lush catastrophe cosmetic face mask review

After having 2 exams in 3 days, major damage control is needed for my skin.  It`s ironic that studying about brain cells can kill off so many of my own brain cells. no joke :@ With my lack of sleep and the stress of cramming for exams, my skin had gotten really dull and tired looking.  For that i have turned to the lush catastrophe cosmetic face mask.  I usually like to do this mask (or any other mask for that matter) after using the conair spa face steamer.  This helps to open up the pores and draw out any gross dirt and impurities and makes ur skin soft like a freshly peeled hard boiled egg :3  This also helps to enhance the effectiveness of the masks and products that you are going to use afterwards :D  so anyway, back to the mask.  This blueberry infused mask claims that "the blue bulbs are packed with vitamins, with a gentle calamine base to cleanse the skin without stripping it of it's natural oils."  For a quick go to mask, I felt that this mask did a reasonable job in deep cleansing my skin as it did look less irritated and felt fresher afterwards.  But like most other face masks,  the effects only lasted for like less than a day or so.  I suggest to use these before going to bed when you have a special event or date the next day...you will definitely feel a difference when you wake up the next morning ;)

 

LIKES:
✔The smell- smells like freshly ground blueberries...and a hint of black current?
✔Deep cleaning effect- love the cool tingly feeling as the mask hardens.
✔Makes skin smoother
✔Matifies skin
✔Reduces redness

DISLIKES:
✖Messy application- thick and hard to apply. drags on the skit a bit. careful. dun go near your delicate eye areas!
✖Ash like fall out after the mask dries - do not touch your face as the mask dries, you will get white ash all over ur clothes like you have dandruff @@~
✖Short shelf life- all the ingredients are natural and freshly made, therefore do not last that long.
✖Hard to get a hold of-  Since these masks are always made fresh, they are not available for sale on their website and they only come to the store like once a week.  And every time they are sold out within like a couple of days.  So if you want to look for a specific mask, like this one, its better to call and check with your local lush stores before u go in all excited and just end up with disappointment.

To sum up, the likes > the dislikes, and i did enjoy this mask as a treat for my post-examified skin, but it's not something that i absolutely LOVE and would rave about.  When i go to lush next time, i would much rather look into the other face masks that i haven't tried, because i am still just new to the lush brand but am totally intrigued by just how fresh and organic all their masks are.  and o yea remember to keep all your black tubs after u finish your masks because if u bring back 5 black pots, lush will give you the 6th one free!! hell yea, now who doesn't love free shit <3

Disclaimer: products mentioned are bought with my own hard earned money.  All are my honest opinions based on my experience with the products.

ice breaker: get your freak on tag!

This is a tag that has been going on for a while now, mostly around the youtube community.  But I think this tag looks really fun and would say some things about me on a more fun and personal level.  Nice ice breaker i would think. ok let's waste no time and get this started :D

Questions:

1. What's a nickname only your family calls you? they call me 波波 borbor.  Which means balls in chinese, not like the male private area, but like an actual ball.  My older sister gave me this nickname because apparently when my mom was pregnant with me, her stomach was huge and round like a ball.  And this name has then been stuck with me since birth ;D
2. What's a weird habit of yours? When I'm bored, I like to poke (NOT pick) at my nose. i probably look like a retard but i like how the cartilage inside my nose feels....hey it did say *weird* habit ok
3. Do you have any weird phobias?  omg this might come back to haunt me...but i'm deathly afraid of those fake plastic baby dolls that BLINK (a.k.a the hot pink isle inside of toys R' us).  Seriously who would like such creepy things?? have u not seen CHUCKY!?
4. What's a song you secretly LOVE to blast & belt out when you're alone? hmmm i usually belt out to whatever song that was last on the radio lol.  but i guess if i had to pick one, it would be Aladdin's a whole new world <3
5. What's one of your biggest pet peeves?  accidentally touching mold in the shower. without glasses i'm practically blind (-7.5 to both eyes), u can see how this can b a problem...or maybe i just need to clean the shower more often XD lasik eye surgery i'm coming for you!!
6.  What's one of your nervous habits?  sometimes i get the nervous giggles , but most of the time i would pace around like a mindless zombie
7.  What side of the bed do you sleep on?  The middle, i'm afraid if i sleep on the side , i will roll on the floor
8.  What was your first stuffed animal & its name?  I remember my mom giving me my first stuffed bunny when i was around 4yrs old.  She had just came back from a trip from Singapore, and that was my souvenir.  i remember i was obsessed with it and took it with me everywhere i went....but the funny thing is that i still currently sleep with this bunny everynight! kinda embarassing, but we have like a 20ish yr old history.  There's no breaking us up :3  oh yea and i used to just call her bunny, but in the recent years since she has aged quite a bit (literally had to sew together some holes LOL) i have started to call her "lo yan ga" meaning the elderly in chinese.  Am i not creative with the names or what? >:)  OH and she did have an english name too.  My dearest cousin nana helped me name her while she was sleeping over one night...i think it was JEASTRIL?! LOL dun ask, we were still young back then XD

9.  What's the drink you ALWAYS order at starbucks?  a few years back when i used to work as a barista at starbucks, the drinks were always free and i would be drinking different ones everyday.  But now i usually just order a tall dark coffee with hazelnut syrup because i know how ridiculously overpriced the other drinks are :(  but on the rare occasion, i still like to treat myself to an iced-tall-2-pump-chai-soy-tazo-chai-tea-latte
10.  What's the beauty rule you preach.. but never ACTUALLY practice?  sleep early and wake up early.  I'm never able to sleep early, i dunno what's wrong with me.  The night shifts i have worked for a while have screwed up my sleeping pattern a little bit.  Sigh...leave me alone dark eye circles! ><!!!
11.  Which way do you face in the shower?  mostly with my back facing the water, unless i have to wash my face or something~
12.  Do you have any 'weird' body 'skills'?  YES. this may sound crazy, but i can make a maple leaf shape with my tongue LOL.  I would take a pic to prove it but im afraid it will scare people away before even getting to read this tag :@
13.  What's your favorite 'comfort food'/food that's 'bad' but you love to eat it anyways? instant noodles/cup noodles FTW :9
14  What's a phrase or exclamation you always say?  omg where's my phone?? @@~ sigh...yes i do feel really lost without it.
15.  Time to sleep- what are you ACTUALLY wearing?  any comfy t-shirt and japanese cartoon patterned cotton pants XD

*I tag anyone that reads this and would like to answer some fun and random questions! but after you answer them, please post a link in the comments area so i can go and read them too! thanks and have a wonderful day-- :D

Strawberry filled 2.14.12

Hello my pretties!  Hope this past valentine's day was a loved filled one that u got to spend with ur friends, family and other half.  As promised from my last post, i said that i will post pictures from my attempt to make cheesecake stuffed chocolate covered strawberries.  So i thought that they turned out to be pretty damn good as i could not resist eating a few of them myself as i was dipping the fat, juicy strawberries in the warm melted hershey's milk chocolate :999999  The only part that i kinda struggled with was drizzling the white chocolate over top.  This was partly because i did not buy the correct white chocolate.  Since i was so last minute getting the ingredients (cuz i wanted the strawberries to be as fresh as possible) they were pretty much sold out of the white chocolate, so i had to settle for the white toblerone that had small pieces of nougats in it.  It got clumpy quite fast while drizzling the white chocolate over top.  Even though my kitchen turned into a war zone after, the end result was totally worth it, and i will definitely be making more of these lil babies in the near future :D

     

Here is a close up of the end product.  So easy, yet it tastes just a wee bit like heaven.  I have the biggest urge to run out and buy more strawberries now >:D  Oh and apparently for this year's valentine's the theme did actually turn into a full blown strawberry themed one, cuz my boyfriend also happened to make a strawberry shortcake for me as a present.  I was pretty surprised and really did appreciate his efforts, even though he probably got some sort of assistance from this sisters *coughcough*  insert picture below:

     

Also, this year i did originally get him a vday card, but later i decided that it would make perfect sense to fold a strawberry origami and write him a little note on the inside of it (the one stuck to the box of the first picture above)  This way, it adds fun to the present and u also get to save money!!!

ok. as much as i love them, ENOUGH strawberries already.  My blog is going to be flooded of strawberries, so i promise that i am not going to be posting anything more on them, at least for the next little bit.  OK enough romantic and mushy stuff, back to studying about the brain and the grey matter....well, guess that's a different kind of mushy lol >:P

What to do for Valentine's Day?!

yes yes valentines day is here, they say its supposed to be the most romantic day of the year...but let's face it, as much of a hopeless romantic as I am, it really does take quite a bit of effort to create romance.  I hate to admit it, but i'm really running out of ideas for what to get my bf this valentines day.  Having been with him for almost 7 years now, every special occasion had used up almost all my creative juices and i was in desperate need of something inspirational.  After searching on the internet for a while, I realized that i actually have never made the classic chocolate covered strawberries for tuen before.  Oh yea, tuen is my nickname for him cuz that means ass in chinese and he has a particularly fat butt lol, yea we r a weird couple like that XD.  Anyway, this year i really want to try making these for him.  But I want it to be something a little bit more complicated and personal than just chocolate covered strawberries.  So i googled around for a bit longer and finally found the perfect recipe.  Since he also loves cheesecake, i thought what else would be more amazing than cheesecake stuffed chocolate covered strawberries?! *drools* I am going to attempt this recipe and hope that i won't totally screw it up and end up having nothing to give him at all. ^^"

I will post pics after vday if my attempt was successful lol.  With just less than 2 days before valentine's day, i bet lots of people are ferociously searching for ideas like i am, so i thought i would put up some of the things i have made in the past. 

♥ Heart shaped sugar cookies.  (Add a couple drops of your favorite food coloring and knead it into the dough for a pretty marble effect!)
♥ Home made dinner.  Pay close attention to what he likes to eat and make that for him.  You cannot go wrong with this one.
♥ Scrapbook.  You wouldn't believe this, but this one took me almost half a year to make.  I made each page of the album from scratch, and had quite a few pages, so that's why the long process....but a lot of pre-made albums are easily accessible too.  All you have to do is put pictures in!
♥ Hand knitted scarf.  This one obviously also requires time to prepare, so this idea isn't for any last minute vday gift hunters. maybe next special occasion though? :D 

♥ Lotto 649.  Hey don't laugh.  This may just be the present that he likes the MOST.  One time i threw in a few scratch and win tickets as a bonus present, i think he liked that more than main thing i got him.  Totally wth @@" but whatever makes them happy~

Have a Sweet Valentine's day everyone! Even if you have not found ur other half yet, go spend it with ur friends, maybe meet up with ur other single friends and look for some new targets >:D

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green smoothie goodness

One of my new year's resolution for 2012 is to continue to drink more water and eat more fruits and vegetables.  The reason is that, since 2010 up until around may 2011 I have been suffering from recurrent urinary tract infections.  Some people are more prone to them, and i guess i'm one of those unlucky ones...  They are so freaking painful that i literally cannot sleep for the whole night (yes they ALWAYS happen at night for some reason) and have to run to the bathroom and pee every 15 minutes with little success.  Fine I will try and not go into the details here, but u get my point.  But ever since I have been drinking green smoothies in the past six months or so, I have been UTI free *knock on wood* and most of the time i didn't even include cranberries in them ;D i try to drink them at least 4-5 times a week, right when i get up in the morning before eating anything else.  Different fruits are packed with different types of vitamins and antioxidants, so i guess i will be sharing a few of the recipes here as i experiment and find ones that are especially yummay ;9  So here is the recipe of the one that i made today- apple,kiwi and cucumber smoothie <3  This smoothie is especially great in helping to improve skin complexion and restore hydration for your body.  So ladies, all the good reasons to give this a try =)

The recipe makes for about 3 cups of smoothies:

• 1 big apple (or 2 small ones)
• 1 kiwi
• 2 mini cucumbers
• 4-5 ice cubes
• 1 cup of water
• drizzle of honey (optional, depending on how sweet ur apple is lol

  

    then cut them up like a pro iron chef and throw it into your handy dandy blender

  

  Blend until desired consistency, and....

  
  

  

  
  

   ENJOY1 :9

  Literally takes no more than 3 minutes, easy, fast and refreshing for the morning. *sparkles*

first attempt from a blogger noob

I've been meaning to create a blog for a while now, but as ridiculously lazy as I am, I've pushed it back until I've totally forgot about it....UNTIL I happened to stumble upon my old xanga site (don't ask me how).  Reading my past entries have reminded me how many memories you can store in diaries, even if it's on the computer.  So that alone was enough to light a fire in my lazy ass to start doing that again.  I hope that this will be my little bubble where i can rant when i'm angry, be hyper when i'm happy and share when i find things i love in this world.  Ok, I will keep this first post short and sweet.  Enough said, a post will not be a post nowadays without a sort of picture or illustration.  so here is a picture of my monster dog, floppy <3