Throughout the year 2018, Althea has been releasing products that worked well for many people. Let's go through one by one briefly to find out what are the qualities and functionalities of each product. If you haven't got an Althea account, sign up through my link to get some cool discounts!
Without further ado, let's go right into the topic!
I love shopping! Well, mostly window shopping. See, I always go around to check out new stuff and remembering prices. Althea, among many local online stores, is surprisingly the cheapest and most convenient. Honestly, there are so many things that I want and the amount grows a little bigger each year. However, there are a few things that have been catching my eyes but I'm always not ready to buy them because they feel very luxurious to me.
I was actually very tempted to buy this especially when it is so much cheaper than buying in-store and on Hermo. It's from the most recent release called Coffee To Go with 4 lipsticks and a blusher but the palette always catch my eyes. I thought I have some light nude colours already but I'm kind of tempted to try their burnt orange and their shimmers.
Before we start, I just want to say that: this post is long. Like, really long. But don't be discouraged because you won't find information like this in many places. I would suggest you sit down and spend a few minutes to read through everything. Also, I would highly discourage screen-through reading or fast-reading.
Sex! Ew!
Oh, what a vulgar, vulgar word to see for conservative people. This is a taboo for most older people but it shouldn't be. Truth be told I'm not a staunchly religious person nor am I someone who finds the act of consensual intimacy disgraceful (except adultery). I was brought up in a semi-old fashioned family but I allow myself to learn and be open-minded. To me, this isn't about who's more sexually active or not. I don't see the relation between "using birth control" = "very sexually active" because even those who don't use any birth control can be very active too but that's really not the point in this blog post.
In other words, it's not about who's a whore or a player. I really don't care how sexually active you are because that is your business. Other people shouldn't be concerned about it and they should mind their own f-king business if they do. The point of this blog post is about protecting yourself from unexpected (or unwanted) stress, burden and fatigue from every single aspect: financially, mentally and physically.
In this world, everyone has their very own opinion about this, combined with their own culture and religion. See, I do respect all religious teachings and I understand that people may have old-fashioned thinking. However, this blog post is dedicated to those who are (mentally) mature and open-minded, regardless of their race, culture and religion. (It means you should leave if you're only here to judge or laugh. Pregnancy prevention isn't a laughing matter. If you want something to laugh at, then you can consider laughing at your own life because you are immature.) In this place, we respect everyone's opinions and decisions but we will not stand for hate, discrimination and judgmental comments. However, if you're a medical student/doctor with more knowledge about this, please do let me know what you think about the information. I am up for corrections.
Also, be a dear and share this with your friends, okay? 💖
An unexpected pregnancy is sometimes a blessing but not all the time, especially when a couple can't handle the stress and burden. So do feel free to share this and save a life.
📖
Why I'm writing this
Now it's hard to get complete information because *sigh* it really isn't easy to look for information in Malaysia as it would be in America. Many gynaecologists don't have the proper platform for people to inquire and usually, people need to visit them by appointment just to consult them on a few things instead of actually getting treatment. Sure, I could also ask the nurses but they usually give me short answers with an annoyed tone. I guess I'm not worth their 'precious' time *sigh*. Most of the local professionals in this industry don't actually contribute information on the internet so that also made things harder to find on Google.
When I had discussed this topic with my peers, many of them were baffled at how much information they've missed. My friends are all mature people. Some had already ventured into the journey of intimacy, some are having thoughts about it and the rest are innocent virgins that hadn't made attempts to obtain any knowledge. Majority of them questioned why it's so hard to find information online and that our government's sex education programs don't cover enough information.
I still remember the two sessions, one during my Standard 6 and another during high school. They had only briefly covered about condoms, IUD and spermicide. Telling us sex is bad and that we're too young for it but never actually explained why. I still remember one of the disciplinary teachers had told us not to kiss because "once you've started it, you can't stop and then you'll get pregnant." I'm laughing now as I typed that because I still remember how serious he was trying to sound. It's true that many youngsters have no self-control but not all, ya know. Other than that, they've hardly helped in reducing teen pregnancy, at least for the people of my age.
I've heard about so many people marrying at a young age since I was 16 years old because they've got (someone) knocked up. A few were divorced within a year or so, simply because they figured that they were too young when they got married. So now, they "want someone new / freedom." Dick move, I know, which is why I'm writing this blog post: to try to avoid bad endings like those scenarios, not just for myself but for other people as well.
You asked for it and I delivered it 😘
(On Instagram I mean, because I talked about this on my IG story)
Note: Reading this on PC is a lot easier :>
I'm gonna keep this as comprehensible as possible. But let me just begin with: if you're not good at managing your life, it's about time you start now. I was a Monash student since their Pre-u programme and oh my god they forced me into planning my life so hard. I was just fresh out of high school and I was literally 'Really Young, really Dumb and really Broke.' Time management and financial management was crucial since then until I'm a graduate but life has you difficult when you basically need money for everything, even for clean air and happiness (tell me you won't be happier if you get to eat your favourite food? At least I do). Also, I get very anxious if I feel like I don't have enough money in my bank account. Like, I would be stressing every day about money and sound annoying.
So to make sure that life won't flip me over with negative balances and debts (from my parents), I decided to make things super clear by literally jotting everything down. Okay, not everything because I'm forgetful but I managed to record 90% of my expenses along with my plannings.
Okay, so I've compiled a list of goodies and they can be categorized as free or paid goodies. I've already redeemed most of these and others are for your information. There's probably more but I don't know how to search for them so let me know if you're aware of any unmentioned brands who are having birthday promos/privileges!
Did you know that a 3-wick Candle (large candle) costs RM130?
Can you also guess how much did I spend here?
For 9 items, I've spent RM313 on them.
WHAAAAT ?!?!?!?
HOW ?!?!?!??!??!?
Well, actually, Bath and Body Works had a sale :)
I've bought four 3-Wick Candles, two condensed room scent spray, one hand wash and one hand sanitizer, which later on I've got one mini body gel for free.
Here's a tip: If you want to buy newer candles that are in discounted sections, go to the newest store which is now located at Sunway Pyramid! They have better store decor, newer products and newer paper bag. (Wait, how did you know bout the paper bag?) The paper bag I've gotten in Midvalley is a little yellowed. Besides, all of their discounted items are either too disgusting for majority or out of season (christmas scents lmao).
It's kinda obvious that they look heavy but a 3-Wick Candle only weight 411g (14.5oz)
It can be pretty heavy when you put all of them into a bag.
(You could also risk breaking the paper bag.)
Here's a warning sign tho. Never burn when no one is there to supervise it.
I have to be honest that when I was scent-hunting, I almost throw up in the store because some smells are just simply disgusting to me. Some of those scents were okay for my bestie, which I cannot understand how she doesn't feel nauseous after smelling it but I do. Anyway, let's check out the first scent that caught my attention.
Farmland Apple (RM39 after 70% off)
This scent isn't the best smelling one but it does smell alright to me. It smells very, very much like apple scented handwash from Watsons. The one with green liquid. Hmm, now that I've mentioned it, it does smell more like green apple than red apple.... Not sure why it's in red packaging haha.
But another reason why I bought this is because I'm recently into white / light magick stuff. I've been eyeing some stuff from the occult online shop but damn the shipping fee is crazy.
Anyway, they said that if you dress candles with suitable essential oil, they can work better to bring you the achievement you requested, e.g.: protection, fortune, love, etc. Red is associated to Attraction/Love. Yeah... I'm looking for someone to love me HAHAHHA But all of these are just for fun. If I were to be serious, I'd be migrating to the states already.
The second scent that caught my attention:
Beach Blossoms (RM65 after 50% off)
It smells exactly just like its name. A little beach scent and a little bit of floral scent, something like lavender or lilac. It's hard to determine the scent correctly because they never put any description on the product :/ (Boooooo)
White colour candle wax suits this product well.
While the previous two were bought from the Mid Valley branch, the candles below were from the Pyramid Branch instead.
Fresh Cut Lilacs (RM65 after 50% off)
God, I love this scent soooooo much. It's so goooooood. It smells like fresh flowers with sweet, sweet after-scent. The whole packaging also helped brightening up the mood. Gosh, I wish I know how to describe this product in details but it's hard. I guess the best way to describe is that, this is the best scent I've ever smelled in the entire store! Both of the stores! It's really just sooooo goooooood.
The whole thing is just perfect. The smell. The packaging. The colour combinations. GYAH!
Jasmine Waters (RM65 after 50% off)
Ok, this is actually for my little sister. I asked a sales guy, stating that my sister's preferences are a lot guyish than any girls. (She likes heavy bikes and shooter games.) So at first I asked if he likes the candle with subtle apple scent but he preferred this one instead. "This one has stronger scent and it smells better," he said. So I took his suggestion and because I was a little scared, I called my little sister and ended up waking her up from her nap. I asked her if she's okay with Jasmine scent, without hesitation, she said yes multiple times. (She doesn't know I'm giving her this. She did ask me why did I asked her such an odd question but I just walk away while saying that I needed a suggestion.)
It has a lovely Jasmine scent that doesn't feel too strong or too sweet.
I bought other stuffs from both of these stores too.
Initially I wanted to go to B&BW because I wanted to buy a gift for my guy friend. But as I was approaching the store, it was filled with "Discount" labels. Not sure if it was my luck or what haha.
So I got him this deep cleansing hand wash.
It is called Aloe Agave.
It has a breezy beach scent in it, pretty suitable for guys. There's also small little beads in it. I think the beads are the melting-type instead of plastic beads. A small little amount of it can be very soapy. So if you're getting one of these, make sure you don't squeeze out too much of the content.
The last thing I got for my friend is this room scent in Coconut Mahogany.
It smells just right for guys but not too musky. The scent has a very gentle guyish feeling to it.
For myself tho, I got myself another room spray in White Gardenia scent (RM18 after 50% discount). They smell incredible. Similar to the Lilac scent but stronger.
It suits better for bigger rooms. You can spray in a small room but make sure that it is absolutely ventilated and at the same time, you can't spray too long. A little goes a long way as well.
Now because I'm close to the amount of getting a freebie, I grabbed this hand sanitizer into my cart during checkout. It is called as Pretty As A Peach (RM10 original price). It smells refreshing, almost as if it could wake me up from a boring lecture.
Just like its name, it has a peachy scent but not very strong. It's the dominant scent that makes you feel refreshing but I can't really identify what smell it is similar to. I could only describe it as a happy scent.
On the other hand, the freebie that I obtained is this mini body gel in the scent of Magic In The Air. The sales girl in Midvalley Branch had suggested me to get a candle in this scent but I prefered Beach Blossoms. This one smells similar but without too much of the beach scent and it smells a bit heavier as well. It is also a bit more subtle than Beach Blossoms.
It is a lot soapier than the hand was and the after-shower scent still lingers strongly on my skin.
So, that is all for my haul!
If you want to purchase candles during promotions too, bad news for you, they don't have a Malaysia version of Facebook page so there isn't much updates. There isn't an official website for Malaysia too. The only way to get updates is when you sign up for newsletter at the cashier counter of each branch.
I've been shopping on Taobao a lot lately but because of my increasing workload, I can't monitor the purchasing and shipping process from time to time.
This is where I rely on a website called Ezbuy, which I mentioned about them in my Taobao FAQ video on my Youtube Channel.
Let me get to introducing Ezbuy first, then I'll proceed to my hauls :)
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Ezbuy Intro:
Ezbuy is a third party company where they help you to buy and ship your purchases to your doorsteps.
It doesn't matter whether you wanna buy from Taobao, TianMao or any other stores, as long as they're from China, Taiwan and America, you get to enjoy the services that they're providing!
They currently have a website and a mobile app at the same time.
MAXIMIZING CONVENIENCE FOR US ALL!
YAS!
The website has a very user friendly interface and it's mainly in English. This pretty much solves every non-chinese speakers' problems.
The website itself has a lot of different subcategories for you to choose from and the items are linked to the original pages (i.e: from Taobao, Tianmao, etc).
All these product information are in English, so you won't have to worry too much while you're browsing through.
Now here's the biggest reason why I love using their services:
AGENT FEE FREE PROMOTIONS!!
Occasionally they will have 100% discount on the agent fees, which are basically 8% extra charges from your total purchases and shipping. (See below)
This kind of promotion happens around 2 times per week/month, so if you want to enjoy this promotion, you can do it -at least- TWICE and combine them into one shipping at the end of your second round purchasing.
Of course, if you need more info, you can visit their Quick Guide page.
You can also visit their Ship For Me page to know more about buying from China, Taiwan and America from their websites.
[If you get confused by Ship For Me and Buy For Me]
[Ship For Me is when you purchase manually and ship the item to the address they provided.]
[Buy For Me is when you purchase through their website/mobile app and they process up to 90% of the transaction for you (including refund). ]
Here's what you pay for the shipping:
Shipping fee for China purchases
Shipping fee for Taiwan purchases
Shipping fee for U.S. purchases.
The options available to you are Economic, Priority, Sensitive, Express and Sea Shipping.
I use Economic shipping usually but Sea Shipping is not bad of a deal too, especially when your parcels are prone to becoming being weighted with Volume Metric Measurements.
[Meaning that the size of your parcel may be too big but the weight of it is too little. The courier will then calculate the weight of your parcel using the equation of
length x width x height/5000
This equation is most likely to cost you more than 1kg of your parcel's original weight.]
[Ezbuy will provide you the information of your parcel's weight and it's volume metric weight. They will choose whichever that has more volume and use that one instead.
The parcel below was shipped using volume metric weight for payment.]
I normally use their mobile app because it's really, really convenient.
Here's a screenshot of the homepage:
As you can see, this is my account user interface.
It's very convenient and the layout allows me to check on my purchases in a very short duration.
From the screenshot below, you can see the things that I just bought and they are ready to be shipped off the warehouse in China.
Before you confirm your shipping, you can check out how much it weighs, how much does the shipping and agent fee costs. At the same time, you can use coupon code, if you have any.
You can also choose delivery method and select any of your choice.
You can either choose a courier or collect it on your own, which is totally free of charge.
There are only four states available, which are Kuala Lumpur/Selangor, Johor Bahru, Penang and Kuching.
Since I'm from K.L., I'll pick the first one.
Then, you can choose to either pick up from their centre, from selected MBE stations or from selected McD Drive Thru stores.
Before my latest shipment, I would usually pick Mcd but then again there's a very limited time frame for them to be at /that specific/ drive thru that you picked.
They will only be there for around 20 mins then they'll be off to another station.
Right now, I prefer collecting from MBE stations because the only time limit is their business hour, which is around 10am to 7pm (9pm).
Lastly, you can also check the status of your items that aren't in the warehouse yet.
The first status would be "Order Placed."
The second status would be "Dispatched by Seller."
The third status indicates that it's being inspected and/or repackaged. (Repacking can also be requested by buyers but if the Customer Service crew advised you otherwise and you still insist, then they will not bear the responsibility if your items are defected throughout the shipping process.)
Ezbuy has a good customer service system but here are the downparts:
a. The "online chat" app that is supposed to appear at the bottom right of the website does not appear. When it does, the person in charge doesn't reply immediately.
b. Customer Service line took very long time to pick up. First 3 calls were never picked up. The rest of 2 calls took a very long time before they pick up the phone.
c. Even though the customer service crew were polite during the phone call, and that they do reply at the end of the day, I'm still very annoyed by what happened.
But overall, here are my opinions on this company:
1. Great deals being offered (agent fee free, shipping fee discounts, cash off deals, etc)
2. The shipping fees are relatively cheaper than what's provided on Taobao.
3. Provides 2 types of collecting method for more than 3 states.
4. Mobile app has a really good layout design where everything can be seen and done easily, it shortens decision-making time.
5. Making product information from Chinese websites into English. (Saved many lives there)
6. Parcel arrival is always earlier than ETA provided. (about 4 to 7 days after confirming shipping)
7. Customer Service isn't exactly/relatively perfect but at least we get to enjoy great deals.
As a crafty person myself (or just like anyone else), whether you are professional or not, you might come to the part where canvas art suddenly seem interesting.
I love canvas! You can do so many things with it and apparently they are not as expensive as I thought.
You can draw, paint, sew, print, or do any other things that you could imagine.
There are just so many ways to make use of a canvas, and yes, you can get it in almost every craft stores out there that you could find.
But what's the price offered though?
Are they cheaper than the other store?
Which stores should I buy from though?
Well, to answer those questions, this post is written to help you with how to decide on it.
Now, first of all, what sort of quality are you seeking from?
Do you just want to experiment with it?
Or do you really need it for professional use?
Then, ask yourself, do you need it to be framed or just the canvas cloth?
Either way or do you want to use a canvas board?
Third question, what is your budget?
Do you wish to buy a higher quality one to make your art piece more valuable or do you just want to make it a simple gift for someone's birthday party?
______
These three questions are essential but then again, we don't really have a lot of choices of canvas to get in Malaysia so, I'll just make this short.
If you want your piece to look less like a factory product and more of a DIY item then you can go for the ones available in Vision Art, which is somewhere behind One Academy, Sunway.
The canvas available are stapled into wooden frames instead of glued onto it.
The frames looks less commercial and the canvas is not perfectly bleached.
The price is almost similar to the store that I am about to mention but I find it slightly expensive.
Now, if you want your piece to look like one of those perfect canvas art on Etsy, then you should visit Art Friends. You can find one of the stores in Midvalley and The Curve.
They sell this art brand called Phoenix from China.
Just ignore the location produced because the quality is surprisingly good.
Many of the China brands or production factories are actually high-end or are even designer-level. But the poor ones that made the news caused a bad reputation towards the whole nation, so it made it difficult to find a brand with great quality products.
Anyway, this brand is both good quality and affordable.
Basically, you can find it available in a variety of sizes, as well as in both framed or board-piece.
I've taken photos of the price lists about 3 months ago (October), in which is intended for my personal use but, why not share it(?), for you to look at and you could check it out.
Canvas Panel Price
Canvas Price
(In hopes that the price hasn't change very much)
Now, I've used this canvas for sewing and it's a bit more like paper than cloth.
So, once you punched in a hole, don't expect it to be covered back unless you're a professional art repairer. Otherwise, you'll have to stick with it or get a new one.
Third place to get a canvas is from Daiso.
Now the only canvas you can get in Daiso is in panel form, meaning: no framed canvas.
You can get them in three sizes, if I'm not mistaken, each a only few in different packets.
Reason why I'm not sure about how many are there in a packet is because I always go for the smaller ones.
I got the smallest size, which has 3 canvas panels in it.
For RM5.30, you can get 3 canvas instead of RM9.90 per piece from Art Friends.
Quality wise, they are almost the same, so it's a bargain if you want them cheap.
If you like to explore more, I compiled a list of Craft Stores around Klang Valley for you. The list are contributed by various of internet users through different platform//on their own social media. Thus, my attempt to credit them right now, here.
Hello, reader. Kindly be informed that this website will serve as an archive for my main blog site. In the meantime, do feel free to check out my other stuff here.
Author
Zoelie Mah
A forthright and bona fide girl.
I find joy in sharing opinions on the things that I have personally experienced and left intrigued. I am also not shy to speak up about dissatisfaction and resentments.
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