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Ever since we relocated to Auckland almost 6 months ago, I’ve been keeping myself occupied by picking up little pet projects to make the best of this experience. If you follow my Instagram, you might have seen random vegetable gardening posts and thought “Whaaaat? Where did that come from?” I know, right? In fact, when I was in Singapore, I did get swayed into the pretty dreams of growing my own herbs (imagine a white, minimalistic room with gorgeous greens, yada yada yada….) and gave into temptations, buying grow kits and whatnots. Although some seeds sprouted, I will admit that my success rate of any greens growing beyond a couple of weeks is 0%. So when I announced my plan to grow veggies in my Auckland garden, you can imagine the skepticism  support on J’s face. BUT I brought up the perfect excuse that would appeal to most of us…

A quick look at my IG feed tells you that I don’t often wear eye shadow and the full works, because frankly, eye shadow art scares me! I struggle with all that blending and visionary-ness of wearing eye shadow and usually chicken out of it, eye shadow -1 / Evanns-0. However, because I really wanted to get into this Illamasqua palette, I watched tons of tutorials and even got me some pretty brushes to work it! (Thanks Jeffree Star, Pony and everyone else on YouTube.. was anyone else devouring all those beauty YouTuber scandals, fights and apologies over the past few weeks? WHEW!) Since there will definitely be no tutorial here today (maybe some day…. haha) let’s go with first thoughts & product review! First Thoughts Unboxing these beauties were delightful, the Delirious Eye Shadow Palette was solid (not one of those cheap-feeling palettes for sure) with a great colour selection (both…

About Beauty Expert For skincare fanatics, Beauty Expert is a literal dream come true. It’s an online platform of expertly-curated luxury products sourced from around the world. From Eve Lom, Jurlique to Elizabeth Arden and more, they have a huge variety of brands and products at great prices and free international shipping for most countries. For those who feel overwhelmed with just too many options, you can check out their seasonal collections (eg. The Summer Edit right now) or collaborations, like the recent Hydration Edition – where you can find product recommendations and bundles at a steal. For this post, I’ll be sharing more about The Hydration Edition and my fave products, which you can buy individually on their site. The Hydration Edition This collaboration bundle was so immensely popular, it was completely sold out before its official launch. It featured 6 full-sized luxury items worth over USD $390, which…

Kia ora! (This means hello in Maori, by the way) It’s been ages since I got down to writing a blog post – partly because I’ve been so busy settling down in New Zealand, but mostly because I’ve been too lazy hibernating in this cold. Since I finally got my lazy ass down to writing a nice post, you know this is something worth reading about (unlike my new veggie garden which I’m so excited about, and my adventures of slug-hunting.. which I will spare you). *Ahem* ANYWAY, the main purpose of this post was to share with y’all about some cool beauty products which I’ve been testing out from Lookfantastic’s beauty boxes. To be honest, I’m not someone who keeps up-to-date with the latest beauty trends, just because I’m such a sucker for advertising and would totally spend all my money buying new products and not finishing them…

Date visited: March 2018 Hair by: Chez Vous To be honest, I’ve always wanted to try ashy hair but never had the guts to (what if I end up looking like an unglamorous grandma?). After all, trends do not suit every one, and I totally did not trust my own sense of style haha! So when Chez Vous announced their new treatment #FakeAsh, I was super excited to try it out! Here’s what I love about it! Getting The Right Colour Before they start working their magic on your hair, they hold up colours to see how it frames your face and enhance your facial features. It’s amazing that certain colours (like blue, for me) brings out my dark eye-circles and make my face look a little sunken, while other colours make my skin glowy and nice! This is a really important step as wrong colours can bring out your…

Date of treatments: March 2018 (6 sessions over 3 weeks) It’s no secret that my 2018 resolution is to get back on track with fitness (and of course, no secret that I’m not doing particularly well) so I jumped at the chance to restart my engine once more with Kowayo Aesthetics. Like almost all of you guys, I’m quite skeptical when it comes to miracle slimming treatments – if these work, then why do people still need to work out and eat healthy right? The whole world would be slim! So don’t continue reading this post thinking that I’m sharing some miracle treatment that lets you lose 10kg in a month – trust me, if that’s out there, it’s definitely not safe. EnCurve Treatment – What’s it all about? This treatment uses a high-tech medical-grade machine to reduce fat cells permanently through apoptosis-inducing (programmed cell death) radio-frequency. The energy…

Wedding: September 2017 Starting Budget: SGD $20,000 Ending Budget: approx. $27,000 (incl. accommodations for guests, our own flight tickets and extension at the wedding villa) As most of you may know, I have just recently held the wedding of my dreams in the Island of the Gods – Bali. Looking back, it was the most amazing night of my life so far, and everything turned out like a fairy-tale. I’ve decided to finally get down to sharing contacts, vendors & tips (sorry it took so long… i got lazy haha). WHY BALI? Having a destination wedding is the perfect reason to keep it small, and the closest of the closest who REALLY WANT TO BE THERE will fly overseas to be there. People also wouldn’t be offended if we didn’t invite them. yasssss! Location-wise, Bali is only a couple of hours away and quite affordable to fly to. It also…

So even though this is super different from my usual posts (which are full of pictures, memes and funny gifs – so you should definitely read them ha), I felt the need to write about it at some point of time as a step towards letting go. I’m also hoping that if anyone reads this, it might be relatable and possibly even reassuring in some way. Like everyone else, I’ve experienced being hurt by someone close. Last year, I had an encounter with a close friend of mine which left me deeply hurt. I felt used, manipulated and very angry. Was it me? Was I imagining things? Despite these thoughts haunting me, I chose not to confront.  I was afraid of confrontation and escalation, and feared damaging more friendships. A year later, and hopefully wiser, these are some things I’ve learnt. Don’t count on Closure Everyone uses “closure” as the…

Happy 2018 to everyone! Although I’m still super jetlagged from my recent 3-week trip to Europe, I decided to do up a quick post because… there’s a good deal to share! One of my 2018 resolutions (yes, don’t roll your eyes, we are going through the same sh*t every year) is to get fitter, or fit-ish again. Because I’ve been so blessed in 2017 with great food, great foodie friends and a lovely hubby to eat with, it was inevitable that I indulged a little too much. Plus, I got lazy. So yeah, this getting fit-ish goal of mine entails me trying to whip some discipline back into my life too! But let’s not digress from the main star of this post – SUDIO! I’ve previously done a post on Sudio’s Vasa Bla Wireless earphones, which are oh-so sleek and gorgeous (and which still accompanies me wherever I go). You can…

Wedding Date: September 2017 So I’ve just “graduated” from a successful wedding of my dreams in Bali, 16 September 2017 and I thought it would be nice to share some of my budget purchases. This blog post is NOT SPONSORED in any way (I wish though, Ezbuy or Taobao, sponsor me ya?) I was lucky enough to have a wedding planner based in Bali to settle all my logistics including decoration (more on the actual wedding planning process next time, for brides-to-be interested in holding a destination wedding), but there were still TONS on my end to do, and buy.  Literally, it was never-ending. Although I wished I could say that budget was not a concern and splurge on Jimmy Choo shoes, diamonds and gorgeous things, I was also (a little) practical and didn’t have the unlimited credit limit to spend on things I would only use once. LUCKILY, there…