Valen’s Vanity Square

Saw L’Oreal’s latest product - Derma Genesis - on display last week. And that ticked off my ‘experimental’ desire (more like shopping desire actually). Anything that claims to be able to restore the youth of my skin, I will certainly buy into it, haha!

The two ‘magical’ ingredients in Derma Genesis are Pro-Xylane and Hyaluronic acid. Pro-Xylane is a naturally-derived, bio-degradable anti-aging molecule that creates an optimal environment for cellular growth, thus promoting creation of new cells, while hyaluronic acid is a well-known moisturizing agent.

The full Derma Genesis Cellular-Youth Creating Skincare series comprises 5 main products:

• Foam wash - Gently exfoliates and removes skin irregularities
• Day cream (with or without SPF15) - Re-plumps, tightens and illuminates
• Intensive night cream - Re-news, tightens and relaxes
• Essence concentrate - Intense smoothing action for a radiant glow
• Eye contour cream - Anti-fine lines and anti-dark circles

See, I want to look as good as Penelope Cruz. But I have to wait, gotta finish my L’Oreal anti-wrinkle cream first!

My youngest sister’s wedding will be held next week. My other younger sister, who started her weight loss program months ago in hope to slim down in time to slip in a dazzling evening dress, has not been able to achieve her ideal weight and shape. She is quite frustrated now as she has not managed to buy a dress for that occasion!

I won’t say that her weight loss program failed. She has actually lost quite a few kilograms, such that even a friend who sees her almost every day noticed the changes.

May be there is still something that she needs to add into her weight loss program to enhance the effect, perhaps to exercise more frequently and more intensively. That’s why we will go hiking in a reserved forest park tomorrow morning!

So, is losing weight so difficult, especially if you have a lot to lose and want to lose it fast? Definitely YES, if you don’t have:

• A proper and proven weight loss program to follow
• The perseverance and self-control ability to stick to the program

You may have tried more than one weight loss program, be it diet pills, meal-replacement nutritional drinks or body slimming treatment, you may find still find yourself overweight few months down the road if you continue to eat the wrong foods and at the wrong time, or forget to do your exercise.

And, very important, you don’t want to get into another weight loss scam. In fact, there is a website that talks about how to avoid weight loss scams (like some quick weight loss Hollywood diets), as well as reviews several fat loss products that have been well received with good testimonials. Probably my sister should take a look at it and then revise her own weight loss program.

You can read more about weight loss programs at this website.

When I was in New York Skin Solutions the other day, after I finished my facial, my newly assigned beauty consultant asked me if I could spare some time with her so that she could check my skin (since this was my first visit to the Midvalley branch).

Well, she didn’t really examine my skin, but was trying to sell me another treatment course, when my current one was not even completed. She recommended their most popular, effective, and certainly EXPENSIVE treatment so that I could see even better results in pore size reduction.

How expensive?

It costs RM980 PER TREATMENT! Imagine how much one full course of 10 treatments would cost. It’s a lethal bomb in the wallet!

If she thought that I was some rich man’s wife, then she’s super duper wrong, haha! As much as I want my skin to look perfect, I don’t commit to expenses that I cannot afford. She must be cursing silently in her heart when I told her that I am jobless at the moment and would not consider purchasing additional courses until I get a job.

But what I didn’t tell her is that, I actually don’t intend to get a job, haha!

After 2 years of working from home, I don’t think I can adapt to the normal working lifestyle in KL anymore, where I have to wake up early, commute to work every day and get myself stuck in massive traffic jams! I won’t even know what to write in my job descriptions column (e.g. a housewife + blogger + freelance medical writer who didn’t get much business?) if I were to send out a resume now, haha!

Well, if I win the first prize lottery this weekend, may be there’s a chance I would sign up that insanely-priced facial treatment package to become one insane vain pot, haha!

Have been back in KL for almost 2 weeks. So nice! Managed to drop by all my favourite shopping places last week - MidValley Megamall, IKEA and KLCC! But it’s mainly for window shopping and surveying items for our new house.

Went to MidValley again few days ago and accomplished quite a number of things in just a few hours. First, got my hair cut and treated at Jantzen, then gobbled down a double cheeseburger at Mc’Donalds before rushing to New York Skin for my facial appointment. That was the fastest lunch I’ve ever had; managed to finish the burger and fries in 15 minutes!

After the facial, it was almost 4 pm. I had to shop for some clothes to attend a friend’s wedding dinner this weekend and my sister’s wedding 2 weeks later. Also, it was my quickest shopping session ever; tried out several dresses at Rest & Relax and finally bought two within 40 minutes!

Every thing was done in a rush because I had to leave before 5 pm before the road traffic turned really bad, which is one thing that will make me miss Penang, haha!

One of the items in our new house that we might consider changing few months down the road is – our TV!

We surveyed plasma and LCD TVs the other day, and were told that Samsung LCD is the top seller recently. I think replacing our conventional TV with an LCD TV is a good idea, hehe. It’s less bulky, and won’t collect as much dust, haha! (LCD TV looks more fragile though.)

After that, perhaps the next thing we want to do is to couple the LCD TV with a nice TV console. Or, even better, one of the tv lifts I saw on the internet. It looks like this:

Where’s the TV? Just press a button from the control piece, a cover on top of the cabinet will open up, and the LCD TV will be raised up. Cool huh?

I think this is a great invention. Not only it helps to keep the TV clean at all times, but because the TV is not out in the open, one actually tends to watch TV less. That’s good, isn’t it?

Since my financial status is not so optimistic recently, one way to stop myself from shopping for beauty products (or even just considering about it) is to stay away from women magazines that are loaded with luring advertisements and advertorials.

I basically have not bought any fashion or lifestyle magazines over the past few weeks! And suddenly, I felt like I am lagging so far behind this fast-moving beauty industry. I saw my sister applying some cream from an unfamiliar tube this afternoon. It was “Missha BB Cream”.

I asked her what BB cream is. She looked at me astonishingly, “you don’t know what BB cream is??!! It’s the most popular type of foundation now! Jeez, you are so outdated.” Duh!

Errr, okay. I had to check it out on the internet.

Oh, I see, the “BB” stands for “blemish balm”. Apparently, it is said that BB creams are as good as foundation in providing coverage (the one my sister used looked like a tinted moisturizer), and at the same time confer benefits to the skin, e.g. soften the skin texture, promote skin regeneration. Hmm, interesting indeed.

*Sigh* Too bad, this is not the right time for me to splurge myself on these stuffs. Well, may be I can ask my sister to let me try it out from hers… hehe.