Of Joy and Tragic and a New Chapter

Yesterday (26th Sept 2014) was a day of huge emotional roller coaster for me.

Let me share with you yet another story of personal growth.

I am definitely not proud of some of them, but it is an undeniable fact that they have made me the person that I am right now at this moment. The last thing I would ever want to do is to sugar-coat my life and fabricate a life of only "flowers and sunshine", because the most important purpose of this blog is to document my growth and learning of the world. 

{ To be a person is to have a story to tell.}

- Isak Dinesen                                       

Yesterday marked the start of the semester break, where the girls and I killed all the yummy dim sums at East Ocean in Takashimaya after a starving morning of quiz and lectures. It felt so so nice to have full attendance at last, talking about makeup/boys/fats/hair/irritating instagram people, circling around Suntec's fountain of wealth for 4 rounds because we couldnt decide where to go, getting high over slightly-hot-and-probably-mixed waiter and all. 

This sem literally FLIES. I know everyone says that (maybe except freshies), but trust me, the speed of time in your final year is A WHOLE NEW OTHER LEVEL. Yes I do very much want to finally stop memorising about ' EU's Marco Polo Programme ' and start working to create actual value to the society, but I like the way we talk and laugh now. It's so unscripted and unpolluted, and I feel alive at moments like these.

This is our dearest birthday girl  ♥

The six of us are so different in personality, but together, they make up the brightest colour in my college life. The days we spent together in Norway will always be a gem in my heart. 

This moment was basically the last time in that day that I was actually feeling happy. Things soon went down from here. 

I shall not elaborate too much into the detail of the tragic, because I sincerely pray this piece of very horrible memory will soon be whitewashed by time. It still brings a bad taste in my mouth thinking about it right now.

We basically blown a very small issue completely out of proportion. It was indeed very true to the words that "Nothing good happens after 2am", especially with much alcohol pumping in your blood and brain. 


We hurled words of daggers at each other, did things to each other that we will continue to be deeply regrettable of, defending ourselves with high walls raised and trying our best to wrong and pierce the other party. 

_____________________________________________________________________________

{Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret--it leads only to evil.}

- Psalm 37:8-9                               

 _____________________________________________________________________________


The outcome was both of us being terribly damaged and worn out by this very unhealthy state of fight. I literally could feel my blood thickening and anger warming up my joints whenever I think of what happened last night. This is a physical reaction caused by a psychological trauma and that is how bad it really was. 

It was never easy from the start, but last night was yet another low point in our relationship and I think both of us had finally reached our threshold with this. 



This morning when I woke up, I could finally feel my rationality,despite last night's alcohol still hanging around in my head. 

I asked myself a lot of questions and tried to answer each of them objectively. The conclusion was that I am not giving up just yet, but the fact is things have gone far too bad right now and have to be fixed with concrete conscious efforts.

So we talked.
In the comfort and beauty of the nature.
We made a plan, gave ourselves deadlines and our hearts could finally smile again.


The bottom line is: Relationships should be happy.

That is fundamental of all relationships and we often tend forget about this along the way. If it no longer feels happy anymore, then it is a red flag that things are no longer right anymore. Change it, stop it, or do whatever you should do for yourselves. Because at the end of the day, you just need to answer one sinple question to know if you are heading the correct direction: Do the both of us feel genuinely happy in this relationship? 

Yes the future is unknown, but now we can say we will never let anger get the better of us ever again. 


Here's to a better tomorrow to each and every one of you.
May love always prevails.

Chagrin Valley for Asian Hair - First Wash

To set the context, I will provide some background information before I get to the review.

HOW I STARTED MY NO-SHAMPOO JOURNEY

1) I have always been told about the harmful effects of commercial shampoos (thanks to a very health-conscious Mum). If you are interested, go Google it and considered yourselves warned that you are gonna be very paranoid when you wash your hair afterwards.

However, it's just impossible for me NOT to wash my hair EVERYDAY. I have rather thick hair and I live in Singapore, where it is very humid and hot ALL YEAR ROUND.


2) Then I came upon SHAMPOO BARS *adds sparkles all around* and I almost became PASSIONATE about them. The Chagrin Valley website was very homey and informative, let alone the very very yummy photos of the soap. I was intrigued right away and I couldn't wait to get my hands on them! I kept thinking about these wholesome organic shampoo soap bars the whole time during the shipping period, reading their reviews and telling everyone about them. OMG I WAS SOSO EXCITED!

Just look at them! Almost as delicious as comfort food!

THE SHIPPING PROCESS

The international shipping cost was quite steep - US$23.95 for orders under $75 - but nothing could stop my burning passion for organic soaps at that point in time. When the package finally arrived after 10 days, my heart was literally racing. 

Oh my dear babies  ♥ ♥ ♥

The envelope was a flat priority mail box and the soaps are packed with fully recycled paper. 

MY HAIR HISTORY

• Permed 3 times this year
• Last dye was 1 year ago
• I NEVER use conditioner cos it is SO slimey and I have to use so much time rinsing it
• Scalp gets slightly oily at the end of the day but hair is normal

There are a lot of positive reviews about the CV soaps, but there are very few by Asian customers and different hair types may react differently to the same soap. So here's one review by me (who is obviously a very certified Asian) to recap about my first wash with CV soaps.

PRE-WASH PREP

I decided to start my journey with the Honey, Beer and Egg Shampoo Bar.

The website says:

Beer and egg yolk create a mild, protein rich natural shampoo that adds shine, bounce and body to your hair. The proteins from the malt, hops condition hair and help repair damage. Vitamin rich eggs revitalize dull and dry hair and improve texture. Enriched with cocoa butter to provide deep nourishment for the hair shaft. 

Ingredients: Organic Coconut Oil; Organic Avocado Oil; Organic Sustainable Palm Oil; Organic Beer; Organic Jojoba Oil; Organic Castor Oil; Sodium Hydroxide*; Organic Cocoa Butter; Organic Mango Butter; Organic Canola Oil; Organic Aloe Vera; Organic Honey; Organic Free Range Eggs; Organic Rosemary Oil Extract 

OMG GO ON MY HAIR. NOWWW!

Anyw, to avoid wasting the soaps in the bathrooms, I cut out a small cube and put the rest into small containers for travel and storage. Btw another reason to use soaps is that the annoying aviation 100ml rule does NOT apply to them AWESOME!

Since Singapore has very hard water, I prepared a vinegar rinse, which was highly recommended for hard water users and beginners (whose hair normally need a transition stage from the sudden switch from chemical-loaded shampoos to organic alternatives).

I did not use the Apple Cider Vinegar rinse because I personally hates using them SO MUCH. I bought a bottle of Bragg Organic Raw to use it as a toner and omg I really hate it. IT IS .REALLY. SMELLY, and I already diluted it like 10 small drops to 100ml of water. Sometimes I would accidentally spray the ACV toner too close to my nostrils and that would leave gagging from the stench for a whole minute.NO WAY this thing is going up my hair!!

To give justice, ACV from Bragg is really one of the best for its kind becos it has the 'Mother' and is authentically organic. And right becos it's so pure, its smell also doubles that of the other brands. So it's still a very good ACV, it's just I cant take the smell personally.

So I used a Black Vinegar, which is very common in Asian culinary. My mum has been doing a Black Vinegar Rinse (albeit still with commercial shampoos) for years, and her hair is the one of the best I've ever seen. There are A LOT of benefits of BVR for hair (e.g.adding shine, softening, anti-dandruff, slowing hair whitening process etc) and it seems like a more apt option for Asian hair, since yea it's from Asia too. Haha I hope I made sense here...

FIRST WASH REVIEW

Many people talked about how the shampoo bars are hard to lather and to wash off, especially in hard water, so imagine my surprise, when mine worked so smoothly almost like all my other commercial shampoos.

The lather was of course not as much, but it was comfortably sufficient and came off very easily. I massaged it into my scalp first then the rest of my hair. It felt so good that I massaged a little too long, and that was when I realised the lather was disappearing. So I quickly rinsed it off. Though the rinse was easy, my hair felt squeakily clean afterwards, and it was TOO squeaky to feel comfortable.

Thanks to all the reviews I read beforehand, I didnt freak out cos this was a very common thing for many. So I proceeded to my BVR, where I just poured bit by bit all over my head. I massaged a little more, waited for a while, before rinsing it off.  

Note: It's very common for hair to smell quite a bit of black vinegar after the rinse (I used to complain about about my mum's), but it will COMPLETELY disappear once the hair is dried. The same goes for the bathroom, so you really dont have to worry about that. In my opinion, it is still like ten times much better than the ACV.


I do not know if it's bcos of the BVR or that I have been preparing my mentality for the switch, but I did NOT experience any uncomfortable transition stage (e.g. waxy hair, oily scalp, tangled hair etc). In fact, my hair was completely normal after the first wash, but just softer and seemed to be lifted with more volume when it dried.

How my hair looked when it was almost dried after the wash.

I was so glad that I didnt experience the clumpy hair/wax residues that the rest had mentioned about their first wash.

My hair felt absolutely wonderful when I woke up the next day!

Thanks so much to Chagrin Valley for making such amazing shampoo bars and also Mummy for introducing the black vinegar wash!

The first wash has been marvelous for me and hopefully it will continue be as such from now on.

:)

Obligatory First Introductory Post

I am stuck at this obligatory first introductory post.

Stating out the factual information about me will be WAYYYY too boring, because seriously, how interesting are you expecting me to be. If I was mildly interesting to start with, I wouldn't have been here writing this blog in the first place since I'd be so busy charming all the non-interesting commoners with my gastronomical interesting-ness. 

Well, apparently that is not happening so let's get back to this post.

Ok the fact is I've been writing on www.for33seconds.blogspot.com since my teenage years and maybe it's partially because of that very fact, I feel that it's time for me to start a NEW blog so yayyyyyyy here you are on Definite Darling! 

The name itself was an impromptu invention because EVERY DAMN NAME IS TAKEN COS THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WITH TOO MUCH TIME AND INTERNET ACCESS and even the url EVERYDAMNNAMEISTAKEN.blogspot is TAKEN so just imagine how many people owns a blog in the world ohmahgawd. 

FUN FACT: The first post on everydamnnameistaken.blogspot.com is dated 2005. I feel so obliged to email that author to correct her impatience which could have misled many new people with too much time and internet access bloggers to fret since it's NOT true that EVERY DAMN NAME is taken at 2005 because DefiniteDarling.blogspot.com was apparently NOT taken before 11th Aug 2014.

Ok I need to come back.

If you REALLY REALLY need a context of who I am and all, you can always go to for33seconds to read more. Honestly speaking, I fell in love with myself a little (in a totally legit psychologically healthy way) when I was reading my old blog yesterday and it kind of made me realize the significance and importance of having a personal blog and that's why I decided to create the DefiniteDarling. But please avoid reading the really old posts from like 2009 and 2008, cos then I'll know you've learnt that I too, had been an embarrassing teenager once and that seems to make all the wise and enlightening and deeply hilarious but still with a tinge of life lessons sandwiched and peppered over posts that I'm going to write in the future invalid. Sometimes I think high school days exist so that no matter how low one's life gets after that, one can always look back and said, 'ahhhh I've survived high school - I can do this now".

But if you are lazy like me, you can just read the 'About this Space' section which I personally think will suffice as a context to this blog. And if your vision is too lazy to move to such a right space (right as in right and left, not as in right and wrong..I just felt that I should make myself clear about this lexical confusion. And also the fact that using the word 'lexical' makes me feel really smart *light smirk*), here's what it says:

This is a story of a twenty-ish girl - notice I didn't specify twenty-WHAT, so that this description can hold true for a good few years. Oh my brilliant farsightedness! - living her life, of which she tries to converge with her sometimes ohh too fluffy dreams.

You might find yourselves disliking some sides of her, while falling in love with her on other times.

Either way, she's grateful of you being here and wishes you a good day ahead. 

Love.

Ok NOW this introductory post seems good enough to be a introductory post.

I think it's quite amazing that you've actually stayed through the entire post to reach here so I genuinely want to say 'thank you' and hope to see you soon loves. But if you've scrolled passed the entire post to reach here then the 'thank you' and 'love' is definitely NOT for you. You (as in the you's that've NOT read the entire post, not the former group. I love the former group :) ) are also not entitled to call me a mean shit because if this post has a life, you have basically scrolled through its life and announced to it that 'ok all I'm interested in is your death'. So yea, no 'thank you' and 'love' for you, post-killers.

This was taken 2 years back in Vietnam. 

Don't be tricked into thinking that I am as normal as I appeared to be.