A:Concept Make Your Concept Black Set Review

25 December 2017

Merry Christmas everyone!! This year we've decided to spend Christmas in a more quiet chill-day style. I honestly thought it'll be dull at first, but surprisingly a nice and quiet family bonding session over toffee nut frappuccino followed by grocery shopping was actually quite enjoyable. Plus, mom made wagyu beef burgers + salad for dinner!

Anyways Christmas aside, today I'm here to share another makeup review! By now ya'll probably know how much I love finding quality multipurpose makeup products that I could bring along with me when I travel right? So if you're into "space saving" products, be sure to read this review! :D

It's Skin Avocado High Nutrition mask sheet review

12 December 2017

Annyeonghaseyo~ My aunt recently went to Korea and I guess she did quite a bit of K-Beauty shopping over there. When she came back, she brought home a bunch of different facial sheet masks so I took the liberty to snag a few to try out for myself hohoho. For today I'll be sharing my first impressions and review on this Avocado High Nutrition sheet mask from It's Skin.

Candy Gets Hungry #14: Sushi no Midori Review at Shibuya Mark City - Day 7 in Japan: Shibuya, Tokyo

30 November 2017

Hello minna(everyone)!Another continuation of my Japan trip is finally here! This time I’m dedicating the entire post to a sushi restaurant we visited called Midori Sushi. As this was the only sushi place in our Japan itinerary, I had nothing to compared to but one thing for sure is that Sushi no Midori at Shibuya Mark City definitely checks the affordable-moderate price + super yummy check box.

Clumsy me and my first chinese orthopaedic treatment

26 November 2017

Hello everyone! I've recently injured my foot and visited a Chinese acupuncture for treatment so here's my two cents on how it went :')

Before I begin hor, I know traditional chinese orthopaedics are pretty common but ya girl here grew up watching a lot of Hong Kong TVB dramas and they tend to portray traditional orthopaedic treatments rather...aggressively lol. So bear with me as I describe this from a scaredy-cat first timer pov.

Long story short, one night I couldn't sleep so I was playing Naruto Blazing on my bed quietly. As I was about to sleep, I wanted to put my phone on the table and because I was sitting with my legs crossed for a long period of time, my left foot started to get pins and needles(feeling numb). So despite fully aware that my left foot was numb, my brain was also quite dumb to decide that "ok let's have the left very numb foot get off the bed first instead of the perfectly fine right foot!" 

The minute I placed pressure on my left foot, it immediately lost balance and twisted itself. Nice. So after that, I limped over to the table, place my phone there, got back to bed and sleep. As my foot was still numb, I didn't feel much pain. Unfortunately, next morning my foot was hurting so bad that my aunt decided to bring me to a traditional Chinese Orthopaedic for treatment. Normally if I sprain my leg or anything I tend to ignore it and let it heal on it's own but I still had some errands to run so I decided to give it a try.

During the treatment, it was hilarious. As I grew up watching shows featuring how chinese orthopedics fixed dislocated bones and acupuncture therapy, I was prettyyyyyyy skeptical. The minute the doctor started inspecting my foot I immediately grabbed on my mom's shirt in prep that he would twist the ankle and all will be good again.

Only thing was, that didn't happen lol. No matter how he turned, nothing seemed to hurt HAHAHA. It only hurts when I walk or when the orthopaedic pressed on my nerve. Meaning I only injured a nerve and its a small matter la, so I guess that was good news???

Sooooooo for treatment, he poked two needles on my hand and continued inspecting my foot. I wasn't afraid of needles but when you have two needles standing on your hand for a couple of minutes, extracting it was quite painful leh. After further inspection he said "ok, wrong nerve" lmao. As I never intended to get any acupuncture treatments, I asked if I could just get the medication instead of the painful acupuncture process.

I know I'm weak, okay???

Luckily the doctor wasn't some scary old man. Instead of poking me with another larger needle, he grabbed some small wooden stick (kinda looks like the skipping rope holder actually) and massaged the side of my hand where the connecting nerve was supposed to be. If I didn't recall wrongly this was called 松根 relief the nerve(?) After that he applied the medication on my foot, wrapped it, and I went home.

Here's my foot for a day. Doesn't it remind you of those fruits wrapped in that little net-like thing HAHAHA.

Overall I guess it was quite the experience la. If you ask me, I guess I wouldn't mind visiting a traditional chinese orthopaedic for that nerve relieving process again but no thanks to acupuncture. I'm honestly too weak for acupuncture haha. I literally can't imagine how people get acupuncture treatments on their face and back when I couldn't even bear two tiny needles on my hand T_T

Right now it's been a week after the treatment and honestly I don't know if it helped? I think the "nerve-relieving" process did help slightly but the medication applied later on didn't seem to do anything. Can't tell if it's the treatment or natural recovery la but my foot is definitely less painful now. Initially it was so bad that if I try putting a lot of weight on my left foot, the piercing pain would be so bad that I'd lose balance! Well anyways, it's recovering now so until next time!!

Bought good and affordable makeup brushes from Taobao

10 November 2017

Hello kawans!! I was cleaning my makeup brushes the other day and figured it's about time I get myself some new eye shadow brushes. So simply said, I did some shopping on Taobao and here's me writing a simple haul post. By the way, the largest Taobao sale of the year is on tomorrow so if you're still compiling your Taobao 11.11 shopping cart, this post might be handy for ya!

Cerro Qreen 7pcs Metal Box travel size brush set (Secret Garden series) - RM14

Cerro Q r e e n. Yup, not Cerro Queen haha.

First up in my haul is this set of travel size makeup brushes. To me I personally won't mind splurging a little more on makeup products but when it comes to makeup brushes I'm actually quite stingy haha! I know la, I kiamsiap ok. (even though I low-key really want Zoeva ones hahahaha)

PS. Hermo is selling this for RM40, but if you panai you can just buy it from Cerro Qreen's Tmall shop hereeeeee for RM14!

When I was browsing for brushes and stumbled across this set, I immediately added it to my cart. Not because I needed travel brushes but because I'm a sucker for packaging. T_T

Normally I'm quite skeptical with "cheap travel size brushes" but considering the price, the quality of these brushes were pretty good leh! Normally when I travel I only bring up to 3 brushes max to save space but I guess now I can just bring this small box with me instead.

Here's a closeup on these. A very decent selection for traveling. The 7pcs set features an angled brush for your brows/eyeliner, concealer brush, lip brush, three eye shadow brushes, and a powder brush. Needless to say, this set sure got ya travel game face covered fam.

As for the quality, the bristles of the brushes were soft and picked up the product pretty well too. Normally when it comes to all these travel brush kits, the powder/blush brushes are usually horrible. Although I personally don't fancy this powder brush either, it was still much better than most of the ones I've came across in the market. A lot of powder brushes in these travel sets are usually very rough and coarse so I'm surprised this one was actually quite soft. Then again, I use a powder puff to set my foundation so this really doesn't matter to me.

Cerro Qreen Individual eye shadow brushes - RM6.8 each

My "brush expansion journey" wouldn't be satisfied with just a small set of travel brushes, so naturally I'd pick up a few more. This makes my shipping more worth it right??? So after the travel brushes, I added a few full-sized individual eye shadow brushes to my cart as well.

In this series of brushes, there are 16 types of brushes to choose from. You could check out the rest of the brushes they offer here. I only needed eye shadow brushes so I got the brushes #09 #11 and #12. I'd assume they're all eye shadow blending brushes just that the difference between em' are it's level of fluffiness?

Also, although RM6.8 per brush is quite cheap(a lot of eye shadow brushes retail for RM30-RM90++ depending on the brand one ok), buying the entire 16 pcs set only to find out the quality is meh would be disappointing. So after purchasing these 3 to "test water" a.k.a grasp the quality of Cerro Qreen brushes, I think I'll soon go back to purchase the remaining 13pcs from this set!! Simply cause I'm actually really impressed with the quality from this series!

But hor, if you're very picky with makeup brushes, I recommend buying one or two to see first la haha. My standards for brushes ain't that high after all. As long it works, it works.

Just in case you wanna know, here's a side by side comparison between the individual brush and the travel kit one.

Brush egg - RM4

I guess this was quite an impulse purchase. I saw it when I was searching for brushes so I ended up adding it to my cart as well. Basically what this does is that it's kinda like a silicone brush cleaning glove.....? I've seen many variations of this and even a couple DIY videos teaching how you could improvise by using a plastic clipboard + hot glue. That's too troublesome and I'm pretty sure to DIY would be pricier than this RM4 one from Taobao.

So just Taobao guys, just 淘 淘 淘!

On the other side you get this un-even surface thingy. The way you use this is to first apply brush cleaner onto the bristles of your brush, then swirl it around on this thing to get rid of all the dirt and pigment. Normally I'll just swirl it on my palm but I guess with this, my palm is now spared haha.

Litfly Silicone Puff - RM6.8

This one's pretty cute. It's a silicone puff used to apply liquid foundation. I've heard mixed reviews about the magical silicone puff quite some time ago but I've only got one for myself now. Although it may not be the same one beauty gurus talked about, I'll put this Taobao one to test and see how it goes alright?

Other than the fact that it looks like a mini breast implant, this thing's actually pretty cute! There are reviews saying that their foundation went on patchy while some said that this was better than a Beauty Blender so I really can't wait to see how this goes! If this really beats the Beauty Blender for me, I'd hop onto Taobao and buy another 10 of these! I mean it's less than a fraction of the price of a Beauty Blender, it's easily washable, and you don't waste any product! So all I have to test would be it's application results!


Not sure if this mirror is available for purchase, but it's a freebie from Cerro Qreen so I'll just include it here la haha. I don't like mirrors without a cover but the illustration on it is so cute!!

The thing with shopping on Taobao is that it's always a gamble when purchasing from shops you've never bought from before. You never know if your money is well justified so I'm always praying for the best when I unbox my Taobao parcels. As for this haul, I'm actually really satisfied!!

PS. Lots of things happened recently so for the past few weeks I felt that it was pretty insensitive to publish any travel posts. I don't plan to share much in detail about what happened, but all I have to say is: everything is getting better. Over the past few weeks, I have a number of Aussie travel and food reviews drafted so stay tuned as I'll start publishing them one by one over the next few weeks!

 Thank you for reading!! 

Love,
Once upon a time a monthly taobao shopper

The beauty industry and Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna 2018

13 October 2017

Hello kawans!! Last week I attended a pretty educational (in terms of beauty haha) presentation-event called Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna Presentation at Westin Kuala Lumpur. As one whom grew up hoping to work in the beauty industry, I'm thankful for the insights I got to learn about during this presentation-event organised by the Italian Trade Agency (ITA) in collaboration with Bologna Fiere and Cosmetica Italia, with the support of Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE).

L-R: Mattia Miglio, International Marketing Manager of COSMOPROF, H.E. Christiano MaggipintoAmbassador, Embassy of Italy in Kuala Lumpur, Dr Samuel PorsiaItalian Trade Commissioner of Kuala Lumpur and Abu Bakar Yusof, Director of Lifestyle, Life Science & Medical Devices and Pharmaceutical Section, MATRADE.

This presentation was held as an introduction to one of the world's largest international beauty trade show - Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna 2018. So beauty business owners and professionals, mark your calendars and start planning as the 51st edition of Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna 2018 will be held from 15 - 19 March 2018 in Bologna, Italy. (at Bologna Fair District)

Above is Mr Mattia Miglio, the International Marketing Manager of COSMOPROF. During his presentation, he gave us a better insight on what to expect from Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna.

So at Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna, the platform is open to various segments in the beauty industry like perfumery and cosmetics, machinery, raw materials, packaging, contract manufacturing, aesthetics, hair care, nail, wellness and fitness.

During Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna 2017, there were 2,677 exhibitors coming from 69 countries. The event also attracted the attendance of  250,000 beauty professionals from 150 countries with 103,571 being non-locals. A total of 1,210 attendees are journalists.

For companies and beauty professionals, Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna 2018 would also be a place to create new acquisitions and international strategic alliances. Many would also attend the event to keep up-to-date with the latest and upcoming beauty trends. I'm sure just by attending an event like so would also spark some new innovative ideas.

The video above is an ad for Cosmoprof Asia 2017. Now you must be thinking "Huh?" 

Yup, Cosmoprof is not only in Italy! There is also Cosmoprof North America Las Vegas and Cosmoprof Asia Hong Kong to look forward to! 

A new addition to this worldwide beauty platform would be their upcoming September 2018 launch of Cosmoprof India in Mumbai. For those interested, more details on these will be listed at the end of this post.

During Mr. Abu Bakar Yusof's presentation, he shared that in 2016, the Italian exports of cosmetics to Malaysia has amounted to EUR 8.1 million and that the import of Malaysia cosmetics to Italy has a total of EUR 1.6 million. Although the difference is huge, progress can still be seen. As the imports of cosmetics from Malaysia to Italy had a huge increase of 326% compared to 2015, Mr. Abu Bakar Yusof mentioned that MATRADE will consider building a Malaysia country pavilion at Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna 2019. This gives a great opportunity for Malaysia beauty companies to expand their business on an international scale. 

Some industry trends & strengths that might come in handy for fellow beauty brands. 

Following on, Puan Mawarni Hassan from the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers had also shared with us the OEM Manufacturing in Malaysia (Halal perspective). Her presentation had given us a pretty clear definition of "what is halal" and later on explained the difficulties and complex procedure of obtaining a Halal certification for cosmetics. 

Lastly, the president of Malaysia Association of Wellness & Spa, Dr Baskaran Kosthi gave us a very entertaining speech followed along with funny stories from the spa industry. 

During his presentation, he introduced us to Malaysia's very own "Malaysian Massage" called Urutan Malaysia. If he did not share about this, I would've never thought of why are there Thai/Balinese massages everywhere but never have I seen Malaysia massage. At least now we know that we have Urutan Malaysia. For those wondering, Urutan Malaysia is a combination of massage techniques from Malays, Chinese, and Indians from Malaysia.

I managed to learn quite a bit from Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna's presentation. As a makeup hoarder, I really can't wait to see what the beauty world has to offer every day. To beauty professionals reading this, good luck! 

Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna 2018 
Date: 15-19 March 2018
Location: Bologna, Italy @ Bologna Fair District
15-18 March 2018: Cosmopack, Cosmoprime, Perfumery&Cosmetics, Green&Organic, Country Pavilions
16-19 March 2018: Hairdressing&Salon, Beauty&Spa, Nailworld
Contact: info@cosmoprof.it
Website: www.cosmoprof.com

Cosmoprof North America Las Vegas 2018
Date: 29-31 July 2018
Location: Las Vegas, USA @ Mandalay Bay Convention Center
Website: www.cosmoprofnorthamerica.com

Cosmoprof Asia Hong Kong 2017
Date: 14-17 November 2017
Location[s]: 14-16 November - Cosmopack Asia @ AsiaWorld-Expo
15-17 November - Cosmoprof Asia @ Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre
Website: www.cosmoprof-asia.com

Cosmoprof India Mumbai 2018 preview
Date: 10-11 September 2018
Location: Sahara Star Hotel
Website: www.cosmoprofindia.com

Cosmopack - leading international event focused on packaging design, contract manufacturing, raw materials, machinery and services for the cosmetic industry

Cosmoprime - scouting ground for retailers & distributors of prestige/mass produced products.


For further details on the event, please visit:

www.cosmoprof.com

Against The Current live @ The Bee, Publika, Kuala Lumpur

1 October 2017

Helloooooooooooo!!! I got to watch Against The Current live the other day at The Bee, Publika!! asdfghjkl They've previously performed in Malaysia twice (?) I think...and I missed both of the lives due to clashing plans so I was super happy to finally be able to check this off my bucket list of artistes to watch live! yay

This post is gonna be a little GIF-heavy cause I just can't have it any other way. Please bear with me!

Soooo I met up with Joshua for dinner cause he was the only one I know whom yolo-ed and bought tix to ATC as well. Only after the live ended we found Amanda and other college mates haih. At first I debated if I wanted to start queuing in the morning and make some friends, but in the end I was just so lazy I figured I'd just make it in time for doors open. I didn't expect doors to open 20 mins later though, so in the end we still ended up queuing for a short time. I seriously have to salute those whom queued for hours though! Just 20 minutes of queuing in the basement and I was already bathing in my own sweat. Ew.

Shortly after we got in, the show began with Dvatheduo performing Paramore's Decode. Watching their performance made me wish that Paramore would come to Malaysia again so I could check another band's concert off my bucket list! The selections they played sure got the crowd hyped for the live! At about 8:20, our beloved Against The Current finally graced the stage and the crowd went cray!!

I still remember the days I spent listening to their cover collabs with Sam Tsui, Kurt and Alex Goot on Youtube! Slowly from covers, I started listening to their originals. At first I was actually pretty worried if I'd enjoy the live cause when I bought my tickets, it didn't occur to me that this was their 'In Our Bones' album tour. I'm such an outdated fan that my music library is still stuck at Gravity!

Because of that, every night I pray they'll play songs from their Gravity album as well hahaha. At least let me have Dreaming Alone and Brighter please. Don't get me wrong though, I definitely enjoyed their newer songs too, but y'know there's always your fave fave songs you're dying to hear live. My personal faves from In Our Bones is Running With The Wild Things, In Our Bones, Chasing Ghosts, and Wasteland.

Let's just say bless me because my prayers have been answered. I got to hear both Dreaming Alone and Brighter live! 

Surprise GIF! I didn't capture much, only snapped a few photos + short clips. The rest of the time I was just jumping, singing along or trying really really really hard to see the stage lol. #ShortPeopleProblems In the end I'm pretty sure I was just jumping and singing along with my eyes closed lolol. I really couldn't be bothered to film all the way, it's too mafan and it takes the concert fun away.

I swear Chrissy Costanza is on my girl crush list. 

* fans self * Do you understand why I just had to include GIFs now? Oh and ya the lights blinded me too.

Despite how short I was compared to all the people in front of me, can we just take a moment to appreciate my digital camera for being able to capture these shots with just digital zoom?? I know they're not good shots la but decent enough as a preserved memory from the live right?

To be honest, I'm like a concert suaku. (in-experienced concert go-er??) With this being my third ever concert experience, let me just summarize this whole experience in a few more sentences.

1. I was so amused seeing someone recording with an ipad haha.
2. Not a fan of The Bee's sound system
3. I wished the concert lasted longer T_T
4. I want to watch them play live again
5. I understand why people try so hard to get front row, it's not cause you're literally right in front of your idol(that's important too la I guess) but rather it's more fun that way. If there's people around you whom aren't jumping, it's actually kinda awkward leh.

After the live ended the boyfie came all the way to Publika and brought me to mamak cause I was hungry ha.ha.ha

* I wanted to share about my experience with the recent Japan X Malaysia friendship live too but I think I'll leave that for another day! *

as for now, 

sayonara!

Visiting my dream travel destination - Day 6 in Japan: Tokyo

19 September 2017

Since primary days, before I was introduced to anime or japanese fashion/makeup, and waaaaay before I was introduced to Japanese rock bands, Tokyo has already been on the top of my bucket list for "Cities to visit". Growing up(especially during primary idk why) I would always hear my friends talk about how they spent their year end holiday in Japan. In secondary, I'll hear my cosplay friends talk about their trip to Japan to attend komiket/natsucomi (It's like comic con??). Also in secondary, I'll see friends I met on Tumblr/Twitter/Livejournal share live updates during their trip to Japan to watch Jrock lives. Who knew I'd be lucky enough to spend Christmas in Tokyo with my family. of course one day i still want to see the GazettE live in Japan la ahhaahahah

Continuing from where I left off in my Kanazawa travelogue, we traveled to Tokyo from Kanazawa the next day via Shinkansen.

First thing we did after arriving at Tokyo was to catch a train to Shinjuku station then walk to our hotel. For our stay in Tokyo we were staying at Hyatt Regency Tokyo located at Shinjuku.


 Photo above featuring my sister's leg haih. The rooms were spacious and the beds were comfy too! Similar to the past few hotels, we got connecting rooms as well for our stay in Tokyo.



minibar fridge. I don't know how but apparently the mini bar at that time wasn't cool enough so my ice cream melted. T__T (not in pic)


Can't remember if it was 7-11 or Lawson but there's a 24 hour convenience store on the first floor of the hotel so every night was like 'buy any drink/snacks you want' day.

Overall our stay at all three hotels in Japan was pleasant and cozy. Considering the size for most hotels in Japan, I guess you could say that these hotel rooms were surprisingly larger than what I expected :O

After settling down our luggage, we tried to make our way to Shibuya for dinner.

and we got really really lost. 

Though in the end we managed to make our way to Mark City at Shibuya. (lol 2015.)


We heard good things about this tonkatsu restaurant called Wako @ Mark City Shibuya so we've decided to have dinner here. The price point for this restaurant isn't exactly cheap but still alright compared to what we have in Malaysia, plus my mom's boss recommended this place (i think???) so we had to try haha.

Here's a peak on the menu (pls google for updated menu ^^")



Can't remember which set was it (since they all look the same hahaha) but the main reason we tried this place is because they serve kurobuta here. (google calls it Berkshire pig) so ya. Overall I loved the tonkatsu here so if you want to try the famous kurobuta people talk about, here's a place you could find it. I can't remember which sets we ordered but among the four, one was from their kurobuta selection. That was when I understood why people hype about kurobuta, compared to the regular pork cutlets, the kurobuta one was the more tender choice. 


simply in love with spending Christmas in Japan.


Oh and this is the day I got ffk-ed by a kawan I was suppose to meet in Tokyo hahahahahaha.

So if your friend ffk you in Japan, the trick is to just continue to shop hahahahaha jk. It was such an impromptu plan to meet up so it's ok. When we both got back to Msia all our other kawans got x2 souvenirs from Japan.

So like I mentioned from the chat above that 'we continued to shop at 109' meaning we actually left 109 and went back in to shop til past opening hours. One shop we were shopping in called "Barak" had amazing customer service. The staff was helping us style head to toe and when we've accidentally shopped past opening hours, all the escalators had stopped working, the lady brought us to the staff lift and led us all the way to the staff exit! So nice please Japan customer service T v T

After dinner + shopping at Shibuya 109, we grabbed some snacks at the convenience store at our hotel. I got myself this peach jelly. Something I never find myself ever buying in Malaysia. It's not like they don't sell it here but every time I want to get one, I just can't bring myself to spend RM5 on jelly haha.

Look at all the yummy pieces of peaches T v T

That sums up my first day in Tokyo! By the way, I'm back at Malaysia now and can't wait to finish up this JP travelogue then start my Melbourne travelogue ahahah.

Mentioned locations:

Hyatt Regency Tokyo
2 Chome-7-2 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku, Tokyo 160-0023, Japan

Wako, Mark City Shibuya
Shibuya MARK CITY WEST 4F, 1-12-5 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 150-0043 Japan
Opening hours: 11:00 ~ 23:00 (last order: 22:00)
Tel: 03-5457-1199

Previous Japan log:


Click to see ma03-5457-1199

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