#IT WAS SO GOOD . i love sgd its absolutely amazing

[yuriidoctor]

tell-tale-heart

[pebbeul]

my skincare routine

Absolutely no one: Influencer: So a lot of you have been asking me about my skincare routine...

Guess I have hopped on this meme bandwagon ;-)

I initially wasn’t sure if I should even write about my nightly skincare routine because skincare routines are so subjective to each individual. But I thought that it would be nice to share what are my holy grail products that I love and have, and will re-purchase over and over again. 

I definitely use a wider range of products than what is pictured here; I often swap serums and moisturizers depending on my mood, but there are some staples that I love so much that I wouldn’t want to try anything else.

I have been told that I have a pretty crazy skincare routine, but skincare to me is pretty therapeutic, so it’s not too much of a hassle. My go-to toner right now is the FRESH Rose Floral Toner. Ever since I tried this 1-2 years ago, I have not used anything else. Really helps that this toner lasts so long despite how generous I am with it. Sometimes I buy travel sizes of different toners to try, but it ends up unused because I just love this toner so much. Some of my friends prefer the Rose Deep Hydration Facial Toner because it has more benefits, but I like to spritz on my toner, which is why I opted for this instead. However, I might switch to try the other one after I finally finish my current bottle (I’m left with 1/3, so hopefully by the end of the year).

I usually then exfoliate with PRISM, followed by a serum of my choice. I alternate between Glossier’s Super Glow, the It’s Skin Effectors, or the Real Propolis Ampoule from Answer19+ - this Korean brand that is pretty underrated as well. What I love about using serums is that it provides your skin with a lot more nutrients than if you just use a plain moisturiser. I always thought that using serums with moisturisers might be too much for the skin, but after using both for maybe around a year now, you can really see the benefits, depending on what sort of serum + moisturizer combination you choose. Personally, my skin isn't as dull as it used to be, and I find myself feeling more comfortable in my bare skin because of it.

Sometimes in between steps, I also use a mist to refresh the skin. I love Pixi’s Hydrating Milky Mist because it just feels like airy clouds of hydrating goodness just cooling my face. I spray this all the time - in between my routine, and even after I put on oil, just for the fun of it. Sometimes, when I don’t want to have such a heavy routine, I substitute this mist as my moisturizer instead. This mist is pretty affordable at $22 SGD, and I have already repurchased this after quickly running out of my first bottle. I also have Herbivore’s Rose Hibiscus Facial Mist, but this one is still my favourite.

For moisturiser, I really love Origins’ Original Skin Matte Moisturizer with Willowherb. I was so worried when I first got this product because a matte moisturizer is usually catered for the oily skinned, which I am not. However, this moisturiser is gentle, works very well on my skin without having me feel overly greasy or sticky, and it works really well with the brightening serums I use. If I want something gentler and more hydrating, I use Laneige’s Lavender Water Sleeping Mask, which also works wonders. I am definitely repurchasing these two moisturisers when I finally run out. I have also tried alternatives like Belif’s Aqua Bomb, or the Tatcha Water Cream, but the former I find too gel-like and the latter too expensive. 

My eye cream and lip balm are both from Laneige - simply because it’s affordable, and easy to use. The Water Bank Eye Gel EX is nothing miraculous, but it does it’s job to moisturize my under eyes. Does it work wonders in getting rid of my eyebags and fine lines? Not really. But I think it does work as a preventive measure because since using it I haven’t been developing even more wrinkles around my under eyes.

The Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask however, is the bomb. This works so much better than a regular lip balm. It works really well for both the humid weather here, as well as in super dry winters when I travel. I love to slather a thick layer of the lip mask before I sleep, and I will wake up to a fresh pair of lips that are hydrated and supple. Plus, they also come in different scents. I have both the Berry (pictured here) and the Vanilla lip balm. My favourite is the Vanilla one, but unfortunately they might be discontinuing it so I might have to purchase the Berry scented one for future use. This lip mask actually also has a ton of good reviews all round, so this might be the one product to check out if you’re looking to amp up your current routine.

Lastly, facial oils! I think everyone’s biggest initial concern when using facial oils is that it’s very ironic. We all want to avoid looking greasy and oily, but using facial oil is alright? When first researching on it, facial oils are said to help lock in the moisture and nutrients from your previous skincare steps, and this is so true. My first facial oil was Sunday Riley’s Juno Face Oil, and while this product has had mixed reviews on its effectiveness, I found that it does moisturise my skin and help magnify the benefits of the other skincare products I use in tandem with the oil. However, I don’t really like the smell of it - it smells kind of herby and earthy which is slightly off putting.  While it’s not necessarily a miracle worker, I would say that I am pretty happy with it and might repurchase because I have finished this already. 

On a side note, I am quite picky with my face oils because I once had an allergic reaction to Drunk Elephant’s Marula Oil, one of the oils that is widely acclaimed in the beauty world. Because of that, I tend to be more careful with the sort of oils I apply on my face. The other oil that I use regularly is Pixi’s Rose Oil Blend that smells amazing and is also not too bad. It’s also much cheaper than Sunday Riley, so if you are interested in trying facial oils, this oil might be a better first product to use. Other products that I am looking to try would be Herbivore’s Orchid Facial Oil - this smells really good and I have heard good reviews about this: for both its price point and product quality, so I am tempted to try this for my next facial oil purchase.

Overall though, it’s not necessary to incorporate that many steps in your skincare routine. Ultimately your skincare routine should be personalised to what you think is best for you, and not just a one-size-fits-all solution. For instance, you can include masking as a step instead (I have this additional step most of the time) and take out serums if you don’t want to layer on so many things. Or if you're like my mum who doesn’t believe in the effects of facial oil, you don’t have to do it as well. The point is really to find a good mix of products that synergize well together to really bring about the best benefits for your skin. If you’re dry-skinned, have more hydrating products in the mix. If you have oily skin that is prone to breakouts, use more balancing products that aim to calm and soothe any redness and infection. I would also recommend adding a dash of anti-aging properties once in awhile just to prevent any serious damage before it’s too late.

But yes - skincare shouldn’t be a hassle, and it definitely shouldn’t be an obligation! Although not all of us are blessed with good skin and will need to take time to get a good routine that works, when you get to that stage where you feel good about your bare skin, you will know that it’s worth it.

[artravelin]

Destination Wedding for Under SGD 30,000

We just had our wedding two weeks ago at the beautiful Sri Panwa in Phuket with 30 of our closest family and friends. It was absolutely the dream wedding I’ve always wanted and with some detailed planning - we pulled it off for under SGD 30,000!

The above is my favourite photo of our wedding - it truly marks what we wanted for our wedding - a small cosy group of people we love the most having fun!

Here’s a quick breakdown of costs! 

And now for the details: 

1. Destination + Hotel

It was love at first sight with Sri Panwa when I came across the photo above on Pinterest. On one of our trips to Phuket, I secretly emailed Sri Panwa to ask if we could do a site visit for our wedding planning. We were treated like royalty but most importantly the view at Baba Nest took our breath away. That said, I brushed it off as being too expensive initially.

So I went back to the drawing board and explored different locations - we were certain we wanted a beach destination that is close by and accessible - so we narrowed down to Phuket, Bali, Batam. Other considerations we had were: cost of flight tickets to destination, hotels available and type of food at wedding. In the end we narrowed down to Phuket as flight tickets to Phuket were cheaper than Bali, we preferred Thai food for our wedding and there were a lot more hotel options in Phuket than Batam. Once we narrowed down on Phuket, I started detailed research across different hotels in a complex spreadsheet. There were lots of cheaper hotel options, but ultimately we just couldn’t bear to miss out on the once in a lifetime opportunity to have our wedding at Baba Nest, Sri Panwa so we narrowed down to that and paid the deposit to lock in the date.

This was the wedding ceremony setup for our wedding day - absolutely stunning <3

This was the dinner long-table setup at Baba Poolclub (note: there is a minimum spend to hold dinner at Baba Poolclub).

And this was the outdoor area for after-party and sparkler send off.

Note: We had special rates from Sri Panwa due to unforeseen circumstances hence please note that prices for Sri Panwa now will be higher.

2. Accommodation

We decided early on that we want to ensure everyone can enjoy our wedding as part of a holiday and have great fun! We also didn’t want our guests to spend too much money just because we would like to have an overseas wedding. Hence, we decided to sponsor 2 nights accommodation for our guests from Friday to Sunday as our wedding is on a Saturday.

Guests can also attend our wedding without having to take leave by catching an evening/night flight on Friday and flying back to Singapore on Sunday.

Sponsoring hotel nights made a lot more sense as it was logistically simpler to do so and we could arrange for transport. From my friend’s suggestion and our recee trip, we realised that Kantary Bay Hotel is right beside Sri Panwa which made it an idea location for guests accommodation. Guests could simply walk 2 mins to Sri Panwa entrance and catch the hotel tuktuk up to Sri Panwa - perfect! :)  

We also made a bold move to have an “angbao free” wedding. We did not want  our guests to have to pay anything additional as they would already have to pay their own flight to Phuket. Hence we communicated that their presence is our great blessings - and it truly is indeed! This turned out really well and everyone was receptive to the angbao free concept which is great :)!  

Lastly, to hold a wedding at Sri Panwa, there are minimum nights requirements for villa bookings - this is a significant part of the wedding costs. We thought we’ll take this opportunity to pamper our family and give them an opportunity to enjoy the amazing Sri Panwa so we went ahead and booked 4 villas for 2 nights each. We could tell that everyone absolutely enjoyed themselves in Sri Panwa so it was worth every penny!

Photos of our 1 bedroom luxury pool villa and my 5 pounds donut from Primark. We’ve stayed in our fair share of 5* hotels for work but Sri Panwa villas are absolutely stunning and in an absolute league of its own! The gorgeous photos already make me want to go back again!  

3. Photography, Videographer, Hair & Makeup Artist

Now comes the tricky part of a destination wedding: photographer, videographer and makeup artist. This is another reason why I’m so glad we chose Phuket as our wedding destination! As it is such a popular wedding destination, there are no short of great talents in Phuket to ensure the most beautiful wedding! I much prefer to engage photographer, videographer and HMUA from Phuket for couple of reasons:

Familiar with the hotel - especially important for photos

High quality and value for money - I feel their quality is on par or higher than those in Singapore and at a more affordable price

I researched into many wedding blogs and articles of weddings held in Phuket (most of them are planned by wedding planners). A few key names consistently dominate the blogs/ articles which led me to believe that:

They are trusted by wedding planners

They are very professional and deliver high quality outcomes.

Boy was I right!! :) We were blessed with the most amazing team - strongly recommending all of them:

Photography: Nindka Photography - Wasin is amazing and I fell in love with his portfolio and feel that he can capture asian weddings very well

Videography: Gina Smith Photography - they do amazing photography and wedding planning too

Hair & Makeup Artist: Lisa Allen

4. Wedding Gowns and Shoes

This is my favourite part as the cost savings are off the charts on this one :D! I bought my two dresses and shoes for less than SGD250 and hopefully looked more than that!  

For wedding dress, I absolutely LOVE Galia Lahav (i blame pinterest) - All Galia Lahav dresses are gorgeous but unfortunately comes with a steep price tag. I mean look at THAT (Galia Lahav dresses photo below)

So I scoured through Taobao to find my closest Galia Lahav equivalent - low back with beautiful lace and found this (picture below)! Nubbad - this even has a beaded thing at the back - and for under SGD100 including shipping - absolute steal! :D

It didn’t turn out too bad, definitely looked wayyy more than it cost and fitted quite nicely! It wouldn’t be perfect fitting of course but I didn’t want to spend money on alterations. Still looked great in pictures so who cares anyway!

Next for evening gown, I knew I wanted a shiny sequin evening dress (yes i’m getai like that!), ideally rose gold - and yes there’s a pinterest for almost everything you dream of (see below). It’s just absolutely hard to find like full sequin dress in Singapore for a reasonable price. I looked around in stores a little and quickly gave up and turned my search back to Taobao.

The thing is with Taobao - it’s figuring out what is the chinese search term for what you want. I realised the type of dresses i’m looking for is commonly classified under 主持人 (god knows why everyone is a host?!) and sequin is 亮片. It may be long and tedious but once you nailed the term it’s bingo!

Here’s what I found - it’s gold with beautiful sequins and the design looks flattering and for a great price of SGD60 (inclusive of shipping)!

Now for wedding shoes - as you would follow by now. I constantly fall in love with things on Pinterest (it’s dangerous) and I absolutely adored these Ralph & Russo wedding shoes! Not only do I not know where to get them, I can only suspect these are super expensive :(

Somehow I was looking through Carousell and found these “Big Tree” equivalents with the stunning details on the heels! Got them at a steal for SGD40.

Also bought another cute pair of rose gold heels from Primark while I was in London - for like GBP 16 so decided to wear that with my evening gown!

Here’s both my outfits hung in our villa.

5. Groom’s outfit

We looked for geek’s outfit at Zara and it helps that he is of good decent shape that we can just buy off the shelf and make some alterations for it to be perfect! I love his blue suit and it’s definitely cheaper than custom-making one. His white shirt and beautiful shoes are from Benjamin Barker and he got them for a good bundled deal!

6. Bridesmaid dresses & Groomsmen outfit

I had a simple criteria for bridesmaid dresses - that they have to look consistent and blue and I don’t want to have to worry about size of dresses so I opted for convertible dresses. These were more expensive than I thought and the blogshop I bought them from was a complete disaster - I ordered 4 and they delivered only 1, then they said they are out of the colour i want and asked if I would like a change of colour (what audacity?!), all this while spelling my name wrongly in whatsapp messages. Thankfully, the dresses looked great on my bridesmaids but that blogshop was a complete nightmare. I don’t even have such a bad experience with shopping on taobao and the dresses are cheaper too.

For groomsmen, I checked if they all had grey pants and white shirt (they did thankfully!) and bought them all blue suspenders from Qoo10 (SGD5 each! see photo below) to match the colour theme. The groomsmen all looked so good I was so proud :D

7. Bridesmaids bouquet

Wedding flowers are expensive period. Once it’s a wedding, the cost of everything is marked up and flowers are the perfect example. For bridesmaid bouquets, hotel and florists all around Phuket were charging USD 70 onwards per bouquet (which is ridiculous IMO). We tried looking for places selling fresh flowers in Phuket during our recce trip but that wasn’t very successful. In the end, I went to Far East Flora to get a big bouquet of baby’s breath for SGD32, split them into 4 and tied white ribbon around them (see below). Each bouquet cost under SGD 9, a huge saving from USD 70 each. Of course it’s a big hassle hand carrying these and transporting them to Thailand - thank god Customs had no issues and even congratulated us on our wedding!

I also DIYed the wedding vows booklet - cost $0.90 for the paper.

8. Wedding Favours

I was also extremely proud of our wedding favours. Since it’s an outdoor wedding I was afraid the weather would be too hot hence i found these wooden fans from Taobao and bought them for slightly less than a dollar each. We then meticulously cut ribbons and tied each of them!

Inspired by this from Pinterest, I thought it would be lovely to have bubble wands for our wedding as it makes for a wonderful photo opportunity.

While geek was in US for work, I found these Wilton Love Knot bubble wands on Amazon for USD 9 and shipped these to his hotel. He had no idea what I bought and was like -_- when he saw that they were bubble wands.  

Tied these wands with blue ribbon and omg they looked so cute. Love how the wedding favours came together. Fortunately, we were blessed with such strong winds for our wedding that we absolutely didn’t need any fans.

9. Decorations

Thank God for Daiso! We got most of our table decorations from Daiso - all the photo frames and the vases (we spray painted them with bronze paint from Art Friend for SGD 10) come up to SGD 14. I got the LED alphabet lights from a christmas gift exchange (thanks Sarah!) then we went to buy a “&” sign from Typo for about SGD 7. Got the battery LED fairy lights from Primark when I was in London for GBP 2.50 (!! they cost so much more here). We also bought a polaroid camera and 80 films from Qoo10 (~SGD141) to be our “guestbook” and “photobooth” so that guests can take photo.  

Sri Panwa kindly provided us with some flowers and it looks beautiful!

Summary: Our desire for a destination wedding meant that we had to organise 3 weddings (!!) which is really tiring.

ROM and wedding luncheon for extended family to fulfil my parents’ wish for 8 course chinese sit down wedding banquet. We kept it small to 50 people

Destination wedding for immediate family and closest friends in Sri Panwa, Phuket

Catholic wedding in Church

Ideally it would be great to combine church wedding and ROM to save time and cost so that we only have 2 weddings but unfortunately we didn’t complete our engagement encounter in time to do that. :/ Advice to all catholics - sign up for your Marriage Preparation Course (MPC)/ Engagement Encounter (EE) asap, these get booked out wayy in advance!

We have finished 2 of 3 weddings with only the church wedding left to go. We absolutely enjoyed our destination wedding at Sri Panwa and would not have it any other way. This does mean a few things:

The cost per pax is very high but for the people we love the most, we think this is very worthwhile. Everyone had a great time and a holiday and that was really what we hoped to achieve for our wedding! It also gave us the opportunity to talk and mingle with everyone at our wedding which we could only do in a small intimate setting like this.  

We are prepared to not “breakeven” on our wedding. We feel like weddings have evolved to be too calculative, I’m not even sure why the term “breakeven” is used for weddings because it sounds way too much like a commercial business. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with giving angbaos as a blessing, we just didn’t want our guests to think they have to “fund” our choice of an overseas wedding hence we opted for an angbao free wedding.  We examined what the “angbao” intention really meant and realised that our guests’ presence (travelling all the way to Phuket) is already our biggest blessings and we think that it resonated with our guests too

We have to prioritise what matters and what doesn’t - my wedding dresses matter a lot less than having a great venue that everyone can enjoy - this means spending as little as possible on my dresses (no Galia Lahav clearly) but spending enough to have our dream venue at Sri Panwa Baba Nest. We didn’t want to spend money on pre-wedding photography so we just DIY with a tripod stand and camera when geek was in San Francisco for work and I joined him for holiday. We decided that actual day photography was more important and would look more natural anyway.

We hope you find this useful especially if you’re thinking of moving towards a small intimate destination wedding! We had a great time and i took my colleagues advise to enjoy the moment - it was indeed one of the happiest moments our lives and everyone enjoyed themselves and that’s priceless! 

Venue: Sri Panwa, Phuket Guest accommodation: Kantary Bay Hotel, Phuket Photographer: Nindka (Wasin) Videographer: Gina Smith Photography Hair & makeup artist: Lisa Allen Makeup Artist  Wedding gown & evening gown: Taobao Bride’s shoes: Carousell, Primark Groom’s suit: Zara Groom’s shirt and shoes: Benjamin Barker Wedding favours: Taobao, Amazon