Men's Grooming Aid: Braun CoolTec Electric Shaver

Braun has launched a number of electric shavers in their CoolTec series. These are world's 1st electric shavers with active cooling technology. We tried out the unit CT2s which is a basic unit from this range. Read on to know why this is a cool gadget for guys to use and for girls to gift to their partners!

Men's Grooming Aid: Braun CoolTec Electric Shaver

The CoolTec shaver CT2s comes boxed with the following:

• Main Unit
• Charger
• Cleaning Brush & oil
• Protective cap

There are other models that come with a cleaning and charging station as well.

Price: Rs 15,245 (available on discount for Rs 11,197 on flipkart)

The unique thing about the CoolTec shavers is the presence of an electro ceramic cooling element. It cools the skin as you shave which reduces irritation to the skin. The cooling element can be turned on or off and works without the need of any cooling gel or lotion.

The Perfect Shave With Philips Body Groomer

There is always this debate whether girls like men who are hairy or prefer the bare chest more metropolitan types. Well regardless of what women think, we men like to groom ourselves too. 

I am quickly going to share the details about the Philips Body Groomer which helps trip body hair with precision. The Philips BodyGroom 1000 comes in a box packed with a trimming head, a silicon shower cord, a cleaning brush and a battery.

Price: Rs 1395 (available for Rs 1099 here)

The blades offer bidirectional trimming allowing seamless trim in both directions. There is a trimmer head which you should use on longer hair to first reduce the length so that it is short enough to be used safely with the shaver.

How To Setup A UV Nail Lamp For Gel Manicure

Finally friends after taking so long to post this - here is a post where I will tell you all that I have learnt about Gel Manicures. And the first step for a gel manicure is to setup your UV nail lamp.

I purchased my UV nail lamp online (and if you follow me on Facebook you would know that I ordered two by mistake and am trying to sell of one of these - so yup if you need one leave me a comment so that I know!)

So the UV nail lamp came in a regular cardboard box and it had 4 UV lamps of 9W each. The lamps were packaged individually. The base of the UV Nail Lamp slides out so that you can see the sockets where the UV Lamps are to be inserted. You need to be careful, align the ends properly before gently pushing it inside. Once all the 4 lamps are inserted properly, slide back the base and you are ready to go.

Now most gel polishes will clearly mention the duration for which you need to keep your nails under the UV light. Most of these say 2 minutes in a 36W lamp. Notice that the total power of my UV Lamp is 36W (4 x 9W).

As you can see setting this up was simple and easy. Next we will learn about how to actually do a Gel manicure.

This lamp cost me Rs 1400 per piece. In India its available for around Rs 4000. In case you want to purchase the extra one I have let me know.

Follow Me On instagram | facebook | pinterest

How To Prevent Indoor Pollution - Breathe Pure Air With Philips Air Purifier

A few years back in order to cut down on air pollution India saw a revolution of sorts with the coming in of CNG as the fuel for public transport. Yet today we still face the hazards of air pollution. Greenpeace conducted a survey of air quality across a few schools in Delhi and found that the particulate matter is 10 times higher that what is prescribed by WHO. 

What a lot of us are unaware of is that air pollution exists in our homes as well. Yes its true, the fumes of that curry cooking in the kitchen, the unhealthy chemicals used in floor cleaning products or simply smoke entering your house from the outside surroundings, all add up to air pollution in your house. Indoor air pollution is a silent killer. The reason why air pollution is more lethal is because we all spend more than 85% of our times indoor - whether it is at home, in our office or inside malls. Thus we need to pay some attention to this culprit that is silently causing more children to have asthama and grown ups spending longer periods with a cold or cough.

#PureAirLovers - Breathe Pure Air With Philips Air Purifier

Recently at a meet held by Philips India, Dr. Ashish Jain, Senior Consultant, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Max Super Specialty Hospital, New Delhi said, “As the level of air pollution is reaching new heights, it is becoming very difficult for people to lead a healthy life, let alone patients with respiratory diseases. The quality of life for the ones with allergies, skin diseases, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorders (COPD), Asthma and other respiratory disorders is impacted severely with poor indoor air quality which causes further distress. It is imperative to control air quality indoors to help improve the lives of those suffering. Good indoor air quality can help prevent such hazards from occurring or worsening.” In an endeavor to bring healthier breathing to all households, Philips has introduced Air Purifiers designed to fight the harmful pollutants at home.  Commenting on the occasion, Ms. Jayati Singh Chakraborti, Business Head - Air, Philips India said, “We understand the concerns that arise with an increasing rate of air pollution. As a health and well-being company, we offer solutions that let you control the air you breathe and ensure your family breathes in healthier air. The Philips Air purifiers come with patented Vitashield IPS technology with multi-level filtration that can remove upto 0.02 microns pollutants keeping the air 99.97% allergen free. Philips is urging people to switch to a healthier lifestyle with the Philips Air Purifiers and be a ‘Pure Air Lover’.” 

#PureAirLovers - Breathe Pure Air With Philips Air Purifier

So while we may not be able to control the amount of air pollution we are subjected to while outdoors, if we do control the air pollution indoors, our body will be subjected to less air pollution for at-least 85% of the day. What this means is that having air purifiers in the house may help solve a lot of common allergy, cold cough type of problems that each of us face.

Philips Air Purifiers are available online (at discounted price) and you can check these HERE.

I have tried out the Philips Air Purifiers – AC4014 unit at home and have noticed the following:

How Does A Garment Steamer Make Life Easier?

Whether you consider yourself stylish or a complete fashionista, you would agree that neatly ironed clothes can make a huge difference to your look. And if you iron your clothes yourself you would completely agree on the utility of having a good steam iron. In summers we all love to wear cotton or linen clothes which look good only if ironed well. Normal steam irons are reasonably good for ironing clothes. Things get difficult if you are trying to iron heavier garments like a coat. Or a delicate chiffon sari perhaps?

Laying down a coat and ironing it out is difficult. In fact if you have a shirt with padded shoulders you would agree it isn't that easy to iron on the shoulder area.

It is in these situations that garment steamers come in handy. Garment steamers allow you to iron out clothes purely using the heat produced from steaming water. They give you the flexibility of ironing clothes while in a vertical position.

How Does A Garment Steamer Make Life Easier?

Its been a long time since I've been using a garment steamer - a very affordable one available in India from Maharaja Whiteline, Preciso. It has a nice and compact form, a transparent blue body where you add the water, a long pipe through which the steam comes out, and several attachment heads for different uses. It retails at Rs 6099 but you can buy it online at a discount for only Rs  4699 

How Does A Garment Steamer Make Life Easier?

Now lets see how a garment steamer can help you out and make your life easier.

Situation 1: You are headed out for a party and you find that your delicate chiffon dupatta (scarf) is not ironed. You quickly try and iron it and the dupatta fabric gets burnt due to the heat.

Now instead of a regular steam iron you should use a garment steamer. Since the steamer is throwing out steam there is no hot surface that will touch your garment. The garment head of the steamer has gentle bristles that will brush past your garment while the steam irons out all the wrinkles.

Situation 2: You are headed for an important meeting and your coat has a few creases. Laying it out on an ironing board and reaching the area around the shoulder is a big pain.

Here you can simply hang your coat using the door hanger provided with the steamer and use steam to iron out even the toughest of wrinkles saving a lot of time! And to iron out the trousers that go with your coat you can make use of the crease head - this acts like a clasp on your garment making it easy to add a proper crease where needed.

Garment steamers come in very handy for 

Asus Zenfone 5 - Worth Every Penny!

"Chota packet bada dhamaal" - as they say in Hindi, a small sized wonder that packs in a lot of punch - and the saying is so apt for my new friend. I am talking about a new phone that joined Our External World as a guest for a few days.

When I first held the Asus Zenfone 5 in my hands I wasn't aware that it had won a lot of awards in 2014 for packing in a lot of features at a super affordable price. And my first reaction was that I was holding a phone that felt surprisingly light. I love my existing smart phone but I never realised it was actually heavy until Asus Zenfone 5 came along.

The Zenfone was put to work right from the first day. It looked gorgeous but as they say, looks can only get you so far; your true aptitude is what takes you far in life. And so Mr Zenfone had to prove his mettle by becoming my blogging partner. I had a nail art planned out on the day Mr Zenfone came along. And so I put it to work to search for a nail art theme. I chose a peacock theme and picked out my polishes. Mr Zenfone helped me click the initial pictures and I was impressed with the 8MP camera that took nice indoor pictures. I liked the control of exposure and ISO in the camera.
Mr Zenfone passed its first test with flying colors.

Asus Zenfone 5 - Worth Every Penny!

I will soon share the nail art I did with the polishes you see above. I still need to sort and edit them out. Another thing that was pleasantly surprising was the touch - Mr Zenfone is a smooth operator! I mean the touch is very smooth.

Currently Asus Zenfone 5 comes at a price of Rs 9999 (for the 16GB variant)- at this price point it is a splendid phone indeed. You can purchase it on flipkart or amazon (at a discount offered).

The next day I had to try out a makeup look, as it happens each day I only get time to try these things out in the evening after work. And so the pictures were again to be clicked in artificial light. A makeup look was done and Mr Zenfone helped click some pretty pictures.