~*Traditional Chinese Dress*~ Thursday, Apr 24 2008 

Culture and Fashion and Religion fablala 6:58 pm

When it comes to Chinese New Year, or any related occasion, I think the best thing you can wear is the traditional Chinese dress that are available in a wide variety of colours.

Red, blue, white, pink, black etc. But the most common colour you would find in China is RED.

For girls, you can have the dress either short or long and combine it with anything that’s into fashion nowadays. Such as black tights, they would like fabulous under the shorter dresses. 

It doesn’t even have to be a dress if you are more of a prefer-jeans-with-top kind of person. They have blouses for that matter.

What I really like about them is how they make you look slimming. But the material feels nice too. I also love the different kinds of prints you can get. My favourite ones are the ones with the dragons on them or with flowers.

Even celebrities wear them as a fashion icon. 

 

~*Nail Design*~ Wednesday, Apr 23 2008 

Art and Fashion fablala 5:01 pm

Okay. The French own the “French manicure”. It’s their thing. Everyone loves them! I’m a fan of them too.

I find that they make your nails look more ‘Posh’. The good thing is, you can get a french manicure set to help you by following simple steps. 

A French manicure sure seems a lot easier to do by yourself than for example, nail designs you can get done with flower or animal patterns, or actual animals, stars, hearts – anything! You can even get Hello Kitty nails if you’re a fan of those! 

Below you can see a range of different designs that you can get in a typical nail beauty store in South East Asia.


It’s interesting how not only can you put diamonds onto handphones or earphones but on nails too. It’s a fashion trend that seems to continue to spread all over the world. It started off with simple body glitter tattoos that you can stick on. Maybe in a few years time we’ll find out where else you can wear small diamonds. 

A manicure contest was held in BeautyAsia in Singapore last year in 2007. It’s amazing with the unique creations these ladies have come up with. When I saw these pictures I was stunned. I didn’t know that anything like – what you’ll see – was even possible to do on nails.

Pretty good though, isn’t it? I’d call creating something that another talent. We all know there’s singing, acting and dancing. But this – wow – this takes a lot of time and patience as well. Creativity especially! 

 

~*Make Up*~ Wednesday, Apr 23 2008 

Art and Fashion fablala 10:05 am

In relation to my earlier blog, I thought I’d give a quick overview or a few tips about what kind of make up is best for the Chinese skin colour.

It’s important to have colours that work with each other and not contradict each other.

Also it depends whether you want it as an everyday make up or going out at night make up.

For the everyday, I’d stick to simple eyeliner. Doesn’t matter if it’s liquid or pencil. Liquid is definitely becoming trendier though.

Many like to wear a flick at the end of the eye. Like this:

You can put on a light bronze – brownish colour to give you a natural look.

At night, feel free to experiment. I find the smoky eye a classic. It looks elegant and stylish. Works with pretty much anything you wear as well.

I personally also like blue. It’s not too bright like pink or green. Green might actually look nice as well but I think it depends on what your personality is as well. It might suit some and others not.

I find that purple can be quite nice too! Be careful how to apply it though, because otherwise it can look like someone gave you a punch. Mix it with gold, that’ll look very glamourous! 

 

~*C is for Chopsticks!*~ Monday, Apr 21 2008 

Fashion , , fablala 3:04 pm

Even though I am Asian and I should know how to eat properly with chopsticks…I don’t. Others may find it easy but I personally find it difficult. I manage to eat rice with chopsticks, which is quite a success for me, because I was not able to do so before.

I still have trouble picking up vegetables, like broccoli – they just love to slip away from the chopsticks whereas spinach is pretty good AND easy to eat.

I think it takes time and practisce before you can call yourself an expert at it or at least an advanced chopstick user.

One of my closest friends knows how to eat better with chopstick than me and she’s from Europe. I find that quite funny actually. She even knows how to speak Mandarin…as for me, well I’m getting there. I don’t know it yet but I am going to learn it very soon.

OK, so for anyone who wants to learn how to each with chopsticks, I found some basic guidelines from WikiHow that might be helpful to you. I tried them out and it surely made me get better at eating with chopsticks.

Speaking of chopsticks, here’s an interesting fact: girls use them as a fashion style for their hair! You can make a bun with using just ONE chopstick. So they are not only food material.