Good Eats - Hong Kong Edition - Awfully Chocolate (Ep. 1)

I'm currently staying in Hong Kong with one of my aunts volunteering at a research lab in the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Maybe not as prestigious as the University of Hong Kong but it still has an amazing research faculty and I'm definitely honored to be able to participate in the lab that I am currently in. Of course it's been taking up a lot of my time and I've been studying for the MCAT - a test that you really have to do well in to get into medical school in the United States - but that hasn't stopped me from getting my yummy Asian food. Unfortunately, being a fatty in US has backfired on me as I'm currently trying to diet while living in one of the best food places in the world. Oh the delights I've missed out on... But still, I've been able to splurge every now and then so I wanted to share a bit of my food adventures, or good eats might I say (no copyright infringement on Alton Brown's original Good Eats show which BY THE WAY I LOVEE <3) with all of you.

So here's my first episode of Good Eats - Hong Kong edition. The first place I wanted to share is called Awfully Chocolate. You can click here to redirect to their website - after you read this post of course ;D. I visited the Awfully Chocolate store in Tsim Sha Tsui which is located in the K11 Shopping Plaza. You can find this shopping plaza about a minute walk away from the D1 exit of the Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station, but really if you're not sure, just Google map it and you'll easily find your way.

Honestly I wasn't sure what to get at first and wasn't exactly planning on buying anything from the store (never really gravitate towards the all chocolate shops) but to be honest, the "Free Samples" sign totally drew me in LOL. I was able to try the Super Premium Dark Chocolate cake but well, you know me. I prefer the sweet unhealthy chocolates, not the at least somewhat healthy antioxidant rich dark chocolate ;P The lady who helped me out was super friendly and nice despite my gosh darn awful Cantonese and she helped me decide between the White Chocolate Creme Brulee Tart and the White Chocolate Butterscotch Block. I ended up choosing the latter one but I kind of wish I got the creme brulee just because I lovee creme brulee in general, but the White Chocolate Butterscotch Block was still quite delightfully yummy.

I love how you get this cute plastic spoon although it's a little awkward because the handle is so small but hey, I love little mini things~! Honestly I should have taken a picture before I took a bite but the delicious look and smell of the entire thing won me over and I "accidentally" took a huge scoop out of the cake before I got a decent shot of it haha. You can't blame me.. it looked and smelled soo good! The texture was definitely a bit of a shock to me at first. I thought the white part would be more of a standard vanilla cake or like a Japanese Swiss roll so spongey and fluffy. Instead, it's actually some sort of cream like texture but it's so light and still fluffy..just in a different way. The brown rolled part was more like the standard cake that I'm used to but super moist and then the inside and top brown coating is milk chocolate with butterscotch bits sprinkled throughout (probably my favorite part of the cake). The cake is definitely sweet so you'll need coffee or tea to go with it and I definitely couldn't finish the whole thing, but it's still something nice to try. I didn't realize they had ice cream until I went on their website later that night but from what the reviews say, it's pretty good so maybe I'll try it next time! (Though I'm not particularly a fan of all chocolate ice cream). If I were to go back, I'd definitely try the creme brulee but I would recommend this to anyone who wants to try something unique and new. I'd also see if you can get smaller than a 100g slice (mine was a little bit under) as it cost $40 HKD per 100g - not too bad since I expected everything at the shop to be crazily overpriced. I would suggest less than 50g if they let you buy that small of a slice and even then that's probably quite a lot in my opinion.

Anyways overall I thought the place was nice. Not a sweet shop you absolutely MUST try, but if you are looking for a cake for a celebration and you know that the people who will eat it like dark chocolate, I'd definitely go for their famous dark chocolate cakes (the one I got to sample). They have one filled with banana and another with Rum&Cherry or just a standard all dark chocolate for the less adventurous folks ;P I'll be posting up more Good Eats blog posts so subscribe or follow me if you want to be updated ^__^

Revealing my UniVoxBox from Influenster!

Okay we all know how much I (and a million other people) love Influenster and you can't blame us! I love being able to try out the latest new products even when it's not makeup. I always get these useful things that I would have never thought to try out but I always end up totally loving! This time I was lucky enough to receive the UniVoxBox which contained all these little goodies to prep a girl for college (hence the "Uni" name!). In my box, I found the following lovely items:

• Rimmel London Stay Matte Liquid Mousse Foundation
• Playtex® Sport® Fresh Balance™ tampons
• Broadway Nails imPRESS Press-on Manicure
• Pilot Acroball Pure White Pen
• Red Rose Real Tea Premium Water Enhancers
• NYC New York Color Expert Last Lip Color (in Fushia Fashion)

So of course I need to share my opinion on all of these products, but in no way was I paid or told to say what I'm going to say cause well.. I'm not that good first of all (haha!) and because that wouldn't be fair to you guys .. making you buy bad products?! I wouldn't want that for myself or for anyone so I promise my review are 100% my opinion and full honesty~!

Let's start with my favorite... (can you guess?) .. the Stay Matte foundation by Rimmel London! Woot woot! I've been loving so many products from Rimmel London like their Kate Moss lipsticks (they smell good and have great pigmentation and are super smooth!), pencil liners (comparable to the Urban Decay 24/7 liners - no kidding!), and their Scandal Eyes mascara (just got it and I'm loving it!). The Rimmel London Stay Flawless foundation was actually the first foundation I ever bought because I remember Michelle Phan saying what great coverage it had. If you go on my Youtube channel and check out my older videos, you'll see me using it! I loved that foundation (although after some time I noticed it did oxidize a bit on me) but this Stay Matte one is even better! It goes on super smooth and is so easy to blend into your skin. It gives medium to full coverage without being too cakey looking and gives me a flawless MATTE (hence the name) finish. Even if you have dry skin, this is okay because of the mousse texture and it's great for oily skin because it dries down to a matte finish. If you have super oily skin though you probably will want to still use a translucent oil absorbing powder, but otherwise, I can get away without powdering! I would highly recommend you guys to try this foundation if you're looking for a great drugstore foundation (and it's not just me who's loving it, I've heard a ton of Youtubers talk about how great this foundation is!).

Moving on, I was excited to see the Pilot Acroball pens because all of my pens seem to just be dying or disappearing on me (oh my diminishing free pen supply Q.Q) and these are wayy better than all of my other ones. The ink comes out really smoothly and I love Pilot pens in general so I couldn't complain really! As for the Playtex Sport Fresh Balence tampons, well.. isn't this a strange topic haha. It's hard to really review a tampon although.. I guess if you've ever seen those 25 cent ones in public restrooms, you'd know that the ones you buy are definitely of higher quality haha. Playtex is my go to brand for buying my sanitary products (is that the correct term?) and these ones don't fail my expectations. They do the job and go in and out fine (okay maybe that's a bit awkward haha) so I'll definitely be buying these once I run out!

As for the Red Rose Real Tea Premium Water Enhancer (what a mouthful... or typful..or letterful? LOL), I'd actually never heard of the brand or really the product itself. I mean I know there are ton of water enhancers out there, but the thing is that I loveee water. I don't really understand it when people say water is too bland or boring because I find water to be refreshing! I mean when I'm thirsty, it's water I'm craving! Not juice or sodas (I actually can't drink soda because I can't handle the gas.. TMI probably but it's true) or milk or what not.. WATER! But I know there are tons of people out there who like their fruity drinks and sodas so I can understand the appeal of water enhancers for us weight-conscious girls and guys out there (sigh oh the struggles of loving food and trying to not be fat Q.Q). I like the flavor this adds to my water and it's nice since it's a tea flavor but since I can just add it to my cold water and I don't have to steep it in hot water like normal tea bags, it's perfect for any hot spring or summer day.

Another product I hadn't really had much experience with was the Broadway Nails imPRESS Press-on Manicure. These were all the rage for a bunch of nail companies a little while back and the idea of it was super cool but I didn't bother picking any up because I didn't think they would fit my nail right or wouldn't look right. However, my friend had got some for free with a nail polish purchase and tried it out on me and I was pleasantly surprised. I haven't specifically tried the Broadway nail brand press-ons so these were my first pair and they turned out to be super nice! They went on well and easily and fit my nails quite nicely. They also stayed on for some time and didn't fall off so that was quite nice too.I guess the only downside is that you can't "trim" the size down since they're plastic so it might get annoying if you don't like your nails that long!

Lastly, the NYC New York Color Expert Last Lip Color in Fuschia Fashion! All these products have such long names haha my fingers are getting tired! Anyways, this lip color was definitely a bit out there for me. I'm usually a "my lips but better" girl or on my especially daring days I'll go with my red lip butter (I love Candy Apple by Revlon) but fuschia pink .. definitely a new color for me. But I was quite pleased with the way it turned out! It actually didn't look super scary on me and it's definitely perfect for spring and summer! I like pairing this with crop tops and high-waisted shorts or flowy sheer tops because it really just adds to the cool "summer" vibe ^__^ The lip formula is also decent and doesn't settle into my fine lines and the packaging is actually quite nice for NYC!


Okay enough of my rambling and I hope you guys enjoyed this mini review on all the products. Once again I have to thank Influenster for letting me try out these products and share my thoughts with you guys because it gives me something to blog about (haha!) but yea! Have a wonderful day everyone and talk to you soon ~<3

Em Cosmetics Black Friday Unboxing Haul + First Impressions + Makeup Look (Video) + Swatches!

So as most everyone in the beauty/Youtube/makeup world knows, Michelle Phan launched her makeup line called "Em Cosemetics" in this last year and to mine, and many others, surprise, it wasn't exactly an "affordable" line. Not that she said it was going to be or anything but I know I just assumed it wouldn't be too pricey because I thought she'd want to cater towards her general Youtube viewing audience which includes a lot of teenagers and young adults who don't exactly have a ton of money to spend. So when I saw the prices and realized, there was no way I was going to be able to justify spending that much on makeup, I was pretty bummed out because hey, it's Michelle Phan! Her products have to be freaking awesome right?? Then came Black Friday and guess what? There was a sale for $10 off of any $30 purchase, $20 off of any $50 purchase, and $50 off of any $100 purchase~! Woot woot right? So I picked up the Day Life Palette, the great cover up concealer, and a waterliner in Ros Gold for a little less than $70 after the $50 discount and tax. The nice thing is that they offer free shipping on ANY order, no minimum price, andd free returns too (super good for me because unfortunately I'm probably going to be returning at least one thing D: ). Shipping took about a week which was fine since the confirmation email said it'd take 5-7 business days, and the packing was nice with giant bubble wrap and pink wrapping paper on everything *___* I filmed me unboxing the package, my first impressions, and a makeup look testing out the products so check it out the videos: part 1 and part 2!

 Anyways, now that that's out of the way, and I've had some time to try out the products some more and figure out if I really like them or not... let's get started with the nitty gritty review!

The first product I want to talk about is the Day Life Palette. I ended up choosing this palette because I figured it had the most neutrals and wearable shades so I'd get the most use out of it. If you get to watch my first impression video, you'll remember me mentioning that it was definitely a lot "duller" looking than I expected. The colors just didn't seem as bright and vibrant as they had on my computer screen, but I guess that's what makes them good neutrals right? :P When I first tried out the eyeshadows in the palette, I noticed that the shimmery colors were much more softer and pigmented than the matte shades. As I continued to try out the palette, I realized a LOT of the eye shadows aren't very pigmented and they come out super patchy and don't blend out well. When you swatch them, they come out really blotchy and not smooth or dark. If you just swatch with your finger, you'll get a good amount of product on your finger so it looks promising but when you swipe it, poof - half of the color vanishes O_o'  Plus, after I swatched the shadows on my arms (pictures below), I wiped my arms and literally all of them just wiped off... like disappeared which means the lasting power of these shadows isn't that great. It also took me multiple swipes to get the swatches even visible for some of the photos. So if you haven't realized by now, I'm not exactly in love with the palette and I have to say that disappoints me a lot because I wanted to like it! I totally was excited to try them out because they seemed pretty good when Michelle Phan does videos using them and I've seen other reviews so I was really surprised at the "meh" quality of the shadows /: I've already contacted the company for a return label because I realized that honestly, I'm not going to be using the blush or lip colors very often (I don't wear either very often and I don't love using lip colors from a pan anyways.. ) and if the eyeshadows aren't like top notch quality, then I can't justify the $42 cost of this palette that I paid for. I would much rather just purchase the Lorac Pro Palette or the new Naked 3 palette and get better quality/pigmented shadows /: So in the end, I can't recommend the Day Life Palette (perhaps you'll have better luck with another life palette) due to the disappointing quality of the eyeshadows. I've really tried to use this palette and make it work, but the fact that many of the colors go on so patchy and that blending doesn't help at all (either wipes away most of the color or just smears it around more so that it looks even worse).. well I just don't know what to do anymore :(

I have swatches I did from the top two sets in the palette. As you can see, most of them don't look pigmented and I had to swipe them all 3-5 times to get the pigmentation needed for the camera to pick them up.

Photo from the em website. Mine definitely weren't this pigmented

Moving on from the life palette, we have The Great Cover Up concealer! Thankfully, this one matched my expectations in that yes it gives great coverage for my undereye circles and areas of redness. However, from what I had heard from everyone on Youtube and reviews, I think I did expect it to have a bit more coverage because I can still see some scars/pigmentation spots through the concealer so it's not super high coverage but I don't mind that too much. I don't notice any caking throughout the day and it also doesn't break me out so that's good. I do agree with everyone else that a little bit of this product goes a long ways and it blends out nicely. My only real bother is that I got the shade light warm and while it does match my skin tone and shade quite well, I usually prefer my concealers to be a bit lighter than my actual skin because I feel like it gives a more brightening effect (especially for under the eyes). I'm around an NC 30-35 so perhaps next time I will pick up the shade "fair warm" and see if that works out. There are 8 shades of the concealer but there aren't many darker shades (only like 2) so if you have darker skin, you might not be able to find a shade to match your skin. I also know some people complained about not knowing what shade they were after they had removed the concealer from the packaging but I guess Em Cosemetics fixed that because on the back of my concealer, it says "light warm" now although it's in a sort of ugly font like they just stamped it on, but I don't mind too much. Overall, I definitely would recommend this concealer if you're looking for something to cover up most of your blemishes without looking too cakey or fake and if you can get it on sale. The regular $20 is a bit pricey for a concealer, but reasonable when you compare it to other high end brand concealers and the quality is there so if you really can't wait to try it out, I would say to go for it even if there isn't a sale. However, if you really want something crazy high coverage, this isn't that product and I would actually recommend the Kat Von D Lock it foundation or concealer as those are super (not an exaggeration) high coverage but you just have to be careful or else they can look thick/cakey.

The last product I picked up was the Em Cosemetics waterliner in Ros Gold. I included a picture of my swatch above and also the photo from the website to help you get an idea of what it really looks like. Now, I really was excited to try this liner out because I'd heard great things about it (lasting power, waterproof ability, smudge proof, etc) and looking at the swatches from Raeview (another blogger, go check her out~!), they look really amazing! I chose Ros Gold because I thought it was the most unique and it looked really pretty. Unfortunately, when I got the liner, the color turned out to be a lot more orangey-peachy rather than a pink copper color that I'd expect of a rose gold eye liner (why they named it Ros Gold rather than Rose Gold I'm not sure). To make things worse, the moment I opened the liner, half of it fell out because it had broken! I pushed it back in and I think I "smushed" the fallen half back with the other half inside the pencil, but I'm still a little put off by my broken product :( It works fine now and everything, but I'm not sure if I should return or exchange it because hey, a $20 pencil shouldn't start off broken right? Beside that point though, the quality of this liner is superb. It's definitely a good creamy and soft consistency without going overboard (like the Milani Liquify pencil which in my opinion is a bit TOO soft) and it doesn't tug on my eyelids when I use it. It's also great for being on the waterline and lasted all day on my waterline without smearing out. I think this is comparable to the Urban Decay 24/7 liners and with the wide variety of colors, you're bound to find the color you want. So all in all, yes I'm completely satisfied with the quality of the product and would recommend it at SALE price, but I still don't love the color I got (Ros Gold) which is why I'm thinking about exchanging it for another shade (I'm considering the chocolate brown one since I know I'll get a lot of use out of that, but then I feel like it is a bit normal and I already have a TON of brown pencil liners). One thing that I would prefer though is the liners coming in a the standard wooden pencil form rather than a twist up plastic pencil. I understand that in the twist up form, you don't have to sharpen your pencil constantly, but I, personally, just prefer the pencil ones because I think you can get a greater variety of line thicknesses and I just like the feel of them better (does that even make sense? haha) My sister also mentioned that the twisty plastic liners look "cheap" and I can agree with her on that. The biggest downside to these water liners are their price because at $20, they are just a little bit more expensive than Urban Decay ($19) and Make Up For Ever ($19) but I guess it's fair because the quality is comparable to those high end brands and the good thing is that at least Em Cosemetics has good sale deals (ie. their buy one get one free deal for Cyber Monday vs. Urban Decays twice annual only sale of 20% off)

So I hope you guys all enjoyed my little review of the products I got from Em Cosemetics and I hope it helps you make a better more well-informed decision before your make your purchase! I don't know if I just got a bad palette or something because I definitely can't recommend the Day Life Palette, but for the other two products (the Great Cover Up Concealer and the Waterliner), I would give two thumbs up and say they're great quality and worth the hype they get. Hope you all have a lovely day and a wonderful holidays~!