OOTD. Also... I'm back!

Hi everyone!
Sorry I've been MIA for such a long time. Summer is here and I have been dying to wear summer clothes that I bought since last year haha. I was motivated to blog again because of all the cute outfits I've seen other people post on instagram.

So let make this "I'm back" post an outfit of the day post =]

Here's what I wore a couple days ago:

Blouse: Boutique in Hong Kong

Shorts: Forever21 (similar)

Shoes: Nine West (similar)

Bag: Marc by Marc Jacobs (Classic Q Natasha)

And to end the post, here is a photo of my face in case you don't recognize me because I have done many different things with my hair since my last update.

Aquarium Timeee

Starting off the post with something that has nothing to do with aquariums...
My hair is long enough to be tied into a ponytail now! Yay!... Also not yay because it is at that awkward length now that it has to be tied in a ponytail if I don't flat iron it and don't want the ends to be poking out in different directions.

So... I went to the aquarium on Sunday.

I don't even remember the last time I went to the aquarium here haha.

Strange-looking yellow stick fish haha

Arctic char

A small stringray...

A big stingray.

Lol sorry for these lame photo descriptions.

Super blubbery beluga whale

There was a wall of photos of rescued seals.

They all looked so adorable! They all have that puppy-eyes face *u*

And I found this photo to be especially cute hahaha

Me underneath some glass thing, looking like a bobble-head.

There was a frog section in the aquarium. Either I have horrible memory and not remember this part of the aquarium from before, or it's new, but either way, it was pretty cool.

These frogs were so pretty:

Fire-bellied toad

Ooooohhh. Frog eggs!

Look what I saw in the gift shop...

A fat ball-shaped penguin plush toy haha

Lol and this...

It cracked me up.

Anyway... apparently, there was supposed to be some sharks and rays event going on at the aquarium, but we couldn't find it. When we asked about it, they just said that the sharks and rays were kinda all over the place in different tanks. Wtf. That was such a disappointment. I wouldn't call that an "event" =_=. But aside from that, going to the aquarium was quite fun. Only if it wasn't raining haha.

On a side note... I finally did my nails! Tutorial next post =]

Turning a blonde

Hey guys! As promised in my last post, here are photos of my new hair color - I now have short blonde hair!
The color turned out to be more yellowy than I wanted, but I am not too disappointed.

LOL now my hair is the same color as the gold hair on Mitten.

The color is closer to what I want in sunlight:

In room lighting, it tends to look more yellowy.

This is what my hair is like on the side in room lighting:

And this is what I look like with lots of liner and color contacts lol

I am pretty happy with how the overall result looks... the only thing I am worried about now is going to always having to deal with roots =(
If the maintenance becomes too high, I may just dye it back to brown because I am lazy like that.

Long to short hair

SO...

I had made the decision to chop off my long hair and give short hair a try.

Here's a photo of my current short hair in a super awesome high angle lol:

For those of you who don't follow my blog and have never seen photos of me, here is a photo of what I looked like before... me with my long hair:

It was so long that the longest strands were almost to my butt.

Initially, I was just going to my hairdresser to get a trim because my split ends were out of control and the length was becoming a bit of a nuisance... but I thought... why not try something different. I've never had short hair before...

This was right after the first cut. He tied my hair and cut off the ponytail.

Work in progress...

...And DONE!

Look at this chunk of my hair I said good-bye to!

My hair was just laying on the table like this... it looked creepy. My hairdresser asked if I wanted to take it home LOL.

After my extreme hair change, I had to camwhore... cuz, you know, that's just what you do when you have a change of looks ;) Hahaha.

Doesn't my short hair make me look 500x cooler in my shades? Hahaha! *not really*

Playing with my hair...

 

So yea...

bye long hair, and welcome short hair!

I'm going to be honest and tell you that short hair turns out to be much higher maintenance than long hair. I thought it would be the other way around, but now I have to wake up extra early to wash my hair and blow-dry it so I don't look like a crazy woman =_=.

Aside from maintaining the hair itself, this short hair is also higher maintenance than long hair in that I have to put on make-up if I want to look decent. Without the help of make-up, I look like a boy D=

Nonetheless, I will still embrace my short hair. No more pulling out hairs when I put my bag on my shoulder anymore. No more wiping my hair across food on the table anymore (lol yes that sounds gross I'm sorry).

Review: Oscar Blandi Dry Shampoo

Product: Oscar Blandi Pronto Invisible Volumizing Dry Shampoo

Price: $25

Long Story:
This was a cute little can of dry shampoo from Sephora. This dry shampoo was quite pricey for the size, but it claims to give your hair volume and that it sprays on clear. After trying on the last dry shampoo (from Bath and Body), the first thing I looked for was the scent. This had a very light "salon" smell. Not overwhelming at all. However, it sprays on quite wet... almost like water. I had to rub the dry shampoo for a much longer time than I expected before it got absorbed (or maybe it just dried up without getting absorbed lol). The plus side is that it really did spray on clear, so no white powdery stuff on my roots. However, the dry shampoo didn't really take away any of my hair's grease, nor did it volumize my hair. In fact, I felt that my hair felt heavier after I applied the shampoo. I'm not sure if the fact that my hair is very thin has anything to do with the results of this dry shampoo, but it clearly did not work out for me. I'm glad they had the tester out so I could try it before buying it because I would be hella disappointed if I had bought this. If you are looking into buying this, I'd advice you to go try the tester first.

Short Story:
Pros:

Sprays on clear.
Good size for travelling.
No overwhelming scent.

Cons:

Did not really take away oil.
Takes a lot of rubbing to get it absorbed.
Did not add volume to hair (as claimed).
Made my hair feel heavy.

Verdict:
Maybe this product just did not work for me, but it may work for you since everyone is different. If you ask me, though, I would definitely tell you to not waste your money on this.

Photo Journal 1

From now on, I will name these posts where I just post photos about stuff that happened in previous days because I was too lazy (or did not have enough) to blog about those days by themselves. So here is my first photo journal =]

My bangs were getting so long, so I have resorted to splitting them in the middle.

My bangs have been side-swept for the longest time, so they still tend to go on one side.

This was the first day I had my hair like that and you can tell that my hair naturally tends to go to my right.

Randomly met up my Chch <3

I was so bored at work.

Inspired by the Kleenex box I had on my desk lol. Like my Tissue man?

Kitty photo time!

Haha... here is Muffin with one of his toys on his head.

He was probably thinking "I hate you and I would kill you if I wasn't so fat and lazy" in his head XD

Oh, look who is peeking at me from behind the blinds.

Hi, Mitten!

And here is Luka's nice kitty, Blacky. She was so big and fluffy haha.

The sun is here, but my exams and papers are also on their way. Boo =(

Review: True Blue Shea Cashmere Dry Shampoo

Product: True Blue Spa Shea Cashmere Dry Shampoo (from Bath and Body Works)

Price: $15

Long Story:
Let me just start off by saying that I am (and never was) fond of scents that belong to the very sweet vanilla, cupcake, cake categories... but they didn't have dry shampoos in any other scents.
This True Blue Spa line had a buy 2 get 1 free deal going on, so I thought that if I bought 3, this would be a really great cheap dry shampoo. I purposely went to the store with one-day old hair so I could try this product. There wasn't much left in the tester bottle so I could only try on a little bit. This dry shampoo has a vanilla scent. Because I couldn't really test it out properly in the store due to the minimal amount left in the tester can, I decided to buy it and try it at home. I quickly regretted my decision... The scent is way too strong! I sprayed some on my roots and the whole bathroom smelled like the shampoo. Wherever I walked, I could smell the strong scent as if a donut has melted in my hair X_X. Other people around me also thought the scent was too strong as my hair quickly filled the entire room with this over-powering sweet scent.
As for the actual practical result of this dry shampoo... I would say it works alright. It does its job and it did help take away grease from my hair without leaving any white, powdery residue, but I also find that it dries up my hair a bit too much. My hair almost feels like hay after applying this. I guess if you don't mind sweet melted donut on your head, this would be a great buy.

Short Story:
Pros:

Takes away grease.
Easy application.
No white, powdery residue.

Cons:

Scent is TOO strong. Only comes in this one scent.
Dries up my hair too much.

Verdict:
If you can stand the smell, this is a great budget dry shampoo to use if you do the buy 2 get 1 free deal. However, I'd advice you to use this only if you will be outdoors or in a very open area, otherwise the smell will linger around in your rooms. Or... wait until they come out with another more pleasant scent lol.

Hair: Braided "headband"

My midterms are over and I had a little bit of time on my hands... so I started braiding my hair lol
This post doesn't really serve any other purpose than me showing my hair. Enjoy hahaha.

And we are finally getting some sun!
I'm so excited for summer =D

First hairstyle with my CHI flat iron

As mentioned in my previous post, I have purchased a CHI flat iron.
I spent the last few days just practicing how to curl my hair with the flat iron. Today, I did my first hairstyle with that flat iron.

The flat iron works very well... so well that I think I am going to start doing some hair masks because I feel bad for my hair.

Anyway... I just wanted to show you guys how I styled my hair with the flat iron =]
I know... curling your hair with a flat iron is not anything new, but I felt so proud that my hair turned out better than I expected so I will now force you to look at the pictures:

Curls!

And this is what it looks like on the side:

It was really sunny today and the sunlight made my skin look so bright so you can barely see my scars and eye bags lol. I love you, sunlight.

Do you guys use your flat iron to curl your hair too?

Or do you usually use a curling iron for that?

CHI exclusive flat iron

I was planning to get a KQC mini flat iron, but they were sold out at three different salons that I had went to check out.
At one of the salons, the receptionist recommended me the CHI flat iron. I told her that I straighten (or curl) my hair practically every single day, so she suggested that I get this brand because it is very durable and works really well.

I took her word of advice.
I was about to grab the plain, original CHI flat iron, but another box caught my eye...

The Red and Gold Feather CHI Flat Iron:

I think this was supposed to be an exclusive for the holidays.

The colors were so pretty... plus this was on sale for about $100. Woohoo!

The package came with a free heat protecting spray.

Look at the design on the flat iron.

So pretty! It also resembles Chinese New Year... which is coming up LOL

And the letters CHI in rhinestones!

I am going to keep practicing curling my hair with this for the next week or so... so I can be good at curling my hair with this flat iron since I wanna curl my hair for dine out =D
If I succeed, I will brag about it in future posts.

Have you guys tried any CHI flat irons before?
Do you guys curl your hair with a flat iron or a curling iron?