Review: Etude Happy Teatime Green Tea Cleansing Foam

A couple months ago, I ran out of my trusty Boscia Purifying Cleansing Gel (review and comparison post). Even though I liked it very much, I was in the mood for trying something new and as a tea-lover, I just had to try this!

I'm a strong believer that a good cleanser is 100x more important than foundation because let's face it - it's ideal to just have perfect skin without makeup xD Also I actually reviewed this on my YouTube channel last week, but I made a mistake when I said that it doesn't claim to remove makeup. In fact, Etude claims this DOES remove makeup, so this product is even less effective than I thought. Anyway, I figured I'd just make a post to make up for it :\ I hate it when I say incorrect things like that...

Travel Now, Think Later

Carved giraffes from Livingstone, Zambia.

As someone who's plastered herself all over Blogger, YT and Twitter, it's ironic that I always feel a twinge of worry when I type 'personal' posts... What a bundle of contradictions I am.

Anyway, Julie and I booked flights to Mexico last week! Now that the tix are bought and hotel booked, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

Trend Predictions: Spring/Summer 2013, Part 1

One of my most popular posts is my two part S/S 2011 Trend Predictions post (Part 1 and Part 2), so I thought I'd put together another one for Spring/Summer 2013. I compile trends from various sources around the net + my own observations and squeeze it all into one giant post to provide a quick overview of the season's current trends. So...yeah, here is one gigantic post providing an overview of S/S 2013 Fashion Trends for your perusal ^^

Part 1 (this post) will be an overview of this season's Pantone colors, clothes, and shoe trends.
Part 2 (coming soon) will be focused on makeup, hair, nail polish, and other misc trends such as accessories (bags, jewelry, sunglasses).

If you don't want to scroll through the entire post, in summary, the biggest, overall trends this season will be:

Colors: Pantone announced that emerald would be the the color of the season. It's a color I love, so rich and vibrant. It'll be nice way to add color to my predominantly black, white and gray (aka BORING) wardrobe. Curse of the corporate world :P

Credits to Toronto Life.

Clothes: These are trends I've been seeing most consistently across all fashion mags/blogs:

• Bomber jackets are still in, graphic shirts, iridescent fabrics, florescent/neon colors, pencil skirts, all-white outfits, triangular cuts (aka peplums and tops cut to flare around the waist), stripes, cropped pants, and florals (which are in EVERY spring wtf. Spring = pastel flowers :P)

These are other trends I've been seeing floating around, but not referred to quite as much:

• Mesh, Orient styles/Asian prints, voluminous cuts (unsurprising since peplums and flared waist tops are still in), sheers, animal prints, and tuxedo cuts.

Eras to refer to this season are the 90s (yahhh nostolgia!), 60s, and 80s. I am strangely excited about the 90s callback because that means I will finally be a fashionable creature!! In high school I was ALWAYS in sweatshirts with a t-shirt peeking out, baggy jeans, sandals (upgraded to chucks in senior year), and a messy bun. God, I was so cool.

Would die happy wearing those Emilio Pucci wedges.

Shoes:

According to Million Looks' awesome post, this season is gonna be all about:

• Metallics, chunky heels, transparent heels/straps, strappy boots, pointed shoes and reptile and crazy prints.
• A lot of focus will be on making these chunky heels super unique with odd patterns, unusual materials, crazy colors, and strange cuts. I ADORE heels with psychotic architectural details so I am very excited about this trend!

So that was my quick and dirty recap of Part 1, but for more pictures of each style, keep reading :)

NOTD: Zoya Tanzy

Sunkissed oranges! Tangerine wedges! Screwdrivers (ehehe)! The weather has gotten warmer and my mood has gotten so chipper I painted my nails :) This is Zoya Tanzy, from their Sunshine Collection last year. I actually swatched 5 of the 6 polishes in the collection previously, but I think Tanzy deserves its own post. Overall, even after a year, the Sunshine Collection remains among my favorite polishes to use (especially in the summer). They are just so incredibly glittery, easy to apply (though you do need 2+ coats), and capture the essence of summer.

East Village Wanderings

I usually avoid going to restaurants more than once, but I couldn't resist stopping by Cha-an again. I just love the hole-in-a-wall, soothing atmosphere, the simple yet delicious food, the delectable teas, and quiet patrons. The East Village area, in general, is just really nice and a great place to check out if you like Japanese food; seriously, there are so many Japanese restaurants in the area. Momofuku Noodle Bar (not authentic Japanese food btw) is there as well. I heard about the place on Food Network and was curious enough to go in, but it was so friggin crowded -_-

Review: Drugstore BBcream Comparison (4-in-1)!

Yahh...finally got this done! I went through a drugstore BBcream sampling phase and here is a rather lengthy post detailing my thoughts :] I'll have a followup post showing comparisons of my face with all these BBcreams on later; I thought about including it in this post, but it was already so long.

On a random note, I noticed that I always write BBcream as one word even though, I must admit, it's clearly three words with spaces, "Beauty/Blemish Balm Cream." Ah well, old habits die hard :) I picked these 4 BBcreams to try at random at Walmart and Ulta. I had not done any research beforehand, so I confess I selected these solely based on packaging and brand popularity.

Review: Bearpaw Kola II Boots

This is a loose followup to my OOTD yesterday. Bearpaw is a brand that I discovered while poking around the Sale section at DSW. I actually have another pair of BP boots, the Sonjo II in black, which have been the staple winter shoe for me this year. I'll review the Sonjos later (they're currently on my feet ahaha).

Anyway, I love the Sonjo IIs so much that when I saw the Kola II boots on Amazon, I snagged them right away. It was definitely a vanity purchase considering it's terribly inconvenient white color, but I was so intrigued by the lovely feather banding ^^

OOTD: Comfort in Chocolate

I admit I was a little surprised that people liked my last outfit of the day, so I thought I'd take another stab at this over the weekend.... Inspired by how sometimes chocolate is the only solution to winter blues :]