Shubby Sweets

Located near bedok chai chee 42

If you are thinking of a sweet treat, then do check out the shubby sweets.

It is a neighbourhood shop and i often check out that area when visiting my sister. 

It eels very nice brownie and definitely sweet to the fullest. Therefore, if u need occasional treats for yourself or your family, here is a pastery shop to recommend. The price ranges $7.50 -$10 and u get 4-5 pastries. It can be a little “jelak” in Malay for some, meaning excessively sweet. But the brownie is in the right small portion to place all or at least half in your mouth. Prepare lotsa beverages, preferably non-sweetened ones to go with it. 

The operating hours are Wednesday to Sunday, 2pm-7pm or until sold out. Monday to Tuesday are closed.

 I believe it is halal.. so muslims should try out too! 

 

Definition of Fashion

 What is Fashion?

Fashion in my opinion is an expression of an individual's preference in apparel/dressing. It can also be an art and serves as a testimonial of time.

It is the result of the evolution from primitive needs for protection against weather conditions to a significance of wealth and social status to just a individual's freedom expression of character and beauty standards.

In Singapore, we do not enjoy 4 seasons, only summer or closer to spring (in air-conditioned environment) This limits our fashion variety but also wastage of resources. In view of covid-19, the needs for winter clothing are made redundant.

Singapore is never a place for fashion runway as we are mainly under influence of other countries Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, UK and US. They influence in the form of social media, celebrity like Korean Girls/Boy Band. We do not really have designs that can be called "from Singapore". However, we do have an evergreen culture in wearing T-shirts and Jeans (shorts). It has never gone out-of-fashion as per say.

One of the fashion founder, Coco Chanel once said " Dress Shabbily and they remember the dress. Dress impeccably, they remember the woman". How did Coco Chanel becomes so popular? in my opinion, she is a fashion statement on her own and she has the network to display her works. In today's world, we have no issue on platform in view of internet. We have issue in accessing the rich's network and gain their appeal in our work. What motivates the rich in buying our stuff? Probably a huge differentiating element or a statement of social status. Just like the reason why many of us like to buy LV, Dior, Celine, YSL, Hermes or Chloe. Why the general masses prefer Coach, Kate Spade or Agnes B? Both brands appeal to different audience with differing budget for fashion.

In Singapore, I would say most Singaporean are still in pursue of fashion but still in the shadow of the designers in other countries. We have not walked out and carve a path on our own in the fashion space. Probably there are already Singaporean-born designers, e.g. Ashley Islam (https://youtu.be/SWMKt1IwjOM) gaining some recognition in the international platform. However, we need more people like him. We need his apparel to gain fame beyond as a designer but also apparel chains like Zara and Mango so Singaporeans are able to wear the prideful brand made from our homegrown talent.

In my opinion, every expression of fashion should be respected but may differ in popularity over time. 

Popularity would usually center around a touching story. Our world has been greatly exposed to different stories. The design may need to be uniquely refreshing, never seen before in order to be impeccable in the current age and time. The design may need to draw inspirations from familiar items in our memory lane. 

The next big question is how to achieve above. There are various strategies. Once is to design and keep designing non-stop and volume-based. Hopefully one will takes the liking of a person. Another strategy is to design one and tell a story on it, hoping to touch the heart that one customer to buy into your designs. The next one is to gain access to the right platform and audience. To show them the designs and increase the chances. Finally, leave the design in the hands on the individuals. Since it is the expression of the individual, the best designer are the individuals themselves. We facilitate the right tools and empower the individuals to do customization. What is more convincing and touching story than their own? A custom-made design on T-shirt or bag for their special one. The time and effort spent what made the design special and memorable. 

I personally employed all the strategies above. Personally I am not designed trained. To contribute in the space would require leveraging. Therefore, I thought of applique. It offers a lot of flexibility and empowers a person to apply design to almost everything they own/wear i.e. bags, t-shirts, hair accessories, sneakers, heels and etc. 

Appliques fulfil the idea of empowerment. Especially the expression of individual's perception of beauty are more prevalent in the current era. 

Designer Bag - Macaroon Dessert

 

I created the design above and it was inspired by a youtuber i.e. bellagemanails. I have included her link. 

https://youtu.be/12vQcwZVmaQ

She used whipped cream glue to create a design on a Chanel designer dupe bag. I love all her bag designs mainly because they were so creative, easy-to-learn and pretty. Her idea instantly glams up a bag with much lesser budget. This makes me feel everyone can own and deserve beauty. Beauty can be achieved in everyone’s budget, not necessarily have to be measured by monies spent.  

Nevertheless i get real designer bags myself too and i still feel they deserve the price tag. It is just about spending monies within budget of the person at that point in time. 

I chose macaroon colour for this designer dupe bag because my little one loves all sorts of dessert 🧁, 🍨, 🍮 🍬 and macaroons. The pastel colours especially is attractive to even a young mind. I too love macaroons colours. We can imagine how big the influence of colours can be - transcends beyond age limits. It is made of top grain leather according to supplier. 

The colour combination against the forest 🌳 green makes it even more outstanding and suits even Asian skintone. 

If you are interested in getting the whipped cream glue, or resin figurines, please feel free to comment below. I must say it is highly catchy and instagrammable. 

Review on China Logistics Company, "陶多多集运"

If you had wanted to try engage external logistics vendors instead of official TAOBAO logistics. Hold your horses first. Please read my experience with Tao Duo Duo Ji Yun before you decide to engage them. This is definitely worth the read. (If you do not have patience to read the story from top to bottom, please read the summary at the end of the article).

陶多多集运 was advertised on Facebook and i chanced upon their adverb. I decided to give it a try. Basically, they will give you an address to divert the shipment to them. Prior to that, we need to understand what is the current rates Taobao official logistics are giving to access if it is worth switching to 陶多多集运.

 

They are highly responsive in replying the messages especially when comes to giving them screenshots of what we bought to them. The delivery order numbers for each item u bought. 

For official Taobao logistics, they do not allow purchase of Covid-19 related resources supplies such as masks, shield, sanitizers and etc. Therefore, part of the reason i sourced externally was  hoping to purchase some of these (i.e. masks) so it is out of the system. However, i made the wrong call.

I purchased a total of 18 items. While waiting i requested to deliver 16 items to me first because it consists of a watch which is a gift for my family. I needed it to be in time for the occasion. The delivery order number for the mask is with the 2 items that are still in their warehouse. This is when hiccups develops. 

She charged me 468 yuan for 12kg (16 items). This works out to be 39 yuan per kg. She explained this is because the 16 items consists of an item - mask and therefore additional charges apply. 2 explanations I needed from her. Firstly, I ordered masks but they are not in the mentioned parcel. Secondly, out of 16 items, assuming one item is mask, the entire parcel are calculated at 39 yuan per kg because it is classified as restricted items. This does not sound like a right calculation isn't? They should however separate the parcels into those containing mask and those without, and charge separately. 

When I enquired why they didn't do so, they said I didn't instruct them.  At the point when I enquired her if they can deliver mask, she also did not disclose it will involve different rates.   As customer, how would I know about the rates charged for different items? If I had known, I would instruct them accordingly. I replied, "Did you inform me on the difference in rates?" She remained dead silence.

Currently her proposed solution is to wait for the parcel to come, should there be no mask, she will refund me the difference in shipping rates. 

Although i am pretty sure no mask inside, i would not depend on that as you would not know if they would deliberately put one mask in to justify the entire load as covid sensitive resource. In the first place, she should take responsibility over her non-disclosure. So i stated my request for the rate to remain at 25yuan/kg. The next parcel for the remaining 2 items needs to be sorted and calculated based on respective rates. 

I hope we can get better resolution otherwise Taobao sea shipment is the best and I would stick with that in future.

For air freight, no doubt it was more affordable but I feel the "people" is a strong factor in every business and it really depends how they are resolving it for my case. I will update in this post for what their resolution to give this a closure.

Thank you for your patience in reading this far.

Updates on the first parcel received. Basically i did a video and uploaded in Youtube as an evident that to TaoDuoDuo that there is no mask inside.

You can refer to the link below: https://youtu.be/u4AqxR1p8Gk

After receiving the first parcel, i have contacted them for  a refund of monies. They computed that there is an overcharge of 168 yuan.

Then comes the second parcel. I shall cut the chase to the point. Their calculations are as per below.

When the second parcel arrives, i deliberately measured the item. they were incorrect.

The actual measurements for the mask are incorrect. The actual is 31 by 29 by 22 so they actually deliberately increase width by 10cm so they can charge 79.7 yuan more which is equivalent to SGD$16 more. 

Summary

In summary,  陶多多集运 is highly unprofessional logistic service company. They committed the following: 

1. Without checking with you first, they will assume air freight because they probably earn more from it.
2.  They did not inform customer on the existence of cost differential for those with mask and without mask at the point of enquiry. 
3.  They comingle goods with mask and without mask together to compute the shipping fees on the higher side. They do not work on the customer's interest which is to separate the goods between covid sensitive goods and non-covid sensitive goods
4. When confronted on their service lapse, their attitude remained unremorseful and do not make efforts on doing any service recovery.

In the nutshell, I would NOT recommend 陶多多集运 unless you want to suffer financial and time losses like me.

Burger 🍔 King Lunch

 Just ordered our burger king lunch for two. Very worth it at $12.90 for all the spread of food. Oh my... satisfying lunch. Z

Review of #BottomSlim @ Paya Lebar Quarters

If you are going to bottomslim @PLQ, then do read my personal experience before you make your trip over.

It all started with a telemarketing call I received on 10th September 2020, I was invited to 2 free sessions at bottomslim. The telemarketeer proclaimed that there are goodie bag and NTUC vouchers be won. Most importantly, no obligation at the end of the sessions. Like most typical Singaporeans, i took the "this is worth a try" mentality.

 

I set the appointment to be 11a.m. on 14th Sept 2020. They gave me a reminder message, followed by a reminder call on 13th Sept 2020. I find this is rather a good service message and call as for a busy person like every other person, we might tend to forget after hanging up the first call. 

On 14th Sept 2020, the appointment itself, they dropped another reminder about 10a.m.,saying that the goodie bag and NTUC vouchers have been prepared for me. They required me to bring along a verification document e.g debit/credit or NRIC. Well, i was late and reached the store at about 11.30a.m. Prior to that i have informed them by replying to their messages.

Finally i arrived and here is the picture i took at the branch

They are located at PLQ on the third floor, 03-24.

I went to the counter. I saw there are many attending beauty advisors crowding the counter but all seems to be pretty occupied. I randomly approached one and told them I had an appointment with Melissa. They brought me to a room inside while waiting for someone to attend to me. About few minutes later, one came brought me water and went out.

A few minutes later, the lady came in again, asking to fill in the following forms

(Personal details are masked to protect confidentiality. ;))

There was a clause that put me to shock, asking me to indemnify them for any discomfort, adverse reaction, illness or injury as a result of the program. I further clarified with Joey, the beauty advisor manager, that the clause is  there because they previously had a customer who is feeling unwell and insisted to do the treatment with  them. After the treatment, she experienced discomfort and put the blame on them. But honestly, deep down i was not convinced with the explanation to have this clause. I was ready to abandon ship if they insisted me to agree to the clause. Even though this may be a trial experience for me but i am not prepared for a guinea pig experiment on me. To be fair to them, they were professional to explain the treatment I am getting into is definitely safe and riskless. It is also safe for breastfeeding mothers. 

Later on, Joey brought me a goodie bag and gave me three envelopes of NTUC envelops. Supposed to have different values of NTUC vouchers to be won. I was lucky to have won $5 NTUC vouchers.

Finally came the knowledge sharing session by Joey on how is she going to help me customize a plan that will target my area of concerns. My main target area is my little tummy bulging out after my pregnancy. She mentioned the bulging occurs on the lower part of my tummy,. This suggests it is a  congestion on the lymph nodes and the rest are just firming on my  waist line. She further shared that basically there is a sequential order in helping their customers to achieve their ideal figure. The mainframe is as follows:

The 2 free sessions that i was entitled to are basically doing the act of detox. It is more internal and may not see immediate visible results. But it is an essential starting step before they can go into slim, generally making the fat molecules smaller and finally firm which is to fix the sagging skin.

The lucky part about me was because I was not that big in size so i can skip the slimming stage and jump straight into firming. This saves me some monies. Honestly, i do not know how much i will be saving and how much are the treatments because i do not know how much they costs. Nevertheless, it still serves me some comfort that i am still a salvageable case.

Joey also helped me to understand my BMI, visceral fats, body fat, muscles content and etc. i gained a better insights on my health as a result. 

After the above sharing session, it was already near 12.30p.m. which coincides with my lunch hours. Honestly, my tummy started to rumble. Joey was kind enough to offer me some snacks and milo prior to the treatment to tie me through the period.

This is a kind gesture and i thought I should give special compliments to Joey in terms of customer service level, considering I was not even their customer yet. 

She even gave me extra 10 mins manual messaging on my tummy to test out on the lymph nodes massage. 

Before and after the massage, they measured my tummy and discovered the massage helped with 2.5cm reduction of my waist size. I was pretty impressed at that point. 

The entire session including the consultation and treatment ended at around 2p.m.

Overall, i am pretty happy with the customer service and i must say there are some reasonable level of selling in the process but i considered reasonable because this is part of their job in gaining sales and helping ladies to rediscover their hope for better figures. i would say results on me is not lasting because when i came back measuring my waist, it is the same before i left home (would not reveal how big my waist which may scare some of the readers.. lol). It probably like what Joey mentioned, requires a period of intensive treatment such as once a week over a course of a couple of months (minimum 30 visits) to see satisfactory results. The cost of the treatment at the point they offer me is about $654 for 10 treatments. Therefore, a full set of treatments can be $1962. 

Personally, i find that this is reasonably priced considered slimming at tummy, thigh and hip. Therefore, if i have the budget, i would have likely subscribe for it. 

Btw, since i am rejecting the treatment, i am too shy to go for the second treatment. 

*updates on 28th Sept 2020, i received a call from bottomslim at 10.19p.m. to go for my second treatment. The lady mentioned over the phone i can just attend the session to complete the 2nd session with no obligation. I rejected gracefully mainly because i was pretty busy these days. I feel as a customer i am more valued. Compliments for the call in this case. A small little suggestion for them to probably call at an earlier timing. I worked in telemarketing job before so usually after 9p.m. is not suitable to call customer. Just a suggestion but personally i am not offended at all.

Above all just to disclaimer for bottomslim and myself,  i am not paid for posting this. I am sharing this experience purely for the benefit of others who are also looking for the same treatments. =)

Resume Journey to Zerorise Dark Spots

Have tried the Japanese Whitening Mask for a period of time. It does more of a hydrating and minimal skin care than whitening dark spots.

During these period of MIA, was busy with covid and taking care of child at home. Neglected the blog as a result.

Skin has not been better.. dark spots are still there with some new blemish.

I have also used some new products purchased from amazon.

Japanese Whitening Mask

My next project after trying out the nanowhite dark spot corrective serum is to try this whitening mask from Japan. It is known to suppress melanin production and preventing new freckles from forming up.

It is a value pack. I bought it in japan in my trip last year. But i did see it in dondondonki in somerset. 

I find the mask really moisturising. 

After putting on, the mask still is rich in serum, i can even squeeze and apply directly to skin. 

The skin is fully immersed in the rich serum. Next i will just leave it to dry. However, after that one application, i can conclude that it does more hydrating function rather than whitening of dark spots.

13th day of application.

14th day of application

Review results for nano white dark spot corrective serum. I think overall it does a good job in whitening as a whole but exact spot correction, 2 weeks is probably not long enough.

Dark spots faded a little but personally not satisfactory. The plus point is the serum is mild and does not cause adverse reactions.

Would i buy again? I probably will try other products for better dark spot corrective results.