Forks and Brushes

I cannot possibly title this post as "Review & Swatches" as how could I comment on one of my all time  idol Charlotte Tilbury's own makeup range. However, what I am going to do is to share what I have bought in her pop up store. You can have a read of my visit  here . Charlotte Tilbury is launching her own makeup brand in Selfridges London on Monday 2nd Sep. Prior to the official launch, she set up a pop-up store to give a sneak preview of her eye makeup range. And I have bought 5 items:

I have been a fan of Charlotte Tilbury for quite some time. I watched a lot of her tutorials on YouTube, and always admire how effortless she made everything look. But I'd never thought one day I would able to chat with her & bring a piece (actually I bought 5 pieces of her products) of her home!!! And today, it all came true! Charlotte is launching her  own make up range - it is not at all a small collection, it has a array of beautiful eye palettes, eye pencils & crayons, mascara, lip products, foundations & powders, tools (brushes & eyelashes curler), eye makeup remover, and her legendary magic cream.  Prior to the official launch date of 2nd September, she has a pop-up store in Selfridges for an exclusive sneak peak of her eye makeup range.

You should have seen my blog about my family trip to Paris and mini haul . We didn't go to any fancy restaurant this time as it was a very last minute decision that we were going to Paris, so not much time to research beforehand. However, we did accidentally find a very good Vietnamese restaurant (later on confirmed by my friend Kate, who lived in Paris for 3 years, that this was her absolute favourite Vietnamese restaurant in Paris) It was my dad's suggestion to check out the Chinatown in Paris. He found out the metro station was Olympiades. As we came out from the station, er.... we didn't know where we were, streets were looking quiet. Then we saw a chinese guy carrying some shopping, walking from a street, heading towards us to the metro station. So we thought "ah! There must be a chinese supermarket nearby! Let's walk down the street where he was coming from!" How clever we were! Because that street was Rue Nationale, and as we walking along, we saw P...

With hours and hours of trying, I have finally set up my own domain name! *Drum roll please* Ladies and gentlemen.... boys and girls....  I proudly present www.forksandbrushes.me The web hosting itself will stay with Blogger at the moment, but it is not longer needed to type in the whole length of www.forksandbrushes.blogspot.co.uk. (what a long name!) When the link finally worked, I was jumping up and down and fists punching the air! I am very pleased!!! Happy blogging!! Georgina x

To celebrate a special birthday in my family, me parents, my sister Cynthy (@beautyorbread) and I went to Paris for the long bank holiday weekend. Here is my small trip in Instagrammies:

I am a shallow girl, in the sense that any products that are pleased to my eyes, I would right away think "I need that!". Packaging made up a large part in my decision making process of whether to buy a product or not - Packaging not just means pretty in the box, but also includes clever design, compact compartments, embossed patterns... etc. With this in mind, you will now understand why I am determined to make a purchase from the Mary Quant shop in Chelsea. The shop in Chelsea sells mostly makeup products, but they have accessories and clothes as well. My focus is definitely on their makeup range.

This is my first haul post! Haul in Prague! But the thing is I have never been to Prague! The person who went to Prague is my sister Cynthy (@beautyorbread - you can check out her haul in here ) She hasn't forgotten me on her trip and she picked up a trail of makeup products for me along the way. It was like Christmas again! So I am sharing them with you here...

It was the beginning of August when I first saw Clarins Autumn/Winter 2013 released. The collection includes: limited edition face & blush powder, eyeshadow palette, lipstick, mascara, a very interesting 3 dot liquid eye liner. But what caught my eye was the eye pencils. If you have read my previous post, I have bought a beautiful Dior eyeshadow palette for my autumn eye, the colours in that palette are khaki, blue & taupe. I have been looking for eye pencils to match them. So when I saw that there is a khaki colour in Clarins, I right away ordered 4 colours (out of the 8 in the collection). The 4 eye pencils that I picked up are:

When all the hypes has been around the popular American burger chain Five Guys on Long Acre, not that far down the road at the heart of Covent Garden, I was pleasantly surprised that another popular American burger chain Shake Shack has made their debut appearance in London! I had good memories about Shake Shack because I was blown away how tasty their burger & chips were when I last visited New York.

Shoryu Ramen first caught my eye when I was waiting for a bus & saw this long queue outside their restaurant. Queueing outside a ramen bar is a popular scene in the far east, like in Hong Kong. But this was the first I saw in London. So I was definitely intrigued. Is Shoryu Ramen really worth queueing for? Or are they just another Wagamama?

When I first saw this Dior eyeshadow palette on Allison's blog (aka Amarixe ), I knew instantly that I HAVE TO get it, whatever it takes. I researched everywhere online, it was exclusive to Nordstrom website for a while before hitting the counters, I thought "if it was exclusively in America, no way that it is going to be available in UK any time soon" So you could imagine my excitement when I opened the Selfridges email and saw it is now exclusively at Selfridges!

Despite the occasional stormy days, London has been consistently hot in the past few weeks. So for my morning coffees, I have been switching from a hot Americano to an iced Americano. The normal method to make an iced Americano is to pour a shot of hot espresso over a glass of ice, then top up with cold water & more ice.

Thank you to Rebecca from Biteable Beauty , (who also organises London Beauty Bloggers Meetup ), I was invited to attend the Simple blogger event last night at Kettners in Soho. I love & have been using Simple Skincare products anyway, good quality yet reasonably priced. I love their wipes in particular to remove my makeup (hands up to my laziness). So I was super excited to see what new products Simple were promoting this time. The venue itself excites me as well! I love Kettners & went there for dinner not long ago (see my blog post here ). The room was on the 2nd floor of Kettners. As I entered, I was greeted by Laura from Beattie Communications & was shown to a menu of 4 mocktails . They were packed with fruits like watermelon, kiwi, mango & berries to give different benefits to your skin (beautifully made by Simple's Skincare nutritionist Fiona, so I confidently convinced that mocktails were good for me!)