Beauty Products Review - Good Skin Labs, Vaseline & The Body Shop

A month back, my Goddess was in the mood of making her skin flawless and perfect. Probably it's the time of the year where you want to make yourself look and feel your best.

And so, she went shopping for samples from The Sample Store. Think the popularity of the store has kinda of died down a little. The samples there were like for old products and mainly Korean drugstore BB cream.

To settle my Goddess' cravings, she still ordered some samples online.

The parcel has arrived...very promptly

The items ordered

Eat, Eating, Ate at KL

Remember my Goddess DIY-ed her own Galaxy nails for her cousin-in-law's wedding? Here' the post!

The wedding was held at KL, so the whole Koo family including the boyfriends of the 2 sisters went on a road trip to KL. Prepare your tissue. This post is all about good food that will make you drool!

 My Goddess worn her tattered 3/4 jeans - the fake Abercrombie & Fitch one - which she bought like in 2008 during her first overseas trip with the Horny Devil to BKK with her twin Nora and his buddy Kevin. She wore if for a while during her uni days but stopped after a while, thinking the jeans looked too rugged for her. 4 years later, she still could fit in! Phew~

As they went on straight onto the new highway from the Woodlands Checkpoint, their breakfast stop was at one of the Rest & Relax stops.

And if you have driven down the highways before, you would have known that the food there are usually very sucky (except for the one A&W stop!). The stop that they were at had thousands of flies. So many that it just turns your appetite off.

Look at the congregation of flies! Eeew~

In the end, my Goddess ordered only the Beef Dog, which is also very yucky.

The Horny Devil's doesn't look yummy at all too.

How to DIY Galaxy Nails

My Goddess was surfing around on Instagram when she came across someone who had her nails done the 'galaxy' style by her manicurist. It looked really pretty and so intrigued by this, my Goddess decided to surf around to find out if this could be DIY.

And to her surprise, the galaxy nails isn't hard to do at all! It as even easier than ombre nails. So here's sharing with you the simple steps to getting pretty galaxy nails!

Long or Short?

My Goddess' hair is now at a stage of neither long nor short. She's now deciding on whether to leave it long or cut it short.

She likes the versatility of long hair, where you can style it any way you want. And it looks feminine too. At the same time, long hair makes her look older, something she doesn't want. Furthermore she has really thick and unruly hair which is hard to managed.

She also like the chicness of short hair - easy to maintain - fuss free. But there's only so much she can play with for short hair.

Which style should she go for? Can you help my Goddess decide by taking the poll?

Liese Hair Dye + Salon M-i

It's been a while since my Goddess coloured her hair. Her black hair roots have grown out by about 2 inches or so?

In view that the festive period is coming, and that she has a couple of weddings to attend in Nov & Dec, my Goddess decided that it's time to re-colour her hair.

My Goddess first tried Liese last year, and she has never looked back. It is so much cheaper than your salon colour and it takes only 30 minutes to colour as compared to the salon's 3 hours. This is probably her 3rd or 4th box. But instead of her usual Mocha Orange colour, she decided to do a different colour this time round - Chestnut Brown, partly to also commemorate her last few weeks staying in Chestnut with me!

Proof of the Author Writing

In case some of you are doubting if the posts are written by me - Winnie the Mighty Dog. It sure is!

Here are the evidence:

Waiting for my Goddess' laptop to start up

Can you help me log in with your password please?

Path to a HDB Tai-tai: Fans & Song Cho

I know I haven't been blogging much about my Goddess and the Horny Devil's home and their renovations. That's not because the reno is done and they have happily shifted in. They are actually far from it!

That's the problem with getting your contacts in for the reno at a friendship price - you can't rush or 'gan' (aka scold) them when things are delayed or not done properly.

They are now at the carpentry stage. The carpenter is their FIL's contact and from Malaysia. And so you can imagine the 'bargain price' that they get for the massive amount of carpentry work. But I'll save this for another post when all the carpentry works are done. Anyway, a 2-weeks job took them almost a month now, either because laminates are OOS, the cupboards not done according to their FIL's design and need rectifications, or the workers need to rush other projects elsewhere in Malaysia.

After a 2-weeks halt and not doing any reno works over the weekend, they finally managed to arrange for something this Sat - the installations of fans.

The Horny Devil is a big fan of ceiling fans as he grew up from a family that uses ceiling fans. To him, ceiling fans create maximum air flow around the house with minimum obstruction as compared to standing fans. But to my Goddess who never grew up with such an item in the house, she views ceiling fans as a visual obstruction to the whole house, making it look smaller.

And so, the two of them compromised - the house will have ceiling fans, but provided the designs are something chosen by my Goddess. And to add on to the problem, their fans need to have lights that match with their intended Scandinavian theme since there isn't much lights in the house, especially in the rooms.

And my Goddess' criteria - white, slim and with simple lights. To try to get cheap and good bargains, they went in to JB to search for the fans. In total, they went in about 3 times to look but my Goddess found nothing that caught her eye. They were either too big for the house, if not too fat and bulky looking. Malaysia is especially popular with KDK fans which according to my Goddess, have a 'fat' neck. Also, they can't customise lights with the fans that have remote control functions.

So in the end, my Goddess combed through Bukit Merah (opposite Queensway Shopping Centre) and almost the whole stretch of Balestier Road in search of the ideal fans. And she found such designs in Crestar and Fanco. And only in Singapore are they able to find such small fans of 42".

And the installations begin! 

The Body Shop Year End Party

Wondering what makeup looks to wear this coming Christmas? Come learn from the pro Larry Yeo, on the latest year-end trends. You will also get to do your part for charity with the gingerbread man decoration as Gingie will be given to the kids at Stamford CareHut. Come do you part where you will look good, feel good and do good all at the same time!

Halloween Special (Beware of Disturbing Pictures)

Reno is taking a toll on both my Goddess and the Horny Devil. It's taking such a long while and not done, so luckily there's something to distract them from their monotonous weekly house reno monitoring.

My Goddess and the Horny Devil were invited to a Halloween/dress-up party. Initially, my Goddess didn't know there was a theme to the party, so she wanted to be a generic ugly witch. She even bought her props at Diaso and SKP.

Cheap cheap, cost only $2 each

And how can a witch go without black nails?

To make the witch look more evil, more Goddess also bought a red lipstick from The Body Shop. It looks rather red on its own, but when applied to lips, it turned out more pink :( So in the end, it didn't have the crimson red look that my Goddess wanted to portray.

And the Horny Devil wanted to be his favourite character - something green. So they got themselves face & body paint from Spotlight.

Vain Pot Goddess 2

Okay, this time round my Goddess is comfortable with what she wore to office - it looked casual but not too casual for work, and it's really comfy! But the problem is, my Goddess forgot that she has a business dinner event that night!!

This was what she wore in the day

So she had to make a last minute shopping during lunch time to get something more suitable for the night. Luckily Forever 21 is just nearby! Forever 21, always offering clothes at an affordable price, and a wide range of clothes for all occasions. 

In just 20 minutes, my Goddess picked out 4 attire and decided to settle for this cut-out glitter bodycon - not overly formal but yet sexy at the same time.

This was the most economical choice too as she doesn't have suitable undergarments, and this dress doesn't require any strapless wear. And the shoes that wore from home are quite suitable for this dress too.

Vain Pot Goddess

My Goddess had a super packed and tiring this week. Besides rushing for the X'mas campaign at work, she and the Horny Devil was planning their house carpentry and deciding on laminates. Every night was at least a 1am for her.

Normally my Goddess would have in mind what she would want to wear for the day the night before or the morning itself while she's showering.

But this morning she was totally too zonked out. By the time she was showered and was going to get dressed, she still wasn't certain except for the top she bought in bkk. In the end she changed in and out twice and settled for her H&M dress, while she rolled the long top into a short mid drift crop, held up by her hair clip.

See I wasn't kidding when I said my Goddess used a clip to hold up the top

 The effect was quite weird, especially when she didn't have a nice semi casual black shoe to go along. She had to settle for her low height pumps which look a little serious for her dress.

Can't stand her unmatching and tardy look, she decided to go shopping for a new pair of shoes. So she ended with a discounted black wedges that were tall and comfortable. It was a good retail therapy and stress relief - killed many angry birds with one stone!

Volume Rebonding

The Horny Devil has been complaining that my Goddess' hair is very messy, thick and wild like mine. My Goddess also felt that her curls are growing unruly now that her hair is getting longer, and so she decided to go for the much raved about in Korea's volume rebonding.

Again, she went back to her Korean stylist who did her Korean curls, Mira at Salon M-i. Who better to do volume bonding with than with a true-blue Korean since it was founded there!

At the salon, still pondering if she would have made the right choice since her curls were only 3 months old

How volume rebonding is done is quite similar to normal rebonding. But instead of going straight into the straightening tongs after the cream solution was applied and washed out, big rollers were used in between. This gives the hair the so-called 'volume' in volume rebonding, and the ends slightly curled.

Tea Tree Pore Minimiser and Tea Tree Oil Review

Recently, my Goddess was given a complimentary The Body Shop Tea Tree Pore Minimiser. Initially she was pretty skeptical about it.

That was because a few months back she spent a bomb purchasing the Estee Lauder Idealist, which promises to illuminate the skin and minimise pores. But ended up her pores were more clogged than every due to the silicon-based formula used. The Horny Devil even commented every day then that her skin seem more 'jialat' (in a bad condition) even though she had no stress from work then. So she stopped using this after one month and her skin got slightly better, though once in a while she still experiences clogged pores which leads to breakouts.

Back to The Body Shop Tea Tree Pore Minimiser. My Goddess was skeptical about the effects it claims to bring. But since it was free, she decided to give it a try.

Path to a HDB Tai-tai: Craftstones

My Goddess has been wanting to get some brick looking/ wood planks looking wall for her place. Doesn't have to be real bricks/wood - can be tiles or wallpaper as real bricks take up too much space, are ex and tough to maintain. So she first searched around for wallpaper - a less space consuming alternative. Went to Goodrich and Asro. Goodrich have a lot of nice brick designs! Totally what my Goddess was looking for. But it also comes with a hefty price!

Path towards a HDB Tai-tai: Electricals & False Ceiling

False ceilings and electrical re-routing got to be done together as the electrician will lay the wires while the false ceiling structures are in place, and once they are laid properly, the plaster boards of the false ceilings go up followed by the necessary touch-ups and cementing/plastering.

False ceilings have the following purposes:

1. Demarcate a special area for the house.

This will be my Goddess and the Horny Devil's dining area

 2. Hide cove lights - mood lighting that shines on to the ceiling.

Path to a HDB Tai-tai: Balcony Decking

My Goddess new place has a super big planter hole, and the Horny Devil and her has no intentions of setting up a farm or a garden using the hole.

Hole big enough for a fish spa pond

And so the two of them decided to get decking for their balcony. They spoke to several decking companies - Woodpro, Supreme Floors, Floor Expert, Timberlist, Goldhill and Evorich, trying to find the best material and deal for the balcony.

Path to a HDB tai-tai: Storage Rack

I've never expected home reno would take away more of my time with my Goddess than the wedding preparations!

She's like out every weekend with the Horny Devil, first checking defects, then home furnishing/lighting/electronics shopping, curtain sourcing...and now that her renovation has started, being there from morning till evening to supervise the renovation works!

The first house purchase that they purchased and was delivered was their storage rack for their home shelter.

This rack is from the popular Yee Sin from Renotalk. Initially my Goddess wanted to get the really chio boltless rack from Gawa. It looked so chic with its seamless design, and best of all, it's available in cream - their house theme colour!

Path to a HDB Tai-tai: First day of Renovation!

Today was another milestone to note for my Goddess and the Horny Devil - it was the start of the renovation of their love nest!

My Goddess is very blessed to have a very good father-in-law (FIL). As an architect, he wanted to help out in their renovations so that they wouldn't spend unnecessary money on the ID and/or main contractors. So in the end, he helped them to do space and light planning, perspective drawing, detailed drawing of the carpentry. Basically everything you would find in an ID, minus the additional project management fees/ markups of subcon works.

Being so hands on, the FIL took leave to monitor their renovation for the whole day, though he didn't really have to. Furthermore, he is also tied down with a major renovation of his own house. **Super grateful**

Briefing the false ceiling worker 小勇 on what to do

DIY Half-moon Nails

Half moon nails have been quite popular for a while already. But my Goddess haven't had the guts to try it cos it looked quite difficult to conquer. When done nicely, it looks real chic.

One day, having itchy fingers, my Goddess tried to DIY half-moon nails last night for the very first time. Was quite a flopz. She did the red overall base first, then tried to paint a pink semicircle at the bottom - first with masking tape cut horribly into semicircles. Ended up the masking tape didn't stick well and she has to do everything 'free hand'.

Super duper thick & messy

After a few more coats of pink and cleaning up the edges, it looked much better.

Pre-wedding Shots of Seng & Lian

In my post one month back, I wrote about the wedding of my Goddess childhood (secondary) school friend and the Horny Devil's also childhood (secondary) school friend, and that I will share pictures of her wedding with you, if she's ok.

GOOD NEWS! She's totally open about it, and so here's sharing with you first her pre-wedding shots!

Her friends Chewy and Seng, under the recommendation of my Goddess, engaged the services of my Goddess' bridal shop, Labelle Couture too for the exact same reasons why my Goddess and the Horny Devil selected them:

1. Their wedding gowns are simple but GORGEOUS!
2. Their service is UPZ.
3. Their pre-wedding photography is not your cliche - look far and act 'seh', unless you request for it, nor over photoshop until you can't recognise yourself
4. Their price is duper reasonable.
5. Their makeup artist Vivi is very professional - you don't look overly made up, and also not way different from yourself - she brings out the best in you.

Can't imagine the Chewy who used to look like this...

This was already taken after secondary school, during their JC days

Will turn out a stunner like this!

Doesn't this look like some shot taken off from a magazine

I Heart Charles & Keith

Charles & Keith service is so good lah! My Goddess recently bought a bag from them online. Ended up she's not very keen with her purchase. So yesterday she went down to their shop to check if there's still stocks of the other bag that she wanted and asked them to reserve it for her.

She thought that since it was an exchange they probably didn't take her request seriously. So today, she went to Charles & Keith again with her original purchase.

And they did keep the bag for her!! And furthermore, it was the last piece. (Somehow my Goddess seems to be always getting the last pieces)

Anyway, they were really nice! They gave my Goddess a 10% off the original price of this bag. So she just needed to top up a difference of $10 instead of the usual $16! But had she chose to buy it straight off the rack, she could have saved $3...

After one big round, she still chose this bag in the end... =_="

Path to a HDB Tai-tai: Defect Rectifications Over!

It's been 5 weeks since my Goddess got her keys to her new place. And one month plus later, the defects were finally all rectified (until the next time she finds anything new ;\)

Officially, it took them 3 weeks to rectify them. (The Horny Devil and Goddess took 2 weeks out of the 5 to check the defects). Majority of them were rectified in the next 2 weeks, but my Goddess being very anal meticulous, checked every single nooks and cranny to make sure the house is brand new. After all, they have spent so much on the house - better make sure they get their money's worth right?

She didn't take pics of the defects, but here's a list of what's wrong and those that she can recall (30+ altogether):

1. Low water pressure for toilets

2. Windows hard to close

3. Keys for doors can't be used/hard to lock/unlock

4. Chipped off wall/cupboards/doors

5. Uneven tiles in living room

6. Holes/dents on room floors

7. Scratches on kitchen tops

8. Door doesn't close/latch on properly

9. 'Concealer' used to cover cracks on doors

My Goddess calls it a concealer cos it's beige in colour, so looked totally like one, and it's used to cover flaws (works like one too!) And the workers think this boo-boo can go unnoticed, they are wrong! My Goddess is so into make-up that she can spot concealer from afar!

And the engineered wood given by Hoi Hup was totally lousy! It gets chipped/dented/soiled so easily!

See the water marks on the timber?

Now they have to wear bathroom slippers whenever they are in their room. And no drinks allowed in the room! I cannot imagine when the aircon leaks.

My Charles & Keith bag is here!

Just a few days ago, I posted that my Goddess ordered a Charles & Keith bag online for the first time. (Read here for post).

And so she opted for a Saturday 9-11am delivery. And it was really here at 9 plus in the morning!
 

Super duper efficient and it comes with a nice ribbon and paper bag + sticker packaging too! So that's where the $9.90 handling charges go to - packing the bag in dust bag and putting it in a big paper pag with nice sticker and ribbon!

Charles & Keith.com

My Goddess shopped at Charles & Keith for the first time today. Why did she shop online when she can buy it off the stores, you may ask. Don't ask me why. She saw a bag in the stores that she really liked and wanted to check out if there are having it for sale.



This was the bag she saw and liked initially

 Ended up she saw another similar looking bag which was on sale - $53.10!!

Featured on Wedding Tweets

Glad my Goddess' months (a year and a half in fact) of planning and hard work got recognised once again, this time in Wedding Tweets, another wedding info/inspiration site. She's got quite a lot of her inspirations from sites and pictures all over the world -  States mainly, and pulled it off the Singaporean way, and all via DIY - no professional wedding planners involved!

Wedding Tweets even featured their wacky pre-wedding shots.

To check out the post, click here.

DIY Cat-winged Mod Look

Last week was the Horny Devil's colleague's wedding. Guess La Belle Couture which my Goddess engaged for her wedding (gowns/pre-wedding album/makeup + hair/ actual day photography) left positive impressions and so many of her friends/ acquaintances, including this colleague engaged their services thereafter. 

Very sweet half-do with braids - the in style now!

Didn't managed to get a good shot here but the Chinese cheong-sam inspired modern day gown is really unique!

Take a Leap of Faith

The Horny Devil once made a very meaningful analogy.

Life is like taking a bus. You flagged it down, knowing that it will bring you to where you want to go. But along the way, the bus may break down. When that happens, you just have to get down and take another bus to your destination. The alternative route may be longer and bumpier.

But given another chance another day, you will still take the same bus if you are going to the same destination, knowing very well that the bus may break down on you again.

Home Small Home

Finally, two years after they selected and purchased their place, my Goddess and the Horny Devil's place is ready for collection!

Going up to their home for the first time - my Goddess faced mixed apprehension - the house is going to be damn tiny and will take some time to get used to, and most importantly, they have to now pay their own bills, do their own housework and laundry!! She suddenly feels more married within a day, one year after their wedding.

The narrow corridor. Luckily her apartment is not adjacent to any other houses, unlike the other 2 units

Welcome home?

Knock knock!