All The Things I Can't Live Without...

I, seriously, have got no idea what to do with my hair. LOL!

It's been almost a week since I've snipped off my long locks, and for someone who doesn't EVER style her hair, I'm at a loss at what to do now. Please don't misunderstand, I still enjoy stunning people with my not-so-common hairstyle, but this thing needs styling! When I bother to style it, I'm like "Omo, Taeminnie!" *gush gush, fangirl mode* When I don't style it at all, my head looks like a mushroom. Period.

So do I have to keep blow drying + straightening/curling + hair spraying everyday? I don't know - maybe I'll tire of styling it, or maybe I'll get used to styling it. I'm at the crossroads right now. But my consolation comes whenever I see a picture of Taemin! The regret of cutting my hair and the weariness of having to style it everyday disappears as soon as I see Taemin in his full hairiness glory!

Like this, he was sporting a new trimmed version when he performed on Inkigayo (korean variety show) last week. Omg, he looked so good when his hair swished and swayed as he danced!

[Pic credited to weareshining.wordpress.com <- click to see more drool-inducing hair Taemin pictures]

I figured my hairstyle is actually closer to the above style than to the initial "Lucifer MV" style I wanted.

Case in point, here's his hair in the MV:

[Pic credited to hotspicykimchi.wordpress.com <- click to see awesome screencaps of the MV]

And here's my hair:

After I've straightened it with my hair iron. You can see that the crown of my hair is more similar to the 1st Taeminnie pic than the 2nd one, just that I have an additional tail. I did think my hairstylist took his layering too seriously and thinned my hair too much, such that it isn't as full as the style in the MV. But then again, guys usually have thicker hair than girls so Taemin's spock of hair probably allowed him the fuller cut.

Anyways, no complaints on my side, since I get a hybrid of his then and now style! Wheeee, Taeminnie's hair, banzai!!! (I have some scary hair fetish going on here...)

Since I'm onto my hair, might as well show you guys my LOTD and OOTD I did when I returned to school a few days back.

Smokey grey eyes, winged eyeliner and e.l.f's "Peachy Keen" blush (which you obviously cannot see here, since it got got all washed out by the sunlight).

My Taemin-wannabe spock of hair!

And my OOTD!

(Excuse the dirty mirror =x)

I take pride in wearing a pair of purple-checkered pants, woots!

Anyway, I was indulging on my daily dose of korean pop gossip news when I saw this!

Ha ha ha ha! Apparently, I'm not the only one infatuated with Taeminnie's hairstyle. G.NA, a korean singer that debuted only a few months back, also copied his cut!!! Albeit she did cut of half of her tail...(wth was her stylist thinking, leaving her with only half a head of tail?!?)

So, a new hair trend emerging? I'm curious to know. :) Thanks guys for reading my hair fetish (lemme glomp your head, Taemin!) + kpop spazz entry!

Guys, the American e.l.f website has offered another 50% off discount code, so it's a great time to order their wonderful brushes, blushes and face powder!

Do go to this website to browse the items on sale: http://www.eyeslipsface.com/studio

Note that only Studio items are applicable, the rest aren't.

If any onsugarette is able to open an e.l.f spree for this, I'd appreciate it lots and gladly join it. If not, there's this spree opened (click here) on the SG Motherhood forums. You'll have to register to PM the spree organiser though, and I'm unsure about her credibility (there's always a risk ordering stuff online and the last mommy spree organiser from this forum was trustworthy and very responsible).

Found another spreer: Nas_romeo's spree (I see her quite a bit in sg_beauty, she might be more trustworthy)

There's a bit of discrepancy on the discount offered but I've PM-ed the spree organizer to clarify, hopefully she replies me soon. I'm planning to get a few more brushes (they're AWESOME!) and maybe some blushes..? Ho ho, whatever it is, do order quick cos the discount ends soon! I'll update this entry if there's any changes!

Ha ha, should have done this entry before my previous post cos this is when I still had long hair... But nevermind! Time to reminisce the long tresses, then get back to learning how to style my short one now.

The Japanese Summer Festival is held yearly, around the end of August, at The Japanese School at Changi and its definitely something not to be missed if you're a huge Japanese culture fan. The festival is kept down to the very traditional stuff, like only allowing casual clothes or kimonos yukatas to be worn (all you Gothic Lolitas and Cosplay Junkies, shoo) and having traditional summer festival games and food.

[Edit: Changed "kimono" to "yukata", it kinda slipped my mind when I typed out this section. Thanks to Anonymous Bosch for pointing it out! :D]

Going for this year's festival would actually be my 2nd time attending this event - last year, I went with Naphula, who very kindly lent her kimono to a yukata-less me to wear. This year however, I have my own yukata so I went with my Poly friends instead! Now just sit back, relax and enjoy the pic spam~

Ta da!!! This year's yukata~ This yukata was my 21st birthday gift by my Poly clique of friends, amongst whom one specially bought it and lugged it all the way from Japan back to SG.

This was last year's yukata (supplied by Naphula).

The Japanese School is pretty big, all the temporary stalls were set up in the left and right-wing buildings while the performance stage was set up in this gigantic field. There's a lot of people having picnics on the plastic sheets provided. Nice weather also~

There's a whole mix of people, I spotted some Caucasians mingling amidst the Singaporeans, while the other half of the crowd were made up of the Japanese expatriates that are living in SG. Their kids are damn cute can! Got this Japanese, exotic feel with them dressed in their yukatas and bubbling happily in Japanese.

The japanese drummers warming up and getting ready to perform.

One of the traditional games you'll have to play during the summer festival is the yo-yo water balloon fishing game! So basically, they give you a small hook with a paper string and you'll have to use that to hook up one of the floating water balloons.

And this is what you'll end up with! My pretty purple balloon! You can hold it by its rubber band and then start bouncing it up and down, like a yo-yo.

Here're some kawaii girls in yukatas queueing up for another game (after spamming themselves with water balloons).

My guy friend, whom I went with, went for this lucky-draw kind of game. All you do is to pull a string and see what prize comes up at the other end!

I think he got a random packet of japanese cracker or something...

My other friend arrived a little later, so the stage performances were already starting and more people had gathered in the field to watch. There's my guy friend and his orange balloon!

The food there was okay, but definitely overpriced. I forgot to take pictures of the food we ate cos by the time we bought them and settled down to eat, we were all famished and you know, the camera kinda gets forgotten in situations like that. The most delicious thing we ate there was probably the fried potato croquette - there's sushi, bento, udon, red bean pancakes, okonomiyaki, chocolate banana, candied apples etc available, but they get sold out real fast.

Lol, last year I took a picture endorsing the beer Asahi and Calpis, the carbonated yoghurt drink. This year, apparently, was some apple drink and JAL!

So this will be your face before drinking it...

and how it will be, after 1 sip! *self high*

Ha ha ha ha! It's really weird, cos even though this apple drink isn't carbonated, it's a bit spicy and tingly. There's why I always giggle and "get high" after drinking it! I think there's vinegar in there, it'd explain the spiciness.

My friend's face after a sip~

After that, night falls and it's the Bon Odori (aka Japanese folk dance) time! Instead of continuing the pic spam and me explaining with words, I'll put up a video to show you guys clearer.

Yeah, I was staring at the couple in front of me... I think the lady is kinda drunk. =___=

It's a nice experience, definitely an exciting one if you haven't been to the festival. So if you have the time and chance to go for next year's one, do make a trip down and join the fun!

[Edit]

Ahh, I forgot to post up my LOTD for this! Here it is~

Maroon eyes to match my kimono! Anyway, thanks for reading, dozo dozo, tsuzukete kudasai~

I was planning to do the Natsu Matsuri (Japanese Summer Festival) entry but I got too excited with my haircut today, so I decided to skip that and show you guys my new (cool) hairstyle instead! The Natsu Matsuri post will be the next one, promise! You'll get to see girls in kimonos~

So this is how I look like right now...

A BIG difference from how I looked like previously.

The sides...

... and the back.

And now a few feel-good, act-cool camwhoring pics~

(act cool = punching myself in the lip...? I don't think so.. >__>)

Seducto mode, on!!! *licks*

All while in my mother's bathroom, ah ha ha ha!!!

I went to Century Square's STORM salon and got the director, James, to cut my hair. We had a long talk about treatments and whatsnot, and after that I whipped out a pageful of Taemin's smexy hair pictures and then we discussed what we're going to do. I must say, he is a VERY meticulous, almost bordering OCD, kind of guy. He made sure every layer looked right, no matter how much time it took. I was tad irresponsible for not making an appointment (cos today, I realized how busy he is) but he still attended to me despite letting another of his customers (who had made an appointment) wait. Impressed, I think I will go back for my future haircut... with an appointment!

In the end, I followed his recommendation and bought the Keratase Leave-In Night Treatment. He threw in a complimentary sachet of the Leave-In Day Treatment (got heat protective properties, yay!) for me to try.

So what do you guys think of the hairstyle..? Miss my long hair??? Ngah ha ha, I don't think so~ Maybe I will later, but for now, i'm enjoying acting cool with my spunky new hair~ Cheers and thanks for viewing!

[Warning: Image intensive]

In my previous haul entry, I featured this hair iron which I bought online via a Korean spree, so here's the product intro and my thoughts after testing it out once!

The box - yeah, I know it looks tacky but the product is made in Korea so gotta trust them!

The pink hair iron! Lol, 1st time I voluntarily chose a pink one...

... because the flowers at the top will light up when it gets heated enough! And also it's more obvious against my dark-coloured hair.

Primary reason why I chose this model is because its temperature can be adjusted, from 0 degrees to 210 degrees. After using the Sephora hair iron, I've come to realize that an adjustable temp setting is important for a hair iron - it needs to be hot enough to form your curls and make it last, and yet not too hot that it'll damage your hair.

The swivel cable at the end, and the 2-pin plug.

Initially, I was considering either the BabyLiss, Braun or Remington hair iron. After using the Sephora's one so many times, I've seen the wonders a good hair iron can do for your hair (so many styles!) so I was tempted to get one for myself to play with.

Unfortunately, the Braun and Sephora irons are very costly at over S$100 each, and though the BabyLiss iron was reported to be very good, I couldn't find a suitable model to straighten and curl my hair. The Remington seemed the best at that point, but no drugstores.com sprees were opened.

And since there was this rare Korean hair iron spree that was going on, I decided to give it a try! I bought it for only S$46 (inclusive of shipping and normal postage) and the item arrived in SG 1 week later! Apparently, the korean seller was super efficient and immediately sent out the items after receiving the order. So is it good???

My curls after I've done them with the iron, the temperature I used was about 180 degrees. The back wasn't done very well, cos it was my first time doing it on my own and trying to not get myself burnt.

Apologies for my dull-looking face, I had just gotten out of bed, lol!

After that, I ran through a little leave-in conditioner and sprayed a little hair spray. Now it was time to test if the curls would hold, with such little hair products used to maintain them!

6 hours later...

You'll probably notice that after being awake for 6 hours, my face looks perkier and colour has returned to my lips.

They held!!! How totally awesome is it?! Ah ha ha ha!

Even though the curls did loosen a bit, the volume was still there and the big curls + loose waves looked very natural. It reminded me of the time I digitally permed my hair 1.5 years back. Also note that I tested this on a very wet and humid day, when it was practically raining the whole day and humidity levels are insanely high. So I'm pretty impressed that with so little hair spray and such high humidity, the curls held quite well.

Review on the iron itself? Well, it got really hot, lol! So much so I was very jittery when doing it myself, cos I was so afraid of getting burnt. The heating-up time took a bit longer than Sephora's, maybe about 5 mins but it's negligible. Also, I didn't experience any tugging or snagging when pulling my hair through the iron - it's ceramic-coated and the surface is really smooth.

One con would be that since it didn't include any fancy ionic technology, so it may cause the hair to become drier (disclaimer: I am totally unsure of this part cos I have never tried an iron with ionic technology before). Thus maybe more hair priming, with heat protectants and conditioners, would help. I did notice my hair feeling slightly dry after using it, but maybe it's because of my hair spray, cos it makes the hair a little crispy. The next day when I washed my hair, I used a hair treatment mask and my hair went back to its usual smooth and shiny state again. :)

Latest update: I went to sleep and woke up the next morning to find that the curls were still there! They might have loosened a bit in my sleep but they lasted through 1 whole day and night! This means that if you're rushing for time in the morning, you can curl your hair at night, go to sleep and have wonderful waves in the morning. :)

So that's the review on my hair iron so far, I haven't tried straightening with it, will probably mention its effect when I've done that. Hope this review helped, thanks for reading guys!

Ha ha, my bank account is dwindling (hi-5, Michelle!) and yet, I still can't resist buying stuff so I've been sneaking a few small new items here and there into my stash. Just a round up of what I've gotten~

Mascara and eyeliners, who can resist~~~

The Urban Decay eyeliners, Mildew and Covet, are the travel sized ones and I got them from sg_beauty, for a super reasonable price of S$5.00 each. Also, I bought the Smashbox Lash DNA mascara off Jennifer (lillgoddess) and she was kind enough to give me a small discount for it! So happy, cos I don't know if you remember, I was raving about this mascara when I was working in Sephora. And it's currently sold out in the GWC branch (I wanted to get it with my staff's discount), so imagine how happy I was able to get this!

Here's how its very unique brush looks like:

From these 2 pics, you can probably tell the mascara has got a big-ass brush! That'll be one of the few cons of this mascara - you'll have to be careful/get use to using such a big brush as it may accidently smear mascara onto your eyelid.

It's kinda rectangular in shape, not like the conventional narrow-end, fat base kind of brushes - which means that getting to the lashes at the inner corners may be difficult. However the few times I've used in Sephora, it wasn't so at all. In fact, I found it reached my inner corner lashes and coated them more effectively than those tapered wands.

Also in the pic above, you can see its double-helix shape, where the bristles are arranged - long, short, long, short - in the manner of a spiral staircase. There's a special way to using this unique mascara but unfortunately, I'm not starting on this one yet - have to finish up my Covergirl Lash Blast first! Will do a review when I use this in the near future.

And also, this was something I had ordered 2 weeks back and it finally came yesterday! So exciting!

Bella V2 Pro Hair Iron, specially imported from Korea! I've tried it this morning and it's not bad at all~ Next post will be on the details and results of this hair iron! ^__^

Ohh yah, I almost forgot. Just wanna show you guys the goodies I got from my boss before I left Sephora.

I've never seen the Too Faced concealer sold instore before, so I'm guessing it's either an older, discontinued product or it's from the Ion store...? I'm not sure, but I have not used it yet cos I've still got other concealers opened. The Bliss Triple Oxygen mask, on the other hand, I've tried and it's GOOD! :D

Ha ha, these 2 Urban Decay products! There's a small story behind these - we were having a mini game between us colleagues and our supervisor, as to who can sell the most UD products at one go, and the target was S$500 in 1 receipt. Which is crazy really, cos 1 UD product is about S$30+, so S$500 would mean about 15 items? How to sell so many UD items at one go to one customer?! But we all tried our best and in the end, I won the game by selling 5 items for S$210+. So I got these 2 stuff for my reward, lol! I know it's super cheapo, but it's something! I guess I was prouder of my sales persuasion skills than anything else~

So yeah, thanks for reading and look forward to the hair iron review up next!

2 weeks back, when Miwitch kindly asked me if I would like to be a hair model for an upcoming hair coloring workshop her friend was holding at KPSS Pte Ltd (company that manages Goldwell hair products), I got super excited and agreed! Previously in May, I wanted to go for a session too but I was too busy working, so this time I quickly snapped up the opportunity. Plus, I heard that Chantana was going for the workshop too, so there'll be new "familiar" faces I can meet, woots!

Just a shout out, a big THANK YOU to miwitch (I did it in pink for you >3<)! Thanks, dear, for inviting me and giving me the opportunity to experience something so exciting! And also, hello Chantana~ Nice meeting you, even if it was for such a brief period of time. Here's her account of what went on that day.

The workshop was held yesterday, to train several hair stylists in the application of natural/cool brown and blond dyes and it was instructed by the very chic Rodica Hristu, a Canadian colorist. I was the first one to arrive at the workshop (though I thought I was going to be late) and it was super awkward for me, cos the room was so empty and there wasn't anyone I knew. Rodica was there however with her male friend, and after seeing me twitch nervously for 5 minutes in my chair, she walked over and began examining my hair.

*nervous glances at Rodica*

*grunt of approval*

Phew! I thought she was gonna condemn my hair or something (no thanks to my colleague who burnt my hair!). Soon, the other models and stylists started arriving and we officially began the workshop at 2 pm. I was attended by a female stylist and her assistant who were from SuperCuts at Seng Kang's Compass Point.

Point to be taken, this coloring workshop was a free-of-charge dye job for us and I know I don't have the right to complain..but I just wanna say, I didn't like that lady stylist of mine. She handled my hair quite roughly, was impatient and had a couldn't-be-bothered attitude. Her assistant, on the other hand, was so much nicer and more attentive! Anyway, that lady stylist left 1 hour before the workshop ended (cannot even wait to stay till the end huh?) and I was blissfully left in her assistant's capable hands.

Thankfully Rodica was patrolling around during the whole session and came by often to guide my lady stylist - when my stylist got my existing base colour wrong, she corrected her and tutored her on what colour dyes to use; my stylist wanted to bleach my hair to get an ash brown colour but Rodica advised against this and introduced another, more hair-friendly method. That, plus Rodica mentioned that they had a very good hair model so it should be an easy job for them! *beams with pride*

Sadly, I didn't bring my camera to the workshop, so no workshop pics. Besides, I was tied down to my chair by a heavy plastic bag-full of dyed hair (miwitch has the unglam shots, I should ask her for them) so there was no way I could walked around to take pictures. Interestingly, I observed a very young and attractive male stylist who was working single-handedly on his model beside me - his capability was praised by Rodica and she didn't need to offer him much advice, plus his looks really didn't hurt at all to look at, ha ha! Unfortunately, I think he's gay. Sad. Ahh well.

For this workshop, all the hair products used were Goldwell and oh my gosh, my hair turned out so soft and smooth! Even after highlighting and a full-head dye. Plus, the dye didn't sting my scalp and it smelt really good, not stinky at all! After my hair was all done up, Rodica kept coming over and asking the assistant and I, if we were happy with the dye job. She definitely looked satisfied with her tutoring; she kept running her fingers through my newly-dyed hair and going "So pretty, so shiny". (Plus, that good-looking guy/gay hair stylist kept eyeing the assistant and me, lol!)

Alright, pics which I took after I got back home! The workshop ended at 5.45 pm for me (later than Chantana) so the whole thing took 4 hours.

But now, I've got a headful of pretty, cool brown hair with subtle highlights!

It appears a lot more coppery above, but the colour is actually truer in the below pic. It's got a little bit of green tinge to it.

Close-up of the top, sorry for the blurry pic. You can probably see the shine and the green tinge here more evidently.

And here was my OOTD, sans the black boots that I was wearing~

Long post, whew, glad I'm done with my storytelling! Thanks for bothering to read it, hope you "enjoyed" it! Cheers~

Okay, ignore the corny title cos i couldn't think of anything else with the words "simple" and "lace"! Hmm...maybe "Simple Lace"...? Gwahhh, whatever!

On Saturday, I met up with my close buddies for a Korean meal at Outram and I wore my new lace dress out. You know, just to test run the style before school starts~ Here's how it looked like on me:

My mirror is seriously small, it's dead difficult to take a full length pic of myself! Ah ha ha ha, does it look racy to you? xD

And my simple LOTD that I wore to match the dress - I didn't wear much makeup in order not to overwhelm the whole image.

I just dusted some frosty white e/s to lighten my lids, did up the winged eyeliner with my new Maybelline gel liner and loaded up on the mascara. The blush used was Petticoat, which gave me such a gorgeous rosy glow and lasted through the whole night, barbeque smoke and all! :D As usual, I went without the lip stuff.

Here's the close-up of my eyeliner. I was trying to emulate BoA's EOTD #2 from her MV, but her eyeliner is really exaggerated so I did a watered down version.

I think it'd be awesome to do hers, cos it's so rad and fierce looking! But to wear it out is another matter, especially with a sweet lacy dress. Another thing I noticed, did her MUA forget to fill in/lengthen her brows or something...? They look kinda... lacking. I dunno, maybe it's just me. @__@

As for the Korean meal, it was SMASHING! The best Korean food I've had so far, and it's extremely affordable too! Me and another 3 friends ordered 5 plates of BBQ meat (1 beef, 2 pork, 2 chicken) and 1 plate of prawns, 2 plates of raw lettuce for wrapping, 2 bowls of rice, 1 bowl of bi bim bap, 1 giant kimchi pancake and 1 plate of dukk bok ki, and all of that costed us S$16 each! We ate till we were bursting at the seams (seriously, that's a lot of food for 2 girls and 2 guys) and the bill was so cheap! So happy, even though I ended up smelling like BBQ-ed meat the whole night! And as we were making our way back, we caught the brief display of fireworks for the YOG opening ceremony, woots! All in all, it was a nice outing with friends that ended in a very satisfying note~

Last week, I ventured into JB's City Square alone to do some shopping and to update myself on the place. The journey there was safe and uneventful (my parents were especially worried for me) so I got there in good time and in 1 piece. However, sad to say, I think City Square has dwindled to an almost old, rundown shopping mall. When I went there 3 years back, there were so many things to see and buy, but now I hardly bought anything. The "feel" and excitement simply wasn't there anymore.

That being said, I didn't allow myself to return to SG empty handed. I got nail polishes!

The Skinfood Nail Vita's were going for RM$8.80 (S$3.83) each and The Face Shop's one at RM$9.90 (S$4.30). I got the SF nail polishes cos the colours were so shimmery and pretty - the light lilac one looked really sweet while the grungy olive one was a unique shade to me. But the polish that I grabbed without thinking was the FS' one, cos it looked so much like a dupe for OPI's Mad As A Hatter!

See the sparkles~

So the next day, I opened them to paint my toe nails and here's what I ended up with~ (Pardon my ugly troll-like toes)

Close-ups of the designs I scrawled on them.

Truthfully, I was kinda disappointed with the polishes. The SF's lilac polish doesn't look purple at all on the nail, it looks like a nice metallic silver. I was hoping for more of the purple to show up, like in the bottle, but that didn't happen. The FS' polish also isn't an exact dupe of MAAH, the glitter is much finer so you don't get the full-on, blown-away kind of glitter effect. It still sparkles very nicely though, but not the same as MAAH. I haven't tried the olive coloured SF polish yet.

Along with these polishes, I lugged back 7 bottle of solutions, lol!!! 3 bottles of contact lens solution and 4 bottles of shampoo and conditioner! Ah ha ha ha, all the way from JB, across the causeway, back to Pasir Ris! Cos they're all damn cheap there, and the TRESemme shampoo and conditioners which I love can only be found in Malaysia. I'm willing to be a cow and labour to bring all of them back~ So my trip wasn't all that fruitful but it wasn't a wasted trip either~

So that's all for now, thanks for reading guys!

I'm not sure how many of you are Korean pop fans and if you've heard BoA's comeback album yet (I mean if you're as into Korean/Jap pop as I am, you'll definitely have heard of her return to the Korean music industry after 5 long years), but I've recently seen her MVs and wow! She's got on some really fierce and unique eye makeup! It's not like those subtle, nice-colour-nice-crease kind of looks but the BAM! The in-your-face, cut crease kind. It looks awesome on her in the MV (come on, she has one of the nicest facial bone structure I've seen) but it'll totally be impractical to wear out.

Anyway, I'm thinking of doing a series of BoA-inspired looks so this is EOTD #1 that I've experimented with.

Ngah hah, please don't compare the 2 people in the pic cos we're as far apart as the North and South pole is. Clearly, BoA is on the left and I was trying to copy her eye makeup.

Which made me realize my lack of cosmetic glitter. =___=

Her look requires a smudging of silver glitter on the lid and the lower lash line which I don't have, so the closest thing I could do is to use my e.l.f shimmer palette. I swear, if I could, I'd hijack the MUFE booth at Sephora and use all their pretty glitter (use to camp out there to use their e/s and blushes)!

Here are the close-up pics:

I think this look is pretty fierce by itself and I'll never wear it out. Sorry for the pregnant looking pic, I was wearing this really baggy T-shirt at home. =x

Ah ha ha ha, without the glitter, I think this EOTD isn't really a success...but I tried my best! I think it'll definitely look better with the glitter layered on~ Anyway, since I somehow managed to get my face beside BoA's face, I did this just for fun!

Ah ha ha ha ha ha, there is absolutely no resemblance at all! ;____;

I'm so taken with Taemin's hair at this point that I'm somehow self-delusional. Ohh well, thanks for reading anyway, cheers!