Attack of the Cherry Blossoms & my SK-II mask review
Posted by ilyana | Filed under Bodycare, Food & Nosh
This has got to be the prettiest product shot I’ve ever taken. I would have totally posted this up as a 1280 x 960 wallpaper sized image but that would make me seem obsessive, wouldn’t it?
Just some photos of the Bath & Body Works shower gels and body butter I got from Hid who flew out to San Francisco last month. There isn’t a B&BW store in Singapore so I’m happy I can finally try their products out ;D Doesn’t “Sea Island Cotton” sound so blissfully romantic? Long chilly walks by the beach at sunset, being carried on your boyfriend’s back as he sparkles and runs at superhuman speed through the mossy terrain..oh wait that’s just Twilight lol -Thanks Hid, you’re super!
I’ve been drinking a lot of tea lately (pictured above is my current fave, sakura! sakura! from TWG), it’s de-stressing especially after a long arduous day of making a student visa. I have the worst luck in taking ID card photos, all my photo ID cards e.g. my driver’s license, my IC- ALL of them have the most unflattering shots of me and today my visa is going to join my dysfunctional family of monster ID cards.
I actually look entirely different (in a bad I’m-about-to-murder-someone way) in my visa photo and that just sucks because I have to live with it for the next 3 years of my life! Mr Photographer dude, I didn’t just take a day’s leave from work for you to take a lousy photo of me!!!!!!! Fork this -_-
Anyway, I promised you guys a review of the SK-II Facial Treatment Mask and I finally got around to using it last night.
It comes individually wrapped in pretty silvery foil packaging, I actually regretted not taking a photo of it but it was night = shit lighting and I’d rather kick myself than put up a bad photo on this blog lol (yeah sue me for being anal).
Once you’ve ripped open the packaging, you can see the mask is completely soaked in Pitera, a top-secret key ingredient in all SK-II products and the sole reason why SK-II is so goddamn expensive. C’mon guys, the jig is up! WE ALL KNOW IT’S JUST RICE VINEGAR!
Ok ok, don’t sue me. I made that rice vinegar thing up. (tho I won’t be surprised if it’s actually made of rice vinegar lol, juz sayin’) Rice vinegar or not, THIS MASK IS EPIC. I left it on for 30 minutes and removed the mask to reveal the softest, glowing skin *_* The mask itself is made of thick, woven material which fyi, is even thicker than my Silk Whitia masks surprisingly. I LOVE the shape/cutting of the mask- it fits my face perfectly which is a good thing because I hate it when I have to constantly adjust a sheet mask in order to get even coverage on my skin.
This is my first time using anything from SK-II so I’m a little weirded out by the Pitera scent. It smells faintly of fishballs and vinegar LOL I’m not kidding this time! It doesn’t offend me as much as it offends other people so I’m not going to bitch about it.
Overall, I’m really liking the SK-II Facial Treatment Mask and I can seriously see myself emptying whatever remnants of money I have left in my bank account (which isn’t much to begin with >.>) to invest in these masks XD The only drawback is the price (SGD$21 per piece D8) so I think I’m going to stick with my Silk Whitia masks and only purchase this when I find myself a rich boyfriend for special occasions.
Tags: bodycare: B&BW, nosh: TWG, review: masks, skincare: SK-II
How to impress your BFF (who has everything) on his birthday
Posted by ilyana | Filed under Food & Nosh
Say you’ve got a BFF who’s of the opposite sex, someone you can talk just about everything to, watches the same shows you watch (except Gossip Girl, bless his heart), has a very healthy saving habit so he can buy whatever his heart desires (which sadly is short of a CHANEL 2.55 for me ;_;) so what the heck do you give someone who most probably has everything he’s ever wanted?
Girl, you do what I do every year: You take him out for a nice meal some place posh and swanky. Trust me, there will be less drama, your sanity will remain intact and all of humanity is saved.
If the place you’ve chosen happens to have a sorta old English thing going on in their chosen interior design theme then you know it’s a safe bet to take your best friend here especially if he a) also happens to be a designer b) appreciates good brand identity that’s reflected in their store design c) likes all things English.
It’ll be even more awesome if the restaurant has a couple of randomly hung crystal balls around the dining area because that’s just cool and hey it doesn’t matter if the chances of you being impaled by a large, probably very heavy crystal sphere thing just increased ten-fold - IT’S YOUR BEST FRIEND’S BIRTHDAY SO SUCK IT UP!
And you gotta make sure the restaurant specializes in something e.g. french cuisine or whatever. In this particular case, tea is the poison of choice so you betta make sure the menu has over 800 different varieties of tea blends, doesn’t matter if you don’t know or can’t pronounce half of them (wtf is “Happy Flute Tea”? srsly.) because these 800 tea names will be listed out in an excruciatingly small but elegant font spread over 5 pages and that would totally impress the BFF.
All you got to do is just squint your eyes, randomly select a tea you think sounds delicious - in my case, the Pomme Prestige tea (cos Pomme is like apple in French duh) and when your BFF asks “Erm what do you recommend?” You clear your throat and smoothly reply like a true tea connoisseur - “You should check out the Happy Birthday tea!” And he orders just that XD
SO WHAT if the place charges exorbitant amounts of money for their tea time sets (smartly named “Chic” and “Celebration” to justify their prices) which include chi-chi tea sandwiches smaller than the size of your palm?! Remember they’re made from tea-infused crème fraîche and that tiny smile on your BFF’s face when the sets arrive? PRICELESS BB. He’s trying to hide his best to hide his excitement but you can almost see it bubblin’ from deep within LOL.
Ok ok TWG will always be me and the BFF’s favourite tea haunt, we both love tea (dude my domain name has the word tea in it rofl) and although we usually get our tea fix from there, LK/Dejiki/Nicholas (dude has a lot of aliases) and I have never actually sat down and enjoyed one of their infamous tea time sets before so what better excuse to do so than on his birthday right? Depending on which set you order, you get to choose 3 macaroons, 3 tea sandwiches and a patisserie.
I had 2 Cucumber with “Earl Grey Fortune Tea” infused cream cheese sandwiches and a Smoked Salmon with Mascarpone and Chive sandwich, loved both of them but the cucumber one’s my fave! It’s very light and the cucumber + cream cheese made quite a happy marriage of flavours lol.
My choice of pattiserie was a slice of their Singapore Surprise cake tart which is apparently their signature cake. LK had a few bites and thought it to be like a “crème brûlée but the EXTREME version” and I wholeheartedly agree. It’s got raspberries in a light, airy cream that’s been infused with their “Vanilla Bourbon” tea and the top is made of burnt brown sugar, love it.
The real star of the show was actually the Chocolate Meringue cake LK chose for himself. It’s essentially made of an insanely smooth and dense semi-dark chocolate cream topped with crumbly layers of…more chocolate! I think TWG chocolate cakes are a force to be reckoned with, I tried the Chocolate Macadamia cake with Hid some time back and it was just as good!
Teas are their main forte of course, I’ve tried a couple and I would seriously recommend the Pomme Prestige tea (black tea with apple), Happy Birthday tea (black tea with berries - order this on your birthday, it’ll make you feel special!), Silver Moon tea (green tea with vanilla and strawberries, my ultimate fave!), Crème Brûlée tea (green tea with vanilla and berries, similar to Silver Moon but is sweeter to resemble the decadent dessert) and Sakura! Sakura! tea (green tea infused with sakura petals, jasmine and berries - very flowery and how adorable is the name?)
TWG Tea Salon & Boutique
Raffles Place, #01 - 22
Republic Plaza
Singapore 048619
Tel: +65 6538 1837
I realized yesterday that I totally forgot to blog about my trip to the KRYOLAN Cosmetics store in Melbourne, geez. I’m so absent-minded D: I’ll talk about that in my next entry + other random beauty stuff. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Thank you so much for reading Tea Noir, it’s been great knowing all of you! Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2010 - cheers to love, peace, beauty and food xoxo
Tags: life, nosh: desserts, nosh: TWG
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