Maybelline Total Temptation Mascara, Shadow + Highlight Palette

Have you guys seen the new Total Temptation makeup from Maybelline in stores yet? The collection debuted early January and says it's "the most addictive makeup yet"! I tried out the mascara in Blackest Black, as well as the 10-pan eyeshadow and highlight palette recently (the brow pencil was unfortunately not the right shade for me.)

The Total Temptation mascara claims to have a "soft touch" and a "sensuous glide" o__o;; The brush is your average mascara wand. While it did apply through my lashes cleanly without too much clumping, it didn't deliver much of the promised "addictive volume". My straight, classic-Asian lashes also quickly lost their curl. The black area on the tube packaging is flat, which gives you a nice area to rest your thumb while applying mascara, but that was basically the only thing I liked about it. Sadly, this mascara was just like all the other standard drugstore mascaras I tried as a teenager that left me feeling disappointed.

One Year Later (ish)

Hi! It is scary to realize that though I've been somewhat active on Instagram, it has been nearly a year since I posted here. A year ago, I was still stressing out about planning a wedding. A year ago, I had never traveled overseas before. A year ago, passing my CFE for CPA sounded like a far-off goal. A year ago, I was still wondering if I could own a home in Vancouver's insane real estate market. And today: I'm married after being with this dude for almost 12 years; I'm itching to go back to Japan; I'm still scared as hell about writing my CFE, though I'm much closer to it; I'm writing this post from my office/makeup room in my condo.

Bunny swarm at Okunoshima, Hiroshima prefecture

And yet when I look at my second-to-last post, from February 2017, it echoes what I was planning to say here about the future of this blog!

It's still my creative outlet, and I still have so many post ideas always percolating. It is starting to shift more and more away from being strictly a beauty blog to a more personal, "lifestyle" blog, though. Things you'll expect to see this year: a series of wedding planning diaries/tips posts, more fashion nail art, and any other random stuff I manage to churn out. And one way or another, I'm clearing my photo backlog, dammit--it goes back to 2013! Whether that means just finally letting go and deleting stuff that isn't relevant or up to my standards anymore, or being a little kinder to myself and posting something without obsessing over it for hours. Although I might not be able to post so often, and (to fellow bloggers) I might not be able to keep up with my blog roll very well at times, I hope you'll keep reading. Thank you! ♥

Basically, a lot has changed for me in the past year, but I see that deep-down I'm still the perfectionist-procrastinator I've always been lolol. Those things up there are absolutely still true. I underestimated all the life things I had going on in 2017, and honestly once I fall off the blogging wagon, it's very hard to get back into the habit. I recently had to reformat my computer, and in the process of reviewing all my files, let go of a lot of old crappy photos in my backlog and was also re-invigorated by all the potential content I had, just waiting to be posted. I still need to work on being kinder to myself, putting myself and my content out there with more confidence, but I'll get there. Thank you again for reading. ♥

Yes, I still have wedding posts planned