Marina's Bloggariffic

I had my eye on the Remington Sleek and Curl flat iron for a long time since early December last year. I think it was the cover that did it for me. There were women with 6 various different hairstyles that I was hypnotised and stared at the box for like 10 minutes, examining every corners of the box till Cart dragged me away.

Anyway, I did a quick research online for review, and seeing how every user loved it, I finally decided to get it.

Unfortunately, by the time that we went there next, it was no where to be seen! Bleh!

So back in January, while I was in another mall, I noticed the last set of Sleek & Curl hair hot iron and I quickly pounced on it before anyone else could get it. You are mine now!

This is what is in the box.

The flat iron, and a book manual, and a dvd that shows you the different ways on how to style your hair. It was actually very interesting watching the stylist do all those hairstyles on the model. Although I’m not sure if I had the deftness and dexterity to do them all.

Just on thing to note about the flat iron is that it uses this European pin. I cant plug it directly to the Italian power source. But all we had to do was to get the correct attachment plug for it and it works just fine. I bet that it’ll be fine for travelling too as long as there is the right attachment.

By the way, the Italians call the flat iron, a piastra. Directly translated it means plate. As in hot plate for cooking. So in a way, we are cooking our hair, yes?

It takes about 30 seconds to heat up.

Though the maximum temperature of the flat iron is 230 degrees C, I haven’t really experimented it at that heat. By right, I shouldn’t really worry since the flat iron is supposed to be made of ceramic, tourmaline and coated with teflon so its not supposed to be damaging for hair. But I’ll stick with 180 degrees for the moment. Its hot enough for me.

Dude, it should be. Its almost twice the heat needed to boil water!

Anyway, this is my hair in all its natural glory one day after shampooing.

Its naturally wavy, shaggy and thick. I thank my mother for that good gene.

Truth be told, I’m not all that good with hair styling. But I’m keen to try different hairstyles. Especially now, its so easy to access tutorials from youtube and blogs.

There was one time that I was so excited to try making victory rolls, so on impulse, I bought for myself, a pair of curling iron (I don’t remember which brand it was though) but it was so challenging to use that I hardly touched it after one use and it pretty much broke down by itself due to loneliness and misery.

What a waste of money.

Fortunately, this time round with my flat iron, my first time was fantastic and it was surprisingly so easy to use.

I’m not sure why I’m doing a Mariah Carey hand gesture here but anyway you take a small segment of your hair. Put it as close to the roots, squeeze and slowly pull it down.

One of the thing that initially put me off flat iron is because of the drags and tanglesI get from using them. I tried my little sis’s flat iron but it so tangle-o-rama. And my hair felt so dry afterwards. It worked fine for her though. Maybe its because of our different hair textures.

But the teflon works here since its actually very smooth and I don’t get that draggy and tangly feeling.

For the back of the head, it would be easier to pin with those hair clasp thinggy. And you repeat the steps till every bit of hair is straightened.

Tada! Now I has straight hair!

And if you want to curl your hair, you take the small segment of hair again, put it close to the scalp, squeeze the flat iron and turn it in and drag it down slowly.

Be careful with your fingers though, its quite hot!

I’m not sure if you could see it in the picture, but there are guide lines which is supposed to guide you in controlling the type of your curls.

Yes, my curls look very messy. I’m still quite new at this, but for a newbie, my curls look pretty impressive, yes? :-P

Anyway, tadah! Sexeh curly hair! I like! Then a bit of hair spray and it’ll stay sexeh for the entire day.

Hopefully my skills get better in time but I’m quite liking my toy for now. I’m glad I bought it :-)

Do you use a flat iron? What’s your experience like?

To me, mekap cleanser is a very important step at the end of the day. As much as I’d love to look immaculate 24/7, having mekap for an extended amount of time is really bad for the skin, regardless of what brand or how expensive it is.

Quite by chance, reading this review by Tea Noir made me so intrigued that I wanted one of my own. I couldn’t find it in Rome so I had to wait till I was back in Singapore to get my paws on one.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the Biore Cleansing Oil

Wait … what? Oil to clean your face?

If you could get over how greasy it is, oils from coconuts and olives actually make good cleansers. Its not supposed to cause acne since acne is a result of dead skin, hormones and bacteria. Not convinced? Try it! Smear some mekap on your hand and dab a little bit of olive oil and see what happens

Thank goodness we have formulated cleansing oils that doesn’t feel so greasy.

I’ve been using this cleansing oil since January and I’m liking it so far. Firstly its quite affordable at about $10 SGD and its quite easy to use.

First you take an immaculately mekap’ed woman. Me in this instance. Make a guess what mekap I am using :-P

And then you squeeze out the cleansing oil in the palm of your hand. I usually need just one pump, you can pump out more but I’m trying to be frugal since I cant find this in Rome :-P

The oil is transparent, smells nice and fruity but I’m not sure what fruit it is supposed to be though. Maybe grapefruit?

And then massage it gently all over your face and you’ll see that in no time at all, every bit of mekap gets dissolved.

Be it blusher, waterproof eyeliner, lipstick.

But be extra gentle with the eye area. I’ve read from a number of other reviews that the oil sting their eyes. I didn’t encounter the same issue personally though so I think it could be a new formulation or I have eyes made of metal.

And then rinse off the oil with water and admire how nice and clean your face is … complete with all the blemishes :-P

Of course I am going to cover my face because of how unglamorous I look like now!

The interesting thing is that after using the cleansing oil, my face feels dry. Which is wierd since oil isn’t supposed to make your face dry right?

So at this point of time, I’d slap on some moisturizer or if its time for bed, I’d follow up with the rest of my facial care – Cleanser, Toner, Eye Cream and Moisturiser and then dream of pimple and wrinkle free skin.

Have you used the Biore Cleansing Oil? What do you think of it?

In all honesty, I was a little grossed out looking at pictures of myself in December. Its entire my fault, not watching what I was eating and consuming food like Pandoro almost every day and then making it worse by stuffing my face with loads of comfort food when I was back in Singapore.

My weight reached almost 70kg. Definitely not good.

This is a picture of me and Jules in December. I keep looking at my arms in this picture and thinking what recipes I could do with my succulent arms.

The problem probably began last year.

Being newly married means that me and Cart wants to share everything together. And that includes food too. When cooking, Cart likes to measure and serve the food portions equally. I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only woman experiencing this with their partners :-P

And have you ever seen Italian food portions? Its huge!

This pizza is a portion for one person. In the beginning of the year, I could only manage eating half of it. Slowly as the months went by, I found to my horror and fascination that I could finish it all by myself

While in Singapore, I’d be exercising regularly, doing yoga and aerobics, taking advantage of the affordable fees from community and sports center. You could go for weekly session for about $50 Singapore dollars for 3 months. I loved the facilities and the instructors are mostly fantastic.

The prices of exercise sessions in Rome on the other hand, is costlier. The most affordable one that we could find was about 54 euro per month and the place was rather dated and I didn’t fancy the instructors when they start to get repetitive.

So slowly, I started to slack and eventually stopped going.

Which is probably not a wise thing to do. I kept telling myself that I’d supplement by going for daily jogs. But that never happened. And the weight kept going up

Finally in the beginning of the year, I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I told myself that I better do something about this weight gain.

I would like to reaffirm that I do not believe in quick fixes like diet pills, weight loss spas, detoxification programs and I’ll never ever endorse them. You’d see temporary weight loss but then gain it all back some weeks or even days later. Its a waste of time and money in the end.

Coincidentally YesPecan was recommending an exercise regime called the 30 day Shred by Jillian Micheals. And I gave it a try.

Woah. The first few days was a challenge for me. While lifting my weights in front of me and doing leg stretches at the same time, I felt so wobbly! And I was so sore the next day. Every step I took, I felt my muscles complain.

Regardless, I carried on. At first, there was no weight loss but eventually, it was really nice to see the numbers go down :-D

Its not a dramatic weight loss. But I’m realistic. I’m happy just to lose slow and steady at 0.5kg every 2 weeks and not gain them back. As for food intake, I still eat practically everything I feel like but I moderate myself to stop when I feel full instead of trying to finish everything on my plate.

But what gives me the most motivation is seeing the physical results itself. This is me after finishing my 30 day shred.

I apologize in advance if this picture grosses you out, but look at my one pack! No photoshop! Woohoo! As tired as I feel, the desire to have a more toned body is strong enough to want to continue.

I’ve still a long way to go to my perfect weight, but I’m really looking forward to seeing more definition! Wish me luck! :-D

And guys! Join me! If I can do it, I am sure that you can do it too! Come on and lets motivate each other to lose weight together!

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I’ve always liked mekap. Colours fascinates me. To me, make up is like art where the canvas was the skin.

But I have never really been that great at putting on cosmetics. Moreoever, growing up, rarely I felt pretty. I admired my good friend Juli, who was naturally talented in mekap. We were supposed to set up a make over venture together. But now that I’ve migrated to Italy …

Nevertheless, no thanks to mekap gurus on youtube totally making me jonesing for mekap, I bought enough mekap to last me for 10 years. Its just too bad that cosmetics expires in way less than half that

Interestingly enough, I met with make up artist, Andy Lee, during a Revlon event last year. I told him that I wasn’t good with eye make up. But he was really nice and advised me not to give up and just practise more. That gave me a little bit more confidence to experiment with colours.

While back in Singapore, I’d just slap on my mekap and scoot out of the house. Now I’ve got quite a bit of free time to practise.

Of course the first few times, it doesn’t look all that great. I almost turned into the hulk and smash the freaking liquid eyeliner.

But little by little, I think I’m getting better. Nowadays, I really enjoy playing with my colours and I feel very proud of myself when I see that I am starting to get a hang of it.

I did a rainbow eyeshadow look last year, after following this tutorial on youtube. It looked so pretty on her. But it just doesn’t look quite right on me. I never knew how to blend properly and for a newbie to try to put on 6 different eyeshadow on an eyelid was surely asking for a disaster.

But just for fun, I tried out another tutorial. And this is how it turned out. Woohoo!

Andy Lee said that I should not put colours under my eyes but heck I’m really loving this! I’d go out with this even. Granted that its not perfect and I still have lots to learn and practise, it does look colourful, no? You like?

This gives me the semangat drive to want to take up a course on cosmetics. Would be a bit tough for someone who is not fluent in Italian though

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Sidenote : I find it wierd that back when I was in Singapore, I found an eyeshadow palette that had the tag “made in Italy”. Tried to find the same palette in Rome. I’ve yet to see it ever.

While in Singapore, there is the Great Singapore Sale, in Italy, there is the summer sale. Typically, there will be a 30 – 50% discounts all around.

I was just surfing through Promod one fine day and seriously contemplating to buy some. The only thing that I feared was the infamous Italian Postal delivery being late and asking for more service charge on top of the taxes. My computer took more than 4 months to be delivered.

Imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw that there was a branch at a mall near us. And even more surprising is that Cart wanted us to go out to shopping! I found a pair of Enrico Coveri shoes that I liked and I rummaged through the Promod store for a couple of threads.

I love my new clothes! But … I can has moar?

Yikes, trying to blog about the wedding is more daunting than I thought it would be. So I wont blog about it for now. Instead I’ll blog about henna!

For a Malay wedding, it was a custom for the bride to have their hands and feet decorated with intricate henna drawings. Unfortunately, because of how tight Cart and my schedule was – with the registry of marriage interviews, the embassy, the ministry of of foreign affairs et all, I missed the appointment with the henna artist.

So prior to the solemnization, my mum decided to decorate my hand, herself.

She crushed fresh henna leaves into a paste and pressed it on the tips of my fingers and feet and commanded me not to move the entire night as I slept on the floor. This was so that the henna would last longer (and it did because my toe nails still have the henna mark now) as well as not stain the bed.

That was probably the most uncomfortable night that I’ve ever had in a long time. I think I was probably a little bit stoned the next day for my solemnization.

But in any case, the lady who did my henna came back to finish the decoration.

I did a livestreaming over on ustream but I think thats its better to have it sped up from 2 hours into 10 minutes!

Putting on Henna from rinaz on Vimeo.

Isn’t it pretty? What do you think?

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