CherryFOTD: Quick neutral look

Saturday is the day I meet up with the boyfriend and we go out...nowadays to do furniture shopping, some times groceries to cook dinner, afternoon coffee dates and maybe some window shopping thrown in there for good measure.  This past weekend we ended up going to the bank to sort out some things, and then headed to IKEA to check out some bed frames that we potentially wanted to do.

And out of the blue, dearest boyfriend also decided that he wanted to wash our car.  Ok no worries, I can wash a car in my skinny jeans with a face full of makeup, right?  Yep.

Full face

What I'm wearing:
* Dusty rose Forever21 knited top

* Old Navy racer back tank in White

* Swarovski hoop earrings - birthday gift from bf

* Heart necklace - anniversary gift from bf

CherryCooks: Custard Mochi Cake and an oven mishap

An instagram picture...always enticing - you can see the top crusty part, then a centre of "egg custard" and then a layer of mochi cake mmm

I had some time off yesterday (phew) and I decided to tackle an interesting recipe that I had bookmarked a while back - custard mochi cake.  Mochi is a Japanese rice cake - most people know it in the form of sweet mochi with crushed peanut filling, black sesame filling, red bean, green tea flavoured and even strawberries.  I loved mochi since I was a young girl - my brother and I loved it the most in the form of mochi ice cream, which were packs of two balls of ice cream covered in a thin mochi skin.  I love the chewiness of mochi, it's just so much fun to eat!

I was going to tackle a Madeleine recipe (I wanted to eat them in Paris but sadly didn't have time to get any or find any), but decided to go with something simpler.  Also, I had bought the Mochiko flour from the Asian supermarket a few months back so I figured I better use it.

I've been baking ever since I was allowed to bake on my own, so that would be around 12 years old.  I've made countless of cakes for birthdays, Christmas dinners, Valentine's days...as well as cookies for all occasions.  I've cooked up a dinner for 12 people in the past, as well as dinner for 2 with my boyfriend.  So to say I have no experience in the kitchen is really not true.  I learned most of my recipes and techniques from my mom, my dad as well as my grandpa, who used to own several Chinese restaurants before he retired several years ago.  If I cook Chinese food, it's always always a recipe from my grandpa.

Anyways, I decided to get everything ready for the cake and just when everything was ready and I was about to grease my 9x13" pan to pop into my oven, which I was about to preheat since I was almost finished with the batter...the worst thing possible could happen.

The oven did not turn on.

CherryTalk: Hair removal Part II - Veet vs Nair

This is Part II of my CherryTalk on Hair Removal.  For Part I, check here.

Today I will be comparing two waxing products:

(Disclaimer: I was in no way asked to review these products, nor am I getting paid for these reviews.  I have purchased these products with my own money and the following reviews are purely based on my own experience)

Veet ready-to-use wax strips (green box for legs and larger areas, little blue box for upper lip vs Nair Brazillian Spa Clay Roll on Wax

CherryTalk: My hair care routine

(For my skin care routine, click here)

Ever since I was a little girl, I always liked to play with my hair.  My mom used to do my hair every day when I went to school in elementary school - braids, pigtails, pony tails...half pony tails and the works.  When I started going to high school, I was always sporting the high pony, and then later I let my hair down.  I've cut my hair super short (hated it...and it was because my then hair dresser was so slow that I had started bobbing my head since I was falling asleep, and he ended up cutting it lopsided!) and I've also grown out my hair super long (one layer to the small of my back).  I had highlights previously (and had a mishap in my last time getting highlights - I always get a sandy brown colour but the hair stylist gave me blonde.  Yep.  BLONDE.  On dark Asian hair, that looks so trampy...the worst is that I was working in a professional environment too!) but now I stopped and I've tried dying my hair a semi-permanent medium brown to no avail...some how my hair doesn't take colour quite well...or maybe I just need to try a different brand.

That aside, hair care routines (or routines in general) seem to be a topic of interest for a lot of people, so I figured I might as well discuss the products that I feel work best for me.  My hair is pretty thick (thicker than your average Asian hair), much to my mom's surprise considering I had....no hair when I was a kid!  My dad begs to differ - he just tell us that my hair was "fine" back then, therefore looking "non-existent".

Anyways, back to my hair profile:

1) I have thick, dark hair.  It's not coarse and generally does not require much styling for it to be straight (if any at all)
2) My current hair cut (and the one I've had since I was 15) is long layers with it being shorter in front and longer in the back going in a "V" shape.  I prefer long layers because it is easier to manage and for me, requires no styling at all for it to look good.
3) My scalp is not that greasy, and as such I wash my hair only every other day.  I can go 2 days without washing it in the winter because it's cold, but once it's summer, every other day is a must or else I feel gross with shiny looking hair, in a bad way.
4) I at times get dandruff in the very cold seasons due to dry weather, or if my scalp/pillow case are not clean or greasy.  I will discuss some of my quick fixes for this problem that I have been using and are effective (and inexpensive).

CherryTalk: Hair removal Part I

First off - I am in no way an expert on hair removal, nor do I claim to be.  What I have written below is purely based on my own experience as well as what I find convenient for myself.  Hair removal and pain tolerances are different for every person, so sometimes you just have to try for yourself what works best for you (and your skin and hair as well).

With summer (and spring) just around the corner, every girl is probably getting ready to put on those shorts and skirts, tanks and camisoles.  Painting your nails, fingers and toes, busting out the florals, neons, and all those colourful clothes are fun, but warmer weather tends to mean that any unsightly hair is going to be aired to the world to see.

I think for any girl, hair removal is one of the worst things to do.  It can be expensive (think: laser treatments), especially painful (think: waxing), or just too damn time consuming (think: tweezing).  I'll be honest - I hate waxing purely because I have a low pain tolerance.  But I have done it a couple of times in order to ensure that I don't get myself into any embarrassing situations.  To get a little insight on what I tend to do:

CherryHaul: Lush...from the UK!

I went to London and Paris towards the end of March/beginning of April to see my brother and spend some quality time with my parents (I hadn't seen my dad for over a year already, and my mom it had been already quite a few months).  I bought a lot of stuff...part of it which is shown below:

Some Lush products I will be talking about, Salted caramel in a pot, mini Paddington Bear, Foucher chocolates, Roger & Gallet perfume (Fleur de Figuier, the newest fragrance) and Nina L'Eau

In London, I decided to purchase a few Lush items which I have already tried (the Aqua Mirabilis I hadn't, but I had tried the Buffy body butter in the past) and liked.  North American prices are ridiculously priced for Lush...everything is at least $5-10 cheaper in the UK, and at the very least you will save on taxes even with the exchange rate!

CherryHaul: L'Oreal Sale

So the L'Oreal sale (bi-annual) started for the VIPs today, and it was awesome...despite the 1.5 hour wait.  I didn't manage to get there very early, so I missed out on a few value sets (I knew that based on other people's carts).  But here are the few things I managed to snag:

Items that I purchased:
* Vichy toner (pink is for dry skin, blue is for normal) - paraben free
* La Roche Posay Mela-D Serum - my mom might not approve of me buying this considering I'm not that old (heh), but I have freckles so I decided to buy it to try and lighten them up (this is an anti-dark spot concentrate) - I will review this after I've used it for about a month or so...hopefully I will have it in my routine!
* La Roche Posay Physiologique Micellar Solution (as mentioned in my skin care routine entry recently, it's a great pre-cleanser and I use it every day) - I got three bottles because that was the max I was allowed to buy (although I probably would've bought the entire box load because my mom uses this a lot too)\
* La Roche Posay Anthelios spray-on suncreen in SPF 45
* La Roche Posay Toleriane cleansing milk (I just used up mine - I am now using my Skin Food foaming cleanser, and will have to use up some other ones before I get to this)
* La Roche Posay Toleriane face cream
* Maybelline Colour Tattoo in 100 Barely Beige (I previously purchased it in Tough as Taupe, which is a greige colour)
* Maybelline Full and Soft Mascara (NOTE: I know for a fact this is discontinued - the L'Oreal sale generally has a lot of discontinued items so I am not even going to bother reviewing this!)
* Essie All in One base
* Vichy Aqualia Thermal UV (SPF 15)

The bottle from Pureology is a styling product that was given for free as a gift because I spent more than $200.

CherryCooks: Tried and tested chocolate chip cookies

Something different to break up the genre of the posts in this blog :)

One thing everyone knows about me: I love to cook, I love to bake...and I love being in the kitchen.  As part of my GCSEs, I took food technology and aced it.  Best feeling of life, also one of my biggest selling points to my future mother-in-law LOL!

Cookies have always been something I loved to bake, and making variations is no exception. A bunch of my girls gathered for a baking evening (it was supposed to be a girl's night out but the weather was disgusting on the actual date we canceled that). Check this: we made banana and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, made from a slight modification of the chocolate chip cookies recipe we had. Did they taste good? We sure thought they did.

CherryTalk: My skin care routine

There are a lot of people out there who are always curious about...skin care routines.  There are a few things I think people have to keep in mind when they watch videos about other people's skin routine (or read about it for that matter):

1) Not everyone's skin is the same.  Even if someone appears to have the same skin type as you, there is probably more likely than not to be something different.  People with oily skin can't always tolerate the same product as the other person with oily skin

2) People discussing their skincare routine are in no way endorsing that this is the way to do it, nor are they saying that these are the only alternatives.  For me personally, I switch up things quite often, depending on what I've got on hand and purchased.  Price point is a pretty important factor for me, but recently I've been sticking to one brand...more on that later.

3) A lot of it is based on trial and error.  As mentioned in point 1, you can try out the products that I use, and if it doesn't work, then try something else.  I've done it before and used products that I've seen to work on other people, heck, even my own mom.  But sometimes it just doesn't work for me.

CherryMani: Pink sparkles mani (text tutorial)

Hello again!

I haven't been doing my nails recently and just a few days ago I finally bought a mini set from Nails Inc (at Sephora) to try out.  But no, I'm not actually reviewing it here...I have to figure out how to take better pictures of the colour, and I haven't tried the other two colours yet to give a proper review.  So I will be showing you my manicure I sported before I did my recent nails.

And the sad thing?  These nails were done on Chinese New Year.  And my friends, that was in...beginning of February!  Holy moly...but I'll be honest, these nails lasted me quite a while before I finally took them off and gave my nails a breather.

Voila!  I present you with my pink sparkly nails :)

CherryReview: Pinkie Red Lips

Hello hello!
Yes it's been a little while since my last review - to make it short and sweet, a lot has been going on and it hasn't put me in the mood to really write anything, and at the same time there's just a lot of running around going on too.

But I've finally decided to get this review written (yay) since the photos date back a while ago...excuse the lighting though, I still haven't figured out the best way to take a photo in my room.  Maybe when I move out to the condo it will be better?  Ah...

Anyways down to the review:

Left to right: Tarte LipSurgence in Enchanted, Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter in Candy Apple and Maybelline ColorWhisper in Pin Up Coral

So for a little while I've been trying to find a good red lip, as well as a nice pink lipstick that didn't scream "nude".  The Tarte one I had for a while but I needed something new because I wasn't 100% sure if it had any germs from my short lip episode (refer to the lip balm review for a little bit more insight on what happened).  Anyways, it turned out it was still okay so yay!