My Skincare Routine

A lot of times people asked me what is it that I do differently now that makes my skin condition improves a lot better than before. What is it that I do now that I did not do then?

Let me share with you my daily skincare regime:

Step 1: Cleanse
I cleanse my face with non-drying cleansers. I have a combination skin, with oily T-zone. But that doesn't mean I need soapy cleanser (I actually change my cleanser according to my skin condition at the moment). The last thing I want to do is drying my skin by using soap. That will only make my skin produce more oil as it cannot produce water to counteract the dryness.

I either use my middle and ring fingers, or rotating cleansing brush to massage and cleanse my face at the same time (all the while avoiding my eye areas). I then take a wet, soft wash cloth to wipe the cleanser off my face before rinsing it with water. I just use room temperature tap water to wash my face.

My favorites:

1. Skinvigorate™ Cleansing Brush

2. Timewise 3-in-1 Cleanser

3. Botanical Effects Cleanse (Formula 2)

Step 2: Mask
After I cleanse, I will mask my face. However I don't do this everyday. I probably do this twice a week. There are two types of mask that I use, a hydrating mask, and an exfoliating mask. Hydrating mask will give extra hydration that my skin needs. For hydrating mask, I normally put it on before bed and wash it off the next morning.  The second type of mask that I use is exfoliating mask. This is one of the most important things you need to do for your skin. This mask will absorb extra oil that my skin excrete and at the same time slough off the dead skin cells. This is the step that will help your skin achieve its optimum brightness and gives you that glow. It also allows the makeup to sit on the skin properly without all the nasty dead skin cells to make the foundation looks cakey or patchy.

So every week I shall mask my face every three days or so.  First with exfoliating mask, followed by hydrating mask three days later.  I also use a mask specifically for my lips when I use the face mask. The lips is often neglected as part of skincare routine. They also have dead skin cells accumulating if you don't exfoliate. I always use soft wash cloth to wipe the mask off my face and lips.

My favorites:

1. TimeWise® Moisture Renewing Gel Mask

2. Botanical Effects Mask (Formula 2)

3. Satin Lips Lip Mask

Step 3: Freshen
I choose alcohol-free freshener and softener to freshen my skin everyday. This step will make sure the skin is completely cleansed from the step before and prepares it for better absorption in the next step.  I used facial cotton pad to freshen my face from the neck upwards.

My favorites:

1. TimeWise® Moisture Renewing Softener

2. Botanical Effects Freshen (Formula 2)

Step 4: Supplements
This step came later after I started really caring for my skin. When I was still learning to familiarize with my skincare routine, I didn't have any supplements at all. Only about four months after I started, that I introduced the supplements into my routine. I just didn't want my skin to be overwhelmed by all the products, that's all.

The supplements that I use on my skin is in the form of serum. I have a day serum with SPF 35, a night serum and a whitening serum (whitening serum that I'm using is non-peeling and non-abrasive, it only allows my skin to be the brightest that my skin can). So I'll use the serums (day/ night serum and whitening serum) before my moisturizer.

My favorites:

1. TimeWise® Day Solution Sunscreen Broad Spectrum SPF35

2. TimeWise® Night Solution

3. melaCEP plus+ Ultimate Serum

Step 5: Moisturize
After my serums, I'll put a little moisturizer all over my face. I dot it on my cheeks, forehead, nose, chin and neck, and spread them using the tips of my middle and ring fingers.

I also use the eye cream for my eye areas. Nobody like crows feet before its time, right? I spread the eye cream using my ring finger from the outside corner, going down towards inside corners, and upwards towards outside corners again. Once it spreads evenly, I use a light tapping motion around my eye contour areas using my ring fingers.

For my lips, I use the lip balm so that it won't feel lonely and dry and left out from the whole routine. I always reach out for the lip balm whenever my lips feel dry, so it's always with me.

My favorites:

1. TimeWise® Age-Fighting Moisturizer

2. TimeWise® Age-Fighting Eye Cream
3. Satin Lips Lip Balm

(Note: For all of the above steps, I avoid my eyes and lips, unless I use products that are specific for my eyes and lips, or water on the wash cloth. Also, I don't forget my neck.)

Step 5: Protect
Depending on my mood, I either use only CC cream with SPF 15 for this step or I'll do full on makeup. There are times when I do makeup almost every day in a week.  For this step, I will not regret my eye areas ;)

My favorites:

1. CC Cream Broad Spectrum SPF15
2. TimeWise® Matte-Wear Liquid Foundation

So there you go, this is what I do now - twice a day - well, on most days :P.  However I skip the last step for evening routine. It seems a lot, but once you get into the rhythm, it's not that hard. It may sound like a lot of things, but then, I'm thinking, it's the only one skin that I have.

If you must know what skincare routine that I had before, I only cleanse and moisturize my face. That's it. I hardly put any protection as I didn't like having foundation on my face and all the BB creams that were available didn't have my shade. Funny how I live in a country that has people from different backgrounds and ethnic groups, and yet, most drugstore makeup brands only have foundations and BB creams that only cater for those with light skin color.

Well, if you have any question regarding my skincare routine, or how you can get them do leave a comment down below or you can reach me via Whatsapp or email. Till next post, see ya!

NPU: Endless Performance Creme-to-Powder Foundation, Eyeliner andLiquid Eyeliner Pen by Mary Kay

I had the chance to try out the newly launched products by Mary Kay a few days before it was available to everyone and I was sooooo excited!

They are launching new, staple products for their regular line and that means, it's going to be available all year round starting this month. When I said staple, I mean products that you can use everyday. These are the things you might want to invest it for great daily looks.

A lot of my close friends know how I swear by the Mary Kay Timewise Matte-wear Liquid Foundation, as it gives me just enough coverage and I absolutely love the consistency. Now I'm even more excited as I got to try the new Endless Performance Creme-to -Powder foundation. It is a cream foundation in a 10-gram pan that you apply with sponge (I love wet sponge) to give you full coverage.  It comes in five shades; Ivory 1, Ivory 2, Beige 1, Beige 2 and Bronze 1.

Endless Performance Creme-to-Powder Foundations

Just like the liquid foundation, this cream foundation smooth over your skin so easily and it gives more coverage that I'm used to when I was using the liquid foundation. The coverage is full, and it glides over my skin so easy. I can choose to set it it with powder for more matte finish or leave it for more dewy finish. I haven't tried it on dry skin, but since I have combination skin, it sets more dewy for me. What I like about it, is that it feels very light on my face. I'm giving this two thumbs up!! I actually tried it on my face, but I forgot to take pictures before I washed it off! Arrghhh!!!

What the foundations look like inside.

Mary Kay's Eyeliner is the eyeliner that I reach out and wear everyday. So you  have to understand my excitement when I know they are relaunching the range with new formula and more colours! I'm most excited with this range compared to the other products launched this month.. Hehehe.. So, they have new colours with this range; MK Deep Brown, MK Dark Denim, MK Steely, MK Turquoise and MK Black. It comes in a retractable pencil, just like the previous formula.

Retractable Mary Kay Eyeliners

I LOVE this eyeliner!! The colour is more pigmented, and creamy when I put it on. And it really stays on. I mean, really, stays ON! Talk about long-lasting. I was having some allergic reaction on my lids for few weeks now (that explains why the lack of #motd posts on my Instagram). So I tried on my eyes and really used the eye makeup remover to take it off. I even swatched in on my forearms and I didn't remove it immediately. Six hours later, I tried washing and rubbing it off with water. And It wouldn't come off, literally wouldn't budge! So I know it's water and smudge proof! Wooho!! Love this! Two thumbs up!

The retractable eyeliners swatches after 6 hours! It wouldn't budge!

Last product I tried was the Liquid Eyeliner Pen. It comes in only one colour, black, in a pen with felt tip. The felt tip really helped with the application if you're just trying out eyeliner as part of your daily routine. The sharp end surely helps with the cat eyes or glamour liner precision. However, what I didn't like about it was that, it is not waterproof and it doesn't finish off as really matte. You can easily wash it off with water.  So, if you're a fan of pen eyeliner, you might want to set it with your eye shadow or you can use it to get the shape of the eyeliner on your lids, then follow through with a gel liner if you want to make it last longer. Because I know it's sometimes easier to use this pen first to get the shape as opposed to using gel liner on a brush, especially for newbies. One BIG pros to having a non-waterproof eyeliner? Obviously, it's wudhu' friendly!!

Mary Kay Liquid Eyeliner Pen

Swatches of the retractable eyeliners and the liquid eyeliner pen

I haven't got a chance to create looks using these products yet, but do follow my Instagram as I'll be updating more looks there! Till next post, kisses!

P/S: Please Whatsapp me for appointments to try out any of these products!

Katy Perry "Dark Horse" Inspired Look

It's been a while since I did some creative, outrageous makeup look (by my standard, this isn't outrageous yet). Last week I posted some choices on my instagram account. By far I had the highest vote (maybe just 3 haha..) for this look, so here I am, today, attempting it.

Base:

I started with clean and well moisturized face. Then I put on the Foundation Primer, followed by the matte-wear liquid foundation in Bronze 1 and Beige 5 mixed together. Then I put on highlight using concealer in Yellow and Bronze 1. Followed by contouring in Bronze 6. My I REALLY haven't put on this much makeup in a LOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG time. Then I used the MUFE Compact Modellers highlight and contouring shades to set my foundation. Then I go over the T-zone area with Translucent Loose Powder.

Eyes:

I started with Eye Primer, dabbed all over my eyelid and bottom lid areas. Because it was a dramatic makeup, and it went beyond the normal eye colour placement, I put the primer in a bigger parameter around the eyes. Then I used the MUFE 12 Flash Color Case to start 'marking' the areas around my eyes. First I took Gold and put it in the inner corner of my eyes, following the bottom lashline and extended it past my outer corner of my eyes. Then I mixed Turquoise and Silver and washed it over the centre of my eyelid and blended it upwards and outwards. Then I took the the blue colour from the MK@Play Electric Spring, and set the turquoise colour I put on earlier. I then used the mineral eye colour in Midnight Start and created a crease from the outer corner of my eyes. Voila! NOT! Then the hardest and trickiest part, the eyeliner. I used gel liner in Jet Black and just follow the lines from this picture:

After finishing only I realized, I actually mirrored the image.. Oh well, no biggies. Put on false lashes and mascara, followed by shaping the eyebrows using eyebrow definer pencil in Brunette. I drew extra long and extra dramatic arched effect on the brows to match the eye colour of course.

Cheeks:

Just quickly blend a mix of mineral cheek colour in Cherry Blossom and Citrus Bloom on the apples of my cheeks.

Lips:

For a nude effect, I used the semi-matte lipstick in Pink Moonstone sans lip gloss. And Voila! For real.

I even tried wearing a blonde wig! Hahahah! Come visit my IG for pictures ;)

Let's go SHOPPING!!!!!

Here's a sneak preview ;)

Go to our facebook page for more details on more products! Hurry, order closes on18 June 2010, deposit payment by 20 June 2010. Products will be *shipped in July 2010.

*For Malaysia only. Shipping is subjected to completion of payments.