Q3-2013 Rambling

It's been a while! A lot of things have been happening in my life during the almost-2 months I was missing from the blogging world - I started doing yoga, pilates and ballet lessons in July for about 4 hours each week, which left me wiped out and exhausted (in a good way)! I have 2 hours of class on Wednesdays which leaves me pumped with adrenaline, so I can't really get to sleep till 1am in the morning, which makes me so tired the next day at work. 

My weekends have also been packed with stuff and I had 2 holidays - in August, I went to Kuala Lumpur with my friends and this week, I just came back from a staycation at Sentosa. So I really haven't had time to blog much, but I will be starting again soon because I have such a backload of stuff to review!

Just this week, I repurchased a couple of items from a skin doctor I went to years ago - his products really healed my skin. I haven't used the products for many years, because my skin was fantastic and awesome. What made me go back and buy them again, was because my skin right now isn't healing. My skin started getting really badly clogged in the second quarter of 2012, and I thought that it was due to stress and late nights from work. (I used to work really crazy hours - think 3am, plus weekends.) So, I expected my skin to get better after I switched jobs at the end of 2012. However, it's been over 8 months at a less stressful job (well, excluding the stress from learning my new job!) and my skin is still not as smooth and clear as it was before. So I'm hoping that starting on the products again will heal my skin. I will update on my progress, cross my fingers!

Anyway, here are some photos of the Gardens by the Bay which I went to recently - 

I went to Gardens by the Bay - Cloud Forest and Flower Dome. This is the Cloud Forest, during a watering session, where the mist is sprayed out to water the plants. Really pretty. 

This is at Flower Dome. I like how the leaves look so faded and pastel - they make it seem like I adjusted the colours but this is how it looks like in real life!

I know a lot of people like showy, big blooms, but I like tiny, dainty ones - they're so detailed and perfect and would make really good doll-sized bouquets!

Oh, these are pictures taken at the RWS SEA Aquarium. Pretty jellyfish!

Ok, enough pictures. You know... honestly, I always take a lot of photos but I'm way too lazy to put them online. I don't even update my Facebook. I'm always in awe of people who blog daily or update their Facebook pages even on vacation! Not for me.

Sometimes, for me, blogging is something that I need to tick off my to-do list. Previously, I would blog 1 post every weekend. (You can probably tell from the date of my posts.) But such structured posting goes against my spontaneous nature. Sometimes I'm just so tired on weekends from going out and just living! So I had to rethink - what's the purpose of this blog?

I turned this blog into a beauty blog because I was buying way too many products and I have a really bad memory, so I needed to review the products so that I could remember which were the duds and which were the amazing ones worth repurchasing. Along the way I got lost and started posting lots of my own travel/going out photos as well, which is fine, but I really hate uploading photos because it takes so much time. Now I realise, I'm fine with not Facebooking and letting the world know what I'm doing. That's because I'm too busy living my life!

Basically I decided, it's ok to not upload every single photo of my travels. Nobody needs to know the entire itinerary of my vacations. (Right?)

I'll stick with blogging about the things I love, which includes product reviews, decluttering and organizing, and maybe some style posts. And hell yeah, I love travelling and going out, but since I detest uploading my photos, I'll probably skim by those. :D Maybe one day I should do a huge post on photo organization (when I get down to it). Just maybe.

Till next time! :)

Manicure - Etude House Sweet Recipe Ice Cream Nails in Mint Choco Chip

This is one nail polish I'm totally obsessed about! I first saw this Etude House Sweet Recipe Ice Cream Nails in Mint Choco Chip (long delicious name) in a magazine in June, and went to 4 different Etude House stores, but they were all out of stock! And the Etude House salesgirls are not very helpful at all, they wouldn't help me check if any other stores had it in stock, or confirm if new stock would be coming in. So, in a fit of desperation, I entered a magazine contest and won this little baby! The retail price is only S$6.90 a bottle so it's a pretty small prize, but I was really happy cos this colour was so gorgeous, I had to have it!

This is 2 coats of Mint Choco Chip, followed by 2 coats of Majolica Majorca Glass Drop topcoat. The Etude House polish was a little gloopy and streaky, but 2 coats is ok. It's a little difficult to place the glitter though!

What I love about this polish is that it's exactly like its name - mint chocolate chip! When I wore it to work, my manager said 'your nails look like mint chocolate chip!' and I was like, 'that's the name of the polish!' My friends think it looked like I dripped mint chocolate ice-cream over my nails. Yummy! I love the milky pale pastel mint base, with the multicolored hexagonal glitter in navy, green, blue and in different sizes - very complex and unique! I dare you to find a dupe of this!

I think Etude House is all sold out... not sure if this is still available in Korea, so I will treasure my little prize! That said, this polish lasted me all of 3 days before it started chipping. My experience with all Etude House polishes is that though they may be unique, the quality of the polish itself isn't very good, so don't expect your manicure to last the week! However, it is very reasonably priced, and for the uniqueness of the polish, I am willing to overlook how easily it chips. 

Warning: This polish isn't very office appropriate if you work in a strict, hoity-toity corporate environment. I think my big boss got a bit of a shock at my nails. Teehee. :P

Rating: 9/10

Manicure: China Glaze Candie + Etude House Dear My Party Nails PPK006 Party Lover + Northern Lights + Majolica Majorca Glass Drop Gel Coat

I have about 20 bottles of nail polish in my collection, but everyone around me knows that I hardly ever paint my nails. I find nails really high maintenance and I always type really hard, which is really manicure-killing. Thing is, some polishes are so pretty that I just can't help buying them! Recently I bought some new polishes from Etude House and the 2nd from the right is one of them:

From left: China Glaze Candie, Etude House Dear My Party Nails PPK006 Party Lover, Northern Light Silver, Majolica Majorca Glass Drop Gel Coat

It has a sheer glimmery milky lavender-pink base with lots of glitter in varying sizes and colours. Uber pretty! Here's what is looks like applied alone (2 coats + 1 layer of topcoat):

It's really pretty and all, but as the base is really sheer, you'll get visible nail line. I wasn't super satisfied with that amount of bling, so I decided to load up on the glitter by layering a combination - 1 layer of China Glaze Candie (sheer ballet pink glitter), 2 layers of Etude House, 1 layer of silver Northern Lights (clear polish with silver microsparkle) and 2 layers of Majolica Majorca Glass Drop Top Coat. 

Pretty, right?! Glitter sandwich anyone! It looks like a unicorn puked fairy dust all over my nails! Pity my camera couldn't really focus well and get a good picture - I tried taking a million pictures but none of them truly reflect how shiny and bling this manicure is! The combination of different glitters is really complex, multilayered, 3-dimensional and beautiful - you can see that different glitters are suspended within the polish. LOVE.

There's another Etude House polish which has colorful paper hearts suspended in clear polish with microsparkle. I put a little paper heart on my thumb:

I am loving how much more complex the glitters look. Chunky ballet pink glitter from China Glaze Candie, followed by multi-sized multi-coloured glitter from Etude House Party Lover, and finished with silver microsparkle from Northern Lights, topped with an irresistable squishy jelly gel coat!

The tragedy is... The quality of Etude House PPK006 Party Lover really isn't very good. It gains massive points for being such a pretty, unique polish, but it's rather gloopy and hard to work with, and it chips very easily. The first time I wore it, it lasted 3 days. The second time, it chipped within the day. Then again, it's a cheap polish - just $6.90 a bottle!

Rating: 7/10 (It's still worth it in my opinion... because it's so pretty!)

Oh and I should do a rating of the Majolica Majorca Glass Drop Gel Coat too - I've used it about 3 times with different polishes, and I love the glossiness and shine and ease of application, but it chips off rather easily, after 5 days max. As compared to my Sally Hansen Mega Shine top coat, Sally Hansen is a much more lasting and protective top coat, but not as easy to apply, because the brush is more narrow and the Mega Shine top coat is a little more gloopy, so it might lead to streaks. 

Rating: 7/10

Organizing - Jewellery and Hair Accessories Shelf

Hello! I would just like to share a little space I organized recently that makes me happy - a shelf on my bookshelf, dedicated to my necklaces, bracelets, bangles, earrings and hair accessories! The large drawers on the left hold my jewellery, while the one on the right holds most of my hair stuff. 

I have a little collection of seashells and didn't know where to put them. I found this clear display box in Daiso and put my shells inside. Pretty fix! (That's my Toki Doki Robbery palette case behind - it's really pretty and I didn't know what to do with it, so it's there for decoration!) 

I put my jewellery into Muji acrylic drawers. The dividers are so handy. I got them on sale. They're too expensive at full price.

The Muji drawers aren't very big, depth-wise, so since this is a shelf on my bookshelf, there was some space behind if I lined the Muji drawers to the front of the shelf. To make use of the empty space at the back, I put my old mobile phone or camera boxes there. (I don't throw away the boxes my gadgets come in... I know they're useless but I still keep them... just in case... -shrugs-) You don't really notice they're there, and they're a nice platform to put decorations on, like my little green doll and my sunglasses case. 

I put most of my necklaces into the Muji drawers, but there are some multi-strand necklaces that tangle easily, so I hung them up at the back using 3M mini hooks. 

I put huge bangles and stuff that are too wide to fit into the Muji drawers on this ballerina jewellery organizer that my elder sister gave me ages ago. 

Pretty right?! I'm totally loving it. :) I can't wait to get down to more organizing!~

Bloglovin'

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Review: B.Liv Squeaky Clean beads cleansing gel

This B.Liv cleanser came in a special promotional set that I purchased a while ago. It's an exfoliating gel cleanser with beads and has an herbal, menthol scent which I like. The beads are very fine and gentle and the light-green gel doesn't foam much. Its main function is a cleanser with exfoliating benefits, not a scrub, so it's safe to use every day. (Personally though, I prefer my cleansers and scrubs to be separate products, because I think exfoliating every day isn't very good for the skin!)

The instructions are to put 2-3 pea-sized drops onto your palm and lather with water before applying to your face. However, because it really doesn't foam well at all, I feel like I'm not cleansing my face very well. It does make my face feel tingly and fresh, but I have this niggling feeling that my face isn't very clean, and I need to use toner to remove the residue afterwards.

I like how fine and gentle the beads are, and they're just nicely dense enough to give the right amount of light exfoliation. However, the non-foaming bit annoys me. I have tried applying the gel directly to my wet face, but it feels a little bit off - like it doesn't clean enough. 

For now, I usually use it on the days when my Clarisonic is out of juice and I need to charge it, yet still need some light exfoliation in my cleansing, which is about once a week. Honestly, I had high expectations of this cleanser because I loved my other B.Liv products, but this one missed the mark. I have read a lot of rave reviews of this cleanser though, so who knows, maybe it's just me!

Rating: 6/10

Review: Gold Bond Ultimate Skin Therapy Cream

During my summer in the US in 2010, I loved going to Target and Walmart and buying all types of beauty stuff there which I can't find in Singapore. One of them is Gold Bond Skin Therapy Cream. I loved the tube I bought so much that I repurchased from Drugstore.com - shipping is fast and there's a wide variety of products, I love it!

I wash my hands very frequently, so they're often dry and I use hand cream a lot. What I find with some regular hand lotions is that they feel moisturizing immediately after application, but barely 15 minutes after, my hands start to feel dry again in the air-conditioning. This Gold Bond hand cream is different - it really stays on my hands, forming a protective layer that is not greasy at all. Because of the protective layer, my hands don't feel so dry after washing my hands. 

The texture is pretty thick, kind of like Vichy Essentielles Repairing Hand Cream, but I like Gold Bond better, because it smells really nice and fresh (aloe? I'm pretty bad at describing scents, but it's really nice!) and it's cheap too - it's only US$6 for this huge 755g tube. It also comes in tiny portable tubes that you can put into your purse, but the tiny sizes aren't available online. It's so moisturizing, sometimes I use it as a foot balm too!

Ingredients: Water, Glycerin, Dimethicone, Petrolatum, Jojoba Esters, Cetearyl Alcohol, Aloe Vera (Aloe Barbadensis) Leaf Juice, Stearyl Alcohol, Distearyldimonium Chloride, Steareth 21, Steareth 2, Propylene Glycol, Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower Extract (Matricaria), Polysorbate 60, Stearamidopropyl PG Dimonium Chloride Phosphate, Methyl Gluceth 20, Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E), Magnesium Ascorbyl Phosphate (Vitamin C), Hydrolyzed Collagen, Hydrolyzed Elastin, Retinyl Acetate (Vitamin A), Hydrolyzed Jojoba Esters, Glyceryl Stearate, Dipotassium EDTA, Fragrance, Triethanolamine, Diazolidinyl Urea, Methylparaben, Propylparaben

Rating: 10/10

I wish this brand would be brought to Singapore! It deserves more recognition!