Monday, October 17, 2011

AMW Reviews: Charm Pocket Brush Set

I can still remember my first ever brush set that I purchased when I wasn't even a make-up artist.  Mind you, it wasn't that long ago!  As you can see, I love applying makeup on other people rather than myself!  I guess I grew up in a more conservative family when it comes to beauty.  My mom has always been a plain powder and lipstick user (until now).  Seeing me in full-faced makeup will probably shock the hell of my family members so I'm always leaning on the natural look!

So I understand pretty well when readers email me for an advise on a pocket brush set that's simple, inexpensive and they can use all the brushes instead of paying for more but using just 3-5 out of the 12 pieces.  I understand, and I'm glad Charm does too!

Before I left for Singapore, Charm came up with a Charm Pocket Brush Set perfect for simple makeup users or makeup beginners (even make up professionals as I like using this set for touch ups when I attend events)!  I was lucky I was able to give this brush set a try before I've decided to purchase more of these as gifts! 

You'll know why they are perfect for gift-giving....

The Charm Pocket Brush Set is housed in a "Crackle Polish" design
(sorry, I'm into nail art, so that explains the comparison) :P



The set includes 5 pieces of mini version of the Charm Travel Pro brushes


Charm Pocket Brush Set says ---
The very cute Charm Pocket Brush Set gives you five very basic travel brushes, in a very very cute small bag, that promises to let you function and do your basic makeup when you only have a small, small bag. It is also very helpful for emergency makeup situations, and retouches when you have limited bag space. You will never ever be short of makeup brushes ever again, with our Charm Pocket Brush Set!

Featuring five basic brushes that has dual functions :
  1. Powder Brush
  2. Big Eyeshadow Brush
  3. Angled Eyeliner Brush
  4. Lip Brush
  5. Brow Comb 

AMW says ---
Pros
  • The set is protected with clear plastic upon purchase.
  • The packaging is gorgeous and unique.
  • Slim brush holder that can fit in any tiny purse.
  • The small bag can be cleaned.  (kindly read tip on how to remove makeup stains on the inside)
  • All the brushes are multi-functional.
  • Does not shed or bleed upon first, second, third or future washes.
  • Bristles are soft and non-scratchy.
  • Inexpensive for a good quality brush set with the added super cute and unique pouch!
Cons
  • If you are apply makeup the "hardcore" way, the brushes on Pocket Brush Set may not be enough for you.
Overall
All the 5 brushes included in this set is multi-functional and useful which leads to getting your money's worth!

Tips
  • Always wash your brushes upon purchase.
  • Make sure the brushes are completely dry before you use them.
  • To help remove oil-based products, swirl your brush on Olive oil then cleanse with baby shampoo + gentle dish washing liquid.
  • For makeup stains on the inner clothing, use a makeup remover wipes or use a cotton pad with makeup remover and gently wipe the stain.
  • For hardcore stains, use a toothbrush and mild soap and gently brush the stained area and let dry.
  • Since this is a multi-functional pocket brush set, you need to have a makeup remover sheets or makeup cleaner in between application before you use this for different functions. (ex. Big eyeshadow brush can be used as concealer and eyeshadow brush, you have to clean the brush again before you proceed to the next function.)
Will I repurchase?
I did! I repurchase more than 10 sets of these as gifts!

Where to purchase and how much?
Php500 (approx $12.00) free shipping nationwide at Beauty & Minerals website.  If you want to see the brushes up close and personal, you can check them out at PurBeauty, Serendra and The Ramp, Crossings at Shangri-La Plaza Branch Ground Floor.

I believe Charm brushes will be available in Singapore soon?  I will update here if I get more details! :)

Powder Brush
Can be used as powder brush, and blush brush
I also like using this to remove fall outs after eyeshadow application.  Because of the firmness of the brush, I also use this to apply my favorite powdered contouring powders and  highlighters.

To apply highlight on the brow bone area, I use my fingers in pressing the brush, with just the tip dab on highlighters on the brow bone area.  It works!

Big Eyeshadow Brush
Can be used as eyeshadow applicator or concealer brush for undereyes
This is a perfect concealer brush especially for the under eye area.  For spot correcting, I can use just the tip of the brush with a dabbing motion and it works.
To be used as an eyeshadow applicator, I like using the flat surface and gently press the eyeshadow powders on the lid.  It helps to prime your eyes so eyeshadow will stick easily.  If you prefer to apply eyeshadow on the outer-v, it helps to use just the tip and gently brush with wiper motion.

This brush has the most function I would say, adding to the 2 functions above, I like using the same brush to apply my cream highlighters especially on my cheekbones.  I also like using this brush to apply cream based eyeshadow or even eyeshadow primers.

And that's not all, would you believe I like using this brush to apply my lipstick?  Yes, for dry lips like mine, I use the flat surface of the brush to apply my lipstick in just ONE swipe.  Going back and forth with a brush can cause flaking, with just one swipe, lipstick appears smooth and even! 


Angled Eyeliner Brush
Can be used to shade and shape the eyebrows and apply eyeliner
This help creates medium to thick eyeliner for gel liner users.  You can also use this brush to apply liner with dark eyeshadow powders for a more natural look.

I prefer not to use this to apply my brow powders.  I am still depending on my Charm Dream Brow Duo Brush!


Lip brush
Can be used to apply lipstick or be used to spot conceal blemishes 
Aside from lipstick application and concealing blemishes.  This brush can also double up as eyeshadow brush.  For monolids out there who wants to draw a fake crease, this is the best brush to go as it has the right stiffness and shape.

 Brow Comb
Allows you to sweep your brows in one, 
uniform direction as you need to have neat brows all of the time!
It also lets you blend your eyebrow color.
The comb portion can also be used to separate mascara clumps after mascara application, you can also use the comb to brush your bangs, for women and beard for men *lol*  Just joking, I'm just making sure you're still reading this and not falling asleep! :P


Monday!  Monday!  I hope you're easy and quick today!  
Have a wonderful week everyone and cheers for positivity!
Before I end this post, I want to know...
"Do you take with you a brush set on a daily basis?"

Keep smilin'
Stay happy!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Travel Food Tripping at: Singapore

Part 2 of Singapore Food Tripping! Keep in mind that this post is LOADED with photos!

Before I flew to Singapore, I asked Sophie to help me out on the "must eat" dishes and she gave me quite a list! It was unfortunate that I wasn't able to try most of her suggestions as we have this thing of eating at the nearest restaurant once we're hungry and most of the time, when that happens, we're not even close to the area of her suggestions! Oh well, I'm sure they'll be next time!

I'm quite proud of ourselves as we tried quite a number of food and most of them did not disappoint us!

First Stop --- Chinatown
It was a long stretch of street selling different merchandise! It was hot, humid and we were starting to get hungry after our last stop at a Camera Store! Quite funny how we ended up going to a camera store, of all places --- Chinatown!

There was a strip of restaurants on the right hand side and we've decided just to go on and choose whichever restaurant that shows photos of food we fancy! *laughs* Not a good idea as photos can be deceiving!

We stopped by Wan Tang Eating House Tai Pei Seafood because we checked out the menu and food seems to be interesting!


Of course, we must order our drinks first! I went for Sugarcane Juice while Mr. AMW (obviously) went for his trustee Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola SGD1.5
Sugarcane juice SGD2.00

Fried Rice
SGD5.00
Oh my! This fried rice is THE BOMB! I can eat this on its own and it has a good serving of shrimps!

Mixed Satay with Peanut Sauce
SGD10.00
10 small sticks of Satay and we requested for combination of chicken, pork, beef and mutton. The sticky rice that you see on photo is actually nice! The peanut sauce is perfect for both the Satay and my "spring rolls". Out of all the kinds of meat I've tried, my favorite would be the chicken meat! I've always been a chicken meat lover! :) One small complaint, the meat are just too tiny (to be seen by naked eye) *just joking*!


Springrolls
SGD8.00
Nice for a couple of pieces but it gets to be boring once you eat more than 2! (personal opinion) For local readers, imagine Lumpiang Ubod with just the "ubod" inside. I was hoping for mixed vegetables. But yeah, no complaints.. I'm not in the Philippines! :P

I like the fact that its super crunchy when served!


Second Stop: Little India
Who would've thought that after a filling lunch, we would go and sit inside another restaurant for another food trip? Well, Mr. AMW is a fan of Kebabs or Kababs or whatever meat on sticks! As we passed by an Indian restaurant, he saw a guy making his red hot chicken kabab and he wanted to give it a try!


He makes a wish, I grant his wish! We actually went in Blue Diamond Restaurant (Indian Muslim Food) and sat inside for 1 order of Chicken Kabab and Naan. We didn't ask for spoons and forks as we want the ultimate experience. Ultimate because it was literally smokin' hot! But we managed to help feed each other! *sweet* LOL!


The order came and we were both staring at the "neon green" sauce!
We washed our hands and we're GAME!
Naan Bread
SGD1.75

Chicken Kabab
SGD6.00
The chicken, as you can see on photo is orange-y red in color and in taste, its super spicy! Thank God for the lemon as the lemon helped ease the spiciness and it was really good! Together with Naan bread and the green neon sauce? It's even better than what we had back home!


Third Stop: ION Orchard Mall's Food Court
Just take a look how classy the food court looks at the ION Orchard Mall! This turned out to be our favorite stopover for dinners as we had our dinner here twice for the trip. It's always busy with friends meeting up after work to enjoy relaxation and a bit of chit chat!


Laksa
SGD6.80
Here goes the famous Laksa from Singapore! I've seen a lot of people ordering this so I gave it a go too! The bowl is huge and it looks like this....

What I like about ordering noodles in Singapore is the fact that you can choose the "type" of noodles you want! I asked the lady which one's the best for her and she gave me these. Good amount of noodles + huge shrimps + tofu = super full Nikki!

I may not be a coconut lover but Laksa was okay for me. It's an acquired taste. The soup is actually good and tasty but I can only enjoy half of the bowl as the noodles absorbed the soup and I was ended up with super fat noodles!


Kway Teow Soup
SGD7.00
Because Mr. AMW is not a fan of coconut based dishes, he ordered a chicken stock soup called Kway Teow Soup. For this soup, you can choose small, medium or large orders and he got the medium size and it filled his tummy!

The soup is very tasty and the fish balls are actually good, quite smooth to bite and not the "rubbery" kind.

Same as my Laksa, he got to choose his favorite type of noodles and he went for the flat rice noodles (his favorite).

Fourth Stop: Universal Studios Singapore
I strongly suggest anyone visiting Sentosa Island to have a quick stopover at any bread shop and stock on breads just in case you get hungry while you're lining up for rides! It really helps and we survived to have lunch at 4:00pm!

Because of our hunger, I didn't get the breakdown of the meal but the total would be SGD18.30 for the lasagna and pizza.

Beef Lasagna
Quite good and can fill in any hungry stomach but I missed Sbarro back home!

Pepperoni Pizza
Huge thin crust pizza that's soft on the outside and chewy on the inside.
So-so pizza to fill in an empty stomach too!

The place is really nice and the positive thing of eating late is we have the restaurant "almost" to ourselves!

Commercial Break - SNACKS
In between subway stations, we do stop over at various malls (which we can't seem to keep track on their names anymore). On every mall's food court, we seem to have seen similar names of food stalls and one of them is DDM (Dong Dae Mum). Because of my love for Korean snacks, we went on to give their street food a try!

Korean food in Singapore! I like that! :P


Bulgogi Assorted Sticks
SGD3.80
We ordered Bulgogi Pork, Bulgogi Chicken and Bulgogi Beef
All of them tastes yummy!!! The man beside me (photo below) actually ordered a couple of sticks with rice and he's solved for dinner!

Fifth Stop - Plaza Singapura
Plaza Singapura is just a few minutes walk from Innotel Hotel. When I saw MOS Burger, I actually asked Mr. AMW to give it a try as I've had MOS Burger years ago in Taipei Taiwan and its quite famous there! To local readers, MOS Burger is like the equivalent of Jollibee in Taiwan!


Yakiniku Rice Burger
SGD3.80
Similar to Sango's Yakiniku Burger but I like Sango's version better. I do like this when I was on the middle portion as that's were most of the sauce are!


MOS Cheese Burger
SGD3.70
Ahh, never fails! I can still remember the first bite of MOS Cheeseburger more than 8 years ago in Taiwan and it brought back memories! *sentimental mode* :P

The burger is just regular burger but what makes MOS burger unique is the "chili meaty sauce" that comes between the burger, cheese and bread!


Commercial Break - McDonald's Singapore
We never missed McDonald's when we travel. It's probably because Mr. AMW likes seeing what McDonald's of different countries has to offer!

In Singapore, it's the Chicken McGrill Burger. Macau or Hong Kong I think offers this? We used to have this way back in Manila but I don't know why it's gone! McDonald's Philippines, if you're reading, please bring this back! This is a healthier choice to all health-conscious out there!

Chicken McGrill Burger
SGD4.85 A La Carte
Really, really...mouth-watering good!

Meiji Milk and Coffee Flavoured Milk
2 for SGD4.15
Can be bought at convenient stores. Really good quality milk!

Sixth Stop - Lau Pa Sat
Finally, we tried a hawker place in Singapore! Lau Pa Sat is one of the many famous hawker places and I'm super happy to have found one! This one you can visit by going out of the Raffles Place Station.


We took a quick walk to all the stalls to see which ones caught our interest. Mr. AMW just can't get enough of the Fishball Noodle so we stopped by Fishball Noodle Stall!

The guy makes it in front of you and again, you get the choose your favorite type of noodles!

Fishball Noodles
SGD4.00
I like this better than the first one we tried at ION Orchard Mall's food court. The fish balls tastes really good!


Hainanese Chicken Rice
SGD4.50
What's the point of going to Singapore and not give their Hainanese Chicken a try? I finally did and it was really good! From the sauce, to the tasty chicken, to the green veggies and egg? It was a perfect meal!

No, I wasn't THAT hungry! hahaha


After a good meal, we walked around to enjoy looking at what Lau Pa Sat Hawker place has to offer and I randomly saw Pig's Organ Soup. Whoever wants to give it a try....you know where it is! Street 1 at the Lau Pa Sat! :)

Then right at the center of the food place, there's Shanghai Xiao Long Bao stall! Old time reader of my blog would know that I'm with the Xiao Long Bao Master --- Mr. AMW! He has to give this a try no matter how full we are!

I watched how the man carefully makes his Xiao Long Bao! It was perfectly done and very hygienic!


Pork Xiao Long Bao
SGD4.00

The pork meat tastes just right, not too salty nor bland. The soup was still inside and it tastes just like the ones we had in Shanghai!

Seventh Stop: Back to ION Orchard Mall
There are so many stalls needed to be discovered at the mall's food court so we had to go back! We saw a nice Hong Kong Roast place called Guan Chee.

Roasted Pork with Rice
SGD8.00
They also give you a choice of Small, Medium and Large order and we chose the medium one! It was the best Roasted Pork I've tried to date! Really tasty and the meat is juicy! The sauce was also drizzled over the rice!

A closer look...I'm in love!

Char Kway Teow
SGD4.50
I won't forgive myself if I never tried Char Kway Teow in Singapore. The fried, flat rice noodle dish is prepared right in front of me using dark soy sauce, egg, Chinese sausages and a whole lot more! This was a "small" order but its good to share for me!


Commercial Break - Good Luck BBQ Chicken Wings
Did some take out for BBQ Chicken Wings and more Satay sticks!
Because we're pigs that way! :P


Another quick commercial
Found myself a banner for Ask Me Whats!
*lol* Ben & Jerry's, Please do not sue me!


Eighth Stop - Kopitiam at Plaza Singaura
The number 8 is lucky for Chinese and our 8th stop is a meet-up with fellow Filipina blogger based in Singapore, Mhean! Mhean is a blogger friend whom I got to chat online but never get to meet! It was fun to finally meet her AND in Singapore! I really appreciate this as she took a half day leave just to be able to meet up with me as the place she works is really far from where we were!

I really appreciate the effort and the lunch! Oh my, we had one of the best meals before we left Singapore!


Indonesian BBQ Fish


Indonesian Chicken BBQ
Rice drizzled with Curry

Keith and I enjoyed the Indonesian BBQ dishes and I'm glad we have someone to guide us to a good place to fill our tummy before we left for airport! It was a short, yet, super memorable meet-up as I remembered yakking away with Mhean like we were friends for life!

As if the meal wasn't enough, Mhean went ahead and introduced us to....
Chendol
Chendol is like their local version of our halo-halo. For Chendol, the dessert's ingredients consists of Coconut Milk, a worm-like jelly made from rice flour, shaved ice, palm sugar, red beans, etc...The dessert is perfect for the sweet tooth but I felt bad I wasn't able to finish this as I'm super full!

Mhean, thank you so much for lunch! I am hoping to meet you again when you visit Manila! :)

Now, my Singapore food tripping post is finally over! Thank you so much for reaching the bottom part! I hope you enjoy looking at the photos as much as I enjoyed eating them! *laughs* I know, life is unfair! :P

I wish to go back to Singapore someday for more food tripping!
What's your favorite Singaporean dish?

Keep smilin'
Stay happy!