Thursday, December 27, 2012

My (almost) first experience with hair colouring!

When someone said "There are no free lunches in this world" boy was he wrong!! If you know me well then you would know that I love freebies. And I keep trying my hand and my luck on all the contests that I know of. Recently I got twice lucky. One was with an online contest run by Grazia India where I won a free hair styling session at Jean Claude Biguine. Which also happens to be my favourite salon in the city for a) the stylists know their job and do not funk up your hair that gets to difficult to maintain b) the stylists do not hard sell any services nor products unlike many other experiences I have had with stylists at other salons.

And the second contest that I won was conduct by BPBWeekend on Twitter which was again sponsored by Jean Claude Biguine. This one entitled me to free hair colour session. Barring one home experiment several years back I have never got my hair coloured professionally. Only reason being - I thought it's high maintenance and what if my hair ends up looking ashy or henna covered. But since Biguine is a salon of high reputation I didn't mind going ahead this time.

Aishwarya the rep from Biguine was kind enough to accomodate me and give an appointment during this hectic festive season. The only condition being I had to go to their newly opened Ghatkopar branch in R city mall as against their busy Juhu and Bandra salons that i had requested for. I accepted the condition.

So I started off my referencing. My skin has yellow undertones and I read somewhere on the net that warm colours will suit me more.Also, I wanted something subtle and natural. You know something that does not stand out much but is prominent enough for people to notice that you've done something different to your hair. So after looking for some reference pictures here is what i decided on - Dark brown (with slightly reddish tint) highlights.

Image courtesy: makeupandbeauty.com

Image courtesy: videos212.blogspot.com

The stylist assigned to me was Shayan Merchant a Sr Stylist there. I showed him the reference I had the Anushka Sharma pic and coincidentally he said he had worked with her for the same movie.So then he showed me a L'oreal shade card and we decided to streak my hair in two colours in equal numbers. We selected L'oreal Majirel 11.60 (Mahogany) and 12.50 (name I don't remember).

Pre colour; Waiting for the stylists to finish mixing colours

So after some 3 hours of  wait where there was some applying, processing and washing. I could see the final results. Shayan and his colleague gave me a fabulous blow dry too that lasted for like 3 days :)

This is how my hair looks post the colour. It is exactly like what I wanted subtle, natural, merges well with my original hair colour. Although it has not got captured in the camera well, it much more prominent in person. And what more can I say. I love it!

The mahogany plus light brown highlights
A place's service can be best judged when they are doing something without charging for it as a lot of places offer such services with lot of terms and conditions attached to them. But this wasnt the case here. Nowhere did I feel that the staff did not give me their 100%

Charges: For me it was free but normally they charge above Rs 4500 + taxes for streaking
Colours used: Loreal Majirel 11.60 and 12.50




Friday, December 21, 2012

Where to shop online in India

Recently my best friend who has moved to London after marriage came to Bombay for a visit. And just like any other Non resident Indian she was too bombarded with friends, relatives their friends and other not very friendly friends bothering her with shopping requests, which i failed to understand mainly for two reasons.   A) Poor girl can't keep shopping for 20 odd people ( so what if you are going to pay her) she has better things to do. B) In the last two years the Indian shopping scene has changed a lot!

Agreed it is no where comparable to the London scenario but we all know that most of the high street (read Zara, Forever 21, Forever New, Mango, Veromoda, Bebe) brands have definately entered India except for say H&M, Topshop. And I don't think girls really care a lot about brands as much as they do for the style and  the colour.

What I also gathered is that if they are asking someone else to buy stuff for them then they would be quite confident of not having any size and fit issues then why not buy these clothes online. Apart from ASOS that houses most of the popular UK brands like River island, Lipsy, Oasis etc and ships everywhere worldwide there are a lot of our own Indian sites that sell clothes that are as fashionable and in vogue as the firang brands. These web portals are started by young Indian girls who either design on their own or import from China/Hongkong. Have a look at these sites and decide by yourselves.

Stylefiesta.com

What I liked

Image belongs to stylefiesta.com

Image belongs to: stylefiesta.com

Shop here for

Straight classic fitted dresses. This website started by very popular blogger Masoomi Minawala offers clothes that stick to the latest trends like houndstooth print, peplum skirts etc. Although a little on the expensive side (dresses between 2500- 4000) the quality seems worth it.

Cupcakes and Closet

What I liked 

Image belongs to: cupcakes and closet facebook page

Image belongs to: cupcakes and closet facebook page


Image belongs to: cupcakes and closet facebook page


Shop here for
Casual, girly and frilly stuff. What I like the most about the site is besides the clothes being reasonably priced the collections change every month ( or is it every 15 days) and they areseason specific.


What I liked

Image belongs to: Cupidityonline.com

Image belongs to: Cupidityonline.com

Image belongs to: Cupidityonline.com


Shop here for
This website the brainchild of  Karishma & Masumi, offers purses, bags and statement acessories designed by them. Be it colour blocked slings, envelope clutches in neons and pastels, box clutches blingy ones for weddings and non blingy ones too, you ask for it and they shall have it. They also custom make as per your colour of choice


What I liked
Image belongs to: Vivacious in Vogue facebook page

Image belongs to: Vivacious in Vogue facebook page

Image belongs to: Vivacious in Vogue facebook page
Shop here for
Although they stock clothes, accessories and shoes what caught my eye was their shoe collection. I am sure after seeing the images above you'll agree too! Shop for ankle booties, wedges, block heels here.


What I liked
Image belongs to: Chalk Studio facebook page

Image belongs to: Chalk Studio facebook page

Image belongs to: Chalk Studio facebook page
Shop here for
They have just started out and their debut collection had only flats. Don't know if this is their policy. But i loved their first collection. Buy your stock of flats for casual wear and office wear. they have some lovely colours and everything is priced very reasonably.

So here's my list of site to shop clothes, bags and shoes from. If you know of any more, please mention in my comments box. Shall do a similar post for Indian wear as well.