On finding yourself and your inner beauty

I have to admit something: I am very insecure about how I look.

Funny how that sounds like because this blog is about skin care, makeup and things that make one's self pretty.  Well, it does make sense that I am writing this confession to you. Some of you know me personally. Some of you just met me recently. Some of you met me when I was a teenager.

Thanks to M who boosted up my energy this morning when she complimented my latest profile picture on Yahoo Messenger.  She told me that I looked great and that it was good that I am learning to work with what I have.  It's really hard to believe in one's self when you wake up one day feeling like the ugliest person in the universe. (Melodramatic, but it does happen, doesn't it?)  Feeling unattractive is something people of all shapes and sizes experience.  It could be because of what other people tell us or it could be because of something else.  In my case, I have been labeled as the fat girl when I was younger and it doesn't help that I am still big and growing bigger each day.

That's when fighting for yourself needs to happen.  You need to sort out the bad from the good.  J and I have been texting each other last night and she really did give me a sense of comfort.  Despite the fact that she's younger than I am, when it comes to these things, I look up to her because she has that confident air about her. I think that's one of the reasons I miss interacting with her more frequently: her energy is infectious! Just her hello is enough to send good vibes in this universe.  Because of that positive energy that she exudes, she is such a pleasure to be with. The simplest conversations could turn out to be the most inspiring ones.

But I digress.  One needs to find himself/herself and learn more about the things that make himself/herself unique. What is special about you?  Are you paying attention to yourself? Sometimes we're too busy meeting deadlines, dealing with our clients, working ourselves to make sure we earn our keep.  We forget that we need to take care of ourselves in every possible way.  Are we still growing in terms of our character? Or are we stagnating?

I generally believe that when you are beautiful inside, you get to reflect that outside.  When we learn more about ourselves, when we allow ourselves to dream and pursue those dreams and achieve them, we gain confidence because of the little victories and the big victories we come across. Confidence does play a big part in giving out a beautiful aura which translates to something generally appealing to people.  You might not look like Ms. Universe, but you could still be the most charming person around if you let yourself shine.

The bad thoughts enter my head often these days. Maybe that's part of the reason why I haven't been blogging as much. But if I want to improve myself inside and out, I need to wrestle with those thoughts and win over them. And some of them, I need to embrace. Why? Because I think that some of those bad thoughts are partly correct: they might be about my weaknesses and so I have to embrace those weaknesses so I could deal with them accordingly.  If I want my inner beauty to shine through this madness I am experiencing right now, I need to face them one by one and just bring them out into the open. Well, not as openly as posting about all of them here. At least find someone I trust to talk to about them and not let the thoughts fester.  I need healing first.  Then I hope to gain the confidence that will help me become the better version of myself.

And if you're struggling like me, I encourage you to sort things out and find help from people you trust a lot.  It will be better for you to find someone to lighten the burden. He/she could remind you of the good things in your life and show you what lessons you could gain from your experiences.  You don't have to feel alone.  I hope that once you've started dealing with these things, you'd become a more confident person and a beautiful one too.

A Lovely Surprise - From Nanny Rose

Got home really late tonight but all is good. I just got a really lovely package today, courtesy of Amanda from Nanny Rose's :) I have made a quick review of their waxing kit on my old blog and I think it would be great to have a more detailed review one of these days. Especially now that I think I have more reasons to do so! They apparently have more products now. Want to see what they are? Read on! Left to right: Four Slices of Raspberry Cheesecake lip balm, Lemonest Lemony lip balm + sunscreen, The Waxer's Starter Kit (Sticks & Pulls, and Mild Like Chamomile after wax salve), Sweet as Pea hand + elbow salve, The Common Mint Peppermint foot salve. The salves came just in time! I am glad that I will have a chance to try them out. My feet feel so tired from walking and my elbows aren't so smooth - they're elbows, I know, but at least they don't have to be so rough. Such cute colors on the salves' packaging :-) I am biased towards these colors hahaha. I've got new lip balms to try as well. I am addicted to lip products, I swear. I will definitely give these a test run in the coming days. Starting tomorrow lol. One of them has spf protection, so that's something to possibly try for summer. ;-) And last but not the least : The Waxer's Starter Kit! When I first bought their waxing kit, it was just Sticks & Pulls. I didn't see an after wax salve. This is going to be interesting to try, that’s for sure. Been busy lately and I ended up converting most of my pants to skirts so I have been shaving more often than before. *gasp* But I swear : it's just a quick remedy for my leg hair. Ugh. I will definitely try to not shave and wax instead. It looks much neater too. That's all for now. This is a preview of things to come on my blog. Have you posted your latest beauty haul? Feel free to comment to share the link here. :-)

What's Your Daily Skin Care Routine? Here is Mine

I suppose everyone of us has a skin care routine that we follow everyday.  I've become conscious of how harassed and haggard I looked some time last year and I think that the daily commute and all the grime in Manila were factors.  My friend Renee got me started with Etude House's Mini Size U kit but I have run out of that so I am now on a different routine.  Erika Jjang posted her routine and here's mine.  This is my updated routine.

Morning Routine (pre-makeup stuff that I do):

1. Wash off the sleeping pack from the night before with plain water.
2. Wash my face with oatmeal soap.
3. Tone with Etude House Wonder Pore Freshener.
4. Apply eye cream around my eyes.
5. Apply Benefit Triple Performing Facial Emulsion to moisturize my face. (My review of this product is here.)
6. Apply Clinique Derma White sunblock. I only got mine in a trial size thanks to the wonderful Kikay Trekkie/Marge Tan.  (You could also read about this via Liz of Project Vanity. She has a review of this product on her blog.)
7. Apply Human Heart Nature lip balm in Watermelon on my lips to prevent them from drying.

Sometimes I change things up a bit by using Human Nature 100% Natural Purifying Scrub or Human Nature   Super-Fruits & Black Rice Facial Scrub after washing my face. But I don't always do this. At most, it will be done twice a week or maybe thrice.

As for the emulsion and sunblock -- both products are just great on me! I don't get very oily with them.  I only use a pea-sized amount of the emulsion.  One of my friends says that it's still a bit heavy on the skin for her but I think it's less sticky compared to other moisturizers out there.  And it's been more than a month of continuous use and no breakouts for me. (Yay!) And the sunblock -- I wish I could really afford to buy an entire tube of this!  But in case I really think it's too pricey, there's always Biore's sun cream to try one day.

Evening Routine:

1. Remove makeup with Human Nature Sunflower Cleansing Oil. (Used to be done with Human Nature Sunflower Beauty Oil.)
2. Cleanse my face with oatmeal soap.
3. * Massage Nature Republic Homemade Recipe Pack in Kelp.  Wash it off with lukewarm water after 15 minutes.
4. ** Apply Skin Food Peppermint Pore Diet mask on my face. Peel it off after 15 minutes.
5. Tone my face with Etude House Wonder Pore Freshener. (Such a wonderful product! Will review this later on.)
6. *** Massage my face with Tony Moly Clean Dew Lemon Seed Massage Cream and wipe off the cream afterwards.  Why bother massaging your face? Watch what Bubz has to say about skin care routines.
7. Apply eye cream around my eyes.
8. Apply The Face Shop's Lovelyme:Ex Lip Care Cream in Vitamin.  Got the tip from Geek Girl Manila. Same principle, different product line.
9. Apply Nature Republic Lavender Sleeping Pack.

That's a whole lot of stuff, right? Well, #s 3, 4 and 5 are not done everyday.  #3 and #4 are done twice a week, one after the other. Or if I am lazy, I do #3 one night and #4 the following night. #6 is done once a week, preferably when I am not doing #3 and #4.  But sometimes when I do #6, I don't use the sleeping pack anymore because I find the massage cream quite moisturizing as it is.

All these products are available locally.  It's just that I lost the packaging of my oatmeal soap. ~_~ I will ask my friend about that because she gave it to me.  My skin care routine basically consists of stuff that help me deal with my oily face, large pores and dry lips.   If you're wondering why I use two different lip care products at night and during the day, it's because The Face Shop's Lip Cream is a little sticky but sometimes even if I forget to use lip balm during the day, my lips don't crack. That's something that I really like.

If you will notice, I didn't write anything about using pore strips for my nose anymore. It's because the Kelp Pack does help if you use it regularly. ^_^ A review will also come later. I am just so glad I bought this product when Nature Republic opened their SM Fairview boutique last year.

Out of all the products in this post, only the following were not bought with my own money:

1. oatmeal soap (this was a Christmas present from my friend)
2. Benefit Triple Performing Facial Emulsion (courtesy of Aubrey of Benefit Cosmetics Philippines)
3. eye cream (something I am currently testing for one of my favorite brands)

Nature Republic, Etude House,  Skin Food, Tony Moly and The Face Shop are all Korean brands and you could find all of them in SM North.  Benefit is an American brand and they currently have one boutique in Greenbelt 5, but I think they're going to open shops/counters in other malls soon enough.  Human Nature is a local brand which you could buy online, in Beauty Bar or Rustan's supermarkets.

Some of these brands have Facebook pages or accounts, so feel free to add them so you could learn more about their products.

• Etude House
• Tony Moly
• Nature Republic
• The Face Shop
• Human Nature
• Benefit Cosmetics

If you've got questions about these products I mentioned, feel free to comment.  You may also ask other fans of these brands on Facebook.  At least you will get different opinions and others could also share their personal testimonies about these products.  After all, what works for me, might not work for you.

What's your skin care routine? ^_^ I'd love to hear your tips too.

Starting Over

I have started blogging last year because I wanted to keep track of the things I am learning in the process of improving myself. It was quite interesting to meet new people because of skin care and makeup.  Along the way, I've met people who are willing to listen and help me when I ask questions.  I guess some of my questions are really just so basic.  But being the very late bloomer that I am, I don't know about them at all.

So along the way I've been meeting encouragement from different people: friends, colleagues, bloggers. Some of them I know personally, some of them I just met. A lot of them are quite decent people and I really think that under different circumstances, I'd still enjoy talking to them, etc.

However, there are times when I feel discouraged about writing down what I think. And in the last week or so, certain things triggered something in me that I wanted to disappear and just stop blogging. And up to a certain point, I thought about stopping the process that I've begun.  But I also realized that no matter how discouraged I am, I cannot stop learning how to be better and that includes learning to take care of my skin, wearing makeup and dressing up.

Here I am with a new blog. I can't help but try to be a little more private about what I look like just to avoid certain criticisms. My ego (admittedly) cannot handle such a thing right now.  But I am hoping that somehow, I'd figure out how to properly deal with it.  So thanks to everyone else who encouraged me to keep blogging, here it is. And please feel free to comment or share your thoughts.  Here's a new year, and hopefully a new me :))