few things that I've had my eyes on lately...

Review: Rimmel London Lasting Finish Colour Rush Balms

Who didn’t love crayons as a kid? Actually, I didn’t, they were so waxy and the colour payoff was crap. But I do really like lip crayons! The ones that I’ve tried up to now have all been lovely with good colour payoff, and the Rimmel Colour Rush balms are no exception. These “long lasting intense colour balms” really do live up to their name and today I’m gonna share with you 100 give me a cuddle and 130 I want Candy!.

Empties: Caudalie skincare

Hello beautiful strangers,

I used up a lot of skincare products recently so there will be lots of mini reviews on my finished products coming up. Up first today, are three products from Caudalie. If you haven't tried Caudalie before, I hope you find this helpful :)

Review: Paul & Joe Cheek Colours in 03 & 04

It’s the middle of the week and I’m sure we could all do with a pick-me-up. And there’s nothing better for that than a pop of blush! In the spotlight today are the Paul & Joe Cheek Colours. Paul & Joe products are so cutely packaged it makes you wonder if it’s just a gimmick. But let me assure you, these blushes are as pleasing as they look.

Review + Swatch: YSL Kiss & Blush #5 Rouge Effrontée

Hello beautiful strangers, as promised, today I'm going to review and swatch the (relatively new) YSL Kiss & Blush in the shade #5 Rouge Effrontée. These are a new soft matte colour designed to be used on both lips and cheek. Rouge Effrontée is a pink-based coral red, the kind of colour I would categorise as “strawberry red”. Most of the time dual-purpose products work better as one thing than the other, but this isn't the case here. Kiss & Blush wears equally beautiful on both cheek and lip.

The Little Things: Breakfast with my Father

So it's Fathers' Day tomorrow, what are you doing with your dad? Me? I'm gonna wake up at 6am to watch the England vs. Italy football match with my dad and then have breakfast together. My parents never really appreciate material gifts, really, I'm sure if you ask any parent they would much rather spend some quality time with you. Your dad doesn't need a new ugly tie, or socks or even an expensive coffee maker; just spend some time with him. 

We all lead such busy lives these days, we rarely eat breakfast together with our family. So this Sunday, cook your dad breakfast or have a beer together, and catch up, have a good old chat. Especially you teenagers out there, don't give your parents such a rough time, try not to roll your eyes when they try to strike up conversation. After all, they're the only people in this universe who put up with your bullshit and still love you unconditionally. My dad and I lived in different countries when I was a kid, so I only got to see him a couple of times a year. So now that we do live together, I'm really appreciating the conversations that we have.

So just in time for fathers' day, I've put together a list of some of my favourite breakfast ideas to inspire you to cook breakfast for your family. Even if you're a rubbish cook, it's the thought that counts. :)

Review: Real Techniques Sam’s Picks Brush Collection

Hello my pretties, who doesn’t love make up brushes? I’m sure you all know (and love) Real Techniques by now, and if you don’t, well then, where the hell have you been? But don’t fret, I’ve got you covered, today let’s talk about the Real Techniques Sam’s Picks Collection. I’ve had this set for around three months now, and I really really like it!

The Sam’s Picks Collection contains six brushes – multi-task brush, setting brush, buffing brush, pointed foundation brush, and two eye brushes. In my opinion these are really good choices and make a great starter kit as you can do a full face and more with this set. The wide range of brushes in this set make for a good introduction to the Real Techniques Brush Collection if you’ve never tried anything from them before.

Strawberry smooch: Revlon Strawberry Suede dupes!

After years of hearing Lisa Eldridge and Estée hailing Revlon’s Strawberry Suede as their favourite lipstick, you can only imagine the heart attack I had when I spotted this discontinued beauty at Boots while on vacation in Thailand. I didn’t pick it up right away as I didn’t have any cash on me that day, but I basically spent every waking moment thinking about my discovery, obsessively googling swatches and reading rave reviews.

A few days later, immediately after my purchase I whacked it straight on despite the fact that I had no other makeup on and was about to hop on a flight home. I felt rather like a clown, walking around the airport, bespectacled and makeup-less but with striking red lips. 

Too be honest, I was kind of disappointed, Strawberry Suede didn’t look as amazing as I had imagined. In fact, I had something quite similar in my collection; which is why we are here today. May I present to you, not one, but TWO dupes for Revlon Strawberry Suede.

Manicure Monday: Revlon Wintermint

How dinky and cute is the packaging of the Revlon Parfumerie™ Scented Nail Enamel, it really is reminiscent of the dusty vintage parfum bottles on your grandma’s dresser or at the thrift shops. But in the real world, cute usually translates to impractical. The stupid stubby round cap makes it hard to get a good grip of the brush, and the brush itself is really thin which is such a pain as it’s hard to coat your nails efficiently. Good golly, I haven’t even applied it on my nails yet and I already have so many gripples with it.

I picked up the shade Wintermint as it’s a duplicate of Deborah Lippmann’s Mermaid’s dream. The Revlon Parfumerie polishes retailing at $60hkd are almost a quarter of the price of Deborah Lippmann polishes. In my opinion Wintermint is not as nice as Mermaid’s dream. Wintermint looks flat whereas Mermaid’s dream is denser and has more dimension and shimmer. Nonetheless it’s still fun being at a fraction of the price of the Deborah Lippmann. Now if only they would make a dupe of Mermaid’s kiss, which is my favourite of the Deborah Lippmann mermaid series.   

Oh, hey Summer beauty: MAC Alluring Aquatics

You’re all probably really sick of reading about MAC’s Alluring Aquatic collection, but I don’t care, I’m gonna put in my two cent anyway. Because seriously, how freaking gorgeous is the packaging?! When I first saw this online it got my heart seriously racing and I’m not even a die-hard MAC fanatic. In fact, I hardly own anything from MAC; an eye shadow, a paint pot, and now this stuff. I’ve always found going into MAC really daunting, do you feel like that too? The MAC girls, dressed all in black, just seemed really snobby – sitting around fixing their own makeup or chatting amongst themselves. And also the fact that MAC is always really darn full whenever I walk by. Anyway, 4^th June (HK release date) came and I practically ran to the department store after work. I got there all sweaty and out of breath and to my horror, the lipsticks weren’t in the display; I almost had a heart attack, how could they have sold out so soon, it was only 4pm… In panic I asked the beauty adviser and she almost laughed at me, no, no, she just hasn’t put them out yet. Phew

Oops, I went shopping: YSL Beauty

Hello beautiful strangers, who doesn’t love a bit of YSL? Just wanted to share with you some of the lovely things I picked up recently.

My sweet sweet girlfriends got me a blush and a lipstick for my birthday.

Blush Radiance in #2 is a gorgeous golden peach. It has a mix of a matte and a shimmer shade, so you can custom blend it to your own preference, giving you a healthy subtle glow. It’s unlike anything in my collection and will be perfect in Summer paired with a swipe of bronzer for that golden goddess look.

#1 Le Rouge – the name says it all! This Rouge Pur Couture lipstick is a gorgeous bright red. Who doesn’t love a YSL lipstick? Merci beaucoup mes amies.

During your birthday month, YSL offers you a complimentary mini facial and evening makeup look. On my visit, I picked up a Gloss Volupte and the new Kiss & Blush.

Gloss Volupte in #203 Corail Gandoura completely flew under my radar. While looking at swatches online, I had my eyes set on #15, #19 and #202. #203 is a pale peachy coral. The makeup artist used it on me and it was so pretty. It’s gorgeous paired with a smokey eye or as an everyday shade.

Kiss & Blush in #5 Rouge Effrontee I was really excited to see these in store. I love multipurpose products as it feels like you’re really getting the value for your money. I love that natural flush red blushes give.

Have you tried any of these and what are your favourite YSL products? Hope you enjoyed the little bit of eye candy. I’ll post swatches and in depth reviews soon, so keep your eyes out for that! 

Linzi :)

Loves of May

Hello beautiful strangers, here's what I've been loving for the month of May.


Lioele Nail Polish #10 Cream Purple
#10 Cream Purple is a pink-toned pastel purple. I don't usually go for pink or purple nail colours, but I adore this! I painted my nails with this for three consecutive times (something which I never do) and could not stop staring at my nails. This colour is so gorgeous and adds a pop of colour without being too in your face. It's so creamy and elegant, and gives you a really polished look (not unlike the effect of nude nail polish), making this a very office appropriate shade. You can pick this up at Colourmix for $35hkd or online.


Lioele Blooming Lip Gloss  
After years of hearing Korean beauty bloggers raving about these, I finally picked up #2 Flower Pink and #6 Vanilla Pink (at Colourmix for $50hkd). These lipglosses are so smooth it's like putting silk on your lips; non-sticky, moisturising and good colour pay-off. 
#2 is coral with a slight shimmer, giving a really shiny plump look on the lips. I reach for this A LOT as an everyday gloss, or when I don't know what to wear. #6 is a true pink with lots of shimmer, it looks almost metallic in the bottle, but don't worry it's not at all frosty on the lips. It has more opacity than #2 and looks like a yummy berry milkshake, it looks great with both a fresh face or a heavier make up look.  Also, these lip glosses smell AMAZING, like some kind of peachy Asian candy. The scent, colour and smooth formula make these such a wonderful pick-me-up throughout the day, plus, how pretty is the tube.

YSL Gloss Volupté #203 Corail Gandoura

Oh golly, I love YSL and usually their luxurious gold packaging makes me swoon, but the packaging of this new release is kind of ugly; the chunky silver band makes it so tacky, it would have been much prettier if the Cassandre logo was in gold detailing like the Rouge Volupté lipsticks. But superficial things aside, YSL's new lip glosses are superb! The formula is so lightweight and smooth (again, like silk on your lips) and the colour range is really versatile. I have #203, a lovely creamy peachy coral; the colour goes with EVERYTHING. It makes your lips look so kissable and since it isn't sticky, this is my "go-to" gloss for dates with le bf. Being in the Rouge Volupté family these have the signature mango scent, but to me, here it smells lighter, kind of like mango gelato. I really would love more of these but they come with a hefty price tag of $260hkd *cries*. 

Rimmel Kate Moss Matte Lipstick #110
Ah, this is such a beauty. This orangey red really brightens up your complexion and is definitely a staple for Summer. (Side note: I love me a bold lip, but how do you wear lipstick/gloss on dates and keep it in tact but still kiss your boy? I really haven't figured this out, so do tell me your tips!)
The matte formula gives this a really sexy retro feel, and I feel so good about myself when I wear this (tehehe). These lipsticks are such good quality for the drugstore; the colour intensity is so bright and the matte formula is easy to work with and isn't too drying either. Though I'm really not a fan of the weird melon scent. The lasting power is great, though after a meal it will look really patchy so keep your lipstick and pocket mirror handy.

Lioele nail polish #10, Lioele lip gloss #6 & #2, YSL gloss volupte #203, Rimmel kate lipstick #110

Milkmaid Braids

Hong Kong's summers are so infamously hot and sweaty, so I've really been loving wearing my hair in milkmaid braids. It's so easy to do and is a youthful playful way of keeping your hair out of your face. It's so much more fun than a boring ponytail, which I feel isn't sufficient at combating the heat as I can still feel my hair all around my neck.

Book of the month: The Cuckoo's Calling, Robert Galbraith

OMG, Cuckoo's Calling was so good! I don't know why it's taken me so long to pick this up. I've really missed J.K Rowling's style of writing, it's so descriptive and captivating and really paints the picture. I'm actually so excited for the sequel, coming out this month!  

So there you have it, my favourite things of May and my very first blog post. I hope you enjoyed it, and had a lovely first week of June. What have you been loving lately, I would love to know!

Thanks for reading! Happy Sunday and good night :)

P.S - Hi, I'm Linzi!