Accessories (Chomel Jewelry)

I don't wear jewelry, but I like it. I get great satisfaction by looking at it. However, real precious metal jewelry, especially gold is very expensive. I only bought like three pieces before, and my mom gave me a bangle that I wore when I was a baby. Although some said that buying gold is investment, I couldn't justify buying gold jewelry and not wearing it. Might as well invest in gold account from banks. 

Anyway, thanks to online shopping platform, I found many cheap accessories, however, after watching some reports on the high percentage (much higher than allowable limit) of toxic chemicals found on cheap jewelries, I got cold feet. So, I started to look at cheaper precious metal, which is silver. Not sure how long silver can maintain the price, it's increasing like nobody business. Looking at the silver price trend, I actually buy more silver jewelry pieces. LOL! Before it increases until not affordable anymore.

Anyway, my latest purchase was a ring and bracelet from Chomel. It's a Singaporean company from the website introduction. I wondered where it's manufactured though, maybe in China or somewhere in South East Asia. 

rose gold plated ring with cubic zirconia stones

rose gold plated bracelet with cubic zirconia stones

I studied materials engineering for my degree and majority of the courses were metallurgy (steel) related. I was very fascinated with the metals, was even thinking to work in steel mill before I graduated, nowadays, I am more interested on precious metals. I guess the main metal for the ring and bracelet is silver and then coated with rose gold. The description on the metal is 18k rose gold, which is an alloy of gold and copper. Given the colour of the ring, I think the copper percentage is not so low though. 

No matter what the metal is, both the ring and bracelet are very good looking. The surface finishing is smooth and I didn't feel any kinky corner. I only wore it once though. Now it's inside my drawer. 

the invoice

inflated plastic to protect the items

the items came with paper bag and paper box

velvet bag

cloth to clean the jewelry

Anyway, I think one of the important parts of a bracelet is the clasp, it's quite sturdy, not bad. 

clasp of the bracelet

I was not exposed to all these items when I was growing up. I like to eat, however, as I aged, not a wise decision to eat like I was in my 20s. All these accessories are part of my emotional outlet after food. Ahh, so beautiful!

ECO Shop Items

Ever since Eco Shop opened near by parents house, we bought so many items from the shop. My mom likes the spices, dried foods, instant baking yeast and the senior eyeglasses. It was only RM2 per item, now it's RM2.60. I bought plastic containers, pots for plants, seeds (it do germinate, but most of it are eaten by snail), wallpaper, stationeries, and socks. I like their socks, not so thin and some are so cute. I bought some really cheap socks online and it's too thin, not comfortable. Eco shop socks are doing ok. My father bought a lot of the flip-flop sandals from Eco, I didn't understand it, he changed sandals so often, the money could be used to buy a proper sandals, instead of keep changing a very uncomfortable flip-flop sandals. Others are toys from Eco, my nephew toys box is so full of plastic toy from Eco. 

Anyway, other items that are worth to buy are cleaning agents. I went to Eco the other day to buy spray paint and looked at those cleaning stuffs. Some are cheaper than supermarket. I just learn that oxygen based cleaning agent are useful to clean away stain. 

Kuat Harimau oxi bleach

Ganso explosive salt

Ganso Power Oxygen Toilet bowl cleaner

Next what I like is the serai based cleaning solution. I planned to use it as spray to chase away ants, the smell is better than other insecticides. 

Kleenso Serai Wangi

Kleenso floor cleaner

Other items that I think worth buying is the shampoo. Eco has brands like Safi, The items are in small size bottle. I think can buy for travel. I didn't dare to use other brands though. Even googling the brands didn't yield much result.

 various shampoos

Erm, I wondered what is bath bomb. Sephora and Lush bath bomb is really not cheap. But like I mentioned earlier, I don't dare to use this on my body, unless someone I knew dearly tell me that it's safe. 

bath bomb

Ok. Initially I thought that the spray paint from Eco is RM2.60, it's not. It's RM5 per can. The price still so so ok. I bought two to paint the tube that have become rusty. Well, the paint is not for steel. After painting, I can still feel the powdery dust on the tube. Need to read the fine print. 

spray paint

after spray paint the tube

I normally don't buy the 3 in 1 mixes in ECO too. Eco repackaged it into smaller quantity. I feel that it's more expensive than buying the full packet in supermarket. However, if one wanted to have a taste on some new flavour or new brand, it's a good place to buy and test it out before committing to full packet. I bought a packet of Aik Cheong Cafe Art Hot Chocolate Kosong and had a very tough time to finish it, I need it to be a little more sugary. If I tried it before, I wouldn't buy such big packet. 

3 in 1 beverage mixes

There is one interesting item in Eco too, carbonated flavoured drinks. I never see this elsewhere. Not sure the taste. Anyway, it's such a big bottle for RM2.60. Maybe I will buy this to test it out.

Delicies brand carbonated flavoured drinks

And I found spicy konjat in Eco. This is one of the snacks from China that I couldn't stop eating. So unhealthy. I didn't buy also because I think 3 for RM2.60 is quite expensive. Will buy online when there's sales. 

spicy konjat

Ahhh. Eco is the shop that it's quite hard to walk out with only one item or nothing at all. Need to be prudent although it's not that expensive. 

JBR Bundle Banting

All these years, I only bought second hand books. For clothes, I only accept second hand clothes from friends or family. I have never bought second hand clothes, electrical items, kitchen stuffs, etc. Well, I went to Perodua Service Center on last day of 2025 to service my Axia, and one of the absorbers needed to be replaced, and the technician told me that it might take some time. So, I decided to jalan-jalan at nearby area. There's two supermarket nearby, one Megah right opposite the service center and a Econsave on walking distance. 

JBR Plastic Bag

Initially, I decided to walk to Econsave first, and I passed by this JBR Bundle shop. The exterior looks kind of inviting. So, I walked into this shop. Well, it's a second hand shop that sells used clothes, kitchen utensils, toys, plates, cups, blankets, etc. I still couldn't accept second hand clothes though. As I was walking around the cups and plates area. My eyes were attracted to a Greek-themed plate and cost only RM2. The first thing that came to my mind was I could use that as a space for my keys. 

I walked here and there thinking whether I should get it or not. Along the aisle, I saw many interesting cups and mugs. There are quite a number of mugs featuring the UK royal family. I am interested to know why the person who donated these bought it in the first place. Wow.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana mug

Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II

King Charles III's coronation

Silver Jubilee of George V

Anyway, the plate to commemorate the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton is much more expensive, whole RM8 compared to the mugs. 

Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton

There are many other interesting mugs. Someone sold or donate the "payroll center" mug. Maybe mug from workplace or free gift from payroll department. Kind of interesting looking at all the items. 

workplace mug?

Finally, I decided to get two plates and four cups for grand total of RM8. The cup costs RM1 each only. The cashier wrapped it with old newspaper to provide some cushion against impact. 

wrapped in newspaper

After I got home, I gave all the items a good scrub. I didn't know what have been done on the plates and cups before. After I cleaned that,  I threw away the stainless steel dish washing net and the scotch brite. Initially I only planned to throw away the scotch brite, but the price sticker is too difficult to remove, so finally I used the stainless steel dish washing net too. 

give a good cleaning job

For all the cups, managed to clean without damaging anything. However, for the first item that caught my eyes, an area of paint is peeled off after scrubbing the price sticker away. It's not glazed. Definitely not a plate for food!

my keys' home (Greek-themed plate)

The plate is clay based, I think. There's even a hole? behind the plate. 

clay plate? I am not sure

For my other purchases, cleaning did not change anything, other than removing the dust. I bought below cup due to it's made in German. LOL. I was thinking to use this as pen holder. However, it still sits on my table doing nothing as of now. 

Lorenz & Sohn Bavaria

Other three cups are tea cups. Two of the cups are same design, made in Japan. I think the brand is Anatole. I planned to put my crystal bracelets into this. 

Anatole Japan

Next cup is made in England. Still thinking what to do this cup. 

Royal Doulton Andante tea cup

Last item is a plate, the image is from a painting of John Constable called The Hay Wain. I think this is a souvenir plate from the museum or gallery. Also didn't know what to do with this, definitely not as my food plate, although this is a glazed ceramic. 

Bone China England

After the initial excitement, now only the Greek-themed plate is being used. Others are starting to collect dust on my table. Yeah, I have to keep remining myself not to buy just because it's cheap. So, that's all my experience in buying second hand items apart from books. I think the idea of second hand goods is good, but my mindset is difficult to change! 

Buyer's Remorse? Not Really. But I Should Have Spend More Wisely

I do consider skin care is one of the needs, not wants. So, I spend money on the skin care, although not excessively, I spend within my means and I think a lot before I put an item into my cart (online or offline). Yesterday I went to the Guardian Pharmacy and I was thinking whether to buy a lotion or not, so I walked around the shop for few rounds to clear my head until the staff asked me thrice what I was looking for. So, sometimes I like to shop online, no one to following me around, but online shopping also have another problem, after one searches for certain item in certain online shop, for the next few days, in whatever website one goes to, the side bar advertisements will show all the items one searched before, sometimes it's quite annoying. 

Most of the time, I think too much before I buy something. But, sometimes (not so often though) I bought something on impulse. Although I would end up using most of the items, I felt that if I have a cooler head when I saw those items, I might not even buy the items.

1) Heavily discounted near expiry date items
I am ok with near expiry date food items, sometimes I even bought the expired food items (it's cheaper) as long as the colour, taste and texture remained the same. I don't remember I had any stomach discomfort from the expired food. However, if the any of the colour, taste or texture are different, then it's not worth to put our own health to risk. Time to toss it. I am not so brave with the skin care items though, what an irony right? I am taking more risk with something that will go into my stomach then something applied on my face! Anyway, finally I bought two skin care items online when both were having huge discounts. I didn't even try the brand before. It's around 60% discount from the original price and the expiry date was eight months away.
So, I just bought it. I started to use these 2 items right after I received it and I was overly generous with the amount. So, I finished both in two months time. Certainly a record for me. To me, it is not a money saving tactic. Due to the pressure to finish it before the expiry date, I applied much much more! If the items were not near expiry date, I would apply the necessary amount of cream and not waste any drop of the cream and I would finish it in a longer stretch of time. 

Conclusion, buying hugely discounted near expiry date product will not help me save more money. Plus, to use these two items, I stopped using temporarily my half used cream and serum. It's quite annoying to see so many not finished bottles on the table. It's better to employ the first in first out method to ensure no wastage and have a less cluttered storage!

near expired items (manufactured in 2013)

Bye Bye Rakuten Malaysia

Rakuten Malaysia has ceased operations from 1st March 2016. I am quite sad with the news. I started to use Rakuten Travel in Japan. I didn't have a credit card then and all the airlines that flew from Fukuoka to Malaysia (transit) then required a credit card to pay for the airfares. So, I researched around and found out that I could pay for the airfares in convenience shop if I bought the air ticket through Rakuten Travel. So, I bought a return ticket from Korean Air though Rakuten Travel.

Apart from air tickets, I booked bus tickets, hotels, dormitories, etc in Rakuten Travel. It's very convenient. A Malaysian friend of mine even asked a Japanese friend to help pay for her bookings in a convenience shop in Japan first and she paid her friend back after she reached Japan. Like the Rakuten Malaysia, for every payments done in Rakuten Travel, points would be added to the account and it could be used for the next payments. Although I booked a lot of travel related items in Rakuten Travel, I have never bought anything from Rakuten Japan. I did buy from Amazon Japan though.

Back to Malaysia three years ago, I was still not a fan of online shopping. However, one time, when I needed a bathroom rack and couldn't find it in the hardware store. Finally, I decided to go online. My first non travel related purchase online was a bathroom rack from Rakuten Malaysia!

Since then, I bought groceries, skin care, bags online. What a progression! Hahaha!

Before the CNY, I joined a Rakuten Malaysia "Count the Monkey" contest and won some Rakuten Super Points. It's not much, and I didn't have anything to buy at that moment. Since the points would become obsolete by the end of February, I decided to spend it on the UNICEF Inspired Gifts. I topped up some money and chose Polio Vaccines. The vaccines will be sent to those who needed it the most according to the UNICEF website. It's so convenient and that marks my final purchase from Rakuten Malaysia.

final points!

final purchase!

Rakuten is promoting the Rakuten Global Market now and gives out 3000 yen coupon for a 10000 yen order as a welcome offer. Well, I think I will give it a pass. There are so many online shops out there to explore!

Buying More Skin Care Online In 2016

Finally, I registered for Gemfive, The Body Shop and Hermo as well at the end of 2015. Many websites were having year end sales then. My little brother's birthday was around the corner and I planned to buy him a pair of New Balance from Gemfive, however, when I was going through the final process to pay for it, something went wrong, and when I return to the same item few minutes later, it was sold out. Ouch! So I abandoned the plan to buy the shoes. At the end, I gave my brother the money and asked him to buy himself! 

Then, my NRK Rosehip Perfecting Elixir finished in December 2015. I planned to buy a replacement bottle. However, it was sold out. So I looked for other rosehip oil instead. Well, for me, I was willing to try any face oil. There are many types of face oils listed in Gemfive. However, I was choosing base on discount instead of what I really wanted. So, at the end, I bought the Real Nature Rose Essence by Nature Republic instead. It's so bad, not the product, but my greed. Hermo was having a buy 3 free 1 promotion where the cheapest among 4 items was free. So, instead of the original two items that I intended to buy, I ended up with four items.

Well, Since I bought the items during the huge promotion period. I received the items after one week plus. Luckily, it was not something I needed urgently. It came with a huge corrugated box, a bit overkill, I think. Anyway, it's better than a trending on Twitter where a guy in Japan got his one and only persimmon in a huge box from Amazon. 

The items from Hermo came with a very big corrugated box

Buying Dresses From Zalora

I am a shirt and pants kind of person, I have never wore a dress to work before and the dresses in my wardrobe can be counted on the fingers of one hand. It had never bothered me until I agreed to be a bridesmaid for my friend. My friend only had one rule for the dress, it had to be in white colour. Well, most of the girls have white colour dresses. I did not have. So, I planned to buy a dress before the wedding, I was very lazy to go to the malls, so I planned to buy the dresses online. A friend said that she bought a dress from Zalora, dimension and looks wise, it was ok, but the dress had a torn seam, so she returned it and got back the money. 

Well, since my friend did get back her money from Zalora, I had more confidence to buy from Zalora, if it didn't fit, I could just return the dress. So, I browsed to find a white dress. For first time buyer, one could get some discount code if the purchasing amount was more than a certain amount. For the search term, I used "white dress" and sorted from cheapest to most expensive. From the searches, I chose a Flap Pocket Detail Dress by Zalora. For the size, I measured my upper arm circumference, bust circumference and waist circumference with measuring tape and concluded the XS was my size. So, I added that into my cart. 

Flap Pocket Detail Dress

Taobao 1111 2015

I bought two coin albums from Taobao when it was having a RMB2 direct shipping deal. Well, it's an ok experience, I got my stuffs after few weeks. So, during the 1111 Taobao sales, I bought two really not so useful stuffs too because Taobao was offering a RMB5 direct shipping deal. Ah, if not for the RMB5 shipping deal, I wouldn't spend the money at all.

This second time around, I bought 5 pairs of socks and linen on 11th November 2015. Socks are essential items, but for the linen, I bought it because it looked pretty from the photo and it's quite cheap. Initially, I wanted to buy a sling bag too, however, somehow I deleted the item from my cart when I checked out, so, I ended up with two items only. 

double 11 Special deals (direct shipping from RMB 5)

For the two items plus shipping, I spent around RM30. Since it was not something that I really wanted urgently and it was not that expensive, after I paid for the items with online banking, I didn't even trace the items. The delivery system was quite fast, I received my items on 21st November 2015, around 10 days from China to my house. The items were sent using a DHL plastic bag but the document attached to it was from ZTO Express. Mmmm, weird! However, further check after I received my items, the tracking data showed that it was sent by ZTO Express 中通速递, not DHL. 

2 parcels combined and sent with DHL express packaging

Buying Skin Care Online

I didn't buy stuffs online up until two years ago, however, after I first bought a aluminium bathroom rack from a shop in Rakuten. I became quite addicted to online shopping, the highest record was three orders per week and I am a member of Rakuten, 11street, Zalora and Lazada. I am ok right now, I just bought what I needed, if there's any sales, I would buy first to stock up. But the urge to buy is really toned down now. 

The first skin care product I bought was from the Guardian Pharmacy shop in Lazada, My night cream then was almost finished, so I was thinking to get a cheaper night cream, I saw the Olay All In One Fairness Night Cream when I was browsing the Lazada website. It's priced at RM25, for me, it's quite reasonable, however, I kept this in my cart until I had enough items in my cart to qualify for the free shipping. When I finally have enough items, actually the total price was way much higher than the minimum required for free shipping. Hahaha! I bought four items from four different vendors and all arrived at different time. This Olay Night Cream came last. Initially, I thought after I bought the things, all items would be sent to the Lazada warehouse to consolidate (like the one people did in Taobao), then only sent to the buyer. Instead, all came at different time. For this night cream, since it's only one item in the parcel, it's not properly transported, some of the creams stayed on the lid. It must have gone through very rough handling So, I started to use the night cream by scrapping it off the lid. I didn't find it difficult though. 

Olay Natural White All In One Fairness Night Cream

Then, after the Olay Night Cream, I saw the promotion of StrawberryNET in Rakuten. The Exuviance Soothing Toning Lotion was priced at RM89.10 and the shop offered free shipping. I have never buy Exuviance Soothing Toning Lotion from the beauty salon before. However, from the other Exuviance products that I bought from the salon, I would say that it's very cheap for the 212ml lotion. Even the Exuviance cleanser that size was priced more than that from the salon. Plus, I tried the soothing lotion before (the salon gave me some free samples after I bought almost RM600 of Exuviance products), it's not bad. So, I planned to switch to Exuviance Soothing Toning Lotion after I finished up my Shiseido D Program toner. Seeing the price was so tempting, so I put it in my cart along with a Fascy Moisture Bomb Hand Cream. I bought the hand cream because it looks beautiful. 

Exuviance Soothing Toning Lotion and Moisture Bomb Hand Cream Milk (bought from Strawberry.net)