Solotica Coloured Contact Lenses Review & Swatches (#CreepyEyes)

My first post of the year turned out to be pretty vain, as I took so many photos of my eyes for this. It was kinda embarrassing because workers were chilling (#LookingDodgy) on the roof directly opposite our apartment the whole time I was taking photos!

Anyway, I decided to do this for my own record as well. I'm looking for some new coloured contacts and want to find out if they'll be too similar to what I already have. It's always a good idea to know what your eyes actually look like under different lighting as a guide when comparing, since all advertising photos are photoshopped with crazy bright lighting, alas, FAKE af!

The contacts I'm interested in are from a Korean brand called O-lens, and the colours are Russian Velvet Blue and Brown. My first impression of these lenses from looking at the webpages is that they are the Korean Solotica Hidrocor dupes. Since I'm already late on this bandwagon, you can find some youtube videos featuring swatches under those strong fluorescent halo lighting for the 'live' effect. What's with that lighting, don't people get blinded while filming in their bedroom?! Anyway, the Brown is to Ocre, the Grey is to Cristal and the Blue is a bit different but probably close to Graphite.

I have 4 pairs of Solotica lenses purchased from Parana Lentes, their prices are good and shipping is reasonable. I have 3 pairs of Hidrocors in Ice, Mel and Verde, and 1 pair of Natural Colors in Cristal. I personally think the Hidrocor range looks most natural, as it blends very well with the natural eye colour. They are single coloured lenses; the more colour on the lens, the thicker the lens, the more it pops out on your eyes, and the more obvious/fake they look. I'm not saying that bright blue eyes look natural on Asians, lol! It's just that some look like you have a thick piece of plastic stuck to your eyeball, while the Hidrocors look a bit more subtle. The colour payoff also changes with your natural eye colour, which is really inconvenient for comparison purposes!

Left to Right: Hidrocor Verde, Mel, Ice, NC Cristal

Close up of the lenses: Verde is green but on the slightest blue side, Mel is yellow, Ice is white, Cristal has a faint creamy yellow tint.

Again, my posts are heavily photo based, but what better way is there? I have taken the photos indoor (duh!), but the natural lighting is quite pitiful in this miserable cloudy Dutch winter. I have comparisons with incandescent lighting and camera flash, and contacts on one eye and both eyes to see the effect. 

For reference, I have normal medium-dark brown eyes, not super dark that look almost black, but not light enough to see the difference under normal lighting. Also, the lighting will vary a little as the sun sets early in this part of the world. Hopefully you'll get used to or confused after seeing all those photos anyway. :P

Indoor daylight taken in front of the window, not sunny but strong enough lighting, hence the reflections. My double eyelids are #real, not taped! I don't know why they look so fake in these photos! >.<

Comparison with contact only on the left. Top to bottom order: window daylight, back of the room with flash and Dutch style low incandescent lighting.

Hidrocor Mel

Hidrocor Ice

Hidrocor Verde

Natural Colors Cristal

Comparison with contacts on both eyes under window daylight. Top to bottom order: Verde, Mel, Ice, Cristal and Left Cristal + Right Ice.

As you can see, the lenses don't always sit perfectly on my eyes, probably because I have mild astigmatism. They do tend to move around a little when I move my eyes, and the lighter coloured ones shows up more obviously of course. I find that the Hidrocors fit better than the Natural Colors. 

Ice and Cristal are very similar, Cristal is more grey and Ice is a pretty spot-on ice blue. I like Ice more, it's quite stunning especially with makeup. Verde actually comes off a bit darker in person and is the least obvious. My favourite colour is Mel, it matches my husband's eyes when I wear them. ^^

I'm discarding Mel and Ice because they're old prescriptions, hope their replacements will be just as nice! I always find photos more helpful than videos for contact lenses, so hopefully this post will help whoever is having the same difficult first-world-problem of contact lens colour choices. Lol!

High Tea in Amsterdam - The Gartine (Part I)

My husband and I have this tradition of having high tea on our wedding anniversary. We like high tea, and we have tried many places in Sydney. From our experience, most well-known high tea places are over-rated or not worth what you're playing for. We rate our high tea based on the quality of two things; tea and food! Having a nice view is pleasant, but nice view is not hard to come by when you're in Australia! Just have a picnic in your local National Park instead if that's what you're into.

In our opinion, The Tea Room in the QVB is still our favourite; it has the best scones, very nice and delicious selection of tea, beautiful setting and decent pricing. We highly recommend it. You do have to pay extra for the 'Tea for Connoisseurs' option, or you'll get average tea bags. At least you have the option for better tea, which a lot of other places just don't offer.

The places that offer 'groupons' are cheaper but nothing special; they all have generic Twining's tea bags and some more fancy places have T2 tea bags. Whoopty doo, like we don't already have too many T2 containers at home!

The worst place is probably Bygone Beauty at Leura with their not so traditional tea, mini 'not-cupcake' scones, overpriced menu and crappy crowded setting! The most overpriced would be the Hydro Majestic! Ok, it is probably the most beautiful and scenic tea room you'll ever find in Australia, but $65 for some less than average high tea just cannot be justified!

Anyway, there are just too many places that offer high tea these days in Sydney. Keep in mind, I'm not rating the tea houses for their service and what not, that's a whole different story. We have also been to Adore Tea in Canberra, they have a very extensive tea selection to satisfy every a tea junkie. I would say they have the best tea, but we have not tried their high tea. Their regular food is also very nice, so I think it'd be worth going back one day.

Ok, I've talked too much about Australian high tea, I know you've been waiting for the Dutch high tea experience, and you're finally here! :P Sorry, I'm such a troll!

So it was only the 2nd weekend since we arrived in the Netherlands, our only source of info for decision making was Google and the web sites of the places. I pretty much picked 2 places that looked really pretty from their website and had decent reviews on Google; one was the Gartine cafe and the other was The Duchess hotel, both located in central Amsterdam. The Duchess did not specifically mention high tea on their menu, so we went with Gartine and were pleasantly surprised.

So, first thing is that this is not traditional English high tea; so no scones. We ordered the 'High Tea Large' set, which consisted of 3 courses; a soup starter, a pastries and sandwiches main, and a sweets/cakes dessert, and a pot of tea of course.

The soup was a creamy cauliflower and potato soup with truffle oil. Yes, the soup photo is missing, because I conveniently forgot to charge the camera the night before, and the lovely staff let me charge it at their counter so I could capture the rest for you guys.

The main was quiches with ingredients from the garden (zucchini), sourdough sandwiches with aged Amsterdam cheese, onion and green chutney, and choux pastries filled with a smoked salmon cream.

The desserts were oatmeal and cranberry biscuits, vanilla macarons, and their selection of cakes of the day.

Cakes left to right: Amaretto cheesecake, lemon meringue, smooth chocolate cake and coconut yoghurt cake! 

The ingredients are supposed to be freshly picked from their garden, I'm not sure if I could actually taste the freshness, but they were more than delicious! So nice that Graham willingly ate the cauliflower and zucchini in the dishes! The place smelled so good whenever they prepare a dish, and I had my eyes on the cakes long before they came out. There was more than enough food for 2 and we doggie-bagged the left over cakes! I think the cakes are their specialty, they were fantastic! So rich in flavour but not overpowering in any aspect, novel combination and great texture. I'll go there again just for the cakes!

Ok, the tea selection was decent, they came in nice silk bags. They were nice but not the best we've had, and quality and quantify of food made up for that tiny downfall. It is definitely the most delicious high tea we have ever had! 

Now onto the setting, because I really liked how cute it looked from their website. The place was smaller than I expected but I guess that's traditional Amsterdam houses. It was clean and tasteful. The staff were very pleasant and were prompt to change the used dishes between courses. The plates were all traditional Delftware, but nothing matched, not even our knives and forks! Lol, it was very entertaining for us to play the matching game while we waited. 

A bucket of fresh oranges next to my chair under the counter?! Why not.

Very pretty floral wall feature and chandelier - felt like the only source of light in this place. Lol!

The front of the Cafe, looks just as cute on the outside. 

So our overall experience with Gartine was extremely positive! So the next time anyone comes and visits me, let's go have cake there! :D It's a small place, so seats are limited and booking for high tea is essential. 

This post is getting too long, so I'm putting the next leg of our adventure in the next post. 

Battle of the Matte Lipsticks: Nars vs. Inglot

So you remember that lipstick I bought while my husband went on a rampage in a toy store? I'm going to do a pretty comprehensive review and  comparison of that and another one in this post.

First, let me present the contestants and the Judge of this battle!

Inglot AMC Lip Pencil vs. Nars Pure Matte Lipstick with Judge Sirotan Pirate Henchman. (and my amazing skill at standing him up on his tail for this photo!)

Since I can't somehow insert a table to compare them side by side, we will just start with the short one. Some info about my lips: they are very dry and I bite and lick them a lot. I'm lazy so I don't re-apply much. This makes me a very harsh lipstick critic! ;)

Nars Pure Matte Lipstick

Colour: Bangkok (soft rose)
Thoughts: It is a muted nude pink with gold shimmer, so I don't know how it's classified as matte when the finish has a soft sheen to it?! It is not that pigmented actually, a little on the sheer side for a matte lipstick, so it needs a few swipes for full coverage. I just really like this colour, that's all.

Formula (from their website) : Contains wild mango butter for moisturising properties, long-wear applications, vitamin E and acai oil for antioxidant benefits.
Thoughts: There is no such thing as long-lasting moisturising lipstick, just does not happen with chemistry or physics! It is moisturising, it looks even when applied but actually feels a little gritty for my lips. It doesn't dry my lips out any more than they dry themselves out, lol. It's nowhere close to as long-lasting as the Maybelline one I reviewed last time, there will be no trace of it after lunch and coffee...

Price: $35 for 2 g from Mecca, so on the more expensive end for those with a budget.

Inglot AMC Lip Pencil 

Colour: No. 24
Thoughts: It is a dusty rose pink, and definitely a matte finish. It looks warmer with an orange undertone on the back of the hand and in the tube, but appears to have a neutral-cool tone when applied. It is quite pigmented and looks pretty pink on my lips.

Formula: Not much info on their website, except for avocado oil for a moisturising, long-lasting effect.
Thoughts: Compared to the Nars lipstick, this one is not very moisturising. It is essentially a fat lip pencil, it still sits in the lines of the lips a bit but the application is much smoother. Again, nothing is as long-lasting as my Maybelline one, but this one is pretty good. It fades pretty evenly after lunch and dinner, and the lips look a little stained. The only downside is dryness I guess...

Price: $23 for 1.8 g from Inglot stall, not bad if you don't sharpen and waste it too much. Yes, it comes with a convenient sharpener on the end of the tube.

Pictures time!

Lippies out of the tubes, and Sirotan needed a rest from his previous magical acrobatic stunt!

Swatched on the underside of my forearm, Nars on top and Inglot on the bottom.

Top: Indoor fluorescent light (everything looks yellow! >.<) 

Bottom: left - natural outdoor light (cloudy), right - stain after rubbing off with tissue.

On the lips, Nars on the left and Inglot on the right. The lighting is slightly different but both under natural indoor light.

Inglot still had plenty left after food, but the dryness?! You ask where's Nars? All in my stomach with the food and drinks!

The left-over Inglot lips looked fine from far away, and I really hate the yellow undertone from the fluorescent light! Sirotan and I think Inglot is the winner of this battle, since dryness can be solved by some lip balm, but the lack of lipstick is the end! :p

Lipstick Week: Swatch and Review (Monday)

I am determined to wear a different coloured lipstick for each day of this week, just to annoy my husband because I can.

Apparently a lot of guys don't like kissing girls with lipstick on, I can imagine the reasons but I don't think it's enough to deter girls from wearing them. So suck it up, boys!

For each of the lipstick, I'll do a short review and some of my signature blah blah blahs. Lipstick is one of those really annoying make up items that differs heavily on personal basis, more so than other make up. I have put in a close up of my bare lips and a full mug shot (no make up other than lipstick) for skin tone reference. I try to take photos under the same lighting (bathroom selfie time, lol), so direct comparison can be drawn between the swatches. 

Monday

Maybelline - Super Stay 14Hr Lipstick in Enduring Ruby (#070)

Left: bare lips, Right: Two swipes and lined 

Indoor natural lighting without flash on a relatively sunny day.

• Shade: A cool toned, bright, berry red (colour does not deviate on lips), Satin finish. 
• Formula: Smooth application (glides on easily), moisturising, does not accentuate dryness (not settle in lines), highly pigmented, not sticky, minimal feathering, can easily re-apply, nice berry smell.
• Staying power: slight initial transfer, long lasting (probably can last up to 14 hours), fades evenly, stains lips. 
• Price: Cheap enough = plain packaging, decent quantity (3.3 g)

Left: blotted on tissue for a more matte finish, Right: After drinks, snacks, dinner (Garlic prawns & gnocchi in Arrabiata sauce), fruits, and some gentle smooching with the hubby. ;)

Final verdict: Probably the best drug store lipstick that actually does what is advertised. I know that dark colours will always have better staying power than light/nude colours. That aside, the lack of transfer makes it better than some high-end designer lipsticks, that's a big deciding factor for me. I have tried Giogio Armani Lip Maestro in 400, the amount of lipstick that I vigorously wiped off without affecting the colour on the lips both amazes and scares me... Anyway, can't think of any more to write and being kicked off the computer, Ciao! xo