Was inspired by 3 different nail designs by others and decided to do a combination of what I liked into this week's design. As the base, I used Sally Hansen's Miracle Gel 'Birthday Suit 110' for 8 fingers.

Thumb: use 2 pieces of tape to tape up a triangle. I then painted on Sally Hansen Miracle Gel 'Game of Chromes'. Remember to lift the tape up immediately after painting the triangle on because you do not want it to lift up with some crumbling dried polish. Then, I used a star sticker at the top but this would look even better if you have a star shaped 'crystal' or whatever it's called. Sorry. Having a mental block.

Middle Finger: I used my favourite white nail pen from The FaceShop and the trick is to draw that cross where you want to paint the red ribbon with this white paint FIRST. This anchors the design so that you know where to start the triangles and then the scallops above. I then used my Chanel 'Red Dragon' to paint on the ribbon with a fine tipped brush. Wait for this to dry for a VERY long time before putting on the top coat.

Ring Finger: The base is OPI but you can use any plum coloured base. I chose plum because it matches the nude base of the other fingers but you can choose any dark base. The 'ball' was drawn by simply dabbing the glitter nail polish (choose your favourite colour) onto the nail like you would with a dotting tool. I then drew on the bow and hanging ribbon with a brush, using the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel 'Game of Chromes' but you can use any flat gold polish.

I like how this is simple but yet really Christmasy in a different way (no Santa Clauses/ Reindeers...or gingerbread men...)! You can check out the original inspirations here:

This design actually looks better with a white base rather than a silver base but I JUST wanted to use my silver polish and I realised that metallic colours are really hard to capture with a phone camera. Oh well. Anyway, yours truly hand painted the leaves of the holly with a small brush. It didn't quite turn out the way I had originally wanted them to but I only have my lazy self to blame. I should've washed my brush prior but alas, my laziness caused me to have to use a hardened brush. Oops. Haha. Anyway, this is my 2nd Christmas themed nails for the month of December! Now, what should I do for next week and for the actual Christmas week? I need inspiration babes!!

Was invited by TANGS to the Burberry Winter Glow 2014 Make-up Collection showcase. The event took place at Burberry's counter in TANGS, Orchard earlier this evening and it was meant to be a cocktail affair while Burberry's makeup artist showcased 2 looks using items from the latest Winter Collection. All attendees also received a $50 voucher (with minimum spending of $100) for use on that day itself.

The signature Burberry Trench Coat made its appearance as we were introduced to the day look with the subtle dewy look that's highlighted with subtle shimmer. The constant fact that was continually mentioned was that the Winter Glow collection is in a limited edition gold packaging. Ok, noted with thanks. I do like the gold packaging but the constant plugging of it was a little OTT. Although, she did mention that those who purchased any make-up items could get it engraved on that day, get an express manicure AND get their names written in calligraphy as a bookmark.

Anyway, the look above is known as "Fresh Glow" and the make-up artist was selling the base, which apparently can be used on top of foundation to refresh one's make-up! Now, that's interesting. It's also nice to see a natural glow as 'the look' for the season, which is contrasted with bright red nails. I guess it's about featuring one's features. Another make-up item that was talked about was the mascara that is apparently, very suitable for Asians because the tip is thin but still has a lot of hairs and this helps to coat every small lash and thus, making your eyes appear brighter. As it's waterproof and has a new formula, it will prevent our lashes from drooping in our humid weather.

Another thing from the Winter Glow collection is the fragrance "My Burberry" and I can only describe it as slightly floral and powdery without being overpowering. It's not too sweet so it's still refreshing but it is definitely more of a floral perk up rather than fruity. I don't mind getting this as my next scent.

The other door gift was 'The Book Of Gifts' which is really a catalogue of all the Burberry products. Definitely a source of Burberry lust after flipping through the pages. If you want to purchase this, you can do so from my Carousell page carousell.co/melfann.

With regards to the event, I felt that the venue was not the most conducive for the size of the crowd. All of us were huddled at one part and those at the 2nd or 3rd 'row' definitely wouldn't be able to see the make-up showcase properly. Also, as this was another 'come-see-then-buy' event, I felt that there should be a more Burberry staff to service all of us. I was quite interested in the base and the fragrance but simply due to the lack of service, I couldn't be bothered. In addition, the catering staff was almost non-existent. It seemed rather magical that some people had champagne flutes and I spied my keen eye on only 2 trays of canapes that were snapped up within 1 minute. Not very good when the event started at 7.30pm and all of us women were hungry. Yet one more reason for me to walk off with my door gift and hunt for a proper dinner.

Nonetheless, I am looking forward to going back to Burberry to look and see the make-up without the crowd. Too bad I wouldn't have the $50 discount :(

If you've been following my blog, you would've read about my previous post on Trying Out Bee Choo Hair Treatment. It has been 2 weeks since my first treatment and here are some further comments on their treatment.

Another colleague of mine goes to the Tiong Bahru branch and her hair length is longer than mine. She was shocked to find out that I paid $46 when she paid $38, which is the price I should be paying according to their infographic on their website!

Photo credit: Bee Choo Origin

So...my friend and I are going to the Tiong Bahru branch next week and see what price we're going to be charged at. If they charge me at $38, I will seriously consider getting a package there.

When I told this story to my colleagues and bosses, one of my colleagues then told me that the Clementi branches is apparently one of the busiest, which is why the staff there tends to give a little more attitude and are "too busy" to give you the scalp analysis at your first visit. Instead, they will insist that you go on a weekday for this scalp analysis. Well, that's not too convenient for us office workers.

She then recounted her last experience with the Clementi branch which really infuriated her. As per my previous post, the staff there will try to upsell the tonics or ampoules while you're having your hair done. So this colleague of mine told the staff attending to her that she doesn't want to buy a new bottle of hair tonic because she still has a large bottle (another brand) at home. The staff then told my colleague that she should bring her tonic to the next hair treatment as they will be able to incorporate it into the last step of the treatment. And that's what my colleague did. However, that staff was not there on my colleague's next visit and the other staff were unwilling to use my colleague's hair tonic on her. This made my colleague really angry because she felt like a fool and it gave others the impression that she was being cheap when she wasn't. She just wanted to finish her hair tonic before getting any more from Bee Choo! Thus, she now refuses to buy any hair tonics from Bee Choo and she was boycotting Bee Choo until this month because she's starting to find that more of her hair is starting to fall again.

Conclusion? You might want to avoid the Clementi branch but their products are probably quite good.

I went to watch "The Crossing" with Ming today despite not knowing much about the storyline/plot because of the following reasons:
1.  It's a John Woo film
2.  Takeshi Kaneshiro

I found it also mildly interesting that the cast is so diverse, with Song Hye Kyo in it together with other big weights such as Zhang Ziyi, Huang Xiaoming, Tong Dawei and Nagasawa Masami. I also knew that John Woo was going to take advantage of Kaneshiro's multilingual abilities to the max in this movie.

"The Crossing" is a 2-part epic that starts at the end of the Sino-Japanese war in 1945 where General Lei (Huang) is a war hero and returns to Shanghai to marry a rich man's daughter (Song). In that last battle, a Taiwanese doctor who was drafted into the Japanese Army (Kaneshiro) is sent to war prison and when he finally is released and returns to Taiwan, he is caught in a lonely world where his Japanese love (Nagasawa) is repatriated and he is seen by some as a traitor due to his time with the Japanese army. The army signaller (Tong), meets Miss Yi (Zhang) one day as part of his ploy to get more rations from the army by pretending that she is his wife. On that day, he ends up falling in love with her but she is on a desperate mission in finding her love, who is in the army but has not written to her for 4 months. There is never any sense of peace because all of this takes place during the Civil War in China.

The movie has an NC-16 rating probably due to all the gore from the war scenes where you see flying bodies and body parts and John Woo does not shy away from the pyrotechnics with all the bombs going off.

I really wonder what's going on in John Woo's mind when he made this film. He's clearly anti-war, judging how the war scenes aren't glorified. He can't help but portray some sympathy to the Nationalist Army who were fighting a losing battle but he tried to balance it out by giving a voice to why the farmers and the poor sided with the Communists during the Civil War. But his ambivalence makes me then think that he's trying to focus on the sob stories that each character tells. However, (this is where I get mad) the script has cheesy lines that no normal human being will say to each other. Especially in those days. I get the romance and play on the weather/plants/gorgeous scenery BUT normal people don't spout out cheesy one-liners about how "you are like this orchid, it's been with me for 3 years and no matter where it grows, it's still beautiful" before staring into each other's eyes deeply and then kissing semi-passionately. The cheese gets cheesier in the scene where Tong suddenly falls in love with Miss Yi. Was it done for comic relief? Hmm...

Another thing that is sadly lacking is the chemistry between the cast. I feel sad/happy on an intellectual level when scenes such as the couples falling in love is supposed to be happy and when someone dies, you go "oh...that's sad." Sadly (pun intended), you do not connect with the characters and you can't empathise nor sympathise with their situation.

To add, the movie had tons of picturesque scenes which were really gorgeous but the treatment of some of them were a bit lacking. It seemed as if those scenes were used simply for the sake of having really gorgeous scenes that can be cut as postcards.

I didn't like how Part 1 ended either. There was a really confusing trailer meant to pique your interest for Part 2 but it was a little out of place from the previous scene where they gave you the sad facts about how many soldiers died etc. Gah. I'm so irritated by the whole thing that I don't know whether the second part is worth watching. Honestly, if I do, it'll just for Kaneshiro-san.

It's December so the Christmas themed nails are going to come out! I decided to use this opportunity to try out Sally Hansen's latest Miracle Gel series which is supposed to last a lot longer than normal polishes and it does not require any UV/ LED lamps to cure the nails! Moreover, the instructions state that two coats of colour are needed before topping it off with their Top Coat to 'cure' and seal in the colours.

In my above design, I used Birthday Suit 110 (the beige one) as well as the gold Game of Chromes 510 while the white snowflakes were drawn with The FaceShop's white nail art pen.

First thing that I noticed about Sally Hansen's Miracle Gel polish was the brush head. Not sure whether you can see it clearly from the photo above but the brush head is round, unlike the usual straight bottom ones. This makes a HUGE difference when you're painting your nails near the cuticles because it curves to the round shape of your cuticles! Now...why didn't anyone think of doing this earlier? As you can tell, I was already super happy with this superior polish brush and needless to say, this is one of the few times where my polish did not have any weird smudges on my cuticles.

Secondly, the instructions state that you need not put on any base coat and I was a little sceptical when I read this. However, it continued to surprise me because it did even out a bit of the nail ridges. Ok Sally Hansen, you've won another brownie point.

Now, onto the colours. I was not very impressed with Birthday Suit 110 because it was a bit of a trial and error trying to get the opaque beige polish onto my nails on the second coat. It felt as if the first coat became tacky really quick and that I should've waited for it to dry completely before putting on the second coat. For Game of Chromes 510 however, I was thoroughly impressed! I was expecting it to come of a little less glittery/chrome but it did! On the first coat! The second coat merely made the colour more metallic and pronounced. So happy with this because it's EXACTLY what I was looking and hoping for!

Now I know why the polishes are flying off the shelves. I highly recommend buying their colour + top coat set (S$16.90) because it is essentially buying 1 and getting 1 free. Their normal colours in this series cost S$16/bottle and is their most expensive range. You can find them in Guardian, Watson's and John Little (where I bought mine) but no guarantee on stock.

It has been 3 days since I've polished my nails and I normally redo my nails every week due to paint chipping so let's see whether this design will last longer than my usual 1 week!

Update as of 12 Dec 2014:
I am thoroughly impressed. It has been more than a week (I did my nails on 4 Dec) and there isn't any chipping of the paint! Also, it seems to be preventing my infamous third fingernail on my right hand from peeling and breaking. Now I feel less compelled to remove the design off to put on a new one. But...I also want to change the design on my nails. Decisions, decisions.

Anyway, conclusion is this - if you like your nail polish to last really long without paying exorbitant prices, go get Sally Hansen's Miracle Gel series. It's worth the money.

My colleagues and bosses have been recommending me to go to Bee Choo Herbal Hair Treatment to treat my hair loss and white hair situation. Yes, my balding has gotten quite bad and it's a lot more obvious nowadays so it's imperative that I do something about it.

I'm currently using Aveda's Thinning Hair Tonic everyday as well as Phyto shampoos. I must say that these 2 products are probably helping me curb the hair loss but they're not helping with the growth of new hair. I've seen a dermatologist about my hair loss before and he said that Minoxidil is the only clinically proven chemical to prevent hair loss AND to grow new hair. One of the 'famous' brands with minoxidil will have to be 'Rogaine'. Tried that. It's horribly expensive and it makes my scalp itch thanks to the alcohol inside the tonic.

Anyway, off I went to Bee Choo with my friend. We went to the branch located at Clementi because that's the nearest branch to both of our homes. It was about a 5 minute walk away from the Clementi MRT station, so it's really quite convenient. They only have 1 herbal treatment and it's for any of the problems below:

• hair loss
• oily and itchy scalp (dandruff)
• white hair

Here's us just before our treatment. We arrived there at about 2.45pm and it was PACKED. The average age of everyone there was about 45. Us and a young girl brought the average mean down, I suppose.

Photo credit: Bee Choo Origin

Ignore the infographic of their prices on their website because, I was charged S$46 and the rationale is that because the back of my hair touched my shoulders. As for my friend, she paid S$38 and they told her that the S$34 price is only if the back of her hair was as short, if not shorter, than her ears. Ok...I'm not going to argue with them but I seriously felt that the picture above is highly misleading.

They work a little like a conveyor belt system where you're given a number tag after you pay at the counter and you move along the line according to your number. First, you're seated in front where they'll spray your scalp with essence of shou wu, which is herb that is well known to promote the pigmentation of hair (even skin, to a certain extent). Then, they also dab a bit of olive oil to the ends of your hair to moisturise it.

Here comes the fun part...

They separate your hair and slap on A LOT of herbal paste. The smell really reminds me of henna but they insist that there is NO henna used in their paste. During this process, one of them tried to up-sell the ampoule and tonic to us but to no avail.

After your head is covered in the paste, it is wrapped with a plastic sheet (friend said that she felt like she was zi char because they used the same type of plastic) and secured with a headband before you move off to station 2 to be steamed for 45 minutes.

45 minutes is a very long time but they do have tons of magazines and you can always rely on your smart phones to twiddle the time away. It is quite a nice lull on a Sunday afternoon and if you're tired enough, you may end up falling asleep in your chair.

After the 45 minutes are up, they'll take the steamer away from your head and allow it to cool for another 30 minutes. If there are people waiting to be steamed, they'll move you along to sit near the shampoo sinks.

No brainer for what the following station entails: washing off the herbal paste. They shampoo your hair twice and then go on to tell you about how you're not supposed to shampoo your hair again until at least 5 hours are up and how you must not use a white towel because it may get stained by your hair. They also tell us that the white hair will turn red while the black hair will still look black.

After shampooing, you're then asked to walk over to the blow dry station where my attendant successfully up-sold me a bottle of hair ampoule (S$8) which is targeted specifically for hair loss but she unsuccessfully tried to sell me their hair tonic (S$30) and shampoo (S$18). The ampoule gave a nice tingling minty feeling when she poured it onto my scalp and proceeded to massage. She told me that another customer had the exact same baldness level as I do and she managed to see results after going for their treatments every week, for the past 4 months and used the ampoule every session. *Gasp* That's at least 16 sessions with an estimated cost of S$58! Hmm...I'm not sure whether I'm ready to part with that kind of money.

Overall, my hair smells like it did when I had hennaed it but less strong. The whole session felt like a very long dragged out blow out except that your hair isn't styled. The attendants are generally friendly but they're no-nonsense and the only conversation you'll have with them is mainly them up-selling products while you question them further about them.

Would I go back? I wouldn't mind because it did really help cover my grey hair to red/bronze so it looks like I highlighted my hair without me really doing so. I always think herbal treatments are a lot more gentle on the scalp and my hair does feel a lot softer after the session. My scalp was not oily on the day of the treatment but it was today. Only time will tell whether I will grow more hair after a few more sessions.

They do have quite a few branches so do go to their website to find the nearest one near you!

Bee Choo Herbal Hair Treatment
Website: http://www.beechoohair.com/

Updates:
Week 2
Week 3
1 month and review on their Hair Tonic