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[EDIT: added preview below :)]

Since some time ago, me & Mag have been receiving questions about where we usually do our hair/which stylists we go to.

And for the longest time ever, we've always recommended Toni & Guy for their brilliant expertise/skill, their willingness to listen
(if it's one thing I hate, it's when I request for the stylist to trim 1 cm off my fringe and he snips off half of it instead!),
their professionalism (it's always nice to know there's a senior technician around to analyse how a new cut will suit you),
the way they wash your hair (no one likes to have their hair manhandled), and their after-sales service (within a week, if you're
unsatisfied you can always go back for complimentary styling/a second cut).

Prices can be pretty steep though especially if you require frequent maintenance for your hair!

A normal cut and wash is around $90 if you engage a senior stylist;
Some of you may also recall me going for a cut and straightening session (here) for $700+.
And for styling alone, like what I did for the Nuffnang Awards (here), it was about $200.

While some sponsors have been nice enough to offer us their products, unfortunately both of us have been pretty obstinate especially
when it comes to accepting advertorials because we only believe in endorsing a brand that we have personally used and trust.

So.… when we were given the opportunity to work with Toni & Guy's younger sister brand, we jumped at the opportunity to share
the perks with our customers! :)










Newly opened at Bugis, Essensuals is basically the branched out, younger and edgier version of Toni & Guy.
Originating from the UK as well, the brand is run by David and Henne Mercer, the same people in charge of Toni & Guy Singapore :)

Best of all, there is no compromise or difference at all in terms of expertise and you get everything at a fraction of the price!

And I say that because what Toni & Guy did was relocate some of their top stylists and hair technicians to Essensuals.
Bryan who straightened my hair previously is now style director and Seline the person who styled my hair for Nuffnang has also moved over.

See see, same people! :D



These are some of the current promotions going on, but HVV has managed to clinch exclusive benefits on top of existing offers specially for our customers :)
If you're interested, do remember to check our upcoming collections for further details/vouchers!

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Anyway, since me & Mag were due for a haircut, we decided to pop down Essensuals to have a look/try out the new salon.

I decided to trim my hair, curl it and go for the treatment.
And because I was whining about how I wanted to blacken my hair, Bryan added a special little semi-permanent ingredient for me!
I figured that if my hair was darker, I'd look fairer ;)




Here's Mag getting her signature alien pouf before Bryan taught her how to style her hair differently.




Sidetracking a little,
Another thing I really dislike is going for a treatment and having immediate soft flowy hair the whole day only to go back, shower,
and be rudely shocked into realizing that my hair was merely coated with products to look good temporarily.

For Essensuals, while there was a slight difference in hair texture after my treatment, I did notice that results were not instantaneous.
On the contrary, what I really liked about it was, the difference became more apparent over time, especially after you've washed your hair.

Gotta think long term you know?

Anyway, I was so pleased with the results and it was such a good deal, I brought Claire our new model to try it out as well!










Claire's hair is naturally wavy and her results didn't show all immediately either.

But …
tell me if you cannot see the difference in the pictures below!




The first picture was taken you know, during our last post and the second picture was taken 3 days after the treatment.

Now that is what I call Princess Hair.

$49 for a haircut and treatment.

You likey? >:)

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Click on the picture for an enlarged version of the vouchers :)




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And for those of you who asked, here's a sneak peak of what's coming up in our next collection! :)
Am still trying to rush out a couple more... If I've the time, will squeeze in more preview pics!







Anyhow, for this coming post, I'll be clearing all existing emails while my helpers verify payments so please rest
assured that you'll definitely get a reply :) As long as you don't send multiple emails, I'll definitely be able to get
back to you asap. Thanks!! xoxo

I'm sick :(

After 354634 people telling me that I'm going to fall sick at the rate I'm trying to squish work in a day, I have finally gone
and gotten myself sick. The surprising thing about it is when you really have that much work to do and your body knows,
it seems to leave a redemption of some sort.

So here I am, a day after my disgusting fever, nicely settled in bed, wrapped up like a dumpling in duvets still clearing
emails and sneaking off some time to do a photopost. God knows how long Lee has been breathing down my
neck for this so ... HERE YOU GO! now you can gasp at pictures and shed a tear of reminiscence :)

The day I flew off was pretty insane considering the ridiculous amount of things I needed to settle & handle.
It's always amusing and terrifying at the same time to be in that massive frenzy rushing everything!
Before I left though, to cheer me up, mummy bought me some accessories to bring over to Korea :)




...

And 12 hours later, here we are 2 grumpy girls in Seoul waiting at the lounge for our room to be done.
No pictures because we were looking dismal (okay maybe just me). I really don't take very kindly to flights.







We got an upgrade to junior suite so we were pretty happy with the extra space to loll around :)









And because Lee wouldn't let me take a nap at all to rejuvenate my poor soul,
here we are 20 minutes later scuttling across the mini-field to the train station to get to our first destination.
Weather the first day was awesomeee, sunny with cold winds :)









As silly as this sounds, it was so long since I last took public transport, I was kind of excited to get on the train hahaha.

But trying to buy the Korean version of the MRT card was just tortorous hahaha, albeit amusing.
We spent 15 minutes trying to figure out where we needed to get, 10 trying to get a machine in English, another 10
trying to find someone to speak to us in English instead and then another 10 trying to find the entrance!

We finally got where we needed to get though haha - very tired but triumphant.
And then back again to the hotel for some work & to get ready for dinner with an old school mate :)







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Our second day - the last time we took public transport hahaha.
The subway was way too heated and there were too many people :(









Migliore. We went slightly insane here with the winterwear.
They had a truckload of oversized tees, accessories, ripped cardigans and outerwear!








Dinner at TGIF Coex after shopping.
I don't know if the TGIF in Singapore has the same stuff but if they do, you must try their dip and quesadillas !
They were amazing. Me & Lee were so glad that the hotel was right above the underground mall.
Made everything so convenient :)





And because some of the shops opened in the day and the others at night, and we were downright properly
confused with all the timings, we brought the map home to plan and strategise our shopping route hahaha.
Look how big the map is!
(and the list of shopping centres)
It literally took us 4 days to comb through the place and we didn't even make it to the shoe building :(





And because I just had to try it out, here's a picture of me camwhoring in the toilet with my new gel liner and no make up at all hahaha.
I'm a bit of a pathetic excuse of a girl, I only just found out about gel liner the day I flew to Korea. If I hadn't popped by
Bobbi Brown/complained to the attendant, she wouldn't have (looked at me like I was an idiot and) introduced me
to gel liner, I'd still be in the dark.




I used to use liquid eyeliner but it was a bit too stark & made me look really tired so I swapped over to pencil liner and
although I love how it looks slightly smudged, I hated how it'd go beneath my eyes.
But with this liner, I'm so pleased because I get the look I want exactly without the smudges
and with barely any make up on as well HEHE.

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Exploring Coex properly - the guides all said it was the largest underground shopping complex in Asia but for the life
of us we didn't understand why until we realised that we had only been trawling through a tiny little section.

Off the main path, there were a couple of other shops that were nais, cute and quaint.
Both of us were properly fascinated by some of them.
We passed a couple that had balenciaga/mulberry/hermes/alexander.w bags in their window displays and they looked so brilliant/
the colors were so amazing and close to the real thing we thought they were, or at least secondhand.
Lee had her Bal bag with her and we were trying to do discreet comparisons and we couldn't tell the difference.

Turns out they were (incredible) fakes.
Compared to HK/China they're more expensive but you really have to hand it to the Koreans for being able to come up
with such replicas.

Dinner after at Omurice for a local taste of Omelette & Rice.
Not my cup of tea though. Too squishy.






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Shopping at Rodeo Drive/Galleria.
The variety of brands here and their ranges put Singapore to shame! :(







Me and lee were all prepared to hop into all the shops since it was such a brilliant day but within minutes it was cloudy
and then it started hailing (!) so we were stranded in a little box to shade ourselves :(











Okay very abrupt ending but I'm starting to wheeze and cackle as if my life is getting drawn from me so I'm going to blog
about the rest of the trip in my next post.

Gonna go take a break and start on my emails again.
I have 100 emails left to go and another 200 to resend - we found out that our external mailer has been failing us quite
sadly so some of you who have specifically asked queries but not gotten any reply, it's not because we're ignoring you!
It's because the mailer didn't send it out. But we're on it we're on it, will try to send out the rest by tonight/tomorrow :)

At least everything's looking alot better now.
Most of the BOs have arrived/been packed/mailed, most of the emails cleared, wondering if I should try to sneak
in a small preview later on tonight if I'm feeling better :)

Oh and yes, we've also found our new photographer/photoshopper. Me and Mag really like her designs :)
Once she starts work, that'll be another load off our shoulders. Can't wait!

xoxo

Hm, am waiting like patience on a monument for gmail to reset the limit so that I can start replying emails again.

Had a good talk with the mother just now and I feel so much better.
She's so funny and silly and mean in her own little way that it never fails to cheer me up.
Love how she always pops into my room and dives into my bed complaining it's so cold before launching into her
happy exclamations of 'talk to me about xxx!' What I would do without her buzzing around is beyond me. Heehee

Anyway, we're going to be updating with an extremely mini-post on Jipaban tomorrow!
I'm still swamped with my own pile of work and am intending to focus completely on whatever I have left so
the post will be fully handled by my assistant separately. Crossing my fingers that everything will go brilliantly :)
Now I'm just waiting for the preview to be done. If there's time left, will definitely put it up!

In other work news, I've found other alternatives and everything looks very promising but I'm going to tread
really carefully so nothing that can go wrong goes wrong. Hopefully things will work out well and everything will
be smoothsailing and trouble-free from here!

And and and some good news that made my day...
After an incredibly long wait, the preorder for the Reissue is finally on it's way to me!
The wait was so long, I completely forgot about it so it was a very pleasant surprise when I received this:





Yayayayay.

I didn't like the idea of waiting for multiple bags to get to me so I put off the idea of getting a new oversized bag but...
now I can go back to deciding what I want especially since the pound has dropped brilliantly.
Everyone always says Paris is the cheapest to get bags but thats wrongwrongwrong (okay maybe for some).
But I honestly believe that for Bal & Chanel, London is the place to get everything.
The range is good, the price is good and best of all you can get more without the guilt hahaha.

Have a million other pictures to post from my Korea trip, Mag's 18th at Les Amis and an awesome Peking Duck
dinner I had with V at Jade Fullerton but all of that will have to wait for another time because it's back to work for me.

Some of you have been asking me to set up a formspring and it's so interesting and fascinating I did just that hahaha.
Didn't have the time to broadcast the link on my old blog previously so here it is!
http://formspring.me/clarechan
Ask me anything! :)

Miissoproperlytired.
Just spent the entire night from 6PM till now clearing emails and have finally hit the gmail limit again.
It's nice to know that I have a proper excuse to scoot off and take a break without feeling guilty or
having that niggling feeling at the back of my head.

The emails the past week have seriously been insane.
I don't think I've ever had to deal with such a horde of cross/indignant customers before.

And honestly, I don't blame them.
I think if I were any one of them I'd be hopping mad at me as well.

I thought I could finally go off for a nice, fun trip but I returned only to be met with piece after piece of lousy news.

I really dislike having to clear up after someone else just because they're not responsible enough.
Here I am working my ass off trying to make things work, trying to get things done on time
but there you have the other side screwing everything up again, again and again and I have to take the rap.

And it stinks because it's not like I can point the finger and go, oh you know it's them; it's not my fault.
Because simply, no one cares. And rightfully so, no one should have to care.
What happens behind the scenes are irrelevant. I was the one who promised to deliver and I failed.

And I'm trying to learn how to take that in my stride.
Just because someone else fails to deliver to me, doesn't mean I have an excuse to fail to deliver to my customers.

Have been bummed with some of the emails that have come in recently because they can be pretty harsh.
But I think I really need to suck it up and look past all of that so I can see where the problem is exactly and deal with it.

And that's what I intend to do. Deal with it.
Face the shit, rectify it and make sure it doesn't ever happen again.

I'm fully aware that I can't fix the problem immediately because of the interrelatedness
of the chain of processing but I've taken the necessary steps (maybe not the best, but at least they're better)
and I'm going to work on them and better them until I'm satisfied and my customers are satisfied.

I am going to nip this shit in the bud and handle it calmly and graciously so that we can all move on to rainbows & happiness.

Testing

testing
one chew chee.