Yes, We Are Still Here

* a balancing act... photo taken at Chinese acrobatic show in Beijing *

Just a quick update that the Wordpress move is taking a bit longer than expected due to the domain transfer procedure. I plan to resume to my regular post schedule by early next week because I actually miss blogging!

Hope that by then I'll be seeing y'all with a new blog layout :-)

Thanks for hanging on and wishing everyone a bee-yoo-tee-fooooool life!

lotsa luv,

lyn.

WINNER ANNOUNCED! BeautyCabby Blog Birthday Giveaway

CONGRATULATIONS TO

...

...

...

(drumroll, please)

...

...

...

toh e. @electronicfly

You are the lucky winner of my first Blog Birthday Giveaway and you will be receiving some really cute, pink goodies :-) Congratulations!!! I will write to you soon so please check your mailbox and keep your eyes peeled for my email.

To everyone else who participated, thank you taking time to enter the contest and do stick around as I will definitely be organising more giveaways in the future. Thanks for all the Twitter follows, retweets, blog comments and rss subscriptions as I sincerely appreciate them.

Lots of Love,

~ lyn ~

CLOSED! BeautyCabby Blog Birthday Bash Giveaway

The Blog Birthday Giveaway is now CLOSED and the winner of the PINK LOOT will be announced on Sunday, 5th February at 1PM (GMT +8). I will write to the lucky person requesting for further details and a mailing address. I would appreciate if the winner can respond in 48 hours otherwise, it will roll to the next random person.

Thanks to all who participated and making this a success! I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to subscribe to my blog and going through the entries. There will be more fabulous giveaways in the future as I had so much fun organising this one. So do keep a lookout for exciting events to come :-)

Lots of Love,

~ lyn ~

Reminder to Take Part in the BeautyCabby Blog Birthday GIVEAWAY

Don't forget to participate in my Blog Birthday Giveaway and you stand a chance at winning some really cute prizes :-) Visit the link below for further details and to enter!

>> CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO GIVEAWAY <<

Happy Chinese New Year... Gong Xi Fa Chai!

Wishing all who celebrate a

Happy New Year of the Dragon!

恭喜發財

万事如意

Have a wonderful reunion and to those who are travelling, have a safe journey!
May your year be filled with more joy, luck and prosperity!

PS - I will be returning to my husband's hometown for our annual reunion and will be taking a short bloggy break. But I will be back very soon! In the meantime, do check out my blog birthday bash giveaway and participate as there are some fantastic goodies to be won :-)

WIN IT! BeautyCabby Blog Birthday Giveaway

Today marks the 2nd year I have been blogging! Admittedly I dropped off the radar for many months and only started picking up speed towards the end of 2011 but thanks to your support, feedback and friendship, I have been able to continue and hope to get better with time :-)

So, to celebrate this moment, I am throwing my 1st blog birthday giveaway as a big THANK YOU to all of you! Please participate as the one lucky person will stand a chance in winning some fabulous goodies as pictured below!

The theme for this Giveaway is PINK!

• Kiss Me Sunkiller Baby Milk SPF38 PA+++
• Skin79 Super Plus Hot Pink Beblesh Balm
• Bourjois Effet 3D Lip Gloss in #15
• Kiss Me Kiss Lip Softsense Lipbalm (Strawberry)
• My Beauty Diary Japanese Cherry Blossom Sheet Mask
• Essie Nail Polish in Lion Around
* all items / products are full-sized and unused *


HOW TO ENTER

• Please use the Rafflecopter widget below for your entries.
• There is ONE mandatory entry (to be a subscriber of my blog feed) and FOUR optional entries (follow the instructions on Rafflecopter).
• The more entries you enter, the more chances you have of winning.
• Further details listed in the T&C below.

Make sure to click "DO IT!" and confirm EACH entry method, so your entries will be counted by Rafflecopter.

See Rafflecopter's form and details below (please allow a few seconds for the widget to load).


a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Rafflecopter widget requires you to log in and for the sake of privacy, you can provide just your first name and the initial of your last name or use a nickname. Please ensure your email address is valid.


TERMS & CONDITIONS
1. This giveaway is open to all readers, local and international.
2. If you are below 18 years of age, kindly ask for permission from your parents / guardians as I would be requesting for your personal details and mailing address.
3. You need to be a subscriber of my blog feed via email or rss feed reader to qualify (subscription methods can be found on sidebar).
4. When you subscribe to email feeds, please verify / activate your subscription by checking your mailbox for a confirmation notice. Otherwise you will not be subscribed to my blog feed.
5. The winner will be chosen at random by Rafflecopter.
6. The winner will have 48 hours to confirm receipt and to provide a valid mailing address.

CLOSING DATE
The giveaway closes on midnight of 3rd February 2012 EST (1PM in GMT+8 Malaysian Time). I will not be accepting any further entries once the giveaway closes.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
You can email me at lyn@beautycabby.com if you have any queries or are unsure how to use the Rafflecopter widget. Good luck!

A Bright Beginning... Happy New Year 2012!

May the New Year bring you joy,

Sprinkled with love and laughter,

May you have many successes,

And life be full of adventure.

Wishing everyone a fantastic 2012!!!

I'll Be Home For Christmas

As you read this, I'm probably on my way back or have already reached my hometown, a beautiful little island called Penang. Posts will sporadic in the next week or so because I'll be too busy with more important things such as gorging on glorious Penang hawker food and spending time with the family :-)

But before signing off, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish y'all a Joyous Season and Happy Holidays! I hope you'll be having a fabulous time wherever you are!

Weekend Babbles : Food with Family

The past few weekends, we have had a couple of birthday celebrations and my mum and dad took it upon themselves to create lovely dinners for the family. My parents are very good cooks and homemade dinners with them are always a delight.

My cooking is nowhere near as accomplished as mum's and dad's. I mean, look at the food!

* roasted duck on a bed of salad *

* Turkish lamb with cous cous and vegetables *

* mixed salad with shredded duck *

* Italian beef stew with pan-fried sausages and cous cous *

* grilled salmon with garnishing and cous cous *

My parents don't just cook food... They create feasts. Each of the courses is paired with a suitable wine or drink and the whole dining experience is a real joy visually as well as gastronomically. My sisters and I are honestly very lucky to have mummy and daddy feed us :-)

The star of the evenings are almost always the soups prepared by dad. If you think you've had the best soup that you've ever tasted out there at a frou-frou restaurant, you have not tried my dad's. We have now dubbed him "Soup-er Man"!

* clam chowder with prawns and bacon bits *

* light prawn bisque with a blend of classic root vegetables *

The soups are smooth, full and bursting with flavour that you'd usually want to have seconds (or thirds). My mouth is watering as I type this. Gorgeous and sublime is what I would call dad's soups. By the way, he makes the best pig trotters vinegar stew (Hokkien : Too Kah Chor) too. I hope we get to have it this Christmas holiday *hint hint*.

So, what have you been eating lately and have you had any memorable home-cooked meals? Do share so we can spread the foody love!

A Special Note:

Thank you, mum and dad, for all the wonderful meals you have prepared for us. We are such pampered children :-)

Weekend Babbles : Nail Polish on the Brain

If anyone has been following my tweets, you would have noticed I have a disease called "Nail Polish Syndrome". You know, where all you can think about and talk about is nail polish, all day and all night. I have been stalking a number of gorgeous nail bloggers too. The last I counted, I have subscribed to 69 nail blogs on my feed reader!

The obsession first started when I decided to do something about my dingy nails. I'm not a nail biter but I have a tendency to scrape the tips off whenever I'm stressed out. One evening, I decided to pull out a couple of polishes from my stash and started painting my nails. The results were pretty nice although my nails and cuticles were in a rather sad state at that time.

* collage of photos taken with my phone *

There's something about nail polished nails that makes me feel happy. And no, I haven't been inhaling too much fumes. Nowadays, whenever I am stressed out (which is quite often at work), I would just take a glance at my nails and it instantly cheers me up! It's definitely better than scraping them off.

I also find painting my nails to be quite a therapeutic activity. I have the tv or some music going on in the background and normally do it in the evenings or weekends. It takes about 30 to 45 minutes from start to finish, including the drying time unless the nail polish is thicker and takes longer. That's equivalent to watching an episode of Dexter :-)

So, hands up if you have nail polish on the brain too!

Hope you're all having a lovely weekend and to those in Malaysia, enjoy your long weekend too!

Weekend Babbles : A Little Tour Around My Room and Pineapple Tarts

I read a comment left by ParisB on Tine's blog about how tiresome it can get to just do review after review and it got me thinking that there's not enough fun on my blog. So instead of bringing you yet another review, I shall blabber incessantly about my weekend (so far) and the things I've been up to. And yes, I have named this series "Weekend Babbles". There may not be any logic or point to these posts but it's just a break from the usual monotony.

Today, I shall give you a mini tour around my room. There's nothing particularly fantastic about it and it's a fairly standard room. Oh wait, now I remember what I wanted to show you. I bought three Ikea Helmers on Friday and fixed them up yesterday.

I decided to go with red because the rest of my room is sort of clinically white and these red drawers have a bit more personality than plain ol' white. It took le hubby and I less than an hour to assemble all three Helmers. And no, they are not all filled with nail polish. My collection is not that huge... yet.

My room is quite neat to begin with and believe it or not, I don't have beauty products strewn everywhere. There used to be a smaller cabinet which has now been replaced by two Helmers (pictured above). One of the activities I really enjoy doing is sorting and organising. Call it a hobby if you will, I just like keeping things in order.

My table top is not very cluttered and I like my dressing table a lot because it has three very useful shelves on the side and a secret compartment (!). I had just washed a few of my regular eye brushes and left them to dry on my table.

The mirror slides out to reveal three more shelves! I keep brushes, eye primers, liners and mascaras on the bottom shelf and most of my foundations, bb creams and face primers on the second. There's not much to look at on the third shelf and it's filled with some um... 'miscellaneous' products.

The rest of my room is quite boring. There's a bed, a television and dvd player, books, a bedside table and wardrobes (but is hidden in the photo). I have dark curtains because the morning and afternoon sun can get very bright. We have an ensuite bathroom but it's not terribly exciting so I can't be bothered taking photos of it.

My house is filled with the wonderful aroma of pastry today because le hubby has been making pineapple tarts (batch no. 4). He's been baking quite a lot lately because there's a potluck lunch with his team tomorrow. Just as long as he doesn't give anyone a tummy ache, it should be all right.

I sincerely hope you've had or been having an enjoyable weekend! Do let me know what you've been up to and hope to hear from you soon :-)

ps - One day I shall reveal the contents of each drawer but as you can see, there's a lot of drawers to go through!

Celebrating the MWS Reader's Choice Awards 2011 ~ The Most Fab Party Ever!

When Paris B of My Women Stuff announced that she'll be organising a beauty Reader's Choice Award, the first ever in Malaysia, I was super excited because it gave me and everyone else an opportunity to nominate and vote for their favourite beauty products and brands. Yesterday, we attended the spectacular MWS RCA party at Sunway Giza and boy, was it a ton of fun!

Not only did I meet all my fabulous and gorgeous friends again but I made more fabulous and gorgeous friends too. There was coffee by Coffee Chemistry Cafe, food, a scrumptious cake (from the folks at Just Heavenly) and lots of laughter and conversation :-)

I was having such a wonderful time at the party that I sort of forgot about the prizes and goody bag and was absolutely amazed at the generosity of the participating sponsors and brands. You can view all the MWS Reader's Choice Award winners over at Paris B's blog. Did any of your favourites win? There were 10 lucky draw prizes too and one bonus prize, which I won, for producing a winning beauty product at the event. I had a Dior Addict lipstick with me at that time ;-)

* our lovely Paris B giving a speech *

The grand prize sponsored by Dior was won by Beetrice (lucky girl!) and doesn't she look absolutely giddy with joy? The hefty Dior swag is worth RM750!

I may not have won the big prize but we each got to go home with really awesome goodie bags worth RM350. That's a heck of a lot of products! *woot woot*

* love the brown baggie with the MWS RCA logo slapped on it *

* look at all the goodies! *

This was the bonus prize I won and it's a waxing session at Apronbay. With a name like Copacabana, I am guessing it is a bikini waxing session. Maybe it will make me feel like a showgirl named Lola?

I can't wait to try out the L'Oreal Perfect Clean Refreshing Foaming Gel Wash, which was recently released locally.

Another product I can't wait to test out is the Kiehl's Surface Brightening Exfoliator... I'll probably use it tonight!

This gorgeous necklace is the most precious thing in the bag and as a crafter myself, I sincerely appreciate handmade goods. It is made by Tine of Beautyholics Anonymous and came all the way from Australia. Do check out her beautiful shop at Sweet Contemplation Accessories for more. I already plan to get a few delightful accessories soon!

A special thanks to Paris B for making this event a reality and congratulations on such a successful party too! I had a great time and it certainly made me feel better especially after so many tragic losses I have suffered recently.

And yes, we need a MWS Reader's Choice Awards for 2012 too ;-)

Getting Back Into the Thick of Things

The past two weeks, le hubby and I have had to deal with deaths of our maternal grandmothers, who passed away six days of each other. In the last year, we have lost three grandmothers and my dear dog, Susie. I am still grieving and am feeling rather drained but life does go on and I just have to try to make the most out of it while I can. These deaths have also taught me to not take things for granted and to appreciate and treat my loved ones better whilst they are still living. It is no use having regrets when they are gone.

Anyway, moving on to more pleasant (and less morbid) thoughts, I have a number of upcoming reviews and an exciting giveaway to boot. So, do stay tuned for more to come!

What to Expect:

• The blog will be a wee bit Chanel-centric the next few weeks as I have discovered quite a few fabulous products that I can't wait to talk about.
• More blush reviews.
• A giveaway... Details to be published soon!
• More nail polish reviews... I have been on a nail polish kick lately and have gone a little bonkers!
• Foundation and BB cream reviews... Well, because I'm a junkie.

I'll be attending My Women Stuff's MWS 2011 Reader's Choice Awards Party this Saturday and really hope to catch y'all there too :-) Do look out for someone with several cameras plastered to her face because that will be me!

Be Back Shortly

Due to a personal tragedy, I will be taking a short break this week. The blog will resume as soon as I'm back in the swing of things.

~ lyn ~

Blog Updates and New Domain in Town

Hello Ladies & Gents,

We have taken the plunge and have moved to our own domain name. The blog is currently transitioning from blogspot to dot com and the full transition should complete in about 3 days. We certainly hope that you will be automatically redirected and that there are no hiccups in the process.

In the meantime, please update your bookmarks and rss feeds.

New Blog Link > http://www.beautycabby.com

RSS Feed > http://www.beautycabby.com/feeds/posts/default

You can get in touch with me via Twitter > @beautycabby

Thanks for reading and hope y'all are having a Happy Sunday :-)

lotsa luv,

lyn @ beautycabby

Hong Kong Haul

We just got back yesterday and I already miss the hustle and bustle of the busy city and the shops that are opened until late. We ate and shopped 'til our hearts content... or at least I did. The last time I visited Hong Kong was back in 1997. Things have changed quite a bit since. Most people spoke to me in Mandarin or English although I did try to communicate the best I could with my very hesitant Cantonese.

* Hong Kong's city lights across the harbour *

I purchased a few things here and there. Shops such as Sasa, Bonjour, Watson's and Mannings (similar to Guardian locally) operate until 11PM daily. I love the choices they offer, especially on Japanese products. They are cheaper in Hong Kong and the variety is simply better.

* skin and hair care haul *

* cosmetics haul *

There were several other items that were not photographed because I was too lazy to dig them out. My last purchase on the day I left was a Guerlain Meteorites Miniature Duo, just because I've heard and read so much about it. I also bought a few beauty products and gifts for the family.

If you're planning to go Hong Kong and are a beauty product junkie, here are a few recommendations that I hope can help;

• Research the prices of products locally and make up a list.

• Most goods in Hong Kong Sasa, Bonjour and drugstores are cheaper but just do a quick currency conversion if uncertain. I would whip out my phone calculator at nearly every store and the sales assistants are generally quite patient with me.

• If you have something specific to purchase, try to find out the address and location of the shop beforehand. Google Maps is pretty handy. I wanted a Billingham camera bag that wasn't available widely but found the shop easily thanks to Google Maps because I knew which road, MTR stop and exit to take.

• If you happen to be in Macau, try to visit the DFS Galleria at The Four Seasons, which is connected to The Venetian Hotel. There are loads of mid-end to high-end international brands available and the prices are quite good too.

• If you're in Kowloon, do pop by Langham Place Mall in Mongkok. Lots of cosmetic brands available from NARS to Jill Stuart, under one roof. There is a Muji store on the 7th floor too.

• The beauty halls in Sogo can get very busy, especially when there's a sale going on but it's not necessarily cheaper than finding the same product at Sasa or Bonjour, unless that brand or product is not available at either shops.

• Most people in Hong Kong can speak Cantonese, Mandarin and English, so communication was not a problem. Sometimes I had to spell out the name for them but for the most part, it wasn't an issue.

So there you have it. I'll be posting about the products individually in the near future and will try to include a few more tips and bits about my trip. I hope you have had a good week so far because I most certainly have enjoyed mine :-)

Why... Hello, Again!

I know it's been a long while since I last wrote here... okay, it's been 189 days to be exact. The last time I blogged, I mentioned my skin was misbehaving and it's a good thing it has gotten a little better lately. I must admit I became lazy again... started to skip steps in my skincare, started to buy "easy" skincare, stopped grooming my eyebrows and hardly bothered with makeup (except when going out for functions, which were far and few in between). I tend to go through phases in a year and I notice that things will slide towards the year end.

Work has been all-consuming. I have not had a proper night's sleep since a couple of months ago and this is why I absolutely cherish the weekends because that's the only time I have to myself. But my weekends since December have been pretty filled with family commitments and it's only this month that I have some respite. Not that I don't love my family, seriously, I do but it gets really tiring for le hubby and I as we are introverts and being "social" sucks a lot of energy from us. I think this is another reason why work tends to be really tiring for me because I need to deal with people all day.

There were a number of unfortunate events since the later part of August last year, which made me lose interest in a lot of things for a while. My grandma passed away and we lost our lil' Susie (my pet dog). I still can't bring myself to talk too much about these deaths. Susie's passing was particularly painful as she had been with le hubby and I for seven years and I loved her as my own little "daughter". People have told me to get another dog but I haven't been able to. Well, we still have our pet bunny and for that, we are thankful.

I began to take an interest in my appearance again at the end of January. And yesterday, I finally got my eyebrows groomed at Shu Uemura. I am completely useless when it comes to doing my brows myself and need the experts to do something about them.

I have also been purchasing quite a number of beauty products and hope to start sharing the good and bad in this space. Someday, my dearies (or anyone who's still interested in reading this blog), I will post them someday.

Kinda Belated Introductions

As you can see from the post before this, I have enlisted the help of my two beautiful (and younger) sisters to keep this poor blog alive :-) I thought it would be fun to have a trio of girls blogging here because it's always good to have variety. Besides, we are each from a different generation and will bring a completely different perspective to what's hot and what's not.

Avvie (a.k.a the hamlet) :
- in her teens (can we say sweet sixteen... aah, to be fresh and young again)
- pretty much anything and any colour looks good on this girl!
- has a love / hate relationship with her monolids

Middle Sis (a.k.a pet monkey, um... I don't know what she's gonna call herself here, let's wait until she gets back from trotting around Hong Kong with mum) :
- in her early twenties
- green eyeshadows are her favourite although I think she's starting to experiment more with smokier looks (sexy!)
- L'Occitane's biggest fan (probably)

And then you have me (a.k.a big sister) :
- not a teenager anymore
- not a twenty-something year old anymore
- beauty product junkie


So, now you have generations X, Y and Z all bloggin' in da house!

* this photo of us was taken two years ago... we are a little more grown up now *

ps - I just realised we have the same hair parting!

Back Home

We have finally returned from our holiday in Melbourne and this was our second time visiting the wonderful city too. Our main reason for going is to spend a longer time on The Great Ocean Road and this is probably the last time we'll be visiting in a while. As we went in winter, the weather was rather chilly and ranged from 5'C at night to 15'C during the day. It was especially cold on The Great Ocean Road as the winds there were stronger and it rained quite a bit. We didn't mind it though.

My skin went bonkers and only started to acclimatise on our last week there. It's a good thing I brought a range of skincare from H2O+, something I started using before traveling. And I'm liking it because it can be used in our warm, tropical weather as well as in the cold. Pretty versatile stuff!

The drugstores in Australia are fantastic and have a good range of products but they are not cheap, especially with the exchange rate being nearly 3x more. For example, a Maybelline mascara costs around $18 to $20, which translates to RM54 to RM60 each. I hardly bought any departmental store or higher end beauty products because they were really expensive. A NARS blush was $62 (RM186) and the foundation I was interested in was $99 (RM297). Yikes!

Here's a quick run down of some things I really liked and was using throughout the trip :

Batiste Dry Shampoo in Blush, Tropical and Original

> many motor inns we stayed in did not have hair dryers and it was really too cold to leave my long hair wet for hours, so I used these dry shampoos in between washes.

Bourjois Healthy Mix Foundation

> bought this within a few hours of landing there as i read so many raves and couldn't wait.

Bourjois Mineral Matte Mousse Foundation

> love, love, love!!! although it has not been tested in this tropical weather yet.

Lanolips 101 Ointment

> wonderful stuff... saved my lips from being a disgusting, cracked mess!

There's more to come as soon as I get around to unpacking and taking photos :-) Hope y'all are having a good weekend!

Holiday Mood

Will be heading off to the Land Down Under for two and a half weeks. Joy, oh, joy!