Month: July 2019

Eye Color Craze! BYS Eyeshadow Palette

Posted on by meganeko18

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Uhgnnnnnnn…… I have been a BYS believer ever since my sister bought her wonderfully effective face primer with pearls and I tried it on my combination oily and dry face for an all-day fresh look. Now, we have three of the eyeshadow tin palettes here, and they are an affordable dupe for Urban Decay, and a more locally-available brand than ColourPop (I want the Mar, Dream Street and Bretman Wet palettes just to look at those gorgeous ocean  or riverside hues). This is AUD 16.95 or around PhP 600 in the Land Down Under or an unfortunate but still less-than-UD price of PhP 899 in local stores. most notably, SM Department Stores and Watsons.

BYS is a proud cruelty – free cosmetics company. And affordable! And available in the Philippines (or at least in Metro Manila, places with SM Department Stores, and Watsons in malls). Yes!

My sister introduced me to BYS because of her Face Primer (I bought mine finally), Brow Kit and the Peach eyeshadow palette (cheaper than Too Faced!). Cosmic is the palette I wanted to buy for real however, I only had Crystal to tickle my fancy among all others I saw in SM Megamall Department Store. Actually, I also found the cutesy and pastel Fantasy in Watsons and I loved the colors, however it is all-matte. Then one week later I had to visit SM North EDSA and saw the Cosmic one! I couldn’t wait to tell the world (or the Pinays) how wonderful these palettes are.

Preliminaries: My skin tone is East Asian fair (a.k.a. fair with yellow to brown undertones). You’d be surprised how different the skin tone is under sunlight and under artificial light.

General Review:

  • The tin container is sturdy and the lock is adequate to keep things covered, but a magnetic one would be safer.
  • I liked that they have the triangular sponge applicator (yes I’m old-school) but I do not see much purpose for the brush ones unless I want to make eyeliners and eye wings out of these shadows. Still, better to have soft-bristle brush for blending.
  • The shadows are easy to blend, the texture is buttery smooth.
  • The shadows can be applied dry for subtleness or wet (wet brush) for bolder colors.
  • Color payoff especially for the mattes are outstanding, that colors remain even after I rub off the swatches from my arm.
  • Also, the colors are sorted in a way that you can use the colors as duo / trio / quad in different combination. How cool is that?

BYS Crystal Eyeshadow Palette

Create crystal and gem inspired eye looks with the Crystal Eyeshadow Palette. This palette features three high-shine eyeshadow shades with high impact finishes, three shimmer shades and six matte shades to use as transition colours. Formulated with skin-loving ingredient Mica to help leave a silky-smooth finish on lids. Housed in an on-trend crystallised, hologrpahic tin with bonus sponge and brush applicator, plus a full-length mirror.

This is one is recently release last June of 2019 as a Collection, which includes crystal-infused face spray, highlighter and blush. I have not seen that many written reviews yet, hence doing the honors of reviewing it.

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3 High Shine Shadows (Glassy, Diamond and Crystal Dust) Sparkling violet-glittered, pink-glittered and yellow gold glittered cream-type eyeshadows. Does these remind you of Rose de France (pale amethyst), rose quartz and citrine? Yes! They look opaque here but each goes on as fine glitters across your lids like stars. I love these the most as they can accent any eyeshadow with their sparkle.

3 Shimmer Shadows (Black Onyx, Recharge and Power Up) These shimmer shadows glam up the lids without overdoing it, especially the bronze Power Up. Recharge is a cool – toned purple with purple / pinkish microglitters when swatchedand viewed under certain lighting. Black Onyx goes on as a sheer grey-black shade with a green sheen.

Side note: I have compared the blacks in these three palettes. Crystal’s Black Onyx has the least amount of “green sheen”, Cosmic’s Sirius has more green sheen, making it a dark complement for green Orion. Cosmic’s Galactic is real black with silver microglitter. Peach’s Braken is more on dark, mahogany brown than black.

6 Matte Shadows. (Quartz and Moon Rocks for the black onyx / amethyst look; Psychic, Senses, Sunstone, Healing for rose quartz / sunstone / cistrine – inspired looks) The only thing I’m not too pleased about this palette is that mattes comprise half of the shadows. Then again, these also makes this palette everyday / daytime use – friendly, especially the warm / neutral shades of browns and nudes. You can have an all-matte nude / earthy ‘do, add shimmer for something subtly mesmerizing, or go loco with adding any of the High Shine shadows for the obvious spark.

BYS Cosmic Eyeshadow Palette

Soar across the galaxy with these cosmic and space inspired eyeshadow pigments by BYS. Featuring 12 pigmented shades of metallic and shimmery soft pinks, saffron reds, icy greens and more, you’re free to create a range of out-of-this-world makeup looks. This palette comes with a slender dual-ended applicator.

Cosmic is truly astronomically wondrous with their all sparkling-shimmering splendor. As with the mattes, their shimmer shadows have a buttery texture and high color pay off while having fine shimmers.

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This is my kind of rainbow.

What’s to discuss? They are all lovely shimmer colored things. Glitters  / shimmers of all colors are silver / white, so the colors are almost pure (pure black, pure white…) You can do prim and proper pinks, romantic champagne, loud and proud fiery eyes, sultry violet winks, bright blues and greens, or earthy green and ocean blue hues, or even smokey.

Only caveat is that there is no absolute matte transition color. At the very least, my minimal need for matte is taken care of my Crystal palette. This is full-on bling. Bring out your strongest primer and eye primer to keep all these glitters put.

BYS Peach Eyeshadow Palette

BYS’s ever popular ‘Peach’ Eyeshadow Palette, features a combination of pigmented shades of warm pinks, peach tones, beiges and purples. The perfect choice if you wish to obtain a variety of warm, glowing looks no matter what the season is.

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Too Faced dupe? Yeah, well, it’s totally fine, we love this still. This is a happy medium for me with only 3 mattes and 9 lovely warm shimmers.

The three mattes are white, brown-pink and brown (Dainty, Lavish and Enticing, respectively). I’d say I love how you can make a sakura / cherry blossom – do (Spring), the actual peachy (or golden) glow (Summer), bronze and a neutral smoky look (Autumn / Winter). See, it’s a season-versatile palette.

I would really love to play around with these colors every day, like one’s own artist with the face as one’s canvass. These are really worth your penny and will last you, months, years, even. Hope you like this review!

It has been a year…

Posted on by meganeko18

It has been a year.
There I was in the brink of a career jump, and I was not quite certain what direction to go. For the uninitiated, the way I chose my less traveled road was to say the least, a step back. An escape. A mistake.

Perhaps. However. I really had something else in mind. My self. My state of psyche, and heart. Ego said I was passing on a good chance. A promotion! Just a few months! A swanky title. Lording over both files and feelings of working people. A jump in salary, perhaps? Yay! However, heart and mind are in sync, knowing that I’d suffer mentally and emotionally if I pursue something I was not genetically, mentally, emotionally equipped for. I was also clamoring on wanting to learn and use technology in my work, learning, applying, improving. I chose to prevent a complete meltdown, the way I chose to return home from abroad.

I took a tentative step into the road less traveled. Then ran, ran, ran!

It was almost a fairy tale at first. Finally I’m permanent. I do not care if I had to take a salary cut, I had the allowance, the paid leaves, the medical coverage to compensate. Hey, they even offer free stuff and food! Even better, the employee help hotline. Just what an isolationist lady needs when she wants an ear to listen, really listen and advise and admonish in a slightly nicer way. Best of all is a bit of flexibility in work arrangements. It gave a sense of autonomy. Use it for maximum gain – minimum effort, your call. I used it as work empowerment. Now, if only I had enough time to pursue things I’d like. Things like, documenting processes, learning and relearning until I master it, brainstorming with people.

It gave way to reality, as almost all real life stories do, it has its nightmares, too. There were long hours that turned into days, weeks, months. There were times I felt work-alone, when you feel you’re only one of a few who work, work, work until your eyes water and hands spasm, because you know there is a goal. Or work-alone because you pass up time to socialize because of something urgent or with a deadline. Times when you have to give more and more, and sacrifice more and more, either out of integrity, out of kinship with fellow teammates, out of a kick at accomplishment when a goal post is reached. It can be taxing, and sometimes, thing you want to do had to take a back seat. We kept on firefighting, and slowly, people are lowering their hoses and moving on, replaced by people, and the cycle repeats. Change upon change befell us.

Challenging times, and I have had a few breakdowns seen by many, and quite a lot of inner turmoil. Then and again, it has made me creative in ways I had to handle things: my responsibilities at home and at work. I use the FWA to work around my long work hours, long weekly commute and weekend family time. I use my salary to improve the quality of our lives, paying bills and fees for home, taking a lodging near the company and buying comfortable footwear for my commutes. The constant learning takes time but I enjoy coaching or showing people how it is done and explaining the why’s. I felt weirdly energized brainstorming with the team for a solution in a case, and even with the stress, seeing many of us work in the team to achieve our targets and goals is greatly motivating.
Working in a team when I am an individual contributor have made me a bit more tolerant of differing work styles and work personalities. I didn’t say I was Ms. Congeniality, but I got better. I stayed for a year, right? I still has no definite intention to leave. I still see myself working there. Learning there. Evolving there.

Ironically, for someone who wants things fast… I am taking this slow because I believe in a slow burn, a flower blooming late but best, a sure win. Just like inducting a person to a new company or team takes ample time and precision to ensure a good experience.

I’d like to absorb it all, absorb it well.

They say, work to live, not the other way around. I disagree a little. The way you work is a tiny, but still a reflection of who you are. The way you work (or develop yourself through further studies, building a business, pursuing a passion or hobby, or volunteering) is a culmination of your upbringing, values and education. Yes, it is a means to an end, but, why limit it to a means to a financial end if it can be used as a means to a better end? Stay or go, the learnings and relationships are what you can gain, worth more than the salary or perquisites you get.

It has been a year.
It was quite a journey but, I’d do it all over again.

Learning and adapting, resilience and inner strength… these are worth staying for. Worth embodying for. Worth living for.