Monochromatic Me!

All White Everything

Line#1: Rebecca Minkoff crossbody / White punked jeans / Toms

Line#2: Shourouk / H&M / JuJu jelly shoes

Line#3: All Zara

All Black Everything 

Line#1: H&M / Ripped High waisted shorts / I've seen this in Rubi

Line#2: Marc Jacobs Isobel clutch / Silk shorts / Rubi has this too!

Line#3: Chanel classic flap bag / Rag&Bone leather and lace shorts / Rihanna x River Island heels

All Nude Everything 

Line#1: Marc Jacobs drawstring bag / Topshop shorts / Cage gladiator sandals

Line#2: Nude patent envelope clutch / Stella Mccartney silk short / Leather  brogues.

Line#3: Mulberry cecily / Lace silk shorts / Zara

Lets's do this for weekend!

The expat chick thoughts on: After Earth

Hi Guys!!

Sorry for being MIA! Not a very good sign for a new blogger heh?! Anyway, back with a movie review..this time is After Earth. Don't get me wrong (as a self acclaimed movie buff) I did watched the other blockbusters this past weeks , Fast&Furious6, Hangover 3 and one of not so blockbuster, history inspired Emperor (courtesy of my hubby who ask forced me to watch), but don't feel like all 3 needed reviews or thoughts though..they're entertaining but easily forgetable..

 

Okay back to the title, honestly I didn't expect much from After Earth..I told my husband (my movie partner in crime) that Will Smith should stop doing this solo acting in movies already..I know he's good acting by himself, doing everything by himself but he just really need to stop..C'mon I Robot, I am legend, and now After Earth..And the trailer didn't thrill me either, to me it look like a bullshit sci fi movie that I will watch only to mock every scene LOL and to top it M.Night Syahmalan directs this movie..Seems like a very easy combo for a flop movie BUT! gotta be honest here, I like it well okay kinda love it..

 

 

The movie set on (a few?) century after human destroyed earth and have to find other place to reside (Nova Prime planet or something) where a "legendary" ranger Cypher (Will Smith) and his family lives. Cut long story short father and son Kitai (Jaden Smith) was on their way to a training to somewhere (sorry I didn't really take note on the cinema what's all this planets name) and crash landed on (guess where) Earth! Earth to them is a destroyed, dangerous and a place where human no longer belong. In order for them to get help to their planet, they must/need/have to shoot signal from a rescue beacon which is located in the tail of the ship which is scattered 100km away from where they crash landed..Gosh, I hope you guys understand me!

 

 

 

Since both Cypher's legs are broken, he had to guide his son Kitai to the beacon and to save both of them. Also with them on earth is fear obsessed alien (Ursa) they carry with them on the plane..This alien smell and sense fear and kill people with it..This is where the excitements begin..It really is just Kitai's adventure to go to the beacon..He find and learn new things from all the challenges he experienced along the way until he found the beacon, fight the alien and get both him and his dad home safely..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, I don't know if you guys catch it or not, but this movie is full of scientology doctrines that Smith is known for years now..I'm not into scientology but some of the doctrines Smith try to pass on is just plain sincere and beautiful.

 

Okay now this is my thoughts, the rescue beacon is like our purpose, something we really want to have/pursuit (our dreams perhaps)..and to get there is not easy. There's going to be challenges, people or even yourself or your mind try to bring you down (Kitai's adventures along the way)..But keep going and be persistent one day you will get there if you believe..Your mind here is playing a very big part..like the fear obsessed alien who I think symbolize our own mind dragging us down with fear and negativity..and like what Cypher told Kitai

 

"danger is very real, but fear is a choice"

 

Again this my thoughts, fear is just our mind playing with us telling us we can't do it, we won't be able to make it..and this is all not real..focus on the happy thoughts. Focus on our purpose and our dreams then like Kitai defeated the alien (us defeat our fears), he can reach the beacon (and we can reach our dreams)..So yeah, that's why I like the movie that's how I saw it..It's not just entertainment but it gives me something to think about and something to remind me of this pursuit of dreams human have (c'mon don't tell me you didn't read The Alchemist)..

 

Well critics and reviews have totally make up their mind that this movie is the worst movie in 2013, but probably that is because they only see the first layer of the movie..I don't know whatever..But if you haven't watch this, try to cause I really think it's interesting and quite entertaining too! Jaden Smith is one hella good actor I must admit. He will be big (or he already is?)..

 

Okay, now who excited for this?!!! This weekend first thing to do! I' ll sure do a blogpost about this!

 

 



Ciao! 

 

 

 

The Expat Chick DIY: Make Up Brush Holder and Multifunction Jars

Hi Guys,

Do you like to burn candles and wondering what to do with the left over jars? Ya exactly, me too! I've been thinking what I wanna do with my leftover jars and come up with this makeup brush holder (which I really really need) and this multi function jars you can use for storing candies, accessories, cotton pads or anything you want..So here it is, enjoy!

Here are the items you need:

1. My left over jars are from Slatkin & Co candles (Bath&Body Works candles), they come with the stainless steel lid (you can use whatever candle jars you have)
2. Crystal Beads bought from Art Friend ($11.90)
3. Super Glue ($3.40)
4. Scissors 
5. For the cute decoration, choose anything you like..this later on will function as the handle of your multifunction jar.

Step by step how to:

1. Once your candles' wicks reach the ends normally there will still be a little bit of wax left, to remove them easily for me the best method is to freeze 'em so that we can easily crack the wax later on. Pop them in the fridge for 2 days (the more the better) or at least  overnight. 

2. After a day or 2 in the fridge, pop them out. Take your scissors and stab them in the middle of the wax (image no.1), then open the scissors up (image no.2) and stab 'em on the sides of the wax. Move the scissors a bit and pull the wax out (image no.3). This is where the period of time the jars in the fridge counts..the more them in there, the more easier to do this..If your wax is really stubborn and won't come up when you pull, just crack and break them using the scissors. Then you can remove it from the jar. 

2b. Don't throw the leftover wax away, keep them in a plastic bag because you can still burn them in aromatherapy pot..

2c. If you find that your wick is still stuck in the bottom after all the wax are out, no worries just use the tip of the scissors to scrap it out..should be pretty easy..

3. Peel off all the labels, after the freezing this should be pretty easy as well..

4. Give the jars a wash (if sticky residue is stubborn, don't worry!)

5. For stubborn sticky residue, use cotton pad with some nail polish remover to wipe them off..

6. For the brush holder, pour in the crystal beads about half to three quarters of the jar..

7. For the multifunction jar, clean the stainless steel lids with soap and damp cloth. Stop here if you think the lid and clean jar is functional enough, you can use it to store anything you like. But I want to make it pretty by adding cute decoration on top, I choose this bamboo shoot Sonny Angel (click here for overloaded cuteness), glue the feet and hold it in place for a few minutes..It looks cute and function as a handle so opening and closing the jars is much easier..

And that is all! So easy and cheap but it is really satisfying and make me super happy to reuse, repurpose and diy things that is not just useful but also look pretty on my vanity..

Before (Look how sad my brushes look, yup I use towel to lay them around)

After! So pretty and now my brushes are happily organized!

Here are my angels enjoying the leftover wax burning on my pot :)

Hope you guys enjoy this post! Ciao!

The Great Gatsby and The Ultimate Bitch Daisy

Hi Guys,

As always, my favorite time of the week is catching movie with my hubby..this week ofcourse it's The Great Gatsby.

Well, how do I say this..I watch this only for the sake of The Great Gatsby and the fact that Miuccia Prada is part of the costume! And yes the costumes are amazingggg (Prada never disappoint), all the characters are like coming from magazine spread or something and the 1920s setting in the whole movie are soo soo beautiful, elegant and just so amusing for my eyes. I did found myself wow a few times during the movie.

I never read the book and never watch the vintage version of the movie so I don't know the characters at all. But here it is from what i see, this movie is about this guy Jay Gatsby (Leo), a visionaire, naive, ambitious and freakin' rich but also mysterious, despite that he's throwing super lavish and glamour weekly parties in his mansion nobody knows who he really is, how he make his fortune and where he came from..some don't even know what he looks like..and everybody been wondering why he had these lavish parties for no apparent reason. I think Leo is born for this roll! He's amazing!

 Nick Carraway (Tobey Mcguire), a wannabe writer who choose to be a wallstreet broker for the money. Daisy Buchannan's cousin and Gatsby's neighbour and later become Gatsby's bff/helper/sidekick. Tobey is Peter Parker no matter in what movie he's in..

The ultimate bitch Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), a materialistic, fickle, shallow, beautiful girl whose Gatsby fall in love deeply with..After watching the movie, you will hate her! HATE! Bitch! (sorry, I really need to let that out from my chest) I got no idea why Gatsby deeply in love with her..sigh..stupid dupid Gatsby..Anyway I feel like Carey is disappointing in this movie..

Tom Buchanan, Daisy's husband, rich, complete jerk and a womanizer.

I'm going to cut the long story short and go straight to the point (but it's impossible to cut the story short there's so many important points i need to tell), young Gatsby fall in love with Daisy and ask her to wait for him while he went to war. Daisy promise to wait but one fine day she decide to marry this Tom Buchanan obviously because he's filthy rich (he gave her $350.000 strings of pearls as a wedding gift and its 1920's so imagine how rich he is).

Gatsby who is so deeply in love with Daisy, strive to get himself wealthy (I don't really know how tho). Succesfully wealthy, he then bought a mansion across Buchanan's mansion so that he could be close to Daisy. Throwing big parties only to hope one day Daisy get curious and come to the party. Of course that never happen, until one day Gatsby found Nick Carraway, a new neighbour who happens to be Daisy's cousin. Nick who later on discover Gatsby's love for Daisy began to help him meeting Daisy and guard their secret meetings.

Daisy fall short back to Gatsby and together they plan to be together, but one day when they decide it's a good time to tell Tom that Daisy never loves him and have always love Gatsby all this time and want to leave Tom, the bitch with her fickleness and materialistic mind decide to choose Tom over Gatsby which leads to the fall of Gatsby.

After watching, I feel sorry for Gatsby. How he is so blindly in love made him strive for his dreams to become super wealthy only to win the love of his life back..but how he is so naive he couldn't see the bitch he love dearly is not even worth his love and sacrifice..sad story..

The review for this movie is not really good, a lot of reviews I read really put Baz Luhrmann in the corner..well I kind of agree, I think he put more effort to make us believe that the movie is set on the 1920s then putting more effort on the story itself.

There are so many beautiful scene but my favorite is gotta be this one

Picture just don't do any judgement for the scene, I love all the scene in this room. Must.watch.for.youself! I don't mind my room looking like this! So happy and pretty..

Okay, I'm done and leave you with this beautiful pic of Leo..

Ciao!!!

Wanted Fuschia!

Hi Guys..

I've been really in a hunt for a pretty fuschia/hot pink lipstick and I did go to various cosmetics counters to swatch the colors only to find myself chicken out the last minute and decide to walk away..This other voice in my head goes like "you'll never wear it..it'll end up in the bottom of your makeup bag like your russian red lipstick!" or "guurll your skin is too yellow-y for fuschia, you'll look funny!" oh and my favorite "bitch please you wouldn't dare to pull out hot pink lips look!" Well I think she's right I dont really feel like the girl who can pull bright lipstick for everyday but I really want to tryyyyy it..soo here it is a quick post of bright lips to encourage me and show you guys how really fun and pretty fuschia lips are..

 

 

Hehe I'm not exactly angmoh (eurasian) so here proof asian can do fuschia/bright lip too!

Damn gurl, it's Song Hye Gyo leh she can wear blue lipstick and still look hot!

One of my fave beauty guru Jen

Images via tumblr

 SO mental note to myself (and you too if you want to try this), the key to this bright lip is a simple eyemakeup (or even bare eyes) and other makeup on the skin should be kept to a minimum. The only main focus is the bright lips

 so that your face doesn't look like a coloring book lol..

My choice of fuschia are these two

Left: Maybelline Vivids Lipstick in Hot Pink S$14.30
Right: MAC Candy Yum Yum S$29

Maybe I'm going to brace myself (chill gurl, it's only lipstick) this weekend and just pick up the maybelline one since it doesn't cost a bomb and I tried it before it's matte and the consistency is really good too, will post my pic with my fuschia lips next to Song Hye Gyo when I finally bought mine hehehehe..

Ciao! (Oh and yesssss it's finally Friday!)













Vulcans Never Lies

Hi Guys,

Finally I went to see Star Trek Into Darkness last Saturday and as expected I like it BUT I don't love it!I'm just so happy to finally be able to see Spock's face again (ooh and the old Spock too!). Oops if you haven't see it or if you don't like me to spoil your Star Trek experience I suggest you to click previous posts  or get out lol..Btw, I'm not a hardcore creep who knows anything and everything about StarTrek archival so let's just enjoy the movie without having to remember or compare it to the ancient Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan 

 

Starting with a somewhat look like terrorist attacks by a mysterious guy that leads the organization to assign Capt Kirk and USS Enterprise (who else?!) to a man-hunt only to find out that they are only used as a middle man to clean up somebody's mess..I'm fine with the story, there's nothing so futuristic about it but I'm quite happy they put some kind of twist to the plot.

 

What I really enjoy watching is this two characters! Love the solo villain John Harisson aka Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch), he really did a good job being mysterious but cool and full of terror in his face and voice in the same time. See his eyes there? It's like they're so full of not so good intentions, like once you see him you know he's up to no good!

 

And Spock, (btw, I can't help it I need to put the handsomest Zachary Quinto pic i ever seen here and u're welcome) one of my favorite character from my childhood that I really love to see come back to life! Which kid can forget a man with big pointed ears, straight cut eyebrows with funny stupid looking bangs? At least not me! He is still the same old vulcan that somehow force to dig his half inner human more in this movie, watch out for his smart sarcasm lines in the movie. They are trying too hard to make him show more emotion, but the one he cry in the end when ***k (hehe at least I try to not spoil so much) died is a good one! I also secretly cried :'( :'(

My favorite scene :'(

 

 

Okay now, moving on to what I don't really like about the movie. This guy right here! Kirk is too die hard and all around hero type of thing and that makes him really annoying!

 

 

Overall I love how every character play their roles in the movie except for Uhura (I don't really think she did anything at all except talking the alien language at Kronos). Scotty save Enterprise's ass big time and get quite a lot of scenes towards the end, Sulu play captain for a little while and Chekov don't really see him that much in the movie actually, but better than Uhura at the very least he save Kirk and Scotty somewhere near the end.

 

In my opinion, the starting scene in Nibiru is actually not important and a waste of budget really, nobody cares about that part! They can just start with the big terrorist attack and everything will be the same..However I'm quite entertain by how creepy looking people of Nibiru are..you really need to see it by yourself especially when they blink..

 

Last but not least, I felt absurd not posting USS enterprise pic so here's one for ya!

 

 

And here's another one hoping this weekend everybody get spockified!

 

Ciao..

 

 

 

 

New in, Nothing out..

Hi Guys,

I went a little bit cray with online shopping last week (no worries all are wallet friendly and discount savvy) and purchase all these stuff (except for the earrings, it's a gift from my bff..how cute is the birds? So precious with that turqoise feathers at the bottom). Okay, let's jump in and start my first haul post lol..

Real Techniques Core Collection Brushes

(from top-bottom: Buffing brush, detailer brush, pointed foundation brush and contour brush)

This brushes are made by Samantha Chapman, one of the Pixiwoo girls (if you don't know who they are find out here). I've been looking  for an affordable, high quality and versatile brush set for so long and from the hype these brushes get, I think I made the right choice. I get mine here! 

My favorite of the four is the buffing brush, it's so perfect for foundation/bb creams. Very easy to use, effortless to blend and the bristles are so soft (actually all of them are so soft). They're synthetic, they didn't shed and from what I read they're also easy to clean and dry really fast. Oh, and they come in a black sleek pouch that can double up as a stand to put all the brush on your vanity. So handy!

Real Techniques Stippling Brush and Sleek Blush Palette in Lace

I ordered this stippling brush because I don't have this type of brush before. This brush is so multifunctional, it's good for blending foundation and perfect for cream blush and highlighter. The size of brush is not too fat so it can give a more precise application especially when applying cream blusher (nobody want to have the clown cheeks, right?).  

I'm really excited about this blush palette when I'm ordering, to me the colors are so pretty and perfect for daily use, so wearable and for only S$20 for 3 colors I think it's a good buy, yes? However, in real life the palette look pretty much crazy bright and all three colors look almost orange, but I tried it on today and absolutely loving it! 

The left is a mix between coral and peach, one sweep is peach, two sweep is coral. The middle one reminds me of Nars Orgasm, perfect peach pink glow. The right one (although it look really scary) actually appears like a medium (depends on how you blend it) pink flush you have after doing 50 pushups!

 Sleek Eyeshadow Palletes in Au Naturel (top) and Storm (bottom) 

I can't decide between this two palettes so I thought why not get both, so when Luxola had their 2 hours special 15%discount last week I jumped in and bought these for great deal plus free delivery! They are neutral for everyday, each come in 12 colors combo in shimmer and matte for an easy everyday eyes to smokey eyes..I dare to say the shimmer colors are quite pigmented and have a very good color pay off but the matte colors to me they're too chalky and not so pigmented. Here's the color swatches for you :)

As you can see here, the shimmer colors are quite pigmented but the matte colors are disappointing..

Overall for the price, 37$ for 2sets plus the 15% discount, I think it's a good buy. The packaging is sleek in matt black compact with big mirror in it so it's really handy especially for traveling.

That's all for my first makeup haul, hope you enjoy and find this helpful! 

Ciao!