Massive cleanup!

Phew! I just did a massive clean up of the bathroom cabinets! TONS OF JUNK! Seriously, I threw away close to 3 bags of old stuff from just the toilet! Let me see… there were toiletries from various hotels (obviously, they were taken by my dad who thought that we could use them someday! Someday never came. =.=”), toiletries from airlines (cheapo shaving kits, anyone?), skincare samples from eons ago, soap bars freebies etc.

Sometimes, it can be quite a waste throwing them away, so I like to find second uses for them.

• Old unused shampoos, body washes will be ‘recycled’ to wash the bathroom and toilet bowl.
• Cheap hotel toothbrushes can be used to scrub the toilet floor stains or around hard-to-reach corners.
• Soap bars can be left in the guest bathroom (:P) or at the kitchen sink to wash oily hands.
• Soap bars can also be used as air fresheners!

Any other suggestions?

Besides throwing out stuff, I also realised that I have stocked up MANY items! We have 4 members in the family, who do not share stuff. Haha.

Dad prefers shampoos & body washes that are drying to skin (he likes that ‘squeaky’ feel), and toothpaste that is gel-like (Aquafresh).
Mum uses anti-hair loss shampoos and facial washes that are anti-aging and for oily skin. She also uses toothpaste for sensitive teeth (Sensodyne).
Sis uses moisturizing shampoo (like Kerastase Bain 2), facial washes that are anti-aging and replenishes moisture and Colgate Sensitive toothpaste.
And for me, I use shampoo for dry hair, Darlie toothpaste, and anti-acne facial wash.

I found these hidden in the overhead cupboards in the toilet, the huge plastic container outside the toilet, and another cupboard that we use to keep our cosmetics.

• 3 boxes of Wellastrate, rebonding hair cream (used by professionals in salons) – sis shall be very happy since we do our own soft straightening at home! 
• 1 new bottle of L’Oreal Kerastase Oleo-Relax serum (though I have another 2 bottles of hair oil opened)
  
• 11 boxes of toothpaste (!!!!!) – Aquafresh, Sensodyne, Colgate, Darlie.
  
• 10 tubes of facial wash!
  
• 6 boxes of hair dye
  
• 5 bottles of body wash
  
• 7 tubs of body scrubs
  
• 4 bottles of Klorane Anti-hair loss shampoo (no pic)
• 2 tubes of hair conditioner, 2 tubs of hair masks (no pic)

Though the HUGE stock pile, I can’t guarantee that we will not be buying again. Oh, and this is not including the stash we bought from Korea in April. Double oops!

Makeup does wonders!

And I mean my title in every sense… You can use makeup to make yourself look better, or look worse (flashbacks of my silly sister trying to be the Joker, the last of Heath Ledger) and it can also create bonds between 2 individuals who were 5 hours drive apart! Bee of Beetrice’s Reviews has been working in Singapore for the past 1 year and it took us that long to finally meet up and talk to each other face to face! I managed to get last minute tickets to Kumar’s new show called Kumar’s Amazing Race which is hilariously funny. I won’t elaborate much on the show since it doesn’t fit the theme of my beauty blog and I shall not make you jealous because it’s damn hard to get tickets to the show now! HAR HAR HAR

Goodies from lovely Bee

And since it’s past my bedtime, I shall end off quickly with a silly picture of me! More tomorrow!

Zamian Cocoa mask... it really smells like 70% dark choc!

a last minute “Christmas gift ideas” entry

Because I don’t usually have the luxury of time while at work, and am far too lazy to type up something when I’m back at home, I often have huge gaps in between posts. But when I do post entries, I tend to do many of them at a time, and then schedule them to go out at different times. That way, you, my reader, wouldn’t be so bored and still see the same entry when you come back again 2 days later. Hee hee. That’s just my little trick.

Anyway, this entry is not a scheduled to go out later entry. It is truly a last minute “Christmas gift ideas” entry. I mean, who would post gift ideas at 12am on Christmas eve?!  I digress a lot… here are my picks for last minute stocking stuffers!

1. Lip balms – these work fantastically well as they’re cheap, easy to get and don’t really require a lot of wrapping! BTW, if you’re thinking of getting me one, get me the Original Carmex please! I love it so much but it’s just not available in Singapore. *cue sad face*
2. Travel size hand lotions/hand washes – Similar to the item above, travel size items are inexpensive and every lady could get some help with some hand cream and hand washes. Enough of that nasty smelling pink liquid soap in the public washrooms.
3. Cutesy post-it notes and stationary – some may think “what the…” but I’m all for practical gifts. I’d very much prefer to receive post-it notes and stationary that I can use in my daily course of work, than to receive say… yet another paperweight. Get what I mean?

Mary Christmas?

I’ve been watching this new Korean drama where the male lead calls the female lead “Mary Christmas”, a play on her name which is Mary. And thus, I’ve made so many typos this year when I wanted to say Merry Christmas. BAH. Anyway~~~

Besides the food (Delifrance chocolate truffle log cake, anyone?), I love Christmas baubles. I don’t know why, but I just love them. I remember going to Target around October and there will be lots of Christmas decors on sale *already but I always go straight to the baubles and gloss over them. Of course, I’ll leave empty handed, but I wish I could have one. It’s Christmas eve tomorrow and I don’t have to work! Clearing annual leave… and I know Bee has gone home for the holidays (enjoy your time back in M’sia girl!) and a few others are so looking forward to Christmas. I don’t celebrate Christmas but I do get into the mood when I receive presents from others. I think I’ll be working over the holidays because I’m organizing this “12 days of Christmas” festive sale for one of the brands under my portfolio so I’ll be online to monitor and track customer inquiries. Hopefully, I will get some time to blog more over here… there are tons of products that I want to review and share with you girls!!! MARY CHRISTMAS!!!

My travel kit for Batam

I’m going Batam tomorrow and it’s gonna be a great trip because there’s going to be shopping and a 3-hr spa session! Hair cream bath, body scrub and full body massage, all for just S$75+tax! We’re going for 2D1N so I need to pack some necessities… you’d think clothes would be the first thing I packed, but I was actually more excited about packing my toiletries! Time to get those samples out of the way!

I’m using the free cosmetic pouch I got from a past Elle magazine… it’s really huge and worth more than $6 (cost of the magazine) IMO! Starting from left:

1. Maybelline lipstick (add some colour to my face since I’m not bringing blusher!)
2. Dr  Jart+ detox healing blemish base (black label) – it has SPF25 PA++ too!
3. Sasa regenerating sleeping mask
4. L’Oreal true match foundation
5. Etude House total age repair sample kit – it consists of a toner and moisturizer
6. Watsons wet wipes (to remove makeup)
7. Etude House baking powder powder wash sample
8. Contact lenses!

I’m not going to bring shampoo or body wash cos the hotel provides and I couldn’t be bothered to decant into small bottles… whatever damage the shampoo could do to my hair in one wash, I’m sure the hair cream bath spa session will fix it! HAHA!

Project Use-It-Up

My dressing table has been getting messier with the ‘influx’ of skincare and cosmetic products. Don’t get me started on the overflowing bathroom rack! In order to reduce the number of products I have, I’m making it a goal to finish up at least 1 product before I get a new one.

Cleanser:
1. Mario Badescu enzyme cleansing gel
2. Etude House baking powder cleansing foam
3. Etude House acne cleansing foam *brand new!*

Toner:
1. Rosewater toner
2. Mario Badescu grapefruit toner
3. Hada Labo toner

Moisturizer:
1. Ucara soothing cream
2. Mario Badescu control cream
3. DermaE vitamin C moisturizer
4. Baviphat peach moisturizer (on the way)

Treatment:
1. Etude House acne red spot balm
2. Adapalene
3. Retin-A

Mask:
1. Biotherm purifying mask
2. Tony Moly tomatox mask
3. Baviphat apple mask (on the way)

Foundation:
1. MAC Studio Fix fluid foundation NC30 (looking to sell!!)
2. Everyday Minerals pressed foundation Olive Light (looking to sell!!)
3. Covermark fluid foundation YP20
4. BB Cream pudding

Powders (pressed & loose):
1. Paul & Joe
2. Etude House
3. Ettusais *2 brand new ones!*

Blusher:
1. Jane Cosmetics - Blushing glow *OMG I got this in 2007! Time to throw!*
2. Shu Uemura – M Peach 44
3. Smashbox Fusion Soft Lights - Gossamer

Spa Indulgence

I haven’t been updating much in recent months, mostly due to being tied down with work and being obsessed with cute Korean popstars. Hehe. So much so that I realised I didn’t blog about me winning a prize from Expat Living.

We get sent monthly magazines from Expat Living at work and I was browsing through the magazine one day when I saw the competitions page. It’s a no-strings attached, no purchase required, no $0.20 SMS fee to pay kind of contest. Just log on to the website, answer a simple question, fill in your details and cross your fingers. That simple.

So, I entered the contest, hoping to win a Spa Indulgence gift box, and I did! The prize is worth $128 and I saw it in stores before and was tempted to purchase it because it had lots of offers in there! The partnering spas are also well-known so I think the service standard should be quite ok. Expat Living also delivered my prize promptly, notifying me that I won the prize on a Monday, and couriered the item to me the next day. Talk about efficiency! I like!!!

Now, if you’d excuse me, I’m going to browse through the offers in the gift box and pick one destressing treatment to pamper myself now.

The scoop on Dermedex

I recently had a reader contacting me regarding the purchase of Dermedex trial pack and upon checking, I was informed that the trial pack is not available anymore. Then all of a sudden, I recalled reading something about the products being recalled by HSA – due to some formula inconformity with our local regulations.

So happened that I came across the picture of the man who is the owner of Dermedex in a cosmetic industry magazine. I stared long and hard at the picture. The man was the same guy who irritated the hell out of my boss, myself and many others at an industry seminar sometime mid last year! The man kept challenging the authorities and claimed that our authorities are pro-EU and pro-US as the new regulations are modelled on the US and EU regulations. He asked why can’t we accept China-made products, to which the speaker (some guy who sits high on the regional association) answered that they are not anti-China. Products made in China will be accepted provided that they adhere to the law. Simple as that. Obviously this Dermedex guy is having many formulation problems or certification problems, otherwise he wouldn’t be very worked up and pissed off with the association!

After pieceing everything together, I think it’s a little dubious as to where his products actually come from and whether it is safe for us to use… just my thoughts on the whole issue. Which really is a pity because the products really did work for me when I was using it but the results were not really lasting, and the prices were just too high for me to continue using them.

Going back on medication

After close to a year of breakouts, I’ve finally decided to throw in the towel and go back on meds. I resisted the idea of meds initially because I’m afraid of accumulation in the body, and that’s never good for the body. But after trying topical and even TCM (there were results, but much too slow), I still think oral meds work the best for me (I’m on Diane35, which is a kind of hormonal pill). I’ve tried antibiotics but it brought down my immune system and I had eczema rashes all the time.

Seriously, most people wouldn’t know how it feels like to have full-blown breakouts but it seriously damages, not only your skin but also one’s self-esteem. I think for the longest period, I avoided taking photos of myself and would even think long and hard before meeting any of my friends, even my best of all best friends. Whenever the dreaded period comes by, I would just want to stay at home because the older ladies at work would always come by my desk (it’s on the way to the pantry) and ask “what happened to your face?” If only I knew right? I mean, I didn’t wish for breakouts to happen as well, so don’t rub salt into my wound.

I just started being back on D-35, but I think I’m already starting to see results. My skin is less oily and a lot calmer than before. Hopefully, I’ll be able to just put loose powder and be done with makeup soon! It truly is depressing seeing how nice everyone else’s complexion is.

LightStim no more?

I’ll be honest, I haven’t been using LightStim for close to a month. Reason being I went to the Chinese sinseh for my gastric problem and took some medication, and found out the the medicine also helped with my skin problem. I’ve been taking it since 1 Oct, and switched medicines when PMS was here to disrupt things again, and I didn’t suffer bad breakouts as I did previously. I didn’t want to use the LightStim during this period as I wanted to evaluate the effectiveness of chinese medicine.

It’s been only a month now, but I’ll continue taking the medicine to see how things go. Meanwhile, I’ve passed the LightStim to my sister who’s been suffering PMS breakouts (she’s not on the chinese medicine). I’ve also been simplifying things cos I’m really lazy and don’t want to spend extra minutes applying creams and masks.

My regimen now:

1. Fancl Mild Cleansing Oil + Simple Cleansing Wipe (to remove makeup at night)
2. Doctor’s cleanser or Etude House Perfect Balance Ready Foam
3. St Ives Blemish Scrub or Crushed Aspirin (to exfoliate occasionally)
4. Mario Badescu Alpha Grapefruit lotion
5. Adapalene
6. PHA lotion
7. Benzoyl Peroxide 2.5% (if I’m lazy, I skip to this step after toner)
8. Retin-A (for big spots)
9. Mario Badescu Control Cream (when skin is dry)
10. Sunblock (for daytime)