Fail Trick

New Year, New resolution! Talking about body look, I google-ed yahoo-ed some articles about weight loss and there are thousands or even millions of diet related readings. And I found this article about how to trick your munching habit. I tried and failed.

1. Give yourself a manicure. Wet nail polish and oily moisture hands will most likely prevent your intention to grab a bag of chips and you’ll ruin your colored nails. Fail. Result: Do left hand, while waiting to dry, right hand snacking; vice versa.

2. Eat Pistachio. Study found that people snacking on in-shell pistachio eat up to 50 percent less than people who eat the unshelled kind. Simply fail.

3. Dress down. Take advantage of your casual Friday; It is proven that people who wear jeans move around more actively compared to those in business wear. Fail. Result: Casual wear = comfy jeans + baggy top = fat belly hidden = more space to stuff food in your stomach + desserts.

4. Trade Mayonnaise for Hummus; Hummus texture is as creamy as mayonnaise but it has 70 fewer calories. Fail. Result: Eating too much hummus.

5. Phone a friend. When you feel like you want to eat something, grab your phone and start talking with your friends, no emotional eating! Fail. Result: Talking and eating.

Addiction

My current addiction :)

ESTEBEL Eau Energisante Source d'Energie
Spray it after shower, spray it before going out, spray it again before you go to sleep, spray it in your pillow or your dog if you wish hehe.. J'adore!

Davidoff Coffee Fine Aroma
2 teaspoon of Davidoff coffee + 200ml of almost boiling milk
+ a bit of sugar (raw I prefer) = my morning booster!

Leighton Meester for Vera Wang

The brilliant fashion designer who is famous for her romantic yet modern wedding gown design has appointed Blair Waldrof Leighton Meester for her new unnamed Vera Wang fragrance. Vera said that she chose Leighton Meester for her “beauty, talent and spirit will inspire all the young women that I hope will enjoy this passionate, new young fragrance.” It is time for Gossip Girl Queen B to shine! You know you love me.. XOXO.. Gossip Girl..

Elizabeth Arden Green Tea

I notice that there are more and more articles about beauty regimens and face and body products, not only in fashion magazines but also in health and fitness magazines, and how those writings and reviews are sometimes too commercial. And suddenly, I want to share you guys about this wonderful lotion that I’ve been wearing for few years; 8 years exactly. And I'm still in love with it :)

Voilà! The Elizabeth Arden Green Tea Lotion! I love the smell, a lot! The sweet lovey smell (not too sweet) matches perfectly both for summer and winter. It gives (sorry for being too commercial too but that’s what I feel hehe..) fresh feminine happy and playful mood during summer while in winter time; it brings out just enough sexy womanly auras and leaves the sweetness to cheer me up in gloomy winter. But during winter time, this lotion doesn’t moisture your skin enough, and that time I tried another Elizabeth Arden Green Tea with Honey Drops Body Cream and I love every drop of it with honey caviar as bonus! And another thing I love from this yummy Elizabeth Arden lotion and body cream is that they don’t ruin the smell of your perfume (I always wear lotion and perfume). They match wonderfully with my Polo Ralph Lauren Romance and my Hermès Eau des Merveilles.

The funny story is that one day, well.. many other days, I often went to my friends room (I stayed in a school’s dorm) and friend wasn’t there then I ended up staying for a while and talking to her roommate. Not long after that, the person I was looking for came to my room. She can tell that I was from her room because I left something there. And guess what I left there, my smell! She said it’s the green tea lotion that I always wear :)

Monogram Birkin

Can you imagine a Birkin bag with LV monogram prints?

The founder, chairman and CEO of Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton , Monsieur Bernard Arnault announced to own 20.2 percent of Hermès shares on December 21^st (The Economist Newspaper Limited, 2010). This is not the first time he picked a fight with famous brands owners in his journey to create the biggest luxury group. Not satisfied with the ownership of Louis Vuitton, Dior Couture, Fendi Handbags and Hublot watch, including the bitter failure in taking over Gucci, the 61 year old Arnault is now ready to be the richest person in France by also embracing the Paris based silk scarves maker.

This LVMH-Hermès handbag war, the way the French press calls it, was first started three months ago. On October 23^rd, LVMH announced that it has increased its holdings from 14.2 percent to 17.1 percent of Hermès shares worth of 2 billion dollars. The acquisition in which some of the deals were settled through equity swap, LVMH claimed that this action is just a part of its long-term investment (Wall Street Journal, 2010). It also told Autorite des Marches Financiers that LVMH doesn’t intend in launching a tender offer, taking control or seeking board representation of Hermès International. Analysts aren’t convinced (Bloomberg, 2010).

Fly back to 1999, Arnault was quite a headline together with his archival, Monsieur François Pinault in acquiring Gucci (BBC, 2010). Arnault said that he had no intention to make a full bid of Gucci, while no long after that he announced that he has raised his stake in Gucci from 5 percent to 34 percent just in a month, continuing with a hostile bid. The handbag war ended with Arnault losing the bid to Pinault who runs PPR Group specializing in luxury brands including Yves Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta (The Economist Newspaper Limited, 2010).

The press is questioning how LVMH could pile up such a large stake in Hermès whose stock is mainly held by the founding family members. LVMH also said that it had acquired its Hermes holdings at an average price of 80.5 Euros a share, or a 54 percent discount to Hermes' closing share price prior to the announcement, raising questions as to how it had secured such a price (Thomson Reuters, 2010). If Arnault was willing to sell back its stake right away after the buyout, he would have made a significant gain of 1.7 billion Euros from his investment in Hermès in which Hermes was valued at 176 Euros per share.

With his business culture and strategy that has made him listed as the world’s 15^th richest person in 2009 by Forbes Magazine with a net worth of 16.5 billion dollar, Arnault is putting a lot of pressure on the fifth generation family members aged around 65-75 to delist Hermès from stock market. Analysts speculate that he might position LVMH for the succession of the maison’s sixth generation.