As some of you may know, I’m living on a budget now thanks to the house renovation. Have cut down on a lot of luxuries, particularly manicures/pedicures. My last one, a spa manicure/pedicure at that, was a free one thanks to a voucher given to me by Kerol. Thanks babe!

Since, my nails have been left unattended for weeks and they’re now stubby and unkempt :(

Today, I couldn’t stand any longer looking at my ugly nails so I decided to do-it-yourself. Felt like back in college, where I used to DIY my own manicures courtesy of student budget. I used to rock cheap, long, plastic nails at school so much so that I was asked (read: forced) to cut them off on the spot for a netball game, FML.

This is how my nails look like now.

# – DIY manicure ftw.

I opt for this design because it’s foolproof, and mistake-friendly. I shall call this the Lavender Bling :P

# – Lavender coloured polish, pink glitter polish and silver glitter polish. I love this DHC brand from a stall at The Curve (near Royal Selangor Pewter and Nokia). They’re very reasonably priced and dry up nicely.

# – After applying base polish, apply the lavender polish. It’s very sheer and just gives off a slightly pastel purplish sheen.

# – Next, apply the silver glitter polish at bottom half of the nails.

# – Then, apply the pink glitter polish at the upper half of your nails. At this point, the colours will look abit flat.

# – Lastly, apply silver glitter polish over the pink glitter polish to create a gradient and more 3D effect.

# – Voila, Lavender Bling!

# – Rocking the Lavender Bling.

# – Am very pleased with the results. Saved at least RM60 for this manicure :D

Happy cause I don’t have to walk around with banshee nails now.

I am in a hissy mood. Haven’t had a single grain of rice for more than 24 hours. I am not feeling tired or particularly hungry but I’m feeling a lot of pity for myself because I love food that much. Last night, I almost convinced the bf to drive me out at 3am for some Mcdonald’s fried chicken. Luckily, I managed to close my eyes shut, switched off the night lamp and slid into a slumber before all my efforts were wasted.

These are my healthy ingredients.

I will be surviving on juice made up of maple syrup, lemon juice and paprika for 5 days. Don’t ask me for recipe because I don’t want to recommend anything before I come out alive and unscathed from this experiment. Spare me the lectures on how unhealthy it is to detox without solid foods as I’ve done my research and I feel comfortable in doing this. I’ve come to realise that my diet is high in salt and fat content so hopefully this detox can trick my body into not craving for salty, fatty foods.

As for the apple cider vinegar, I’ve been using it as a final rinse for my shower. I think it’s really helping with my skin because they are healing very well. Now this, I can recommend :) If you have eczema, mix 1 part vinegar and 10 parts water together and just pour it all over your affected areas. I do lightly rinse it off with water before I step out of the shower but if you’re hardcore you could just leave it on and dab off the excess liquid with a towel.

Wish me luck!

p/s: I still want a bucket of fried chickens and by the way, a stinky, salty cheese platter with fresh, juicy grapes is slowly materialising in front of me T_T

++ Update ++
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FML I’m about to give up. Gonna go grab dinner…but will be a light dinner! That’s as best as I can make up for this failure -_-

After Mom nagged me for the umpteenth time, I decided to go settle my problem that was MyKad. The boyfriend was to accompany me for the trip to the underbelly of the civil service. Initially, I wanted him to wake up at 6.30am but all I got was a “curt” response, so to speak. So after lazing in the bed for half the day, at 2pm yesterday, I called up the HQ of National Registration Department to find out if there were any queue number left. She answered in the positive. We made lunch, ate them and prepped up. Finally, around 2.30pm we made our way to Putrajaya.

We reached Putrajaya around 3pm.

The almost deserted city of Putrajaya.

The signages weren’t very well placed in Malaysia’s centre of administration and we got a bit lost for a while trying to locate the office. Bf (being a man and all) requested that I ask for directions from a shaddy looking man driving a school van. I was a bit hesitant, but I did anyway and discovered that the dude gave the clearest directions. Never judge a book by its cover!

We found JPN!

The MyKad department is at the 2nd floor. I knew of the place from a kind member of staff who saw me wandering aimlessly on 1st floor. I didn’t get lost because I didn’t understand Bahasa Malaysia, but the language used were so bombastic that I had no freakin’ idea what they’re saying.

Only 2 people ahead of me. W00t!

I was relieved to find that the office was not very packed. I’m guessing it’s because it was an odd time and a weekday.

Getting my thumb print. No more dirty ink!

It was my turn before I knew it. She typed in my IC number and double confirmed with me every data on my profile. I gave her my driving license and told her that I wanted to store it on MyKad. Instead of taking my driving license, she showed me another window which detailed the information on my driving license. Next she showed me the details of my passport. Such evidence of data integration suddenly got me really proud of my country.

Oh, and I had to pay RM10 as a penalty for missing the deadline last year. No complaints there cause I thought it was RM30. I indicated where I want my MyKad to be collected and proceeded to have my picture taken. I was glad that they had a mirror installed on the camera so I could watch how I looked like. No more ugly IC picture days I am to call them after a month to see if the card will be ready for collection. And that was all, only about 15 minutes of my life spent in a government office.

With more time to kill, we decided to do some sightseeing in Putrajaya. I had a field time playing the homegirl role.

I am the KL Girl.

Malaysia Sure Boleh!

Negaraku!

Wow I felt a lot of love. Thanks for everyone’s concern. I’m fine now. Really! Had a grand dinner at Lucky Loke with the usual suspects. Ate loads of frogs, very happy :)

Then to a TT session for airtrekkies. It was fun, fun, fun! Everyone is just crazy and funny and goofy. We went to Neway too, kinda wrecked the place a bit rock star style then they threatened to charge us RM300 for it and everybody started cleaning up the ginormous room. Like wiped the whole place down with minute serviettes and shit. Hahaha, it was so highschool fun but then old age took over :P Was awesome while it lasted :)

Cake war!

In the ear…

Amazing cake did not collapse under the weight of the candles.

EmoCharlie is officially bald. We had him shaved from head to tail. He looks like a mongrel now, hahaha. Poor Charles, doesn’t know what hit him. We’re relieved though because he’s 100% tick-free now. Been finding ticks in our bed and shit, URGH. He’s not so fluffy now and he’s lost that faux mohawk. Also can only rub him in one direction, the opposite direction is very stubble-ish :P

You can see his saggy balls really clearly now.

Doesn’t know what hit him.

Charles was not the only one who got a hair cut. I did too! Been about 6 months since my last visit to Hairkunst. With birds attempting to dive into my hair for nesting, I figured it’s time to make myself look human again. This time I got Dwen to do my hair and I’m very happy with the results. He has removed almost all my rebonded hair and all I’m left with now is my own untreated hair. As you can see, my hair is naturally wavy and I think at 25, I’m finally confident enough to carry my natural hair. Praise the skies!

Sorry for the scary au naturel face. This was taken at 5am in the morning. Just concentrate on the hair.

When I twitted my picture right after the haircut, I got a comment from a former schoolmate.

You look just like your mom!!!

Mummy.

Yeah, I do agree that I actually look a splitting image of my mom and I’m proud of it. Granted she’s 48 and I’m uh, 25 but I have a theory – that if you looked older than your real age, you’d probably look younger when you are chronologically older. This is because people’s looks hit a plateau at a certain age where they would look about the same for many years after. And since you’ve hit your plateau much earlier, you would keep to that appearance till about 65 while your friends would suddenly look like old hags the morning after 30….ngehehehe.

It’s Rachel‘s birthday today so pls send her some love at her blog. She hasn’t blogged for ages but perhaps a wave of well wishes at her defunct blog would spur her to post something again.

Have a great weekend, people :)

The secrets to professionally manicured looking nails are the shape of the nails, cuticle management and the condition of the polish.

Square shape nails are the best. It looks timeless, easy to maintain and easy to cut – just cut across! You can also prevent in-grown nails with square shaped nails. I do like stubby schoolboy nails too, it’s very trendy and it’s so practical.

I naturally don’t have much cuticle to shout about so I don’t deal with them at home. Unless you’re completely sure on how to cut your cuticles, please leave it to the professionals to do it. If you must do it at home, make sure your tools are always sterilised (boil it, bbq it whatever). And don’t be obsessed with cutting! You never know when you’d cross into the infection & puss territory.

My favourite polish are OPI but they cost a bomb -_- I use some Elianto and Face Shop too and are only attracted to their selection of colours. I find Stage Cosmetics’ polish too runny and tend to create bubbles so I avoid them. Had a couple of Lancome and Dior and they ARE AWESOME but I really can’t justify spending money on them. I wish someone would bring in U.G.N.Y because the quality of the polish is really good for the price – even coating and hardly any bubble. I got my U.G.N.Ys from Singapore. I recently discovered a brand called DHC at a little standalone stall at The Curve. I’ve never heard of it but it’s apparently made in Japan and cost me only RM7.90 per bottle. I bought a couple of colours on a whim, didn’t expect much but was I surprised.

You should always make sure you’ve got a base coat and top coat. Base coat is to prevent discoloration to your nails and top coat is to preserve your polish. Strong coloured polish still eats into transparent base coat pretty effectively. To counter that, I use a trick I’d learned from an ex-colleague – use a beige or skin colour polish as your base coat because it lessens the discoloration. Okay, technically the rate of discolouration is still the same, but it’d be discoloured with a colour that matches your natural nails hence less obvious ;)

Also, always have cotton buds in hand because you can use them to clean up all the messy bits. One of the biggest giveaways to an amateur DIY is polish overflowing onto the flesh. Be meticulous and clean. Sometimes, I just wait for it to dry up and then sort of lift up the stray colours from my flesh with a tweezer.

Here’s a tutorial’s on simple girlish nail design:

#1 – A base/top coat & 2 colours – one for base and one for tip. Here I use DHC’s No. 86 (a 3D-ish pastel purple) & No.115 (silver glitter).

DHC is by far the best glitter polish I’ve ever tried. The previous brands I bought were terrible, you could never get the glitter on or they just clump together stubbornly. DHC’s glitter coverage is even.

#2 – End result. Taken with flash.

#3 – Closeup with no flash.

It’s very easy, after the base coat, just paint your nails as per normal with the base colour. Wait for it to dry a bit and continue with the tip colour. Swipe left to right across the tip of the nail – easy peasy. As it’s glitter, it’s much more forgiving than say a solid white colour so even a n00b with shaky hands can do this.

Since I have so much time now I’d probably do more tutorials on simple, practical nail arts. Ah, the life of a housewife :)

On Saturday, I put up an SOS on twitter.

And this is what Sabrina replied to me in matter of minutes. Thanks babe!

I made the call to Hairkunst while still driving and managed to score an appointment with Jojo.

At The Curve, I called them again because I couldn’t find their premise. It’s because the shop is located with the offices. You have to take the lifts behind Sakae Sushi to 2nd floor. Nice decor, nice music and complimentary internet usage (with a laptop!!!).

The service was outstanding. Jojo was a joy. She patiently listened to my hair predicament and then told me what she could do. She was never once patronising and best of all….none of those product pushing bullshit.

I told her I wanted a soft fringe and layered body to offset the kink where my straightened and natural hair meets. She gave me exactly what I wanted but better.

#1 – Before

#2 – Shampooing

#3 – Nip Nip Nip

#4 – Final touches

#5 – Result

#6 – Ms. Jojo of Hairkunst, The Curve

The price for my do? I had earlier withdrawn RM500 to make sure I had enough to pay for the cut and some impending products I may succumb to purchase.

I was shell-shocked to be charged the grand sum of RM55.

Hairkunst,
The Curve,
Lot 226, 2nd Floor
6, Jalan PJU7/3, Mutiara Damansara
47800 Petaling Jaya, Malaysia
Tel: 03-77105585

Yeah, am so fehmes cause I appeared on Malay Mail for Nuffnang Music Bash 09.

You can read the online article here.

7 April 2009, Malay Mail, P23, Bloggers Party On

We also appeared on NTV7 yesterday!!!! Am looking for the video now and will post it in a bit.

So have you spotted yourself in the video?