It’s all too easy to eat more high caloric foods while on a trip, be it for business or leisure, and if your hotel doesn’t have a gym, how will you burn that food away?

The exercise DVD is your savior.

I used to be disdainful of the at-home exercise video because I was a gym rat and a runner, but in recent years, I’ve obviously had a change of heart. Short on time, or when it’s cold outside, a workout DVD will stave off excuses to sweat it out.

The latest one I bought was The Tracy Anderson Method Presents Post Pregnancy Workout DVD because of its rave reviews, plus Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna are huge fans. The workout is so effective that women who weren’t preggers have tried it out.

I’m one of them – feel free to snigger but Tracy Anderson does walk the talk and her workout is hard. I found some of her techniques similar to the bootcamp DVD I’ve been using off and on for two years, but she adds some dance and ballet moves to make it more feminine. And she pipes classical music as the background of this grueling ab and butt resistance training — very unusual but I appreciate the soft touch and it’s a nice break from thumping beats that often accompany aerobic workouts.

Now that I’m traveling from place to place in the US, I love the fact that I can put this on my laptop and crunch away for 40 minutes.

In my post-workout state, I’m relaxed and I can tuck into my dinner feeling good about myself.

Oh and did you know that exercise prevents aging? Hell, yeah.

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I live in a small apartment with only one bathroom so when I have guests, I need to find a mirror to do my hair and makeup.

Unfortunately, I don’t buy compacts much and threw away very old ones recently. My solution? My MacBook!

I turned on iMovie and it reflected back my image. I put on my makeup in a jiffy.

The other solution is to use my digital camera whose viewfinder has a mirror-like surface when it is turned off. This was a lifesaver in Nepal three years ago when there were no mirrors in the guest houses I stayed in and I cannot put on my contacts without one.

My fiancé held up my digital camera so I could have both hands to navigate the lenses onto my eyes. I feel like laughing every time I think about this.

I sometimes swipe lipstick and lipgloss without a mirror and I think it looks okay. Plus, there are mirrors in almost every subway station in Tokyo. I always catch women (or men) checking their appearance and it’s no wonder this is a city full of spiffy-looking peeps.

What do you when you can’t put on your face in your powder room?

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We tend to look for quick-fixes in order to feel good — an iced frap, splurging on heels, or checking into a mani session. These are all well and good, but I don’t think they truly help us feel beautiful on the inside. When we have a bad day, it’s easy to fall back on 3 seconds of “yay” but you will still feel like you were before.

I think it’s pointless to talk about beauty without bringing the mind into it. If you are positive and happy, it will show in your radiant face.

We know we want to be happy but how do we jump from being blah to feeling great in the long run?

Here’s what I found in my experiences and hope these three simple tips will be useful to you, too.

Feel exuberant by moving your body differently. Take up hooping, or Latin aerobics, or hot yoga — anything that is outside your usual regime. The reason why we feel the wear and tear of daily life is sameness. Shake things up a bit and make yourself feel gleeful.

Give yourself at-home treatments regularly. Remember that lovely pot of lavender sea salt sitting in the corner of your bathroom? Use it. Exfoliate, cream up, shave, slather on a mask — don’t wait too long to let your skin and hair look exceptionally dull before doing something about it. I met a youthful looking 52-year-old lady who could’ve been mistaken for someone in her late 30s, and I asked her what was her secret to her smooth, supple skin, she said, “Exfoliate, exfoliate, exfoliate!”

Love yourself. I know, you see this tagline in women’s magazines all the time. But I mean this differently from “have a macaroon”, “take an hour-long bath”, and “splash out on a spa trip”, and it’s more about making good choices for yourself. Sleep early, eat at least one healthful meal a day, exercise. I guess you can call it tough love but you would feel more peppy and alive.

Photo: Sanja Gjenero

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Instead of downgrading to a cheaper brand, why not trade something you don’t want for something that you do? It’s not a new concept to beauty addicts, so I’ll just talk about my experience.

As I was cleaning out my closet after I returned from my Sydney holiday, I couldn’t help but feel guilty about practically full bottles of fragrances that I didn’t adore as much as before.

I was like, “I’ve got nothing to wear…” But in my heart, I knew it would be frivolous of me to buy more of something that just evaporates into thin air.

Then, I remembered an excellent article from one of my favorite perfume blogs, Now Smell This, which gave a comprehensive guide on swapping fragrances at popular beauty forum, Makeup Alley. I had been a lackluster member of Makeup Alley, so I dived back in and spruced up my profile (I’m astrorainfall there, by the way).

I discovered a world of barter trade — from bags, to shoes, to lip gloss. Whatever could be dug out from a woman’s closet, you will find it here.

That’s not to say swapping is as easy as shopping online. It’s a long drawn-out process where it takes time to find a match for what you want and what you are willing to give up.

I was lucky to have 90 per cent full bottles of unique perfumes and these are what I got in return:

Lolita Lempicka Midnight (this is my favoritest perfume right now!) and Juicy Couture (I’m kind of regretting this as the watermelon note is a little… overpowering)

I’ve still got a Diptyque perfume on the way which I’m dying to lay my paws on.

So far, I swapped with very experienced swappers and their feedback profiles were flawless (they are called “tokens” on MUA). They also included very thoughtful extras like body cream samples, Greek tea bags, decants of Hypnotic Poison, the original Lolita Lempicka, and Donna Karen’s Cashmere Mist.

What I love about swapping is, it feels like you’re getting a lovely present when your parcel arrives but all you did was to pay for postage to give someone else something she wants.

I wasn’t in a hurry to get rid of my stuff and was careful to make equal swaps. Sometimes I would trawl the swap section for people who have things on my wish list as a way to pass time.

I would definitely encourage you to put up your wares but do have realistic expectations in terms of time and effort. On a last note, here is a fascinating story about a Canadian guy who started off swapping a red paper clip and ended up with a house at One Red Paperclip.

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Do you ever get tired of your perfume? Although I have several to choose from, there are days which I yearn to wear a different fragrance. Scents are less tangible than clothes or shoes, so justifying 5 more bottles is hard.

What I do is I experiment with different perfume oils or body lotions to combine with my exisiting perfumes. For example, I might dab a little coconut oil on my wrists after spritzing Givenchy’s Jardin d’Interdit (a Japan-only limited edition fragrance) which is a citrusy floral scent.

I may use The Body Shop’s Banana Body Butter with Prada’s Infusion d’Iris. It’s like matching cheap and chic in a way *chuckles*. Look at Sarah Jessica Parker’s story about mixing a men’s scent with drug store musk — I loved reading about that.

I once attended a perfume workshop where we made our own concoctions — one of the funnest moments in my life. I used to think I would end up with clashing combinations but try to have a feel for what might match. I tend to mix similar families of fragrances, eg: fruit with fruit, or white musk with floral. Or you could go the other way and mix opposites to take the edge off. For instance, a heavier scent with amber or patchouli might do with an airy, sharper note like lily or green tea.

There are so many ways to blend your scents, so just tap into your imagination.

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