baking soda magic | does brand matter?

When you don't know what's going to work, use baking soda, well at least that's what I thought. Baking soda are like magic, they work almost on anything, but I especially like it in the beauty department.

To some people, putting baking soda on your face would sound like a terrifying thing to do. I know because up until now, people would still scream when they saw me using them. I've been using baking soda as my exfoliator for almost a year now, and I didn't really feel it up until now. FYI, I have super sensitive skin so they get irritated and red very easily. When I first started out with the baking soda remedy, I was worried because they burnt and leave my face really red. But since everyone were saying how great the result is, I seriously don't want to just give up. But to be honest, for the first half year, except for the fact that my face turned bright red after the exfoliation, nothing magical had happened, at all.

I got tired of the bottle of baking soda sitting in my bathtub, so I went ahead and bought a new box thinking that it will give me a new experience with the whole magical journey. Ended up pretty accurately because it really did gave me a totally different experience. My face didn't burnt nor get red at all after the exfoliation, and they also leave my skin feeling very clean and refresh afterwards.

This whole new experience leave me thinking whether the brand has anything to do with the result.

I was using baking soda from a well known supermarket brand here in Hong Kong. The new one that I bought is from Arm & Hammer which is probably the most common brand of baking soda one would use. Just by feeling the texture, you can tell that the latter one came out finer, which maybe the reason why it is not as harsh on my skin. But except for the texture, they are both 100% baking soda now why would it make such a great different? I don't want to make false assumption but from my experience you know, even the most basic thing can come out impure.

When you go into the supermarket, you will find baking soda selling in various price. I know the effects of branding, but doesn't it make you wonder why some brand can sell their stuff in such a low price? I am not encouraging everyone to buy only the expensive here, but I would definitely be more careful when it comes to products which we will eat or put on our face (which would be absorb into our bloodstream too guys).

Have you ever thought that pure things can also come out impure?

DIY your own necklace hanger

It feels like forever since my last post and I can't tell you how much I miss my little platform. Now that I  am back I can finally sit down and finish up all the accumulated posts that I have intended to write.

anyways, this has been done a while ago already so it has been sitting in my room for quite some time. Staring at it every single day makes me so happy because I've wanted something like this for so long. Having that it was made by me makes it even more appealing.

I saw this randomly once I was browsing on the internet. I tried to track back of where the photo is from but I failed. So if you happens to own something like this and you've posted it on the internet. PROPS TO YOU! thank you for inspiring me.

I made mine with a canvas. if you don't like how canvas look on your table or vanity, you can always use a wooden board. anything that is strong enough to stand on it own and for you to screw on the hooks will work.

well. I am not a painter so I've chosen to use photoshop to do my pattern design. If you wish to be more precise and careful with the whole project, I will recommend you to open a file in photoshop with the exact same size of your canvas so you will know how things will look exactly on the canvas. Once you've decided on the pattern, it's time to trace out your design. Paint accordingly. If you want your line to be super straight, tape the edge. Screw on those hooks and you're done! now I am one step closer in finishing decorating my room. 

what do you think of my diy necklace hanger? or let me know how you store your necklace! xoxo

does sugar waxing works?

let me first start off with a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO EVERYONE!!! one more tiny fact about chinese new year is that we celebrate everyone's birthday on the 7th day which is today! with the reason behind as God used 7 days to create the world and men were created on the 7th day. so happy birthday again my friends! 

except for the tiny fact, today I wanna talk about perfect hairless legs. to be honest, I am never a wax person. I love to shave my legs because it's fast and I am usually very lazy in terms of grooming myself. UNTIL. I went to the spa for a proper wax treatment few months ago. my legs felt silky smooth afterwards, no more nasty black dots and bumps, plus all my in grown hair resulted from too much shaving got all pulled out so I can start fresh again. waxing- especially in natural organic salons are not cheap here. I don't wanna go all luxury and spend hundreds of dollars to go waxing every few months. So I researched for some natural methods online and here I found this one about making your own natural hair wax at home that I thought I could give it a try. 

So what's with the question mark at the end of the sentence? I never like sentences ended up with a question mark because it means something is not going right. yeah. something is really not going right in the process. even though I am sure most of you who are into natural home remedies will know about this method, let me quickly go through it again. Basically all you need are sugar, lemon and water (or honey). you mix them all together, boil the mixture until it gets sticky (like how normal hair wax are like) then you are good to go. applied the mixture onto hairy areas, get a cloth, pressed on top and PULL! there you go, hair gone!  yes. my hair did get pulled out, but only limiting to those long ones. looking at my legs right now, I can still see tons of random baby hairs everywhere. even thou I am not bushily hairy, I still want all my hair gone! and this method is not going to do the job. 

another problem with this method is that things get pretty messy. I got the sugar wax everywhere, the mixture gets hard when it cools down so you have to finish everything quick. it's just a disaster. ONE CONCLUSION. it's fun to try it out once to see if it really works, but no I am not going to do it again. people are professional for a reason, I will probably just leave the job to them. 

if you have tried the method and find it a great success. please share with me your experience because I would really want to save the money and have things natural at the same time:( xoxo

xo baking cupcake mix review

Being really short in ingredients, I have to admit that I didn't used the best things here. But hey, there's always another time right?

As a "baker", even thou I really love to spend time on baking, sometimes I just wish to make things a little bit easier with the help of baking kits out from the box. For your information, I am on a gluten free, dairy free and sometimes egg free (depending on the eggs) diet, having the opportunity to enjoy desserts in where I live is pretty much impossible unless I make them myself. I love to experiment with different kinds of gluten free flours, but I just can't get them all, so this is another good thing about gluten free baking mix. You can try out different flour combination without purchasing them all. 

Onto the product- this time I have chosen a gluten free chocolate cupcake kit from xobakingco. What caught my eyes is definitely the packaging. It's fun and colorful, plus those cupcakes on the box look like they are from heaven. Anyways, I got home, grabbed a punch of ingredients from the cabinet and start baking. 

Ingredients of the cupcake mix for your reference 

Cake mix (Pure Cane Sugar, Premium Cassava Flour, Cocoa Powder, Unmodified Potato Starch, Organic Coconut Flour, Baking Powder, Baking Soda, Sea Salt, Xanthan Gum, Organic Vanilla Flavor); 

Frosting Mix (Powdered Sugar (Pure Cane Sugar, Cornstarch), Cocoa Powder, Sea Salt, Organic Vanilla Flavor)

And these are the ingredients I've used

the cupcake mix of course

mazola oil

chocolate rice milk

natural vegetarian free range egg

olive oil spread

water

and that's all I need. I am actually pretty surprise and happy that you don't need to prepare that much ingredients for these cupcakes. (to be honest, these are all the stuff that my friends own at her place that are suitable for baking. If they require more stuff, I will be so sad that I have to cancel my baking afternoon). I've chosen chocolate flavoured rice milk because I want to enrich the chocolate flavour in the cakes. 

The process is really simple, you have all the instruction written very clearly on the box. So if you are not used to baking, I am sure you will be able to follow and make yourself some yummy treats as well. 

I baked mine for exactly 20 mins and let them just sit and cool down in the oven until I want to go and grab one for tasting. 20 mins is just right because they came out super soft and moist. So be sure to check on it to avoid over baking. OH THE TASTE! They're unbelievably delicious! They are soft, rich in taste and sweet. Trust me, if I serve them to you, you will not believe that these are gluten free. They are THAT good! 

Time for some review. Two downside of these cupcakes are first my choice to use olive spread for the frosting. I am off limit to any dairy products so I can't use butter. But stuff like olive spread or any other vegetable spread that came in a plastic container are just margarine. We've heard a lot of bad things about margarine, they are man-made, chemically processed and they can be even worst than butter. So next time if time allows, I will make my own butter or go get some other alternatives. (any recommendations?) 

The second downside of these cupcakes are the amount of sugar they have in the mix. I am not a fan of really sweet desserts, so these cupcakes are a little bit too sweet for me, especially the frosting. Plus if you believe that sugar is bad for you,  then this is not your type of dessert mix. They've used I believe lots of cane sugar, and because they are all mixed up with the flours and everything, you do not have the option to cut down the amount of sugar or replace them with something else. But apart from that, these are the yummiest gluten free cupcakes I've ever tasted so far in Hong Kong. 

Have you been making your own healthy yet super yummy treats? Or have you tried out anything from xobakingco? Share with me and comment below! xoxo

are you drinking good water or bad water?

knowing that your body is made of 70% water, do you ever question the water quality that you consume and wonder if they are "good" to be blend in with your body?

my family is very concern about water quality because we are constantly being told by our practitioner that we need to drink water that is good for us. but how can you tell if you have good water or bad water in your house?
first of all, i think it's crucial to let you know the one factor that affect the "quality" of your water- and that is the pH level. if you are familiar with the whole pH vs health discussion, then you will know what im talking about.
and for those of you who have no idea what im talking about, it's basically about how our body pH level could affect our health. Doctors believe (or even proved) that having acidic body pH could cause us numbers of illnesses. The reason behind is really simple, our blood is known to be slightly alkaline, and our cells and tissues would need an alkaline environment to function properly. So having imbalance body pH level means having an imbalance environment for our body to work. I don't wanna write a really long article about this because i still have a lot more say in this post, so if you are interested in more in depth information, read why is acidic body unhealthy and how does pH affect drinking water by livestrong.

i know you've had enough lecture about acidity and alkalinity. but what's most important is how can we make sure our water has a good pH level. yes. don't worry. today im going to show you a really simple way to correct your water pH.

to make it really scientific, i've bought some pH testing paper so i don't look like im talking out of my butt. (saying stolen from jenn, my current obsession. go check out her youtube channel if you are interested in some awesomeness) anyways. i had came in contact with this method because of Dr. Hew len. He taught us in his book "zero limit" saying that this method is going to energise the water hence bringing us health and wellness. our family started this even with no scientific prove because we believe very much in energy healing plus there is really nth to harm. UNTIL. my mom bought this pH water machine at home (yay. she is THAT over). the salesperson who came to install was trying to test out different water pH to convince that we've made the right choice. just out of pure curiosity, my mom bought over our energised water to have the pH tested. not really surprisingly, the water is perfect and im going to show you once again the amazing result of the energised water.

we all called the energised water "blue water". so as you can see from the photo, the color of the tap water is obviously a lot lighter than those in the blue water. which means blue water is more alkaline compared to tap water. although the colors are a bit off in the package, but i believe tap water is around pH7 and blue water is around pH 8/9. 

well. maybe you will think that pH7 is not bad actually. true. because it's still slightly alkaline and also it is very similar to our blood pH which is 7.5. do we have to go all the way to pH8/9 seriously? the reason why people suggest us to drink slightly more alkaline water is to compensate the fact that we are eating a lot of acidic food nowadays. all those alcohol and meat is going to make our body super acidic so drinking more alkaline water is going to balance things out.

making blue water is really simple. i've had all my friends (who listen) to do this already. and since it's so easy it has turned into a habit. 

what you need is blue bottle. make sure you get the same blue as the one you saw in the photo because baby blue light blue or any other blue is not going to work the same. 

change the bottle top to plastic, preferably blue but it's gonna be slightly more difficult so any dark color will do. boil your water and pour them inside the beautiful blue bottle and put it under the sun. 15 mins is going to work the magic, but you can put it there as long as you want to.

viola! that's it! then you will have some nice alkaline water for you and your family! 

ps. if you live in hk and you wanted to try out this method, i got my bottles from citysuper. these are just random water bottles, if i didn't rmb it wrong, it was some mineral water or sth like that. the taller one is a vodka bottle that my mom got somewhere. so just be creative. if you spot a bottle with the blue, grab it first no matter if it's vodka or some weird drinks! 

share with me your thoughts about good or bad water. and let me know if you've decided to try out this method too!

MATCHY MATCHY

// do you have the habit to match your wallpaper with your iphone case? 

i currently bought myself this keep calm and carry on iphone case. i really love the quote and the color so i thought i will be really happy using it. but no. i hate it when i first put it on, and i didn't know what's wrong. i kept thinking about it and i came to realize that it's the wallpaper that it's not matching thats why it is looking a bit strange.

now you are probably thinking. 'oh come on, it's just a wallpaper'. yea, IT IS just a wallpaper. but because the trimming of the case is showing in front, that's why the wallpaper does matter in this point. i am not saying that every case need a matching wallpaper. if you are using a black case or anything that's more neutral in color, probably it will match with everything that you put in that screen. however, when it comes to vibrant color like the one above, a non-matching wallpaper is going to give a great impact of the over view.

i immediately changed the wallpaper for both the home and lock screen. and viola!! im happy as a lark. lol.

if you are looking for some home screen wallpaper to match with your personality or like me, with your case! here are some of my fav. ones that i've looked online. click on it for download and get your phone matchy matchy like mine!

photos credit to 

http://www.hongkiat.com/

http://www.ilikewallpaper.net/

for more wallpapers, google 'iphone home screen wallpaper'. 

have fun and stay chic

xoxo

-EXPERIMENT WITH ME-

instagram/ iamallergictoeverything

so if you've followed me on instagram, you've probably know that im trying to recycle the fir needles from my old xmas tree. i didn't mentioned what im trying to do because i didn't wanna say anything about it before it's done. but ive decided to write it down, as a logbook, just like how we do it back in school in the laboratory.

FYI. im a big fan of aroma. anything that can make an area smell good would gain my full attention. but what happen is im spending way too much on candles, fragrances, room sprays, essential oils and oil diffuser. i feel like there would be a chance that i can go broke just by purchasing these kind of things. so. im thinking of making my own essential oils.

and why fir needles? cause i love xmas. the smell reminds me of our big xmas tree at home. and all the gifts [un]wrapping, great xmas parties and laughters.

i have googled a bunch of methods and i've just finish trying on the steam distillation method. very unfortunately, i will have to say that i have failed my first attempt.

result/ i've captured a few bottles of water that smell amazing. i've kept them in some really beautiful jars that i've bought from franc franc. will see if the smell are gone by tmr. if not. i believe those are "floral water" as ppl called it. except that mine is not "floral".

what's wrong/ um. im not sure because i've followed the instruction very well. but i believe i do not have enough ice and fir needles for the process. if i do have more of those, i think i will spend more time on the distillation and hope the oil could be pushed out after the long hours.

my suggestions/ home method might not work. so i will say if you are serious about this whole homemade essential oil thing, you should purchase a set of those distillation thing that they use in the lab. i will try again with cold pressing and i will let you know how that works.

until then. stay chic
xoxo