Monday, September 30, 2013

NOTD : Birthday Flowers on Red

Hey dearies!

Last Saturday was my birthday celebration at My Pretty Nails Salon. You can check out what happened during my special celebration here.

And in my party, my guests and I had manicures and pedicures with premium polishes or nail art! Of course I got the me some nail art!!! Rawr!

Here's the design I picked:
Pretty, huh??????
I soooooo love it! It reminds me of Japanese art for some reason. What do you think?

Below are the nail polishes used for this design:

The design was manually done! Super thanks to Marge who did my nails. :D

For the base, we used this very beautiful base color—China Glaze in High Maintenance! 

and then painted the design on top. It's actually easy to do. Just a fine brush and a dotter and you can do it! :D

And tadaaaaa... 
Super nice, don't you think so too?!

I super love it and my friends in the party liked it too!

I think it suits my personality a lot and the color is just the exact shade as my favorite lipstick—MAC Ruby Woo!

What do you think of the design?
Would you do something like this, if you will, do share them with me! :D


Cheers,
DAWN

Sunday, September 29, 2013

My Kikay Birthday Party at My Pretty Nails Salon

Hello guys!

Yesterday was a big day for me!
I celebrated my 24th birthday! This party was a little bit more special since I took care of everything from planning it to paying the expenses. Yes! I paid with my own hard-earned money! :D


The party took place at My Pretty Nails Salon. I actually blogged about this place and their services a few months back.


I'm so glad that they let people reserve the place for parties. This was the first place I thought of to have my party in. The place is cute and intimate and the people were very friendly. I had fun when I was here the first time and I wanted my friends to try it out too. 

Just look at the adorable chairs...

and the gorgeous chandelier!

They even handled the balloon decorations, plates & utensils, and the drinks!
Thank you so much, Rachelle, for agreeing to do this with me and for being so accommodating to all our requests.

Here's me with Rachelle.

Here's the table with our humble food (yes, I didn't plan much for the food... boo me).


Everything I served were sweets that are very easy to eat because I knew that we will have our nails done and can't eat food that tend to get messy.

Cookies, candies, cheesecakes and cupcakes!

There are chocolates too!! Wow, all letter C's! Haha!

And so, the pampering begins!

I got a manicure and pedicure with premium polish + nail art for everyone.
They gave a complimentary foot spa for the birthday celebrant—Yayyy me!

This felt reaaaallly good.

And I also got a very, very, VERY pretty nail art done too! Will post about it tomorrow!

The place was filled with my friends from college and blogging!


It started off very pleasant and quiet...

It got livelier when more people arrived. Look at Sandara, I mean Tellie, doing her Korean poses! :P

Everyone was able to get the service,

and others chitchat while they wait.

After my nail pampering experience was done, I distributed the souvenirs with a game. I randomly picked a name from a bowl filled with the guests' name and asked a question about me. 


We had some laughs during the games. There were even rewards given to the early bird and to the first person to greet me on my birthday too.

Anyway, here's what was inside the souvenir bag...

Some pencils because I just LOVE to draw. I also included a calling card of a design service that me and some friends are doing. :P

Cocktail rings that I handpicked

and 2 soaps for each bag sponsored by HBC
Thank you so much, HBC, for doing this! This really means a lot!! :D

The day really was fun and I loved every minute of it. Not only because I celebrated it with dear friends, my school also won the game!! Haha! Go USTe!!! :D

Super thanks to these people for coming...

Super glad to spend this special day with all of you. Hope you all enjoyed the kikay nail experience!

Super thanks for all these gifts tooooo!!! I was so happy opening each and every one of them!! So kilig the whole night!! :D

I felt so overwhelmed with all the blessings and love I received during my whole birthday week. I'd like to thank the people who made all these possible. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

I guess, that's all for now. :)


Cheers,
DAWN

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Early Christmas Shopping Treat from The Body Shop!

Hey guys!

Great news from The Body Shop!

Enjoy up to 70% off on The Body Shop products on their pre-holiday sale! 


Few more weeks left until Christmas! Save yourself from holiday stress and avoid the hassle of last minute shopping. Get ready as The Body Shop will be having its PRE-HOLIDAY SALE starting September 27 in all its branches nationwide.

The Body Shop is offering a wide variety of sale items like bath and body, skin care, make-up brushes, shower gels, home fragrances, hair & accessories and a lot more. Get great discounts of up to 70% off.

So what are you waiting for? Tick off that Christmas list and rush to the nearest The Body Shop store now!

Friday, September 27, 2013

Review : Etude House Precious Mineral Any Cushion

Hi loves!

Happy weekend!!!

Finally! I've been waiting for this weekend to come since last month! Will share with you why on Sunday! But for now, I'll leave you with a review of a product that I received last month from Etude House...

Etude House Precious Mineral Any Cushion
It's Php 998.00 each.


Some product info from the press release I received:
  • The revolutionary cushion foundation created by ETUDE HOUSE, the heroin of BB cream
  • 6-in-1 multi-functions, Quick make-up finish, Easy make-up fix,  Always flawless look
Global Make-up brand ETUDE HOUSE PHILIPPINES presents new concept of foundation “Precious Mineral Any Cushion”.

"‘Precious Mineral Any Cushion’" is a revolutionary cushion-type foundation. The unique cushion inside the portable compact holds the liquid foundation fresh and smooth, which delivers quick and easy face make-up-finish, perfect make-up-fix any time anywhere for a bright and flawless look. Indeed, the 6-in-1 multi-function covers from sunscreen to sebum control (Sunscreen+ Sebum powder + Moisture essence + Whitening essence + Foundation + Cooling). 


ETUDE always has been perused “Make-Up Play”, believing make-up should be something fun and easy to carry on in everyday life. Precious Mineral Any Cushion was born in the background of this philosophy and was completed with its excellence in base makeup as a leader of BB cream and renowned cushion- technology of Amore Pacific who firstly pioneered the cushion foundation in Korea. Cushion type foundation was firstly shown in the Korean market in 2008 by Amore Pacific and now stands in the core trend of face-make-up. Precious Mineral Any Cushion reaches further to perfect coverage and even sebum control expression while delivering generic wonders of cushion foundation. 

ETUDE Global PR Manager mentioned “The concept of ANY CUSHION can be summarized into Triple A ; All in One Muti-function, All fitting Coverage & Always to keep a flawless look. It’s very easy to finish your base make-up just by quick patting like stamping on. Under “Make-up Play Culture” to the world, ETUDE developed this new product to meet the needs of Asian girls. Precious Mineral Any Cushion will be launched in major global countries including Philippines in advance and will spread out onward including Korea.”

Directions, precautions and ingredients list are labeled on the box.

It's 15g and has a shelf life of 12 months.

This is available in 2 shades only. 

I actually received 2 of it. I gave the darker shade, Honey Beige, to Liz while the lighter one, Natural Beige, is mine.

Here's the compact:

Loving it so much because it's pretty in pink! It can be a bit bulky for a compact, but hey, I'd rather bring this than bring a bottle of foundation or a big tube of BB Cream. :P

At the bottom of the compact are some product info which are in Korean so... yeah. :P

When you open the compact, there's a mirror and has this very soft sponge applicator:

Like seriously soft!

It holds a decent amount of product and it slides to skin easily and it just feels good because of the softness!

The compact has another lid. When you open it, you'll see this:

The foam that holds the foundation!

The foam is quite soft and when you press it, you'll see how soaked it is with the product.
The consistency of the product is thin... almost watery. It feels so light on skin. It smells soooo good just like most Etude House products!

Here's the swatches of both shades:
Honey Beige and Natural Beige respectively.

Honey beige is darker and has a cooler tone while Natural Beige is lighter and has yellow undertones.

I think I made a mistake giving Liz the Honey Beige... If you see my before and after pictures below, I'm obviously a Honey Beige.

Natural Beige is way too light for me. Honey Beige would probably suit my skin better. I believe Honey Beige is too light on Liz too. I guess this can be considered a problem for this particular product since it only carries 2 shades.

But anyway, the finish is semi-matte. It dries pretty quickly so make sure you apply it fast. The coverage is medium but buildable. Make sure you get your face moisturized though. As you can see on my cheek on the photo above, it exposes the dry areas on my pimple scars.

So to remedy the "too light" problem, I topped it off with a loose powder of my shade. I applied only a thin layer so my skin still has a natural finish.
With a nice contour powder and blush, my face looked all better now.
I didn't use concealer here so you can still see the really dark spots. I'm liking how buildable the coverage is and even if I applied more layers, I experienced minimal caking.

Oil control is just okay. My face got all-oily and shiny in 3-4 hours.

Here's a pic of my face after 10 hours after work:
I only blot my face with an oil film. No retouch at all!

My face is oily but still looking good in my opinion, don't you think so too?
It has sunscreen and high SPF too! Perfect for everyday! It says it has cooling qualities but I can't feel it for some reason... but oh well. :P

So to summarize:

What I LIKE:

- Coverage is medium and buildable
- Smells GOOOOOOD
- Locally Available
- Minimal Caking
- Packaging is pretty
- Comes with a mirror and a soft applicator
- Consistency makes it easy to spread
- Sets quickly once applied
- Semi-matte finish
- Has SPF50 and PA+++
- Feels light on skin

Neutral about:

- The price (Php 998.00)
- Oil control is so-so

What I DON'T LIKE:

- Available in only 2 shades
- Makes dry areas of your face too obvious so I advise you to have well moisturized skin before using this!

Would I buy again?
I most probably will. This is, without question, my favorite among Etude House's foundations and BB Creams.

What are your thoughts on Etude House Precious Mineral Any Cushion?
Have you tried it yet? If not, are you willing to try it?

And oh, in a not really related note, do you watch UAAP Basketball? Which team are you rooting for? Haha! Excited for tomorrow's game which I might not be able to watch since I'll be in an event. :( Oh well again.


Cheers,
DAWN