Dry Skin and The Body Shop

My 2009 Hall of Fame Collection: The Body Shop Body Butter ! My favs are Shea, Mango (too bad this no longer around) and Passion fruit (great for hand and arms and a substitute for perfume).

To those who just swings by, just to say, among all the wonderful stuff The Body Shop have in store, nothing beats their award winning body butter. Take all my makeup accessories but not my body butter *dramatic*

I have a mild case of Ichthyosis Vulgaris or IV in short. It's the dry, scaly part of your body that almost resembles fish scale. I only have it on my calf area, so you won't notice I have any fishy thingy going on if you're walking past me. Haha! Since its autosomal dominant inherited disease, I get this from my long line family members, my dad and my late grandfather. Even my aunt and uncle have it. The rest of my siblings were lucky enough to escape this disorder. Lucky them.

Like eczema, there is no instant cure for this disorder, however it will often improve with age, although they may grow more severe again in old age. I have to moisturize my body twice a day after shower, if not my shin gets dry and itchy. My other body areas tend to get dry too.

I've tried dozens of over-the-counter moisturizing, products and nothing beats it like The Body Shop body butter. It smells yummy and it works wonder! Other products just smell nasty and artificial.

Just for the record, I've tried these products on my skin;

Nivea cream: My college budget cream. Need to use this right after shower. The Nivea signature smell is so-so and can be a bit too boring sometimes, but what makes this a 'meh' for me is for the fact that its greasy, not moisturizing. Yerrrr ouuuut!!!

Palmer's Cocoa Butter: How to say this in a subtle way, it's like a mashed lip balm :p

QV: This product is good for those with very dry skin and sensitive skin. I have actually bought three products on this from the body gel, body spray and cream and it actually works fine for me. What's lacking is the smell and the availability in normal pharmacy. I can only find the whole range in Singapore and in certain location in KL. Bummer.

Reuse is better than recycling! Empty tubs make an awesome currency tub for my future travels. Too bad it doesn't come with a good exchange rate. Hahahaha!

I gotta say, this tub costs a slight whopping of RM59.90. It's a real ouch if you have to spend it every month, but hey, my shin is loving this.

Wait, there's ANOTHER one must-have for dry skin (IV and also eczema) is the Shea Body Scrub. A friend of mine who has eczema uses The Body Shop Shea Shower Cream and it definitely a good addition along side with Body Butter.

Shea Body Scrub (in my shower)

Zoom in one the sugary scrub texture. At the lower part of the tub, you can see a surface of oil that makes the scrub moist. You can use just the oil for the dry part of your body. If you noticed, the fine lines on my hand is another characteristic of Ichthyosis Vulgaris.


Check out my MJ glove. LOL! It's also from The Body Shop. At first, I thought a glove scrub would make scrubbing easier, but I dunno, it feels rather odd and a bit tedious to be taken off. I ended up using only one side of the glove instead.

I recently started using Shea body scrub for exfoliation after a suggestion from the sales lady and OMG it makes a whole lotta difference!!! The scrub works both ways; the sugary scrub exfoliate dead skin well and the oily scrub leaves the skin moist when you scrub and it doesn't hurt. If you have dry skin, right after shower, it is recommended that you need to pat only 40% of your skin dry and immediately apply moisturizer before your skin dries up.

I haven't tried Hemp yet. It's for extremely dry skin. Might try it soon.

I highly recommend the scrub and the body butter for all the dry skin-ers out there. Let me know your success stories on this :) Took awhile for me to complete this article as it's made from love :x

Go to this site to find out which Body Butter suits you.

I'm eating chicken at a vege restaurant!

Plain rice topped with salty papadom, spinach and tofu made mock chicken.

I don't really like taking heavy lunch, even if I had breakfast a few hours earlier. Makes me sleepy and unproductive the whole day. I would usually eat half way and take away the rest of it. Not when I discovered the beauty of vegetarian food that I found in Khush Vegetarian at Cyberjaya.

I gotta admit, I used to hate veggies, probably because I was forced to eat it when I was young. The only veggie I could tolerate at that time was spinach and nothing else.

Oh, just for the record, I'm not 100% vegan. I'm a vegan during lunch time? Is there a title for that? Hahaha.

When you're almost a quarter century older like I am, you started to have a realization that "you are what you eat." Regardless of whatever shape and sizes you are, if you have lousy diet, didn't bother to 'move' around (exercising), possess bad hygiene practice, you are prone to sickness. I'm not saying I'm healthy as a horse, but I gotta say I am healthier compared to 4-5 years ago cos I started to change my health habit. Example last year, I could recall that I only got fever/cough less than 5 times.

Goodness! This is a post on vege food, why am I babbling like an old fool? Back to the subject.

The pic above was my usual light lunch. I love to have it together with a refreshing mango lassi. If you're a fan of yogurt, you will love this!

That's my friend's lunch. He's a bread person, so he took chapati and naan bread, topped with curry potatoes and also the mock chicken tofu.

If you're a first timer on vegetarian food, it may take a few times to get used to the flavor and food. It's not that indulging, but quite a healthy alternative. On a lower note, unlike the usual lunch, I tend to get really hungry quite fast just after two hours eating this.

Check out more posting on this restaurant at Cintarasa blog.

If you're from MMU Cyber, you know this restaurant is another addition of the Auntie Vege, the same owner :D

Khush Vegetarian:
GD Ground Floor. Block 2330. Century Square,
Cyberjaya (Tel: 012-213 9317).
Business Hours: Monday to Friday (Opens on Sundays as well). 8am to 8pm.

King Dancer Pose

My friend took this photograph of me at Port Dickson beach, pulling a Natarajasa (King Dancer pose). Straight leg is the more advanced pose.

I came to my first yoga class with the perception that it's gonna be a lot of "Ommms" instead of the "Ummphh". Who would have thought a simple, balancing pose like the warrior pose could produce a lot of sweat! The 40 minutes of vinyasa and a bit of hatha ended with a relaxing corpse pose. Okay, to those who have zero knowledge on yoga, there are actually names for every yoga poses, from cow, cat, dog, cobra, child pose...every animals or unthinkable nouns you can think of. The actual names were actually in sanskrit.

Why yoga?
Some people would think Yoga would come easy to me as I'm skinny enough to pretzel myself. Maybe for headstand, but not for poses like bow pose. Whether you're skinny, curvy, pregnant or old, yoga is for everyone.

I love yoga for the fact that you are your own exercise machine. You can sweat and burn calories as much as running on a treadmill or lifting weights. If you're not a fan of running and love to stay healthy without signing up on gym membership, again, yoga is the answer. What a lovely excuse to stay healthy :D

It's a bit tough for first timer to pull the right pose, but it will gradually change. I can't even touch my toes the first time and two lessons later, I can go all the way down. Keep challenging yourself, relax and breathe - that's my yoga motto.

For great readings on yoga, there are a lot of video tutorials, magazines and books out there.

If you're a Wii-kster like me, check out what Wii Sports have in store for the yogis. The video shows you how to do King Dancer pose.



For other added variations to the pose above, here is another video from Nike.



Sadie Nardini offers a lot of useful vinyasa yoga variations and guess how old is she? She's 38!



Yoga for Beginners has a lot of useful information on yoga variations, sequences as well as great tips for yogi beginners. I bought this at Sun Magazine at e@Curve (former Cineleisure Mall).

Namaste :)

Battle of impurities!

Dr Ting's acne prescription for me. Clockwise: Pills, Toner, Cleanser (red), pimple gel and spot-on liquid (holding)

It's been 9 days since my first visit to Dr Ting's, my face is doing MUCH better since my January breakout. A couple of days ago, there's a new bump about to erupt on my chin, but with the help of Dr Ting's spot liquid and a bit help from The Body Shop's Tea Tree oil (great for pre-acne), Mr Bump won't stand a chance! It's getting smaller now :)

UPDATES
A few comments on Dr Ting's prescription:
Pills: It's ok. Just swallow. I just have to remind myself to eat it twice a day.
Toner: Not like other toner. I only wear one drop at effected area cos its one heck of a strong alcohol based liquid and its very dry. I'm using my other toner before sleep to balance my skin.
Pimple gel: Often get confused of the usage with moisturizer. It's very light, so i just swipe it through my pimpley part of the face.
Spot-on liquid: I dab a little drop on that Mr Bump and it dries him down. Careful not to lick it...erm, only idiot like me would likely to do so. T_T

Pimple buster = DONE, now pimple scar operation = ACTIVATING MISSION!

I've been reading a lot of success story on Colonial Dames's vitamin E oil and decided to give it a go. Even a good friend of mine is using vitamin E to heal some scars from her face. Vitamin E is measured by the IU's, the higher the IU the better (so they say). The highest for Colonial Dames's range is 30,000. So yesterday, after a few weeks of research, I decided to hit the Midvalley's Guardian to grab a bottle.

Luckily in Guardian this time around, they're having some sale on certain items including Colonial Dames. It's 15% off and they even have tester for it which is erm, a good thing and if only I can see the results real time there, haha, that would be awesome. But hey, better than nothing right?

I tried on their 17,500 IU vitamin E oil on the back of my hand....it feels icky. Somehow I'm not sure it's a good idea to put on more icky stuff than my already existing face oil :p

Then I found something better and its also from Colonial Dames, but specifically for Scar Care. Excellent! I bought it on 15% off for RM 59.41. It's more of a light cream base and it doesn't leave an icky feeling like oil does. It leaves a soft and nice feeling to the face. The direction sez to use it 4 times a day on a new scar to achieve desired results for 8 weeks and pre-existing scar will be for 3 to 6 months recovery. Will update this post for results soon!

Here's one review I found in Amazon,

"Very good for removing scars. I had chicken pox as an adult and needed something to help the scars heal quickly. This product speed up the process and progress is noticeable. At first I felt a burning and very itchy sensation on the applied areas, but it's the initial reaction and after the first couple of days it went away"

Colonial Dames Scar Care contains Vitamin E

I've been using The Body Shop's Vitamin E Intense Moisturizer on my scar for a couple of months, but I didn't really see much difference. However, I do like to wearing under my eye bag and the fine lines under my eyes. I'm only 25, but I think it's good to start early when it comes to moisturizing.

Colonial Dames or Palmer's? Far right bottle is how the Scar Care packaging look like

Impulsive shopping! I also bought this set (comes with extra small bottle) for RM 29.88 only!

My additional 'crazy' beauty regime COMING SOON!

Girls rule AI's Season 9

Siobhan "shriek" Magnus

American Idol this season started off with sad, soppy stories from the contestants. If it's just a few sad ones, I don't mind, but hey, it's all tears...gah.

Good thing it's all good season for the girls. I didn't took notice of the guys this year. Boring. There are two of my personal favorites, the okay ones and the not so good ones.

I love Siobhan Magnus for starters. This glass blowing apprentice is a mixture of cutesy and punk rock (check out her arm tattoo). Her signature style is her high pitch shriek in the middle of her song performance. Definitely someone who will excel to Top 12. Siobhan, if you're reading this, please perform "Crazy" from Aerosmith. I'm sure it will sound SO awesome! :D


Didi Benami is another fav of mine. She has a sweet voice, a bit like Taylor Swift and Avril Lavigne. Her style of singing is very soulful, almost like a high pitch version of Adele. Love her colorful bohemian fashion sense! But when it comes to the competition, her weakness is finding the right song, cos her voice only compliments niche type of music. She's a reminisce of Brooke White from season 7.

The other hopefuls are Crystal Bowersox, Katelyn Epperly and Lily Scott. The rest are either too generic or not worth to vote.

That deadly foodie sin - Jet Puffed Marshmallow Creme

Imagine melting marshmallows in a jar! Even the thought of it makes you have sugar rush. LOL!

I was first introduced to Kraft's Jet Puffed Marshmallow back in 2005 in Nagoya, Japan. Yeah, what a place to get acquainted with such bizarre food such as this...in a way, it was almost expected.

I forgot the exact price, but in Malaysia, you can get it for less than RM12.

If you're in Singapore, you can get this baby at Market Place by Jasons or Cold Storage. I happen to found a bigger jar in Village Grocer at Bangsar Village I, Kuala Lumpur. Makes an awesome smores (with Honey Maid Graham crackers) and maybe I dunno, a weapon to wake up kids to go to school?

Need a coffee fix...on your FACE?

It was a hot, Saturday afternoon and I was bored. The E! entertainment channel was on, and the host were babbling about the Hollywood remedies before hitting the Oscars. Then I heard one of the actors was using coffee ground as facial mask for clear skin, so I quickly googled it and found this. Thanks to e-zine for this great tips!


How could I resist? All I need is milk and coffee ground. I got my ground Columbia coffee from Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and cold Dutch Lady full cream milk. Feel free to use other brands, although I'm not sure that the Nescafe coffee might work cos its a bit processed and might get too diluted when its mixed. Perhaps try Kopi Cap Kapal. The kaw-er, the better!


Here goes, just mix two tablespoon of coffee with a bit of milk, enough to get a not too thick, not too runny mixture. I'm using a stirrer I got from a hotel. Good thing about it that it has a spatula-like end, which is perfect for mask application.

Avoid eyes and lips and slowly massage the mixture as you apply the mask on your face.

Watch out for the spills especially on white fabrics. Coffee has a very similar effect like Henna.

Leave the mask on for 20 minutes, while relaxing on your couch with slow jazz. The mask will get tingly and tight a bit.

Next, instead of a quick rinse, just slowly massage it again, just like exfoliating and rinse it off. Your sink will be a bit messy at this part, so don't forget to clean it up.

I was surprised that it didn't give any tight effect on your face. My face feels clean and smooth. I just apply a bit of moisturizer to keep my skin hydrated and hey, my face smells so coffee-tastic!

Try it!

For more great tips on how to use your coffee ground go to Green Daily