:(

Okay okay I know that I said that I would update often, but I've been getting owned by school that it's been so hard for me to update, but no worries! The semester is almost over with and from then on it's all about blogging! I have some great stuff to share with you guys and I'm super excited! I'm headed to New York and you know what that means! Shopping!! It's unfortunate that there aren't a variety of stores that I can shop at. There are so many new things that I want to check out! I'm excited! Well, until next time...

For the love of Kiehl's (part 1)

For the longest time, I didn't think much about having a good skin care routine. Sure, I took a shower and then if my face felt dry, I would just slap on some lotion. Over the past couple of years, after learning about makeup and the skin, I decided it was time to stop disregarding my face. (does that make any sense?) I started off small. I tried Aveeno products. It was okay. Then I got the privilege of going to Korea and was introduced to The Face Shop and Missha. I loved their products and it fit well with my skin type-- dry. However, the price that they sell it in the U.S. is about 3x the price in Korea. After searching for a good substitute for these products, I found something better-- Kiehl's.

I've tried almost every product that they carry for the face. Since I tried so many, I'm going to split this post in to two parts. The one thing that I really like is that Kiehl's products are natural and most of them they do not have a scent.

Some of the products I've used

There's a lot more that I've tried than the ones I have in the picture. It's just those are the products that I'm using at the moment.

Cleaner:  
 - Ultra Facial Cleanser: I tried a sample of it and it was okay. I wasn't overly excited about it. Right now, I use Aveeno's foam cleanser and it works wonders. The texture of the Ultra Facial Cleanser was a little thick and it worked well. I have really dry skin and the cleanser didn't dry out my skin which I really liked, but at the same time, I love my Aveeno cleanser plus it's cheaper. :]
- Pineapple Papaya Facial Scrub: The local Kiehl's give free facials. I went to get one and that day, the lady used the pineapple papaya facial scrub and I fell in love. It exfoliates your face, but at the same time, it's not that harsh to feel like you took your face off. I use it about 2 times a week usually on Wednesdays and Fridays because Fridays are my face mask days. :] After that facial, I bought this right away. After I use this facial scrub, my face feels so clean and smooth. It also doesn't dry out my face, which is a plus.

Toner:
- Cucumber Herbal Alcohol-Free Toner: I really like this toner. It has a cool soothing affect after you apply it to your face. The lady recommended me to use it during the winter because it feels so nice, but I like it anytime. :] At first I was a little taken back because when I dabbed some on a cotton ball, it came out green. However, after I applied it to my face, I liked the cool affect it had. It tingles a little bit, but it doesn't hurt. Also, since there is no alcohol, it doesn't dry out of my face. For those of you with really dry skin, I recommend Kiehl's.

- Ultra Facial Toner: This line is specifically for those with really dry skin. This was the first toner that I used from Kiehl's. I fell in love with this toner as well. As for which is better, the cucumber or this one, I would have to choose the cucumber one because I like that tingling feeling and the cool effect, but they both work really well.
- Calendula Herbal- extract Toner: Out of the three toners that I've tried from Kiehl's, this surpasses both of the other two. It actually has flower extract in the toner that you apply to your face. It's pretty neat actually. I like it better than the other two because it really helped my dry skin and also it was really soothing to my skin. However, it's a bit more expensive than the other two, but worth it!

I used it all up!

... To be continued....

North to South

Luckily, I get to travel a bit from time to time whenever I have the free time. This summer (yes, it's almost winter!) I got the privilege to go to New York and Virginia. These are a few of my favorite places to dine and some of my favorite foods that I always eat whenever I go visit!

Donuts Galore!

Country Style Donuts- By far the greatest tasting donuts I have ever tasted in my entire life.

Warm Krispy Kreme Donuts

While in Virginia, I got to visit Washington D.C. Boy, I fell in love with the city. I went to the famous Georgetown Cupcake and got myself a red velvet cupcake. The line was outside of the store, but I didn't wait that long. Taste wise, I like my Muddy's, but it was pretty good! I loved the neighborhood there. It was a bit confusing at first, but it was great. I'd love to go back and visit again and spend more time there... Hmm... cherry blossoms in the spring?? :]

 

 

Red Velvet

Sweet Frog

Another favorite - Frozen yogurt! As you can see by my beastly creation, I love Fruity Pebbles + frozen yogurt.

I love this place. Nothing left to say except it's too bad they don't have one here.

 Sunday Brunch time! It was my first time trying a Bloody Mary. It was pretty good. I love celery and tomato juice, so it was perfect. I forgot the name of the restaurant, but I do remember they had little trivia cards while we waited for our table. It was pretty fun and a cool little place. I would definitely go back.

New York New York!

Fondue with white chocolate and milk chocolate

I didn't get to go to all my favorite places nor did I get to take pictures while in New York this summer. I always tend to forget because I've been there so many times. But this is one of my favorite places to go to-- Max Brenners near Union Square. I love their dessert waffles and fondue!

This banana dessert waffle

Paris Baguette

 The best part of the summer in New York are the Korean bakeries and their seasonal desserts. This is called Patbingsoo and it has shaved ice, mochi, fruits, ice cream, and sweet red bean. Basically, what you do is mix everything together like Bibimbap and eat it. It is the best on a really hot day especially in New York. It's so goooooood! I love it. Too bad they only sell it in the summer. I would totally go get one when I visit this winter.

Paris Baguette

Back Home- in search for the best BBQ.

After visiting these exciting places, I got to thinking, what is particular to this area? The answer to that question is... Barbeque and donuts. It's the south-- what do you expect?! The Bbq here is amazing. I have yet to try every Bbq place, but one of the few that I've tried and that I've loved is this place called Corky's.

Onion Loaf from Corky's

 

Ribs

 

pulled pork with cole slaw and beans

I'm making myself hungry by posting all these pictures. Whenever you get the chance, you guys should check these places out. I love trying new foods and new restaurants! Any suggestions-- please tell me! :] Thanks for reading~

Favorite Palettes and Holidays??

It's been a week since my last update. I am sorry! Midterms were a killer this year. I studied for seven hours straight without moving! I never did that in my entire life... :\

A couple of my friends were asking me about the Naked Palette so I decided to write about that and some of my other favorite palettes. I absolutely love the Naked Palette. I've been using it over a year now and it's the most useful palette that I have in my collection. It's perfect for the working woman. The colors are mostly neutral, but there's a couple that you can use to create the smokey eye and go out at night. The pigmentation on the colors are good as well. It shows up really well on my skin tone and it's pretty. :] I bought it for my sister for her birthday and she loves it too. Also, I love browns. :] The Naked Palette was the thing that got me interested in Urban Decay and I've been exploring their products ever since. The palette came with the eyeliner a year ago. I'm not sure what it comes with now. I think they may have changed it or may have not! The eyeliner was really smooth and creamy, but it doesn't run down your face and make it look like you have raccoon eyes. I'm not sure if it's my concealer or just my skin type, but some eyeliners (even with eye primer) runs down my face by the end of the day. I've found about two pencil eyeliners that doesn't do that and one of them is Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil.

For some reason the color to the left of "Toasted" came out to be green in this lighting. It's not green. It's a dark brown.

 

 

 

Another eyeshadow palette that I got was from Smashbox. I love this one too. However, the colors are more varied, but the pigmentation comes out better than the Naked Palette. Nevertheless, the colors for both of the palette come out really well. I've used the Smashbox Palette longer than I've used the Naked Palette. It was the first palette that I ever got, well the one that my sister got for me. It came with eye primer and mascara-- none which I particularly liked that much. I love Urban Decay's eye primer. Out of all the eye primers I've used, it wins for me.

It also comes with guides to do a particular look. The one that's showing is my favorite. It's a smokey grey with pink tones. I love it. Smashbox came out with a new holiday palette, which I really wanted to try, but I got the Lorac one instead.(Although I might cave in to buying the new holiday palette because the colors are so pretty!) I like trying new products and seeing what I like best out of all the products. It can get confusing because there's so many good products out there, but hopefully my trial and errors can help you out! :]

GOODIES!

I was browsing through Sephora's website and I found a couple of great items that I wanted to check out. A typical weekend for me? Shopping at the mall. It's literally 10 minutes away from my house-- doesn't help to be frugal. There was a bunch of great things and I was literally torn between two holiday sets. I love holiday palettes! It was between Lorac and Smashbox, two good companies that I really like. I've gotten a palette from Smashbox before and I loved it. The pigmentation show up really well on my skin and so of course I wanted it. However, I was browsing (which I should never do when I have something in mind to buy) and I found myself in front of Lorac. The holiday set is amazing. It includes two palettes-- a night and day palette plus it comes with a huge case of bronzer and two lip gloss and it was only six dollars more than the Smashbox palette. But, the colors were different and I preferred the colors on the Smashbox, but the Lorac was a better deal and it doesn't help that my friends were convincing me to buy the Lorac one. :]

It came in a jewelry box. Pretty cute!

I also bought this makeup remover from Clinque. I love their "take the day off" line especially the eye remover so I decided to give this balm a try. It's a balm but as you rub it on your face, it becomes an oil fluid that just melts your makeup off. I have pretty dry skin and so the makeup remover wipes that I've been using from Target has been making my skin dry out especially since it's getting colder now. I decided to give this a try. I originally wanted to try oil based makeup remover from Boscia, but that only took the face makeup off. The Clinque takes off both face and eye makeup and it works like a charm. I only used a little bit and it took my face off. :] You guys should try it out!

Perfect fall weather

  The weather was perfect today. I was invited to go to lunch at this family's house who lives on a lake. It was absolutely gorgeous outside. I wish it was like this everyday. We were able to paddle boat on the lake and roam around. It was great, but when it turned about 2PM, the sun was beating down on our faces and we had nowhere to hide. We scurried back to the shade where it was nice and cool.

 Outfit:

*Knit sweater - Forever21
*Shorts - Forever21
*Tights - Target
*Scarf - Forever21
*Boots - Madden Girl

 

 Thanks to my photographers Tina and Jinny. :] <3 사랑해 <3

Makeup: 

 Semi-smokey eyes with a pink tone lip color.

Some of the products I used:
- Makeup Forever HD liquid foundation
- Makeup Forever HD concealer
- NARS Oasis blush
- Too Faced "Sun Bunny" Bronzing Powder
- Loreal Hip Metallic Shadow in ELECTRIFIED
- Loreal Hip Metallic Shadow in SHOCKED
- Wet n wild eye shadow palette in LUST
- Makeup Forever eyeliner
- Fairydrops mascara 
- fake lashes

 

Fall be gone!

This disappearing act with the fall weather is taking its toll on me. When I said I wasn't ready for the winter, I was serious! The fall weather lasted about a week and now it's straight up cold out there. It's time to bust out the winter gear and hope that it keeps me warm. I don't remember it being this cold last year.

This outfit was from last year around the same time as now-- middle of October. I love this outfit and can't wait to wear it out again! I wore tights underneath the pants because it was too cold without them. I love scarves. I can't wait to wear them in this cold weather.

Pants: unknown designer from Korea (my sister actually bought them at a Korean market a couple of years back) 

shirt: Forever 21 

jacket: Forever 21 

*I have a lot of clothes from Forever21*

scarf- unknown designer (I received this as a gift from my aunt) 

shoes: Target 

I'm wearing circle lens in that picture. I used to be a huge fan, not so much anymore. I find them fun to play around with... makes me looking so Asian. However, they're really unhealthy for your eyes. I don't think it's FDA approved in the States so people buy it through websites that are based in the Asian countries.

I went on the hunt for a fall blush color for the season and I got unlucky at the MAC counter. I have two summer color blush from MAC. I love them so I was hoping to find something that I liked. I walked over to Sephora and fell in love with the NARS collection for Fall 2011. Before this, I only used eye shadow from NARS. I had bought the Orgasm blush in a stick, but I didn't really like it so I gave it to my sister. But, one of the makeup artist at Sephora convinced me to try Oasis by NARS. I fell in love immediately. 

NARS- Oasis 

Honestly, that picture does not do it justice. The color is not as brown as it looks. I was worried at first that it would turn out more of a bronzer than a blush, but it turned out to be perfect. I also bought a NARS limited edition lipstick-- the best ever. (for another post)

Speaking of MAC, look at what I got in the mail today!!! I was super excited. I love love the seasonal makeup trends. I think I might have signed up for every possible makeup company that I like so I get email updates. However, this has got to top it off. Good marketing from MAC! I'll definitely go and see what this is all about.

Say it with me, Dubonnet- "DOO BOH NEH"

Summer has passed and now it's time for fall. When I think of fall, I think of red lipstick. Does that make sense? I'm really random. So, what do I do? Go on the hunt for the perfect red lipstick. I spent hours at Sephora. Not that I don't do that already on the weekends, but this was a particular case. I tried on the Makeup Forever Rouge Artist Intense in Moulin Rouge. It wasn't the right color for me. Then I moved on to Clinque's set of lipstick. I'm not sure what I tried on, but it was a range of colors that resembled the Moulin Rouge. After probably hours at Sephora, I tried the MAC counter at Macy's. BINGO! I found the perfect red shade for my skin tone and lips. I absolutely love it. I took a picture of it. Don't mind the retarded heart. The only art I'm good at is using the face as a canvas and putting make up on it. :] You guys should check it out and try it! I would like to say that it goes well with Asian skin tones. All the other red lipsticks I tried made me look like a ghost because of the high pigmentation, but then again, it's red lipstick.

 

I put the lipstick on with a lip brush from Sonia Kashuk from Target. It was way too pigmented for my taste so I blotted it with tissue until it got to that color. As for the eyes, I didn't want to go too smokey so that it would drain out the color of my lips-- winged tips for a little cat eye and some false lashes. For some reason, I don't like wearing full false lashes. I just like the ones that you glue on the end of the eyes. It looks more natural. So, how about it?

Crazy for Muddy's

Warning: This post will make you hungry.

I got the privilege of finding this local bakery near my house. They specialize in cupcakes. One word to describe the cupcakes: spectacular. My goal throughout my remaining time in this town is to try every single flavor-- without jeopardizing my diet. (When I have these cupcakes in front of me... I think, what diet?) Nevertheless, they are so yummy.

Red Velvet, Strawberry with chocolate

 

Pumpkin Spice

Orange, Red Velvet, Lemon 

Red Velvet, Chocolate, More chocolate, Strawberry with some chocolate

Lemon

*** FYI: These pictures were not taken in one day... I love food. I love cupcakes. I love Muddy's, but I am not going on a crazy sweets overload. (once in a blue moon perhaps)

By the way, these cupcakes were a perfect pairing with some dry red wine. The bitterness of the wine complemented well with the sweetness of the cupcakes. :]

Calvin Klein

I am writing my first post sitting in the library freezing cold. I am NOT ready for the cold!! I want my fall weather to come back!

Over this past weekend, I got the opportunity to see my sister! Yay!! Of course, we went shopping. There isn't much of anything to do here except shopping. My sister bought me great stuff ^_^ Of which, my favorite of all time, this amazing red (making a statement) Calvin Klein dress. I finished it off with some gladiator heels from Chinese Laundry. It seemed the most appropriate for a wedding-- classy yet down to party! :) I wore a single thin bangle from H&M and simple drop down earrings. Finished it off with a black clutch.

Makeup and hair
My sister gave me the idea of slicking my hair back to show the details on the dress especially the neckline. Also we had seen it done in some fashion show. So, I learned the wonders of hairspray, finishing spray, and volumizing mousse. To add a touch of style, I wrapped my hair around my ponytail to hide my rubberband so that it looked like I tied my hair with my own hair. And of course drenched it with hairspray. As for the makeup, I figured since I was going pretty simple with the accessories and the hair and the dress itself, I wanted a dramatic look- smokey eyes, fake lashes, contoured cheeks, and light lips with a pop of gloss.

What do you guys think??

By the way, this is my first Calvin Klein dress!!

 

Being silly at the wedding. 

Hello and welcome!

아녕! Hello!

Welcome! I've always wanted to start a blog about likes and dislikes of fashion, shoes, skincare, and my favorite, makeup. So, here it is-- a new beginning.

A little about myself: I'm a Korean-American. Currently a student. Makeup fanatic. Explorer. Lover of food. Room for improvement.

Enjoy!