My Interview with A1 for Radio Heatwave

A1 in Singapore

I have a very exciting blog post for you today. I ended my month of February interviewing the boys of A1 for Radio Heatwave. My life would have been complete if I interviewed Blue, but oh well, they didn't really engage too much with the press.

A1, Blue and Jeff Timmons had their Greatest Hits world tour and they came to Singapore and performed at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. I sadly missed the concert. Sadness aside, I got to speak to the boys of A1 and interview the pretty boy of the band, Ben Adams.

Your friendly Radio Heatwave DJ's (Michelle and me, Andrea) with the boys from A1

Michelle and I got to take a nice picture with the boys too. They still look really young.

Ben Adams all excited and hyped up when talking to us.

This is what Ben Adams had to tell Radio Heatwave.

Andrea, Radio Heatwave: How are you finding Singapore so far?
Ben Adams, A1: I’m finding it amazing! It’s been 10 years since we’ve been here, and we didn’t know if anyone would remember us, so it was a bit of a worry. But then seeing everyone at the show last night and people just waiting for us at the airport and the hotel was incredible! People do remember us and also seem to love the new stuff… It’s great.

Andrea, Radio Heatwave: How was it touring and sharing the stage with Blue and Jeff Timmons so far?
Ben Adams, A1: It’s been really fun. We’ve known each other for a long time and it’s just been really fun. We don’t do any of this little boy band dancing and backing tracks. We brought a whole live band and played everything totally live so we do very different shows and I think it works out well.

Andrea, Radio Heatwave: You took about seven years off before reuniting, how was it like recording together and standing on the same stage after so long?
Ben Adams, A1: It was brilliant! I mean, it wasn’t really a planned thing for us to get back together. We did one TV show over in Norway where they wanted us to sing A1 songs again and the reaction was so good, that Universal wanted us to make an album and we went on to do 60 sold-out concerts over in Europe. It was just magic really. Doing our own solo projects was really fun but I think we all felt that we just had more fun together! You know, it’s like when you watch a movie you don’t really want to watch it alone, you wanna watch it with someone. So, things like last night at the concert, to be able to look over at Mark and Christian and just go, “Wow! We’re doing this. We’re sharing it together!” It’s an amazing feeling.

Andrea, Radio Heatwave: After A1 actually split up back in 2002, right, what have you been doing till you actually reunited back a few years ago?
Ben Adams, A1: I’ve just been playing PlayStation.
Andrea, Radio Heatwave: Not even Xbox?!
Ben Adams, A1: No Xbox. I played it for a little while but PlayStation had an edge. (laughs)
We’ve been doing a lot, I mean we have studios in London, so we’ve been writing and producing for other artists. We’ve all done various different project solo albums. Christian’s released three solo albums back in his home country. I went on a show called Celebrity Big Brother, which was very strange, but kinda fun with some of the people in there. I love Austin Powers, and Mini Me was there with me, and that was weird! But it was great and kinda fun. But even if it hasn’t been A1, we’ve always still been doing music.

Andrea, Radio Heatwave: You were known for your “Pretty Boy” image in the past, now that you’re older, what kind of image do you have?
Ben Adams, A1: Ugly girl. That’s what I’m going for! (laughs) Pretty Boy to Ugly Girl.
No! I don’t know! I don’t think I’ve aged that much actually! I’ve been very lucky. I’ve sort of just remained, well, in my head anyway, about 16 years old. So I’m definitely not more mature. I’m still just a kid, joking around, having fun. But I got ID’d the other day while buying some cigarettes for a friend. See, you’ve got to be 16 years old to buy them, and I was dancing around the shop! The cashier was very confused behind the counter, but you see but I’m 30! So, I felt brilliant… And also plastic surgery helped. I’m joking.

Andrea, Radio Heatwave: What inspired your music 10 years ago and what inspires it now? Has there been any difference?
Ben Adams, A1: 10 years ago, when I was young, I was inspired to write Like A Rose for my mum, but a lot of people thought it was a love song and they played it at weddings! But, I think when you haven’t had a lot of life experience when you’re 16, that kind of age, you listen to other songs and you listen to other artists and you get inspired by them because you haven’t experienced those experiences of love or breakup or worldly experiences yourself. But when you’re older, (the other guys are old, I’m still fresh) you just get a lot more experiences to draw from.

Andrea, Radio Heatwave: How do you keep your music relevant to your old fans, while appealing to new ones?
Ben Adams, A1: Well, it’s a tricky thing but you gotta remember that the old fans that used to love us back in the day, they’ve all grown up too so we don’t really have to think about trying to cater to them. We just do the music that we love to do, but we all keep up-to-date and we’re inspired by loads of different music today like Lady Gaga’s, Katy Perry’s, our favourite artists’ like Bruce Springsteen. I think it’s important to keep an eye on what’s going on in the trends of music but still keep it sort of A1. We don’t want to copy other people too much.

Andrea, Radio Heatwave: Do you have any plans to release another album?
Ben Adams, A1: Yeah! We’re always writing! I think, as a songwriter, you always think that the last song you’ve written is the best one, so we’ve got lots of new best songs that we wanna release but we gotta obviously take it one step at a time. We’re very proud of Waiting For Daylight, and we have to make sure that that gets its own life.

Andrea, Radio Heatwave: What is the craziest thing a fan ever did to you?
Ben Adams, A1: People follow us all over the world in planes and minivans. We didn’t pay for ourselves, but Sony back in the day was paying for everything but they used to put us up in some amazing flights and hotels, and everything that we did was very expensive. But the fans kept on following us!

I think the craziest thing was when a fan came up to me, and we’d seen her in loads of different places and she’d been following us everywhere, and we’re like, “What’s your favourite song on the album?” She went, “Oh, I don’t have your album.” And we were like, “WHAT? Why not?” And she went, “Oh, because I spent all my money following you around!” (laughs) And we were like “Oh!” So, yeah, it was interesting, or maybe crazy.

Andrea, Radio Heatwave: Older bands like Backstreet Boys have formed a unique group with New Kids on the Block. But, where do you see A1 going from here?
Ben Adams, A1: Sky’s the limit, really. We just wanna branch out and be as successful as possible, really, but I don’t think we’ll be joining up with any other bands and making a super group. I think we’re pretty sufficient just ourselves… Unless it’s a girl band, than that’ll be awesome!

Andrea, Radio Heatwave: Any girl bands in mind?
Ben Adams, A1: Oh, there’s this K-Pop thing going on that’s pretty cool! We were in the gym the other day and we were sort of watching all this stuff on TV, and there were like a million people in one band! I mean, no one makes any money but it looks great! So yeah, maybe we can be a part of that! Maybe we can be K1-Pop.

Andrea, Radio Heatwave: Are you gonna do any K-Pop songs then?
Ben Adams, A1: enough, we’ve been asked to write for a lot of the K-Pop groups. So we’ll see, maybe A1 songs, or maybe A1-written songs, will turn up on their albums. That’d be fun.

Andrea, Radio Heatwave: What message do you have for all your listeners and your fans in Singapore?
Ben Adams, A1: Thank you for your support. It’s fantastic to be back here. We can’t wait to come back and do more concerts and we hope you’re enjoying the new album, Waiting For Daylight. If you don’t have it, go get it! You need it. It’s a must-have.  

Andrea, Radio Heatwave: Okay, we trust your judgment.
Ben Adams, A1: I trust it too. It’s awesome.

Look at the amount of questions I had :)

Ben Adams giving us our radio liner and also, wishing Radio Heatwave its 20th Birthday!

Ben insisted on showcasing his drawing skill and drew me a picture for radio heatwave. It was very cute. Check it out for yourself.

Ben drew this..so cute right?

I have to be honest and say that it was just so easy to interview him. Artistes usually have something against the interviewee or at the media at large. Ive interviewed other artistes that I wish I hadn't met or interviewed in the first place. I'll not mention who though. haha. 

Hope you found this entertaining and informative and A1 has promised Radio Heatwave that they will be back really soon. He really assured us. So keep a look out for that.

Andrea Flavia William
Radio Producer-Presenter
Radio Heatwave, Ngee Ann Polytechnic 
http://mypersonalrecount.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/andrea_flavia
http://www.facebook.com/andreaflaviawilliam 

Personal Post: Month of February kicked me in the ass

As promised, here's a personal post to sum up my month of February. Based on the title, you might have guessed that Feb was pretty tough, and I have to blame it on school. I barely had time for myself or my friends, and I didn't blog at all. I just wrote one small post for Universal Music, which didn't take much brain power at all.

Our Magazine

One of our major projects was to come up with a magazine from scratch. It was one of the toughest thing we had to do and I'm really glad that it's over. I promise that I WILL NEVER become a feature writer or an editor. I would rather became a mother tongue teacher. And if you know me well, the fact that I will want to become a mother tongue teacher is sealing my death sentence!

We had tons of other submissions and exams after that. I feel so thankful that I survived...that WE survived.

Me and my Margarita

I finally had my margaritas that I have been craving for. Celebrated with my poly friends after our last exam paper.

My friend, steph, cooked us a meal.

After all the school stuff, my friend, steph cooked us a really nice meal one of the days towards the end of Feb. That was nice, to finally chill out with my friends from church.

Michelle and I with A1

The only news worthy thing that I did for Feb was to interview British-Norwegian band, A1. That was pretty nice. Interviewed them for Radio Heatwave on the last day of Feb. It was a nice way to end the month. The full interview will be up on my blog soon enough!

My dream would have been to interview the boy band, Blue, who also came down with A1 for their Asian Tour...but they didn't engage with the media much. I was a crazy ass fanatic fan of blue around 10 years ago. Oh well..the boys from A1 were too cute anyway. 

That aside, I started watching 2 new Tv Series. 

New Girl

I know New Girl has been out a while, but I never have the time for anything else anyway. However, I FINALLY managed to catch this and I am in love with the show! Its so funny and the story line is pretty nice. I'm excited the see how the characters develop.

Smash

Smash is your adult version of Glee and it's a good storyline. I love how the show show is all about theater. Makes me miss being in theater so much.

That's what happened more or less for February. Hope you had a good month. If not, hang in there because March brings us a lot of hope to turn things around.

xoxo

Andrea Flavia William
http://mypersonalrecount.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/andrea_flavia
http://www.facebook.com/andreaflaviawilliam 

Real Techniques Core Collection Review

Real Techniques Core Collection

Hey there! You might have heard of this amazing British make up artiste called Samantha Chapman. She's 1/2 of the Pixiwoo sisters on YouTube. Anyway, Samantha has her own collection of brushes called 'Real Techniques'. Every time the sisters do their videos on YouTube, they use these brushes and I really love how the brushes work. With that said, I knew that I had to get my hands on those brushes.

Now, these aren't available in Singapore (the place where I live). But, thank goodness for Sprees and international shipping. I bought this particular brush set from Ulta from the USA. It's called the Real Techniques Core Collection. It comes in a black case which is very handy for traveling. There are four brushes in the set. The Real Techniques foundation brush, buffing brush, contour brush and the detailer brush. I have to admit and say that I have been using these brushes EVERYDAY for a month already and I absolutely LOVE them to bits because it is a good investment. 

All the brushes from the line are synthetic, which makes it long lasting in my opinion and it is also perfect to apply cream products using synthetic brushes.

Lets go on and talk about each brushes.

Real Techniques Foundation Brush

The Real Techniques Foundation Brush is actually TOO small to apply foundation with. It will take a really long time if you want to apply foundation all over your face. However, I do use this brush for applying concealer under my eyes. It is pretty efficient to apply the product there. I then use my ring finger to blend the concealer properly into my skin.

Real Techniques Buffing Brush

This particular brush is a miracle worker. I personally prefer the Real Techniques Buffing Brush as compared to the Sigma Flat Top Kabuki (F-80) Brush. The bristles aren't too dense and it really works well to blend and buff the product into your skin. I use this brush to apply foundation or BB Cream primarily. However, I have used this a couple of times to apply blush and bronzer and it works just as well. This is a multifunctional brush that just makes your life easier in the morning.

Real Techniques Contour Brush

The Real Techniques Contour Brush is something that works really well. I need to contour my round face (haha) and the size of the brush is perfect and it gets the job done. You can also apply blush with this brush. Another brush that has made my life so much easier in the morning.

Real Techniques Detailer Brush

Lastly, there's the Real Technique Detailer Brush. It's this super tiny brush that I use to apply lip stick with. OR you can also use this to apply concealer on blemishes or dark spots. I use this more for concealer as I don't really apply lipstick using a brush. It's too much of a hassle to do sometimes. I don't have a brush like this so it's really nice to have it.

My favourite brushes from this set is the buffing and contour brush. I paid around SGD 28 for this whole set, including shipping fee. It cost 17.99 USD. Pretty cheap brushes and it works as well as mac brushes. I will 100% recommend this and even though it's not really available in tons of places, you have got to thank online shopping for that. I bought mine from Smoochiezz. Its a reliable company that imports international make up brand and handles sprees for customers.

With that said, I hope that you have found this review useful. I will rate this brush set a 4.5/5  :-D

xoxo

Andrea Flavia William
http://mypersonalrecount.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/andrea_flavia
http://www.facebook.com/andreaflaviawilliam 

Liveomusic Interviews British Indie Band, Bombay Bicycle Club

Bombay Bicycle Club and I at MBS

Hey guys, I got the wonderful chance to sit down with popular indie band, Bombay Bicycle Club when they came down to Singapore for The People's Party music festival. I spoke to Guitarist, Jamie MacColl and Bassist, Ed Nesh. I have to admit that the interview felt pretty weird, but it was entertaining at the same time. We spoke A LOT and I literally had to cut out a lot of parts or the article would have never ended.

The guys were really nice and to find out what they have to tell Liveomusic, read the full interview below.

Yes, me interviewing the band mates.

VJ Andrea, Liveomusic: Have you had the chance to view the city yet?

Jamie MacColl: I don’t think there’s a better place to be, to view the city from here. (from Marina Bay Sands Hotel)

Ed Nesh: Yes, we viewed the whole city!

VJ Andrea, Liveomusic: How did you guys meet each other and decide to form a band?

Jamie MacColl: Jack, Suren and I went to school together and we were all in the same class. One day we were asked by our teacher to play in a school assembly. Jack had been writing a lot of songs from the age of 13, and already recorded three or four albums by himself. We met Ed about a year later through a mutual friend and we asked him to join us. And that’s sort of the story of how we formed the band.

VJ Andrea, Liveomusic: Did you guys click instantly?

Both: No (laughs).

Ed Nesh: I don’t know about the other three. I kind of knew these guys very briefly through the mutual friend, I didn’t really know them beforehand.

Jamie MacColl: I remember clicking with Jack fairly instantly through music and stuff, we went to a lot of gigs together. We all get on very well now.

VJ Andrea, Liveomusic: How will you describe the overall dynamics of your band?

Jamie MacColl: Well, I don’t know, haha. Jack sort of leads the creative direction. I mean, Jack and Suren are all quiet, naturally quite quiet people whereas I am- my personality’s slightly more dominating. I have strong opinions about a lot of things but everyone has strong opinions about a lot of things, I just express them really readily I think.

Ed Nesh: It works, it shouldn’t really work but it works really well, even if it shouldn’t and even if it’s probably quite annoying for people to work with us and not agree.

VJ Andrea, Liveomusic: You will be performing at the People’s Party at Scape later on. What are you looking forward to the most?

Jamie MacColl: Well it’s always just nice coming to a new place for completely the first time. So you have no expectations. You’ve no idea what the crowd will be like because it’s different in every country. And it’s (also) based on the sort of local culture I think, like, southeast asian fans generally seem to be quite reserved sort of in comparison to the west.

Ed Nesh: I think Singapore might be a bit different. From what we’ve found so far, they’re reserved in a very positive way, everyone sits there and is very attentive and between the songs go wild and then they’re very quiet again during the songs. Whereas kind of in Europe, especially in England, people like to kind of fight and throw stuff and make noise.

VJ Andrea, Liveomusic: If that happens in Singapore, you’ll see that dude behind bars for one night, so people tend not to do it. But has anyone actually thrown beer cans or beer bottles at you guys when you were playing before?

Ed Nesh: We’ve had that quite a lot.

Jamie MacColl: You just have to hope it doesn’t hit you. The worst is what’s it sometimes in festivals it could be a bottle of wee or something.

VJ Andrea, Liveomusic: I’ve heard that you guys are beyond energetic on stage, how and where does the energy actually come from?

Ed Nesh: It’s cause we’re so chilled out all the rest of the time like now, it’s all saved up for the show.

VJ Andrea, Liveomusic: Are you actually aware of your audience reach here in asia?

Jamie MacColl: To a certain extent cause of  how interlinked bands are with social media these days and us in particular cause with our generation going on to it so much, and even if you’ve never gone to a country you have a direct link to fans so I think you have a vague idea that you have fans in these places

VJ Andrea, Liveomusic: Let’s say you guys had to choose any artist or band that you could actually work with, who would it be, your own personal favourite?

Jamie MacColl: I know Suren wants to work with Tinie Tempah and we met Tinie Tempah and he was like ‘Hey let’s do a collaboration’ obviously he was just saying that to be polite and we were like ‘Yeah!

VJ Andrea, Liveomusic: Let’s talk about your new album. Congratulations on your new album. How is it different from your EPs and your tour?

Ed Nesh: It’s kind of where we left off with the first album. I guess on this album it was written on a laptop as opposed to being written on a guitar and Jack did a lot of it and there’s a lot of electronic music.

Jamie MacColl: I think it’s kind of takes a lot of elements from the second album as well. It’s definitely a sort of softer album than the first one. Not necessarily soft poppier but less in-your-face, a bit more likes of texture and atmosphere than big guitar rifts.

VJ Andrea, Liveomusic: For your current album right now how well do you think it’s been going since it was released?

Jamie MacColl: It’s weird, I think if you have a particular attachment to either the first or the second album, I don’t know sometimes, you’re probably going to be less receptive to something that is again different. I think the general consensus in the quid pro quo is to make more serious music and it’s like a big step up, the double floor. I mean, I don’t know, I think in the UK especially the music press there was a lot of snideness about the first two albums and I think there was always resentment because we were quite young as if that made us more serious fans. I think partly it’s because we’re a bit older and the lyrics are slightly less – suddenly started taking us seriously.

VJ Andrea, Liveomusic: But are you still struggling with the fact that people might not take you seriously?

Ed Nesh: Not so much. I personally didn’t notice it much at all, in fact it never really crops up any more whereas in the past especially with the first album every thing I would read would be sense of my fault – I mean I guess we didn’t give them much to work with because we’re not the most talkative (people).

Jamie MacColl: I mean I sort of read everything and I read every blog, I don’t know why. It’s so obstructive. I mean it’s actually got to the point where I feel like hardened, so much (so) that it doesn’t really matter anymore, so yeah it’s not- I think you’ve just got to have a lot of self belief. I feel more sorry for the people who’ve got to make a living out of sort of being horrible about people’s music. I’d rather be making the music and I’m sure they would too.

The British boys have been pretty successful for such a young band. Liveomusic wishes them all the best of luck for their future endeavors and hope that they will be back in Singapore soon for a solo gig!

BBC in Singapore

The band wrote this for all their Singaporean fans :)

A special message to their fans in Singapore!

Special thanks to Universal Music for setting up the interview for us.

XOXO
Andrea Flavia William

Liveomusic VJ | Feature Writer
http://mypersonalrecount.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/andrea_flavia
http://www.facebook.com/andreaflaviawilliam 

Sigma Flat Top Kabuki (F-80) Review

Sigma Flat Top Kabuki (F-80)

I ordered this brush online a few months back and when I received it, I was so psyched. The first thing that surprised me was the size of the brush. I swear that it looked bigger in photos and videos. I started using this on a daily basis when applying different foundations and BB Creams.

Design
The design of the brush is very sleek, just like all of Sigma's other brushes. Thus, there's no issue on the design. I love it.

Bristles 
The bristles are very dense and packed together and I feel that this is good for bending the product well. However, there is only one thing to take note, since the bristles are very dense and packed together, your product will 'seep' pretty deep into the bristles, and this will be hard for cleaning.

Blending
Blending of the product is pretty quick and the brush allows you to build your foundation easily when needed. However, I have noticed that the bristles sometimes tend to create the brush strokes on your face so you will have to be careful about that and ensure that you either use a sponge or your fingers to blend away those brush strokes.

Cleaning
Now, this was the headache I got...trying to clean the brush. No matter how much I clean it with the shampoo, Its really hard to come out. I decided not to try using olive oil because I read online that it will be then hard to remove the oil from the brush. I usually like shampoo it 3 times. But before that, I allow the bristles to soak in make up remover for a while. It helps but damn have I wasted so much of make up remover. If anyone has a better method, please do tell me. I need it!

This brush has made applying foundation in the morning quick and easy and thus, made my life a litte bit more convenient. I believe after shipping and all those stuff I spent around 30 bucks (SGD) on the product. Thus for the price, I will say that the brush is pretty worth it. Its not THAT expensive and this particular brush is unique.

I will rate this brush 4/5 beauty stars. 

xoxo

Andrea Flavia William
http://mypersonalrecount.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/andrea_flavia
http://www.facebook.com/andreaflaviawilliam 

Universal Music Singapore - Amy Winehouse: Make-A-Wish-Foundation

Amy Winehouse

Universal Music Singapore is doing something really awesome and you should be a part of it. In line of paying tribute to the late Amy Winehouse, they will be donating $1 to Make-A-Wish-Foundation with every 'Lioness: Hidden Treasures' album sold. This is Amy's 3rd album and lets face it, she is an amazing singer with power vocals and soul in her music.

Amy's father, Mitch spoke about his late daughter and her album.

“I spent so much time chasing after Amy, telling her off that I never realized what a true genius she was. It wasn’t until I sat down with the rest of the family and listened to this album that I fully appreciated the breadth of Amy’s talent, from jazz standards to hip hop songs, it really took my breath away. “Halftime”, I’d never heard before, is just incredibly beautiful. If the family had felt that this album wasn’t up to the standard of “Frank” and “Back To Black” we would never have agreed to release it and we believe it will stand as a fitting tribute to Amy ‘s musical legacy.”

In order to support this cause, all you have to do is buy the album and the $1 donation will be made. This will go on till Wednesday, 29th February 2012. So if you are a fan of Amy Winehouse or if you just wanna support this cause, you know what you have to do.

XOXO
Andrea Flavia William

Liveomusic VJ | Feature Writer
http://mypersonalrecount.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/andrea_flavia
http://www.facebook.com/andreaflaviawilliam 

Personal Post: January has been INSANE!

One of my new year resolutions was/is to write more personal blog posts as for most of 2011, I drifted away from publicly displaying my life on the internet. However, I thought that Ill probably sum up the month's activities.

This month, I got to stay in Singapore's most expensive condo called, The Sail at Marina Bay.

The Sail at Marina Bay

My aunt owned one of the apartments there and it was available so my friends and I stayed there for a weekend. We got treated like royalty and the facilities were amazing.

My view

 This was my view in the night. Look at how amazing it is. AHHH.

Camwhoring at the apartment

It was good staying over, getting away from my home for the weekend. I should do this more often.

The following week, I stayed over at the National Service Recreational Country Club (NSRCC) as it was Ephrem Music Ministry's 14th Anniversary. Ephrem Music Ministry is my church's music ministry that Ive been in since I was 12. That was an amazing weekend too.

Finally fulfilled my craving for a strawberry margarita.

I FINALLY had my margarita. Great dinner and company at NSRCC. We ate at a bar in front of the beach. The breeze and ambiance was to die for.

We took a group picture after dinner.

I would go back there again. We stayed at one of the bungalows at NSRCC and pretty much had a blast. I went to school from the Country Club, and did my work all there. It was my way of trying to balance school, work and fun at the expense of no sleep.

Here are some of the photos from the weekend.

Meet Jill. The baby of Ephrem. The EVIL baby of Ephrem.

Ephrem turns 14 years old and yes, we had a cake!

Beside celebrating Ephrem's 14th Anniversary, I also got to interview 2 well known indie rock bands. Award Winning band, The Naked and Famous who are from New Zealand, as well as famous British indie band, Bombay Bicycle Club.

I felt kinda weird interviewing The Naked and Famous because we were on different frequencies.  They were nice people and all. The worst thing was that my throat was so painful and I was losing my voice. Thank goodness that the interview wasn't for radio/video, it was for an article. You can check out my article here.

Me with The Naked and Famous

Interviewing Bombay Bicycle Club was fun. I was on the same frequency as them, probably because they are brits. It was great meeting them and guess where the interview was held? At Marina Bay Sand Hotel. It was my first  time there. Check out my view when I was interviewing them.

Yes MY VIEW!

The view was great, we were right at the sky terrace. The band was great and I wish them all the success! Here's a picture of me with them.

Bombay Bicycle Club and I

After interviewing Bombay Bicycle Club, I went for the SIMPLE PLAN CONCERT! AHHH. Yes my favourite band in the world! LOVE THEM TO BITS.

Simple Plan Concert

After Simple Plan, I fell sick the next day for like a week. I wasn't in school for a week. It sucked, but oh well. I am feeling so much better and life continues.

In terms of school, I'm hanging in there.

This was pretty much the MAIN highlights of my January. How was yours?


xoxo


Andrea Flavia William
http://mypersonalrecount.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/andrea_flavia
http://www.facebook.com/andreaflaviawilliam  

Sephora Studio Blockbuster Make Up Palette Review

Sephora Studio Blockbuster Make Up Palette

I was really excited when my mum bought this palette for me from Paris, and finally, here's my thought on it.


Background of the Palette

• Portable case with 193 makeup products.
• 96 eye shadow shades
• 84 shiny lip glosses
• 3 Blushes
• 4 Cream Eyeliners/ Cream Eyeshadows
• 1 mini Sephora mascara
• 2 mini Pencil Eyeliners in Black and Brown
• Large mirror and applicators included in kit

The eyeshadows are grouped to make it easier to come up with different looks.

Eye shadows
The pigmentation of the eye shadows are pretty decent. Other brands like Urban Decay and Smash Box is definitely better. I like the diversity in colour selection for the eyeshadows. The good thing is that the shadows are grouped according to neutrals, bright, medium toned colours and so time. The colour placement also makes it easy to come up with a focused look.

Pigmentation of the eyeshadows

Based on the photo, you can see that the eyeshadows are pretty alright. Not all have the same pigmentation but it's good enough.


Blushes, Bronzer and Eyeliners
There are 3 blushes and 1 bronzer in the palette. My favourite blush is the darkest one which is kind of a rose-pink-mauve colour. It's unique. The other colour is a barbie pink and a coral-pink blush with tiny golden sparkles. The bronzer on the other hand isn't that fantastic for contouring. It's too sparkly. I guess you have to use it as a brown-golden blush.

From left: Rose-Pink-MauveBlush, Barbie Pink Blush, Coral-Pink Blush, 1 bronzer, Brown Eyeliner, Black Eyeliner

Look at the right side of the photo. There's the brown and black eyeliner. They aren't that super creamy but decent enough. The black eyeliner was pretty hard to remove from my hand, it kinda shows staying power.


Lipsticks/Lip Glosses
According to the information on the box of the Palette, there are 84 lip glosses. However when I was playing around with it, I realised that some were actually lipsticks. Some of the lipglosses are really creamy, pigmented, and some are just sheer. Others are pretty glossy and some just should not be in the palette.

Sephora Studio Blockbuster Make Up Palette Lip Glosses and Lip Sticks Swatches

These are just some quick swatches I did. Its really messy. Despite that, you can see that some colours are really creamy. Those are the lip sticks. The colour range is pretty decent. However I think that they overdid the lip gloss section. More should have been done to work on the formula of the lip glosses.


Cream Eyeliner/Cream Eyeshadows
The Cream Eyeliners or Shadows (as you can use it for both) are surprisingly good and I love that!

Look at how intense the black shade is on the left side of the picture.

The green, blue and black colours are amazing. The black is really creamy and pigmented. I'm not too sure about the staying power but I am excited to see how it will work out. This is one feature of the palette that I absolutely like.


Conclusion
This is a nice palette from Sephora. It's worth the money. But if you have a decent amount of make up in your collection, you don't need it. If you are starting out with make up, this palette will definitely help you.


xoxo


Andrea Flavia William
http://mypersonalrecount.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/andrea_flavia
http://www.facebook.com/andreaflaviawilliam 

Elf Daily Brush Cleaner Review

Hello there my lovies! I suddenly feel like I'm in a good mood and that's great! Today, I am going to do a review on the Elf Daily Brush Cleaner. I hope that it will be useful to you, especially if you are planning to get it or if you're on a lookout for a brush cleaner.    :-D

Elf Daily Brush Cleaner

I recently purchased the Elf Daily Brush Cleaner because it was recommended.

Based on Elf's website, it states-
"An anti-bacterial daily brush cleanser for quick cleaning in-between makeup applications. Disinfects brushes to provide a fresh and clean application every time. Helps to keep your brushes lasting longer for extended use."

I have to admit that the product has a funky smell. It's not that bad but some people might find it otherwise. I use this on a daily basis to spot clean my brushes and so far so good. This is a hygentcic habit because cleaning them once a week or later than that will cause a build up in bacteria and it will soon lead to acne on your face. You do NOT want that. Thus, spot cleaning it daily will remove at least 80% of the make up on the brush and disinfect it.

I will highly recommend this product to you. However, there is only one problem. The spray cap is terrible. I hope it's not terrible for all the products, just the one that I got. For me, I have to spray a countless of times before the product comes out, and because it's not coming out, the pressure built up inside causes the product to come out from the side of the bottle. This makes it a little bit messy and inconvenient. I am gonna repurchase this product once Ive completely used up this bottle. If it happens again, it's the company's fault!

Other than it, the Elf Daily Brush Cleaner has really made my life easier in a way. So kudos to that. Plus, it's really cheap. It's like USD 3. I got it for SGD 10, which is way more expensive after the conversion. But 10 bucks is still pretty cheap.


xoxo


Andrea Flavia William
http://mypersonalrecount.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/andrea_flavia
http://www.facebook.com/andreaflaviawilliam 

EcoTools Bamboo 6 Piece Eye Brush Set Review

EcoTools Bamboo 6 Piece Eye Brush Set

EcoTools has been known for their environmentally friendly, cheap and really good make up brushes and I wanted to get my hands on them to try it out.

I saw this particular set online and wanted to buy it. Little did I realise that they were actually travel size brushes. Despite that, I have to admit that I adore all the brushes in this set.

I stayed over at a country club, and condo over 2 weekends and brought this with me. I had to go out to interview bands and stuff and that meant I needed to look polished, and these brushes helped so much to achieve whatever look I wanted to pull off.

There are 5 brushes and a recyclable cloth to store the brushes. The cloth comes with a mirror.

From Bottom: Blend Brush, Highlight Brush, Crease Brush, Shade Brush and Smudge Brush. The names are in printed in the brushes.

The 5 brushes are as follows:

Blend Brush
This is the biggest brush in the set. It is very dense and the bristles are soft. I use this brush to highlight under my brow bone.

Crease Brush
This is an angled brush that is good for defining your crease. Extremely good for a smokey eye because the angle in the brush helps you to create your outer-v shape to darken your crease colour. This brush is also good for blending colours.

Highlight Brush
I don't know why this is called a highlight brush. It's like a tapered blending brush that's good to blend colours. The bristles are soft, but dense enough to achieve a flawless blend of colours.

Shade Brush
The Shade Brush is this small brush that's really good for detailed work on your eyes. I personally use it for a colour below my water line and the brush also enables me to smudge the colour I applied there. Alternatively, you can use it for your inner corner of your eyes because the density of the brush enables it to pick up a lot of colour from your shadow and apply it within a small surface. Because its a small surface, the colour pay off its intense.

Smudge Brush 
This brush works the same to the Shade brush. But I ALWAYS use thus particular brush for the inner corner of my eyes. It's so small and easy to use to intensify and brighten your eyes by placing a bright colour there, and blending it out.

So far, I have not had any complaints with the brushes. I like that it is travel size, but also wish I had the normal sized ones. If you are starting out with make up, buy this. It's inexpensive and the quality of the brushes are good. They have not shed their bristles so far. Thus, it's all good. I'm probably planning to get more brushes from EcoTools. Yay to environmentally friendly brushes!

xoxo

Andrea Flavia William
http://mypersonalrecount.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/andrea_flavia
http://www.facebook.com/andreaflaviawilliam 

Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer Review

Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer (Oil-Free)

Many have said that the Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer is one amazing product that is 'THE BEST' in the market, but the question is, is it really true?

After using this product for more than 3 months, I am honestly unsure if I like it or not, and whether it's worth the money. (because this cost a BOMB)

This is what I can tell you.

Positive stuff:
-The product blends well
-Feels very light on your skin
-Makes your skin feel 'A LITTLE' glowy
-Love the packaging

Negative stuff:
-Melts off your skin easily, very very easily
-Coverage is actually crap for what it claims to be. (It's barely build-able)
-It cost me around SGD 80 which is equivalent to a make up forever HD foundation. Price is comparable to Dior, Chanel, Lancome and all and these brands are way up there.
-Colour selection isn't that fantastic

Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer in Frawn

Verdict:
-Don't waste your money on this because the product does not live up to the whole hype revolving around it.
-If you are looking for something with convenience and don't wanna use foundation, try using a BB Cream. I will recommend you the Misha one. It does everything a tinted moisturizer is supposed to do, and it has great coverage, feels light and other added benefits.

Check out my review of the Misha BB Cream here.


xoxo


Andrea Flavia William
http://mypersonalrecount.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/andrea_flavia
http://www.facebook.com/andreaflaviawilliam  

My Top 10 Favourite (Contemporary) Artistes and Bands of 2011

Contemporary music is very debatable. You might enjoy it, or well, you might hate it. In radio, you survive on contemporary music. I thought of doing my top 10 favourite artiste/band whom might have surprised me in 2011. So without further ado, let me introduce number 10 on my list!

Number 10 - Jessie J

Number 10
British singer Jessie J. She surprised me with her vocals and attitude. From her hit single 'Price Tag', to 'Nobody's Perfect' and 'Domino', this English girl is working up the international charts song by song and I think that she is one singer that is here to say.

She will be playing in Singapore in Feburary. Keep checking my blog for more details!

Number 9 - Paramore

Number 9 
Paramore has definitely been through a lot for the past 2 years...(with band issues), but despite that, they are still holding on strong and making music as they go. The band had a gig here in Singapore in 2011 and even though it wasn't a sold out stadium, the band still did a pretty awesome show for the fans.

Number 8 - Cobra Starship

Number 8
Cobra Starship is simply amazing and I blame it on Gabe! Ever since 'Night Shades' was released in 2011, the band has been below the grid. I feel that the album wasn't promoted well. Nonetheless, they are still an amazing band whom I absolutely adore.

Number 7 - Patrick Stump

Number 7
Lead singer of Fall Out Boy, Patrick Stump, decided to go solo, lose tons of weight and take on the music industry. With his first single, 'This City', this boy change the perception of how the world saw him as the rocker boy. His album, Soul Punk, has such a different unique sound to Fall Out Boy. He really surprised me in 2011.

Number 6 - Katy Perry

Number 6
Katy Perry is...well, Katy Perry. What I think of contemporary artistes, I think of this California girl. She has won so many awards that its just hard to keep track. The sad thing is that Russell and Katy are divorced now. It's sad.
 

Number 5 - All Time Low

Number 5 
Put your hands up for All Time Low. After being signed to a bigger label and touring the world, this awesome band has imprinted their sound in many countries around the world. Their latest album, Dirty Work, is AMAZING. I love listening to the album. Their latest single, Time Bomb has a great music video. You should check it out.

Number 4 -Good Charlotte

Number 4
Good Charlotte doesn't have any new material after their studio album cardiology which was released at the end of 2010. However, I am obsessed with them because they were one of the first bands that I fell in love with. Besides, seeing them live in concert was the best feeling ever. They need to continue making great music in years to come.

Number 3 - One Direction

Number 3
This British boy band took the world by surprise after X-Factor. Put them next to The Wanted, Ill honestly take these boys any time. In terms of music, looks and well, basically the whole package. The boys will be in Singapore soon so all you directioners, keep a look out.

Number 2 - These Kids Wear Crowns

Number 2
Canadian band, These Kids Wear Crowns just too Singapore by Surprise. They were in Singapore for Music Matters 2011 and it was their first time playing out of their country. So Singapore is a very special place to them. Besides that, they also performed live for Celebrate 2012, which was broadcasted nationwide. They will be back in Singapore soon for a full concert. The band is awesome, great guys, great music. I was very fortunate to interview 2 of the band members.

Number 1 - Simple Plan

Number 1
If you know me well enough, you will already know that number one on my list is Simple Plan. Their new album, Get Your Heart On is simply amazing. They just had a concert in Singapore a few days ago. I can go on and on about the band, but Ill just stop here and not bore you!


So for 2011, which singer/band surprised you?

XOXO
Andrea Flavia William
http://mypersonalrecount.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/andrea_flavia
http://www.facebook.com/andreaflaviawilliam