Saturday 15 July 2017

You give good face

So I wrote a post about this a while back when Nic was vying to be shortlisted for the top 6 out of 15 finalists for Nyx Singapore's inaugural Face Awards. Anyway, because of her talent, hardwork and dedication, she actually was shortlisted for the top 6!

Her third and final challenge was to create a makeup video around the theme of "Royalty" and she decided to do a video of TWO looks - The queen of light and the queen of darkness! Nic has a lot to be proud of, she's a self-taught special effects makeup artist, a newbie to video creation and editing, and also a newly minted pro skills props maker (she made her crowns and sceptor from scratch)!

Mad pro makeup skillz and photos courtesy of @electric.eggplant

The award ceremony to announce Nyx Singapore's first ever "Beauty Vlogger of the Year" was held on the 13th of July at Pixel Studios and invited us to get to know each of the 6 finalists a little better while also showcasing their videos. I thought they all did well but obviously I was rooting for Nic to win and to get $5000 worth of Nyx makeup and an all-expenses paid trip to California to attend the Nyx USA Face Awards Finals. Unfortunately, Nic didn't manage to bag the top prize  (which went to Rosalie Parnes who goes by @wink818) but I think she's got so much to be proud of since she really grew from strength to strength, learned crazy awesome makeup skills as she competed, and delivered masterful looks that were winners in my eyes.

Giving her short interview about what inspired her looks


Finalists and judges

Still a winner
OOTN!!

Le makeup by yours truly complete with insane flyaways


With pro makeup artist Larry Yeo

Mouse squad for life


I'm always ruining normal photos


Didn't get the memo that we were doing "sexy"

So I thought I would write a post to commemorate the event and pay tribute to Nic's skills, talent, passion and diligence. If you're a makeup junkie, or someone who appreciates art, or even just someone who appreciates hard work, please give her your support. Watch her videos on her YouTube channel and follow her on instagram at @electric.eggplant and do send her positive vibes!

Thanks for reading!

Thursday 13 July 2017

Dark brown is the new black

So when I was 12 years old, my classmate found the first strand of white hair in my head. She sat behind me in class and saw it shining on my head and she helped me pull it out. Then she found a whole treasure trove of them and proceeded very monkey-like to help me rid my poor head of them. My teacher told us to quit it but that day really cemented my lifelong yearning for ridding my head of them.

I'm not 12 anymore so by now you can imagine those little a$$holes have multiplied and spread like some disease on a colony for the diseased. I may be being dramatic right now, hard to tell. Since pulling them off my head, while satisfying, could potentially turn me into a bald eagle (minus the cool eagle flying bit), I've had to turn to less violent methods.

I used to dye my hair with either L'oreal or some Japanese brand box dye. But now with my no animal testing policy, I've shifted away from that and found a non animal-tested brand on iHerb called Herbatint!

We don't really have many cruelty-free solutions for hair dye here in Singapore so I really didn't have much of a choice but I combed iHerb for all the hair dye brands they had and found that this one had good reviews so I thought I'd try it out. I normally buy jet black dye and kinda let it fade to my natural soft black but I read that the product was quite dark so I chose the 2N dark brown.



The product comes in two little bottles and you need to pour it into a plastic or glass bowl in equal proportions and then mix it to make it to a gel-like consistency. Slap on the plastic gloves and spread it into the hair like a pro. Although I failed at that part. I'm used to using bottle applicators so this was kind of a mess but I was prepared and had spread newspaper all over my bathroom floor like I was going to be painting my bathroom.



After applying it kind of messily all over my head, I waited 40 minutes (according to the box, this is super important to be adhered to) and then washed it off. It didn't smell unpleasant like the normal ammonia dye I used to use, and it wasn't too drippy (although I used a disposable shower cap over just in case)

Because of its more natural ingredients, it definitely didn't make my hair feel like it had been treated to a chemical bath, and I felt that less hair than normal fell. In addition, my hair didn't smell gross!

I think I'm pleased with the results. It's been about a week since, and my hair looks pretty good, it's covered most of the white hairs (except for those I missed because I'm so bad at DIY hair dyeing).

Damn I look good with this new shade

Pros of Herbatint:

  • Cruelty-free
  • Doesn't smell gross
  • Covers white hairs
  • Natural ingredients are not harsh on the hair
  • Affordable - It's about S$15 on iHerb
Cons of Herbatint:
  • No applicator so can be messy to apply
  • The gloves provided aren't great, they're too short I feel
All in all, I'm pleased with the purchase and happy to repurchase when the time comes (boo hiss I hate you white hairs!!!)

Hair that's as dark as my soul

Thanks for reading!