[Review] M.A.C Cosmetics July Highlights | Fashion Pack, Dare Hue! Brow Pencil & Amplified Cream Lipstick

M.A.C Cosmetics have always been a brand that embraces diversity, creativity, individuality and colours with character and distinctive strong personality that sometimes do surprise us. A recent meet up with our good friends at M.A.C Malaysia saw us bringing home some makeup products which totally caught our fancy. We shall be sharing with you our quick thoughts and experience playing with these July picks. As always, thanks M.A.C Malaysia for the huge love and support. 

[Inspiration] Korean On Screen Couple Crush | Beautiful Suzy & Bad Boy Kim Woo Bin

A recent on screen Korean couple had us at hello! Sometimes you find that these on screen couple's chemistry is just hard to ignore. The previous one was the Song Song couple - Song Hye Kyo and Song Joong Ki from The Descendants of The Sun (a crazy huge global phenomenon by the way). Yes, we are talking about these lovely young Korean talents from the current Kdrama entitled Uncontrollably Fond, starring the notoriously good bad-boy-looking Kim Woo Bin and the beautiful girl-next-door charmer, Suzy.  We don't know about you but we are head over heels in love with this pair *_^ 

Though this series is not as beautifully shot as, say, That Winter The Wind Blows, we feel, it does have some pockets of stunning landscapes and those telephoto lens shots kind of scenes. We love the chemistry between them, the characters are quirky on Suzy, almost cheeky and adorable which makes it easy to fall in love with. Of course, Kim Woo Bin's rendition of a bad boy struggling with a terminal illness is one which is commendable. Story aside, it is a fun one so far. The songs featured in the series are really lovely, which is one of the reasons why we love this one. It is also refreshing to know that both Kim Woo Bin and Suzy do sing pretty well, and they landed their voices to some of the songs for the soundtrack.

[Review] Lancôme Énergie De Vie Liquid Care | Smoothing and Glowing With Energy

Have you ever felt like you are taking on too much in life? It feels like you have so much to do, so little time, yet you are not willing to give up that kind of lifestyle you are so accustomed to, as a modern career woman, and feel that life should be more than just this? Exhausted? No way! (in denial) Tired? Hhhmm... perhaps. According to the experts at Lancôme, we most likely experience this new kind of fatigue for a new generation without even us knowing it. They called it the Urban Fatigue. It is not only a conventional fatigue that linked to lack of sleep, but a general one, an emerging phenomenon linked to the constant demand of the modern environment. 

You may be wondering what those demands of this modern world would be? Taking on increasing personal or professional projects, following the latest trends and maintaining a constant presence on social networks, going out until the early hours of the morning, but looking to recharge our batteries through yoga and detox diets, wanting everything (that's a killer!), all the time, without making any compromises. This, according to the team, is the exciting paradoxical reality of the generation of 25 - 35-year-olds - The "Gen Y".

Although we have to admit that we are WAY passed this Gen Y cap in terms of human age, but we are guilty of such a lifestyle - too much work, too little time to unwind, yet not willing to compromise. Being a somewhat "perfectionist" and constantly be in this "always give our very best in whatever we do" mode do take a toll on us, we feel. Juggling a full time producer/screenwriter profession with motherhood and blogging, amongst other roles do not help either. The struggle is real.

The Lancôme team explained this in the recent Énergie De Vie launch here - It is no surprise that almost half of the women of this generation state that they are tired on a daily basis. While for 59% of them, this fatigue is due to lack of sleep, 38% of them admit that it has more to do with "multitasking" and staying up late at night to watch series (guilty and checked), read or spend time on their computer (checked, writing on the blog *_^). 

That's not it. It is confirmed by Vincent Gregoire, from the trend forecast agency, Nelly Rodi: "This is a generation that has reinvented itself as a superheroine, that does not feel tired, that is always supposed to feel on top form. They have this obsession with always wanting to do things, to have strong experiences. They will take the time to be tired afterwards." Oh dear, why do we feel like we are part of the statistics already! Yucks.

Hermès The Orchestration of Time | A Quiet Moment of Visual Stimulation

The notion of time is so illusive that one can never completely understand it for the rest of our lives, eternally, we believe. Time moves beyond its physical appearance or the physics of how we have come to accept it - the dial, the beat, the tempo, the rhythm, for us, time holds a much deeper meaning, it traverses space and define how we see the world - the change of seasons, that Déjà vu moment, that moment when you missed your train, that time when you were first born into this world, and so much more. That is why our interest were immediately piqued when we received a special invitation via mail from this exquisite brand, Hermès, quite some months back, and we knew that we were going to be witnessing something extraordinary when the day came. Indeed it was. 

Visual above courtesy of Hermès Malaysia

The Orchestration of Time made its Southeast Asian debut at Starhill Gallery from Thursday, 19 May to Tuesday, 7 June 2016 previously. We were extremely humbled to be invited to have a much closer look at this one of its kind exhibition that morning. Malaysia was the 3rd stop for this traveling exhibition after France and South Korea. A key highlight of this exhibition was the Slim d'Hermes QP which won the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Geneve Award for Best Calendar Watch in 2015.

[Inspiration | Musing] Wish You Were My Music

Why fragments of dreams are so hard to capture when memories flood your heart so involuntarily? Emptiness, the mind wanders, thoughts drift away, emotions appear randomly, which makes it the more harder to comprehend. Only the flow of black ink gradually fills the clear white paper. Music lubricates the mind and senses. It feeds the soul with poisonous but addictive pleasure, yet music seems the only key to the sunlight of feelings - good, meaningful emotions, buried deep within myself, waiting to be lifted, little by little.

The urge to rekindle that one single illusion of passion is utterly futile and pointless, I realised. Today is not exactly the day, memories haunt when spaces are left unguarded. Being mischievous out of the blue makes you a little light headed, as it did to me. 

I am music, therefore I am happiness now. 

Written on 24th April, 2006, Monday, 1:50am

Visual via Koogle TV here

With love, 

Jeann

[Review] Cuepido Little Treasures | Oomph-Brow and Ohh Blush! Peony

Simple is beautiful. Yes indeed. When we were first approached to have a look at the brand and see if there was any opportunity to collaborate, we fell in love with the philosophy of the brand (though the brand presence and first impression online was far from impressive to us, truthfully). Nonetheless, due to our packed schedule, we had to ask the PR personnel to hold off sending us their beauty products for review. 

Two months later, the PR personnel was persistent enough to follow up with us. A week later, this beautifully prepared package arrived through the mail. Yes, we will be sharing with you our experience with this all-natural beauty brand which is totally new to us and happens to have a cute name called Cuepido. Amongst the skincare and beauty products, we are talking about these two makeup products today - Oomph-Brow and Ohh Blush! Peony.

[The Hair Affair] Introducing The Soloist Salon | A Truly Unique Hair Experience

They say, one's hairstyle makes or breaks a person as it changes your entire appearance all together. A great hairstyle, be it cut or colour, will transform you from just a normal typical look to an awesome fabulous and turn-head refreshing look. We are truly fortunate to be able to team up with one of the top hair professionals in town to bring you a series of hair related content from this month onwards and hope to share with you a little of our experience in the hair department. Come on this journey with us and we hope you will learn a thing or two about hair and have fun along the way.

We are proud to introduce you to LUMINNEJ's official hair styling partner for the year - The Soloist Salon.

First off, we have to admit that we have never really put much emphasis on our hair as we have always had short hair our entire life ... very very short hair at times (from childhood till adulthood, can you believe that?) and we have the misconception thinking that there is nothing much styling we can do with it. We don't even own a comb to be down right honest as we only towel dry our hair *_^ You must be thinking, what a weirdo we are by now! Having said that, we do feel it is time to change things up, that was how The Soloist Salon came into the picture recently. After an initial meet up with one of the founders, Nicholas Chua, we were set for our next appointment a few days later - hair colouring and boy, you would not believed how much fun we had that day! 

A Beautiful Floral Morning With Mamonde | New Korean Beauty Brand In Malaysia

The association between woman and flowers, we believe is an innate sensual and feminine quality that has bonded thousands of years back in human civilisation. Today, one can never be not enthralled by their beauty and the wonders they bring. Your senses is immediately heightened by the natural scent of a flower, your breath is taken away by its sheer beauty in appearance, and your spirit and mood are instantly lifted just by having flowers around as decorations. 

Of course, beauty industry has long been harnessing its power ever since humankind knew how. This is no exception to the Korean brand, Mamonde from Korea, which is part of the big AmorePacific beauty company. That morning, we were invited to witness the brand's imminent presence in Malaysia, to learn a little more about the brand and were indeed mesmerised by the wonderful world of flowers. Let's take a little visual tour with us, will you, lovelies?

[Review] Diorshow Backstage Eyes | Diorshow Pro Liner, Diorshow Maximiser 3D & Dioshow Designer Mascara

Peter Philips with model Bella Hadid backstage at the Dior Haute Couture AW2016-2017 show, visual courtesy of Dior Malaysia

We are always interested in discovering how to translate certain runway looks onto our daily makeup routines, or how some backstage secrets can be applied for normal consumers like us, using the products used backstage. Some time back, we were given this opportunity to discover how to create varied and dramatic eye looks, the Diorshow Backstage ways, all thanks to the lovely team Dior Malaysia. Though we may not be armed with most of the beauty products used here on the models (like Dior Addict Fluid shadow or Diorshow Artpen), we do have three used backstage - Diorshow Pro Liner, Diorshow Maximiser 3D and Diorshow Designer.

Models rocking the makeup looks at the Dior Haute Couture AW2016-2017 runway show, visuals courtesy of Dior Malaysia

Seen here are the makeup looks created and styled by Peter Philips, the Creative and Image Director for Dior Makeup just recently for Dior's Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 2016-2017 runway show. For this show, the makeup maestro created makeup looks using graphic eyeliner in a unique way on each model, adapting it to their eyes, individually. In Peter's own words, "I wanted to create, for more than forty looks, a free variation on eyeliner. It was a challenge to customize the look each time in an unusual and audacious way, creating makeup that was made-to-measure, just like haute couture is." 40 varied makeup looks? Let's get the fun on, shall we?

[Inspiration] Elie Saab Haute Couture AW2016/2017 Impressions Of New Work | A Love Affair Rekindled

To say that we love Elie Saab is a understatement, in fact, we love the brand and its beautiful creations of fashion so ardently, to the point that we could day dream wearing one somewhere in the distant future. It does not matter if it truly would come true, after all, aren't beautiful things worth waiting for? Our love affair picks up from where we had left off previously here.

We saw these visuals via Elie Saab World on Instagram and could not stop ourselves from sharing. You can read more about the collection and its inspiration here. All we could say is Elie Saab can, almost, never go wrong every time, honestly and has never failed to make us fall in love with the brand, again and again, as a woman.

We are pretty sure that more high res visuals of the runway will surface all over the internet and social media very soon. Let's enjoy a glimpse of the beautiful world of Elie Saab's latest offerings here, shall we, lovelies? 

All visuals taken and recompiled via Elie Saab's instagram feed and its official magazine at The Light of Now here. Don't you just love the sound of the fashion magazine too? 

With love, 

Jeann