Mia's Update: Diamond Lash Workshop

Just last weekend, apart from going to the SEA Aquarium with my Uni mates, I've also attended this Falsies Application Workshop together with Airmeli, which was hosted by Watson.

The event is hosted at the theme restaurant called Blisshouse located at level 3 of The Central @ Clarke Quay. When I stepped into the restaurant, my first thought was, "I must eat here one day!" and you shall see why....

The interior of the restaurant is amazingly pretty, filled with lovely decorations like a swing, a pumpkin carriage (made of metal, duh!), and even a fountain alongside a mini bridge! How cute is that! 

But my girlie spazzing aside, I've heard enough of how Full House (another brilliantly pretty theme cafe) serves food that ranges from being mediocre to bad, so I shall keep my fingers cross until I truly try out the food here, huh! If you've tried them, do leave a comment for me below. 

 Upon entering the event room, I was greeted upon by a table of food (the usual wedges, fries, and fried food) that I've promptly ignored, and this pretty wall table (or whatever it's supposed to be).

 And there at the corner, are two shelves full of pretty trinkets. And yes, that chair sure looked inviting.

 And that's the room within the room, which is basically a table full of diamond lash products. 

 

 And there's Larry Yeo giving his first lesson of the day. There was 2 sessions scheduled and we were in for the later slot.  

This is our work table. We were given scissors, eyelash curler, lash glue, mascara, and of course the usual mirror, cotton pad and Q-tips.  

The steps of falsies application is pretty much fixed, so I reckon there's really nothing much Larry Yeo can do for us if our intention is to learn how to put it on ourselves and not just to have falsies applied on beautifully (regardless by self or by others). 

As usual, we first curl our lashes. Tilt your head up slightly and look down to make the skin of your upper lids taut without the need to pull/tug at it. Then crimp on the curler onto your lashes as close to your lashline as it allows and hold for 5 seconds. Hold them longer and risk getting 90 degrees eyelashes. 

After you're done with the curling, simply apply your favourite mascara on in a zigzag motion. Remember, stick to only 1 coat as piling them on will weigh down the curls you've just painstakingly crimped out. You'll be applying on falsies, anyway. There's no need to achieve any dramatic lashes with the mascara. 

After we're done with the mascara, do the head tilt again and draw on a thin line of eyeliner as close to the upper lashline as possible. The ideal is to not see any skin between the line and your lashline. But of course, I can't achieve that. Not to worry, though. The falsies should cover up most of the blunders created. :p

And then the true hurdle came for the day. To apply the falsies. Diamond lash comes with a fishline spine, hence they're really flexible and soft. I have to admit I'm a total falsies-noob, but I've played with a pair of those cheap falsies I got online before and the difference between their "mallebility" is significant. I had to snip of a little less than 1/6 of it due to my big fold on the inner corners of my eyes. I have a horrible eyelid shape and due to the big fold, my double eyelids on start at the 2nd quarter of my eyes from the inner corners. If you have similar mono/double eyelid combination problem as me, do cut your falsies to a length such that they will end at the beginning of the fold. Else, the fold will just push the spine of the falsies into your eyes. Not something you'll want to experience. Another trick (apart from putting on the falsies from the outer corner of the eye in when the glue becomes tacky) is to push the falsies down from the spine, towards your lashline after you've just stick them on and the glue hasn't fully set. This allows the falsies to sit as closely to the lashline as it can ever be and then with a quick swipe of the fingertip across the lashes (both the natural and falses lashes should somehow be together but not fully interlocked), we can get both the natural and false eyelashes to 'merge' together to avoid having double-decker lashes. 

And after a good 30 mins battle, I finally got both the upper falsies on just as they started distributing the lower falsies. Nah, I gave up on them. They just look way too unnatural for my liking. Can't conjure up a picture? Think of Rain's Back to Basic album cover. Yes, that. 

And now let the pictures do the talking. :)

 After falsies - front shot.

 

After falsies - lower up side shot. 

And that's me without any falsies. Spot the difference? 

Diamond Lash are on sale at Watsons at $23.90 for a pack of 5 pairs. 

Till then,

Mia

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Mia's Review: Vita Yin Yang Cordyceps Capsules

Just recently, I was approached to try out this TCM product by Vita Green, called Vita Yin Yang, which basically is just cordyceps capsules, and 1 capsule is equivalent to 15 wild cordyceps in terms of active ingredients!

The ultimate health enhancer for kidney, lung and immune functions, helping to achieve Yin Yang harmony.

Supercharge your immunity! Vita Yin Yang is formulated to tonify the kidneys and lungs, relieving symptoms such as respiratory discomfort, coughing and general malaise, and preventing future problems.

(credits to vitagreen)

Here are some write up taken from the product packaging itself for interested readers to familiarise with the nature of the product. As you can see, there's literally nothing else in the capsules other than cordyceps. This pretty much explains the price tag of HKD$499 (vitagreen website) and SGD $109 at local pharmacies (Guardian Pharmacy).

 The packaging is pretty unique. Instead of a usual flip open box at the top, it pushes up from the top to reveal the content within.

 And here's another short product description printed on the box. This description also comes in a Chinese version on the other side of the box. 

 And this was what I took out from within. I was pretty surprised to find 6 small sealed packs of 10 capsules each, for I was expecting a plastic bottle containing the 60 capsules. No doubt, this packaging is much more convenient and it's so much easier to just pop a pack of 10s into my bag for me to take my daily dosage in office after my breakfast instead of bringing the whole bottle of  60s everywhere I go.

Due to both time limit (got the offer pretty late) and my lack of health issues (apart from feeling lethargic at work), I've decided to try out just 1 pack of the product at 1 capsule per day for 10 days straight, while my dad shall have the rest of the 50s.

I tend to get really lethargic at times and is impossible for me to wake up easily in the morning. And when stressed at work, I tend to get this heavy tightening of my chest that makes my breathing becomes 'choppy' and difficult. After my 10 days on Vita Yin Yang, I didn't feel much difference with my stress-breathlessness. But to be fair to the product, it's highly probable that just a mere 10 days of 1 capsule per day is insufficient to see any form of results. I'm basically still a zombie every morning, dragging my sleepy self on my leaden legs to work. Nevertheless, I do notice that I get less lethargic during mid-day at work, even with more labour intensive schedules for this week.

As for my dad, he took the product at differing dosage of either 1 or 2 capsule per day. Being a heavy smoker, he also suffers from the same breathlessness as me (albeit, mine is due to stress while his stems from prolong smoking), hacking smoker's cough (many times I think he's gonna throw up from his coughing fits), and frequent visits to the loo at night (many times I got woken up from my sleep when he wakes up to visit the loo). After his 10 days of higher dosage on the product, he still gets the same breathless issue as before but his smoker's cough seems to have mellowed out a bit. At least, he doesn't look like he's going to throw up all over the sofa while he coughed these few days, and I also noticed that he doesn't wake up as frequently in the nights to visit the loo.

Coincidence or what, I'm not sure. In order not to give an inaccurate, biased review. I can only add on that just a mere 10 days on a supplement product is hardly sufficient to let us see any significant health improvement. However, I do believe that 10 days is enough for us to gauge whether the product is suitable (for me, at least) or not. And priced at $109 (current introductory price at only $99) for a box of 60s, I definitely do feel it's worth a try, to give it a shot for at least 3 to 6 months (TCM does work slowly) to feel the difference this product is capable of bringing.

Till then,
Mia

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Mia's Review: Seventh Heaven

Yup, this is a super super super belated post! SL and I visited Seventh Heaven located at Orchard Central for some sweet treats on the same day we visited Sarang for dinner. *sheepish grin* 

Nevertheless, here's the review. :)

 We got for ourselves one of the pancakes - The Orchard

and a mudpie - Mile High Mud Pie

And we were pretty unfortunate to have no serving sample view from other existing customers, for their servings are ginormous!

This is my mile high mud pie, and it's literally 'mile high'. Totally jaw-dropped at the serving. There is as good as 3 full gelato scoops of vanilla, chocolate and peanut butter hidden in the thick rock hard chocolate coating. And due to the ice cream, the chocolate pretty much remains frozen and I had a hard time breaking it up to get to the ice creams within. The chocolate coating was relatively thick, with a rich sweet and creamy chocolatey taste. Definitely not some 'cheapskate' chocolate.
Upon breaking the chocolate coating, I was greeted upon with the white creamy goodness of the French vanilla ice cream. The taste of the French vanilla ice cream has a much stronger vanilla fragrance and slightly sweeter as compared to other vanilla ice cream. I kind of like it, but it wasn't to SL's liking though.
After tasting the vanilla ice cream, we 'hack' off more pieces of the frozen chocolate coating to reveal the peanut butter ice cream beneath it. I'll say the peanut butter was a pleasant surprise. I'm not really a fan of peanut butter jam at all, but I kind of like this ice cream. It tasted like an ice cold, creamy version of the peanut butter cracker my mother used to buy in large family pack from the supermarket. However, it might be too much to finish up the entire amount of ice cream stacked in this mud pie. Well actually, this entire mud pie by itself is just too much.
Well, moving on, we're just left with the chocolate ice cream. And seriously speaking, need I say more? Who will hate chocolate ice cream?

And to be brutally honest, don't ever try to order one for yourself. Get someone to share it with you, TWO (ladies) to ONE dessert only. Or else, you'll end up with the same sorry mess on the table as SL and me.

And I apologise for the gross sight. :p

Next up, is The Orchard pancakes ordered by SL. It's quite a pretty looking dessert, if not for the sorry glob of half meltedwhipped cream that was sliding down the warm pancakes. We had a race against time to snap a decent picture of the dessert before the whipped cream completely slides off the pancake, bringing the poor cherry along with it. HA HA HA!
The pancakes are warm, thick and dense. Oh well, not that much to my liking for I'll prefer soft fluffy kinds like a Japanese hotcake. I remember there were 3 pieces of pancakes served, so ladies with smaller appetite might wanna drop by for their pancakes in threes. :)
Their 'heap of fresh fruits' were mainly apples (red and green), pears and a few pretty tasteless grapes. I personally didn't find the fruits exceptionally fresh, especially when the speedy oxidation problem of the apples pretty much gave me a biased judgement of un-freshness with the yellowish brown surface, which can already be seen in this picture taken when it was served.
The scary mess of brownish red wedged between the stack of pancakes and cut fruits is the fruit compote, which SL and I believed to be made mainly from berries. But of course, we could be wrong. So do let me know the correct answer to it in the comment board if you happen to know. And this is a perfect example of don't judge a book by its cover, for both SL and I liked it! It was sweet and slightly tangy, my favourite taste of all desserts. The texture is a mix between runny and gooey, with many bits of finely chopped/mashed up fruits to add on a barely there bite to it. It's good to be eaten in generous heap on top of the warm pancakes, or carefully savoured in bit by bit on the tip of the fork.
And fortunately for SL, who didn't like the French Vanilla Ice Cream, the pancake was served with a generous scoop of their chocolate ice cream instead of the French Vanilla as stated in the menu.
The staff must have overheard her saying that she didn't like the French Vanilla! *rofl*

And lastly, do I need to comment on their price? I'll say that it's actually very inexpensive, for 1 order actually serves minimum 2 pax. :)

And there's also this separate piece of menu with their organic herbal tea list. I didn't order any to try for it was already quite late and I just had my Yuzu tea at Sarang minutes ago. But looking at it right now, I'll definitely for the Soothing Throat. *cough cough*

 

And there's Seventh Heaven details here FYI. 

Till then,

Mia

Join Mia at Discuss SG to make some pocket money and make new friends, HERE :)

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Mia's Update: Collective Korean Haul

Just recently, I attended a mini Discuss SG outing organised by Finaldust and got my loots from him! He has offered to help oyhz and I bring back items we want from Korea, and actually went around looking for our items in different stores while he's there! So nice of him, right!

 

And that's what he brought back for me. CC Cream and Chia Seed Watery Essence from The Face Shop (TFS) , and Lip Tints from PeriPera and Tony Moly (TM). On top of that, he has also gotten us a facial mask each! :)

And yes, as you can see from the title it's collective haul, so here are the rest of the items I've impulse bought off gmarket/qoo10 recently.

 

 Holika Holika HOT BODY Night Slimming Cream. *sheepish grin*

 

Lovely ME:EX Stick Concealer from TFS and two Petite Bunny Gloss Bars from TM. So cute right, those gloss bars!

 And then yet another 2 Princess Fruit Gloss from TM. They're all so cute I'm gonna dieeeeeee!

And do you remember my random snippets entry some time back HERE? 

I'm very excited to say that I've earned another $50 from Discuss SG yet again! Total of $100 earned till date from end April. :)

So, what are you waiting for? Join me at Discuss SG HERE and start earning away! 

Till then,

Mia

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Mia's Review: Kotobuki's Ramen

Just recently, I visited this new Japanese restaurant at ZhongShan Mall near one of my working locations with my colleague, as we were craving for some ramen. :)

The restaurant is extremely quiet for a lunch hour (actually the whole Mall is) with only 4 tables occupied, including ours. A flip through the menu (HERE) was pretty impressive with the relatively large selection of choices, even with Chinese/Korean fusion such as Mabo Tofu and Kimuchi Buta Itame (shallow fried pork with kimchi). I was really tempted to get the Kimuchi Buta Itame set but decided to stick to my original craving of ramen in the end, and ordered their recommended Spicy Ramen (spicy pork bone base ramen). The server asked if we would like to have the chilli served separately, and we just nodded our head without any apprehension of her question. Should I say, thank goodness we did.



 

 Spicy Ramen, $15. 

And that's the chilli that was served separately on the small dish, which kind of resemble a watery otah paste. I was all about to dump the entire lot of the chilli into my ramen when I suddenly decided to test out the spiciness. Once again, thank goodness I did, because it's ridiculously spicy for a calm orange paste! And so, I became extremely cautious, picking up minute amount of the paste and stirring it into my ramen before tasting the soup, making sure that the spiciness is still within the acceptable level before going for the next bit. The end result of the spicy ramen looked just like a normal tonkotsu ramen, it looked exactly like the picture on the right, no tinge of the spicy redness at all. But I can assure you, it taste just as spicy, or even spicer (because I always dump a lot of tongarashi nanami powder) than any other red hot spicy looking ramen we find elsewhere.

 And this two picture shows you the amount of chilli I've added into my ramen in total. It really wasn't a lot at all!

The ramen itself was kind of mediocre, with a badly done job for the noodles. The noodles still have the very distinctive taste of 'kee', the characteristic put-off taste of the yellow noodles we find in our prawn mee and lor mee etc. My colleague and I immediately made a face upon our first bite, and we immediately did the same thing. Added more chilli. Lucky us, we both decided to opt for the spicy ramen. I'd say the scary spiciness of the chilli covered up the 'kee' taste splendidly. The noodles' texture itself also has a lot of room for improvement, for I find it a little too tough and not Q (chewy) at all. I know some people prefer harder noodles, but not me. I've yet to go for my root canal and I can't chew well, alright?
Within the ramen were two pieces of charsiu, half of a flavoured boiled egg, menma (bamboo shoots), a handful of greens (I think they're spinach), and a generous topping of bean sprouts.
The charsiu was, OMG, friggin tough! I had a hard time battling with it, which left my colleague clearly amused and slightly bemused. I bit into the meat, hard, 3 times. All I've done was to left my distinctive bite marks on the piece of meat. After more biting, tugging, and chopstick twisting moments, I decided to give up and stuffed the entire piece of meat into my mouth for a long chew down. The meat itself was flavourful, slightly salty, which really wasn't too bad.
But oh please, I was expecting charsiu in my ramen, not bakwa!

The menma and flavoured egg was less disappointing, with the surprise find of a few extremely soft and tender pieces of menma in my bowl of ramen. The menma, although not chilly cold like straight out of the refrigerator, wasn't exactly as piping hot as the rest of the ingredient in the bowl either. So, I can't really decide if the chef has dumped the ready cooked menma straight from the fridge and directly into the ramen. Oh well, I hope not. The flavoured egg, although not as well done as Ippudo and Santouka, was still acceptable after the scare of the noodles and the bakwa charsiu. The outermost rim of the yolk has been cooked through to hard boiled standards, but the insides still remain watery crumbly, while the whites was fully cooked through. Not that bad.

Now to another most important aspect of the ramen, the soup base. I've tasted the soup prior to adding the chilli, just for a better gauge of the taste. I would say, it reminds me greatly of the ramen soup I had when I dined at places like Ajisen and Ramen Play. Tasty, yes. But truly good? Hmm, I can only say I merely drank up less than half of the soup and my glass of Calpis wasn't enough to quench my thirst thereafter.

With this as my first dining experience at Kotobuki, I won't say that I'll never visit this place ever again. But the next time I have a ramen craving, I probably won't choose to go there.

Till then,
Mia

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Mia's Update: Molly and Jelly

If you're only following this blog, and not Molly's Instagram or Mia's Twitter, you probably didn't know that Molly is leaving. Or rather, she has already left by the time I'm writing this blog entry. It's been slightly more than 3 months since Molly came, but we're unable to bond well. She has been living this forever-alone lifestyle, always hiding behind my sofas to escape from my reach. The only time I can lure her near me was when I have food, and even so she rejects my touch. She will either forcefully pull the food out of my hand and retreating into the back of the sofa to eat, or simply abandoning the food to hide. 

After talking to HRSS, we've come to the decision to have Molly returning to them. Because being unable to groom her aside (Molly returned to HRSS today with dracula nails & matted fur on her butt), how am I supposed to bring her to the veterinarian when she falls sick?

And so, I told Molly she'll be going back and arrangements were made for me to visit other human-friendly bunnies housed at HRSS shelter at Mutts & Mittens (11 Pasir Ris Farmway 2). During my time there, I met two human-friendly bunnies. 

There's Odeon the Lionhead Mix. She has really pretty sapphire blue eyes with red pupils. And the more laid back and tamed of the two.

And there's the 6 months old bunny called Jelly. The smaller, more active and more curious of the two.

Both bunnies were more friendly to human touch, allowing to be carried (even though they don't like it) and flipped onto their backs for a grooming session. Even though Odeon is the prettier one, I decided to get Jelly instead, for her constant mischief and curiosity towards her environment attracted me. 

And one week later, the decision was made and new arrangements were made to do an 'exchange' between Molly and Jelly.

 

And here's Molly, still chilling behind the sofa with only her head outside (for security). This photo was taken earlier this afternoon before HRSS came to pick her up at 2:30pm. Farewell, Molly. I hope you'll find a new adopter parents who can handle you well and gives you daily apple treats too! 

 And so, one hour plus after Jacelyn left with Molly, she returned with Jelly! That's the new bunny girl on the new pink litterbox. It's made smaller and lower due to her size and condition, but shortly after we switched back to the old one Molly has been using because my dad keep insisting the pink one is too small. =.="

 And from the time she arrived at 4 plus till just minutes ago, Jelly was on a rampage! She didn't stop running and hopping around, exploring every corner of the house. She even hopped into the kitchen to play with the stack of newspaper, and into my parents' bedroom to chill beneath the bed, and also into my brother's bedroom for a mini tour, all without a care in the world! Places where Molly has never tried to venture into. And when dinner was served, Jelly also did the one-bite-one-run trick, eating one piece of veggie and going for a run around the place before returning to the veggie bowl for a second piece. 

Jelly is really a curious adventurer. 

And I have no idea why, but both bunnies love that particular spot beneath my bed. I had a hard time coaxing Jelly out from underneath my bed when she ran into my room, and failed. In the end I was left with no choice but to carry-drag her out and herd her out of my bedroom. Needless to say, my bedroom will forever be out-of-bounds to her. 

After a while I noticed the 'flying' ball of white fluff was missing and found this amusing sight behind the other bigger sofa. Jelly also found one of her chillax hideout, but she isn't as good as Molly at hiding. 

And just minutes ago, I found her half concussed right here, still washing her face quite diligently. 

How adorable! *rofl*

If you're planning to get a pet bunny, please visit HRSS facebook page HERE for more information. 

Adopt, don't buy.

Till then,

Mia

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