Presidential

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! I've taken quite the hiatus from posting because I've lost my photographer, but I met up with dear Samson who I forced to take some photos of me and I gotta say, I LOVE HIS WORK. Not just because it's of me. Check out his stuff at www.7braidstrong.com or follow him on insta @7braidstrong.

So okay, so much has happened and I've really missed writing so this may come out kind of long and rambly.

I was watching the U.S. elections like a hawk, I pretty much devoured any liberal leaning news (yes, I like my opinions to be validated by like-minded news - totally biased!) so as you can expect, I was disappointed when HRC wasn't elected.  I had hoped the U.S. would elect its first female president, and also because the civil rights causes that HRC champions are near and dear to my heart - Women's rights, equality for the LGBTQ community, and rocking pantsuits. Like come on, GO HILLARY! I actually teared up quite a during the 3 days post-election but life goes on!

Over here in Singapore, our parliament just passed a bill to amend our constitution with regard to our presidential election to propose racial representation. It seems a little forced to me, considering we're a meritocracy but I do believe in fairness and equality for all. And since I think our President tends to be a symbolic figurehead, k whatever. However, I can't wait to see the bill evolve into ensuring women are also equally represented. How about it eh?? WOOO GO CRAZY ANGRY FEMINIST!! Maybe I could be Singapore's first female president. VOTE FOR ME! My slogan will be "I'm with her (because she has pizza)".

So speaking about potential jobs for me... My dear friend Char suggested I start a vlog to talk about stuff I'm good at - like cleaning, being insane about dogs and being a strange dingbat. How fun would that be? Me droning on endlessly about cleaning products and how difficult it is balancing having a dog and being Singapore's first female president... SMASH HIT BABY. Unfortunately I don't think it's likely to happen since I'm bad with technology and I don't think anyone I know can bear following me around and videotaping me for long stretches of time without going batshit cray. But one can dream I suppose.

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I put that line in between because I'm now totally jumping to a new thought because it's kind of past my bedtime (10pm, yes I am a baby) and I'm feeling like there are a few things I have to just talk about.

1. I had an epiphany today and I think it's super valid and important - We women may all be one half mermaid - the top half! Slap on some shell bras and be your best half mermaid self my sexy lady friends.

2. If your name was Frank, would you use the phrase "I'm gonna be Frank with you" before dropping some truth, and would you smirk each time?

3. I am supposing in this scenario that you, like me, say 'excuse me' to the people around you when you sneeze. When you're alone, let's say in a room by yourself, maybe your dog is there. And you sneeze. Do you say "excuse me?" Asking for a friend.

4. Have you ever trolled a scammer? I had my first experience doing so. And it felt great after the fact. Apparently there are these scams going on where you get some call from "UPS" or "DHL" or some delivery company and they ask you to maybe transfer money or give them your kidney or something. So what happened was I receive a call from what appeared to be a local number, I answered and one of those automated voices come on and say something about a package and press 1 to be transferred to an operator. So I press 1 thinking "hmmm maybe I bought something I don't remember?" and some dude answers in crisp China style mandarin. He says a bunch of words and I say "I can't speak Chinese, can you please put me through to an English speaking operator" to which he responds "No" and hangs up. I was like WHAT KIND OF SERVICE IS THIS??? I wanted to call back and yell! Then it dawned on me. How annoying, what a waste of excitement over the fact that I might have been the recipient of some drunk online shopping I may have forgotten buying (it happens).

5. Did you know that I have magic words? I wrote this post on 2 July and it was dedicated to my sister who was pregnant. She had told me she was due between then and 10 July. And guess what? Less than 24 hours later, she went into labour and gave birth to a super cutie. I'm not saying I'm amazing or anything, but I may have the power to induce labour. I should most definitely be President of something.

Okay, thanks for reading, if you've made it all the way here, congratulations and what's wrong with you? Love yewwwww.

Back to the grind

Top: Romwe | Skirt: Chicwish (Similar here) | Shoes: New Look (Similar here)

So I recently visited my dentist to get a mouth guard made. I have a terrible habit of grinding my teeth when I sleep, and while I don't think it's really all that bad (except for the boo who has to put up with it), I do sometimes wake up with pretty bad headaches from all that grinding. 

The past week was really bad so I visited Dr. Chin and aside from sticking an awful putty in my mouth to take a mold of my mouth, he educated me on grinding. New stuff I learned: 

1. There are 2 kinds of teeth grinding. The first is a muscular kind (similar to what I do, where the muscles are tight and tense and moving). The second is teeth and bone grinding which sounds terrible because the intense impact of grinding the teeth on one another causes them to grind down and he's had to extract teeth and put implants for people for this kind of grinding. 
2. Grinding appears to be more common in people who hold slightly more senior positions at work (excluding me... I'm a minion). 
3. There are ways to train your jaw to reduce the amount of grinding in the day. He informed me that the best position for your mouth to be in is with your mouth closed, lips shut, teeth NOT touching, tongue resting on the roof of your mouth. He said that ideally, the teeth should touch no more than 6 minutes a day. Who is counting??? 
4. You can also go for Botox injections along your jaw to I guess make the muscle chill the eff out. I got very excited about this since it feels so Real Housewives of Singapore and why not kill 2 birds with one stone right, go in for teeth grinding, come out looking younger? #vainpot
5. There are two kinds of mouth guards, the soft kind and the hard kind. Some people have reacted poorly to the soft kind of mouth guard because somehow their brains are encouraged to grind even harder on the soft surface. But of course the soft kind is more comfortable and easier to sleep in.

Anyway, after all this information, I decided to get a hard one because I've used a soft one before and I ground a hole in it, which makes me feel like it's less lasting. 

My brand new mouth guard in it's own fancy neon box that I have trouble opening because I'm dumb

After a week, I went back in for the mouth guard fitting and it feels totally weird having this hard denture-like thing in my mouth, and I kept feeling like I have saliva pooling in my mouth, but I had ZERO problems sleeping with it once I lay down, which is really a testament to my sleeping powers. And I didn't drool at all so I guess it's not too bad. 

It looks like a gooey transparent tongue that I'm resing my teeth against

Anyway, all in all, I guess it's good for me and hopefully the headaches will stop. I'm still thinking about that Botox though. My friend Dan, or professionally referred to as Dr. Teo from Dental on the Bay can administer it. He's the dentist to a lot of my friends and I've heard good reviews about his work and bedside manners, plus you have to be trained in jabbing someone with Botox so not just any dentist will do. Maybe while he's injecting the jaw he can go get those crows feet and forehead lines! 

Oh well, we shall see. But in the meantime, if you're looking for a nice guy to poke around inside your mouth with metal instruments, or make your jaw look simply faaaabulous daaahling, do get in touch with Dan on the bay. 

Thanks for reading!

Lash out

Top: Romwe | Skirt: Sheinside | Shoes: New Look (Similar here) | Bag: FCUK (Similar here)

Ring and earrings: V&A (Similar here and here) | Sunglasses: Far East Plaza (Similar here)

 

My beautiful cousin Nom has the most enviable lashes. They're long, thick and curl up making his already decently larger eyes look even larger. I am SO JEALOUS.

He'd probably fly back to Singapore to kick my butt if I posted the full photo so I cropped it but you can clearly see those glorious lashes (sans mascara but helped by eyeliner).

In order to make my slitty eyes look larger, sometimes I'll bust out the falsies. The results are inconsistent at best, because I am really crap at applying them on myself. But after several attempts, many failed, I think I've learned a thing or two so I might as well share it to help the rest of the eyelash-challenged individuals.

The tools

Because I such at it, I have to use tools to apply falsies. I got this plastic lash... errrr... Let's call it a 'kiaper' from Starlash. It's quite easy to use but one of my gripes is that it is a bit too curved. My lash line isn't so oval shaped when I close my eyes so I kind of have to apply my lashes in sections rather than just place it on in one swift move.

I use the metal thing, actually also a kiaper, but I use the bit with the pink silicon to press down on the lash. You can also do this with your fingers but I just don't because I'm used to using extra tools. I suppose I just like to make my life more difficult and spend more money than necessary. 

The falsies

I first got the Diamond lash one and I thought I wanted something natural so I got a brown shade. This was a disaster because it actually looks really unnatural against my black lashes. I like that it's not too long so I don't need to go through the extra step of cutting it but that's about it.

I haven't tried any other brands because I got a recommendation from Nic who basically knows everything about makeup and beauty products. She recommended these hand made ones from Taiwan and so far so good, they have SO many types (different lengths, different fullness, criss-cross, straight, lined, unlined, etc). I buy mine from People's Park, I think it's about $6 a box. Because I'm not very terribly adventurous, I got the really basic not too long or fluffy kind so they look really natural but I don't know, if I want drama for evening I probably have to double them up which means 4 times of potential disaster.

The glue
I've been on the hunt for the perfect glue because I'm already such a mess. Glue near the eye is... Not fun.

Duo
I started my falsies journey with Duo but I find that because of the squeezy bottle style, I can't control the amount of glue that comes out and sometimes it'll be a huge glob of glue and that's wasteful and messy. The glue dries clear so that's not too shabby but I don't feel like the lashes stay put for very long. I'd rate it a 6/10. 

Starlash
I got this in white (which dries clear) first and I liked it, the applicator wand style means I can control the amount of glue that goes on the lash. I then bought the black since I thought I could handle it. This was a mistake because I am not 100% able to stick the lashes great the first time round so this leaves black stains all around my eye which is a pain to clean off. This is my fault, rather than the glue's, so I'm not judging it based on that. Just a word of warning I guess. The thing I don't like about this glue is that when you remove the lashes, some of the glue ultimately remains along the lash line. Which makes you end up looking like you're got eye-poop. I guess this means the glue sticks really well but it's such a mess to clean up and I end up having to mad scrub my lids and pick at them. I give this a 7/10 rating.

Shiseido 
Nic bought this for me from Japan and I really really really liked it the first time I used it (partly due to the fact that I was able to apply the lashes well the first time round that day). The squeezy bottle thing still means that I can't totally control the amount of glue that comes out every single time. Maybe I'm just defective. However, this glue has great sticking power. I wore it for several hours and my lashes didn't budge at all. One bad thing is that it doesn't dry clear so if you apply too much glue, you'll have white globs around your lash line. But for all it's stickiness, when I remove it, it doesn't leave any glue behind. I would rate this 7/10.

So that brings me to the end of the sharing session. I hope you learned a lot. Please do let me know if you've got better stuff to introduce to me! I'm always happy to get recommendations.

Thanks for reading!

Look book

Top: ASOS (Similar here)

Skirt: Romwe

Shoes: ASOS

Bag: Kate Spade (Similar here)

I loooove these shoes and this skirt

Earrings: Lovisa (Similar here)

You know those fashion magazines that ask people to describe their style? Respondents always say cool things like 'rock edgy with a twist' or 'eclectic with a dose of retro'. I can never think of a cool way to describe how I dress but I think I'm leaning towards 'glitter diva flamingo rainbow bomb'. Or something.

The reason why I started thinking of how I'd describe my style was because of a conversation I had with the mouse squad about buying clothes. CC mentioned that she finds shopping tedious because there's so much to go through and it's hard to narrow things down since a lot of things look decent, and she's not sure what she really needs/wants but knows that she doesn't want to spend a ton. I told her to first decide on her look, which is the key aesthetic she's going for, then check out Pinterest and fashion blogs to get inspiration and see what sort of key staples of that look she might be missing from her wardrobe.

So I decided to be helpful and highlight a few key aesthetics that you might want to consider if you haven't yet found your look.

The Angmoh Ah Lian

Pic courtesy of Idolator

You're a gutsy broad who could tear a man to shreds with your heavily diamante manicured talons and you consider your decolletage your most prized accessory. Your tan level is set to 'glitter golden'  and your makeup is heavy to match your strong personality. You're different from the regular ah lian because you speak English only.

Bustier | Hair extensions | Jeans | Nails | Heels

 Lady Soap

Pic taken from here

You sashay in and out of the room better than Naomi Campbell any day. When you're not busy scheming and manipulating, you're getting a massage by a hot masseur whom you're also having an illicit affair with. He feeds you caviar as you plot the murder of your husband. You like your martini stirred with revenge before you toss it in someone's face.

Turban | Gown | Fascinator | Gloves | Martini glass

The Harvey Dent

Pic taken from here

You're always of two minds about pretty much everything. No you're not. Yes you are. You practically invented business casual because you just didn't know how you felt but wanted the best of both worlds. Your motto is business in the front and party at the back. No it isn't. Yes it is. You celebrate the duality of life in all possible ways and while some call you fickle, you're actually the most practical since you're ready for almost every situation. Suck it haters.

Mullet | T-shirt | Pants | Swiss Army Knife | Chameleon | Heels

I hope you found this useful. Thanks for reading!

You'll be in my heart... Maybe

Top and skirt: ASOS

If you're wondering why my face looks weird... Join the club of 'me too!'

'Need to pee' pose - so hot right now.

Clutch: Klear Klutch

Shoes: Superga

I'm going on vacation to California tomorrow so I'll be taking a break from posting as I will be too busy seeing sights, hearing sounds and eating food, although mostly it'll be the food thing. But I'll be back and while I wish it'll be with a haul of great stuff, it is unlikely because mommy says money doesn't grown on trees (even though paper comes from trees so she's clearly not aware of science) and also because I'm going with my warden (the boo) who will nag my ear off and then some if I spend any money unnecessarily.

I shall bid you adieu temporarily but like the terminator (I'm the shoppinator), I'LL BE BACK!