Modcloth Hauls!

Hello lovely readers. It's been a while, but I've been thinking of you all the entire time. As things happened, a little blog post would be forming in my head. Alas, they never made it.

Today I have for you my Modcloth haul (technically it's plural). What is Modcloth? It's a terribly addictive site of things cute and retro inspired. Similar to Urban Outfitters in a sense, but there's something about shopping online that encourages me to spend more money -___-. It's not cheap. (Pssst, use my referral link for a $15 discount, I get one too!).

Not all the pictures are up, hopefully by next week if not tomorrow.

For my first lot, I picked up a coat. cardigan, and dress.

Prim the Know Coat- It's a lot heavier than it looks and the material is coarse. Perhaps it's the sizing, but this doesn't fit me as proportionally as the stock image. I'm thinking of resewing the buttons so that the coat closes more snugly. Unfortunately there's a balance to be reached because too far over and it can end up looking asymmetrical. I'm a 2 usually (sometimes a 3-4 for bottoms). The site says that a 2-4 is a small so I picked up the S (don't think they make this coat in XS either, as the option was not shown). My shoulders are slightly broad and the coat fits fine in that area, it's the waist that is noticeably loose.

Return of the Macchiato Cardigan- A light cardigan. I like it, not too much more to be said on the subject.

Say Hi-Low to your Little Dress- This one is a small as well. I do wonder how an XS would fit, but for all intensive purposes it looks ok. Unfortunately it's too cold to wear it out now.

And then they spammed my email box about 50% off new arrivals... My order with the dresses was supposed to have shipped first, but it arrived at the post office 6 hours later than the other on a Saturday and missed being delivered.

Catalogue Your Dots Dress- Wow, they tell you to size up so I stuck with an S (2-4 is an S, I'm normally a 2). The waist is fine, but the chest area is sooo tight. It's really cute and figure flattering. I need to lose 5-10 lbs to really be comfortable in this though. The material wrinkles easily, so I'm not sure it's worth its price tag. This is, however, a very nice dress and I'm not too keen on parting with it...must stop eating so much.

Precious Petals Dress- Gorgeous silhouette and the pattern is lovely. My only issue with the dress make is that the gold part (shinier than in photos) is extremely rough and scratchy. Not very comfortable to wear. I also got this in an S (smallest size there) so it's a bit loose. You won't be able to wear a bra with this one, unless you get a low back bra.

Opus and Dreams Dress- LOVE! The asymmetrical part is my favorite. It has boning on the sides and padding in the cup area. Again, the smallest size was an S, so it's large on me. I'll need to alter it to get it to fit securely (don't want wardrobe malfunctions >.<). And now to find an event to wear it to.

 Isn't Sheath Lovely- extremely comfortable! This was an S too, but I can't keep it because the back wrinkles up =/

Cool with Me Top in Cola- At first it looked nowhere near its supposed $32 value. Then I put it on and it is perfect. Well, in concept. Loved the design, but again I was having issues with fit. Ordered a small because usually that's what I have to get for anything involving sleeves. The cap sleeves extended a bit further than needed, but the sad part is that there was all this extra fabric in the chest and back areas. It must be because of the sizing. Otherwise, I love the top, especially the slit and bead buttons in the back. Such a cute detail! Now it seems to be sold out = (. I have to wrestle some more about whether to return, or try altering it.

Pearl After My Own Heart Earrings in Berry- These are so cute! Don't regret ordering them at all

To Goldly Bow Heel- These look a bit iffy in the photo already, but I ignored my senses and ordered them anyways. Total fail. Love the gold piece on the heel. The heel is too high for me, and the front pinches in a lot.  My toes don't bend that way. Back you go!

Interview with a Glam-Pire Shoes- ooooo..... Got these as part of the 50% off new arrivals thing. They're so beautiful *-*. Retro inspired, made of suede. The front is a little tight, but over time it should loosen up. The shoe sole has significant ridges for traction.

They sent me some hair clips for free- cute!

A good thing about ModCloth is that returns are free as well, so you don't have to worry about spending so much and not liking the item.

ModCloth keeps adding new things. I can't constantly stalk their site or I'll become poor.

GMarket Haul: It's Here!

Hi my lovelies~

     It's been a long while since I've done much but beauty subscription box reviews. This post is to welcome back reviews of other things. =D

Today I got a nice surprise. Turns out the mailman does knock when leaving packages. I've long suspected that they just leave the "attempted delivery" notice and don't bother coming to the door.

GMarket has returned to putting random item values on the boxes. Whew.

 Etude House really lavished each item with bubble wrap. At least four layers for each item. I used to wonder why people would bother shipping hair dye over. Seems like a heavy waste of money. But then I got curious about the products myself XD. The boxes are much larger than that of those here in the US. I think I will try using Mocha Pink first since my hair is drastically different at the roots. The pink and green boxes are extras.

You want to know what's in the pink box right? ;) It's a bit of a disappointment. I purposely only bought a certain amount because I wanted the other body wash or whatever set to try. Guess they ran out or something. Normally this would be a nice gift, but I already got this green set last time. Still haven't even used it.

Got a bag! Aw, I should've checked the dimensions better. This is way thin. The material is of a nice heft though. Doesn't feel too cheap. It has an attachable shoulder strap. Scissors for size reference.

This was a HUGE disappointment. First of all, I'm pretty sure I ordered gray. This looks like a beige. It doesn't seem that bad from the photo, but in real life it looks awkward. Even more disappointing than that is the fabric. It looks like it's made out of potato sack. The material is so coarse. For ~$30, this is not what I should be getting. If you said $10-$15 I might just chalk it up to being unlucky. This is downright swindling people!

To be extra sure, I took the vest into natural light? Is anyone seeing gray? If so, let me know, we can go to the eye dr. together. I implore you to look at the button, which is clearly brown.

The blazer was also a disappointment. You said this is your best seller? HA! The proportions aren't right on this thing, it's too short and wide. I ordered the same size as above. The material is even coarser than the vest above. It's actually stiff. And so so thin. I knew it was a bit thin from pictures, but this is ridiculous. The buttons are also not what I imagined, very cheap looking. That's not a big problem because I can exchange them, but the actual blazer is total junk. I ordered this after falling in love with the same style on a drama. Looks nothing like it.

 The green book is an album for mini instax photos. Very happy with it ^^. Looks exactly like what I wanted. The bows are all as expected. I saw the free gift bow and was like.. what is this? I didn't order this. I wouldn't order this... I think the coolest item is probably the huge circle clip thingy. There's also a Tony Moly highlighter.

The shoes are supposed to be pink leather. It looks more like nude pink instead of the bright cute happy pink I was expecting. The cut is also a bit strange so it looks like it's made for a granny. They give you padding. It's thoughtful, but looks strange if you use it because the toe area of the shoe will be white.

Overall I'm satisfied with half my order, and hate the other half. I will review the cosmetics and such later on. It's a shame that the items I dislike most are the most expensive -___-. Apparently it's best to stick with ordering cosmetics and small accessories from GMarket. I have always seen other people ordering apparel and thought "wow.. that's so ugly" while the blogger gushed about how much they loved the product. I'm convinced there's just not really anything worth getting from the apparel department. For me at least.

This order left me feeling a bit empty (not even that many freebies), so I will be placing another one next month. That one will be focused more on cosmetics and little random things. First I want to see if they'll refund me for the wrong vest though.

Review: Skinfood Aloe Sun BB Cream- #2 + New Shoes + How Can I Get Rid of Freckles??

FINALLY! Am I right? haha. Today I have a BB Cream by Skinfood to show you. It's the Aloe Sun BB cream in #2 Natural Beige or something- spf 20 PA+. This is not a new bb cream and has been reviewed by many other people, some of you may even already have this product. But it's a first for me so I thought I'd give my 2 cents on the product.

Skinfood is a korean skin product brand that I've heard of for quite a few years now. I've been itching to try some of their bb creams but unfortunately there are none on Gmarket, and I don't know how to order from other places. I happened by one of their stores in Asia and thought I just had to pop in. I was greeted with "Annyunghaseyo!" (or however it's spelled). Immediately my heart dropped and I panicked as I tore through my brain trying to see if my limited korean from watching kdrama would suffice. Luckily they continued in the local language -__- (which I'm not that great in either- it never occurred to me previous that I really don't know cosmetic vocabulary *Gasp!*). But luckily they understood BB Cream *sigh of relief*. They then proceeded to ask me if my skin has any allergies or dryness. I was kind of zoning out and said "no". The salesperson looked at my skin and said "it's not dry...?" oops. I quickly corrected myself and told her that my skin is on the dry side (I guess it's very obvious). And the salespeople in asia are very polite so she quickly flattered me to the best of her ability saying that she can tell my skin is good otherwise because my cheeks are pink even without blush. (My guess is that she was thinking if I did apply blush that I applied it haphazardly, lol.)

     I was weary letting this sales lady help me because it was obvious whatever she was wearing on her face was too light on her. I know people like to have lighter skin in asia, but you can really only go so far out of your natural color range before it becomes glaringly obvious that your foundation/ bb cream is not meant for you. Anyhow, then she asked me if I wanted a natural color or lighter. I said natural- just felt safer; even though I don't mind if it can take me lighter a bit. Then she asked me if I wanted thin coverage or thick coverage- I said thin, I have no idea why. Anybody can see that I need thick coverage. Maybe it's because I was feeling pressure from my family standing there as well. They were not happy to be in that store and didn't hold back on showing it. I was so completely embarrassed. I wish I had asked her what to get if I wanted thick coverage too.

     So she pointed me to the Aloe Sun and said it was one of their best sellers. I also picked up their salmon concealer WHICH I LOVE YOU HAVE TO GET IT. I had planned to review that as well but can't find it, so next time. I'll tell you the rest of the story in that post as well so look forward to it.

NOW FOR THE ACTUAL PRODUCT REVIEW


Color

     I wasn't sure if I should get the natural or lighter color so I just let the salesperson help me with that. If you can get access to a Skinfood store, I highly suggest having their opinion on things. These products are by no means cheap, so you don't want to have spent $20 and have the whole thing go to waste. She picked #2 Natural Beige for me. Another blogger has noted that the #2 of Skinfood colors tend to be more on the pink side, and #1 tends to have more of a yellow tinge. My suggestion is to go with color tones over the whole "light" or "dark" thing. If you have the wrong color on, it's going to be a lot more obvious than having a different lightness of color.
     I did find the #2 to have a pinkish tone to it. The color actually matches really well with my skin. I have a neutral skin tone, but if you've read my lipstick reviews then you know it prefers cool tones over warm tones.
     I didn't include a picture of just the bb cream because I feel it is not quite accurate. We all know that the great thing about bb creams is that they tend to blend in and adjust with your skin tone. With first application it looks like it won't be the right color, but when fully applied it turns out fine. Over time you can see that the finish becomes more and more natural (sorry! I didn't do a swatch on how it looks over time this time).
     Oh! Almost forgot, I also like how this doesn't have a grayish cast to the bb cream. I understand that the gray is to help cancel out yellow and make your skin look more pale, but my skin is neutral in color, and the gray just makes me look gray (I look sickly or something)

Texture


     If you remember way back, I had wanted a liquid bb cream because my skin seems to be getting dryer and with the addition of my Magic BB balm, it becomes super dry and flaky looking (yuck!). Well this one doesn't dry out my skin or make it oily at all! When I feel over the applied areas, it almost feels just like how the rest of my skin feels. Very light in texture.

Coverage


     I would consider this maybe half coverage of my scars? You can see for yourself. Sorry about the one blurry picture. Imo, this is something when you want light coverage for everyday wear. For me I wear when I feel like I'm just going out to the grocery store- just enough to not scare people with my scars. And when I know there won't be pictures taken or anyone to impress ;D. I do find that it takes care of redness pretty well.

Picture


     Sorry to scar your eyes like this, but I figured there are probably a lot of people who have it just as bad or worse that me and you need to see what will work and what won't. Seems like my skin is getting progressively worse =/. I also have not done any editing to the area of interest. I especially note this because I've seen some posts where people will say "I haven't edited this in any way. I've only adjusted the lighting of the picture." UHMMMM HELLO?! When you adjust the lighting of the picture that throws off the colors entirely. For those people I read what they have to say and have to ignore the pictures. They're no longer believeable. ENLARGE BY CLICKING.

EDIT: So I finally got around to taking a picture of the after. It's not an accurate comparison to the above since I might not have put on the exact same amount of bb cream, but I figured I'd post anyways. This is after 12 hours. You can see that it has worn away a bit, but it also has blended in further with my skin- doesn't even really look like I'm wearing anything. My skin is dry right now, so this bb cream is great because you can see that it doesn't even look very very dry.

FRECKLES!

And a segway into how to get rid of freckles. Well, I don't know how to get rid of them, but I was hoping one of you might! >.< Now I know many of you may say oh there's no need to get rid of them, freckles are beautiful on people. That may be true of my Caucasian friends, but for us orientals- well if you've ever seen a completely freckled oriental, it looks like some disease just took over the face. It's something about the brown freckles that come in splotches. I can say this because my mom is a living example (due to an unfortunate encounter with strong sun and no sunscreen one day).
     While people praise the light skin that I've inherited from my mom's side, it also comes with an unfortunately easy to freckle tendency. Genetics, hah. less melanin distribution normally, but patches of melanin in unfortunate areas. Scabs usually fall off to reveal a new overpigmented mole. They're multiplying every day.
     Soooo.... I would like to find something that can reduce their appearance. (You can see them in my swatch pic above). If you've tested a product and found it to work then let me know! I was going to say email  me, but I think other readers could benefit from this information too. Oh, and preferably around $20 or less (I know, it's a tight budget). Up to $40 max please. I really have no money left.


AND SHOES!


     Just sharing my latest Marshalls buy. Sofft shoes! Usually their styles I feel are more geared towards the mid aged/ older population, but they have a couple younger generation stuffs. I was debating between a 7.5 and 8, the 7.5 is my usual size and it was $10 cheaper than the 8 for some reason. But these i feel pinch slightly at the toes and recently i've been feeling like my feet swell at least half size by the end of the day. I took them both up to the cashier and luckily they adjusted the price of the 8s for me! They are a little long in the back, but the straps will keep them on my feet! ^^

I think I'll wear them to the new years celebration tonight!

Until next time my lovelies!

New Heels!

A bit of news for you: I somehow became an SVIP member (apparently it's above VIP?) on GMarket XD haha, guess that huge makeup haul did it. I'm usually not VIP anything, and all of the sudden this, and apparently I autoupgraded to gold member for another store I shop at too X_X.

wooo~ Taking a break from makeup and showing you all my new shoe haul.

1st: Colin Stuart suede convertible boots- wear them cuffed, uncuffed, slouched, both.

I Love these! retail $150, but got them cheap $34 off a site- they just went down to $22 too! DARN!!! Ah well, I still think they're a good deal- they're good quality too.

2nd: Steve Madden Saassi(?) Colorblock heels.

These are cute but big. I'm going to exchange them. They're 5" I believe, so very high. The quality is slightly disappointing. There is nowhere near enough padding at the balls of the feet for such a high incline. It's pearlized pink and beige. I think I wanted a grayer brown but I'm starting to grow fond of the color- just might have some issues walking in these.

3rd: Jessica Simpson- maybe Edith? Can't really remember

Love these! They are a tidge long. Between 7.5 and 8 but not so long that I will exchange them. With some gel cushion they fit perfectly. Very comfortable heels and easy to walk in. Plus, not much toe cleavage~

BCBG Paris Dragon Shoes

After oogling these shoes for the longest time online and seeing that it was way out of my price range my heart sunk and I decided to give up on them. Then, I saw them on the clearance racks at DSW, imagine my surprise!

So I tried them on in black first. I must say with these you have to go at least 1/2 a size down. Even then it was still slightly loose. I also noticed a plastic noise when I walked, not unlike child high heel shoes. I didn't like them as much and was very disappointed in how my image of these was shattered.

Then I saw the red ones, the ones I had originally and first seen. They were in my real size which means that they are loose. Still, the beautiful red lured me and I couldn't help myself so I decided to buy them anyways.

I must confess that I don't really like the ruffles, I think they're too flowery and I wanted to wear these heels anywhere and anytime i wanted to. I want them to be casual and formal shoes. So when I got home, I cut off the ruffles. I know. As soon as I did I had a panic moment and even wondered if I should replace at least one of the ruffles. The original stitching was crude anyways.

I also realized that the straps can be adjusted which helped greatly with the too big shoe issue. Only thing is that the ankle strap isn't adjustable, and as you can see, it's a bit big.

I can see why they stuck ruffles on, without them the shoes look off, and something is a little not right, but the more I look at them, the more I am convinced that had I not cut off the ruffles, these shoes would not be worn as much.

As for the plastic sound, I don't hear it as much. Maybe it's the issue of fit or something. It's still not the dull heavy thud of shoes of "better quality" I guess. =/

I definitely recommend for people to get the red ones. Honestly, the black ones don't scream of anything particularly special.

I think the cut off parts look a little like rose petals.




Excuse my toes =X