Friday's Lust List: All I want for Christmas. Or the holidays. Whatever.

Heck I just want 'em!

It's been a while since I've done a Lust List. So here's mine this time of the year!

(Can you BELIEVE it's near Christmas already??? *gulp*)

Guerlain Meteorites Perles du Dragon. Will I finally cave in?

Happiness is...

ONE Curling up in bed with a good book.
TWO Curling up in bed with a good movie.
THREE Snuggling with the hubby.
FOUR Sharing the wonderful company of a dear friend/ loved one over a steaming cup of coffee/mocha/tea/hot-chocolate. I'm not very fussy.
FIVE Having banana waffles with chocolate ice-cream to go with FOUR. Or pie. I LOVE pies.

(UPDATED) Better paranoid than sorry ~

Hey lovelies,

Today I had initially wanted to talk about a product, or share a new purchase with you.

But in light of everything that has been going on in Kuala Lumpur recently - all the frightening mugging/ kidnapping/ robbing/ slashing - I thought I'd dedicate this post to sharing a few pointers on how we can all keep ourselves a little safer.

These incidences in the last month or so seem to have particularly targeted women. The first in the list in just the last few weeks was one where a woman was abducted (with a knife held to her neck) in the carpark of a mall which many, myself included, had always felt rather safe in. Not quite, apparently.

Since then there have been a string of other attacks.

So while I'm not trying to sound too paranoid-ish (or scare anyone from visiting Malaysia), here are some thoughts and ideas which I thought might come in handy.

(Note: This might be really wordy.. so do bear with me.)

My New Beauty Habits ~

Hello lovelies,

It's a lazy Friday this week, so let's just keep things light and easy, shall we?

Thinking of my makeup routine (that includes the putting on and taking off) these days, I realise that I've included quite a few new items into my routine, and they're now slowly becoming a habit.

Read on to find out what I'm doing different now!

Beauty Bloggers Box: What I would put in it ~

Beauty boxes seem to be all the trend now. For the fun of it, us blogging girls have decided to see what we love enough to put into a box.

So if I were to gift a beauty box, here are the five items I think every girl should have!

Stop shopping? Seriously??

No. Not really.

As a beauty addict, you will go through phases where it's all buy, buuy, BUUUUY! Traumatising experience for the wallet, really.

C'mon, admit it. I've gone through it, and I still go through it every now and again. (Especially when I'm super stressed out. It's called retail therapy for a reason.)

But of late, I've been working on a few strategies on trying to curb my impulse-buying habits to help me save a little bit of dough. I won't lie. Sometimes it works, and sometimes, ah well... hang 'em strategies.

I've found that it's not going cold-turkey (I sound like I've got a serious addiction, haven't I?), but managing and spreading out the shopping that works best. For me, anyway. I'm a work-in-progress, but if you're still interested, read on.

We've turned FOUR!!!

Geez. We actually forgot our birthday!

Good thing we remembered whilst we're still in our birthday month. So anyway.. we've turned FOUR!

It's been an four amazing years, and we'd like to thank you, our reader, for cheering us on all the while. A special thanks to the evurl enablers. You ladies are an amazing group of blogging sistas.

Looking forward to another awesome year with ya'll!

Love,
Syen, Kahani & Eli.

The Crumpler. The perfect travel bag.

Well... for me, at least.

Call me dense, but it's only just that I've noticed that my bright red crumpler has been doing quite a bit of travelling. For quite a few trips now, it's faithfully accompanied me - crazy road trips in the UK and US, and to Bali, most recently.

Since getting a DSLR at the end of 2009 (wow, it's been that long?), I've always made it a point to bring it along on trips when I expect to take loads of photos. (Short catching up/shopping/eating trips don't count.) After all, what's the point of having a fab camera if you're not going to bring it with you when you're running around creating memories, right?

My crumpler came with my camera, but you can easily get a crumpler bag from uhh.. Crumpler. It's not cheap, but in my opinion, well worth it. Let me tell you why.

Working with Independent Bloggers

If you're reading this post, chances are, you know what a blog is, and you know what bloggers are.

But bloggers come in all shapes and sizes... And working styles. And that, apparently, is still somewhat of a hazy grey area.

An incident happened a week or so ago with a beauty company trying to promote its products, which did not end too well, hence today's post.

Over the last few years, it has been no secret that apart from mainstream magazines, beauty companies have been engaging bloggers to reach out to an even bigger target audience. After all, if you're frequenting a beauty blog, it's very likely that you'd be the target consumer of a beauty company as well.

While that's worked out pretty well in the US, where bloggers have been practically given "Press" status, there seems to be quite a bit of kink to clear up in Malaysia.

If you're still with me so far, read on to find out why this blogger is on a rant.

(Note: This might be quite a long read.)

I ask, you answer: What's your achilles heel?

Taking the cue from Eli, who started the Q&A with our readers, I thought I'd give it a go too.

The question this week is rather simple: What's your achilles heel when it comes to shopping? Give me your answers for two categories - beauty and non-beauty.

For example, for yours truly here, my current shopping weak-spot in the beauty category is eyeshadow. Neutral eyeshadows, in particular. Over the last few months (stretching all the way back last year), I've hoarded quite a bit, including eyeshadows from Inglot (a 10-piece palette), Burberry, Giorgio Armani, Make Up For Ever, Sleek MakeUP, L'Oreal, and most recently, the Naked 2 palette.

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

Hello lovelies!

With the Chinese (or Lunar) New Year just around the corner, it's been busybusybusy all the way for me. And so soon after Christmas too.

(In case you're wondering about the picture, it's the year of the dragon this time round!)

So here's wishing all of you who are celebrating, a very Happy Chinese New Year! Hope this year will be a great year for you, and may it bring you closer to the things that mean the most to you in life.

Us So Loverly girls will be taking next week off to be with our families and friends (Kahani will be back from Hong Kong!), but expect us back the following week!

Love,
Syen, Kahani & Eli

PS: Psst! You might wanna read on for some honeylicious news.

My 2011 Beauty Favourites!

Goodness!!!

It's the LAST Friday of 2011. New Year is almost upon us, and I cannot wait for what's in store in the coming year. (LOTS on my plate, believe me. Oh goody!)

But before we bid au revoir to 2011, I would like to share with you my favourite things from 2011. From high end to budget, Chanel to Sleek MakeUP, here are some of my favourite stuff of the year.

1. MAC Cham-Pale Paint Pots. I believe this purchase pretty much gave me a kick-start in seriously using cream eyeshadows. A bevy of cream shadows soon followed including more of Estee Lauder's Double Wear Shadow Cremes, and my current absolute holy grail (HG) product - MUFE's Aqua Creams.

Beauty To-do Lists: Do you have one?

Apparently its a Virgo thing: Whenever I can't sleep, I pull out a notebook and start making lists. Things to do, books to read, recipes to try, lists of lemmings... You get the idea. Call me obsessive-compulsive but I find list-making quite soothing whenever I feel overwhelmed by work and other things.

Whether I actually get around to ticking all the things off the list is another story all together.

I finally managed to tick everything off my to-do list yesterday. I was on sick leave so I finally had the time to wash my brushes (neglected them for over a month, eww) and neaten my eyebrows (went veerrrry slooowly as I was worried the fever might impair my judgement). Shaving last week made me realise that I have to replace my razor as blunt shaving tackle is just asking for trouble and I managed to give my unwanted cosmetics away to a delighted cousin.

Ahh... It felt like placing a puppy with a good home.

What about you? Do you have to-do beauty lists or are you so organised, you don't need one at all?

Part 1: In the Land of the Free

Hello lovelies,

Apologies that I haven't posted all of last week. Something urgent cropped up which needed immediate attending to. Anyhoo, to make up for it, I'll be sharing quite a few shots I took whilst I was on vacay in the United States.

Starting with New York!


(Note: Really photo-heavy post!) Enjoy!

Best pocket Tissues - Tempo Petit 4-Ply Handkerchiefs

Yes I really am reviewing tissue paper - but hey, I had to suffer through packet after inferior packet because no one reviews tissue paper. Well now I intend to benefit the world with my hard-earned wisdom. 

If you want tissues that will mop sweaty brows without disintegrating and leaving embarassing nasty white pills all over your face these are it. They really hold together and as they're 4-ply they're so nice and thick I generally only need one sheet after I huff and puff my way up Lan Kwai Fong on the way to work (No, I don't work in a bar!). 

And because they're "petit" packs they're perfect for handbags. These also come in Jasmine, apple cinnamon and menthol - all of them actually smell really good! But I opted for boring neutral as my face tends to break out when in direct contact with fragranced products. 

If you're in sweltering hot Hong Kong, you need these. Trust me. 

Mission: Shopping in the United States. Help required.

Hello lovelies,

Oooh... I'm so excited! As I'm typing this post out, I can already count the days before I pack and fly off to the US of A!


A trip to makeup mecca of the world (in my humble opinion). Finally! (Can you tell I'm excited?)

Anyhoo, I know loads of you ladies reading our blog are from the US, or have been there, and here's where I need some help.

What kind of a girl are you?

Hello lovelies,

It's a Friiiday. Woohoo!

And today I thought we'd just do a little Friday sharing. What kind of a girl are you?


Makeup-wise, of course.

Random Video: Even more reasons to love Ikea...

Following my Ikea-heavy apartment decor post, this seems ever so slightly relevant. Plus it'll make you laugh.



Or not. I'll bet the Swedes in this vid are cursing their Japanese posting now!

Welcome to the new apartment

I've finally moved into my new flat and I still feel like a little girl playing house, or "masak-masak". =P

It was partially furnished so I got to indulge some of my whims and fancies without spending too much. Like this white-green colour scheme I've always had a crush on.

Hello from Hong Kong!

This is more of a sneak preview. I'm not REALLY back yet (still too busy moving around)... just saying "Hi" and that I miss my beauty gal pals. =)

See that? That's the street I'm going to live in, by day (everyday) it's a street market. Unique huh?

I'm not fully moved in yet. Internet only arrives next Saturday and I don't willingly live anywhere without internet! So I'm moving in very gradually over the coming week.

My new place is lovely but tiinyy (as expected). So as there's no room for a dresser...

I used this window cubby hole as my makeup station. It's just the right height and full of natural light in the mornings.