Lunasol Nature Colour Eyes No. 05 Nature Colourful

(Information taken from the Lunasol website)

A four-color eye shadow set that captures the most beautiful scenery of the Earth in a simple palette.

"Nature Color Highlight," a highlight color in a new formulation, adds a succulent radiance and clarity to the eyes. The layering of color produces an amazing gradation of tones with a moist luster.

The colors stay clear forever, with a deep nuance to please the eye.

I have to tell you the truth, I am not particularly in love with Lunasol palettes. Dear sweet Elaine first introduced me to them when she passed some of her beloved palettes to play with. You can see them here. I do understand why many people like them. The palettes often have shimmery and soft colours and are easy to use.

See what I mean, soft and shimmery.

I applied the pink shade all over my ids and the butter cream yellow shade on my brow bones.

Then I packed the lavender shade on my lids to above my crease.

I used the brown shade on the outer corner of my eyes.

I wore this for my dance classes and did notice a little fall out of the shimmer under my eyes after about 5 hours. 

It is a pretty palette but just not my cup of tea.

Ratings: 2++ lipsticks

Maldives: Makeup Edition

You know I cannot resist buying makeup items at the DFS shops in Changi Airport. The moment I know I am flying I will start making a list of things I have to pick up. So here is my Maldives haul so to speak. DFS at Male International Airport isn't as good as Singapore. I will always advise my friends to shop before departing to their destination. You save on GST.

My mascara is more than a year old. So I thought I better change it. I use to own the Chanel Inimitable Waterproof mascara.  remembered liking it so I picked that up for SGD $39.50. I have been eyeing Convoitise ever since I heard it was out. I love Illusion D'ombres a lot. It was going for SGD $41.30 as compared to SGD $52 in town.

I grabbed this after reading Sunny's post from Most Sunny. I don't usually buy travel palettes because I am sure I will not use some items but this looks like an all around winner for me.

I blame this on Meryl from Memosielle. After seeing her post on it and seeing her swatches I knew I had to have it. You can only buy this on Singapore Airlines flights if I'm not mistaken. I bought this beauty for SGD $71.

On to something makeup related. I have a tendency to bring too many makeup items for my trips, this time around, I packed very little (pats myself on the back). Can you imagine I restricted myself to just three lipsticks, one blush and a few of my Laura Mercier Caviar Sticks and my new Chanel Stylo Eye Shadow in Moon River. In the end I did not put on any makeup at all save for my NARS Satin Lip Pecil in Luxembourg. 

Excuse the cheesy picture. I was over the moon to be served noodles with duck breast. Here I am sans makeup.

It just seemed too OTT to put on makeup at a beach resort. I did however see ladies toting their Chanel bags and walking in their heels and getting trapped in the sand. I seriously don't get that. Why would you bring your expensive handbag to a beach resort. No one is going to care. Everyone is busy looking at the marine life. I can't say I am the most practical person around but it just boggles my mind. Okay end of my mini rant.

Swatches and reviews soon I promise. I currently have most of my posts on a schedule (I have been very productive heh, I pity my wallet.) Be patient, you will see the swatches soon.

Burberry Light Glow No. 09 Coral Pink Swatches and Review

New releases from Burberry are few and far in between so when something new comes out, I'm literally all over them. 

Coral Pink is part of the new two permanent blushes that have been released as part of the spring 2013 collection called Siren Red. You can see my guerrilla swatches of the two blushes and lip glosses over here. 

Let me just talk about Hydrangea Pink which is also an equally breath-taking blush. But somehow I just feel that they are both very similar in tone and colour, it is just that the intensity is different. Coral Pink is slightly warmer and less intense. I am personally wary about wearing Hydrangea Pink because it looks very easy to overdo. So for once in my life, I was actually very sane and clear headed at the counter and managed to walk away with just one blush. I need to pat myself on the back now. Hehe.

I just love Burberry blushes. They are pigmented and finely milled. Yes there is a fragrance, some people don't like it, I do.

This is an intense blush colour for me. I can't use my Koyudo blush brush because it picks up way too much pigment for this blush. Even my Hakuhodo blush brush picks up too much pigment. So for this blush I use my trusty old MAC 187 duo fiber brush.

I like my blush to be softly sheered out. I'm not used to having a lot of colour on my cheeks so I hope you are able to see Coral Pink on my cheeks in the picture below. I had to actually tissue some of it off before I left the house because it just looked too much.

I kind of feel like Coral Pink is the much neglected sister as compared to Hydrangea Pink. It is a lovely blush to give you that healthy spot of colour. Burberry blushes are really long lasting on me. I love that they are matte because they don't emphasize my pores. Big thumbs up!

Take your time picking this up since they are permanent. For SGD $63, it is worth getting. 

Ratings: 5 lipsticks

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Maldives: The Travel Edition

Visiting Maldives is on my bucket list since forever. The moment I saw pictures of the beautiful turquoise sea and the villas over the water I knew I had to go there to visit. So this June holidays, I managed to convince DH to go. It was 6 days of bliss.

In order to get to Maldives you need to fly to Male. You have to fly pass Sri Lanka (southeast of Sri Lanka I think). The journey takes about 4 and a half hours from Singapore. Ibrahim Nasir International airport is on an island by itself. To get to the city of Male you have to take a speedboat. Usually most tourists skip the city and head out to their individual resorts.

The thing was Maldives is, it is not the most accessible place. In order to get to your resort you either need to take a speedboat if your resort is near the airport but most tourists need to take an air taxi. They are not cheap. And flight schedules are finicky depending on the weather. They also don't fly at night so if you happen to land in Male at night be prepared to wait till the morning to fly  to your resort. We arrived on a cloudy and somewhat rainy day so we had to wait for a good 4 hours at the air taxi terminal before we could fly out to our resort. So be patient. As Singaporeans we expect things to run like clockwork and it doesn't in reality so we had to manage our expectations.

I chose Centara Grand was because it was ranked highly as a family resort. I wanted to make sure DS had things to do on the island. They had a kids camp but unfortunately catered more towards younger children. They are also the few resorts that allow families with children to book the above water villas. 

These resorts are usually all inclusive. This means that the room you book comes with meals and drinks. Prices of things in Male are exorbitant so a lunch for family of three can come up to USD $150. So in order not to worry about this we chose the all inclusive which meant all meals are included plus afternoon tea and drinks and daily spa treatments.

I'm glad we chose Centara because our stay was excellent. The staff was very friendly especially with children. We felt so welcomed.

The first glimpse of the island as we took the ferry after our air taxi flight was breathtaking. Our adventure was about the begin.

These are the steps leading to the water at our villa. We basically snorkeled here everyday. The marine life is abundant and beautiful.

DS could not wait to get into the water. This was the only time he swam outside our villa. He was scared by the waves and was also afraid of stepping on the corals so we decided it was safer for him to snorkel in the lagoon instead.

Gorgeous sunsets everyday. Sigh.

This is us swimming in the lagoon.

The marine life was awesome. It took me a while to get used to snorkeling and to be honest I was quite scared. But after two days I managed to overcome it. I am so happy we bought the Nikon Coolpix AW110. It is a great underwater camera. We had lots of fun taking pictures and videos. Let me just say it is hard to get good pictures of fish. They don't they stay still! There are the few that I thought was pretty good for amateurs.

Clown fish hiding in sea anemone

Photobombed by a white tipped reef shark

My favourite picture of all, a school of angelfish that swam past us.

Its either a clam or a different kind of coral.

Closeup

This poor sea turtle was rescued by the divers at the Dive Centre. It was found caught in a net. Its flippers are severely damaged and they kept him there to recuperate. I hope this guy survives.

All good things must end. I will take with me my memories of the night sky filled with stars and the beautiful sea breeze as I sipped my morning tea sitting with my leg dangling off the platform. Maldives, I'll be back!