And I thought I was taking a photo of myself when I took this shot on my mobile phone. When boredom sets in, vanity comes into play. But look what I ended up taking instead in the background. He shall remain anonymous to protect his identity, because any male who borrows my compact mirror and looks into it so intently definitely requires a protected identity.

What do you call a male that is vainer than you? Whose bathroom is lined with more facial products than yours, who spends longer than you getting ready every morning, who actually uses moisturiser and cover-sticks on his face, who carries around packets of facial tissues and who borrows your lip gloss and your compact mirrors? A metrosexual, perhaps?

I suppose if one dated someone like that, you can be assured that your boyfriend will never look bad, and probably never embarrass you with an oily complexion. But that affeminate look doesn't work for me. I find it hard to accept a boyfriend that aims to look better than me, and probably appreciates his own good looks more than mine. Do you really want to live with someone who fights with you for the mirror because he thinks that preening himself is of utmost importance? A man has to be slightly scruffy and tanned and someone that exudes masculinity and not possess a face that could probably beat yours in a female beauty pageant. My ideal boyfriend would dress in Polo Ralph Lauren and Abercrombie & Fitch, with a beautiful bronzed tan and hair styled to look like he just got out of bed.

Of course, different women have different preferences and there have been some who have fallen for the charms of this metrosexual. But being a glam girl, do you really want a pseudo glam boy as your life partner? Chew on it.

- Melia

Glamourgirls are not born to be anonymous, so please don't forget to sign off again.

Anyway, i had a shopping dream last night about us! We were at a church camp in malaysia, and we were supposed to be playing a lame game in a shopping mall. Naturally, shu, melia and i escaped into the shops. There was a chingchong t-shirt store with chinese new year canto music blaring in the background, but the t-shirts were fabulous. Imagine your junkfood-type prints at pasar malam prices (i have a mouthful of words for pasar malams, but that shall come another time). Unfortunately we were broke, and we agreed that we'd come back after collecting cny money. Then it was a mad race through the shops before the game-time was up. "Should we be going back?" i kept asking, annoyingly paranoid and prudish in my dream, what a horror. But shu and melia just ignored me and kept shopping. The last stop was Aussino -definitely influenced by their hall decor talk on sunday- which was filled with pretty pretty cloth lanterns for the bedroom.

Shu showed me this pillowcase with a huge terry cloth mousehead stitched onto it. It had the most enormous ears any mouse has ever had in the history of applique sewing. "Isn't this so cute?" she gushed in her genteel shu way. "We got one each for our room!" The pillowcase was a washed-out hospital blue, and the mousehead was puke-brown. I had nothing to say.

Melia yanked out a metallic peach pen and bent over the cashier counter to write her name on her pillowcase.

--

Bad case of dream shopping, i know. But i've had worse, in which my bcbg-and-ninewest friend bought knee-high camel-colored suede boots with embroidered flowers in all the colors of the chinese rainbow from a BATA SALE. So be grateful for your ugly pillowcases, because at least they were from aussino.

julie

What's hot:
Bags are outsized or detail-heavy, sunglasses are bold and bug-eyed, wide belts cinch the waist and shoes play to colourful, quirky extremes.

One of the joys of online shopping would be the satisfaction you get when you fill the wish list up with all your favourite fantasies! Especially so at branded boutiques! The wish list makes you feel important because you know that once you get that certain something like that coveted Hermes Birkin or yummy Manolo's that's befitting of Sarah Jessica Parker, its as if your wishes came true! And also it all adds to the glam factor of shopping online. Imagine having to squeeze in small fitting rooms, after falling in love with the cute Oscar de la Renta dress and someone else grabs it before you even whip out that American Express, you can get it all first hand online!

This is somewhat similar to registering either your engagement party, or post wedding party, or even your first newborn's babyshower at Tiffany's or Louis Vuitton. This tradition should be embraced wholly because who would like breast pumps when you can have gorgeous LV pumps?! And your poor baby might have to suffer with ugly jumpsuits when he or she can enjoy adorable baby DKNY or baby Burberry jackets... Not forgetting matching mummy and child outfits! Moreover, its doing your guests a favour! They now do not have to think of what to get and rack their brains over something so easy... And spare them the embarassement of having to change the gift just because its too ugly or doesnt match with your favourite jeans. Plus, your child would love you for not publicly humiliating them in public with revolting barbie doll dresses. Just because babies can't talk doesn't mean they don't appreciate beautiful things. Research have proven that babies are naturally attracted to beautiful things...

Just do yourself a favour and get a super hot husband with equivalently attractive personality and make gorgeous babies! Your child will not only thank you once they know the whole Prada, Gucci talk, it just screams GLAM!

Toodles!

-Shu

In life, most people belong to different organisations, or religious or social groups. If not at the moment, at one point or another in their lives. The bane of belonging to an organisation or social group like this is that it requires some kind of identity - be it free bags, t-shirts or towels - there will be that distinct logo printed on the article that people belonging to the organisation proudly adorn. Sometimes, they make you pay for the t-shirt or bag which supposedly makes you feel like you belong.

The question is, what if the thing you're paying for is the ugliest thing in the world and totally cramps your style? Being a glam girl, do you have to compromise on the fashion statement you so painstakingly make out for yourself by dressing like the others? You'd think, for example, if the t-shirt were nice enough, you would consider wearing it. But what if the cut is totally wrong and if the t-shirt is designed in such a way that is obviously biased against the female population? Should you take matters into your own hands and design a new t-shirt for the good of the rest of the organisation you belong to?

Alternatively, you could make the best of this dire situation, especially if your social or religious group requires you to take a unified group photo in the t-shirt that will be pasted on the notice board for the entire world to scrutinise. With belts, heels and a little ripping off the parts you do not fancy, you could do wonders to the once mundane looking t-shirt and turn it into a perfect outfit.

-melia

Let's just say that YSL nailpolishes will never ever again have the reputation of being good. No longer does it stand for 'Yves Saint Laurent' but more likely to be 'whY So Lousy'. Before you flare up, hear me out.

Having been in the studio for many times, no other color has caught my eye, unlike this crimson one from YSL. I tested a bit of it on my pinkie, and what do you know. It took over an hour to harden. Even a cushion brushed up against my pinkie could smudge the entire dab.

I hereby urge you not to purchase a YSL nailpolish, unless it's the only color available in the market that you simply adore and cannot do without (plus the fact that you have half the day to wait for your nails to dry and harden.)

"Like all women out there, I have a closet full of clothes but nothing to wear."

Dear Santa,

I would love a new back-to-school wardrobe!
And I've been good all year.

With Love,
Your favourite glam girl xoxo

-shu

Would you dress your child like this?

I was already a glamour girl at heart, even then. I wanted this over-the-top white frilly dress with a rainbow skirt that lots of proud french-braided girls seemed to have at that time. I also wanted the princess dress-up kit from Toys 'R' Us, the one with the pink high-heel shoes and fake nails. But did my mother concede? Looking at the picture above, do you really think so?

In case you can't tell, I'm the one in the uglier outfit. So while other little girls were prancing around in rainbow-colored dresses, I was dressed like a clown. It's cute in a cartoonish sort of way, but it put me in a different category from the long-haired princess ballerinas with their bambi eyes and mary-janes. I never got the "what a pretty little girl"s, I got the "she looks just like her father"s and "oh, like the Cabbage Patch Kids!"

So when you become a mother (and don't say you won't give birth because it's painful/fattening), will you subject your daughter to the silliness of big polka dots and short bangs? Or will you let her be as bimbotic as she likes and wear all the pink plastic and frills her heart desires, and let her regret her own fluff when she's older and wiser? Worse still, will you give in to your own fashion temptations and dress your daughter up in "sexy" kids' clothes that would look better on yourself, like those precocious Guess child models and the heartlander kids who take part in community centre talentimes? It's a tough call.

(In my case, I'm glad i don't have any photos of myself in a rainbow-colored dress. Rainbow frills. Eew.)

-julie

It doesn't matter how many pairs of white stilettos her wardrobe contains, a true golden girl is physically incapable of looking tarty.

www.bombshellmanual.com

We all know that one very important title a glamour girl holds to her name is that of a shopaholic. While other people take up numerous savings plans to prevent themselves from being shopaholics, a glamour girl realises that shopping is imperative to constant happiness and sales are an absolute must-visit. Because even glamour girls realise the importance of saving money, and the best way is to save money at a sale.

And so to a glamour girl, the Mango sale is like the Emmys. A reward for one whole year's hard work. And every glamour girl needs a sure-win method to get the most out of the sale.

The comprehensive guide to the treacherous year-end Mango Sale:

1) Presale lookaround - It's always good to go shopping before the sale to decide on what catches your eye and to try on everything that you might possibly get during the sale because you have absolutely no idea how lethal the queues can get at Mango during the sale period. Affirm the sizes for the various articles of clothing you fancy and do make a list in case you forget.

2) With your girlfriends, invest in some walkie talkies as this will come in handy when your contingent attacks the store. Walkie talkies allow you to separate yourselves to different sections of the store to get the best deals in the shortest amount of time possible. There is no need to let the rest of the store know about your excellent find lest they covet the same item: the walkie talkies ensure top security as you radio the rest of your girlfriends to inspect the item. Good deals should only be shared with the circle of trust in your life.

3) It is best to draw up a square grid layout plan of the store before entering, with markouts such as "A1", "A2", "B3" in order to ensure no lost people when wanting them to come to where you are. "I'm standing by the rack of black coats" will definitely not suffice in a Mango sale where clothes are mixed up and strewn every single place possible.

4) High heels are recommended in sales like these. You might complain about the pain, as opposed to if you throw on a pair of sneakers, but there's definitely no gain without the pain. High heels give you that extra height as you scan the racks and racks of clothing above the throng of heads and it also enables you to 'accidentally' step on another woman's toes if she attempts to reach for that same gorgeous white skirt as you.

5) Dress in clothes that are easy to wear. Short skirts instead of jeans, and spaghetti-straps are always useful because you can pull anything on over it to avoid having to join the mile-long queues for the dressing rooms. Now's not the time to be modest about your body as well - pull on that pair of jeans over the skirt if you really have to. Saving time equals more opportunity to find great deals.

6) Mango mirrors are absolutely deceiving. You DO NOT look as thin as what you see in the dressing room mirrors. So before you decide to buy the entire store, thinking that everything looks sensational on you, get a reality check by stepping outside where the main mirrors are or by consulting your trusty girlfriends.

7) If you happen to be skinny or big-sized, Mango sales are made for you. However, if you're an average-sized girl and most of the clothes in your wardrobe are labelled 'M', do not even bother stepping into the store during a sale because there's nothing left for you. It simply leaves you infuriated. So if you're a Medium and you see something you like before the sale with your size in it, count your blessings and buy it immediately. Alternatively, put on some pounds or lose some.

8) Bribe your boyfriend to tag along. Yes, he will most definitely complain and he might result in boredom but it is not a good idea to be trudging around town after the sale with five shopping bags, especially when all they give you is the horrible transparent Mango 'sale' bags. After all, we all know who you bought all these new clothes to dress up for. He ought to understand and appreciate that thoughtful gesture.

Step on it, ladies. You're now ready for the sale.

- melia

Every now and then you come across something that makes your heart stop. I don't mean "that's nice" or "how cute". I mean something that you can see yourself wearing for the rest of your life. A long-term commitment, an instant deep and stirring knowledge that this will be one of those buys that will accompany you day and night, through lunch parties and glam nights. It will be something people will associate you with. A symbol, an icon, your icon.

Come on now, write all about the love of your life.