Beauty review: Avon Advance Techniques damage repair 3D rescue

HELLO TO ALL OUR BEAUTIFUL READERS,

How's everyone doing? I know it's been a while since I last made a post in this blog. Reason being is due to me trying to adapt into new working place. I apologize for that. Will try to update more frequently for you lovelies out there. 

So today's post will be on my new favorite hair care. As you can see based on the title, it's on Avon Advance Techniques damage repair 3D rescue. It claims to help repair 3 years of damage caused by styling, chemical treatment and brushing.

 I have used this for about a month and a half and can I just say that this is like a miracle in a bottle. I have notice such a great improvement on my hair once I apply this on my hair. I have recently bleached my hair and as everyone and their grandmother knows that it does damage one's hair A LOT especially my hair being damage as it is. 

Thus I have decided to rescue my hair by purchasing this treatment from Avon. May I say this is one of the best purchased I have ever made? It is super duper affordable and yet does pretty much the same job as higher end treatment. 

I applied this from the middle part of my hair to the ends of my hair (mainly concentrating at the ends) while it's still damp. I find it works better on damp hair than dry hair. It smells amazing. I don't know how to describe it but it smells super clean and fresh. You can also apply serum after applying this treatment to achieve maximum result.

Once you apply it, leave it to dry and you might notice the differences on your hair texture. I love how this treatment scent clings to my hair at least for about 3 hours. And the best part is the fact that it is not oily. I have an oily scalp so having to put treatment that is from oil-based might not be the best idea. Thus, this treatment provide the best solution to my prefences and needs. 

Where can you get this? 
Any Avon boutiques in Malaysia. click here for more details on Avon boutiques in Malaysia.

Price:
Regular price is RM27.90. However Avon always have a great discount on their products thus do drop by to any Avon boutiques to check out their latest offer.

Hair type:
Suitable for any hair type. However, it is best on damage and dry hair.

Love,

Nurul Gan

The Ramadhan Diet

I cannot tell you how many times I've heard people complain that they are actually gaining weight rather than losing weight during the fasting month.

Actually, It has less to do with starving yourself and more to do with a (sorta) taboo phrase in our society: COUNTING YOUR CALORIES.

Granted, fasting done right may lead to great weight loss but only if you do it right. With that said, I'll lay down how people usually gain rather than lose weight this fasting month:

Buka Puasa- OMG, I'm so hungryyyyy. I wanna eat nasi lemak with ayam goreng rempah, nasi ambang, nasi tomato, Char Kuey Teow. Oh, and not forgetting the yummy kuih! Seri muka, kuih pelita, kuih melaka! Yum! I'll wash it down with Air Tebu too! What's the harm? Puasa right?

WRONG.
In that one session alone, the average Malaysian consumes 4 times more calories than one ought to during dinner. Whereas when we're not fasting a regular health conscious person would:
1) Eat MUCH less during dinner.
2) Not indulge so much in foods that's loaded with sugar & salt (like those kuih we love so much).

So calorie wise, in a day, you're actually consuming more than you are when you are not fasting.
All those extra calories are FAT.

Another bad habit that we have is that we tend to do less during the fasting period.
It's like a green card to laziness.
(Admit it, I do.)

So here's the basic equation:

You+ More calorie intake - Less calorie burning activities= Bigger you.

I'm not saying don't fast (don't quote me out of context here), but there are right ways to do it.

1. Eat dinner as you would if you weren't fasting. Yes, that means cut out all those unnecessary kuih and sugary drinks. Perhaps if you want to, add 1 sugary item just for a little treat. 
2. DON'T eat till you're too-full-to-move in one seating. Actually, drink first (Our bodies give out the same sensation when we are hungry and thirsty. So people usually confuse thirst with hunger.) Drink and chillax for a few minutes, then you can start eating.
3. When eating, it's too tempting to gobble everything down in one seating. This is where copying the prophet's actions will also help with your waistline! Eat in stages. Have some rice and go do your prayers. When you're done, you'll be surprised to find yourself already full and won't eat as much.  
4. During sahur, try not to 'fill up your tank' in hopes that you won't feel hungry throughout the day. and later SLEEP. Your body will still convert food to to energy regardless of what you're doing and if it finds that you're not using the energy, it converts it into fat which is harder to break down..

Hope this answers your burning questions about the topic.

Remember, the key is not how MUCH you eat, but how much calories you're consuming. 

Eat healthy & clean peeps!

XOXO,

Reina Lum

Guide to Bleaching & Coloring Your Jet Black Hair. Part 3: The Coloring Session

If you've missed part one & part two, here's the links:

Guide to Bleaching & Coloring Your Jet Black Hair: Part 1: The Salon Disaster
Guide to Bleaching & Coloring Your Jet Black Hair: Part 2: The Bleaching Session

Right after drying off my hair, (Tip: DON’T use heat to dry your hair at this point. In fact, for the first week, stay away from the styling tools! Let your hair rest and regain it’s moisture level. Using heat tools will only strip it away) I simply rubbed in Manic Panic’s Semi Permanent hair dye into my hair.

Here’s the consistency of the hair dye:

It’s basically a crème based dye and you can simply massage in into your hair and leave it in your hair till you get the effect you’re looking for. Yes, you heard me right. Leave it on as long as you want. This dye is vegan so it’s even used on children.  The time spent in your locks will only effect the intensity of the color. Here’s a great plus, it also moisturises as it colors! So after rinsing, you don’t even have to condition!

As for colors, I used Purple Haze on the most part of the bottom of my hair and Mystic Amethyst for my ends. Here’s some pictures to show you how my hair turned out!

I twisted my hair in tight coils just to show you how healthy my hair remained even after the bleaching and coloring.

And you can pretty much tell the real color of my hair by contrasting it to my skin.

Overall, I’m stoked with the results!

It’s semi permanent and would last up to 4 to 6 weeks on your hair but the large jars have a lot of product so you can just reapply when you need to. I personally think it’s a plus for those who can’t commit to extreme hair color permanently, especially to university students whose Uni still dictates the ‘acceptable’ color of your own hair. Meh. 

But hey, even the ‘permanent’ colors wash away so I can’t really see what the difference is. The only downside is that Manic Panic is not available in Malaysia. I had to import it via Avant La Mode’s Personal Shopper service. If you ever wanna get any of Manic Panic’s products, Just email avantlamode@gmail.com. Or visit http://avant-la-mode-pre-order.blogspot.com/search/label/Manic%20Panic

I hope this helps babes!

XOXO,

Reina Lum

Editor of the Fashion Reps

Guide to Bleaching & Coloring Your Jet Black Hair. Part 2: The Bleaching Session

So lets pick up where I left off..
If you missed Part 1, click here.

Anyways, once my hair got back to it's usual sheen, I opened up my new Manic Panic Flash Lightning Bleaching Kit. They provide the full kit that includes everything you might need for a bleaching session. 

The kit includes:

1. The Bleaching Powder
2. Liquid Developer
3. Mixing Tub
4. Applicator Brush
5. Gloves
6. Hair cap
7. Directions Leaflet

Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of me bleaching my hair (was way too excited) but you basically just need to mix the bleaching powder and developer until it forms a creamy mixture. I went a step further by using aluminium foils to make sure that everything remained neat & tidy. Here’s some tips:

1. Use the gloves. The skin on your hands will thank you for it.
2. Do a test patch. Take a small amount of hair, preferably the inner parts of your hair so that if anything bad happens, it won’t be so painful to part with the few strands of hair. NOTE: Any half decent salon should also do the same. I have no idea why it’s not properly implemented in Malaysia’s salons when it’s a policy in most salons in the US!
3. Don’t empty the whole of the bleaching powder and develop it right away. (This was a mistake I made. *Sobs*)Use half first to see how much you really need. I found that I don’t need the whole packet even if I wanted to bleach my whole head!
4.  The instructions say that it’s safe to leave the bleach in your hair for up to 90 mins. It’s true. But if you’re not comfortable with that, use a hairdryer and blast some heat on your hair (this works even better if you have wrapped your hair in aluminium foil as it’s a great conductor of heat) The heat helps to speed up the whole bleaching process.
5. With that said, if you wanna bleach your whole head, take note that the bleach works faster on your roots due to the heat coming from your scalp. So make sure you do your tips first and do your roots later.
6. Be sure to check the progress of your hair every 15 mins. Once your go off the edge, there’s no coming back peeps!

After about 60 mins, I rinsed off my hair. And the results: Dirty Blonde Hair! The exact color that I wanted! More amazingly, my hair remained the same quality as before! 

It didn’t feel like straw. Considering the fact that my first round was such a disaster, this was a nice surprise. I was expecting some sort of damage.. But I went on with caution anyways and made sure I really took care of my locks. 

Better safe than sorry right?

Anyways, after bleaching, your hair becomes porous (the same effect you’ll get after swimming in swimming pools) so that’s the best time to color your hair! But if your goal is to go blond, simply condition your hair to seal your hair shafts. 

TIP: Although it’s really tempting to shampoo the bleach out, DON’T! Just make sure you’ve rinsed your hair thoroughly and condition/mask it for repair. Shampoo will simply strip away what’s left of the natural moisture in your hair, leaving it drier. 

NEXT CHAPTER: THE COLORING SESSION

I hope these tips help!

XOXO,

Reina Lum

Guide to Bleaching & Coloring Your Jet Black Hair. Part 1: The Salon Disaster

Before I start, there’s two things you’ll need to know about me & my hair:

1. I have virgin hair. That means I have NEVER bleached, colored or even chemically straightened/permed it before. (Even though I REALLY wanted to for so long.)
2. This year, I have bleached my hair twice. Once in a salon & the other time using Manic Panic’s Flash Lightning Bleaching Kit.

Here's a picture of my hair. 

The picture was actually from last year so it's actually slightly longer now ;)

So here’s the thing.. I thought that bleaching my hair in a saloon would be the ‘safe’ thing to do. Plus, I have zero experience with coloring and bleaching my hair, best leave it to the professionals right? WRONG. I went to quite a ‘reputable’ salon in Subang, out of respect (and some legal reasons too) I won’t blatantly mention the name of the saloon here. But the saloon used a bleaching mixture marked with Chinese characters and was told not to worry. Pfft!

Here’s a friendly tip, ALWAYS demand to know what they are putting on your precious locks. ALWAYS. Even if you have to yank the damn thing out of their hands, DO IT. I learnt this the hard way. 

Anyways, long story short, in just 40 minutes they almost fried my hair! They even had the nerve to ask me if I wanted to bleach it again on that very same day to get my hair to turn strawberry blonde! (I need it to go MUCH lighter than the dark brown it was at the time. I was aiming for purple hair.) At that point, my hair already felt like straw. It was stiff and looked so fragile to the touch. Like hell I’ll let them do another round!

Thank god I did a little research before I went to bleach my hair.

Here’s another tip: Let your hair rest! The best is to let it rest for two weeks to a month between bleaching sessions. Loads of professionals recommend this method. It may be a slow process, but it is the safest. What’s the point of doing this if you fry your hair beyond repair in the right? 

The reason why saloons would rather bleach your hair 3 or 4 times in a row on the same day or just a few days apart is because it saves THEIR time & energy. Plus, it’s a sure fire way to make sure that you shell out RM 100 per bleaching session IN THEIR SALLON.

On another note, (This applies to a select few. To those who have been ranting that bleaching don’t give them the results they want right away. Siapa makan cili, rasa lah pedasnya).

What do you expect?? To go from jet black hair to platinum blonde in just one session? Come on people.. Get real. I can’t say this enough (call it tough love) but no matter how good a bleaching kit is, don’t expect miracles. Put a little logic in your beauty regimes! Even if you buy the best, most expensive skin lightening products, you don’t expect it to transform your sawo matang skin to albino-like in one use right? It takes time. So Chillax.

Okay, enough ranting..

After more research, (Another tip: RESEARCH. Google is your best friend! Find out the best brands. How to get them and any hair care regimes that might be useful afterwards.) I finally found a product that sounds promising. I first found Manic Panic’s Flash Lightning Bleaching Kit but after reading the 50th review on it (Yes, there’s THAT many reviews on it online), I decided to get their Semi permanent hair dye too!

So after a whole month of tender loving care (I went ahead and bought repairing ampoules for my hair and made sure I used my hair serum daily. It was the most work I have ever done for my hair!) my hair went back to all it’s former glory. *Hoyeah!*

NEXT CHAPTER: THE BLEACHING SESSION

Till next time my lovely readers.
XOXO,
Reina Lum