Hair Hack- How to condition your hair properly

A short post on a little trick I’ve discovered. Again, a disclaimer that I did not rip off anybody’s idea. I thought of it on my own so if you’ve seen it somewhere before, all I can say is that great minds think alike.

After shampooing, we know we have to use a hair conditioner to seal in the moisture. However, we are not supposed to apply it to the scalp. Hair conditioner and hair masks applied too close to the scalp can make the hair look limp and oily. They also clog up the hair follicles and cause hair loss so the rule of thumb is to apply them to hair below the ears.

So what’s the problem?

Applying hair products to hair that falls below the ears is just a guide and if you apply hair products to these sections of hair, then it’s likely you’ve applied them too close.

I don’t know about you, but this has bothered me for a long time until I came up with a little trick and I’ve been using this little trick for years ever since then.

After washing my hair, I tie it up in a pony tail with a waterproof hair tie. Those curly telephone cord looking ones will do just fine.

Squeeze out excess water from the hair and then simply apply the hair conditioner/mask to the entire pony tail. This way, I know I’m not getting too close to the scalp AND it gets the hair off my face so I can do a facial mask at the same time. You can also use the same trick for when you’re applying other haircare products (e.g. hair oil).

It also works for short hairstyles. You can just section your hair and tie them separately then condition them.

I didn’t condition my hair when I sported a short hairstyle though. The hair ends are “new” so they have not aged as much as the hair ends of longer hairs. And rougher hairs make styling much easier. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but those with shiny silky hair can’t really make their hair stand up as well when their hair is short.

Anyways, this is my little tip: To tie your hair up in a pony tail before conditioning. Hopefully this has been helpful to you.

That’s all for this post. (^O^)／

The Body Shop Wild Argan Oil (Miracle Solid Oil)

I have been wanting to do a review of this product for a long time but procrastination got the better of me. （；￣ェ￣）Better late than never right?

It’s the Miracle Solid Oil from The Body Shop’s Wild Argan Oil series.

I got it when it first came out. According to Instagram, I owned it for 19 weeks.

At first I only wanted to get The Radiant Oil also shown in the picture above, but the sales assistant recommended this to me. She’s from the Bukit Panjang Branch and I noticed that all the sales assistants there are friendlier and more helpful without being pushy about making a sale. I love shopping there a lot more than the Choa Chu Kang Branch and JEM Branch.

Anyways, thank goodness for her recommendation because I love this more than The Radiant Oil. In fact, I love it so much that I gave one (among other things), to Pearlyn for her birthday.

To use it, all you have to do is to rub clean fingers over the surface and then use it to smoothen hair ends. A little goes a long way with this product.

It can be used on damp or dry hair. I find that either ways will give my hair a healthier shine. It’s a body and hair product so I use it for my elbows, heels and knee caps too. I love how soft it makes skin feels. This is awesomeness in a tin.

What I don’t like about it is the scent. I’ve no idea what Argan oil smells like but I don’t like the scent of this product. It smells weird to me but that’s something I’m willing to overlook, especially when it’s not overpowering.

This 50g of goodness retails for $19.90 before discount. I highly recommend everyone to try it out. The Body Shop has storewide 30% now, if I’m not wrong. I got mine for 25% off at around $15 (USD 12). It’s already a pretty good deal but it’s even cheaper now. This is something that I will repurchase and I highly recommend as a gift to anyone with dry elbows and heels, or to those who simply wants shinier hair.

That’s it for this post. Until next time… ヾ(＠⌒ー⌒＠)ノ

Maybelline Fashion Brow 24H Coloring Mascara

I’ve always been a huge fan of eyebrow mascara. They help to keep eyebrows in place and also help to tint the brow hairs slightly to match hair colour. My old favourite was a dark brown colour from Canmake but they’ve since changed the packaging and no longer sell it in dark brown so I had to branch out.

Kate has a collection of eyebrow mascara too, but the colours are either too blond or too red. As an Asian, I’ve jet black hair. I did dye my hair red, brown and even ash in colour before but I’m in love with my black hair now and have since kept it so for the past 2 years. I find that my hair is now stronger, shinier and a lot cheaper to maintain. Anyways, with black hair, dark brown eyebrow suits me best.

I love Maybelline’sFashion Brow in no. 5, Dark Brown.

I’m glad I decided to give it a try when it was on sale a few months ago and it is now a staple in my everyday makeup.

A closer look at the brush head.

The brush itself has a rounded end and initially, I thought it would over apply and I’ll end up with super thick brows but it proved me wrong. The bristles somehow made over-application an impossibility. Honestly, in the past 2 months of using it, I’ve never gotten too much product on my brows. It is by far, the best eyebrow mascara I’ve ever used, and it only cost S$11.90.

With just this tube, I can do away with eyebrow pencils and gels as it can do the job on its own.

Hopefully, this review has been of help to you. It may seem like an exaggeration, but I truly like this product. This is not an advertorial (nothing that I’ve written in my blog is). All opinions are entirely mine. I post here as a hobby.

My Fair Lady

I watched the dressed rehearsal of My Fair Lady musical at the MasterCard Theatres in Marina Bay Sands yesterday and it is fantastic.

My Fair Lady is a love story but it is not just a love story. It has humour, good music and great choreography. Best of all, it ends happily ever after, better than the morose endings of most famous but tragic love stories.

I’ve not watched the play before yesterday, but I’ve watched the movie made in 1964 starring Audrey Hepburn and it is one of my favourite movies. If you haven’t watched that, imagine a better, non-prostitute version of Pretty Woman.

The musical is not a word-for-word version of the movie, some scenes are rearranged and, I daresay, I prefer the musical’s pace over the movie’s. I even prefer the musical’s interpretation of the characters. I just went back to watch the movie again (that’s 5 minutes ago) and realised that the characters in the movie seemed a little less expressive than they should. Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins are so much funnier in the musical even when they’re saying the same things.

However, one regrettable part was that the musical does not have the scene at the Embassy Ball, which I think, would be essential to show Eliza’s successful transformation. After all, showing that you’ve won is more satisfying than saying you’ve won.

All in all, a fantastic musical that’s for anyone who knows how to speak English. I do recommend reading the lyrics first though, to get an idea of what they are saying as their accent is so strong.

Here’s the lyrics to With A Little Bit ‘O’ Luck, one of my favourite song in the play.

I lifted them off Metro Lyrics and you can find all the lyrics to
My Fair Lady there. I especially like Why Can’t the English? and Just You Wait.

As usual, before I end this post, here’s the link to book the tickets.

It starts tonight till the 2nd of March.

I highly recommend My Fair Lady and I’m glad that I picked the first row because their facial expressions was so animated and it’ll be worth the extra money to sit closer to experience the play.

And if you’re a kaypo like me, you can follow Brianmdrummy on Instagram . He is a member of the cast and Instagram rather interesting pictures of the play and of Singapore.

And again, nobody paid me anything to write this to the very little number of people who visits this blog. It is written of my own accord and yes, my friend Chibi San invited me to watch this as well.

Favourites for the month of February ’13

It’s early March & I’ve complied a bunch of stuff that are my February favourites.

First up, the Macadamia Natural Oil Deep Repair Masque

This is a very much hyped product on YouTube among the beauty gurus and I bought one from Sasa to try. Set me back S$54 for a 240ml tub.

It’s cruelty-free, paraben-free and alcohol-free. Most importantly, it works like a dream. ^_^

There’s a white lid inside.

As you can see, I’ve used quite a bit.

It smells musky and I’m sure a lot of XMM won’t like the scent but I LOVE IT!! You have to smell it before buying because the scent will linger on for the whole day.

Next item is also a hair product. It’s Clairol Herbal Essences Radiant & Soft Shampoo for Dry/Coloured Hair

I can’t resist citrusy scents and the shampoo really made my hair softer.

Last of all, a nail file. A leopard print glittery nail file.

Makes DIY home manicures all the more fun. I bought it at a sale, cost $1.50 from Mini Toons.

Three items only for my first ever monthly favourites. =D I’m trying out new eye creams and hair serums, if they work, they’ll be in the March Monthly Favourites.

P.s. Ever since January, I’ve not been updating this blog as nothing interesting happened so nothing to be shared here.

The Body Shop Christmas Haul 2012 (Part 2)

Shortcake and I went to get more stuff from The Body Shop and we had a lot of fun looking at all the Christmas items. They gave us 2 umbrellas too.
(⌒▽⌒)

P.s. I did another The Body Shop Christmas haul earlier and you can read all about it here.

That’s the beauty of not celebrating Christmas. Both of us just get what we want, and don’t have to waste money getting stuff for other people and desperately hope that what they give us is what we want. =_=

That was quite a mouthful. (ｰ ｰ;)

As per the norm, The Body Shop packed several items together and sell them for cheaper so that shoppers can grab a bag/box and wrap it up as a Christmas gift.

After choosing for a long time, each of us got ourselves a bag of shower products.

Going a little on a tangent here: I don’t know why people think it’s a good idea to gift somebody else with a bag/box of pre-packed body gel or body butter.

While I don’t have experience on what to give and what not to give for Christmas, what I do know is that there are so many things that could go wrong. The recipient might not like the scent or the texture. (And in my opinion, it seems sort of lazy & insincere to just grab a pre-packed bag.)

Shortcake and some other friends have complained to me that their most NOT WANTED gift is a bag of items from The Body Shop.

Also, fyi, everybody knows how much the box/bag of products cost.

Even if they don’t know, it’s impossible not to walk pass a The Body Shop store in Singapore. They are EVERYWHERE. I doubt anyone can resist the temptation to see how much their gift cost after walking pass the 3rd (or gazillionth) store -.-

So unless the recipient specifically says that they want a bag of items from The Body Shop, or they are up for trying new items, it’s a big no no.

I’m not saying not to get anything from The Body Shop. I just think they are only great if you’re getting them for yourself.

The bag/box items are a great idea for people who are interested in several items of the same line, yet don’t want to buy the full sized items without trying them out first. There are also boxes with full sized items too.

It is important though, that you discern that all the items in the bag/box is what you need or you would end up paying for products that you don’t even want.

Okay, end of rant. I did buy tonnes of stuff there.

These are the items that both of us bought.

Now that they are spread out like that, it seems like we didn’t really get much items after all.

These are the items inside my bag (mine is orange). Cost $19.90 per bag.

All the items in the bag are mini sized: A loofa, a bottle of body gel, a tube of body polish and a tub of body butter.

Surprisingly, their loofa is orange scented and the citrus smell feels very refreshing. I’ve only tried the body polish and I’m not sure I like it as an exfoliater. It doesn’t seem to exfoliate much.

The ribbon outside the bag. Because it’s cute.

I’ve also gotten the Ginger Sparkle Soap from this year’s Christmas series.

They are one for $6.90, three for $12.90. Of course I purchased three. I would have bought more but the sales person told me that I can only keep them for a year. The ginger scent is so delicious, I hope they will include it next year Christmas.

I’ve already started using a bar as hand soap. I just feel that bar soap cleans better as the lathering process sort of kill bacteria too.

Had to use flash in order to see the logo on the soap.

I’ve used up a fair bit of the soap and the logo is hardly discernible. I like how they imprint the logo on the soap.

The bar of soap has tiny exfoliating beads in it. I find it odd that the sales person did not mention that the different flavour Christmas edition soaps are for different skin types / purposes.

Again, I’ve to say, using bar soap is cheaper than liquid hand soap.

P.s. Our house also has a lot of small bars of Crabtree & Evelyn soap koped from hotels and we simply use them as hand soap.

Both of us bought a bottle of Sweet Lemon Whip Body Lotion each.

I tested it out at the store and it smells wonderful. Admittedly, I’m drawn to this lotion because of it’s convenient pump bottle that resembles the Vineyard Peach Body Lotion that I already have at home.

The review for that Vineyard Peach Body Lotion is here, if you’re interested to know more. Shortcake tried mine and she really liked it a lot so she bought a bottle of Vineyard Peach Body Lotion as well.

A bottle of Vineyard Peach Body Lotion cost $21.90 while a bottle of Sweet Lemon Whip Body Lotion cost $19.90. After the store wide 20% discount, they cost $17.50 and $15.90 respectively.

With the sale going on, I’m wondering if I should get more body lotion in different scent to keep at home. X_X

I wanted to get their Banana shampoo & conditioner but they’re OOS so I could only get a big bottle of their shampoo for oily hair from the Rainforest series.

The sales person said that they are slowly replacing the other shampoo series to the Rainforest series. Maybe I should go and try my luck at other outlets to see if I can get my hands on some banana shampoo.

Last but not least, I couldn’t resist temptation and bought a pot of Dragonfruit Lip Butter.

It smells so delicious!! Sadly though, the store wide 20% discount does not apply for this lip butter as the proceeds are for charity. =(

And that concludes my very lengthy haul post. ^_^ I’ve realised that I still have items that I want but have not yet gotten. Next time when I hunt other stores for their banana shampoo, I’m going to get their ginger scented aromatic oil and possibly more soap too. Now that I think of it, I may use up the soap very fast. One bar per month and I will use up twelve bars a year!!

Avocado for the skin

Despite what the name suggests, this post is not really about avocados. It is about how much of a glutton I am.

I bought 3 avocados, and ate one and a half.

（；￣ェ￣）They were meant to be use as a facial mask.

All you have to do is to cut the avocado and dig out the flesh, mash it up and apply on your face for 15 minutes.

By the way, for the face, you’ll only need half.

I can’t really say if the avocado facial mask works, as I think that it requires consistent use weekly before I can report if I develop any adverse reaction to the mask.

Right now, it’s pretty okay for a facial mask, but not so much as a hair mask. The pulp got stuck in my hair and I had to shampoo twice. =(

What I can say though, is that avocado is an acquired taste. Obviously I love it, but I can see how some people might not like it.

P.s. For people who are interested in making their own avocado moisturising mask and still don’t understand what I’m saying, YouTube it.

Other than understanding how the mask works, on Youtube, you can also see how irresponsible some people are. In one of the videos that I saw, the person said that she had an allergic reaction to the avocado halfway through her tutorial.

Are you serious? So without testing it out beforehand for the effect of the mask, she had the intention to just film and put up the video. I don’t know about you, but I would never trust what she says in her videos again.

New Hairstyle

I went with Eggie to Monsoon for a haircut last Sunday. We literally went crazy & asked the hairstylist to cut our hair really short.

This, is the amount of hair that I got rid of.

The colour is so orangey despite multiple attempts to dye it black so I thought might as well chop them off and grow out new black hair.

Two photos of my new hairstyle.

Surprisingly, I’ve gotten a lot of compliments that the hairstyle suits me a lot. Ehem. Thank you. Even though I also think that it’s nice, I thought that people might not be used to my short hair. Heh heh. （＾ω＾）

The downside to having short hair is that I have to spend at least 20 min daily to blow dry my hair & bully the curls into submission. 太麻烦了。

Luckily I already have a lot of hair styling products for shorter hair. No need to buy more. And I can now save a lot of conditioner.

The shampoos and conditioners that I’m currently using

Last Sunday, I went to a salon with Eggie. She did a hair treatment while I coloured my hair black and did a scalp & hair treatment afterwards. As usual, the stylist tried to recommend some hair products and he looked kinda grumpy when I didn’t buy anything from him.

Anyways, that was what spawned this post. I’d bad experience with buying products from hair salons before and his attitude wasn’t really convincing.

He didn’t believe me when I told him that I’m already using a lot of hair products and there was no need to buy another one from him.

Just on shampoos and conditioners alone, I already have all these.

And I’m not proud of it. In fact, I am disgusted by my lack of restrain. Why can’t I just finish one bottle first before opening another one to try?!

Right now, I’m sticking to L’Oreal Color-Vive shampoo and conditioner for my coloured hair.

I resolved to finish the entire bottle by using them daily.

Before I coloured my hair, Clairol Herbal Essences “Long term relationship” was my go-to shampoo on most days, simply because it smells so nice. And it makes my hair slightly smoother.

As you can see, I’d finished a set and am currently on my second set. It’s one of the products that I will always repurchase.

One of my other favourite shampoo & conditioner is the banana series from The Body Shop. I’d written a review in a post earlier here and I love it so much, I bought another set.

I haven’t opened the new bottles though. Been trying really hard not to. σ(^_^;)

Also one of my favourites, it’s the Kerastase Bain de Force shampoo & conditioner. I am currently using them once a week to strengthen my hair.

It smells delightful and always makes me feel great after a shower. Best of all, I find that it does help to make my hair stronger and less prone to breakage. I love it, but it’s way more expensive even when used once a week. =/

A word of warning though, I’ve read some reviews & comments online, and apparently, some people find that it makes their hair brittle and lifeless. According to one of the other commenters, it’s because there’s protein in this shampoo for hair that is damaged and weak (like mine) and those with perfectly normal hair cannot use it.

It’s best to ask salons for recommendation when choosing Kerastase products as they have different range to target specific hair problems.

The Kerastase website has a list of salons that are selling their products. Their salon treatments are better than a lot of other treatments that I’d done, but they’re also very expensive.

Even if you find it expensive to go to their salon for a hair treatment & just wanna buy the products online, at least do your research first before making a purchase. All the Kerastase products that I’d purchased are worth the splurge. ^_^

Next up is the Rainforest series from The Body Shop.

The shampoo is for oily hair and the conditioner is for dry hair. I don’t like the conditioner as I feel that it didn’t really do much.

As for the shampoo, honestly, I’ve only used them once or twice so I can’t give an accurate review, but I do love the smell of nettles. It just smells so refreshing.

However, I don’t think I’ll repurchase them after I’ve run out though simply because I feel that they didn’t “wow” me and that there are cheaper alternatives out there that work with more significant results.

Last of all, it’s a shampoo that I purchased at one of the salons I’d visited. It’s total crap.

For people with permed hair. And those who wants oily hair. Terrible really. I don’t think it suits me and that the particular salon should have recommended me something based on my hair condition. That’s why I seldom buy anything from salons after that.

And those that I do buy, I always purchase on a second visit, so the staff’s attitude factors in too.

Okay, so that’s all for this entry. I feel that I ended up writing a lot even though I’d intended for a short post. These are just the shampoos and conditioners that I’m using. Maybe I’ll write another post on hair masks and treatments.

(^O^)／

Recent Purchases

Can this be considered a spree even when I didn’t buy all of them in a single shop? The products bought came from The Body Shop, Watsons & Guardian.

And some Lovemore masks.

2 boxes for $14, 4 pieces below bought separately. All from Watsons.

I’m especially excited about the Dreams Unlimited Body Wash from The Body Shop.

Harmony recommended it to me and she says that the scent lingers on long after shower, so I’m pretty excited to try it.

Initially I went in to The Body Shop to buy a concealer as I’ve ran out of my usual L’Oreal one and encountered a store wide 20% sale. So I bought a lot of things and I didn’t forget to buy my concealer too.
ヾ(＠⌒ー⌒＠)ノ

The Body Shop Tea Tree Concealer

Will share more on that in another post once I test it out.

Oh, and recently I am using the Aloes range of toner, moisturising gel and cream. Picture below.

Bought them on Tuesday and I’ve been using them ever since. I’ll do a post on them in a few days time.

P.s. On the second day of using them, my skin condition improved but I want to test it out for a full week first before writing a review. Can never be too cautious with skincare products.

Last of all, I’m obsessed with only shampooing my hair once every two to three days. It sounds icky, but I truly believe that this helps to improve the condition of my hair and believe it or not, shampooing once every three days is very common. Ehem..

So I’ve included two TRESemmè hair products. A waterless foam shampoo and a dry shampoo. Picture of them below.

It would be truly awesome if they work.

That’s all for this post. I reckon it’s a spree post, with a whole lot of ramblings on my part.