Image credit

As far as I’ve been patronizing Shu Uemura, I’ve always had my brows done as a walk-in customer. However, when I dropped by the Mid Valley Megamall outlet last month, I was curtly told by one of the consultants there (don’t know if she was the store supervisor or not, but she was behind the cashier counter) that if I wanted to get my brows done, I should make an appointment in advance and they were not entertaining walk-ins. And this was even though there was only one other customer undergoing the very same service at the time.

Naturally when faced with unhelpful customer service, I always walk away.

It was a different story at my regular Shu Uemura outlet at 1Utama just one week later. I was warmly greeted by the consultant who attended to me very nicely and made me happy by giving me perfect brows. Not one mention was made about the need for an ‘appointment’ first before she would attend to me.

So ladies wanting to try out Shu Uemura’s Brow Atelier services, I will only recommend the standalone outlets at 1Utama and Empire Shopping Gallery for their good customer service.

According to Clinique’s website, the Superbalanced Makeup Foundation is an adjustable oil-free coverage formula that adds moisture and subtracts oil where needed. It also contains soothing camomile extract to protect skin from environmental damage and vitamin E to help fight free radicals in a water-resistant formula that is streak-proof and perspiration-proof.

How did it fare with me? I had picked up a 7 day sample of Superbalanced foundation from the Clinique counter at Jusco Bandar Utama during one of their sample promotion periods and the consultant color matched me to shade SB#02.

The sample comes in a small cute jar that I like using over a pump bottle since I can never control how much/little I want in a single pump. I know it’s not hygienic and I do wonder about oxidization from opening/closing the little jar, but since it’s a sample I’m not too fussed about it anyway. One last thing would be that the little jar trumps a sample sachet since I don’t have to look for somewhere to store the excess sample that is not used up at the first go and the jar can be reused for other samples or when I go traveling.

I applied this liquid foundation using Paris B’s method of spreading it on your palms and blending in rapidly, using my fingers for touch-ups on places that need a mite heavier coverage.

You can see in the swatch above that the color (SB#02) is not a perfect match with my skin tone as it appears to be a shade darker with a yellow (almost light brown) tone. I prefer pink-toned foundations as they seem to blend better with my skintone. However, it does not look as dark on my face (because of my skin sensitivity and eczema, certain areas on my face are approximately one shade darker than my hand) and my dissatisfaction with the yellow tone was rectified by using my Guerlain Meteorites in Mythic to balance out the pink tones.

My skin didn’t feel dried out using the Superbalanced foundation, but I found that it did accentuate areas on my forehead where I had been battling dry, flaky skin. Not a very pretty sight. But that of course is not the fault of the foundation.

Since I rarely use full makeup as I prefer to let my skin breathe, I also attempted to use the Superbalanced foundation as a concealer for daily use, dabbing and blending only on areas that required concealment – like my undereye circles and red areas around my nose and cheeks. It worked perfectly well in a pinch and looked quite natural.

In terms of coverage, I don’t really need full cover aside from hiding dark circles and redness so I was pretty happy with the Superbalanced foundation in that aspect. What I was not so happy about was that I felt really oily while using this foundation and had to resort to using blotting paper (I generally don’t have to use it as my skin is dry) to avoid having a shiny nose.

I probably would not go back to this particular formulation of Clinique’s foundations, but I’ve heard better things about their Superfit and Extra Moisture range, so I’ll keep my options open on those for now.

Yes factors : Sheer to medium coverage, works as a light concealer, not drying
No factors : Shade matched was a bit too dark, may accentuate dry skin, ups the oil production in skin

Read other blogger reviews here :
Paris B

My ex-colleagues and I have this tradition that we’ve been faithfully keeping for the past 7 years. Every Chinese New Year, we will have our own version of a ‘reunion dinner‘ – that all important meal when family members near and far all attend. In this version, all of us ex-colleagues make it a point to attend the reunion meal and as the years went by and each of us slowly left the ex-company one by one (there’s only one person left there now, haha), it became important that we must attend this yearly traditional meal of ours. This year, we had our reunion meal early (in the 2nd week of January) since one of our group members came back from Hong Kong on business matters.

This year, we decided to hold our reunion at Zuan Yuan after seeing some pictures of yummy food from local floggers (“food bloggers”). Also, as Zuan Yuan is pork free, it also met our need to search for a halal restaurant. Zuan Yuan is tucked away at the Ground Floor corridor between One World Hotel and One Utama Shopping Centre. It’s a reasonably convenient location since you can choose to park in either the shopping mall’s carpark or the hotel’s carpark (it’s all joined up anyway).

I quite like the atmosphere and setting of Zuan Yuan. It’s quiet and refined and elegant, unlike your usual noisy average Chinese restaurant. But as far as restaurants go, Zuan Yuan is on the small side and caters to smaller parties – I saw they had a number of tables that would accommodate 4 pax or less.

Although Zuan Yuan’s yee sang promotion only starts from 21 January 2011 onwards (we were there about a week too early), we asked if they could accommodate our request for a half portion of yee sang and they kindly obliged. We were not the only ones to make that request though – the night that we went there were private functions going on in the rooms and they too had yee sang. The yee sang at Zuan Yuan was very fresh and crispy and one of the better hotel yee sangs I have had.

After our yee sang starter, it was on to the main course! We opted not to take the Chinese New Year set menu and decided to order from the ala carte menu instead. Our method of ordering was based on picking whichever dishes had a chef’s recommendation logo next to it.

First up was roast duck – or rather, half a roast duck. Zuan Yuan’s version of roast duck is deliciously tender and the skin crispy without the fat that you normally find elsewhere. I would like to come back again to try their variation of Peking duck.

Stir fried fish fillet in orange mandarin sauce. We all agreed that this dish was not very spectacular as we could not taste the orange mandarin sauce thus relegating this dish to obscurity that night.

While the fish was unmemorable, everyone liked this chicken dish with ginger slices. I personally thought it tasted similar to marmite chicken, but in a more refined way and the ginger slices added a little something different to set it apart.

We also had “ma po” tofu as one of the dishes and Zuan Yuan’s version looks deceptively mild and non-spicy when presented but manages to pack quite a kick. Pretty good, I’d say, though not in the vein of your usual Chinese “tai chow” restaurant.

We were good boys and girls and had our veggies in the form of this broccoli dish. Love the way the greens are simply presented in their natural state, without artifice!

Lastly, we finished off a good meal and conversation with dessert. I opted for the guilingao as it is cooling for the body. Zuan Yuan’s version comes with mango cubes and I did quite like the contrast between the sweet mango and the slightly bitter jelly.

For halal Chinese food with simple presentation and a refined setting, Zuan Yuan is the place to go to.

Zuan Yuan Chinese Restaurant
Lobby Floor, One World Hotel
First Avenue
Bandar Utama City Centre
47800 Petaling Jaya
Selangor Darul Ehsan
Tel : +60 3-7681 1159
Pork free.

Read other blogger reviews here :
Cumi dan Ciki
FatBoyBakes
Lyrical Lemongrass
the Nomad Gourmand

Image credit

Sometime last month (in January), I knew I was running out of my Clinique Moisture Surge Extended Thirst Relief. And I definitely knew that I needed to repurchase this staple in my beauty routine. Instead of waiting till the very last moment to repurchase, I decided I needed a plan of action. I would use the time I had between when I decided to repurchase and when I would run out of my moisturizer to ensure that I got the best possible deal.

I already knew that the regular sized jar (50ml) retailed for MYR 160 at all Clinique counters. Was there any way that I could get a better deal? I was willing to pay the full retail price of MYR 160, but yet I wanted assurance that I would get the best possible value for my MYR 160. Let’s see what I did.

Firstly, I checked out the price of online retailers. From friends’ recommendations and good experiences, Strawberrynet seemed the ideal place to start with. Unfortunately, they were having no special promotions and it would have cost me MYR 166 (with free shipping) when purchasing from them. Strawberrynet was a no-go.

At the recommendation of another friend, I checked out BestBuy World. Although the prices there are much cheaper, the product is not the full sized product, but rather travel/sample sizes as a discounted rate. The different type of packaging did not bother me, but unfortunately, they had no ready stocks of Moisture Surge then.

So, at that point of time it seemed as though I would need to pay the full retail price for my moisturizer. No problem, since I was already prepared to pay MYR 160 for the product. The next question was : Where to buy it? I decided to make my purchase at Parkson, since they have a retail program with Bonuslink which allows you to collect reward points for all purchases. In this way, I could be assured of accumulating reward points for future redemption against shopping vouchers. At least there would be some return on my money spent.

Then, as luck would have it, I received a flyer from Bonuslink informing me that there would be a members’ day at Parkson, which would allow me to collect 5 times reward points on any purchase. Even more value for money, right? So I deferred my purchase for a few more days while waiting for the members’ day to roll around.

During the time between the Bonuslink flyer and the members’ day, I received an email from Clinique, informing me of their latest promotion to redeem a sample of their new anti-aging moisturizer. I decided that I would redeem my free sample at the same time when I made my purchase.

When I visited the Clinique counter, I was able to accomplish a number of things at the same time – restock my moisturizer, redeem my free sample and I also asked the consultant for another sample of Clinique’s best-selling All About Eyes eye gel. Even though I did not purchase enough to meet the Gift-With-Purchase limit, I’m satisfied with getting samples on top of my purchased item.

Better yet, since I made my purchase on the members’ day, not only did I get the 5 times reward points, I also got MYR 20 worth of Parkson vouchers for spending above MYR 150 in a single day. Can you say score?

Total haul on that day :
Moisture Surge – MYR 160
Youth Surge sample redemption – free
All About Eyes sample – free
Parkson vouchers worth MYR 20 – free

Wouldn’t you say that’s a good deal? And all that for just waiting 1 week extra.

You might think that I unnecessarily spent a lot of time comparing prices and still ended up paying the full retail price for my moisturizer, but when I look at all that I managed to get for just one trip, to me that’s worth much more than randomly going out shopping.

So, plan your purchases ahead of time and save money.
Getting additional satisfaction in knowing you got a good deal? Priceless.

Image credit

However, ever since I’ve discovered Shu Uemura’s Brow Atelier (a fancy name for their brow shaping services) I’ve never looked back. In about 10 – 15 minutes, any consultant at Shu Uemura’s counter can transform your shaggy, unkempt, overgrown brows into beautifully shaped and trimmed brows that frame your eyes and enhance your facial outlook. And you do know that the saying goes that “Eyes are the windows to the soul”, right?

Here’s a quick rundown on what happens when you get your brows done at Shu Uemura. (Note : There is no standard shaping technique overall as I’ve noticed that the items and technique used vary from consultant to consultant.) Usually, the consultant attending to you will :

~ Clean the equipment (blade, scissors, tweezer) using a cotton pad and make-up remover and wipe dry with tissue.
~ Assist you to remove any makeup residue if you have drawn or shaded in your brows.
~ Clip up your fringe (depending on your hairstyle).
~ Tweeze off most of the visible brow hairs that are growing out of the brow area.
~ Use a blade to shave off brow hairs into the desired brow shape.
~ Use a spoolie and scissors to trim longer brow hairs to achieve a neat look.
~ Repeat as necessary until you get perfect brows.

I’m not sure since I only get my brows done at the standalone outlets at either 1Utama or MidValley Megamall, but I would presume that the regular Shu counters at major department stores would also provide the same service.

Shu Uemura Brow Atelier
Available at all Shu Uemura outlets.
Cost : MYR30 for a total reshape or MYR20 for maintenance.

However, if you feel brave enough to go it alone and shape your brows yourself, Connie of Skindeco has a really good step-by-step guide here. Syen of So Loverly also has a mini discussion on whether to pluck, shave, thread or wax your brows into shape here.

Read other blogger reviews here :
Connie
Paris B