Mineral makeup to play with, and mutiny.

I've still technically not broken my no makeup-buy since I've only been getting myself the littlest things here and there. No major purchases, or hauls, at all. It's pretty difficult but I'll live :)

I alleviated my hunger for mmu by a bit through my purchase from Pammy's Blog Sale for a Cause (all proceeds went towards their outreach program, awesome).


The lot of samples (transferred into jars) and a fullsize EDM blush cost only P100 or about $2. The samples were of blushes, eyeshadows, and a few of foundation, from Monave, Cory Cosmetics, Silk Naturals, Dreamworld Minerals, Meow, Buff'd, and some others.

A pretty good, and cheap way to sample from various brands (some of which were my first time to try), IMO. I've only tinkered with the two blushes from Cory Cosmetics - Cosmo Pink and Promise - and I really like the colors. The goods came with a kind thank you note from Pammy. Thank you as well!

I put a new button on the sidebar (right under the Followers box):


I've been keeping up with all the news but I'm not sure how to express how I feel about the issue just yet, just that I support uniqueness and creativity! Do click the button on the side bar if you'd like to know more (I'm pretty clueless about html and don't know how to make the image above a link), or visit these great blogs: Fresco Phyrra, Sparkle is my Crack, and Lipsticks & Lightsabers.

A 'natural' beauty tip. For the lips.

By natural I mean using natural ingredients. I know that there are countless tips out there on using natural ingredients, such as things that you can actually find in your kitchen (bananas, avocadoes, sugar, to name a few) for beauty rituals, and it's rather fun to try them, but do be careful. Definitely do a patch test first! I for one now know that, although I like honey, my skin does not like it.

But I do want to share a tip that I've been incorporating into my routine for many weeks now. I only used two ingredients for it: emu oil and unrefined shea butter. I purchased my emu oil from Barenaturals, a local seller (also available from Garden of Wisdom who ships worldwide), and the unrefined shea butter from Coastalscents (available locally at Botany Works).

I thought of using them when my lips swelled up from allergies. Eeew, yes, I know. After the swelling went down the texture of my lips became very rough, I hated the feeling of rubbing my lips together! I thought of trying emu oil on them since I use emu oil for any insect bites or minor skin irritations that I and my daughter get. Unrefined shea butter I usually rub on my heels, to keep them soft, and on my daughter's eczema.

I just got a small dab of the emu oil and applied it all over my lips. Surprisingly it didn't feel yucky. Then I grabbed a small amount as well of the unrefined shea butter and put it all over my lips also. And after about 2 days my lips were even soften than before they swelled up, I swear! The emu oil and shea butter are gone from my lips after less than an hour, but I continue to feel the moisturizing, softening effect hours later. I now do this when I wake up in the morning, after baths, and after kissing hubby goodnight. It's just super! And if you decide to try this tip, I do hope it works just as well for you!

By the way, have you noticed my beautiful new banner and template? They're courtesy of dulcette, whose payment will be in the form of makeup items. Cool, yes?
Her blog is pretty new, so let's welcome her to the beautyblogging community :)

I am so happy that our daughter's first birthday party turned out quite nicely and that she enjoyed it. My weekend was memorable and happy. How was yours? And do you have any natural or homemade beauty rituals that work well for you? Share!

Maybelline Mineral Power Concealer

Tried this in my quest of finding my HG undereye concealer.

Maybelline Mineral Power Concealer ingredients:

Water/Aqua, Cyclopentasiloxane, Hydrogenated Polyisobutene, Glycerin, Sorbitan Isostearate, Propylene Glycol, Titanium Dioxide, Ozokerite, Phenoxyethanol, Magnesium Sulfate, Disteardimonium Hectorite, Disodium Stearoyl Glutamate, Methylparaben, Acrylates Copolymer, Alumina, Butylparaben, Aluminum Hydroxide, Magnesium Ascorbyl Phosphate, Calcium Pantetheine Sulfonate, Tocopherol, Dextran Sulfate, Silica, Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower Extract, May Contain (+/-): CI 77891 (Titanium Dioxide), CI 77499, CI 77492, CI 77491 (Iron Oxides), Mica.

I have the two shades they have for medium skintones- Sand and Beige. I purchased Sand first, from a fellow forum member, but found it too light for me. Still I was curious if this concealer would work for me so I got the next darker shade, Beige, from drugstore.com.

Swatches: top - Sand; bottom - Beige.

Blended a bit. Top - Sand; bottom - Beige.

Just so you know, I only used this on my eye area, so I can't say how they do with covering up blemishes. Also, I have serious dark circles and a number of fine lines around my eyes. I applied these on my undereyes as well as on my lids which are a reddish/pinkish color. Then I set it with mineral concealer powder.

What I like about it:

-It felt creamy upon application, and lightweight once on.

-It's unscented and did not irritate the ultra-sensitive skin around my eyes.

-Blends easily.

-Evened out the color on my lids.

-Doesn't settle too much in the fine lines on my undereyes (settled a bit in the lines in the inner corners of my eyes. Really have a lot of them for someone in her 20's!)

-Affordable price.

What I don't like about it:

-It's not very sheer, but didn't completely cover my severe dark circles. Better suited for people with not very dark undereye circles.

-I wish they had more color options. Sand has yellow undertones but was too light for my skin. Beige was more my match but I wish it had more yellow tones to it- as the name implies, it has beige, and pink undertones.

-It was okay when the weather was cooler, but when I used this out on a typical hot day in Manila, it pretty much melted off me. My lids and undereyes became really shiny after a while.

Overall, it's okay for the price. It just doesn't work for me with my super dark circles and the scorching Manila heat, so I won't be repurchasing. Will blog about other concealers soon!

Yay, I have IDs and glittersniffer Solid Perfumes :)

Photo taken in my daughter's play area, heehee. I finally have 2 valid primary IDs under my married name! Yay! I know that's pretty boring but I'm just so glad I can drive again without the fear of being caught driving without a license. Harhar. And I can do my business at the bank. It took me 2 days to renew my driving license because of trouble with the traffic police, whew. And here's a boring tip for any fellow pinoys who need a primary form of identification and want to get one fast: get a Postal ID. It's a quick process and relatively easy.

On to the beauty-related stuff. Solid Perfumes from glittersniffer! Glittersniffer sells eyeshadows (some of which I've tried), but she also has solid perfumes which are supposedly best-sellers.

The packaging of these were recently changed from small tin pots to twist up tubes, and the remaining stock in the old packaging were put on sale, for just $5 per mystery grab bag of 5 scents. I ordered this last month. I thought this was a great way to try her solid perfumes, so I was pretty game with getting surprise scents. Here's what I received:

Chardonnay, German Chocolate Cake, Almond, Dirt, and Hippy Guy.

Scent descriptions lifted from the glittersniffer site:

CHARDONNAY - Think dining in your favorite swanky restaurant with a big round glass of smooth Chardonnay. Is it happy hour yet?

GERMAN CHOCOLATE CAKE Need I say more here? Oh, I will just for fun! Our German Chocolate Cake scent isn't a fancy title- it smells JUST like the real thing! Who would have thought that we could REAL German Chocolate, melting butter, pure sweet sugar, fresh coconuts, hand ground pecans, and put it into a bottle! So, none the less, it's our biggest bottle of scent!

ALMOND - Top notes of almond, mixed with sugary sweetness and roasted to perfection.

DIRT - This scent is one that everybody seems to be extremely intrigued by and thus remained in our scent collection for some time now. This really smells like brand new, fresh out of the bag, dark and rich potting soil. Nuffin' else on earth.

HIPPY GUY - Hippy guy is a scent just for the guys. It's rich, musky, woodsy without being overbearing and would probably be most tasteful for the older crowd.

Chardonnay smells girly, and smells a lot like strawberries, I really like it.

German chocolate cake smells very much like milk chocolate, with a hint of nuts and coconut- yummy and the scent makes me hungry!

Almond smells simple but good, smells like almonds and chocolate. I've used this one the most.

Dirt is interesting. I find that it smells exactly how it's described above. It doesn't stink. An earthy smell that I find I can wear.

Hippy Guy is eeew. It smells like a perfume that's years old or something.

I like 4 out of 5 of the solid perfumes I got, not bad! Oh I also received a free sample of Lime which smells lovely! As well as Silk Sheets eyeshadow which is a nice brown color (haven't tried it yet). I can see why the solid perfumes are best-sellers. I will definitely purchase again. Currently the only listing is for 12 scents of your choice for $24. When my no-buy ends I will be choosing my scents :) Plus her shipping is only $2 to anywhere, how great is that?

Edited to add: Sarah of I Heart Cosmetics and Maui of Makeup, Rants, Musings and More both have pretty awesome Halloween giveaways going on! Visit here to join Sarah's giveaway, and here to join Maui's :)

Sticking to my no-makeup buy

Our laptop's already been fixed, yay! But I'm currently updating using my hubby's new work laptop...I love that it's white. Anyway, my no-makeup buy, yes, I've resolved to stick to it. I looked up the date on the entry where I said that I was longer lemming for any beauty product, and it was September 28. And now, not even a month later, all my lemmings are very much back.

What I'm really, really tempted by are 2 sales - Lauress's sale, with everything at 35% off (only a few days left!), and Sephora's upcoming sale with all items at 20% off (happening on Oct 19 I believe). Both such good deals! And just in time because I tried Lauress's foundation this week and loved it, and I've been lemming for Benefit Coralista for what seems like the longest time. And not to mention the mmu companies coming out with all these great Halloween collections...

But ah, my beauty budget is terribly low right now, what with my daughter's very first birthday party coming up. At first I proposed that we three just celebrate by going out of town, to somewhere we've never been before, but I realized...it's not just we three, it's we and our family and our friends. See, my pregnancy was unplanned, and we were not prepared for it. But we got so, so much help along the way. And we are thankful, and will be celebrating with all the wonderful people who have helped us.

So I resolve to stick to my no-buy! My goal is until December. Good thing I got my packages today...I'll have things to play with. And when I watch the news...did you know that another typhoon hit our country and that the northern provinces were badly hit? More casualties, and more people now without homes and going hungry. I still feel like I'm going to cry everytime I watch the news.

It's about realizations and priorities, I guess. I'm keeping myself busy in the meantime- I was in the process of renewing my driver's license and I was already done with my drug test and all, when suddenly, they tell me that I have a record for a traffic violation that happened in 2007 and I have to get clearance for it all the way in MMDA Guadalupe, which is hours away from our home! So I commute all the way to there today only to find out that it was actually some other person's (a complete stranger) violation which somehow showed up on my record. Jeez. BUT I was told to still come back tomorrow and pay a fine (a small fine, but still). My husband said that was totally unreasonable, that they wasted my time, and I should've thrown a fit, but honestly, I was too weary to argue with the MMDA people. Oops, I'm getting off track and ranting now, but fellow Pinoys, you probably know what I'm talking about. Totally third world :)

So how 'bout you, how long did your longest no-buy last? Inspire me with your answers, please? :)

On hiatus until laptop gets fixed

Hi everyone! Thank you to those who still visit my blog, although there aren't much new (beauty-related) posts. Appreciate it!

Our laptop contracted a stupid virus which corrupted my downloaded episodes of Glee and Fringe, stopped Mozilla from running, and caused the system to become reeeeally slow. I still have my mom's laptop (which I'm using right now) but it has a slow system also and a terrible keyboard, so it's an effort to use it. I can still check email or surf once or twice a day, but blogging will be difficult with a system this annoyingly slow.

I'll still be reading your blogs though, as this is one of my stress-relievers, but please excuse me if I don't leave a comment- as I mentioned, it's hard to type on here. In the meantime, I find that without the laptop, I'm getting a lot more things done! We're looking forward to my daughter's fast-approaching first birthday party, and my hubby has asked me to start putting things together.

I've also been on a succesful no-makeup buy since typhoon Ketsana/Ondoy hit the Philippines, and have realized that giving to others makes me happier as compared to the 'high' of obtaining a beauty item that I've been lusting after. Going after my lemmings entertains me for a while but doesn't really satisfy me. But I find that giving to those in need provides me with a sense of fulfillment and truly makes me happy :)