1st Book Recommendation

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

This book is easy and fun to read! I appreciate Gretchen's honesty and sharing at her personal level on her challenges and struggles. I also found the topics of each month is very relevant to my current and future situation. 

For example, January is about boost energy, which reminds me of resuming my regular exercise regime after giving birth to my child. May is about be serious about play, this reminds me of "work hard, play hard", seems I forgot to play hard for few years already. June is about make time for friends, then I set one of my resolutions is to initiate message to one friend each week to see how are they doing, especially after I moved to Singapore about 1.5 years ago and leaving my family and friends in Hong Kong.

Overall, I found her sharing is inspiring and encouraging. I have prepared my own 2017 resolutions after reading this book. One of my resolutions is to start my own blog by February which I did! :)

Click here to check this out!

Natural Yogurt Face Scrub

This is a step 1 before the honey yogurt mask that I introduced some time ago. I tried this natural face scrub many times and still find it very effective.

It is all natural and very economical! All you need is just plain yogurt! I can't think of a reason you will be reluctant to try this out...

Steps:
1) Make sure your face is dry.
2) Take about 1 teaspoon of yogurt.
3) Apply evenly on your face but avoid eye areas.
4) Gently rub the yogurt on your face with fingers in circular motions.
5) Rub for about few minutes then start to tap on your face gently. After tapping evenly all over your face for about few minutes, you should start to feel the yogurt become a bit sticky and dry on your fingers.
6) Gently rub your face, you will start to see tiny white colour stripes dropping off, just like you are rubbing with an eraser.
7) Rinse your face thoroughly, then you can do the honey yogurt mask or continue with your usual skin care steps.

Frequency:
Suggest to do once or twice a week  

Basic beauty tips

#5 Hair & Colouring - Strategize your colouring style
     
Before I go to salon to colour my hair, I always have below considerations:

Q: How am I going to maintain this new colour?

• How often and when will be the next round I want to colour my hair either to cover the awkward roots?
• Am I willing to spend another round of money and few hours at the salon every 2 months?
• Too frequent colouring may cause more hair loss and hair damage...
• Am I willing to spend another budget to buy the professional colour protecting shampoo? Or just stick with my current shampoo and conditioner?

My strategy to balance above considerations is always go for highlights! I realise highlight is a good strategy to delay the need to have too frequent colouring to cover the awkward roots growing out. As highlights won't give a very distinct separation between your dyed hair and natural hair colour at the roots. But of course if you bleached your hair until too big contrast, then nobody can help...

In terms of colours, I always go for purple base with red highlights, then when the colours faded out, hair will still look brown and won't look awkward.

Examples with awkward roots growing out:

Example that new roots are not that obvious if do highlight:

Styling - Back to Basic

#2 Underwear - You need a variety of them and check your back before you leave home!
     

I can't stand if I see these especially during workdays, where OLs seem they don't care, but I think is unprofessional to certain extend...

• I can see what style (shape) of underwear you're wearing. Wear seamless underwear please if your dress or skirt or pants are tight fit.
• I can see what colour of bra or underwear you're wearing from behind. Either change your underwears in the morning to match your outfit or plan ahead what are you going to wear the next day and wear the matching colour underwear set. I personally think is very unprofessional to see a pink bra underneath a white shirt. If you want to look sexy, please match with taste, save it after work or in your apartment. 
• Check your back and see if your bra is too tight. Quite often can see some ladies the top and bottom edges are very tight, then the fat got squeezed out in between. Looking from behind, the back curve is not nice and make you look fat.

Remember to check your back before you leave home everyday! I am less harsh during weekends... :)

Useful basic seamless panties choice!

If you're lazy to match the colour or style, then please don't show your bra.

Check your back! Both top and bottom.

Personal Care - Back to Basic

#2 Elbow & Knee Cap - Easily being forgotten!
     
Sorry to be mean here again... But if I see girls with grey-black elbows or knee caps, I will think the girls aren't taking good care of themselves and simply not attention to details!

I know some people may have darker skin colour around elbows or knee caps areas that are inborn, but I believe majority are people never do scrubbing on these areas to remove the dead skin cells. If you have this problem, please scrub regularly!

I am more demanding towards girls on these things. If I see these on guys, I have higher tolerance level, after all men are men...

Is ironic that if you regularly do waxing on your arms, legs, underarm and scrubbing your heels but forget about your elbow and knee caps... Your body caring service isn't complete!

Hey lady, check your elbows and knee caps now!

Some suggestions:
Ways to Get-Rid-of-Dark-Elbows
Remedy and care for your elbows and knees

Basic beauty tips

#4 Hair & Colouring - Don't just focus on the hair colour alone
     
When you plan to dye your hair, the number one most important thing is to pick the right colour that is trendy yet matching your skin tone and character. However, I am not sharing with you what colour to pick. My key message is about how to ensure your new look is pleasing to eyes and look harmony.

The key is whatever your new hair colour is, please take care of your eyebrow colour as well. If your eyebrows are quite dark and you dyed your hair as lighter brown, chestnut, red or purple colour, please also use eyebrow pencil or powder to make your eyebrow colour matching your hair colour. You can use a bit of foundation and loose powder to lighten your eyebrows then apply the eyebrow pencil or powder. More extreme example is when elderly dye their hair into black colour and didn't dye their eyebrows leaving them as silvery grey, image how awkward it is.

In summary, the key is overall harmony and consistency when you present yourself.

Bad examples:

Good examples:

Red Bean Pudding (砵仔糕) - Hong Kong Traditional Dessert / Pastry

I love this traditional dessert and I have been eating this since I was 3 years old. I can't find this in Singapore, so today I tried to make this myself at home. I test below recipe and it works. Worth a try!

Serving size: 4 small bowls (each pudding is 8.5 cm diameter x 3 cm height)

Preparation time: 10 minutes (exclude the time if homemade red beans)
Cooking time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:
85g          Rice flour
55g          Wheat starch
1/2 tbsp   Glutinous rice flour
60g          Brown sugar
50g          Raw sugar
2 cups      Water
2 tbsp      Sweetened red beans (homemade or cannned)

Steps:

1. Combine rice flour, wheat starch and glutinous rice flour, then mix with 1/2 cup of water.
2. Heat 1 1/2 cups of water, then add brown sugar and raw sugar into the water. Stir to dissolve sugar and bring to boil. 
3. Pour hot sugar solution into flour mixture. Stir swiftly to mix the flour mixture and sugar solution until very well. *Sift the mixture to ensure the batter is smooth and without lumps. This will have direct impact on the texture when you eat.
4. Bring water to boil in a wok over high heat. Put some red beans (30 beans or depends on your preference) in each of the small bowls.  Steam the bowls over water for 3 minutes.  Pour batter into the small bowls. Steam over high heat for another 20 to 25 minutes.
5. Optional to add some read beans on batter after steaming for 5 minutes.
6. Let cool. Stick pudding with bamboo skewer (the traditional way of serving).  Enjoy!

My Tips:

• The amount of red beans can vary depends on your preference.  Some people prefer no red bean at all.

• If you replace brown and raw sugar with white sugar, then you will have a white colour pudding, which is also the typical alternative choice to brown pudding.

• When combine rice flour, wheat starch and glutinous rice flour, better to mix all these flour first then add water.  Also make sure you mix the mixture as smooth as possible to make it easier for you to stir when later need to pour the boiled sugar in it.
• Next time I will try to add matcha powder, coffee powder, chocolate or milo powder to make more D.I.Y. flavors!

My comments: Ingredients are simple, but the steps to mix the batter determine the success or failure.

Refer to original recipe