Happy Holidays!

Here’s wishing you all happy holidays! I thoroughly enjoyed Christmas this year – the massive present and party planning leading up to the festivities, precious time spent with family and friends, the look of glee (especially amongst the ‘lil ones) when everybody opened their presents, and all that delicious food and over eating. I’ve been nursing a flu and a bad throat since Christmas eve, but ain’t no germs gonna get me down during Christmas! 
The combination of the Christmas spirit and the year coming to a close always leaves me in a reflective mood and I am reminded of what’s important; to have a grateful heart and be thankful for all the wonderful people who surround me. 
I hope all of you had a wonderful and meaningful Christmas. It’s the season of faith, hope and love, so spread love to those who may need it! I’ll be spending the next couple of days mulling over my New Year’s resolutions and setting goals in pursuit of my dreams. More on that to share soon.
On a side note, I think some of you are aware of the current controversy happening right now in the blogosphere. As someone who’s had the experience of working with several artiste management companies over the last decade, I can vouch with all honesty that Gushcloud has been fair, honest, and transparent in our relationship. They conduct their business professionally and sincerely. My experience with them has been nothing but great. Gushcloud believes in open communication and transparency. All these positive traits and more,  is what makes me a proud member of the Gushcloud community.
My heart goes out to the entire team who had to spend this Christmas season managing this ill timed inconvenience. Christmas is the time for love, joy and giving…  kudos to the team for handling all the negativity that’s been hurled at them. 
The Gushcloud team is one of the most hardworking groups of people that I’ve come to work with. The team has always been focused on bettering themselves and fostering an online community based on positivity.  It might be a part of human nature to think the worst of others, in fact, it most probably is easier to think the worst of others, instead of seeing the good that people do. I really do hope that public opinion will not be so swayed so easily by a single, biased source. I find it heartbreaking that such unprovoked hostility is supported by such blind hatred. The blind hatred of people who choose to believe manipulated data, unfounded evidence and unkind words. 
My personal testimony might not mean very much to you, but I believe that the truth will unfold with time. I’d just like to leave you with this quote that I’ve heard some years back;
 “It is easier to destroy than to create, it is easier to sow hate than to foster love. It is easier to judge than it is to seek the truth.” 

One of my favourite pictures taken with the Gushcloud family in Boracay last year. 
  
-xoxo-

SK-II’s #ChangeDestiny launch party & prepping for Christmas (yes, already!)

I was recently invited along with my Gushcloud lovelies, Sophia and Tricia to SK-II’s Change Destiny launch party at Vivo City to witness the unveiling of their new exclusive limited edition Facial Treatment Essence bottles for the upcoming festive season.

The beautiful floral designs on the bottles are designed by up-and-coming digital artist, Po-Chih Huang. He drew inspiration from four flowers – tulips, freesia, hydrangea and cypress to create the stunning design on the bottles. The different floral motif represent different facets of beauty – passion, elegance, compassion and wisdom. I like the purple hydrangea floral motif best. It represents compassion, appreciation and gratitude – qualities that I keep very close to my heart. Plus, I’m sure you all know that purple is my favourite colour.
True to SK-II’s belief in empowerment and transformation, this collaboration between the brand and the designer is the first of SK-II’s efforts to support emerging young artists. Kudos to SK-II for supporting young talent! These exclusive Facial Treatment Essence bottles will be available at all SK-II counters in Singapore starting October. For fans of the Treatment Essence, you won’t want to miss this. The bottles will sit so pretty on your dresser! They’ll surely also make such pretty gifts for Christmas. 
Tricia, Sophia and I at the entrance of the  Change Destiny Garden. With a wonderful marriage of beauty, art and fashion, we were given a visual treat at the launch party with a fashion runway show showcasing creations inspired by the designs on the new Facial Treatment essence bottles by LASALLE College of the arts graduates. With another partnership between SK-II and renowned UK illustrator, Melissa Bailey, Melissa drew inspiration from Po-Chih Huang’s digital designs and transformed them into hand-crafted fashion illustrations. The graduates from LASALLE in turn brought Melissa’s fashion illustrations to live by transforming the outfits from paper to real and showcased them during the runway show. This was the stunning results from the beautiful partnerships.

After the runway show, the new exclusive Facial Treatment Essence bottles were unveiled. The CEO of SK-II and Tangs were joined onstage by award-winning Korean actress, Lee Yeon Hee for the unveiling ceremony. Sophia, Tricia and I scored a private meet-and-greet with her before the show started. Lucky us! She’s so beautiful in real life and her skin looks absolutely crystal clear, super dewy and amazing. The works of SK-II products I bet! 
The unveiling of the limited edition exclusive Facial Treatment Essence.

Us with Lee Yeon Hee.

Her skin is so radiant and glowing! 
A few days after the launch party, we were invited by SK-II once again for a private event called the #ChangeDestiny Garden Party for a Gift and Craft workshop. The good people at SK-II were so kind to arrange for their trainer, Louis, to have a skincare Q&A session with us for us to ask him about anything beauty. 
We could pick and gift SK-II products to our loved ones at this workshop, so we took this opportunity to ask Louie which products were suitable. I gifted for my mum, sister and Jon. (My dad doesn’t use any skincare products. I’m not being biased!) 
We also asked him questions on how to care for our delicate eye area, how to keep our skin taut and firm and many more!
Here, he’s demonstrating the correct way to apply eye cream. First, warm up the eye cream between your fingers so that they get absorbed into the skin better.

Then, using your third and forth finger, swipe from the middle of the bottom of your eye upwards towards your upper lids 6 times. Make sure you cover the entire area around your eyes. End at your temples and give it a gentle push for 5 counts, with the strongest push on the 3rd count.

Then swipe 6 times on your upper lid from inner to outer of your eye, and swipe 6 times on your bottom lid from inner to outer once again. End at the start of your nose bridge after swiping 6 times on the upper lid and give it a gentle push for 5 counts (strongest on the 3rd count). End at the nose area parallel to your lower lids after swiping 6 times on your lower lids and push for 5 counts. Try it, it feels really good and relaxing.

 To keep your cheeks firm and taut, apply moisturizer and then swipe 6 times on each cheek with your thumb and third finger upwards from bottom of cheek to ear. Then, hold your thumb and second finger together and form an ‘O’ shape and swipe from chin to ear, 6 times. 6 is like the magic number isn’t it! Then push downwards (as shown in the picture above) from the back of your ears to the base of your neck near the collarbone to drain all excess fluids and toxins from your lymph nodes.

I’ve been doing this lymphathic massage method on my face and eyes every night since the workshop and (I hope I’m not imagining things) but my face seems to be smaller and less bloated from water retention!

Here’s another tip: your body repairs all your major organs including your skin between the magical hour of 10pm – 4am. So, the ideal time to complete your night time skincare routine is by 10pm so that when your body starts working on your skin, all the goodness is already there waiting to be absorbed. This is the 2nd time that I’ve heard it already. 10pm is a little early for me, so I’ve not tried it. Do try and let me know how it works out!

Also, we learned from Louis that our skin’s future is ours to control. SK-II actually provides in-depth consultations that recommend you the right products so that you can look forward to better quality skin for as long as the next 20 years!

So, back to the gifts. The lovely people at SK-II prepared all these gift boxes and tools for us to get crafty and decorate our gifts. We got busy and it was really fun.

I picked the Stem Power range Eye Cream, Essence and Rich Cream for my mum as it’s suitable for mature skin.

I hear that the Cellumination Aura Essence is really good, so I packed that along with the Facial Treatment Essence for my sis.
As for Jon, I got him the Facial Treatment Clear Lotion (to be used in place of toners), Facial Treatment Essence and Cellumination Deep Surge EX. 

It almost felt like I was back in art school again. 🙂 

And my presents are ready! I’m so excited for Christmas to come already so that I can give it to them. I’m sure my mum, sis and Jon would love their presents. You can’t top gifting the gift of good skin, really. It’ll last them through way after Christmas has ended. Thank you SK-II for having us at this creative Gift & Craft workshop. I had a wonderful time learning more about SK-II products and I can’t wait to use them! 
Also, if you would like to get a beautiful festive gift set for your loved ones, the prices are as follows!
SK-II Pitera Essence Set – S$99.00
Sk-II Miracle in a Bottle – S$233.00
SK-II Best Essential Set – S$398.00
SK-II Revival Deluxe Set – S$452.00
SK-II Aura Glow Set – S$532.00
SK-II Men Essentials Set – S$322.00
SK-II Colours Collection – S$69**
*Exclusive price available with any purchase
-xoxo-

Christmas Magic at John’s

John’s yearly Christmas parties never fail to inject a huge dose of the Christmas spirit in everyone. Their place will be dressed to the nines with Christmas decorations, there’ll be food aplenty (with lots of yummy deserts…mmm), christmas carols playing, lots of laughter from people, and a caroling session by the piano to top it off.
This year’s party is purple/pink themed. My favourite colours! 😀
And that’s Nicholas, Mark, Hong, Joyce and Alvin. 🙂 My sweet posse!
What a coincidence – Jonathan Leong from Singapore Idol.
Here’s John dashing in purple, and he’s got this gorgeous brooch on!
Twin boys – Alvin and Hong.
Purply Nic and Pinky Mark.
We are Alvin’s princesses.
And sometimes Mark’s- the princesses of Emerald Hill that’s what he says. Hahaha.
Angels
Devils
And we ended the night with the usual carolling session.
Sweet. 🙂

‘Tis The Season To Be Jolly

And it’s that time of the year again. Where first, Orchard Road slowly and magically transformed itself into “Christmas Land,” where the malls subtly but surely started chiming Christmas carols and you couldn’t help but hum along (even to the cheesy ones), where party invites started rolling in, and where you suddenly realise: “Shucks! it’s almost Christmas! Time to get my a@$ down to town and start my Christmas shopping!”
And then you sit down and start writing your Christmas present list (for yourself, and loved ones), and join the frenzied crowd in town for some mad shopping. This year, I almost made headlines which would probably have looked like this: “Girl (me) almost clobbers fellow shopper who bumped incessantly into her shopping bags to death with Jimmy Choos.” Kidding. So that didn’t really almost happen, and I’m home now safe and sound, with all my lovely presents wrapped writing this blog entry.
Just 2 more days! (For those who haven’t completed your Christmas shopping, Good Luck jostling!! Ha! :p)
Here are my pressies all wrapped and ready to go. 🙂
I started my celebrations early with a cosy dinner with my fellow JAL girlfriends on Monday. Here goes:
Me and Angelia
Stephaine and Cecilia

We had to have Japanese food! Lots of yummy yakitori and everything else. I’m getting hungry all over again!
I got the girls cute underwear and hand masks!

And Angelia got us these cute little penguin cookies.

We all had to get a present for one girl. Here’s Stephaine opening my present.

Ta da! Cute sleepwear, more underwear (which she announced that she was having on the exact same pair I gave her!! What are the odds?!), and a Calvin Klein wristlet.

Angelia and her loot

And me laughing at my present..guess what I got?


Cute sexy sleepwear and marshmallows! The girls couldn’t stop giving me kinky ideas…that was why I was laughing so hard at my pressie. :p Thanks Ceci!

This Yuzu Umeshu that we had is definitely worth a mention. I’m not one who drinks much alcohol, but this was yummy!

…Oh my gosh! Is it 4am already? Time for me to go to bed! Goodnight!!

Here’s wishing everyone:

!!

-xxx-

Christmas!

‘Tis the season to be jolly, fa~la~la~la~la, la~la~la~la! Yipee! It’s that time of the year again! My favourite season of the year…Christmas!! I’ve been playing my CD of christmas carols to death. Haha. Have you all done your Christmas shopping yet? I’m almost done! Tiring affair…all that jostling with the crowd, and brain-storming for gift ideas. I hope everyone will like what I got them. *fingers crossed*

Before I go on, here’s wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas. May you all have a wonderful holiday season filled with love, warmth and happiness…and not forgetting loads of yummy food, and wonderful presents! 🙂

Christmas celebrations started early for me this year. I’ve had 2 rounds of celebrations with different groups of lovely friends already. Here are some snaps to share!

Had a pot-luck party with my girlfriends from Japan Airlines and here’s what we brought:

Candy with her baked ham and honeydew.

I ordered pizza. Lazy me…opps…I can’t cook!

Our lovely host, Cecilia with her x-large Heineken. The girls can really drink mind you!

Angelia brought us really pretty and yummy desserts. Cupcakes and a log cake (not in shot). Mmm!! Sweets!

Sandy and Sok Ling (not in shot…she’s shy…) brought us a whole host of finger food and sushi. 

Deborah (left) and Stephaine brought us roast beef and tofu salad to complete our spread.

Needless to say, we couldn’t finish all that food. 

The cupcakes were so cute, we had to take pictures with them. haha.

And more cam-whoring with cupcakes…

I’ll be going to Japan with these girls in Jan! We can’t wait!!!!

Candy, Me and Ceci.

Here’s me trying to cut the apple strudel that I brought into slices….an impossible feat I tell you. All the layers kept crumbling and flaking…

…and finally, Presents!! 😀

Once again, I always love the time spent with the girls…:)

Day after was a Christmas dinner organised by our party diva, Noah. Held at Margarita’s! I’m not a huge fan of Mexican food, but I’m now a convert. The food is fabulous!

The party of 8:

Rebecca, Desmond, Kay and Noah


I bet the waiter wanted to kill us for having to take SO many pictures for us. Opps! 😀

Cheers to a good food and great friends!

Silly shots…

If you’re wondering what we are trying to do, Noah our supermodel has 2 specific pose tasks for all of us…the back-break, and stomach-ache. And there you go….

The perfect back-ache group shot!

Before I end this post, just want to share that a bunch of us Kosmic Artistes (May, Claire, Jaymee and me) lent our hands to M.A.C a few weekends ago to help sell their range of Viva Glam lipsticks, glosses and lip palettes. 100% of the proceeds from the sale of lip colours go to the M.A.C Aids Fund. This fund supports men, women and children affected by AIDS/HIV globally. The Viva Glam lipsticks and glosses are on sale 365 days. There’s a huge range of lovely colours available, so please lend your support by getting one from any M.A.C counters! 🙂


I’ve got Viva Glam no.V on my lips. Hurry go get yours!

P.S They make great Christmas gifts!