How to: Cheat Sheet for Fabric Caring

This wouldn’t exactly be a cheat sheet, but calling it so makes it more interesting to read about caring for your fabrics (fabrics as in clothes). Like all others, my clothes are really precious to me and each piece is unique, with the different designs and materials used. More often than not, I find myself taking for granted that I have my mother to help me with my washing.

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Because of that, I am embarrassed  to say that I really have no idea that each clothing has to be cared for differently. :( So, after a few trials and errors, I took the effort to learn how to care for my clothings. Really, what is the point of having all these beautiful, gorgeous clothes only to have them ruined because I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to that?

 

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I started off with lace first because it is by far one of the most delicate fabrics I have in wardrobe. Every time I fall in love with a lace piece, I’d think twice and hard before I get it. Lace clothing are really beautiful, even more after you wear them but they are also very soft and vulnerable. Extra care have to be taken with these lovelies;

• Lace clothing need to be hand washed in cold water and air dried.
• If the clothes have zip or buttons, do zip or button them up to avoid sagging when washing.
• If you need to iron, place a cloth over the lace clothing and iron on that cloth.

Basically, with lace you need to be very gentle with them.

 

After lace, my favourite fabric would be the lightweight, almost see-through chiffon! Clothes, especially dresses look the best when there is movement in them. I love this chiffon dress because of the asymmetrical design and the chiffon, of course. Walking in this is just beautiful and you almost feel like you’re walking the runway. :D But like lace, it another delicate fabric, so here are a few handy tips;

• Chiffon tends to tear easily, so be careful of the accessories you wear. It’s best to go with fabric belts and accessories which won’t snag or tear the chiffon.
• It is very light and it may get burned really easily, so use a cooler temperature or place a cloth over it when ironing.
• It’s best to hand wash but if you want to machine wash, set the settings to ‘soft’ wash and put the it in a laundry bag. (You can get this from Daiso, for RM5 only)

 

There is something about velvet clothes that make me “ahhhh…” especially when I see gorgeous clothes made from velvet. It is not often to find clothes made out of this fabric here, maybe because it can get quite warm when wearing velvet. But I do have a few velvet pieces in my wardrobe. Velvet garments are bit more difficult to care for because the fabric can get ruined and crushed easily.

• The first thing to note is that you cannot iron a velvet garment. If there are creases, you’ll have to use a steamer to smoothen that out. Holding it over the steam of a hot boiling pot of water may help, but be careful.
• It is best to not fold your velvet clothing, because creases will be formed then. If you must fold, put tissue paper in between them.
• Some velvet clothing can be hand washed or even machine wash, but if you’re in doubt it will be better to bring it to the professional dry cleaners.

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I covered on the three most delicate fabrics that I have in my wardrobe. The other fabrics are actually easier to care for like cotton, rayon and what not. Silk is another delicate fabric as well but I think I’ll do that in another post to come. Essentially, it is always best to read the garment care label because that is usually the best way to handle the fabrics. I found a pretty comprehensive guide to understand the labels, because I do get confused often by the symbols!

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I hope you found this post to be useful and caring for your clothes will be so much easier with the few handy tips in this ‘cheat sheet’. Haha. I would really love to hear comments if I should do more posts like this. :) Or drop me a message if you have any suggestions.

Till next time, xoxo.

How to: Winged (eye) Liner

Eyeliners was never really my must have make-up essential items; it was pressed powder back then, when my skin was still smooth and all I needed was powder. I used to think that, that was all I needed. Even when I saw my sister religiously wearing eyeliners whenever she heads out, I still hadn’t seen the wonders of eyeliners, yet. Then, one day I fell in love with the winged, cat eyed eyeliner look that was so in trend. The next day, I got myself a liquid eyeliner; it was the Maybelline HyperSharp Liner.

It did get me some time to get used to drawing a balanced eyeliner for both my eyes, especially since I immediately started off with liquid liner. Once I’m able to draw a balanced one, I went on to try the winged eyeliner! After many trial and errors, I finally managed to do a perfect winged eyeliner. My version is a somewhat casual with less drama compared to those we see on celebrities since those are actually longer.

I did a pictorial, because it is so much easier to have a picture by picture guide. I will also eleborate in details for each step, highlighting which steps were crucial. They are actually only 4 steps and with practice you can draw it under 5 minutes.

From the pictorial, I know it seems too easy but truth is, it is that easy once you get a hang of it. Since I was trying to make the pictorial as concise as possible, I’ll be elaborating more on each step.

The most important step of the four would be the first one, because that would be the line that helps to guide the winged liner. Think as though you’re using the eyeliner to extend the line of your lower lash line. There is a simple technique/trick called the tape trick or using a cellophane tape.

So, what you’d basically do is get a cello tape and stick it slanted/angled according to your lower lash line. To avoid the cello tape to be too sticky, lightly pat the tape on the back of your hand before sticking them to your eyes. The tape only merely acts as a guideline, so once you’ve drawn the line, it’s best to peel it off.

Moving on, the hardest step, in my opinion would then be the second one, where you have to draw the outline from the centre of the eye. I actually have a tip to make this step easier. For those who have double eye-lids, you can use the fold of your eyelid as the guideline to how thick you have to draw the eyeliner. For those who don’t have. you can decide on the thickness of your eyeliner according to how you would prefer it to be.

The third step basically involve filling in the outline that you have drawn earlier. Do this step carefully because you have to make sure it stays within the outline you have drawn. For the fourth step, it is just extending the line. If you’re not used to drawing your liner using liquid, best that you try to draw short lines instead of one slick line.

Ta-da, you’re done! Four simple steps to have that perfect winged eyeliner! I’ll show you a picture of my eyeliner; I had actually lined my waterline as well.

I know it is a bit dramatic, because I kind of got carried away while drawing the eyeliner which actually happens pretty often. I am usually afraid of lining my lower lash line because the eyeliner would usually smudge, but the new K-Palette eyeliner I am using (which I will review soon!) almost doesn’t smudge! :D

I’ll end the post with a shot of my face, wearing the eyeliner. I do hope you found the tutorial very useful and good luck with drawing the winged eyeliner!

xoxo

Nail Art: Tuxedo (Inspired by Zooey Deschanel)

If you didn’t already know, last weekend was the 69th Annual Golden Globes. For the glamorous event, Zooey Deschanel rocked a tuxedo manicure and set a nail art trend, with many girls attempting this nail art (including yours truly) :P Well, first of all, it looked uber cute and it is easier to do than it seems be.

Here is my version of the Tuxedo nail art. Basically, I didn’t improvised and basically did an almost similar one. Heh. What do you think? Before I post up more pictures of my nail art, I just want to share with you the Tuxedo tutorial I made because it was too easy not to share out how I did it. All that was made out of the nail art was basically dots of different sizes.

Simple, isn’t it? :) This rounded bow tie is definitely easier to do compared to the triangular shapes ones; it’s cuter too! Do share this tutorial around with your friends and if you tried them out, do show me your pictures! :)

If you looked closely, the buttons for the nail art have another larger almost transparent dot over it. That would be the top coat. Because my black dots always seemed to smeared as I apply my Seche Vite Top Coat. I don’t know if there was something wrong with the Seche Vite top coat but by dotting some top coat over the black dots. The dots would not smeared anymore when you paint the final layer of top coat.

And I had to take a picture of my nails with my bow tie and collar! They look so matching, it hard to resist a photo opportunity like this. The only downside was that I didn’t have a photographer to help me with the shots. I’ll tell you honestly that I must have taken at least 100 shots to get only like two decent enough shots. And the picture below was the other shot. They looked awesome, no? ;)