Thanks Lazada & Maybelline!

After my last post, I sent an email to Lazada reporting that their merchant was selling fake cosmetics. Then I also emailed Maybelline Indonesia just to inform them of my case so they are aware their fake products distributed online. I didn't expect any reply or anything, just so they know.

September 15, I suddenly received an email from Maybelline Indonesia (MI). They requested for pictures and info on price. I replied and gave them the link of my post.

September 17, received another email from MI telling me that they have cooperated with Lazada on this matter. To make sure the originality of their products sold at Lazada. I checked Lazada and didn't see the merchant that sold me the fake cosmetics anymore. That was good. Even though Lazada didn't reply to my email, I was still glad that they make an action.

September 17 at night, I received an email from Lazada that they are sending 2 original Maybelline mascara as per my last order as replacement for the fake ones.

September 21, I finally received my mascaras, hooray!!

Lazada's Customer Service also called me and apologized to me for experiencing something unpleasant while shopping with them.

More than for the replacements, I'm happier that Lazada & Maybelline actually did something to ensure that no more people have the same experience like I did. They responded to my email, kicked out the merchant, and eventually sent me  what I ordered. This, is what's called customer satisfaction.

So, thanks Lazada and Maybelline! Keep up the good work and wishing you a more successful business in the future.

Beware of Fake Cosmetics Online

I never had problem ordering Korean cosmetics through this site. As I have mentioned in previous post, I prefer to buy those online for the price since it's quite similar with the originals compared to Indonesian prices.

2 weeks ago I ran out of my Maybelline Mascara. Too lazy to go to the mall to purchase one (and kept forgetting to get one when I went to the mall), I decided to buy through a local online store, Lazada. I never had a problem with this market place before. I pre-ordered my Samsung Galaxy S5 here, I purchased the office's fridge, microwave, vacuum cleaner and many more here. Everything was fine, everything arrived in perfect condition. Until I decided to order my mascara here. I was greedy, there were 2 sellers but I chose the cheaper one (pretty much 50% off the original price in the stores).

The moment I opened my package I knew something was off. A lot of things were off, actually. First off, the packaging looked cheap and the print was smudged. When turned the cap, the inside part got loose and I got sticky ink-like liquid smeared my fingers from the brush like mozzarella cheese. At lunch time, I went to a pharmacy downstairs to buy lozenges and was surprised to see the same mascara on sale when I was never sold there before. So I purchased one (again) and compared it the one I purchased online just to satisfy my curiosity that I was indeed got deceived and received a fake mascara. You can click on the picture to see it in bigger size. Left is the original, Right is the (suspected) fake.

First: The Color of the Printing.

The color is already different. And this is only the front part.

The printing is available on both sides and voila, the fake one has different wordings on the the other side! If you pay attention, the original also has the production date, code and etc printed on the plastic with black ink while the fake one doesn't have it.

Second: Another difference in printing.

See the difference on the description that it contains collagen? Which one is more convincing to you?

Third: The brush and the liquid.

This is the difference that really set me off. Not only that the brush is different, if you enlarge the picture you'll see that the fake one on the right has a very sticky liquid on the brushes!

It took me less than 5 minutes to actually  convinced myself that yes, I was deceived.

Lesson learned. Next time, I'll make sure to get my as off my seat to actually go to a real store to purchase this. And maybe other affordable cosmetics.

Cleaning Up... My Face ^^

Long time ago I wrote about how I finally hooked-up with make-up. And to be honest, I'm even more improved in applying my own make-up compared by then hohoho Lots of youtube tutorial and  practice even when I didn't actually need to go out with make-up, I did LOL And I felt a bit self-conscious going out without eyeliner bwahahaha who would've thought, eh? :p

But as much as I used to think that wearing make-up is a such a hassle, there's another thing that I felt is more bothersome -- cleaning up the make up from my face! I used to do it the old way: milk cleanser (twice) - cleansing foam - toner. When I was too tired after returning home from a party, many times I spilled the cleanser and woke up the next morning with dirty beauty cotton on my shelf. Then I looked into the mirror and saw that there was still leftover mascara or eyeliner. Sooo annoying!

Then I was introduced with Etude House Pore & BB Deep Cleansing Foam (such a long name ^^). It saved a lot of time for me until I realized it didn't erase the eye make-up and mascara well. In the end, I still had to use Etude House Lip & Eye Make-up Remover and Etude House Mascara Remover. Not only I had to do more, I also had to spend more on them as well! Not to mention that my skin became dry and I had to add another gentler foam cleanser after all of that :(

The most irritating part was when traveling, I just had to waste space in my luggage for those stuff! So inconvenient, especially when I wanted to travel light. I tried several make-up remover tissue, but none actually cleaned up really well.

But browsing beauty blogs brought me to this amazing cleanser: The Face Shop Rice Water Bright Cleansing Light Oil (yes, another super long name)!

 

I was a bit skeptical when I read some good reviews on it. I wasn't familiar with cleansing oil and to be honest I always thought cleansing oil would be very, well -- oily. But then I went ahead and purchased one, straight from Korea from here for $10.50 / 150 ml bottle. Once it arrived after 2 weeks of waiting, I just couldn't wait to get home and try it out. I didn't regret it. One pump, and it took out all of my eye make-up & bb-cream off! No mascara nor eyeliner residue.

I didn't need to rub my eyelids hard to get rid of the mascara & eyeliner. Just brush on it gently and it'd washed off. The directions on the bottle says no need to use another cleansing foam after this, just wash with warm water and wipe gently with towel. My face didn't feel oily at all, felt smooth instead. I tried using another cleansing foam right after, but apparently it also wiped out the moisturizing effect of the oil.

I was so satisfied with it but then I thought there may be better cleansing oil out there? :) Browsing again... and I decided to try out other brands, and I ordered 2 more.

I used and really liked Skinfood Black Sugar Scrub Foam, so why not try the Black Sugar Cleansing Oil? It cost the same from the same vendor for a 170 ml bottle. I really liked the smell on first pump. Just like the scrub foam, there's sweet smell from the oil, not too strong but it's a bit disturbing while cleaning my face hahaha Result? Just okay for me. Felt a bit dry on my skin, took a bit of effort to wipe the eye make-up, but overall it cleaned well.Oh, this one required another Cleansing Foam after using. Another small effort but still acceptable for me.

And the last that I tried out was Sulwhasoo Gentle Cleansing Oil. It's the most expensive of all 3, cost me $11.50 for a 50 ml bottle.

 

The reason I chose this product was because Sulwhasoo Concentrated Ginseng Line did wonders to my skin!  Problem was, it's too expensive for me so I only tried out the trial kit. Still, it's still a high scale brand in Korea, so I thought it would do wonder as well in cleaning up my make-up. I was wrong. The smell was nice, not too oily but it didn't erase mascara & eyeliner well :( I had to add more oil and took a long time gently rubbing on my eyelids to completely wipe them off! But at least it also moisturized my face well and it came in a small bottle, I still could use it for traveling. Maybe next time I should try its Deep Cleansing Oil instead. Hm... will have to finish off the other 2 bottles first LOL

So that's my experience with make-up cleaners. I'd still go with The Face Shop Rice Water Bright Cleansing Light Oil  when the bottles run out. But maybe there's still a better one out there? Hahaha

OPUS JAY 2013 WORLD TOUR

 

Another dream came true... 

A 10 year old dream to be exact... and it's a past due review but I still want to post this anyway LOL

In the middle of F4 rage in early 2000 I got to know this singer named Jay Chou and had been in love with his music ever since. I bought all of his albums, MV dvds, movies, concert dvds, basically everything that he released. I even had giant posters of his from his 2002: The Once Concert Live and 2006 Album: Still Fantasy hanging on my bedroom wall now.

He held some concerts in Singapore, the last one was in 2010 for The Era World Tour. I missed that one because I traveled to Japan for the first time, thus I spent all my money in that holiday, nothing to spare to watch him. So for the past 2 years I've been waiting to hear if he's going to hold another concert in Singapore.

Then in early February I heard the announcement and got an email from Sistic. He'd finally returned for his World Tour of his last album, Opus 12 on June 8-9! Somehow the first 2 days of the ticket sales was intended only for OCBC card & M1 number holder. Sold out in 1 hour! Then they added another day on June 6, and sold out again even before the public sales began. I asked my Singaporean friends who had own the card & number, they said they couldn't get one, it's crazy. So I thought that maybe I wasn't meant to watch it. I was disappointed but I believed that when it's my time then it will be my time.

I was working  in the office when an email came from Sistic. Due to high demand for the concert, they're adding some seats including those with restricted view. I didn't waste my time and logged into Sistic right away. I didn't get it in the first try but once I refreshed there's a Cat 2 single seat available and I grabbed it right away. Tadda!! I got my ticket for June 8 show!!

On the day of the concert, I got to the venue around 7.45pm - ticket said show would start at 8pm. I wanted to buy a couple of merchandise but the queue was so long! I decided to just wait inside the venue. Show didn't start on time cause people were still queuing for merchandise outside. But I was happy when I saw that in every seat they provided free lightstick and baloons. 

Me and my free balloons :)

I was sitting in the middle of 2 boys in their teens on the left and a guy in his late 40s on the right. They all cheered very loudly and sang along in every song too. And at 8.20pm the lights were out and the concert started. At first an opening video was played on stage and on screens. And before you complained for the lack of quality of the pictures that I'm posting, I didn't bring my camera in purpose because I wanted to really enjoy the show and not being busy behind the lens. So I only used my phone camera, besides I was seated on the right side of the stage so I didn't get a very good view. I didn't complain though cause I could still see him clearly from my seat.

His concert was divided in a few segments. And he opened the concert with a rock song from his Opus 12 Album, but he followed right away with (surprisingly) The Final Battle / 最後的戰役 / Zuì Hòu De Zhàn Yì from his 2002 Album, The 8th Dimension. And after a few more songs from his old albums including the famous song that was used into a Pepsi advert Nunchucks / 雙截棍 / Shuāng Jié Gùn he disappeared for a moment from the stage when suddenly a white piano appeared in the middle of the stage. And the piano acoustic ballad segment began. I practically melted on my seats especially when started playing Silence / 安靜 / Ān Jìng I couldn't help myself but screaming along with the whole stadium at the song's ending: It is because I love you too much / shi yin wei wo tai ni... I knew the boys were staring at me cause I kept bugging them to translate whatever Jay was saying yet I could sing my heart out with every song he played LOL

In the middle of this segment I just couldn't hold my bladder anymore and ran to the bathroom in the middle of my less fave song, but while I was p**ing (I'm sorry that you just have to read this :p) I suddenly heard the intro of one of my fave song Can't Express Myself / 開不了口 / Kāi Bù Liǎo Kǒu and I kind of, errrr... sped up the process, zipped up my fly, express hand washing and ran back to my seat with panting breath, all the while singing along with him! Just how crazy I was, eh? LOL

Jay was about to release another self-produced movie, The Rooftop, so another segment was dedicated to the new movie, where he acted out with a girl and some gang. It was interesting but I wasn't familiar with the songs so I didn't sing along at all in this segment. Still, I enjoyed to see him dancing and acting, if I was a cartoon character there would be stars and love coming out of my sparkly eyes! Hahaha As the concert was nearing the end, suddenly the whole stadium went dark and there was some kanji on the screen and the stadium went silent, the boys translated to me that it said: "Please turn off your light stick for the best effect of the next song." So I did, just like everyone. And a few second later the screen and also the stage lit up with stars and planets as if we're in the milky way... A white piano and Jay in white suits turned up and my most fave song from Opus 12 Album, Sign Language / 手語 / Shǒu Yǔ, started!! I was gaping at the screen to see the dreamy like video when suddenly he was being lifted up onto the middle of the stage and blended with the 3D mapped video!! O.M.G.

Jay singing  "Sign Language / 手語 / Shǒu Yǔ"

I had to admit that the effect of the video and live show combined was very beautiful in the dark. Everything was white and sparkly and even some fake snowflakes were falling from the ceiling onto the audience!! So romantic... *sigh* He really went all out with the show, lots of pyrotechnics,  fake snowflakes, confetti, drama, and everything else that ever came up in all his MVs. Oh, and some giant beach balls at the ending of the concert for his song, Ukulele / 烏克麗麗 / Wū Kè Lì Lì.

Giant beach balls in the middle of the audience :)

All in all, it was a great 2.5 hours show and I was so enchanted from the beginning until the end. It was a sold out 3 day shows actually and I wasn't that surprised to see the variety of people in the audience. From children to grandparents, everyone was singing along to his hit songs and moved their bodies with the music, smiling from ear to ear and laughed as he made jokes in Mandarin (which I didn't get cause I didn't want to bother the boys next to me anymore with translating the jokes lol). Another funny thing was, Jay was knows to forgetting lyrics in live shows. So in the small screen at the top of the stadium, facing the stage, where it usually wrote things like: "Clap your hands" "Sing along!" etc... all his lyrics was played word by word with the sequences such as: "Repeat" "Encore" "Change clothes", I laughed like crazy when I found out about it! Oh Jay...

The concert was so memorable and I'm so looking forward to another concert of his in the future. Some more pics of my handsome boy.... :)

 Theatrical Jay

Guitar playing Jay

Chocolate Review: Bendicks Bittermints

I guess most of my friends know that I love chocolates. I don't remember exactly when, but I started to like Dark Chocolate more instead of Milk Chocolates as I grew older. And lately I'm so fond of this Bendicks Bittermints. It's like the top of the chain of all the Dark Chocolate & Mints combination I've ever tasted.

A friend bought it for me at Singapore Changi Airport 2 years ago. Then everytime I went or someone went there I asked them to buy a box for me. I love Dark Chocolate (say it again) and I love mints (including Peppermint Tea). My ideal Dark Chocolate is usually around 70% - 85% Cocoa, pretty bitter for some people but that's just perfect for me. Bendicks Bittermints' chocolate is 95% Cocoa which is too bitter if it comes in bars but this one comes with mints inside that gives an extraordinary sensation to my taste bud. Bitter in the first bite then comes the sweet and cool sensation of the mints. Love it!

Last week the little boss traveled to London where Bendicks originally comes from and or course I didn't miss the opportunity to ask him to buy me a box of Bittermints at the airport. Not only he bought me a box but he kindly also bought me a box of Bendicks Mint Collection!

So I got to taste all of Bendicks Mints line :) And after Bittermints, the Chocolate Mint Crisps comes second. The chocolate outside is not as bitter as Bittermints (tasted something like 70% Cocoa?) but there are sprinkles of mints in it that gives the crunchy feeling.

Anyway, I've been trying to find a friend who would enjoy it with me but so far nobody likes it LOL It's always too bitter or too minty for them. Ah, well... that just means I get to enjoy all of them by my self for a week. Lucky!