All posts tagged: personal

Quick-ish Beauty Update: Confessions

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Hey, everyone! Just a quick beauty~ update here, as we approach the end of the first month of the year. I don’t really “check in” and update very often when it comes to my makeup affairs—I just post looks and reviews and stuff and not a lot of “thinky” reflective things—but I’ve been having a hard time sticking to my resolutions and have been breaking a few of them. Yes, this early! Anyway, I got to the bottom of things, of this mysterious situation I’m in that should really have been something I figured out right away because it’s so damn obvious: I’m a compulsive beauty shopper.

The Weekender No. 3

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Hey everyone! 🙂 It’s time for The Weekender, which is a series that has been progressively boring in my humble opinion. I haven’t been doing much outside of the house if only for the fact that the approaching holidays means a sudden avalanche of deadlines and yes. Hmm. I have seen The Hobbit twice, though, and it was still excellent the second time around. I love the book, but I did enjoy the liberties that they took with making the movie. Except maybe for the romantic angle, but that’s neither here nor there. ON INSTAGRAM Are you on Instagram? So am I. 🙂 Follow me on @presidents if you are so inclined. My sister & I are setting up a shop! / My brother and Noah got a haircut~ / Re-reading one of my favorite books for class An FOTD wearing shadows from The Hobbit Collection by Shiro / New coffee shop discovery: Yardstick at Legazpi Village / Nature Republic Snail Solution Set Oh, and another cool thing: I finally had the first roll off …

Makeup No-Buy Update: Four Month Mark

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We have reached another end of the month of my Makeup No Buy, which is a personal torture challenge that I’ve put myself on to curb my desire for more makeup. This started on May 22 and I’ve been documenting my monthly progress via blog posts. You can track my progress here. This No-Buy is meant to last until December first, but to cut to the chase I have been buying makeup here and there. It’s a small fraction of what I used to buy (and I do mean a tiny, tiny fraction), so it’s no big deal. Here’s what I ended up buying this month: — Flower Cosmetics Color Play Crème Shadows in Orchid-ing Around and Vines of the Times — Flower Cosmetics Kiss Stick in Ginger Lily And, paid for by my dad: — y.e.t. Eyeshadow Sticks in Nude Pink and Bronze — y.e.y. Fill it Up Primer And that’s it. I think that’s pretty good. So far, in the last four months, I purchased: — e.l.f. Liquid Eyeliner — essence Stay All-Day …

Confessions of a Lip-Licker

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I am a lip-licker. I don’t mean to be one, it’s just a habit of mine. I think it mostly has to do with my need to get rid of any and all dry flakes on my lips when I encounter them. Lipstick formula and longevity is marginally important to me, because I tend to lick off lipstick anyway. When I started this beauty blog, I tried to stop this habit to properly test the lipstick longevity, and also because I heard that ingesting lipstick is bad because of lead content and other icky ingredients. The other problem with lipstick-licking is that my lipstick starts out immaculate and then wears off into a real stupid mess. Sometimes, there will be a lip liner ring where a slick of lipstick used to be. Other times, it’s a jungle of dry skin with lipstick koalas clung onto them. When this happens—smushy ex-dry flakes with lipstick clingers in a sticky mess on my lips—I resort to licking my lips anyway. This does little to remedy the problem. It’s …

Cruelty-Free Update!

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Hello! If you remember, I made a personal pledge to cut down on cruelty-free cosmetics about a month ago. You can read that here. So, here’s an update! Mainly, I received a shitload of MAC Cosmetics that I ordered prior to the cruelty-free pledge. Technically, MAC Cosmetics don’t test on animals, unless required by law. My friend Laura explained it to me. Basically, MAC themselves don’t test on animals. But, for countries like China who require animal testing for cosmetics to be sold there, they authorize animal testing in that country. There’s still animal testing involved, but it’s not as bad as thought. I really hope they can eliminate all of this testing, because they’re a company who started out cruelty-free. Aside from that, I caved only once since then, I think. I bought three Maybelline Color Whispers from an online shop. Was it worth it? Not really, although, I do really like them. I feel sad when I think about the bunnies, though, so that’s really my motivation to keep away from non-CF brands. …

A Rather Sizeable MAC Haul

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You’ve been warned. OK, so I don’t have a lot of MAC products. Before this haul, I had three lipsticks, two non-neutral eyeshadows (Amber Lights and Trax), a lipgloss, a pearlmatte powder, a paint pot, and two brushes. I never go into MAC stores here because looking for colors stresses me out. However, when Laura, a friend of mine from Canada-land, told me that she could help me out by picking out colors and products (at least in terms of color makeup and brushes) she liked, I couldn’t say no—especially not to help and cheaper cosmetics. ETA: MAC has a considerable (almost 50%) markup here in the Philippines. To illustrate, the lipsticks are $15 each or about Php 617, but they’re being sold in Manila at Php 1,000 or $24.32. I don’t think they even sell the eyeshadow refill pans here, so instead of paying $12 or Php 493 per color (refill pan), I have to pay Php 1000 or $24.32 per color, even though I’m going to have to depot it anyway. It doesn’t …

A Cult(ure) of White

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This weekend, I received BDJ’s April Box, and was disheartened to see that most of the items were aimed at skin whitening. It’s probably harsh and callous to say, but it felt like a KKK theme instead of an “Oh, So Fresh!” box. It’s not that it’s really a surprise at this point. I’m aware that a large part of the Philippine population want to be whiter. It doesn’t mean that it frustrates me any less. I understand it from the business point of view… People want to be whiter, so companies want to sell them something they will buy. Already frustrated with the box chock-full of whitening products, I was further saddened by a trip to the mall the next day. I had to pick up a few things (i.e. a hairdryer, cotton buds, wipes, sun block) and was constantly peddled whitening lotions and creams. Every corner I turned, I was offered some kind of whitening product. I had just come back after one day at the beach and am sporting a slight tan …