curly tops

curls in 20 minutes. dare to believe?

i have been enjoying playing curls with my hair with my new hair straightener and i even wake up 10 minutes earlier to give me enough time to curl my hair in the morning, which is not my usual habit.  i even bring it to the office in the afternoon to curl maricel's hair :D and she loves jml wet straight pro, too!

i will start my salon soon!  support me!  XD

well, yesterday, my usual boring routine was disturbed when i have to go to my boss' chocolate shop again to take pictures.  and i have to pass by the mall to ask for free calendars for his daughter, hear me say 'pity me, i don't know what date is today... do you have a free calendar? :)' haha, no, not really...

i know the time, do you know the date?

im slightly patriotic.  do you have a calendar with philippine holidays?

i got home late and my consolation was that bambi already cooked and i got free chocolates from my boss' high-end shop... yipee, choco goodness! i wonder when i'll be back!

i have reinforcement!  i totaly finished my flat tops chocolate ;(

then, and my boss' daughter noticed that my face was glowing, and she asked me what foundation i use, so i instinctively said benefit and she was already saying 'i love benefit!!!' when i remembered i woke up late that afternoon and just used pond's powder... well, nevermind, it was probably the honey and orange that changed my face this week anyway, coz maricel noticed my face last saturday, too.

but confusion came today, coz my new bare escentuals foundation came in medium tan, i was using medium beige before and some days i think it makes my face lighter than it is. so i checked the swatch on my hand, and it is slightly nearer to my skintone... although looking at it from the sifter's cover, it looks really dark.

i will start using them tomorrow and see if benefit can make me buy a new foundation faker (coz i am finishing my first buy) or ill go back to bare escentuals...

and this is my new nailpolish!  i totally love this!  i can't show you how to make it coz i am way too lazy to take photos of step-by-step instructions but basically i painted my nail pink, then painted a litttle half of them red, and on the line separating the two colors i painted z-like blue.  i then used konad for the white dots on the pink.  it is so rocker cool!

irish will totally love this when she sees it!

oily crap...

last week maricel has been complaining about the oiliness of my face.  even irish said (brutally) that i was looking weird when she visited us last week.  she said it was below my usual standard of sparkling cheeks and she was not used to it.

i took this coz i wanted to experiment with my uneven brows using photoshop.  (unfortunately i got each one from each parent)  i will post the hilarious photos next time :)

so this weekend while i was squeezing some orange to make myself some fresh juice, i remembered some DIY home-made beauty stuff i saw on the internet.  i just did not remember them all so maybe i got the orange and honey was originally from two different recipes! haha

so here's what i did, i saved up the skin and scrubbed them one by one on my face.  all six of them.  if somebody from the next building saw me, they'd probably wonder why i was polishing my face with orange peel in the kitchen, hehe.  then i left it for 10-15 minutes, when i felt it kind of dried up my skin i washed it off.  and then, while i was having a bubble bath i generously rubbed honey on my face, like 1 spoonful... and left it there for 10 minutes.

it was super sticky, but at least i have something to lick on while waiting at the bathtub... mmm! (haha, pg talaga kahit saan!)

and then, after that i loaded my face with my new moisturizer, which i did not buy on purpose.  i just ran out of moisturizer when i gave mine to my mother (olay 7x total effects) so my sister bought this one for me since it was the only olay moisturizer in SM.  i took 3x of my usual dose and kind of used it like a mask and left it on my face overnight.

olay white radiance whitening cream review: at first i did not like it coz coming from a tub, my impression was that it would be too greasy to use in the morning as a moisturizer.  especially in smogged up manila.  but after using it for three weeks i have noticed that some spots i had since my early 20s have lightened up, and my face looks even.  and that was without proper skin care coz since i came back i lost interest in that whole 'self-care' routines.

then tada!  i got compliments this morning when maricel said i looked different.  and i did not even go to any salon!  what an amazing kitchen i have (*evil laugh*)...

goodbye olive oyl!

(here with just ponds powder and olay moisturizer)

review time

ok, as promised, no more wallowing.  so im gonna do the second thing i most usually do in my blog which is to make a review of things i own so that you don't have to buy them and make the same mistakes i did.

(...there is laughing in my head)

anyways, nothing bad to say about the first thing on my list which is JML's wet straight pro.  its the hair iron that can be used on dry or damp hair.  because irish' very happy recommended it to me i never thought twice in buying it even though i already have:

philips 8-in-1 hair styer.  very helpful but it takes a lifetime to heat up and forever to finish styling your whole head, especially for curling.  even the simple straightener pisses me off.

conair plimatic trix stix hair straightener.  it heats up decently but my hair gets tangled all the time.  apart from the fact that it only has 3 inches of heating plate.

now we happily go to wet straight pro...

if irish is happy with this product, i am happier!  i can actually straighten my hair even if it is still damp!  (damp, ok? you'll electrocute yourself if you use it on wet hair... then you'd be back at one in straightening your hair :D)  and not only that, i also tried curling my hair and it took only 20 minutes without hurrying.  (for a tutorial on how to curl your hair using a flat iron, click here)  what's more, i did not notice any drying or stiffening in  my hair, which usually happens when your hair dries up from all the heat of the iron.  one morning when i did not have time to style my hair and just went to the office just brushing it, it was still straight and soft.  you can also select your preferred temperature.  i am so impressed...

the only disadvantage is that if you look at it, the buttons for the temperature and power is on the side, and i always accidentally push this every time i use it.  i have learned to avoid it, though the first times were a pain.

quick trivia:  i have read that the peace sign in photographs have been in fashion because the japanese started using them to promote world peace, then the rest of asia followed (that is why most teenagers in asia have photos with the peace sign in friendster and facebook) then the rest of the world.  so, let's promote world peace, everyone!

next review is for a hong kong-made MAC Hello Kitty eyeshadow that i purchased from ebay for just $10 and revlon 12-hour colorstay quad which is a gift from ariane.

yes, it's not really MAC, but who cares?  as long as that mouthless cat with a ribbon is on the label, id be happy to bid for it (lol), but seriously i was suprised to see that it was of good quality, the shadows are so creamy and the bright colors are so lovable!

even the applicator is so smooth and soft!

compared to the applicators i bought from lifestyle which looks spongy, i actually love using mac hello kitty's applicator.  it earned its space in my cosmetic case (i leave my big 120-eyeshadow pack at home and bring mac hello kitty for touch ups or for late mornings :)

meanwhile, ariane sent me this eyeshadow in hope that i might evolve without her knowing that i already did in less than a year when she left.  i guess san diego made her miss me so much that she even sent me a watch from style&co... thanks pokie!

anyways, the revlon eyeshadow's color is very helpful if i want smokey eyes, which is rare.  i tested it for a few days and the colors do have staying power.  and it did not crease or fade.  the only downside is that it came with this applicator that looks worse than my lifestyle sponges.

apart from that, she also sent me 2 nail polishes which i really felt bad about because maricel's pack only has a watch while mine has a lot, so i told her that i only had one nail polish.  ooops...

i love sally hansen nail polishes!

of all the blue nail polishes that i own, i love this the most!  it looks royal blue and my konad plates were happy too!  i began using them again this week..

i was so happy staring at my nails so i gave myself the same pedicure:

that's what i call happy feet! :)

unhappy days

well, im not exactly sad, but my enthusiasm in life wasn't the same as before i left for manila.  i was high all the time back then, and now... i don't know...

maybe i need to go malling.


anyways, it's our girl's night out later, since it has been a crazy week for irish.  so load up the alcohol girl... good thing it's the weekend, for i had enough sitting in the office with nothing to do.  and i hate it because it makes time pass slowwwer...

i did not elaborate on my time in manila because basically, i did not venture out into more than the 5 kilometer radius of bambi's house.  i thought i would be free, but it turns out that having a little kid makes it way different than planning a vacation when you were single.  i did not regret it, however, coz every day i spent with jared was pure sunshine.

although i did get tired most of the time, and i slept a lot.  i wasn't able to eat any street food than isaw, i wasn't able to go to mall of asia or ocean park, not even to filinvest.  most days we walked to my mother's house where we spent the afternoon.

when i came back, even the bright orange curtains and the flower-ridden sky blue bedsheet i bought was not able to get me out of my funk.  even my face is not glowing anymore.  cute makeup doesn't help.

i need to buy something pink in ebay.


ok, i promise next week i will have more comical posts.  enough wallowing.

00001 post in 02010

so... two weeks after i return to bahrain and im still zoning like a zombie...

just going with the flow, waiting for each day to pass so i can go back to sleep.

nothing interesting to say in the office.  and i also went back to snoozing my alarm, maybe because i lost interest in cosmetics after my '10-days of no makeup' drama in manila. or maybe because i don't have new stuff... haha, whatever... i have bought my most delayed and most hindered nyx lip gloss in ebay. and bare escentuals medium tan.  im going to try a darker shade just for a change.

also, the most glorious moment in mommy-jared relationship happened when i left.  jared was brought to my sister's house and as my mother let him knock on the door, he shouted 'mom'.

i miss him, but not in the same way that i missed him before my vacation.

in a way, before i left, i was missing the baby that i took care of.  the one i knew and the one who thought i was his world.  when i saw last december that he survived without me, that he will run to anybody but me, that he calls to them and not me, i was rejected inside.  and the whole time i was there i was seeing a baby who is someone i don't know.  with different likes and dislikes, different moods, who walks and talks (actually, he babbles) and i did not have plans to make him like me.  coz what will happen when i leave?

so i just let the days pass by and i was content to watch him in his daily joys of swimming in the floor (or the plaza's stage), sleeping with dirty feet and drinking milk that i tried to change to a better one and ended throwing his stomach up.  i was like an outsider.  and i accepted that.

when i walk to the office or back to my house i avoid the humans with strollers.  i was half-crazy even in my own standard of craziness.

and until now, i still don't know how to make time pass quicker.  or what to do to make me interested in my surroundings.  when i go back home i spend 90% of my time sleeping.  and my husband doesn't complain, it was our inside joke that his wife is his computer and i'm just the mistress...

10 minutes before i leave the office... now what am i going to do with my night...?