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Being made up by a celebrity mekap artist – So exciting!

Some weeks back, Nadnut and I were chatting on msn on the events that we were invited to. Though we both loved tech, we thought of how nice it was if we were invited to beauty and fashion events as well.

I believe that all women, regardless of shape and sizes, love to look and feel good. It is always exciting to try out something new, be it clothes, or shoes.

Rinaz tries Taaz

One of them being Taaz.Com where you can play with virtual make up.

Hence, when Nadnut invited me to tag along with her to the Revlon makeup launch, I was so excited that I could not say no!

I arrived at the Halia Restaurant in the Singapore Botanic Gardens where I saw a number of bloggers that I recognized as well as many other media representatives.

Bloggers and Media at Revlon ColorStay Mineral Collection Launch

There was an opening speech by the Managing Director, Mr Art Miller and soonafter, we were introduced to Bree Sharpe, a Senior Trainer for Revlon who talked about the new ColorStay Mineral Collection and did a demonstration on one of the models.

Bree Sharpe demonstrating the Revlon ColorStay Mineral Foundation

The foundation had many nice features – it was long lasting, up to 16 hours, it had SPF of 10, as well as containing minerals such as rose quartz, mother of pearl and topaz. But what I loved about the foundation the most was that it was non irritating and even people with acne prone skin could wear it.

Rinaz and Bree

I listened to Bree retell her experience of travelling to different countries and how easy it was for other types of makeup to melt off in our tropical climate. The foundation, she said, lasted long enough for her jetsetting lifestyle and was gentle enough not to give her breakouts and it even healed her skin.

The Revlon ColorStay Mineral Foundation

Coincidentally, I was at Watsons the day before and I noticed that it was already for sale, and Watsons is having a 20% sale off their cosmetics. So the foundation will cost about $26 instead of $29.90 😀

Next, it was time for celebrity make up artist, Andy Lee, to do a demonstration on using the 2008 Limited Edition Collection.

Watching him was like seeing a talented artist at work as he skillfully dabbed about the cosmetics on the models face and chatted amiably with the guests and shared with us the different make up techniques.

The Revlon 2008 Limited Edition Collection

Doesn’t these look very pretty? I’m enamoured by how beautiful the design of the eye-shadow collection are. It’s like an artwork by itself! I thought the packaging rivals higher-end brand names but at a more affordable price.

Bloggers surround the makeup artist at the Revlon Launch

I observed the other bloggers getting make up tips and impromptu eye make up from Andy and I desperately wanted to be made over too. But suddenly, I felt rather shy as all of the other bloggers were young, attractive and slim.

But Aaron was so gracious that he broke the ice and introduced Andy to me!

Andy Lee and Rinaz

I was drawn to him instantly as he was friendly and sweet man, who was generous in imparting his knowledge.

Here is a video (with thanks to Aaron as videographer) of Andy doing makeup for me!


Rinaz being made up by a mekap artist from rinaz on Vimeo

It was the most exciting experience that I had in a while. Me! Being made up by a celebrity make up artist! I was so enthralled. The day could not be any better.

Bloggers at Revlon
Me, Feliza, Sabrina, Fidelis, Jessica, Art Miller, Esther, Nadia, Peggy and Averal

We had a goodie bag at the end of the day :

Revlon Goodie Bag

Inside the bag, it contained :

  • A ColorStay Mineral Foundation
  • A ColorStay Mineral Blush
  • A Renewist Lipcolor
  • A 2008 Limited Edition – Floral Affair Blush
  • A 2008 Limited Edition – Make a Sheen eyeshadow

How very generous! With that, I’ll be reviewing these makeup in a later post ahead 🙂

Related Links :

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I feel good

To cope being in a long distance relationship, food naturally became the source of comfort for me to fill up my emotional void. And then the signs started – not being able to fit in clothes as well as before, feeling even more lethargic than I had before.


Can’t fit into my beautiful white dress anymore 🙁

A recent blood test I had completely shocked me when the results came out saying that I was overweight. Overweight! I’ve never been overweight before! This was shocking to me as I’ve always grown up being skinny.


Rinaz at 12 years old. The true stickrinaz

And when Cart left to go back to Rome early January this year, I started to get very stressed out and my zits started to awaken from their dormancy. Pretty much like the last stress-attack I had two years ago.

I probably was undergoing one of the most unattractive lows in my life. Overweight and zittified. I could not just let this continue. I knew that I had to do something. But what?

One thing I knew was that I did not want to undergo drastic measures like diet pills. And yet, I cannot give up the food that I like as I still love food so much

I guess the doors opened when a friend asked me to join her for a cardiomix session at the sports Complex – at that point, I was keen to get my fitness level back.

And though it was really tough at the beginning, I still enjoyed my sessions, especially with the company that I had and eventually, I just fell into wanting to feel the adrenaline rush that I get after each session. I loved the feeling!

As for the zits, I decided to see a private doctor whom prescribed me Diane-35. At first I was a little doubtful as it was an oral contraceptive which will affect my hormones but the doctor reassured that it was safe and worldwide used pill.

After several months of consumption, I have to say how liberating it is to be able to post a picture without having to photoshop the zits away!

And it was only recently when I noticed this :

It might not be a 6 pack like what Uncle Sha has, but I can see something forming. And this really makes me motivated. The funny thing is that my weight is still the same. But I do feel better about myself than ever before.

Did you ever feel unpretty before? What do you do to feel good?

if you liked this post, you might enjoy :

Sidenote : If you were from Claudia’s looking for the HTC video, its not up yet 🙂

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My experience at a marriage preparatory course

According to Statistics Singapore, the number of divorce rates has been on an increase. There was a stage when 1 out of 3 marriages will end up in a divorce.

This trend was a concern for the Muslim organization bodies in Singapore such that for the past 15 years or so, they have been implementing a compulsory marriage preparatory course for all Muslim marriages in Singapore to prepare and educate future marriages for the prevention of divorces.

Recently, I’ve attended and completed the marriage preparatory course at the Assyakirin Mosque. Prior to this, I did not realise that it was mandatory. I assumed that that the course was for knowledge for keeping a happy marriage. Thus, I did not have much expectations.

When I attended my first lesson, early Sunday morning, I was greeted by the staff-helpers at the mosque and was handed a schedule, a bridal magazine as well as the course textbook. I flipped through the textbook and though it was not thick, it looked comprehensive with the different modules laid out.

In my book, there were 8 modules altogether which was presented and discussed in depth by our various coaches from Kasih Sejati. The modules were as follows :

  1. Personality analysis
  2. Knowing the in-laws, money matters and wedding plans
  3. Understanding solemnization and responsibilities of a wife and husband
  4. The meaning of love, sex and intimacy
  5. Challenges during marriage
  6. Preparing for a family
  7. Communication and the language of love
  8. Conflict and resolution

I thought that the lessons were interesting and I realised at how unprepared I was before. I learnt a fair bit of information which I think will be useful in preparing myself for my future.

The entire course ended with each of us writing a love letter for our partners with words of affection, hopes and encouragement for our future which I thought that was very sweet.

I found out later that it was a requirement for all Muslim Marriages to be certified with a marriage preparatory course certification regardless of what nationality they are. Hence when Cart arrives here in Singapore in December, we’ll be taking it together before our solemnization.

I think it will be a learning experience for the both of us.

Related links :

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Rinaz and Cart in the Sunday Times :)

About two weeks ago, I was quite surprised to check my statcounter to find out that someone from the local newspaper surfing through my site. Soon-after, I received an email from a Ms Sandra Davie for a face to face interview.

I wasn’t sure if I should meet her because sometimes some journalists tend to skew the article to fit their own point of view. But in the end, I thought to myself, why not? And last Wednesday, I made an appointment with her at Geek Terminal and met her for the first time.

Rinaz and Sandra Davie

And I was so glad to find out that she was very nice. It was a casual and relaxed interview that before we knew it, two hours had passed by.

And this is what materialised out of the interview :

Rinaz and Cart in the Sunday Times

Cool!

Its interesting to note that the article is very romanticised to the point of mushyness. And I’m not 31! She made me older than I actually am. Eeek!

Regardless, I’m totally going to laminate this. I wonder how my family and friends would think 🙂

Related links :

Updated : It was really funny to see Mum’s reaction at her first view of the article. The next day at work, a number of colleagues and even the heads were asking about the article. One student even came up to me and told me that the article was being passed around during assembly period. Oh my! 😛

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How I spent April Fools day

I went for a check up at the clinic on Monday. I was healthy, fit and fine.

The next day, I find myself with a fever and sore throat. Turns out, I picked up a bug at the clinic and I had to go to the doctors again.

rinaz and her drugs

This must be life’s little ironies. April fool indeed 😛

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Yebber first birthday bash at the Mint Museum

There were so much fun, smiles and laughter that made it so memorable 🙂

After fighting the traffic during the mad after work rush, I arrived at the Mint museum where the Yebber first birthday bash was held – I haven’t been a yebber member for too long, but I’ve always enjoyed reading reviews about different services. Thus I was pleasantly surprised to be cordially invited by Claudia to grace the event.

One of the first people that I saw was the pretty trio – Zihui, Bobo and Trumpat at the reception. Though I met them for the first time,  they were extremely amiable. They handed me a set of clicky toy, a set of bingo card as well as a namecard for me to stick on.

I proceeded to enter the Mint Museum and there I met a few friends who were already there. Chillicraps, Sheylara, Sylvia and even Daphne, whom I thought was not coming according to her twitter.

Proud of my black and white dress, I proceeded to show it off by swishing it around 😀

As we had some time before the event officially started, together with CC, and Sylv, we proceeded to explore the museum :

On the first floor where the mint shop was located, it was interesting enough for us to get behind the counter to take a closer look at the different toys for sale. One of them was a metal chicken that laid eggs as well as a futurama looking metal robots. I bet that on normal days, we probably wont be allowed to enter the area!

The second floor was where the collectibles were located. It was interesting to see similar looking toys coming from all parts of the world. One of the things that came to mind was how similar the museum was with the Museum of Shanghai Toys that I visited last year. But the difference was that the Mint Museum focused on toys world wide.

A Beatles action figure.

What is a “Flip your wig” game?

I think I used to play with one of these pillow dolls when I was a kid.

Retro looking Donald Duck.

Charlie Chaplin action figures.

The original Matchbox figures.

Remote control toy peacock.

The third level was where the Childhood favourites collection was held. There I saw a couple of freaky but interesting looking toys.

I love golliwogs! They are so cute and are always smiling 🙂

We could not see more though as the announcement for the event to start was starting so we missed out on seeing the ‘Characters’ and ‘Outerspace’ segments.

After writing down in the guestbook, I was in time to watch the opening ceremony by Leonard and Polarbear

They explained about Yebber – how it started, who are the people behind it and what was it all about.

But before too long, it was already time to eat!

Kudos to the Mint Cafe! All the food that I had were  extremely tasty! I had yummy calamari, scallops, breaded shrimp and my crabmeat linguini. I especially loved the tomato bruschetta that I had. It was crunchy and had the right ingredients put into it.

P.s Its spelled and pronounced as  Bruschetta (brus-ket-ta). NOT brushetta (bru-shet-ta)

Later on, the organizers started the bingo game which was surprisingly a lot of fun!

The host called out some number at random and then we’d push out the number. As each person has a different card, the results will be different for everyone. The person wins when a full row or column was pushed out.

Not long after that, it was time for the cake cutting ceremony.

And then it was the time that a lot of people were waiting for – the lucky draw! There were a number of items from Creative that were put up as prizes, but I was eyeing on the Creative Zen.

I didn’t manage to win it. Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun and I got to meet a number of interesting people. One of them was Lai Chow, whose long hair was what made her distinguishable and stood out from the rest of the people. You probably cant see it from this picture, but her hair went all the way to her hips!

I also met Bernice which was an interesting encounter. She was sitting comfortably on the sofa, surrounded by her entourage and one of the first things that she said to me was, “Nice Glasses”

Thank you Yebber Organizers and Mint Museum for such a lovely time. I really did enjoy myself. And happy birthday!

Here is a quick video clip of a couple of yebbers :

Bonus! A couple of bloopers vid 😀

Links :

Links to other blog posts :

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Whats the big deal about interracial relationships?

I first saw this clip from Hillary and later on, I found out from Mintea that the clip was directed by Yasmin Ahmad – an acclaimed film director. She also told me that Yasmin Ahmad directed the Petronas ads that never fails to make me feel so sappy in the end.

Seeing how easygoing their innocent love for each other made me ponder if we as adults putting in too much emphasis on race?

Here in Singapore we would have our annual Racial Harmony Day each July 21st which is supposed to make us more appreciative of each other’s races.

Racial Harmony Day
Racial Harmony Day 2007

But somehow along the line, this seems to have backfired as it has made each other more aware of their differences and ironically now, people would rather stick to their own. Its odd as time ago, before the implementation of racial harmony day, we were already mixing around naturally, happily.

For me, I believe that people should mix around with the people that they enjoy being with, rather than focusing on their skin difference.

Like the little girl in the video clip, I had a best friend back in primary school. His name was Micheal and he was a Chinese. Being in the same class as well as neighbours, we’d always roam around the neighbourhood together.

Moon over Lakeside, Singapore

And I remember the first time when I celebrated Lantern Festival with him, holding candle lit lanterns in the playground and then eventually a group of Malay girls came up and chided, “You’re not a Chinese. You shouldn’t be playing with Lanterns!”

I was lucky in the sense that mum was open minded about letting me celebrate the mid-autumn festival and I’m glad that I didn’t listened to those group of girls and continued  to befriend Michael. I didn’t care that we were of different races, he was a nice friend and most importantly we had fun together.

So how on earth did race become such a big deal?

I can still remember a section in my geography book that I read at 14 about population on how there are countries that has a homogeneous population like Italy and Japan. But we know that it is not true in today’s context as we see so many once homogeneous countries now teeming with migrants from all over the world.

This is inevitable. And as the world advances, naturally it is so much easier to socialise with different people. Even interracial-relationships isn’t something new. On a micro level, I read through blogs and printouts, and hear from friends at how they are involved with someone of a different race.

rinaz and cart

Truth be told, before I met Cartcart, I’ve always assumed that I’d end up having a serious relationship with a Malay guy and settle down here in Singapore – same race marriages makes it all the easier and more convenient.

Interracial-relationships does has its own problems. But regardless of race, doesn’t all relationships have its own problems? A better judgement on how your partner is suitable for you is when you ask yourself :

Does he make you feel safe? And does he makes you smile and does his presence alone lifts your spirits?

To me, the most important part is the person’s character rather than his race.

 

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Interesthink @ The POD National Library

Having already attended various talks such as the Nexus 2007 as well as the E27 Unconference, and finding it interesting, I was most keen in participating in the Interesthink event.

It was promoted as a local version of TED which I am enamoured with as TED conferences revolves about ‘Ideas worth spreading’. One such presentation that left me floored was the one done by Marjora Carter, where she talks about how to create a sustainable environment.

I arrived at the National Library early Saturday morning and went up to the elevator into the POD where the most spectacular view of the city can be seen. From the glass panels, you could see various landmarks like the Shaw Towers, Suntec City and the Esplanade.

I met a couple of blogger friends who were already there – Farinelli, NTT and joined by DK, Claudia, Preetam as well as several other attendees.

In due time, the event was declared opened by  the organizers and the speakers stepped up to the podium.

The first person to do his presentation was Dr. Larry Francis who presented about ‘Malay culture, musical practices and Islam of the Malay world’. He asked the audience why it was that music seemed to be discouraged in Islam currently when there were so many musical instruments in the Islamic Golden age.

[audio:1.mp3]

Next was Mr Grant Pereira – an enigmatic man who was extremely passionate in environmentalism. He talked about his work in Greenpeace and how there were many things that were happening in Singapore that was hurtful for the environment. One of them being the issue of land space for housing and yet there were many golf courses being built.

[audio:2.mp3]

The next speaker was Mr Alex Au who spoke about the pros and cons of prostitution. His was a rather strange presentation, with him walking here and there. Personally for me, the topic was not something new. And I found out that there are a number of the audience were still not comfortable about the issue of prostitution.

[audio:4.mp3]

Next up was Ms Lim Choo Hin who is a cancer survivor. She talked about the issues that she faced while having cancer and candidly showed some pictures with patients who lost one or both sides of their breasts to cancer and finally she closed by saying, “If you feel defeated, life is over”

[audio:5.mp3]

And one of the final speakers was Mr Kan Lume, an acclaimed filmmaker. At the first glance, it was interesting for me to notice his right hand. It had the words ‘Film Maker’ in black ink and I realised later that it was actually a tattoo. It was to remind and motivate himself in the path that he has chosen. He narrated a story about his childhood and how it inspired him to become what he is today.

[audio:6.mp3]

All in all, I thought that the event was a good way to spend a Saturday, getting to listen to a number of fascinating speakers, surrounded by friends in a beautiful location. Here is a quick video snippets of the event :

Amazingly, at the end of the event, I felt mentally drained out trying to absorb all of the information that I heard today. There were many other people who felt the same way too! It was kind of like the same feeling doing maths sum for an hour straight 😛

In the end, the Interesthink event isn’t exactly like TED, but it was still a pretty good start. I enjoy talks such as these and the interesting side to it is that, for some reason, it reminded me so much of a Secondlife event – meeting other avatars, listening to the speaker, in a nice environment.


Sidenote : Come and join me this saturday for the Social Media Breakfast as well as the Web 2.0 – Emerging Industry Series. Both of them are held at the same time though. Can I clone myself into two?

Links :

And huge credits to the wonderful NTT for recording the audio of the event 🙂