Beauty Confidential: BDJ x Project Vanity Beauty Bootcamp Experience

Hi loves!

Last Sunday, I attended my first beauty event of the year and I had a blast!

I was invited by Liz of the Project Vanity Team as a media guest (like a #BeautyCorrespondent) to experience a day full of beauty workshops and awesome games and deals from partner brands at the Beauty Confidential Beauty Bootcamp. This event was hosted by Belle de Jour and they partnered with one of the leading beauty blogs in the country, Project Vanity, to help us "bring out the most beautiful" in us by gathering experts and enthusiasts to share beauty, skincare, and self-care tips and secrets. 

There were six master workshops that day brought to us by six partner brands. The workshops are as follows:

1PM – 1:45PM : Fabulously Fierce

by Carefree

2PM – 2:45PM: Derma Secrets - Keys to a Great Skin

by Bioderma

3PM – 3:45PM: Picture-Perfect Beauty with Mineral MakeUp

by Ellana Mineral Cosmetics

4PM – 4:45PM: Self-Care Skin Regimen – From AM to PM

by In Her Element

5PM – 5:45PM: How to Look Like You Got 8 Hours of Sleep
by Max Factor

6PM – 6:45PM: How to be a Beauty Oil-bularyo
by Zenutrients

For a fee of PhP 1,250.00, you get to be a VIP which makes you eligible to attend two workshops and take home a lootbag filled with products from brand partners worth PhP 3,000.00! Walk-ins were still welcomed during the day and you can still buy the VIP pass (if you're an early bird). If you just want to get amazing deals from the participating brands, you can enter the event with a fee of PhP 200.00. The Glorietta Activity Center was filled with booths equipped with makeup booths, games where you can win freebies, and goodies you can buy with great discounts! 

Just by getting to the event early (10 am), you can already get a freebie from Ellana Minerals! See? The day already started with something awesome! Throughout the day, they announced winners from the hourly raffle draw. You get a raffle ticket when you buy products amounting to PhP 500.00. As soon as you accumulate that amount, you can drop a raffle and the more items you buy from the participating brands, the more raffle tickets you get to drop for bigger chances of winning. I think I dropped six raffle tickets, but I wasn't that lucky to win a raffle prize. Haha!

There was also a photobooth where you can get your photo taken and printed. If you upload your pic on Instagram, you also have a chance to win some prizes. 

When I got to the venue, I saw familiar faces and greeted them such as some people from the Project Vanity team and fellow bloggers. I hang with Helen of Lucky Citrine blog for a couple of minutes to play this game at the Ever Bilena booth:

You just guess the shade and depending on the number you guessed correctly, you get to take home a product from the brands. I was able to get a lip balm because I got three (or was it four?) answers correctly!

After that first game, I had to go to the workshop area as the first one I wanted to attend was about to start. I chose to attend the talk called "Derma Secrets—Keys to a Great Skin" brought to us by Bioderma.

Dr. Irene Robredo-Vitas gave us a presentation on four ways to keep your skin healthy and beautiful. Here's what I learned:

1. Cleanse!
Keep your face clean, especially before you go to sleep.

2. Moisturize
I know some people who also have oily skin like me who avoids moisturizing their skin because they think they'll become oilier. Just like what Dr. Irene said, there are different moisturizers for different skin types. Even the climate can affect your skin that you can still get dehydrated skin even if you have oily skin! So for my case, I try to look for gel-based moisturizers to keep it light.

3. Protect Your Skin—Use Sunscreen
Make sure to put on sunscreen because the sun is actually one of the main causes of skin damage. Try to look for UVA (aging) and UVB (burning) protection. An SPF30 is sufficient enough as it provides 93% protection. But of course, more SPF would be better!

Don't forget to reapply your sunscreen as it usually melts off after two hours. If you already have makeup on, there are compact powders that have SPF that you can use. There is even oral sunscreen, but it can be a bit expensive so I settle with makeup. Haha!

The question and answer part was highly informative too! I learned that it takes around 28 days for skin to fully renew and it takes around 12 weeks to accurately see if the product works on you.

For people who are acne-prone, we have to figure out what causes our acne problems in order to fix it because if it's just a product we use, then by changing it, we can stop the breakouts. So Dr. Irene stated some reasons on how we get acne like when there's an increase in hormones like during puberty, stress, and lack of sleep. Another one, in terms of blackheads or whiteheads, is usually hereditary or from lifestyle (when you use thick creams like pomade that attracts bacteria).

I also attended the next workshop which was brought to us by my favorite mineral makeup brand, Ellana Mineral Cosmetics.

The brand's founder, Theresa Carbonel-Buenaflor, gave us a tutorial on how to apply mineral makeup to achieve a picture-perfect face. What I like about this look is how easy you can create it using Ellana products. You don't have to use too much products and you don't consume too much time so it's a perfect everyday makeup, especially if you're always on-the-go.

One of the tips I learned and applied on my makeup routine is after I've applied my base, apply color from top to bottom starting from the brows down to the lips. This will help you to not forget any makeup steps and at the same time keep your face balanced in terms of color and contrast.

If you want to watch the makeover, the team behind Ellana posted a Facebook Live video on their page.

After these workshops, I was ready to roam around and find something to try and buy and maybe score some freebies! Wooot! 

My first stop is the Bioderma booth. During the workshop, I was intrigued on one of the products featured, particularly a sunscreen. 

It was the Hydradrabio Perfecteur SPF30 PA+++
Not only does it protect the skin but it also smoothens and moisturizes! It feels so smooth and velvety too and reminds me a lot of primers. It has a pinkish tone too which explains the brightening effect. I bought it at I think 15% discount. I payed around PhP 1,500.00.

Then I got lots of freebies! Got their miscellar water and moisturizers! Wooot! And the ones on the photo aren't all the freebies I received because I gave some to my friends. Haha!

So my next stop was to visit the table at the front where the ladies of the Project Vanity team was at. I chatted with some of them and learned about these super cute Bridal Kit:

The kit contains awesome products and you can take them home at an awesome deal of PhP 875.00.

They also featured these Village 11 Factory Lip and Cheek Tint. It's a K-Beauty brand that just made its way to Philippines shores. I swatched these babies (except for the peach one because they didn't have a tester that time) and they were so smooooth! Check out the swatches below.

The left side are the swatches and the right one is when I blend it. The red one has intense pigmentation! Wow! I am loving the orange one though, but I think the peach would still be a favorite. 

If you want to buy the kit or the lip and cheek tint, you can visit the Project Vanity Store on their website.

I've also wanted to try out In Her Element. I've always been curious about this brand because it's a local brand created by people who are passionate in terms of beauty and skincare. I also love that it's pink and rose scented! 

I had a hard time picking which products to try but I ended up taking home their low pH Rose Gel cleanser and the cream moisturizer.

Since I'm already in my skincare mood, I walked to the Skincare Curator booth to check out the COSRX products. I'm a fan of their BHA A-sol and wanted to see if it was discounted. It was but not by much. I still have more than half of the bottle at home so I resisted buying. I still was able to ask for tips in using their products. They also recommend one of the snail products. I was so close to giving in but I just bought a moisturizer so maybe next time! Haha!

I still ended up buying a Clear Fit Master Patch. The person at the booth said that these patches are thin so they aren't that visible under makeup. Nice, right?

I also bought a Max Factor False Lash Effect, a favorite of mine, at around 40% off and I only got it for PhP 400.00. On the photo above, you also get to see the prize I got from the Ever Bilena game and a bookmark containing the services of Lay Bare.

After my skincare window shopping, I saw this ad:

And it got me thinking, it has been so long! I like using many colors and having many shades means you don't get to use some as often and they just end up expired before you finish the bullet.

This made me like the concept of this new brand called Chihuahua cosmetics. They have these makeup products that are small and travel-friendly. I like that I don't feel bad wasting products and this concept will not make me feel as guilty! Haha!

Tellie of Beauty by Tellie swatched the lippies:

Each lipstick is priced at PhP 150.00! I really like the swatches of Cherry Pop and Penelope.

The foundations and blushes are cased in think compacts that are also great for travel! The four shades of the blushes are beautiful too and would suit a lot of Pinoy skin!

And since I just love the shades and how cute they are (pretty much like the animal the brand was named from), I was convinced to try them out. I bought a lipstick and a blush from them and it turns out, I'm eligible to play their Pachinko game because I reached PhP 400.00! Awesome!

And I was surprised with my luck! I won the grand prize which is a set of their products. 

It included a powder, blush, eyeliner, brow liner, lipstick, makeup bag, and a makeup brush!

I rarely get this lucky so I was so excited to the point that I even screamed at the Glorietta Activity Center! Hahaha! I think most of the people at that area looked at me and Tellie as we screamed and celebrated this win! lol

These were the items I won and I still have the couple of items I bought as well!

Now I made my way to Canmake's booth. They had a promo that if you buy a concealer, you get a free eyeliner. How lucky was I that I was actually looking for a stick concealer to bring with my in my vanity kit and I love eyeliners so this combination was just super! I was able to get this duo between PhP 400-500. I also won a ballpoint pen from their game! Yay!

Finally, I listened to the last workshop of the day. It was about mixing oils—particularly a massage oil. I learned that you should not directly put essential oils on skin as they are very concentrated. Ms. Angela Dinglasan recommended to mix it with carrier oils first. Her suggestion for carrier oil is Virgin coconut oil. 

I really liked that the tables were provided oil mixing kits so that you can actually try to make a massage oil. Unfortunately, I got to the workshop late and I just stood so that I won't interrupt the session. I do want to try the lavender variety though!

After the workshop, the rest of the evening is mostly checking out the booths and deals. After I had my share of discounts, I decided it's time to leave. But the excitement didn't stop there as I was able to bring home a media kit containing all these:

I swear I thought that our kit was the same as the VIP holders, but I was surprised to see the other items.

I love the quirky purse design from The Body Shop! The message is kinda flirty too. I should have brought this with me last Valentine's day! Haha!

These Street Chic Collection from Revlon is just breathtaking to look at! I'll share swatches soon!

Inside the box are more products from the participating brands like Bioderma, Pink Sugar, Colourette, Nuxe, Chihuahua, and Cure.

And yes, I got more Chihuahua cosmetics so the brand that I just learned about that day is now one of the brands that I have the most products of! Haha! Just look at these:

That's a lot and I LOVE THEM ALL! Please wait for my blog post about these. 

And that's my report on what happened during the Beauty Confidential: BDJ x Project Vanity Beauty Bootcamp. I really enjoyed every single minute of it and I'm so thankful that I was able to attend this event. I look forward to more beauty bootcamps! Yay!


Cheers,
DAWN