Monthly Montages - August, September, & October 2014

There goes down the drain my initial plan of actually doing this "Monthly Montages" in monthly basis while I'm in summer holiday lol. It's November now, summer has passed and I have 3 months worth of "Monthly Montages" piled up. #procastinationatitsbest people!

Anyway, I'm just gonna combine all those months into a single post, not even gonna bother to try and make them into singular ones.

Let's start with August!

August

• Finally summoned the gut to sort out and clean my nail polish stash. Killed a whole afternoon lol
• And and and Din Tai Fung at Mal @ Alam Sutera finally opened!! Tried their supposedly "best xiao long bao" and it was really good. Not sure if it was the best (this din tai fung is the halal one, so no pork xiao long bao - boo!), but definitely yummy. Gonna go to the Din Tai Fung chef's table next time to try the real deal (pork xiao long bao that is)
• Selfie while filming 3 videos in a row I think, it was when I was in a roll filming back to school videos
• THIS! This is one of the cheapest arem-arem I can find here in Jakarta. It was 3k, which of course not exactly cheap - it's average price - for a street snack back in Jogja, but it was really GENEROUSLY filled with the meat filling. Taste wise, it was pretty good too.

• Also finally tried Marugame Udon. It was pretty good too I think, but I still much prefer thick-souped ramen (I like super savoury dishes better than light-tasting ones)
• Aaah, that feeling when all of your online orders coming in at the same time. It's like a birthday lol
• Gotta take a selfie (ish? Only eyes one) because I did an almost perfect winged eyeliner!
• Spotted this stand that sells uber cute soap shaped in various treats (cupcake, macaron, drinks, tart, etc) in CP bazaar. Bought 3 soaps (smells really good btw) and haven't used it till now 'cause I don't have the heart to ruin the shape wtf #firstworldproblem

• Disgusting pic, I know, but I was doing a major rub-off in my room for the first time since I moved here and damn, they didn't clean this place properly. Lots of dirt on the window frame and hinge area of the bathroom door
• My (then) favorite snack. A bowl of milk and dark baking chocolate chips. I bought it to make lava cake and end up only used it to make 1 lava cake and snacking the leftover just as is hehe
• Sam was sound asleep and I had nothing to do, so what else did I have to do other than give him a quick nail do, yes?  

• Okay, I think there's a glitch in my Sims 3, every time my sim finished took a bath and went to work, he went naked like that lolol. I think it's because he's on the higher level of his job and doesn't have to wear uniform and most of the time he goes to work right after shower, so since he doesn't have to change clothes he just goes with the last clothes he has on, which is his birthday suit a.k.a NONE. Makes sense enough? So, yeah, he just walks around, struttin' his stuffs with no fucks to give lol (none of that pixelated censor covering his butt and weewee some more - btw, if you're curious, he's a ken doll wtf)
• Wasabi Kit Kat from Eko. It tastes like milky kit kat and then has this slightly spicy and bitter aftertaste.
• Mussels in garlic herb butter sauce or something from Manhattan Fish Market. I usually don't quite like mussels, but this one is really good, especially because of that yummy sauce. I can eat just bread and that sauce and will be a happy camper.
• My favorite hainam rice from Gang U in Syahdan. Best one I tried around here so far.

September

• Moon cake festival! I actually only like moon cake with red bean (tausa) and nut (I think it's almond) filling. Back in the day (which probably only like 5-7 years ago lol), it was one of the most often flavour that is given out, but now out of a few boxes of moon cake that my parent got, I only found one cake with that filling (1 box usually filled with 4 different moon cakes). The rest are either lotus paste or these new (modern, I guess) filling like avocado, mango, green tea, like WHAT?! They taste weird to me and I'm usually down with trying any strange/new food.
• Poppin' Cookin'!! It really is fun, and the taste is not bad at all. The fish roe taste like popping bubble :D
• Everytime in Jogja gotta have a chinese food and dim sum feast at Serayu Restaurant. They have really awesome chinese food. Try the shrimp hotplate!!
• Tried this (relatively) new authentic Italian restaurant in Jogja (don't remember the name). I ordered squid ink pasta expecting the sauce would be black, but actually only the pasta uses squid ink, the sauce is like standard cream sauce. Still tastes good though. The price is a bit steep for Jogja, but for once in a while still okay, not crazily overpriced. My father definitely will prefer eat at warung tenda seafood (seafood hawker stall?) next to this place lol. He doesn't really like western food, add to that have to pay so much extra, I think he'd rather just watch us eat and then he'll get himself take-out from the hawker stall later

• I'm forever will see my lil' brother as a 10 years old. When I saw he actually has (somewhat) muscly arms, it striked me that he's actually already 14 (I felt so old lol)
• My favorite cookies from Mary Anne's. Butter Cornflakes. Even my lil' brother who don't really like cookies like this one, so naturally I had to stock up to bring to Jakarta :D
• Selfie with Sam at Puncak. He was so adamant about me having to try eating Indomie (with soup one) in Puncak wtf. He said because the weather is cold, the indomie tastes a lot better
• My lil' cousins from Jember. So cute!! Anyway, the blue beenies were knitted by my mom. It's her hobby now. Knitting. Such a granny's hobby lol. I think I got my crafty gene (read: spending - wasting if you want - hours of time by making something yourself when you can just easily buy it in stores and save yourself the trouble lol) from my mom.

• Spending the day in Taman Safari (Zoo) Cisarua Bogor. It was one of best date we've ever had. I love zoo and I really love the road trip to get there and back 

• Elephant poo paper. I sniffed it and it doesn't smell like anything thankfully. I expected it to at least has that "organic" smell.
• Ubi Madu Cilembu (Cilembu Honey Sweet Potato)!! It was actually my first time trying out ubi cilembu and it was really good. The name honey sweet potato really fits too as it is the sweetest sweet potato I've ever tried
• Visited Cimory while in Puncak. They have buy 1 get 1 on their newly launched soya milk, so I bought a bunch of them - it's the cheapskate in me, can't pass up a good deal
• Chocomory - Cimory's chocolate brand. I recommend that hazelnut filled chocolate and crispy matcha. I bought that chocolate buttons because I thought I'll be all cutesy tootsie sippin' in hot cocoa while reading or blogging or editing, but ended up haven't even tried it yet till now wtf

 

• Soufeel charms bracelet, sooo pretty
• Sam being all serious coding and stuffs (he looked like he's sleeping though in this pic :p)
• Went to Luxola's launch. Read HERE for the full post
• My mom and and dad visited Jakarta, so we went to eat together. My mom said she might come to Jakarta again in a couple of weeks. Eeek, I'm excited!

• I slept with parent in their hotel 'cause I want to have the breakfast. I don't know what it is about hotel breakfast, but I loooove it so much. It's my favorite part about staying in a hotel! 
• Seafood baked rice from Fish & Co. Meh. Just go eat their fish and chips
• The chilli crab fish and chip! Love it :D
• Uber cute doughnuts. To be honest, it doesn't taste that good (nothing compared to dunkin' donuts or J.Co), but it's instagram worthy lol. Sigh, remember that time when people buy food because they're delicious and not because they want to have nice instagram photos? #preinstagramera

October

• Finally took photos of the Madam Glam nail polishes! Reviews on them soon :)
• Had the will power to tidy up my insanely messy wardrobe, at last. Yes, that pic is already the after. 
• Had another perfect winged eyeliner day, SO.MUST.TAKE.TONS.OF.SELFIE lol
• Another instagram worthy food! These ones is not bad though. I quite liked the beef blackpepper (cow shaped one), although the chicken something" (chicken shaped one) is no bueno (is that the correct word? :p)

• Stayed at my brother's and cooked this breakfast with his girlfriend. Pork burger, homemade BBQ sauce, and cheat pancake out of the box. The homemade BBQ sauce was dabombdiggity! We used the Gordon Ramsay's recipe btw if you want to make BBQ sauce yourself too.
• Flied back to Jogja for my Dad's birthday! :D
• Finally the long-awaited IKEA opens its door! The famous ice cream cone. I also tried the famous swedish meatball, but I already gorged 'em down before I can remember to take photo of it #gluttonproblem
• Wedding guest OOTD. Love that bottom, too bad there isn't much place I can wear them to

• First time eating actual pomegranate fruit (I only had tried the boxed pomegranate drink before). They are a pain in the butt to peel though, aren't they? I've tried using the technique I learnt from youtube (Youtube is the best way to learn something lol, even menial stuffs like this) and it still took me more than a half hour with red splatter all over the place wtf. Anyway, the texture is a bit like grapefruit -crunchy with burst of juice- and the taste is like a mix of orange and grapefruit
• Bunny farm at Mal @ Alam Sutera! Cuteness overload! You have to pay 30k to get inside though
• Really cute brother and sister I spotted in LW after my gym class. They hold hand all the time while walking with their parent, never letting go for even a second! So cute and precious can melt your heart. Anyway, I had to be a creepy stalker and take a photo of this precious moment
• All you can eat at Poke Sushi because they're having 50%, 75%, and 100% off promotion with Danamon credit card. This one is Salmon Salad (I think) and it was the highlight of that night. The salmon was fresh and the sauce was really delicious and went well with the salmon. A perfect light appetizer

And that pretty much conclude the last 3 months of my life. I went back to Jogja a lot lol. Anyway, hope you guys have a great holiday season!!!

xoxo,

Lily 

GIVEAWAY Time!!!

I'm having my first ever giveaway right now! Today (October 27th) is the last day for you guys to enter, so hurry ;)

Good Luck,

xoxo

Luxola's Beauty Discovery Evening | NEW Luxola Indonesia Launch

/*overdue post! forgot to publish it lol*/

A couple of weeks ago (on 22nd of September, I believe), I was invited to attend the launch of NEW Luxola Indonesia. Why "NEW" you might ask, since Luxola has been launched in Indonesia since a couple years ago? I'm gonna tap into that later in the event section, but first thing first, I wanna give a huge thank you to Luxola Indonesia's team for having me :)

I think most of you already know about Luxola if you're from South East Asia, especially Singapore (their origin country - I saw a HUGE HUGE advert of Luxola pasted on the wall of the MRT Station when I was in SG), and if you've subscribed to Lolabox before, since Luxola has made frequent appearances in their boxes. Heck, even I know Luxola from Lolabox. I actually purchased my first Sleek palette and Models Own nail polish from them as well.

In case you don't know about Luxola, here's the gist: they are a one-stop online beauty store where you can find various brands, from the ones that you're familiar with (ie. The Face Shop, Skin79) to the ones that are still hard to find/not distributed here (ie. Lime Crime, Beauty Blender, Eco Tools, Real Technique, etc). Yes, their products are 100% original. As of now, Luxola operates in 10 countries, including Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Australia, Brunei, Hong Kong, India, the United Arab Emirates, Thailand, and of course, Indonesia!


Now that you've been familiarized with Luxola, let's get into the fun part, the actual event! :D

Of course, gotta take a selfie of the FOTD on the way there. 

I was rushing from school to the event (I had class until 3 p.m., the event starts at 5 p.m., and the venue was about 20 km away), so I only used very minimal do. I think I only had on The Body Shop Vitamin E Cool BB Cream, Maxfactor Mastertouch concealer, Crazy Rumors lip balm, The Body Shop lip stain, eyeliner (either Maybelline Hypersharp Liner or Cyber Color) and a setting powder. I also planned to do something to my hair, but at the end I was like "Ain't nobody got time for that", which actually benefits me and you'll see why later.

The event was held at Jimbaran Outdoor Lounge in Intercontinental Jakarta Midplaza Hotel. I really liked the venue because it's outdoor, which means tons natural light, resulting in nicer pictures (at least while the sun is till up).

At the entrance, there was a Photo Booth for camwhoring and also a guy who'll took a polaroid picture of you :D

Props to camwhore with.

Spotted Carryn from diaryofaneyelinerjunkie with Aullia from duapuluhtujuhdesember. There were also Endi Feng, Felicia from bubblegum-happiness (she's even more pretty in real life omg), Uchieta Pohan, Shella from polish wonderland, and a bunch more.

One with Elin from elinivana. Btw, the dress code was Classy Black and White, that's why everyone were dressed in monochrome.

You don't expect someone who's vain like me to not take pics just by myself, do you? Or maybe that's more because I'm a very introverted person rather than because I'm vain :p

The theme of the event is "Luxola's Beauty Discovery Evening" because there will be various mini beauty treatments from some of the brands that they carry. So there were these little sections at the venue and there was a different beauty treatment in each of those. Cute concept, isn't it? Let's take a lil' tour to each booth!

Skin Care Booth by L'Oreal

The first booth there was a skincare booth by L'Oreal, so there were a bunch L'Oreal stuffs to try out, like the ones from the RevitaLift line and White Perfect line.

I didn't actually visit this booth because I already had makeup on, so I just took a couple photos.

Make-Up Booth by The Balm

I loved this booth. There were tons of The Balm products to play with, and God knows I've been really intrigued by The Balm for a long time, mainly because of their unique retro packaging. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a cute packaging!

You can also get a make-up touch up, even make over, there if you want.

Look at those The Balm items galore to play with. There were more products at the back too. I just can't.

False Eyelashes Booth by Arline

The display of the various kinds of falsies they have.

I believe the woman is the owner, while the guy is the ambassador. I thought it was the other way around since the name is Arline by Gusnaldi (the guy).

Anyway, I was waiting for my turn to try on their falsies when I noticed the SPG (I think)'s falsies and immediately fascinated by it. It's so cute and fits her oriental face perfectly, definitely the kind of lashes that is suitable for Chinese event like CNY. Picture that lashes, red lips, and a Jibao dress :D

This is the lashes they chose for me because I asked for a natural look. This falsies are made from 100% premium human hair.

Before putting on the falsies. As you can see, I have an almost borderline non-noticeacle lashes. It's not that I have super-short lashes, they are just not thick and curled enough.

Waiting for the lashes to be cut to fit my eyes and to be glued. The girl who helped me putting on the lashes was really nice and informative. Love her hair too btw.

So vain one, putting on falsies still have to smile at the camera lol. 

Excuse the mess that is my eyebrows. I rarely groomed them unless I have a special event to attend to (ie. family weddings) because I feel like they are covered by my bang anyway. Truthfully, that's just an excuse for me being a #lazyass

After putting on the falsies. 

I kid you not, it was the most comfortable falsies I've ever tried. Granted I've only tried a handful of falsies in my entire life so far because I only used them for special occasions like family weddings, graduation, etc, but I realized at one point I actually forgot I had falsies on until a representative from Luxola (either from Malaysia or Singapore) asked me about it. Also, by the end of the night, I don't feel like ripping the falsies right off, which is rare for me.

It's a little bit hard to see the actual falsies in this photo (I have clearer photo down below), especially because I didn't use an eyelash curler afterward, but you can definitely see the thickening effect of it. It looks natural too :D

Nail Parlour Booth by OPI

Look at those OPI nail polishes on display! Good thing I'm not as addicted to nail polish anymore, so I'm not as tempted to just shove it all down my purse.

I didn't get my nails done though because I already had a nail art on, and why would I wanna trade a nail art I painstakingly drew to a plain mani, right? Okay, I might have exaggerated a bit. The nail art I had on was actually quite simple, but I was still reluctant to remove it 'cause it matched the dress code.

Hair Styling Booth by Babyliss & Vidal Sassoon

Good thing I didn't do a single damn thing to my hair other than combed it before the event, so I get to try the babyliss irons provided. I also saw some hair stuffs from Vidal Sassoon too, but decided to try the Babyliss Curl Secret!

I've been intrigued by the Babyliss Curl Secret for quite sometime ever since I saw it on itsjudytime channel, but -Oh, wait I just checked out her channel, turns out she tried the one from Conair, not Babyliss lol. Oops, my bad- But anyway, I thought she tried the babyliss and it seemed like such a hassle to use and not to mention seemed pretty dangerous because your hair can get stuck in it and get pulled, so I never took the plunge when I saw it on the counter (I had it in my head that it was a dangerous, hard to use, gimmicky product that's not worth the money).

Still, I was curious about the unique concept of this curling tool, so when I saw it ready to try in this booth, I went ahead and tried it with the help of the girl from that booth.

It's actually REALLY easy to use. There are 3 settings, for the heat, timer, and curl direction so you create curls with different effects. All you have to do after choosing the setting you want are placing a section of your hair into the chamber, wait for the the timer to beep, and release the hair. I tried it myself after the girl taught me how and I have no difficulty using it.

The con I find on this curling tool is probably the fact that you need to section you hair pretty small to be able to fit it into the chamber, so it can be pretty time consuming if you have tons of hair. Oh! And also, it's a bit harder to do the hair at back side.

After the curling is done. I loved the result. I think it took about 15 to 20 minutes or so in total. Added this Babyliss Curl Secret to my wish list :)

You can see the Arline falsies better in the above photo.

Products Booth

In this booth there were products that Luxola carries on display.

Sugarpill, Ecotools, Skin79, Real Technique, Bioderma, Cottage, The Balm, Lime Crime, etc

Yes, they do carry Lime Crime & Sugarpill!!!

I can already hear the excitement of Indonesian MUA and beauty blogger lol. I personally am pumped that I finally can get my hands on Lime Crime nail polishes. I've searched for Indonesian online shop that sells them a long time ago to no avail.

Kenzo, Cartier, IASO, Dr. Jart, Coverderm, Rosebud Perfume Company, Beauty Blender, etc

More eye candy for beauty product junkie :D

NEW Luxola Indonesia?

That's Alexis who presented. She is the founder of Luxola. The woman beside her who wore that white halter top and black skirt is Cynthia Chaerunnisa, head of marketing Luxola Indonesia, and she is actually the co-founder of the now-discontinued Lolabox! Sigh, I miss Lolabox. I hope there will be a new beauty subscription box in Indonesia soon.

Anyway, here's the gist of the NEW Luxola Indonesia:

• Luxola Indonesia has its own domain now, so you go to www.luxola.co.id instead of www.luxola.com/id
• Luxola now has a warehouse located in Indonesia, so all products you purchase from them are sent directly from their Indonesia warehouse, as opposed to before where your purchase were sent from Singapore Warehouse -> Indonesia Office -> Your Doorstep, which means a lot faster shipping time (Yay!!).
• www.luxola.co.id carries different products than www.luxola.com. Because Luxola Indonesia warehouse is still considerably new, some of the products available are different than the ones on luxola.com (ie. you can't find Lime Crime & Sugarpill on luxola.com). Also, currently Luxola Indonesia carries fewer brands than luxola.com. Don't worry though, because they are working on bringing other brands available on luxola.com to the Indonesia warehouse as well.
• Various payment methods are available: Visa/Mastercard, BCA Klikpay, Mandiri Clickpay, Bank Transfer, and COD (Jabodetabek area). Ps. the last time I shopped there, BCA Klikpay is not available yet though.
• Aforementioned faster delivery time. 

with Hema Mansukhani and Alexis. Both of them are so nice.

The event presentation actually only took about 10 to 15 minutes, and then they let us roamed around the booths again.

I was already finished exploring all the booths, so I went to get some finger food provided there.

I know this has nothing to do with beauty stuffs, but being a total glutton that I am, it's almost impossible to resist to take some photos of the food :p 

This one is some kind of meat (duck?chicken?) on a cracker.

Salmon on a toast

Yummy Chocolate Cake

After I stuffed my face with all the finger food (so proud of myself that I had managed to restraint myself from getting more food as I usually go out of control at any buffet-style eatery), I took more photos at the photo booth, chat a little bit, took the goodie bag (AWESOME goodie bag btw), and went home.

Anyway, a little side story, I waited for about an hour for Sam to pick me up and I was worried that he couldn't find me. I ran out of my phone battery some more. Luckily, when I asked the front security on where I can find a pay phone, he actually offered me to use his phone instead! So nice of him, isn't it? I'm forever grateful to him, because if I hadn't been able to call my mom (I don't remember Sam's number by heart lol), who knows how much longer I'd need to wait as it turned out Sam was waiting on the other part of the building. Faith in humanity restored.

Left: at the beginning of the event & Right: at the end of the event. It's not often that you go to an event and come home with a nicer look :)

The super awesome goodie bag :D Definitely going to review some of them!

Once again, thank you Luxola for having me there (and Herinta for inviting me)! It was a fun event.

xoxo,

Lily

Back to School 2014 Series

Hi peeps, just thought I'll post up a compilation of all the back to school videos I did this year :)

School Supplies & Planner Haul 

Fashion/Clothing Haul

Back to School Lookbook: 4 Oufit Ideas

1st Day of School Make-Up & Outfits

This might be my last back to school videos since next year (hopefully) I've finished with school and haven't decided if I'm gonna continue to take master degree.

Anyway, I had tons of fun filming this back to school series, so I hope you guys enjoy it :)

take care,

xoxo

dot COM

SO!!

I finally have my own domain ZOMG!!

So.freakin.excited about it lol

I have been wanting my own domain to get rid of the blogger subdomain for a really long time, but I've always thought that it will be rather costly so I never take the plunge.

Then, yesterday, at an event, I met Elin from elinivana and we kinda talked about getting domain (well, I asked actually). As it turns out, it's not really that expensive at all. I thought it would cost around 100k-200k (in IDR of course) per month, but it's actually 100k (around $10) per YEAR. Silly little ol' me thinking that it was monthly price.

Anyway, after I got home from the event, I immediately bought my own domain. Thank God lilyzhen.com is still available. FYI, I've been eyeing lilyzhen.com several times before just to see if anyone snatched it yet. Lucky no one else named Lily Zhen wants to have a website lol. Now, if only I can get the username lilyzhen for my instagram, email, and twitter, that'd be purrfect :p


That's pretty much conclude this post, just wanna let you know that you don't need to type in .blogspot again to visit my blog :)

I'm editing a nail art tutorial I filmed LAST YEAR now and I realized that I haven't posted the nail art tutorials on my channel in this blog for a really really looooooong time, so I'm probably gonna spam this blog with my old nail art tutorial videos!

toodles,

xoxo Lily

be with the ones who can make you laugh just simply because laughing is one of the best pick-me-up out there

Back to the Start

Do you know what I haven't been doing in this blog for a while (other than neglecting it lol)?

Write about all the random things in my life.

The reason why I started a blog way back when I was in high school (5 years ago wtf I feel so old) was to keep a virtual diary and I just like to write about random stuffs that's been going on in my ordinary life.

If you see the blog posts that I wrote in the early years of this blog (especially ones in my old blog), you'll see that most of them are random posts with no purpose or beneficial value whatsoever. Sure, they weren't interesting to read for other people, but at least I love reading them from time to time just to reminisce.

Then, I started to write reviews, and I see those posts are the ones that get more hits, not that I have a lot of hits now, but from those few hits, review posts are the popular ones, and what people are actually interested to read. Even though getting hits is not my main goal, I thought to myself, "Well, if people like my reviews more, then I'll write more reviews". I'm not saying that I've been diligently writing review (let's face it, my last review post was months ago), but I decrease the frequency of me writing random things that I just feel I wanna write about.

I became more concern about the picture's quality in my blog. I tried to make my pictures as nice to look at as I possibly can. I'm not gonna lie, when someone comment that he/she likes the pictures in my blog, I'm over the moon. With that being said, decent pictures = more effort = more time consuming, which is one of the main factor why my blogging has been crazily decreasing over the years. I'm just not committed enough to this blog that I'm willing to spent hours a week just to post up a review. First and foremost, I have classes to go to and thesis to write. Second of all, I'm more committed to my youtube channel than this blog.

My youtube channel is a sort of creative outlet for me to share my interest in nail art and all things beauty and maybe to share a tip of two about the aforementioned subjects. In other hand, my blog was an outlet for me to rant and keep memories about my life, about what I'm going through, and simply, just anything about my day. Thus, when this blog started to turn from lifestyle blog into more beauty/nailart-ish blog (I added the "isn" because I'm nowhere posting enough posts about those things regularly for this blog to be in those category), I just kinda lost interest in it.

Beauty reviews/posts were never something I want to do on a regular basis, in between posts maybe, and frankly, the random things are the ones that I look forward to look back to in the future.

I don't know what's the point of this post haha, but as for the trigger, I was looking at the blogs that I followed and I saw iamyoursuperwoman. A singaporean blog that I followed long long time ago and probably one of the blog that intrigued me to start blogging. I do remember it was the first blog that I read and I was enjoying it and I ended up reading all of her entries. It was a simple lifestyle blog and she just wrote whatever going on in her day, but it was a fun read for me and I thought that this blogging about your day thing seems kinda fun.

She has closed down her blog for a while now. At a risk of sounding really creepy, I tried to look online that maybe she changed her domain or something, you know, stalker style, but found none. I find her deviant art that has been abandoned long time ago, but I can't even find her twitter and instagram (I remember I saw her twitter and instagram sometime back) now.

Anyway, I was feeling a bit sad about it, but I remember how much I enjoyed reading her blog and it reminded me of the reason I started to blog. So long story short, I'm probably going to post random stuffs again (with beauty post from time to time), they might not be helpful whatsoever for others, but they will serve as what I started this blog for, a "virtual diary". One I look forward to reminiscing about years later.

xoxo,

Lily

Monthly Montages - July

Man, my posts lately have been nothing but monthly montages. Not going to blame you if you're bored. I mean, I myself will be if all there's to read are a string of monthly montages. Still, I'm going to do the July's monthly montages as a digital diary :)

• Went to Jember in early July. Look at how freaking adorable my cousin is. His face is so innocent, act like have no sin one haha. Also remind me a lot of Shoalin kids with that super chinese face and bald look lol
• Also went to my grandpa's farm and picked some over ripened eggplant. That's my brother showcasing our loot :p
• Saw this on 9gag and laughing my ass off
• Hakata Ikkousha, my fav ramen, finally open in Jogja!! Too bad the one there is halal only, so no pork ramen. The chicken broth is still super awesome though, just no as rich.

• My first time voting for presidential election :D
• Pesto pasta from Nanny's Pavillon Jogja. I remembered it to be mediocre when Sam ordered it in Nanny's Pavillon Flavor Bliss, but this one really good!
• Successfully made my first molten lava cake! Used EntertainingWithBeth's recipe. Her recipes that I've tried really are fool-proof.
• Made "Bakwan Jagung" (corn fritter?)! My favorite "gorengan" (fritter?). I like ones with lots of corn and more on the thinner and crispier side. The one I made is cheat one though, out of a box haha (I used Mamasuka), but they were still so freaking delicious. The best bakwan jagung I've ever tried!

• Got these unique earcuff from Berrybenka. Haven't had a chance to use it though.
• Met up with my middle schools friends. It's been around 4 years I think since I have met them, so happy to be reunited!
• Breakfast in bed for my mom's birthday :D
• Made funnel cake using Laura Vitale's recipe. It's good. It was my firs time eating funnel cake and it tasted like crispy powder sugar donut!

• Ice creams from Mary Anne's. 
• Also from Mary Anne's. I don't remember the flavors of these though. I think I had Banana Nutella, Nutella Cheesecake, Baileys, and the other one I forgot.
• Finally tried spam musubi!!! Have been wanting to try it for years, but couldn't find it anywhere. This one is from a Hawaiian Resto in Central Park (don't remember the name). It was good, but the spam is too thin though, like almost crispy thin :(
• First meal I cooked at the new place. Instant ramyeon haha. Look at that perfectly poached egg though!

• Sam trying out the jacket I got him for his birthday <3
• Finally went to see the fault in our starts. Thank God it's still on after about a month since its premier. I refused to watch the movie before I read the book, so finally read it when I got back from Jogja and finished it in 3 or 4 days I think. That's fast for me, I usually took weeks to finish a book because I pace it out slowly.
• FOTD for Sam's birthday dinner :)
• First breakfast I made at the new place. Beautiful, fluffy scrambled eggs, toast, and cheese sausage. Yum!

And that's a wrap! take care, xoxo

Clearing Out My Nail Polish Stash

A couple days ago was a lazying day for me since I finished and uploaded a new video on Youtube (It's a Beach Photo Collage DIY. Click  HERE to watch) and haven't recorded a new video to edit, so really, nothing to do. Plus, it's still Eid Mubarak holiday (today is the last day).  And just fyi, I'm also still on my summer break from school until mid september :D Too bad I have to work on my thesis so I still have to go to uni a couple times a week T___T.

Anyhoo, enough with the rambling. Basically since I have nothing to do for the rest of the day I decided to organize and clear out my nail polish stash! Something that I've been wanting to do but kept postponing it for the sake of my laziness lol. But seriously though, the thought of having to go through all the nail polishes, checking if it's still usable, and reviving the ones that still can survive with few drops of nail polish thinner just intimidate me. Again, with the babbler. Before I start blabbering again let's just start with the photos, shall we?

This is after I sorted out all my nail polishes by brand. It's no surprise though that Etude House is the dominating brand since that's my go to nail polish as of now (It's quite affordable, the quality is good, and has a really wide range of nice colors).

The second dominating ones are The Face Shop and Oriflame. I actually find The Face Shop nail polishes to be okay only (the cheapest range one) and much prefer Skin Food, but TFS is cheaper at that time when I went gaga over a sight of nail polish (I still am now, just on a much lower dosage).

As for Oriflame, I can say that it's an old favorite. Not because it has super awesome quality or anything like that (the quality is pretty decent), but because it's my first nail polish brand that I collect when I started getting into nail art. If you read my nail art related posts on my old blog HERE, you'll see that I used a lot of Oriflame products. My mom used to buy me some every month, so Oriflame nail polishes will alway have a soft spot in my heart *ciaaahh bahasanya*.

Also, I'm quite impressed that I have quite a number of Essence nail polishes, considering I got them only on 2 shopping trips (last year and this year) and comparing to, let say, my Revlon, where I more often frequenting the counter. I guess Essence just has a lot of nail polishes that caught my eyes (believe me, I've restraint myself from getting more on each of those 2 trips). You can get Essence now in Guardian Indonesia, but the price is rather ridiculous, so I myself not gonna even bother.

I think the next growing nail polish stash will be the Maybelline Color Show that just launched a couple months ago since they're affordable (I got them @Rp 23,000.00 each) and you know, new stuffs just always caught my attention. Speaking of new, Sephora is finally open in Plaza Indonesia!!! Ahhh, I can't wait to go there. I've been waiting forever for Sephora to open its door in Indonesia :)

This is the unusable stash that I'm gonna be throwing out. More than 50% of those are the super cheap, unbranded, and Pokari nail polishes though, so I don't feel really guilty about throwing them out (They are all already super sticky and unrevivable and some I've used up).

The other half are Etude House, TFS, Revlon, Oriflame, etc and almost all of them I have used up and the remaining I've used more than half before it became unusable.

I was planning to store them again according to brand, but after a second thought, it didn't make sense to store them like that since it's not gonna be any easier for me the next time I browse through them, so I finally decided to store them according to color.

It just makes it all visible to me. For example, I can know all my options when I want to search a red nail polish, because frankly, I really don't remember all the red (or any color for that matter) shades that I own and more often than not, some of them were forgotten since they got buried deep at the back. #nailpolishaddictproblem

So, yeah, I separate the reds, pinks, oranges/yellows, purples, nudes/browns, blues/greens, glitters, metallics, whites, blacks, topcoats/basecoats/treatments.

I jumbled up some (like blue and green) for the sake of space and sometimes for color like bluish mint, I don't know if I should put it together with blue or green lol.

I used folded aluminium foil to separate each color, because..well, no reason really, it was just what I can find at that moment hehe. The good thing though, aluminium foil is pliable, so it makes the separation space much more flexible than if I had used something like wood plank. The bad thing is, well, it's not really good to look at. At least it works, no?

So this is how I store my nail polishes as of now, just on one of those 4-tier drawer. I know this is not the best way to store a nail polish because it's all jumbled up like that and it's better to store nail polishes up right. Heck, this kind of organization isn't even pretty to look at. But, this is all I can do for right now since I have limited space. I have thought of a nice way to store nail polishes, but that required much more space, so maybe in the future :)

take care,

xoxo Lily