Experiencing Shinjuku Premium Salon

I was given a chance to try some services at Shinjuku Premium salon. About time. My hair could use another smoothing session as the roots had grown too long already. So there I was, with Nisa, getting a hair makeover.

Shinjuku Premium is located in Kuningan City Mall and just recently opened in Jakarta. Nevertheless, if you happen to live in Surabaya the name must be familiar to you. The salon is sponsored by L'oreal therefore they use L'oreal pro products, a brand I can always count on for haircare. My first encounter with the salon impressed me. I love the ambiance as it feels comfortable. Afterall, salon is a place for me-time. Comfort is key.

I was getting hair makeover together with Nisa. Before decided about what to do, we consulted with Audid, the owner of the salon. Besides smoothing, he suggested an idea to highlight my hair. But being a faint-hearted that I am, I backed out (although I am considering it now). So he decided to cut my bangs straight as it would go together with my medium-length straight hair. The image of Nicole Scherzinger came to mind, so I agreed. On top of all, I just wanted a low-maintainance hair as I spend too much time doing my makeup (or, you know, sleep), I usually have just a very short time to do hair.

Smoothing session, like always, was long and boring. Thank God I had some of my friends there so I spent a lot of my time chitchating. Nisa, Franky and Stella were there as we came straight to the salon right after blogger gathering. Franky was so funny, waiting for me and Nisa, constantly telling us that our hair look good. I wasn't sure if he was being honest or just telling us sweet-nothing, but hey, even false compliments feel good! LOL. The smoothing solution applied not too close to the root to avoid the final result from being too flat. And the good news? I don't have to wait three days to wash my hair. Oh that means a lot! The first three days after smoothing are the days that I hate the most. My hair look flat, oily and these are the times that I usually avoid meeting friends. Just to be sure, I waited a day before I washed my hair. And it says in shape up until now.

After the smoothing session, I got my bangs cut. It was a straight bangs with curve on both ends to shape my face also hid my chubby cheeks. Works well especially when I put my hair into ponytail. I love the final result. If you think a simple thing like get a hair bangs won't make a difference, think again. 

Here's how my hair looked like before the whole process started. To be fair, I straightened my hair before I visited the salon because I was attending blogger gathering first.

 

Here's how the hair looked like, right after makeover. The roots still too flat and stiff as I just finished smoothing session.

And here's basically how the bangs looked like

After the makeover, Audid blowed dry my hair loosely. He said, the concept is, the way my hair looks like as I left the salon is how my hair is gonna look like on daily basis. And I must say I love the result. I received compliments from my friends, told me I look younger, which is my aim from the beginning.

That was a pleasant experience at Shinjuku Premium and I am one happy customer. Highly recommended. If you're thinking about doing hair makeover, feel free to consult with Audid first. He has good taste in hairstyle.

Shinjuku Premium

Kuningan City Mall Lt.1 #58

(021) 3048.0775

www.shinjukuhairmake.com

Basically Just Me Rambling

Hiya guys!

Did you notice how many posts I've come up with this month? Geez. I thought I'll never go back to that phase where I could only come up with less than five entries a month. But unfortunately, sometimes those days are inevitable. However, allow me to defend myself in this entry that I disguised as "update".

First of all, like a memorable old song, my academic life got me tied up. Well that's something I'll never compromise. I also took a break and flew to my hometown, Jayapura, for a week where I didn't have my laptop with me. And then mom paid a visit afterwards, helping me to move out of my apartment. It was hectic. Second of all, I couldn't really play with my makeup. For reasons I don't know, my breakout decided to aggravate by the end of last month. I have this theory that it had something to do with a lot of stress I didn't realize I was under. I'm sure you know that the key to flawless makeup is healthy skin. So not only the result of my makeup was desperately flawed, putting on makeup on inflammatory acne was nowhere near fun. The pain was agonizing. So back on accutane I go! My skin is getting better now. I still have redness and acne scars scattered all over my face, faded a little bit, but at least the bumps have gone. So glad that I get to wear sheer to medium coverage foundation again (with some acne scars still peeking through, but I don't mind). The options used to be either bare face or high coverage foundation (I really put my Graftobian foundation to good use for these last couple of weeks).

Let's see, what else... Oh! Mom and dad just got back from their trip to Europe. Mom got me some makeup, of course. I have family there and my aunts, knowing my interest on makeup (they even found my blog!), also got me so many new makeup. I was completely in awe. There are too many!

I also added some foundations to my collection. I've been wanting to try all these for so long, especially Koh Gen Do foundation. So I took advantage of Sephora Friends and Family Sale. Just let me know if you want to know more about products you see here.

 

Speaking about too many makeup, I proudly announced that starting this month I am currently on makeup ban. Isn't that great? Those foundations were my last purchase and I bought them a month ago. Didn't see that coming, but finally come those days where latest makeup collections don't interest me anymore (although I still have a  soft spot for foundation). I mean, I still love playing with my makeup that I have. I just don't feel like I need to buy more, hence I rarely visit makeup counters lately. Not to mention I have enough makeup that will last until the apocalypse, so I'm good. Doesn't mean I'm running out of materials to blog, though. I still have products that I planned to write about.

Being on makeup ban apparently doesn't save me from bankruptcy at all. I think I have this pathological habit on spending money. Maybe subconsciously I just hate seeing my purse filled with enough money and prefer to be broke, instead. I am revisiting my old hobby now, reading. After two years didn't have enough time to finish a book briskly, I'm like on fire these days. Gramedia, Periplus and Kinokuniya have replaced  Metro, Sogo and Matahari department stores as my favorite places to visit. And man... Books these days are expensive. I mean a hundred thousand rupiah for a novel? Come on! And why do these authors keep releasing books in series? Why can't they just stop with one? OMG. (An irony coming from someone who just spent $62 on a bottle of foundation). These are some books I collected since the beginning of this month and I only read less than half of it so far. Well, in my defense... Oh, what the heck, I am defenseless.

Anyway, reading a lot of books really broaden my vocabulary and the nerdy side of me really excited about that.  I really want to incorporate that to my writing, however some of my friends told me that my vocabulary is already too complicated and hard to understand, especially for my Indonesian readers. I personally took it as a compliment *grin* but, just out of curiosity though, what do you think? I think that I'm still a rookie and there's nothing sophisticated about how I write. You wanna see sophisticated writing? Go visit my sister's blog. She got me perplexed all the time, even until now.

I tend to get carried away when reading (or watching movies or doing anything I'm into) and there were these periods when I'm reading certain books I like, I bombard my twitter timeline with the same topic over and over until it gets annoying. Apparently 140 characters aren't enough. So I decided to create another blog. This is not a book blog, mind you. Just a blog to write anything that interests me, other than makeup. And the blog is in Bahasa. So if you happen to have the same interests, feel free to pay a visit to myownlittlechair. I am still building the content and not sure where this blog is going to go at the moment. Probably just let it flow and not going to be obsessed about it too much. But who knows. That's how I started with allthatmakeup. Haha..

And speaking about my makeup blog, (this it the last point, I promise!), did you notice the new URL? I finally decided to purchase a domain. So it's allthatmakeup.com now. My blogger friends were very supportive about that. Nisa helped me a lot with the process given she just bought a domain herself. She said better hurry before other people took the domain. Did you know that there are two other blogs that go by the name "allthatmakeup"? Because the name was already taken, they added numbers behind it.

As I promised, this is finally the end of this pointless ramble. Here I write a lot just because I feel like to, really. I know this journal kind of entry might not be everyone's favorite nor that it'll take anyone's attention. But I don't care. I just need to let it out and get a little personal. As I said, it'll be nice to get to know the person behind all that makeup.

Swatch of Kiko Face Palette in Tangerine Tan

My other kiko Origami Face Palette finally arrived. This one is in the shade Tangerine Tan. I already reviewed the product in general, so this post is just going to be about the swatch and pigmentation, which sadly, even worse than my previous palette.

I was already suspicious when I opened the palette and see a group of warm brown colors that matche my skin tone, except for the dark brown and the peachy pink. If the colors match my skin tone, then how on earth are they going to show up? And I was right. You can see on the swatches below. I swatched the colors separately. They look very pale with very strong warm undertone. Most of the colors show up as yellow and orange. I'm not saying I don't recommend this shade, because as I said on my review, this actually has a wonderful quality But of course Tangerine Tan is definitely not for my skintone, and darker. If you are paler than me, then you should get this. But remember that this is a very warm palette. Don't even bother trying to get it if you have cool undertone

And here's how the color looks like on my cheek after I don't remember how many layers. I lost count after fourth layer. Can't see anything? Yeah, neither do I.

Anyway, I dropped my palette the other day. It fell from the sink which about the height of my hip. It sounded pretty bad. I panicked and immediately picked up the palette from the floor, expecting to find all kinds of mess consists of crumbly blush and pieces of cracked mirror. But I have to give it up to the sturdy packaging and solid product inside. The blush itself just detached form the pan and the five colors separate from each other, but no crumbly mess. Also the mirror stays in one piece.

If you notice that chunk of blush in the picture and staring with questioned mind, well that's not how the palette originally looked like right after it fell. I panicked when it fell and then relieved that the blush was alright so I just pressed the detached product immediately into the pan. And then I realized, this could be a testimony for the product and I wanted to show it on my blog. So.. ehm, I slammed the palette one more time. This time with lighter force though, just enough to detached the product once again and took picture (I realize this story is getting even more absurd as I'm writing it).

So yeah, plus point. Sturdy packaging and dense product. Get this if you can, preferably if you have lighter skintone than mine. And why do I never report about the sturdiness of a packaging? Because I always try my best not to drop any of my makeup compact. But hey, at least there's an advantage from that stupid accident, yea?

Find Your Passion and Reach Your Dream with 'Shine With Passion'

 

In the middle of last month I was invited by Unicharm to come to the launching of www.shinewithpassion.com where there will be talkshow and discussion about finding your passion and reach your dream, as well as introduction about latest product from Charm. The topic really appealed to me so I decided to come. None of my blogger friends could make it, so I asked my friend, Hanny, to come with me. 

The event was held at Kempinski Hotel. The venue was mind-blowing and as I entered, I saw many framed empowering quotes by many famous figure, to complement the theme of passion that day.

 

The event was hosted by Iwet Ramadhan and Priscilla and started with Mr. Yoshihiro Miyabayashi, the President Director of PT Uni-charm Indonesia giving opening speech and introduced us to the company and their achievement in Asia and, specifically, in Indonesia. And then continued with Mr. Yasuaki Aoyama, Brand Manager Feminine Care of PT Unicharm Indonesia, explaining the ideas behind the campaign and their latest product. "This is an era where women play an active role in social environment. Therefore, more women are maximizing their potential to turn their dream into reality. 'Shine with Passion' comes as a reflection of the passion from Charm to facilitate active and talented women across Indonesia in finding their potential and reach their dreams with maximum effort." Not only by 'Shine With Passion' campaign, Charm also introduces the latest Charm Body Fit Day Slim to prove their passion and commitment to understand active women's needs to work on their passion with no obstacle, including the uncomfortable feeling during that 'time of the month'.

The event continued with talk show with Alexander Sriewijono who is a psychologist and career coach, Revalina Temat who is Charm brand ambassadress and also an actress. And Diana Rikasari, a fashion blogger and young entrepreneur.

We talked about Diana and Reva's passion. What keep them doing what they are doing right now. Reva picked acting as her passion. Trying to portray a character is her passion and something she really enjoys. As for Diana, whether as a blogger or entrepreneur, she loves to share the ideas she has in her mind. With that, Mas Alex comes into an underline that passion doesn't equal job. You are maybe a writer but what is it that you really do when you write? Some people write to share ideas in their head, or maybe to teach someone or to describe something. Also there are people who writes because it's their job, which is most likely the most boring answer (in my opinion). So your passion determine the output of your work. And something that you do out of passion will give more satisfying result and people who see your work can see that.

Mas Alex's presentation about The Quantum Leap theory really is an eye-opener. He started with a question, "If you have only two millions rupiah in your hands, where would you travel six months later?" Many audiences proposed idea of domestic traveling, except for Diana who carefully answered Europe. After he gathered all the answers, he then reminded us that the question asked your purpose in six month later, which means there's enough time to do many things with your current money.

The application is, he asked us not to plan our future based on what we have and then later define our dreams (SW-OT). This way of thinking only reacts to alteration and differences and we 'predict' our future based on what we have. Instead, find your dreams, and then define what you have to do (OT-SW). This way, we create differences and instead of predict, we 'make' our future happen. Quantum leap in growth!

As the talkshow ended, the event came to an end. I'm so glad I decided to take time to come to the event as there were many things I got from it.

Untuk pembaca di Indonesia,

"‘Shine with Passion’ mengajak perempuan berusia 18-27 tahun untuk langsung mengunjungi situs www.shinewithpassion.com lalu melengkapi data yang diminta. Pilih kategori dan kirim proyek yang akan dikembangkan, kemudian peserta akan mendapat link khusus untuk mekanisme pemilihan hingga 30 Agustus 2012.

Sepuluh besar finalis dengan voting terbanyak akan ditantang untuk mengimplementasikan proyek yang telah diajukan sebelumnya. Setelah pameran khusus semua hasil karya mereka pada 22 September 2012, akan terpilih tiga finalis utama akan diumumkan pada 30 September 2012.

Finalis terbaik akan mendapatkan dana sebesar Rp 100.000.000,00 dan dua finalis lainnya masing-masing mendapatkan dana sebesar Rp 50.000.000,00 untuk merealisasikan proyek mereka tersebut."