I’ve been using various things like eye-liner pencils and eye-shadows, which does work. But because of it’s intensity, sometimes gives me a sort of Groucho Marx look if I’m not careful.

Anyway, I’ve been using Lucy Minerals foundations for a while and I’m really happy about the quality. Not too long ago, they were having a free shipping promotion and I took advantage of that and decided to top up my foundation stock.

When it arrived, one of my gifts was the Neutral brow powder!

It comes in a 7 gram jar which would have costed me $7 USD on it’s on (not including shipping)  which in my opinion seems quite pricey on it’s own. Which is why I think it would be more economical to get as part of a kit.

It comes with it’s own plastic sifter and a clear sticker on top of it. But I haven’t peeled it off so far because I’d rather pop the sifter out and dip my brow brush in the jar.

Like so.

Tap off the access because if there’s too much on the brush, it tends to lead to a fallout on your cheeks or under eyes which can get annoying. And with the brush, softly press the colour on parts of the eyebrow that you want filled in.

Don’t let the colour fool you though. At first glance, I wondered how could this brown powder fit the colour of my eyebrow? It doesn’t seem to match!

But incredibly it does and manages to look natural too. With the same shade, I think that it will work for wonderfully for brunettes to black haired ravens like me!

Like the foundation, it’s quite long lasting and stays put all day for regular wear. Just don’t go swimming with it and expect miracles, of course.

I quite love it. No more half eyebrows.

Sidenote : I think the colder weather is doing my skin a lot of good. No pimples! It’s killing my nails though, they get so fragile and break so easily!

Anyway, I thought that I’d just do a quick blog post.

I don’t exactly know when my interest for nail art started, but some months back, I saw a set of nail art tools being sold in a shop for about 3 euro. Impulsively, I got one for myself even though I’m actually quite bad at art.

Nevertheless, I had fun trying out different designs. Many of them were inspired from youtube and also looking through google images.

This one was from trying out the angry birds tutorial from Cutepolish.

I still need to do a lot of practice for a better looking bird, but this was a lot of fun!

And this is a design I tried to do for my friend Claire.

Cupcakes! It’s her obsession! I tried this tutorial out. Claire’s nails are quite small though, so she has 10 really teeny-tiny cupcakes!

This was done on a bored day. First I painted it blue. Then I got bored and I tried to paint clouds. And then I got bored and put sprinkles on the tips.

In the end, it looks kind of like a sort of ice cream isn’t it? This design was inspired by this tutorial, although she does it way better than I do!

This one is one of my favourite. Leopard nails! Rawr!

And while it may look complicated, it’s surprisingly easy!

And then I felt the need to wear red … so it’s strawberry nails! It looks so messy though, I was so impatient that I didn’t let the polish dry and smudged the tips.

I didn’t see a tutorial online for this exact nail, but it’s super easy! Being patient is the difficult part!

And now I’m currently wearing this … Such cheerful colours!

Watermelon! Om nom nom nom!

All these bright colours make me feel happy. 

As we are approaching winter with the temperatures dropping, my ears are starting to feel frosty whenever a breeze approaches. I was regretting for not getting the cute strawberry earmuffs while I was in Cameron Highlands. But it so happened that Claire and I were walking around bancarelle and I spotted tube scarves or various colours being sold for 3 euro each. They looked pretty much nondescript, but I was intrigued and got one for myself, just to cover my ears at least.

Indeed, after wearing it for couple of hours, it did kept my ears and my neck quite warm. And with a simple pull, it can transform into different styles! Let me show you in this quick video below.

I never thought that I would like it so much.

But one not so nice thing about it is when your wedding ring gets all loose. So loose that it starts to slide off your finger as you ride the scooter, while you wrestle to keep it on while focusing on the road, for example.

I used to have the same issue with the engagement ring, and I had it tightened at the jewellers with the use of a tiny piece of metal.

The thing is, my skin doesn’t take well to non-pure metals and the combination of water and perspiration aggravates the allergy even more. So I had to be very careful.

Anyway, one of the more skin-friendly technique that my ex-colleague taught me was to use a regular thread and wrap it all around the ring to make it more snug. It takes ages to do though, just this bit took me close to an hour as I had to do a dead knot at each turn so that the thread doesn’t move about too much.

And on some days, even with the thread around it, it’s still quite loose. But at least it doesn’t fly across the room as you shake your hands dry after washing them.

I suppose another solution is to just wear the two rings together. Like this.

Looks and feel very awkward though.

Anyway, this is my old pair of jeans.

Or pants, whatever you may call it. Look at it. Just look at it! It’s all MC Hammer like, being all baggy and all. You definitely cannot touch this!

So unflattering! And to think that this pair of pants is just about under a year old. I thought that it would have been a good idea to buy them at the time … Slip on jeans! What could be easier than that?! But after a few washes, it just grew larger and larger …

It’s a H&M pants by the way. You know, the brand that Singaporeans are going crazy about at this point of time. But I’m jaded now. I don’t find it anything special. And lest you think that I’m being biased, this isn’t the only item that I have from H&M.

Nevertheless, I’m still keeping them. After all, it’ll be useful to have as a maternity pant, in case of what may happen in the future 

And with that, I forced Cart to take me to Visa Diffusione Moda – a sort of outlet shop in Rome which is near the Piramide Metro. Cart was just there a week ago to get for himself a couple of pairs of pants and was pleasantly surprised to see a number of pants that fit him costing under 20 euro each.

I didn’t think that I needed anything there, being a good wife, I didn’t want him to spend too much  on my behalf. But this time round, I confidently told him, “I want two pair of jeans. One black and one blue.”

And there it was, a super sale segment for jeans. And it was just 5 euro each! Wow! And I rushed to give them a try. Unfortunately for me, I found out that all the sizes were much too big for me. Which was such a bummer.

I told Cart, “It’s as if I’m being punished for losing weight!”

Nevertheless, I looked around and the clerk helpfully pulled out a pair of jeans for me. I shuddered at the price, it had a 60% sale from 215 euro. But at 86 euro, it was still quite expensive … Nevertheless I tried it on just to humour myself. Which is probably not such a great idea. 

Man, I look really good in these.

This is a brand called C’N'C Costume National. Which is supposed to be a branded Italian label. Unfortunately, I’ve never heard of this brand before today. And it took a while for me to decide and justify into getting them.

* admires butt *

Ah all right. Decided.

I saw another pair of pants in the discount segment and went ahead to give them a try. This is from Max Mara. My gosh. I look so slim … (I’m so shameless. Ahem. I actually cheated and took this picture in the morning when I weight the least)

The design is a little non-traditional with the shape of the pockets, the removal of the belt notches and piping at the back.

But it looked really good on me! It’s not that easy to find pants that fit me well. And I was sorely tempted. This time round though, I’m not sure how it could justify the 62 euro price tag.

Especially with this :

A cut tag! Why?! What does this mean? I’ve always assumed that cut tags from brands means that it is a rejected item. And I looked all around it, looking for flaws and found none.

Perplexed, I asked the clerk and she answered that the store buys items in bulk and it came like that. This was to prevent people from taking advantage from making money by asking for refunds in the original shop.

Cart added, “If you want the label, you will have to pay more”

Nevertheless, I decided to get it in the end, and we were pleasantly surprised to find out the price was the original price and we had a 60% discount on this one. So we ended paying slightly less than 25 euro for this! Sweet!

I really love my new jeans. They are a bit long, and the hems need some adjustments but watch out world! Not too long,I’m gonna strut like Tony Manero in Saturday night fever in my new jeans

Anyway! Before I end this post, I’m going to put in another narcissistic picture. This Sandro Ferrone top was on sale in Visa and my eyes were just attracted to the bold, sexeh  colour. It was only 10 euro!

I like dressing up in smart-office clothes. Too bad I’m not working in an office

The interesting thing about this brand is that the name changes depending on the country that you are at. In Asia, it’s called Olay but while in Italy, it’s known as Olaz instead. I wonder why the change.

By the way, I wanted to show you a picture of Danielle Graham,  the ambassador for Olay (I suppose) who was on the pack when I bought my moisturizer. I think whoever took this picture needs to go back to photography school … she looks like a creepy psychopath! Which is such an injustice as she doesn’t look like that normally

But coming back to my pump dispenser, knowing that there was still a little bit of moisturizer left in the bottle, and me being a cheapo, my curiosity got the best of me and I decided to open it up to scrape up the last bits and also to see how it functions :

Wow, I’m definitely not throwing it away! This will be great for travelling, no?

These are makeshift stalls that could sell anything from clothes, cosmetics and accessories and sometimes even second hand stuff. They usually function in the morning till late afternoon and they are easy to spot because they seem to be quite out of place – cheerful, colourful stalls stark right next to the roadside.

Bancarelle are different compared to mercati (mer-kah-tee) as they are usually separated, located outside of the wet markets.

And you can also almost always find them outside of Metros, train stations and bus interchanges in Rome. One of the most well known bancarelle would be the weekend market at Porta Portese.

I like bancarelle because they tend to sell items for cheap, compared to items that you can find in regular shops. So it’s like a sale everyday! Although, you’d have to keep your eyes wide open and always compare prices, as this is not always true.

Personally, I don’t go for beauty items here because I feel a little dubious about the source and the expiry date. But that’s just me.

But most of the time, you could find some little treasures here like clothes and bags. I even saw a bancarella selling a smaller version of my cat bag. It was only 5 euro! You can imagine how much I  was so tempted to get it. But I’m sticking to my “At least once a year” rule. i.e. If I don’t use it at least once in a year, it’s better not to get more

I need to get this fixed though. I still love this bag and want to continue using it. But one of the side of the handle is torn. I wonder if there is a cobbler here who could do that for me?

Anyway, sometimes you’d find stuff that you probably won’t feel it. But sometimes you would. I recently got two top which I really really liked. This comfy cotton shirt :

And this rainbow striped one.

Yes. I’m totally molesting this cat.

Anyway, the only bad part is that unless you’ve got really thick skin and don’t mind trying out the clothes in public, you might not know if it fits you well or not. So I’ve yet to buy pants at this point of time.

Nevertheless, I got these top for 5 euro each! What a steal!