SS08: Marc by Marc Jacobs

For the last few seasons (ever since they got into the "grunge" look), I have not been too impressed with the Marc by Marc Jacobs collection. This season though I am delightfully surprised! The collection is preppy and retro-chic. My style but with a refreshing twist!
This collection makes me WANT to buy something orange, and that is a difficult feat. I absolutely detest orange. But I am willing to break the rules for these two dresses. I just LOVE the orange dress with the fancy bow tie (though I cannot quite imagine what occasion that would be appropriate for) and the shirt dress is casual and chic.
I don't even mind being obviously Marc by Marc Jacobs. Many would recognize this very distinct geometric shirt dress (left) as Marc by MJ by now (along with the orange bow-tie dress above) but I still like it. I am really impressed that the color seems so "old" and yet, the whole look is still so young! At first glance I thought this blue printed dress (right) was really cute. But if you look closer, can you tell that it actually has Marc Jacobs written all over it? I thought it was pretty cool that I couldn't tell at first. But now that I can, I think that kind of ruins the dress. Shame.
The definition of retro chic. I love how they mixed the flirty print and color with such a "proper" design. It is both refreshing and stunning. Though it is a bit too much for me. I prefer the more subtle purple dress (right). I absolutely absolutely adore this dress. It is simple, vibrant, youthful and fun. I've tried it on actually, but the fit of the bodice is a bit off. Maybe if I got it tailored.........
More fun casual dresses. I love the block print (right). Its so off and cute at the same time. And the cut of the heart leaf pinafore dress is just adorable!
The neckline and the prints are awesome. I especially love the neckline of the blue shirt (left: it is very ladylike, but the print makes it fun!) and the subtle pinstripes on the yellow shirt (right).
These two are my favourites of the collection, because I think they are great investments. I'm a great believer in outerwear and these two cardigans are perfect to carry around with you this summer- just in case of freezing a/c temperatures! I waaaaant the white one (right)! It is very Chanel-esque with a youthful touch.
A cute jacket is ALWAYS a good buy. You get the most mileage out of them cause you can just throw it over any outfit- and this one is so chic and stylish! (Though it may be a bit too heavy for the summer). And this pinstripe shirt with the ruffles is just darling!

Now if only I can win a free shopping trip for Marc by Marc Jacobs this season!

Image Source: Net-A-Porter

Spring/Summer Nail Varnish!

Just when I found the perfect winter nail shade (just in case you were wondering, it is the Essie Sole Mate. It is the perfect rich deep dark purple, with just a hint of red!) , spring comes around. Not that I'm complaining, I can't wait for the weather to get warmer and the sun to shine. Although now it means my nail colors will have to change along with it- to get into the spring mode you know. But I am kind of tired of the pale white pinks that I usually favor for warmer weathers. As classic as they are, it does get a bit monotonous after a while. AND it is super hard to apply properly (this might also be due to my lack of nail varnish applications skills- though I'd like to point out that I have no trouble with the darker colors! Odd, I know).
So I started to consider other colors suitable for spring. Flicking through the Essie advertisements (Yes, I have a preference for Essie!) bright pink crossed my mind (left: Secret Stash). As much as I wanted to try something new though, bright pink does seem a bit too much. I AM 21 now. Not quite Barbie. Then I considered pale purple (right: Looking for Love). It is subtle but still quite different from pale pink. But then I quickly rejected the idea- that is just TOO weird. Its just not a color one would relate to nail color! Kind of like how it is odd for people to put pale blue/purple lipstick on their lips!
After much consideration, I finally found the perfect color, Ball-timore (left). It is the perfect coral pink, with the sharpness of a super bright pink but toned down by orange/coral tones. I simply LOVE LOVE LOVE it. It is youthful and fun with a hint of sophistication. The other color I bought is Hard to Get (right). A more intense version of my usual pale pink hues, I thought this would just be fun and girly to play around with.I also wanted to get a nude color, like this (above: bags to riches). This one is the definition of sophistication and simplicity. But alas, it was getting rather expensive (they hiked the price up in the place I usually go to!!!).

Image Source: Essie

More Liver

It's time to celebrate your liver. It's a hard-working organ and it deserves some credit.

One of the liver's most important overall functions is maintaining nutrient homeostasis. It controls the blood level of a number of macro- and micronutrients, and attempts to keep them all at optimal levels.

Here's a list of some of the liver's functions I'm aware of:

• Buffers blood glucose by taking it up or releasing it when needed
• A major storage site for glycogen (a glucose polymer)
  
• Clears insulin from the blood
• Synthesizes triglycerides
• Secretes and absorbs lipoprotein particles ("cholesterol")
• Stores important vitamins: B12, folate, A, D, E, K (that's why it's so nutritious to eat!)
• Stores minerals: copper and iron
  
• Detoxifies the blood
• Produces ketone bodies when glucose is running low
• Secretes blood proteins
• Secretes bile
• Converts thyroid hormones
• Converts vitamin D (D3 --> 25(OH)D3)
  

The liver is an all-purpose metabolic powerhouse and storage depot. In the next post, I'll give you a recipe for it...

The Liver: Your Metabolic Gatekeeper

As I've been learning more about the different blood markers of metabolic dysfunction, something suddenly occurred to me. Most of them reflect liver function! Elevated fasting glucose, low HDL cholesterol, high LDL cholesterol, high triglycerides and high fasting insulin all reflect (at least in part) liver function. The liver is the "Grand Central Station" of cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism, to quote Philip A. Wood from How Fat Works. It's also critical for insulin and glucose control, as I'll explain shortly. When we look at our blood lipid profile, fasting glucose, or insulin, what we're seeing is largely a snapshot of our liver function. Does no one talk about this or am I just late to the party here?!

I read a paper today from the lab of C. Ronald Kahn that really drove home the point. They created a liver-specific insulin receptor knockout (LIRKO) mouse, which is a model of severe insulin resistance in the liver. The mouse ends up developing severe whole-body insulin resistance, dramatically elevated post-meal insulin levels (20-fold!), impaired glucose tolerance, and elevated post-meal and fasting glucose. Keep in mind that this all resulted from nothing more than an insulin resistant liver.

LIRKO mice had elevated post-meal blood glucose due to the liver's unresponsiveness to insulin's command to take up sugar. Apparently the liver can dispose of one third of the glucose from a meal, turning it into glycogen and triglycerides. The elevated fasting glucose was caused by insulin not suppressing gluconeogenesis (glucose synthesis) by the liver. In other words, the liver has no way to know that there's already enough glucose in the blood so it keeps on pumping it out. This is highly relevant to diabetics because fasting hyperglycemia comes mostly from increased glucose output by the liver. This can be due to liver insulin resistance or insufficient insulin production by the pancreas.

One of the interesting things about LIRKO mice is their dramatically elevated insulin level. Their pancreases are enlarged and swollen with insulin. It's as if the pancreas is screaming at the body to pick up the slack and take up the post-meal glucose the liver isn't disposing of. The elevated insulin isn't just due to increased output by the pancreas, however. It's also due to decreased disposal by the liver. According to the paper, the liver is responsible for 75% of insulin clearance from the blood in mice. The hyperinsulinemia they observed was both due to increased secretion and decreased clearance. Interestingly, they noted no decline in beta cell (the cells that secrete insulin) function even under such a high load.

Something that's interesting to note about these mice is they have very low blood triglyceride. It makes sense since insulin is what tells the liver to produce it. Could this have something to do with their lack of beta cell dysfunction?

The really strange thing about LIRKO mice is that their blood glucose becomes more normal with age. Strange until you see the reason: their livers are degenerating so they can't keep up glucose production!

LIRKO mice reproduce many of the characteristics of type II diabetes, without degenerating completely into beta cell death. So insulin resistance in the liver appears to reproduce some elements of diabetes and the metabolic syndrome, but the full-blown disorders require other tissues as well. As a side note, this group also has a skeletal muscle-specific insulin receptor knockout which is basically normal. Interesting considering muscle tissue seems to be one of the first tissues to become insulin resistant during diabetes onset.

So if you want to end up like your good pal LIRKO, remember to drink high-fructose corn syrup with every meal! You'll have fatty liver and insulin resistance in no time!

I have a lot more to say about the liver, but I'll continue it in another post.

Are Eco-Friendly Bags Worth It?

In my head, eco-friendly bags usuallt mean low-priced, off-white bags with some kind of save-the-earth type of message printed on it. Obviously, I've got Anya Hindmarch's "I'm not a plastic bag" bag -the first famous eco-friendly bag imprinted in my head. Back then, they were sold for 5 pounds each in the UK. (The whole craze for the bag is another story.) But clearly with over-demand, many other designers have tried to come up with smart slogans to put on suppsedly eco-friendly bags. I've managed to ignore that trend up until two weeks ago, I found this (literally) happy-looking bag in my mum's paper shopping bag.

No, my mum didn't buy it. She bought a jacket and the bag was a gift for shopping at Seibu, a department store in Hong Kong. We didn't think anything of it until we got home and discovered a HK$500 price tag on it. Wait, $500?! Yup, that was our reaction. We were kind of confused with why this bag would cost $500 in the first place and why the department store gave it away as a gift. I mean sure, the green smiling tree is sort of cute and it does have Moschino printed on it, (-as we all know, anything with a brand name printed on it allows it to be priced above what we think it ought to be worth,) but is it really worth 500hkd? (-500hkd is around 64usd or 30 pounds.) My point is not that I'm complaining about wasting my money on it because it was free, but that who would pay that much for it in the first place? And what you may not be able to tell from the photo is, this bag is small! It is probably the most impractical eco-friendly bag I have ever seen. Even the "I'm not a plastic bag" bag is more practical since it was wide (making up for it's lack of depth.) Plus, there was no message tag attached and the saleslady didn't even explain the point of the bag. Perhaps the proceeds of the bag goes to an unmentioned charity?

Anyway moving onto the Feed Bag. BG blogged about the first style last April. Recently, Lauren Bush released Feed 2 Bag. I have to admit the reason I looked it up was because I was surprised by the 50pound price tag when I saw it in Tatler magazine. But after reading the Harrods website, I am actually convinced it is worth it -According to Harrods' website, "each Feed 2 Bag sold will provide a year's worth of lunch meals in school for two children in need" for the UN World Food Programme's school feeding program. As for the design, it is reversible and made of 100% organic fair-trade material. OK, I can't claim to fully appreciate how 'green' the material is, but the cause actually sounds solid and worth it. I'm assuming people use these eco-friendly bags as their grocery-shopping bags, not to replace their Chanels, so even though it's not supremely stylish, it looks fit for the job, (although I would much prefer one that didn't have "Harrods" imprinted on it.)

What do you think of the whole eco-friendly bags trend in general? Do you use them for grocery shopping? Have you bought any?

Image Credits: http://www.harrods.com/

Book Review: Blood Sugar 101

I just finished reading "Blood Sugar 101" by Jenny Ruhl. It's a quick read, and very informative. Ruhl is a diabetic who has taken treatment into her own hands, using the scientific literature and her blood glucose monitor to understand blood sugar control and its relationship to health. The book challenges some commonly held ideas about diabetes, such as the notion that diabetics always deteriorate.

She begins by explaining in detail how blood glucose is controlled by the body. The pancreas releases basal amounts of insulin to make glucose available to tissues between meals. It also releases insulin in response to carbohydrate intake (primarily) in two bursts, phase I and phase II. Phase I is a rapid response that causes tissues to absorb most of the glucose from a meal, and is released in proportion to the amount of carbohydrate in preceding meals. Phase II cleans up what's left.

In a person with a healthy pancreas, insulin secretion will keep blood glucose under about 130 mg/dL even under a heavy carbohydrate load. The implications of this are really interesting. Namely, that blood glucose levels will not be very different between a person who eats little carbohydrate, and one who eats a lot, as long as the latter has a burly pancreas and insulin-sensitive tissues.

Most Americans don't have such good control however, hence the usefulness of low-carbohydrate diets. This begs the question of why we lose blood sugar control. Insulin resistance seems like a good candidate, maybe preceded by leptin resistance. As you may have noticed, I'm starting to think the carbohydrate per se is not the primary insult. It's probably something else about the diet or lifestyle that causes carbohydrate insensitivity. Grain lectins are a good candidate in my opinion, as well as inactivity.

Diabetics can have blood glucose up to 500 mg/dL, that remains elevated long after it would have returned to baseline in a healthy person. Ruhl asserts that elevated blood sugar is toxic, and causes not only diabetic complications but perhaps also cancer and heart disease.

Heart attack incidence is strongly associated with A1C level, which is a rough measure of average blood sugar over the past couple of months. It makes sense, although most of the data she cites is correlative. They might have seen the same relationship if they had compared heart attack risk to fasting insulin level or insulin resistance. It's difficult to nail down blood sugar as the causative agent. More information from animal studies would have been helpful.

Probably the most important thing I took from the book is that the first thing to deteriorate is glucose tolerance, or the ability to pack post-meal glucose into the tissues. It's often a result of insulin resistance, although autoimmune processes seem to be a factor for some people. Doctors often use fasting glucose to diagnose diabetes and pre-diabetes, but typically you are far gone by the time your fasting glucose is elevated!

I like that she advocates a low-carbohydrate diet for diabetics, and lambasts the ADA for its continued support of high-carbohydrate diets.

Overall, a good book. I recommend it!

A comment from a reader..

Anyone who actually follows all of that advice, is a complete and total sheep. Not just a poser, but a conformist follower. It's so sad how some people say that being 'emo' is being unique and individual, when you are just reading a few 'how-tos' on the subject.

If you truly are being who you really are, and truly are being an individual, then nobody can give you a 'how-to'. Develop your own personal style and be yourself, not just one of the mindless followers of thousands of teenagers who all look and dress exactly alike.

On that subject, it actualy truly saddens me when I read a few of these comments saying 'heavier set guy, not fat, just bulky, i know this is a bad thing' or 'little puggy (not fat) how to I trem it down to small again? (with out turning it into muscle?)'

The foolish people who write these articles are just contributing to the body image crisis that is sweeping this world, making these peoples self esteem PLUMMET. The people who leave these comments are probably at an incredibly healthy and attractive weight, but people writing these how to be emo articles are telling them LIES about who they 'should' be.

If you are truly overweight like 300kg then I'd say lose some weight but it's not a bad thing to have a few curves!!

WHY are you telling them what to do and how to live their life, how much to weigh, how to look etc., and WHY are you listening to these people telling you to do these things? You are perfect the way you are- your true self is who you were meant to be and not what some 'how-to' tells you to do on the internet.

Don't put on the mask of labelling yourself, become truly unique and appreciative of who you really are on the inside. Nobody can tell you how to dress or how to look, only YOU can tell yourself that.

It really is sad, that people think they need to conform to some emo standard of style to give themselves any worth.

You need not be anyone other than yourself. Don't let people tell you how to live your life, only YOU can tell yourself that. I eagerly await the day that people finally start to wake up to who they really are inside.

The Nokia 7900 Crystal Prism on eBay

Hey people, you know the pretty purple Nokia phone that I blogged about a few days ago and some of you have been wanting to buy it? Well you can now! Since we are the kind of girls who want practical phones with classic, silver designs, (largely because we travel between countries a lot and Hong Kong is one of those places where phones are not attached to phone plans, unlike the UK or US,) we have decided to follow in Style Bubble's footstep and put this Prism up for auction on Ebay (UK). If you are a fun girly girl who wants this phone before it gets released, place a bid here!

Uniqlo UT Project 08

Two weeks ago, the new Uniqlo ad in Grazia (a UK glossy tabloid) featuring Chloe Sevigny really caught my eye. I'm not a fan of Chloe's style, (actually I wonder why people love her style so much,) but I really liked how the black tank top fits her here. Doesn't Chloe look very casual rock chic? And the other big attraction? The fact that the ad is by Uniqlo means that the shirt is actaully affordable!
Uniqlo's collaborations with designers to produce capsole collections are usually much talked of on the Internet. But UT Project seems much more accessible to me. UT Project is basically where Uniqlo collaborates with a bunch of artists and designers to make printed T-shirts. Depending on the designer, not only are the print designs different, but even the fitting of the t-shirts is different. You can probably tell from the few pictures of Chloe modelling them.
The most popular (and publicised) t-shirts seem to be the Basquiat t-shirts (-they're the ones Chloe is wearing in the first two pictures.) I bought the tank top on the left and I love how it's really long, and it's got a slit on one side so you can tie it together the way as shown in the ad. It's going to be one of my lazy-day shirts this summer!
I think the Osamu Tezuka t-shirts are kind of cute. Don't they look so easy to throw on? I imagine wearing them to hang out at a friend's house.
But I'm really not a fan of the surfing-looking t-shirts like the one on the right. (A bunch of people back in high school used to wear surfing t-shirts to school everyday and I think I've been scarred by them.) And I really don't know how to appreciate art because the print on the left t-shirt just looks ugly to me.
The long blue shirt on the right is one of the more special designs. And as for the shirt on the left, it didn't look so pretty to me until I saw it modelled on Uniqlo's Japanese website. Those blobs of green look just like the blobs of colours I'm trying to add to my wardrobe!
We all know celebrities and ads always make things cooler, so if you want some idea how how to dress-up these ordinary T-shirts from 'normal' people, take a look at the images on the Japanese UT website. (Speaking of which, why is the Japanese Uniqlo site so much better and complete than the US and US Uniqlo sites?) It has many girls posing in the tees, giving the tees many different styles -from hipster to cutsy to rock chick to boringly ordinary. Actually, even if you're not a fan of Uniqlo, you should take a look at how they styled the girls for inspiration!

Image Credits: http://www.uniqlo.co.uk/, http://ut.uniqlo.com/

Scientist Discovers that Only Pills can Control Hypertension

I went to a presentation today by a prominent hypertension researcher. His talk began with a slide that had two pictures side-by-side: one of the late fitness advocate Jim Fixx, and the other of Winston Churchill. Fixx was a marathon runner, while Churchill was inactive, overweight and had a famous appetite. Fixx died of a sudden heart attack at 52, while Churchill lived to 90. The presenter went on to state that this is an example of how genes control CVD risk, implying that despite Fixx's exercise, his genes had condemned him to an early death.

I wanted to jump up and yell "I think you're leaving out the alternate hypothesis: running marathons and eating junk food isn't healthy!" But instead I suffered quietly through what ended up being an inane yet informative presentation.

His lab looks for gene variations that affect blood pressure (BP). There's a huge amount of money and research going into this. His lab and others have come up with two classes of mutations:

• Common allele variants that have an insignificant but measurable effect on blood pressure.
• Rare genetic mutations that have a significant effect on BP. The most common affects 1 in 2,000 people in the US.

Despite truckloads of funding and research, they have yet to uncover any gene or combination of genes that accounts for even a fraction of hypertension in Americans. So what's the next step? Keep looking for genes.

There is certainly a genetic component to hypertension, but it is only expressed in an unhealthy environment.  Hypertension is tightly linked to lifestyle. It's a quintessential aspect of the "disease of civilization". It's highly responsive to carbohydrate restriction, as a number of clinical trials have shown. Remember the Kuna? They don't get hypertension when they live a non-industrial lifestyle (despite eating more salt than the average American), but as soon as they move to the city their hearts explode. It's been demonstrated in a number of other similar cases as well. Genetics are clearly not responsible.

Don't get me wrong, I do think genetics can modify a person's response to a poor lifestyle. But when the lifestyle is healthy, the vast majority of these differences fade away. I have a more thorough discussion of this point here.

If you give just the right dose of poison to a group of animals, 50% will die and 50% will survive (called the EC50 dose). You might then conclude that genetics had determined who lived and died. You wouldn't be wrong, but you'd be missing the point that what killed them was the poison.

The thing that really bothers me about this thinking is it's disempowering. The presenter suggested that the reason for the difference between Fixx and Churchill was their genes. If genes have us in such a tight grip, why bother trying to live well? The only logical solution is to pop hypertension pills and eat cake all day.

My guess is that if they had lived a more natural lifestyle, Fixx would have made it to 90 and Churchill would have been fit and lean.

Clip on Bangs

For a while now, I've wondered what I'd look like with straight bangs. When I found out that my friend managed to avoid the whole "awkward" growing out stage when she got tired of her straight bangs by getting extensions, I seriously considered getting them.I mean, doesn't Alexis Bledel look sooo cute and pretty with straight bangs? Of course, I know that what works for Alexis might not work for me, but I figured that since I have a long face and already have side bangs anyway, I can't go too wrong with straight bangs. I am kind of want to get a new look anyway. Alas, the the prospect of regular maintenance, the fear that it won't suit me after I've cut it and my upcoming graduation (and therefore I don't want to do anything to screw up my hair), stopped me from getting straight bangs.
The other day, flicking through my cousin's teen magazines, I saw the most interesting thing: clip on bangs. How smart! How come I didn't think of that before? So, the next time I went to get my hair done, I consulted my hairstylist, Roy, on the use of clip on bangs. He said that he sometimes used them when they are on location and don't have that much time to style hair properly and that they used it for hair product ads (I was very disappointed to find out that the long, shiny, silky locks models have in hair product ads are fake). He told us that they actually sold them a few blocks away from the salon. At that, HG and I immediately headed over there to get one each. I even brought it back to the hair salon, so Roy can give my clip on bangs a trim. He actually made me go back to return them, because the ones I got were too short. He advised me to get longer clip on bangs. That way I can clip it further back on my head, so that I can cover up the obvious line where it clips on, with my layers. For the shorter bangs, you'd need to wear a headband or something to cover it up.

Excited I immediately went home to try it on. While the concept of clipping your own fringe back, clipping on the fake fringe at the side (I've pointed out the clips with the blue arrow above) and then covering it with your layers sounds very simple, it turns out to be a very difficult task. Trust me, I've given it many many tries over the last 2 weeks and have still to master it. I am tempted to blame it on my inability to use a bobby pin, but I'm beginning to suspect that they are just impossible to put on properly. First it is very hard to clip it onto your hair, because it needs to grasp onto some hair first (difficult to explain properly, but the point is, its hard!). Then, when you DO get it clipped on, it is NOT STRAIGHT. And you cannot have straight bangs that are not straight. If you DO manage to get it half straight and your real bangs are not falling out at this point, you face the problem of color. Apparently, there are many shades of black. I thought that my hair would be fine, since I already dye it an artificial blue black and the clip on bangs were an artificial black as well. But NO. I took it out for a quick 15 minute test drive this weekend (once I FINALLY got it on half way decently) and took a picture. EWW. Not only was the color a bit off, but I totally looked like I had a MOP on my head. Maybe I just don't know how to get it on right? Anyone tried them?

So yes, my awesome clip on bangs idea turned out not to be such a good idea after all.

Image Source: Yahoo TV

Nokia 7900 Crystal Prism

The Nokia PR machine has been sending out the new Nokia 7900 Crystal Prism to quite a few fashion bloggers lately, and we were one of the lucky few to receive one. At first it was all very mysterious: all we knew was that the phone was going to be designed by a designer with a major mobile phone manufacturer. I was very hesitant as I am now jaded by all the designer mobile phones in the market, and quite honestly, only a collaboration between Nokia (my ideal mobile phone brand) and a really prominent fashion designer, think Marc Jacobs, Balenciaga and Miu Miu (in my dreams), would pique my interest. So when it was revealed that the designer was Frederique Daubal, I was honestly a bit disappointed.Last week I received the phone. To start with, the packaging is superb -way too pretty to be a mobile phone box. It took me awhile to figure out how to open the box, although this is probably because I haven't bought a new phone in the past 6 years.I have to admit, I wasn't expecting much. Thankfully, the phone turned out way prettier than I thought it would be. Before, I had been very resistant to the idea of a bright pinkish purple phone, (I'm more of a silver or black sort of girl,) but the effect is pretty fab -the design is striking and the crystal at the center definitely adds a dose of girliness to it. The phone is thinner than anticipated (Nokia was never big on thin phones,) which is good, but I don't like how long it is.

Thinking back, I remember a few of my girl friends who were looking for new phones last summer saying how much they loved the prism design. I just realised they were cooing over the Nokia 7500, the predecessor of the 7900. It basically has the same gorgeous black keyboard. Unfortunately, as lovely as the design is, I'm just a boring girl who wants an ordinary keyboard. This is way too avant garde for me!

As for the specs, there is the good and the bad. The good is that the screen is an OLED screen so the colours are really bright and cool. The bad is that the camera is a very standard 2 megapixel one. I would have expected a higher megapixel camera for a 'fashion' phone, because really, vain, fashionable girls are all about having their photos taken!

Style Bubble blogged about this phone last week, and it wasn't until I saw her photos that I realised there was another 'level' of goods in the box -including a badanna and phone pouch-both in flashy, metallic purple. (See what I mean? I am obviously so out of touch that I can't even figure out the box has two levels!)

So if you're looking for a high-tech phone, this is probably not for you. But if you're one of the fun and girly girls who want something cute and 'designed' to hold onto, then go check it out. I certainly like the Prada phone more, but this definitely beats out some of the other fashion phones out there. *coughdvfcough* *coughannasuicough* For more actual information on the phone, see Nokia's website.

Image Credits: Nokia and the blog's

A Weekend in Boston

Just when I was about to hit "Publish" last week a "Warning" sign popped up and claimed that the our blog had been LOCKED by blogger spam-blog prevention robots and that until it was verified that this was an actual blog, we cannot publish anything. I was flabbergasted! What IS this?? Blogger really needs to rethink this strategy of theirs. I hope this is only a one time thing. We were beginning to worry that our blog will NEVER be verified. Thank god it has! FINALLY. But yes, in case you were wondering, that is why we haven't been posting for the last week.

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Deciding to take advantage of my excess mileages, status as a part-time senior (read: minimal school work) and free housing before my friends graduate in May, I went off to visit Boston this weekend since I've never been and it is definitely on my list of places to go.
My first stop (since I was living there) was Tufts. I absolutely love the collegiate feeling of the campus. Everyone had so much school spirit! The Tufts mascot, Jumbo (left) was everywhere. Now I'm really sad my school does not have a mascot.... Another point of interest is the painted canon (right), sorry I forgot to take a larger picture of it. It is tradition for Tuft students to paint this canon and then stay overnight to guard it while it dries. From this close up picture of many many layers of dripping paint, you can see how many Tufts student has carried on this tradition. One suspects what the original size of the canon might have been. When we went that morning, the paint was still wet.
The next stop for us on the T was Harvard Square. I'm afraid I didn't know the Harvard campus very well and got tired once we reached the quad with the library/cathedral and took a picture with John Harvard. And no, I did not touch his feet... it is rumored that it has been peed on many times. Later on I found out that I missed paying tribute to the first computer ever made and some other Harvard sights as well, but oh well maybe next time. I did walk around the area though, and it was very quaint and cute.
Then we hit Quincy Market (left), which for those who don't know is a big long food hall (like those in a mall) in a pretty, classical looking building. The area around it was also very interesting. Cobbled stone and lined with restaurants, I imagine it would be really cute on a nice day. There was also a restaurant named after "Cheers" (the TV show from many years ago that Fraser was in) there complete with a gift shop. But I hear the original one, named the Bull and Finch, is actually near Boston Commons.
Then we walked over to the North End, which I guess is their waterfront (think The Rocks & Darling Harbor in Sydney and Fisherman's Wharf in San Fran). Compared to the bustling waterfronts of Sydney and San Fran though, this one was a bit quieter (prob because it was a gloomy rainy day). But it was lined with adorable lamp posts and gorgeous townhouses and the effect was just wonderful. Its so nice to walk along.
Near that area, is Little Italy, which has a lots of delicious Italian restaurants on a series cute little streets. After dinner, we stopped by Mike's Pastry and tried their canoli's. It was really good. And the place was bustling with people. My friend claims that she thinks that the canoli's taste even better than some of the ones she's tried in Rome!
The next day, we hit the downtown area. We went to Boston Commons, the MA State House (left) and then strolled along the elegant streets of Beacon Hill (right: the prime real estates of Boston).
We passed by the park (left: sorry I forgot the name) and onto Newbury street (of course) and stopped by for lunch in one of those cute little cafe's there (right). I'm SO glad that Saturday morning was such a nice, sunny day.
After lunch, we went to do our touristy thing at Copley Square, taking pictures of the Boston Public Library (left) and the Trinity Church (right).
I especially LOVED the Boston Public Library. It was surprisingly gorgeous, with a lovely peaceful courtyard (left), an beautiful mural stairway (right) and a room that had a huge dome ceiling, rows and rows of tables with little green lights on them and lots and lots of people studying there (again, I didn't catch the name). But once you walk in, you are instantly accosted by a sense of awe, as if you've entered a sacred study sanctuary. It was so sacred that we didn't dare make a peep or a camera click before we hastily left, in fear that we'd disturb any of those intently studying there. I've never professed to love a library, but I love this one. It actually makes me want to study!
One of the most interesting shops I visited in Boston was Johnny Cupcakes on Newbury Street (*gasp* not fashion related!). Upon seeing Johnny Cupcakes, I insisted we go in, because as most of you know, I LOVE dessert. But once we entered, I immediately looked for the cupcakes.... and saw none. Instead there were only t shirts being sold in baking trays and freezers.. where the cakes were supposed to be! Then we caught "story" of the store, which began with, "I started this as a joke." We had a good laugh.

Another shop of interest was Black Ink (right) at Harvard. It sold a variety of very cool gadgets, games, kitchenware and gimmicks. I especially want the cute plates and the baking recipe box filled with Betty Crocker recipes! It is an awesome place to get people fun and interesting gifts.
50% of the reason why I wanted to come to Boston was because I wanted to try the desserts at Finale. Everyone I know whose been to Boston has come back and told me that I'd LOVE Finale. And so, on a rainy night, we went to the Finale at Cambridge. And I DO love it. The upscale decor and the gorgeous looking desserts got me instantly hooked. I wanted a cupcake, a cheesecake, a boston cream, a chocolate cake... I wanted everything. In the end, my friends shared a Fantasia (right)...
and I settled on a creme brulee (left) and a molten chocolate cake (right). Yes, I got both. And yes, I finished both too. Our server was very impressed. They're both the "signature" dish there and really, you can't take either home, what else can I do? After trying both, I must say, the chocolate molten cake was only so-so, but the creme brulee was absolutely DELICIOUS. Completely divine. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. I also took home a cheesecake, a tiramisu and a Boston cream. The Boston cream was ok. But the cheesecake and the tiramisu was quite good. Not too sweet, with a rich milky flavor.

Over all I really loved Boston. It was just so quaint and collegiate- something I do not feel in my own college. And I'm already missing the creme brulee!!!!!!!

5 things you can do to keep your hair style looking 'young'

Have you ever paid attention to the way a woman's hair looks? That is a rhetoric question by the way.

Our hair style is probably one of the first things that people notice, after our face of course. If you are not paying attention to your hair, it will probably show up by making you look much older than you really are.

There are simple quick fixes that you can do yourself to keep your hair style young and fresh.

1. Add bangs. As we age, there are many developing lines and wrinkles on our faces. Bangs help to camouflage some of these lines and help to draw attention to our eyes for example, instead of the neckline. Long, angled, side-swept bangs are very popular right now and tend to flatter just about anyone who wears them.

2. Color up. Darker hair colors tend to draw attention to skin tones, lines and wrinkles. By coloring up 2 shades from your natural hair color, you will have a lighter, more fresh looking hair style and color.

3. Add highlights. Highlights are a great way to add lighter color to your hair. There are kits that you can buy at the drugstore, or you can schedule an appointment with your hair stylist to get just a few highlights around the face.

4. Don't do updos. Updos look so glamorous, especially for weddings and proms. But one thing you must consider is that high or total updos can make you look very matronly and draw attention to your neckline. If you want something different for a special occasion, try a partial updo and leave out wispy strands.

5. Grow your hair. Longer is better when it comes to hair styles. Longer hair tends to soften your appearance and make you look younger.

In short, you can do some things to make your hair style look young. Visit http://www.hrhairstyles.com/ to find out what the celebrities have been doing with their hair lately.

Olive Oil Buyer's Guide

Olive oil is one of the few good vegetable oils. It is about 10% omega-6 (n-6) fatty acids, compared to 50% for soybean oil, 52% for cottonseed oil and 54% for corn oil. Omega-6 fatty acids made up a smaller proportion of calories before modern times, due to their scarcity in animal fats. Beef suet is 2% n-6, butter is 3% and lard is 10%. Many people believe that excess n-6 fat is a contributing factor to chronic disease, due to its effect on inflammatory prostaglandins. I'm reserving my opinion on n-6 fats until I see more data, but I do think it's worth noting the association of increased vegetable oil consumption with declining health in the US.

Olive oil is also one of the few oils that require no harsh processing to extract. As a matter of fact, all you have to do is squeeze the olives and collect the oil. Other oils that can be extracted with minimal processing are red palm oil (9% n-6), hazelnut oil (10% n-6) and coconut oil (2% n-6). These are also the oils I consider to be healthy. Due to the mild processing these oils undergo, they retain their natural vitamin and antioxidant content.

You've eaten corn, so you know it's not an oily seed. Same with soybeans. So how to they get the oil out of them? They use a combination of heat and petroleum solvents. Then, they chemically bleach and deodorize the oil, and sometimes partially hydrogenate it to make it more shelf-stable. Hungry yet? This is true of all the common colorless oils, and anything labeled "vegetable oil".

Olive oil is great, but don't run out and buy it just yet! There are different grades, and it's important to know the difference between them. The highest grade is extra-virgin olive oil, and it's the only one I recommend. It's the only grade that's not heated or chemically refined in any way. Virgin olive oil, "light" olive oil (refers to the flavor, not calories), "pure" olive oil, or simply olive oil all involve different degrees of chemical extraction and/or processing. This applies primarily to Europe. Unfortunately, the US is not part of the International Olive Oil Council (IOOC), which regulates oil quality and labeling.

The olive oil market is plagued by corruption. Much of the oil exported from Italy is cut with cheaper oils such as colza. Most "Italian olive oil" is actually produced in North Africa and bottled in Italy, and may be of inferior quality. The USDA has refused to regulate the market so they get away with it. If you find a deal on olive oil that looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Only buy from reputable sources. Look for the IOOC seal, which guarantees purity, provenance and freshness. IOOC olive oil must contain less than 0.8% acidity. Acidity refers to the percentage of free fatty acids (as opposed to those bound in triglycerides), a measure of damage to the oil. Fortunately, the US has a private equivalent to the IOOC, the California Olive Oil Council (COOC). The COOC seal ensures provenance, purity and freshness just like the IOOC seal. It has outdone the IOOC in requiring less than 0.5% acidity. COOC-certified oils are more expensive, but you know exactly what you're getting.

Thanks to funadium for the CC photo

Real Food V: Sauerkraut

Sauerkraut is part of a tradition of fermented foods that reaches far into human prehistory. Fermentation is a means of preserving food while also increasing its nutritional value. It increases digestibility and provides us with beneficial bacteria, especially those that produce lactic acid. Raw sauerkraut is a potent digestive aid, probably the reason it's traditionally eaten with heavy food.

Sauerkraut is produced by a process called ‘anaerobic’ fermentation, meaning ‘without oxygen’. It’s very simple to achieve in practice. You simply submerge the cabbage in a brine of its own juices and allow the naturally present bacteria to break down the sugars it contains. The process of ‘lacto-fermentation’ converts the sugars to lactic acid, making it tart. The combination of salt, anaerobic conditions, and acidity makes it very difficult for anything to survive besides the beneficial bacteria, so contamination is rare. If it does become contaminated, your nose will tell you as soon as you taste it.

Store-bought sauerkraut is far inferior to homemade. It's soggy and sterile. Ask a German: unpasteurized kraut is light, crunchy and tart!

My method is inexpensive and requires no special equipment. I've tested it many times and have never been disappointed.

Materials

• Wide-mouth quart canning jars (cheap at your local grocery store)
• Beer bottles with the labels removed, or small jars that fit inside the canning jars
• Three tablespoons of sea salt (NOT iodized table salt-- it's fatal to our bacteria)
• Five pounds of green cabbage

Recipe

1. Chop cabbage thinly. Ideally the slices should be 2 mm or so wide, but it doesn’t matter very much. You can use a food processor, mandolin or knife.
2. Put all the cabbage together in a large bowl and add the salt. If the salt is not very dense (sometimes finely ground sea salt can be fluffy), you can add up to 5 tablespoons total. Mix it around with your hands. Taste some. It should be good and salty.
3. Let the salted cabbage sit in the bowl for 30 minutes or so. It should be starting to get juicy.
4. Pack the cabbage tightly into the canning jars. Leave 2-3 inches at the top of the jar. When you push on the cabbage in the jar, you should be able to get the brine to rise above the cabbage. Try to get rid of air bubbles.
5. Put water into the beer bottles and place them into the canning jars. The weight of the bottles will keep the cabbage under the brine. It’s okay that some of the brine is exposed to the air; the cabbage itself is protected.
6. Let it sit for 2 weeks at room temperature! As the fermentation proceeds, bubbles will form and this will raise the level of the brine. This is normal. You might get some scum on top of the liquid; just check for this and scrape it off every few days. It won’t affect the final product. If the brine drops to the level of the cabbage, add salt water (1 tsp/cup, non-chlorinated water) to bring it back up.
7. Taste it! It should be tart and slightly crunchy, with a fresh lactic acid flavor. If fully fermented, it will keep in the fridge for a long time.

Here are some photos from making sauerruben, which is like sauerkraut but made with turnips:

H&M's Tribute to Marimekko

If you've been up-to-date with your online fashion news, you would have read that various blogs and sites are anticipating H&M's 'Tribute to Marimekko'. You may have wondered what the heck is Marimekko. Well, at least I did. According to H&M's press release, Merimekko is "the Finnish textile company that has thrilled since the 50s with its bold, bright colour." It's apparently "well known for vibrant bold simple prints," and oh, get this: "It was fashion icon Jackie Kennedy that put Marimekko on the international map when she wore their dresses during her husbrand's 1960 presidential campaign."

And if you were anywhere near an H&M store over the weekend, you would probably have noticed that the collection is out. Actually I don't think anyone could have walked by an H&M store and not notice the collection -the collection basically consists of a bunch of crazy, colourful prints. My friend and I went into the Reagent Street store on Friday night and all I thought was, as if H&M wasn't hard enough to navigate -now these crazy garments are making the store layout even more confusing! You can obviously tell that I was not impressed by the window display or the clothes inside the store.

When I got home, I checked it out properly online and let's just say it didn't look any better online. Now I admit I am not a particularly creative or crazy dresser, but I'm usually pretty open to old and new designs out there (as long as I'm not buying it.) But all the clashing colours and the prints were just too much for me.

These pants are just crazy! They look more costume-perfect for a music video or Halloween. I hope I actually see someone wearing them on the streets just so I can see how they look in action!

And the designers seemed to really like the maxi-dress -a silhouette that I'm not too fond of, and the maxi-skirt. I just think the manequinns look like they have bedsheets or curtains wrapped around them! Plus, I'm really not a fan of the combinations -I can't stand that shade of army orange and green together!

I did find this pink and blue blouse, and black and white dress to be ok. (Although certainly not ok enough for me to buy them.)

I thought the best items out of the collection were the swimsuits, although that doesn't say much for the collection since I don't even have much of an opinion on swimsuits to begin with.

This collection is meant to "take you all the way from the city street to the heat of the beach." I can only picture myself on city streets and possibly small cities in the EU, so obviously I am not this collection's target customer. Maybe that's why I don't like this collection. I just don't understand why some of the blogs and sites out there were so excited about it. Am I the only one who isn't impressed with the collection, or do I simply not know how to appreciate it?

Image Credits: http://www.hm.com/