Strawberry Cube

Elizabeth Arden Swatches!

2010-12-31T10:23:00.000-08:00

Wow, two posts in such quick succession? I'm on a roll!

But alas, not for long. This is going to be a short entry, mainly because I finally remembered I had pictures of these from forever ago.

I really like this palette, despite the case being yellow. I'm not too fond of yellow; I'm not that fond of bright colors in general, actually. But that's ok because the actual eyeshadow colors make up for it. I've found myself getting more into the neutral, taupe-y colors lately, and this is a great palette for that. (Sidenote: Speaking of neutral-y colors...curses, I must stop myself from being tempted with Urban Decay's Naked palette. B...b-but it's just too pretty! ;o; )

Ahem. As I pry myself away from UD's website...

Picachuuurz! (Sorry, I forgot what the name of the palette was. Or even if it had a name.)

Aren't they such pretty colors?

Love.

eBay will be the death of me...

2010-12-29T11:01:00.000-08:00

Haha seriously. I should not be allowed to shop online. I just want everthiiiing .___.;

I mean, geez, LOOK AT THESEEEE

NYX Lot 1

NYX Lot 2

*whimpers* So tempting...! But no. No. I will hold on to my self control. ....and save these for later. Besides, I've been wanting to make a NYX haul for a while...

Curses, why must they have such awesome things! D: I'm trying to limit myself to 3 lipsticks for now, so I'm trying to pick which 3 I will probably love and use the most.

...

Alright, time to force myself away from the entrancing grip of eBay. MUST. LEAVE. NOW.

I'll go get my caffeine fix. I'll put up pictures once my order gets here~

(Oh shit. That reminds me that I still have to put up pictures of the Urban Decay 24/7 Jackpot set. Er. Yeaaa...)

Um. Derp? (C'mon, you can't be mad at such a cute face, now can you? )

Bye for now!

Fyrinnae Robot Takeover & Avenging Salem

2010-11-13T16:13:00.000-08:00

Time to review some of my Fyrinnae haul! Eventually, I'll get around to all of them (hopefully, ha.) For now, here's two of 'em~ Warning: Lots of picture spam.

Avenging Salem is a dark shadow with sparkly magenta, uh, sparkles in it. Very pretty shade, and I like using it as a liner or on the outher corners of my eye. Mostly as a liner though, 'cause I'm not one for extravagant/super hardcore makeup. I love dark shades, but I tend to use it for a gently/small (small? Does that make sense?) smokey eye look. Me being me, I forgot to take a picture of it the two times I used it so...that'll have to wait. Eheh. I'm rather fail at using pigments, so hopefully by the time I remember to take that picture, it'll be a pretty decent look. Practiceeee! .___.;;

Next up is Robot Takeover. I absolutely LOVE this color! It's like a really, really sparkly silver teal. In the jar, it looks really dark, but it isn't. I think it adds a really nice touch to the eyes. (Pst! Fyrinnae's swatch photo of it is so much more accurate. My camera and lighting are fail. Sorry.)

Aaaand I actuay remembered to take pictures of it!

This is generally how I wear my eyeshadows, even the darker ones; very lightly/minimally. No mascara in this picture (I put it on later) because I didn't want to take away from the eyeshadow.

Inner corner/half is Kat Von D's First Class (Metal Orchestra palette) and outer corner is Robot Takeover. Eyeliner is Urban Decay 24/7 Binge.

For some reason, the white and blue blend together and look the same in the photos, but it was more obvious IRL. It adds a really nice sparkly teal effect. So pretty~~ *Q*

When I run out of Robot Takeover, I'll definitely be getting more! I just love the range of Fyrinnae colors. I'm already making a list for a second haul, haha.

OPI & China Glaze

2010-11-10T13:05:00.000-08:00

Sooo. I finally caved and bought the constantly-praised China Glaze Ruby Pumps, along with another long lusted after polish on my list: OPI Black Cherry Chutney.

I absolutely LOVE BCC. Ruby Pumps is pretty too, but I actually didn't really have any vampy colors like BCC, so once I wore it, I fell in love. It's just amazing.

太漂亮了!!

China Glaze Ruby Pumps

OPI Black Cherry Chutney

(Sorry for the messy application; this was pre-cleanup)
BCC on all fingers except ring finger; ring finger is Ruby Pumps over a coat of black.

Ahhhh I can't get over how awesome this looks!

Canada Trip!

2010-08-26T14:01:00.000-07:00

I'm baaaack! Hi?

*ducks*

Ahem. Sorry for the sparse posts; I've been busy getting stuff ready to move back into the dorms and then a couple of days ago I just got back from a trip to Canada. I went a little camera happy, especially in the Pacific Mall and Chinatown. Asian stuff? I'M SO THERE.

Enjoy~

First we went to Niagara Falls. Looks pretty awesome at night. It changes colors! (Well, the lights. Not the falls themselves. Though that'd be pretty epic.)

Day time!

My favorite part--PUPPY!

Awesome guy making hand blown glass!

Oldtown Montreal (I think?) Gorgeous place. If only I spoke French. *sigh*

Chinatowwwwn <3 onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_UTGR890nJKs/THbffkjikYI/AAAAAAAAAGM/n4266ywVDQc/s1600/IMG_1991.JPG">Montreal Chinatown again.

Best 龍鬚糖 ever! For those who don't know what this is--er, well, I don't really know how to explain it. It's translated as Dragon's Beard Candy by the way, and the white hair-like strands are kind of like spun sugar and they're powdery. Inside, there's bits of peanut butter candy/brittle. Delicious stuff~

This is their metro in Montreal. How cool is that?

The ever-famous Notre Dame...

...which looks a lot more impressive inside. O__O

Below are pictures from Toronto! I find it ironic how my best and worst memories are from there. More on that later.

Pacific Mall in Toronto! My favorite place ever. (This is the best memory, btw) This beats Niagara Falls any day. 400+ Asian stores in one place? HEAVENLY. Plus there's all sorts of awesome food here.

Oh wait, tangent time--speaking of Toronto. (TLDR at the end) If you are ever there, DO NOT stay at the Radisson. They have the worst service I've ever seen at a hotel. I've stayed at Radissons in the past, and they've all been very helpful. Not so for this particular one. First, for whatever reason, our card key stopped working after we got in once, so we asked for help. They gave us a new one, and that didn't work either. By this time, I expected someone to come up with us to see if something was wrong with the door. Nope--they just kept giving us new cards and sending us up to try it agian. Once, I can understand, but NONE OF THE THREE CARDS WORKED. When we suggested that perhaps we could change to a different room, they were reluctant and kept saying how they'd fix it or find what's wrong with it or whatever. Yea ok. We went to the mall and back--door still wouldn't open. The cleaning lady was much better in my opinion, especially in terms of personability. At least she had some sense and let us into our room (after making sure it was indeed our room, of course) while whoever runs the place was nowhere to be seen.

It gets even better. When they finally sent a guy up to fix our door, he looked like everyone owed him a million dollars and would rather be anywhere than here. Let me tell you something; that is not a good front for a hotel. For ANY place of business, actually. His attitude clearly said he did not give a shit, and if he had his way, we'd probably be stuck outside the door the entire day. The only good thing that came out of it was that the door/lock was eventually fixed.

Lo and behold, morning comes and we're ready to get the hell out of there. Of course, our car decides it wants to break down and die right there. Again, the ever-so-helpful staff moseyed around before a guy finally came with this ANCIENT generator power thing. Which didn't work at all, of course. At least this guy was nicer than the last one. We tried calling some towing company, but they stood us up, making our hour and half wait for them completely useless. (Meeting two utterly useless and very unhelpful companies in a row. Figures.)

What finally happened was that we met the best taxi man ever. This was pure luck, too. We almost missed him--we caught him as he was about to drive out of the hotel. Seriously, this guy was so nice and helpful I could almost forget about the very bad impression I had from the hotel and towing company. He took my dad to go buy a battery and when they came back, he helped us put it in too! Plus he didn't drive all around Toronto and back to rack up the taxi fare. Unbeatably nice guy, right there. They should let him run the hotel instead.

TLDR; I have never met such unhelpful and arrogant, rude service anywhere, much less in a hotel. Don't go to the Radisson in Toronto. (It's the one on Hallcrown Place) Save yourselves the headache.

Side tangent #2: In contrast, when we stayed at the Hyatt in Montreal, the service was excellent. When I found out that the room we were in didn't have shampoo, I went to the front desk and asked the lady. She was so nice (plus had the patience to put up with this man who's been at the desk for ages. Seriously, he had the lady pull up a map and actually walk him through how to get to places to eat. It's a map. Read it yourself. Or invest in a GPS.) and when she found out there was no shampoo at the front desk, she told me not to worry and that she'd send up soneone right away to drop it off. I expected to wait maybe half an hour to an hour, but whoa--not 15 minutes later, there came a knock and my long-awaited shampoo. Hyatt @ Montreal, you get two thumbs up. :)

Oksrybacktopics.

Anyway. Continue to bask in the glory and excellency that is the Pacific Mall!

This is actually INSIDE the mall. *w* Someone pinch me, 'cause I think I'm dreaming~

I thought this banner was cute. Lookit the bunnies!

HA. HAHAHA. TRUE HEAVEN! I can't believe there's actually a Danson poster here--I never find posters of him! *paws at store window* And there's Show, and Fahrenheit, and Jay Chou, and--*rambles*

Above the food court.

No seriously. I'm in heaven. Not even kidding you.

I bought a Snow Miku figurine! She's so adorable. I want to eat that ice leek. Nendoroids are hawt.

Whew~ Ok, that's all for today! Wow. This is the longest post I've written in years. Gotta go get me some coffee.

Fyrinnaaaaaae

2010-07-12T11:39:00.000-07:00

!!! My Fyrinnae order came today~~ =D I'm so happy. It came a lot faster than I expected--I ordered a bunch of stuff for myself and a friend's birthday, so I made sure to order it really early in case so I could be sure to have it by then. It arrived with plenty of time to spare! (Now I can take a bunch of pictures and whatnot before sending them to her, hah)

The packaging is so cute--mine came in a silver drawstring pouch with zebra tissue paper and 2 little sticker things; ghosts and a panda in a curry container. XD! Adorable. I really like the actual pigment containers too, though I found that some of them are incredibly hard to open (which makes sense though, as you don't want them to accidentally open up and spill everywhere). I must've looked really funny sitting on my bed and clawing at these little containers. I think it took me about 10 minutes to get Biker Chic open (a couple of them opened more easily though. Whew.)

I also finally caved in and bought Kat Von D's Metal Orchestra. I wanted to test out Adora too at Sephora, but apparently, even though the Adora palette is available online already, it's not going to be coming to stores until August. D: But I was freaking out that since Metal Orchestra is limited edition, they'd run out of that first (even though it's been around for forever, I think? Though I believe it's beacuse it disappeared for a bit and then Sephora brought it back--iunno, but it's listed as LE on the website). I have to say, I'm in love. I would totally buy another palette just for the packaging. It came in this really cute boxy-envelope-ish thing with flaps, and then the palette itself is wrapped in a thin paper with a KVD sticker. Prettyyy~ I felt bad about opening it. I managed not to rip the paper though! I'm a packrat at heart and rarely throw out anything anyway, but I'm definitely not letting these go. Kat Von D's packaging is amaaaazing~~~ Plus I really like black and edgy designs.

Pictures sooooon. In a meantime, here are some pictures from Taiwan back in winter '10 that I finally uploaded.

Love this store. 雜誌風 (Magazine Craze) is a place I always visit whenever I'm back in Taiwan. Added Hershey Kisses and a strawberry milk candy because they're cute and I like sweets.

Really pretty packaging and design, but it didn't taste as good as I thought it would. Certainly wasn't bad, but kinda expensive...I expected more of a 'wow!' factor. Kept the box though ;)

Aww, it has little stubby legs! This is a dessert that has red bean and strawberries wrapped inside powdered white mochi skin. Delicious.

OM NOM NOM

Fyrinnae and Jrock

2010-07-04T09:49:00.000-07:00

Wow, I'm so bad at this. I keep forgetting to mention this even though it happened like...last week. Something amazing happened last week. Seriously amazing. Like, more amazing than vanilla lattes with peppermint sticks.

It was that...

I finally got a chance to see my favorite singer, Miyavi, live! In New York! YESSSSS <3 This was my first ever concert too! ...yea, I know. But I'm happy Miyavi has my concert virginity ;)

It was seriously the most awesome thing that's happened to me in a while. Miyavi's really, really good live, and his English was surprisingly good too! It was so worth the wait and the sweltering heat. I definitely want to see him live again, and this time, I will get my damned T-shirt! D: (Couldn't get it at this concert because we had to leave ;~; But next time...!) Hopefully this time I'll be closer up front or on a platform or something so I can see more than his upper torso and up for most of the concert. ...I suppose being 5'0'' doesn't really help, does it? *sigh*

Picture from shattered-tranquility.net

Moving on--my random tangent about Miyavi actually isn't that random. I recently placed my first order at Fyrinnae! (Ooh, another first~) I keep hearing and seeing lovely swatches about this brand on a lot of blogs, and I really wanted to try some of their colors. Being the procrastinating ADD child that I am, I kind of uh, forgot until now. I would browse the colors and 'ooh' and 'aah' over them and get SO CLOSE to ordering! --and then somehow getting distracted by Rainbow Unicorn Attack. So then it'd be midnight and I'll be in bed and go "Oh shit I forgot to order again!"

...tirade aside, yes, I finally placed my first order. And I can't waaaait! They have some gorgeous colors. Plus I really like the names.

OH! Right, speaking of the names--this is where it ties in with Miyavi, sorta. I've heard that one of the Fyrinnae guys really likes visual kei. I DO TOO! :D It shows since a lot of their eyeshadow names are Japanese and sometimes reference visual kei things, and even more obviously, their Lip Lustres do it too. Speaking of these, I need to get one of these next time. They look pretty...

Now I'm waffling as to whether or not to order both the Kat Von D Adora and Metal Orchestra palettes. Ffffssss.

Until next time!

I want Kat Von D Palettes!

2010-07-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

Hello again! Finally remembered to post again, haha. Recently, I was doing some picture cleaning and dug up a couple of pictures i thought I'd share. Below is a bottle of Sephora's Gothik nail polish. Love this color, and I don't really know of any others like it. I think Nubar had one like it, but Nubar's kind of pricey...

(Yes, the title's trickey. That's actually the last thing I talk about in this post, hurhur.)

Gorgeous, gorgeous color. You can't really tell in this picture because it just looks black, but it's like the color in the bottle; smokey shimmery dark grey~

Also, being the dork I am, the weekend of June 18 I attended an anime convention called AnimeNEXT. I love it. Go every year. <3>

Oops, my laptop charger sneaked into the picture with the black rose ring. Heh. Anyway, these are really good quality and surprisingly resilient. I wore the red one the day I bought it and kept accidentally smacking my hand into things and I'm surprised the petals hardly moved. Really nice! Plus, they're shiny. Always a plus.

You can visit her shop here: Manifested Dreams

On another note--

I WANT THIS. SO BAD.

Picture from Sephora.com

You have no idea how much I want this. I love Kat Von D's palettes because they're so pretty and...pretty. Yea.

I also really want the Metal Orchestra palette, but at $34 each...I don't know if I can bring myself to get both, since I don't even really wear makeup that much, and when I do, it's usually just lipgloss and eyeliner.

But I WANT THIS. Time to make a trip to Sephora... >3>

So, if it were you, which Kat Von D palette would you get? Adora (the one pictured above) or Metal Orchestra?

Pigments and Square Piggies

2010-06-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

Awesome title, I know. So, first real post of Strawberry Cube! (I know my profile picture right now is really creepy. Bear with it; I need to take a better one.) So a couple days ago--and by that I mean more like a couple of weeks ago--I got my very first pigments; it turned out to be more of a pigment haul, really. Which is probably really silly in retrospect considering I have absolutely no idea how to use them.

I got them from Bare Escentuals, which recently opened up it's very own store in the mall near me. Before, it was just in Sephora--or at least, to my knowledge. But anyway--I LOVE. THEIR. STORE. It's set up beautifully and they have the pigments all laid out on a round table that spins and it's just so, so pretty. I love being able to test all of them, too. Plus, service was really very nice. They mistakenly gave me Black Ice instead of Brocade, and when I went to switch it, they accidentally gave me Bordeaux instead, so 2 minutes after I walked out I had to go back in to get the proper one. They were very nice throughout it all, none of that snappy, huffy, impatience you get from other venders (even when it was their fault to begin with.) So anyway, long tangent aside, the point is I would definitely buy there again even if they gave me the wrong thing twice. XD

Pictures!

This one's called Black Emerald; really pretty dark green with shimmers and nifty stuffs. This one's classified as a liner shadow. (I guess this would be classified as the "review" portion.) This is the only one-besides Black Ice because I returned that-I haven't used yet, so I can't really say anything about it except that it's really really pretty. And shiny. I like shiny things.

Mistake #1, haha. I was already home by the time I noticed, so I decided to take pictures of it anyway. (These were all unopened when I took the pictures, by the way.)

Now this one's Brocade; also a liner shadow, I believe. I love this color; such a pretty purple with gold shimmery glittery bits. I tried to use this as a liner wet, but I didn't get that pretty, intense foiled look. Maybe I just suck at it. I wet the brush, but when I dabbed the pigment in the container, it dried really quickly when I brought it to my lids. Yep, I fail at liner shadows. Anyone got any tips? That aside, it was still a really pretty color even though I had to go over it a couple of times.

Final one is Dakota! This one's really similar to Black Ice; virtually the same color. I should've done a side-by-side swatch at the store, but I forgot. But anyway, I really like this dark grey glittery shimmer too. I used it for a smokey eye and it was gorgeous.

Yep, that's my sad, lonely pigment collection. I should get more! ...'cept I don't really wear uber colorful makeup, so I feel kind of bad splurging on these. But they're so prettyyy~

Ok enough of that, time for the square piglets!

Haha, aren't they cute? Anyone know what these are? =) You get a cookie if you do.

Mint!

Purple!

If you said Baby Boos, then you are correct! I love these San-x characters. I have a black Monokuro Boo cell phone holder, too. Pictures some other time, perhaps.

Hello!

2010-06-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

Well. I've decided.

Time to make a new blog! But this time, it'll be (slightly) less rambling and tangents and more of a blog for people other than my friends to read.

Lately, I've been addicted to makeup and nail polish blogs (I know, I KNOW). I'm particularly fond of BeautySwatch and Cosmetic Candy. BeautySwatch is really, really helpful, and I love the way it's set up! As for Cosmetic Candy, I love the way she writes her reviews and makes swatches, and just daily posts and whatnots. I'm also rather fond of her sense of humor, haha.

Thanks also to the Japanese website Poupee Girl, I've been taking photos of a lot of my makeup and clothes and jewelry and stuff. I've found that I actually really enjoy it (to my friends: stop laughing at me! D: ). I've even contemplated making a review/swatch blog of my own, but realistically speaking, I'm probably going to a) suck at it, b) not have enough time, c) both. I don't think I have the skill nor patience to swatch and remove tons of makeup daily. Besides, I don't own that much in comparison to other swatch/review bloggers.

Hence, Strawberry Cube. This is just going to be my blog where I post pictures of random stuff; maybe makeup, maybe clothes, maybe toys, maybe plushies, maybe stuff that's entirely random. Anyway, I hope you enjoy! I'm going to go make my coffee now. Mm, coffee~

P.S. Don't ask about the name; I don't even know. I'm really bad at coming up with names. I like strawberries, I like cubes (dice, ice cubes, cubes of candy, cube-shaped piggies, etc.) so I figured why not stick the two together. ...though now that I think about it, I like Coffee Cube too.