SPREADIN’ SOME JELLY BEAN LOVIN’

One of the things that I like about blogging is the fact that you get to meet new friends online. Friends who keep you updated with the topics that you like, who give honest reviews, who takes absolutely amazing and drool-worthy photos, and who just want to inspire. And one of those online friends that I’ve met is now celebrating her blog’s 2nd year anniversary! YAY! Cheers to Donah of Sweet Jelly Bean!

And to celebrate her Blog’s Anniversary, she’s hosting an international giveaway to spread her love and thanks to all her followers ^_^

Here is the list of prizes she’s giving away:

Lipsticks: Maybelline The Buffs in Espresso Exposed, Almay Liquid Lip Balm in Pink Pout,  Pop in Fuchsia Freesia

Blush: Revlon Cream Blush in Berry Flirtatious

Palettes: NYX Love in Rio, Be A Bombshell Bora Bora, WetnWild ColorIcon in Floral Values, WetnWild No Neutral Ground Palette

For Your Eyes: Revlon Lash Potion in Blackest, Jane Iredale Faux Lashes, J.Cat Eyelashes EL213

From Her Sponsors: Save The Blow Dry – Limited Edition Turquoise Shower Cap, Box of Happies 1 x Surprise Me Bag, Kari Gran Lip Whip in Peppermint Tinted, Limited Edition ‘Sweet’ Spring Hair Ties from Emma Flhair 

 

For those of you who want to join, head on over to her blog and make sure to greet her a warm Blog Birthday! ^_^

Sweet February Giveaway Winner

I’m going to start March by announcing the winner of my Sweet February Giveaway! Yay! I’m so happy with the turnout because I wasn’t really expecting that much people to join. But I’m a bit disappointed with some of the entries because there are really people who make a career out of joining giveaways! I have nothing against them but I want authentic followers and subcribers to my blog. People who would really take time to read what I write and comment and maybe share some of their own views. Anyway, after doing some filtering yesterday and going through each entry…(yes, I am that O.C. :p), the winner of my Sweet February Giveaway is….

 

 

Congratulations, girl! ^_^ I will be sending your goodies soon. I hope you will like them!

And to all who joined my giveaway, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart! Please do visit my blog for more makeup tutorials, reviews, features and of course, giveaways. 🙂

Sweet and Romantic Makeup Look

Valentines is just around the corner and a lot of people seem to be preparing a lot for it. My husband and I don’t really celebrate it because we believe that having a romantic date can be done anytime of the year and we don’t want to add to the traffic and the crowd in the metro during V-day. Imagine yourself all dressed up and made up and you’re stuck in traffic! Next thing you know, romantic turns into traffic rage :p

But of course since I like to play with makeup, I decided to create a sweet and romantic look that can be worn for a date or an intimate party.

First, you need to prep your face. Make sure that your face is cleansed and moisturized before putting on any makeup product. Since you’ll be going out, you want to make sure that your makeup will stay on for long so make sure to put on a face primer before you put on foundation. You can read about my current foundation routine here.

After your foundation routine, groom your eyebrows. This will help frame your eyes better and will give your face that clean and polished look. Then, moving on to the eyes, start off by dabbing primer on your eyelids. This will help the eyeshadow stick better and prevent creasing. What I currently use is Urban Decay’s Primer Potion. Then, get a white cream eyeshadow, like Nyx Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk, and apply it on your lids. This will help intensify the eyeshadow colors that we will be using.

For the eyes, I will be using IN2IT’s Eye Color Palette in Sorbet Deluxe. Start off by dabbing the medium beige eyeshadow color on your lid up until your crease line using a medium eyeshadow brush.

Then using a clean bullet brush, apply the purplish shade on the outer-v of your lids. Blend the eyeshadow well and make sure that there are no harsh edges.

Intensify your eye makeup with a dark brown color. Apply this on the outer corner of your eye and on the outer side of your crease line. Make sure to blend!

Add a little highlight to your eyes by dabbing the pink champagne shade on the center of your lids and on your brow bone.

Then, define your eyes by lining it with a dark brown gel liner. Create a small wing on the side to make the look a bit more sophisticated but not overly done.

Curl your lashes then apply mascara. You can also put on false eyelashes if you want.

For the lips, apply a lip liner first that is closest to your natural lip shade. Then swipe on a pink matte lipstick. What I used here is NYX’s Matte Lipstick in Angel.

Sweep some blush on your cheeks and you’re all done.

That’s it, ladies! Hope all of you will have the sweetest celebration of love this month!

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And just because February is the sweetest month of the year, I’m giving away some of the products that I used in this tutorial plus some other goodies 🙂 Yay! Check out my Sweet February Giveaway here.

[CLOSED] Sweet February GIVEAWAY!

Yup. You read it right! I am so happy to announce that I will be hosting a giveaway for this month of February! Yay!

A few days back, I went to the mall to check out some makeup products. Then I suddenly had this wild thought of buying two of each item that I picked up so I can give it away to you guys 🙂 These are some items that I wanted to try out and will be featured in a tutorial post very soon (watch out for it! ^_^). Anyway, here are the items that I will be raffling off:

1 IN2IT Eye Colour Palette in Sorbet Deluxe
1 IN2IT Waterproof Gel Liner in Dark Brown
1 NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk
1 NYX Matte Lipstick in Angel
1 Cute Pink Makeup Pouch
1 Belle Et Chic Pearl Cuff Bracelet
1 Belle Et Chic Charm Necklace

Mechanics:

1. Click the Rafflecopter Link below and follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter Widget to gain entries:

Click this –> a Rafflecopter giveaway

2. This giveaway will run from February 1 to February 28, 2014

3. There will be only 1 (one) winner who will get all of the items mentioned above. He/She will be informed through email 48 hours after the contest. He/She will need to reply within 24 hours upon notification or else I will have to choose another winner. I will ship the prizes to the winner free of charge.

4. This giveaway is open to Philippine residents only.

Note: This Giveaway is not sponsored by Facebook, WordPress, NYX and In2It. All prizes except for the accessories were bought by myself. I would like to thank Belle Et Chic for sponsoring some of the items 🙂

My Current Foundation Routine

Finding the right shade of foundation can be quite tricky especially for morena-toned ladies like me. There are a lot of factors to consider like your skin type, the look that you’re going for, the weather, etc. For this post, I’d like to share with you guys my current foundation routine that I think can adapt to changes, like for example your skin tone. Read on to find out how.

I think the most important thing that one should do before putting on foundation is to make sure that your skin is cleansed, moisturized and hydrated. So before you go crazy with the foundation, make sure to wash your face, put on your eye cream, moisturizer and skin primer. I think this is very important most especially now that the cold weather can cause dry and flaky skin.

BYS Matte Foundation in Natural Beige and Medium Beige

After prepping your skin, we’re now ready to put on the foundation. Currently, I am using BYS Matte Foundation in Natural Beige and Medium Beige. If you have oily skin like me, matte foundations work wonders. Now, you might be asking, why two shades? Well, just like what I said earlier, our skin tones change depending on the season. During the colder seasons, we tend to have lighter skin tones while during the summer days, we tend to have darker skin tones. So, to save a little, I decided to buy two shades of foundation, one lighter and one darker, so I can mix them depending on the current skin tone that I have. Right now, I mix two pumps of the Natural Beige and one pump of Medium Beige or my foundation.

2 Pumps of Natural Beige + 1 Pump of Medium Beige

I use a makeup sponge or a stippling brush to dab the foundation on my face then afterwards, I use my fingers to blend it. I find this an effective way to “warm up” the foundation on my face so that it blends easily and won’t clump or cake.  After putting on the foundation, I set it by patting on G-lish Powder Me Perfect Loose Powder in Porcelain Princess. I really like this powder because it blends well with the foundation and it gives my face that clean and matte finish plus a velvety feel. Remember to just pat the powder on your face. Never drag it because the powder sponge can move the foundation under and cause it to clump. Then use a powder brush to even out everything.

G-lish Powder Me Perfect Loose Powder in Porcelain Princess

Then, that’s it! Apply your contour (if you like), blush, eye makeup and lipstick/gloss and you’re all done.

Day Makeup 🙂

2013 Holiday Gifts

2013 has been quite a challenging year for me but despite all the setbacks that I have experienced, I can say that it has been a year of blessings too 🙂

Before I proceed with sharing with you some of the lovely holiday gifts that I got, I just want to announce to my lovely readers that I am now 5 months pregnant (yay!!!). This is my first and it’s also one of the reasons why I have been on hiatus for a while in updating my blog because I was quite busy with focusing on my pregnancy and making sure that everything is going well. I am so excited to share with you this journey of mine because I know that my experience could also help some women out there. Anyway, that’s just some preview of my upcoming posts ^_^

So, the holidays are finally over! All the gifts have been sent out and I also got some ^_^

1. Bench Sweet Serendipity Moisturizing Body Lotion

I got this gift from my cousin Aaron and Grace. I have tried this already and I use it to moisturize my growing preggy belly after I take a shower. It’s not so greasy and I like the faint scent which is not too overpowering.

2. Wanderlush Secret Garden Body Lotion Collection

Our lovely voice over talent in the office gave this gift to me. It comes in three scents – peach blossom, orchid burst, and sunflower passion. I haven’t opened the box yet but I’m excited to try them out too. I’ve been quite obsessed with body lotions recently because I want to avoid the stretch marks caused by pregnancy :p

3. Sunnies by Charlie Shades

This super duper cute pink rimmed shades was given to me by my cousin Zai. It comes with a cute coral pink pouch so you can store it in your bag after wearing them.

4. Stila Lip Rouge Liquid Lip Stain

I got this from my office-mate, Steph, who is also very much into makeup. This is the first time that I’m going to try this product and I must say that I really like it. Maybe I’ll wear it when I get too lazy to get dolled up with a regular lipstick. It stays on your lips for quite some time so retouching isn’t so much a hassle.

5.  Etude House Eyebrow Pencil

This is a small gift for myself. I bought this in a bazaar and I’m not even sure if it’s authentic (sorry hehehe). But I just wanted to try out an eyebrow pencil because I haven’t used one before. I usually go for brow powders and brow mascaras.

6. Rosanna Lip Gloss

I got this cute gift from my officemate, Van. I really like the packaging of this lipgloss because it has a decal of the Eiffel Tower :p It’s so cute! It has this coco-vanilla scent to it and it’s perfect to wear for weekends at the mall.

7. Benefit Ultra Shines in Life on the A List Shade

This gift was given to me by my boss. I think I’ll be using this particular lip shine when I want to rock smokey eyes or a sweet romantic look. It has a very pale pink shade which I think I should wear after putting on a lip liner.

8. Etude House Play Nail Polish in Bright Red

This was given to me by my cousin Zai. I’ve tried it already and it’s such a fun color to rock even if I’m quite dark skinned. It doesn’t make my fingers look grayish unlike some other shades of red.

 

I really love all these beauty items that were given to me for the holidays and I’m really excited to use them. Thank you to all those lovely people who gave these to me ^_^

What beauty goodies did you get for the holidays? Share in the comments below ^_^

Michelle Phan is Launching Her New Makeup Line This August 15th

Taking Pro Makeup Classes by The Makeup Artistry

A few years ago, I caught myself searching for makeup tutorials on the internet. Ever since then, I have always been fascinated by its art and by its practicality. It has this therapeutic effect on me that I get relaxed when I apply makeup, watch tutorials online, and shop for it. I have also encountered people who have given me compliments about my makeup and they even ask me for tips and some how-to’s. And then it hit me. Maybe I can make a career out of this.

So after that realization, I would always volunteer to do the makeup of my mom, my sister, my aunts and my cousins when certain special occasions arise. But it wasn’t really as easy as doing makeup on myself. I learned along the way that it’s very difficult to actually put makeup on another person. So, I thought, if I really want to make a career out of makeup artistry, I really have to take a professional class.

But darn! Professional Makeup Classes are really expensive! Workshop fees depend on so many things like if the makeup and the tools are included, if a model is provided for  and if a professional photographer would be there to take pictures of your work for building your portfolio. I thought to myself that being a makeup artist is really an investment. But good thing I came across a group deal online (yay!). I got a 20-hour Professional Makeup Course by The Makeup Artistry at 75% off! Of course, I did some research about the school and finally clicked “buy”. The reviews were actually good and I thought that maybe this could be a good start for professional makeup training.

The classes where held at the Studio SNR in Ortigas. Ms. V and Mr. John were the instructors and the class setup was really nice although I think the class size was too big. But that was okay since it made the class a bit more fun ^_^. The Workshop fee that I paid for included handouts, some snacks, and some freebies like an 88-Neutral Shades Eyeshadow palette which I think is so nice! Although the fee doesn’t include a model and a professional photographer, the deal was actually way more than good enough.

Anyway, here are the photos of my work:

A Fresh Everyday Makeup Look
Model: Tintin Arcenal

A much more dramatic makeup look for night time
Model: Tintin Arcenal

Barely there makeup look for men (especially for a wedding)
Model: Aaron Munsod

Natural Glow Makeup Look for Brides/Weddings
Model: Liza Munsod

Just Black.
Model: Adele

A Play on Color
Model: Adele

Three Shades of High Fashion
Model: LA Madayag

Experimental. Colorful. Artistic. Fun.
Model: LA Madayag

I think I really need to practice more and maybe look for a professional photographer to take photos of my work. But overall, I’m quite happy with how everything turned out ^_^

What do guys think? Any tips for a budding makeup artist like me? Share in the comments section below.

Gen-zel’s Blog Giveaway

Rainy Madness Giveaway by Gen-zel

Gen-zel’s Blog Giveaway

Hello there ladies!

Just wanted to share with you a giveaway contest that I thought you might want to join ^_^ Gen-zel will be giving away four sets of beauty goodies so head on over to her blog if you want to join 😉

 

Note: Open to Philippine residents only.

Dove Camera Shy

Dove does it again ^_^

Watch it then ask yourself after, “When did you stop thinking you’re beautiful?”

Stay confident and believe that you are beautiful, girl! Because God made you so! 🙂 Have a beautiful day!