Beauty Expo + Pop Up Shops & Happy Prize!

The International Beauty Expo 2017 took place over the weekend and I attended with Kamiko! The entrance fee was NT$150 or NT$100 with a student ID so we got in for NT$100 ^u^v 

Honestly I only bought one thing as I don't need much, but it was good exercise and we got tons of samples of more expensive products to try out!

There were many mascot suits at the expo! I only got a photo of one, but there were also Minnie Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Kung Fu Panda, and others!  It was a bit crowded so I don't have many photos of the event

 The booths and vendors were mostly things you'd expect at a beauty expo, selling brushes, makeup, loads of gel nails and nail supplies, and skincare vendors. The most interesting one I saw is an acupressure fusion with fashion!

Normally, the pressure points on the ear can be activated using a small, seed-like black ball on an adhesive. The acupressure master applies the stickers to your ear at the correct points, and then you can just press on the "button" as needed.

Now there is a Swarovski version so it's more fashionable, it seems!

I ended up only buying a Canmake liquid liner

So dark

And getting a ton of samples of skincare goods (great for travel! Saving them for when I go to Japan at the end of the year). I didn't realize this is a felt tip instead of a brush tip, but so far it seems to be doing all right.  

So that was all very interesting. Since I was meeting a friend nearby at night, I spent the afternoon wandering about. I happened upon a pop up "village" of various restaurants! They'd all built temporary miniature versions of their regular restaurants.  I'm not sure if it's the same pop-up village as the one where a French guy was digging used disposable cutlery out of the trash to serve to new customers (when the news broke, their restaurant shut down and is now deleted from Google Maps and Facebook) but that's unrelated~~

I ran into a girl I'd met on the MRT and she directed me towards this pop-up tissue seller, Renova, which was doing a free game event where you can win prizes!

So bright

Even if you don't recognize this name, it is likely you've seen photos of the products online!  It's a Portuguese brand of all natural tissues in VIBRANT colors! I'd seen the black one online labeled "Goth tissues" or "for your Goth tears" but I didn't know they had such neon colors as well!

All natural rainbow!

The above photo shows the colors of the tissues. That's not the packaging color; the packaging in clear!

Anyway, the one-day event was in collaboration with N.Y. Bagels and the top prize was a roll of tissue and a rainbow bagel.  Luckily, I was able to win one of the top prizes!

And I got the "Goth tissue"!!  It's bamboo charcoal color/scent.  I likely won't use it but it's nice to have!

The next morning I looked online to see what the "rainbow bagel" is about. The pictures all had filling exploding out of the inside, but mine appeared to have no filling at all?

I also found out that the rainbow bagel was invented by a small bagel shop in New York and larger businesses just copied it (as large businesses are wont to do) and made it more widely available. 

Check out my photography skills

 Cutting it open, I realized there WAS filling... just... very very little.
Online, it said it was "Funfetti cream cheese." I'm not a fan of Funfetti and a review I read said it really didn't taste good, but hey, I'll give it a try!

 I toasted and steamed the bagel, but it really... just wasn't good...

such a sad bagel

 The filling was indeed strange and like it couldn't decide whether to be cream cheese or frosting. And it did not have a balance between sweet and sour the way a cream cheese frosting would. It also failed to balance out the density of the bagel, and overall, don't waste your money on this fad if you haven't been suckered in already!  There are plenty of recipes online you can try at home, or just have a regular bagel and fill it with your own delicious filling of choice ^_~

OK, this is a very random post so I'll leave you with my outfit from that day:

Outfit Rundown:
Hairclip: Kreepsville666
Choker: OS Accessories
Top: Putumayo
Outer: Mad Punks
Skirt: Handmade by me
Petticoats: Classical Puppets
Bag: Sanrio
Shoes: An*Tai*Na

What is your favorite current food fad?  

I actually really love these trendy food fads. Though it's definitely just a grab at money thanks to social media making everything seem like you must join in to be popular, it's also lead to some creativity.  I've tried the Taipei branch of "cronuts" which were also pretty disappointing, but there are other nice innovations, such as boba zongzi (tapioca pearl rice pyramids) and boba milk tea pizza/pancakes/anything you can make into boba milk tea flavor!  Taiwanese pride, right?

Also any black liquid liner recommendations from the drugstore?

My current favorite is Maybelline Hyperline that I bought for the Star Wars packaging T^T But it's one of the more expensive drugstore brands at NT$360 (US$12) compared to some others at NT$230  (US$7) or so.