NOTD: Pink Night Sky

Hey dearies!

Sharing my NOTD!

I was in the mood for a colorful and sparkly one so I got created this using five nail polishes (didn't include my base coat and top coat).

Skin Food Nail Vita in PK205 

Miniso Nail Polish 

Maybelline Color Show in Crazy Berry

CODE Professional in G603

The Body Shop Colour Crush Nail Colour in Sequins Gold

Creating this look is easy. I arranged the nail polishes according to how I used them. So I used the first one as a base. Then, after it dries, I got an old makeup sponge and applied the second and third polishes next to each other to create a gradient effect and stamped it on each nail. I topped the darkest shade with the fourth polish and when everything dries, I topped the whole nail with the last polish.

Each nail is like a pink galaxy on the tip of your finger! 

It's pretty easy to do but I like that it doesn't look simple. I like the burst of colors and glitter.

So what do you think of this NOTD?

Cheers,
DAWN

Review: Daiso Make-Up Brush Cleaner + Giveaway

Good evening ladies!

As many of you already know, Dawn and I are fans of Daiso products for our everyday tools and what not. So as I was shopping to restock my usual Daiso items (among other things) this caught my eye...

I have to admit that it has been a long time since I washed my make-up brushes and it's only now that I got to washing them again, and mainly because I wanted to try this brush cleaner.

Here's the product information at the back. It has an English instructions but for you who cannot read it well, here's what it says:

• Remove dirt from the make-up brush and puff to keep the cleanser clean. Wash the brush and puff on a regular basis in order to use it longer. No damage user's skin. Easy to clean.

For the How to wash brushes instructions I will incorporate the pictures I took while following said instructions and input my comments at the end. :)

HOW TO WASH BRUSHES

• Put the cleaner into the container (I assumed any basin would do), and dip the brush thoroughly.

• Wash it like drawing a circle with running water.
• Dry it with a towel and then arrange ends of the wool. Lastly, dry again naturally.

Obviously I did not follow the second instruction as I used their egg sponge which made everything really easy.

I find that this product is very water-conserving. I know the instructions says dip thoroughly, but I actually just dipped the tip of a dry brush and scrubbed it straight into the egg sponge. To my amazement, even that small amount was able to create a lot of lather and easily cleaned my brushes clean. In retrospect it must have been a wiser decision to take a picture of my white haired brushes so you can see how it really cleans it well.

However, I did find that this product works well with brushes you use for powders, blushes and compacts but not so much for liquids and creams. I used this for my Laneige BB cream puff and it did little to remove all the BB cream stains and unused product in the puff. 

For lipstick brushes, it lathers up less than it does for the other products (see above picture) but it removes most of the creamy and sticky residues on the brush (see picture below).

It does not remove the color stains as well as it does for powder, blush, and compact brushes but it does the job well.

It rinses off quick too. I am used to using hair shampoo for cleaning my make-up brushes and I find that this wastes too much water, it doesn't lather up as quick and it takes so much to rinse off. I also tried the joy + oil combination for cleaning brushes and although that really does a deep cleaning of the brushes, it also wastes a lot of water during rinse off.

After drying the brushes, both synthetic and real hair brush feel smooth and clean. So it can be used for any type of brushes.

How much? It's a Daiso product so it costs around Php 88 for a 150 mL bottle. If you don't have a lot of brushes to clean, I think it can last you for at least 2-3 months depending on how often you wash them. If you have a lot of brushes, it can probably last 1 month. It's small size is a big let down, and also the variability of it's availability per branch makes it hard to find. I found this at Robinsons Ermita branch and I hope they stock up on it in other branches as well.

So finally, after a long time, I have gathered a small treat for you guys. This is a long overdue birthday giveaway but since it's way past my birthday, I'm just going to label this as a summer/flores de mayo giveaway.

Included in this give away are:

Cream Silk Standout Straight leave-on cream

Vitress Hair Solutions hair cuticle coat

Daiso Make-up Brush Cleaner

BYS Kohl Eyelining Pencil in 103 Sky Blue and Silver Glitter

1 Skin Food Food Therapy Dual Effect Snail Mask Sheet

And other Daiso products: Mesh Travel pouch, brow liner, and 3 hair accessories.

Like always, please follow all instructions indicated in the link below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This giveaway will run for 1 month starting today unti June 10, 2016.

Well, have fun sharing and hope you like this giveaway!

Cheers,
LIZ

NOTD: Skin Food Nail Vita in PK205

Hey loves!

Sharing a quick NOTD!

I kept my nails clean and simple using this nail polish...

Skin Food Nail Vita in PK205

As some of you may already know, I love peach and that is why I just had to have this nail polish when I saw the Skin Food nail polish set when we were in Duty Free in Jeju Island, South Korea.

Peach is LOVE! :D

Cheers,
DAWN

"Pasalubong" Haul from Korea

Hello ladies,

My sister is currently taking up HRM at UST and last week she and her batch went to Korea for their international tour. Here are a few things she bought for us:

My sister focused a lot on skin care shopping while she was there and well, I can't really blame her, Korean skin care are one of the best and most affordable ones. She bought a lot of the Snail Face Masks there, like 30 pieces, so look forward for a review in the coming days.

One thing I told my sister to do was to ask for samples and giveaways, and well, see how many she got. I think she got more products from the giveaways than her actual purchases. Most are skin care and well, with this really dry weather (even if it should be cooler), I can't thank her enough.

Dawn asked for really hot ramyun and my sister bought a whole box. Maybe a lot of her friends here asked for the same thing. But Dawn and I are really excited to eat the choco-sandwiches in red. We're very much reminded of GD's choco-dish during their Happy Together appearance.

And what's an overseas trip without the usual trinkets of bottle openers, magnets and nail cutters, right?

So that's all there is to this pasalubong haul. Tell us which ones you want us to review or which ones have you already tried before and how was your experience using those products. :)

A little side note since we're in the subject of Korea,

Congratulations BIGBANG for winning Song and Artist of the Year at MAMA. :)

That's it.

Cheers,

LIZ

SkinFood Cacao Hand Balm

Hello guys!

Okay. So I think I've mentioned a few times that I don't like the taste of chocolate... especially the sour aftertaste it leaves in my mouth (I'm talking about the choco bars and cakes... I'm okay with drinking it because it's less... fudgy and thick). BUT that doesn't mean I don't like how it smells. There's something about the smell of chocolate that is somehow comforting, especially the scent of the tsokolate or the local chocolate drink here in the Philippines. I associate it with getting a treat when we eat out or when I'm out-of-town on a vacation because I almost always order a cup of that when we have breakfast on a Filipino-themed restaurant (And yes, I don't drink coffee daily. I drink tea more often actually.).

Now, I get to smell the sweet aroma of chocolate without having to eat it every morning with this product...

SkinFood Cacao Hand Balm

A friend of mine, Tellie, gave it to me a few months back and it has been in my office desk since. :D

Since it's in a tub, I try my best to remember to wash my hands before I use this. The good thing is that when I wash my hands, I feel like my hands are too squeaky clean so I want to moisturize it. Haha! 

The product looks nice on the desk. The packaging is a small tub and the design of the label is pretty cute.

The product is quite thick... and a bit waxy. It takes time to be absorbed by the skin so there will surely be instances that it will get to the stuff that I've touched. But I don't mind. The important thing is that my hands feel moisturized and that they smell soooo good. The scent is not that heavy cocoa smell... it's just the right amount of chocolotey scent that I like. I can't describe it much but I recommend you to go check out a SkinFood counter and check how awesome this product smells like!

See how thick it is?

It's really a good product to hydrate my hands and I only need a small amount to cover both hands so this 50g tub will last me a long while. I draw, paint, and do other kinds of artworks with my hands and they get tired and get exposed to various chemicals, not to mention stuff for nail art too, so they tend to feel dry especially the cuticle part. This hand balm definitely helps a lot in keeping my hands soft and smooth! I just love it! :D

And that's all for the SkinFood Cacao Hand Balm! What scent does your current hand cream have?


Cheers,
DAWN

NOTD: Meiji Apollo Strawberry Chocolates-Inspired

Hey dearies!

It was time to change my nail polish again! I wanted to use some of my new Skin Food nail polishes I bought from Jeju. So while I was looking at my nail polish collection, I saw a chocolate brown polish and a pastel pink one and thought that this combination would be a nice cupcake-inspired nail art. So yeah, my initial design was a cupcake look for my nails.

 I applied my nail art at work (hopefully my boss won't see this LOL). During the middle of the application, I noticed that the design was familiar and it doesn't remind me of a cupcake but of a different sweet food...

With the help of my officemate, we realized that it looked like a Japanese chocolate candy!

Meiji Apollo Strawberry Chocolate Candy

Seeee!!! Almost the same color! Haha! I would go and try to make my nails more rectangular... but I won't. :P

Anyway, here are the products I used for the nail polish.

The design is pretty easy to do. I tried to document how I did this NOTD...

After I added my Palladio Moisture Surge Nail Repair, I applied one coat of the chocolate brown shade.

Then I added the pastel pink shade. I made sure I did three curves. As you can see, with one coat, you can still see the brown underneath so I applied more coats.

And voila! Here are my Meiji Apollo Strawberry Chocolate nails!

Excuse the messy application. I took the photos right after I finished applying them. :P

And that's my NOTD! What do you think of this?

Cheers,

DAWN

NOTD: Juicy Watermelon

Hello dearies!

Sharing my NOTD that is super fun and easy to do. This is a nice summer look (although it's already starting to rain here). Anyway, it's still hot even if it rains so a juicy watermelon is still awesome to have... on your nails. LOL

The nail art looks so fresh but it will only take you less than 10 minutes to finish all your nails. ;)

These are the polishes I used.

For the base, I used that warm peachy pink shade from Skin Food (RE108). And then I applied the lime green one (BL505) at the tip. Finally, I added the "seeds" using a dark brown shade (BR611). I used the Orly one as bottom coat and the Jocarste glitter polish on top to add the "juicy" look. 

I really like the outcome. I did some mistakes on some though like I made the seeds too big on the pointy finger. Haha!

And that's it for my NOTD. Hope you guys like it. And if you will do this as well, I'd like to see how you did yours and what nail polishes you used! :)

Cheers,

DAWN

NOTD: Skin Food Nail Vita

Hi girls,

Just wanted to quickly share with you this nail polish from Skin Food which Dawn had brought from her trip to Korea. 

Anyway, the polish line is Nail Vita. And it's quite a good polish actually.

Here it is applied on my nails and it just instantly brightens my fingers. It also lasted one whole week without chip and dries up pretty quick after application. It's easy to apply, but needs about 3 coats to achieve the same color as the bottle.

You can check their other colors in their branches. If you like this one. There are a bunch of others which Dawn has and I might just feature them in the coming days.

Cheers,

LIZ

Jeju Trip (2015) + Haul

Hello loves!

A month and a half ago, I went on a 4-day-3-night vacation at Jeju, South Korea with my mom and brother. I don't get out of the country much (I've only been to the US prior to this trip), but I think that I will be doing more traveling from now on. I just love discovering new places and learning about different culture, especially their art and FOOD! I have to be more uptight with my spending in order to do this. :P

Our decision to go to Jeju was a little bit spontaneous. We were planning to go to Japan but when we contacted a travel service agency, we learned that my mom's passport was about to expire in 6 months which will be a problem when it comes to applying for a Japan travel visa. So they recommended Jeju, which is a visa-free place that we can visit. None of us have been to Jeju and we thought that it would be a nice place to go to since we've been seeing some pictures of friends who have already went for a vacation and enjoyed. And so, we decided to go to Jeju island instead. The travel agency group made our 4-day vacation easier since they are in charge of booking the plane and lodging. The whole package also included the tour (we were in a tour group), transportation, and the food (breakfast, lunch, and dinner). We think that availing their service is more favorable, not to mention hassle-free, since we don't know much about Jeju and we can't speak Korean. :P

The timing of our trip was perfect. We arrived there during the time when the cherry blossoms were blooming! It was our first time seeing an actual cherry blossom tree and we were very excited about that. They just look so beautiful and yet so fragile. They bloom so beautifully yet wilt so soon. 

Anyway, I want to share with you the pictures of the beautiful places we were able to visit in chronological order as well as the items I was able to take home (and will blog some time when I get the time... haha!)! Yay! 

We were picked up by our tour guide and the proceeded to Self Bar, a barbecue buffet restaurant for our lunch. It was the first time I tried authentic Korean barbecue, and it was glorious. I became an instant fan!

We visited Hallim park, a botanical garden that's divided into sections showcasing different kinds of plant life.

The park has a few caves that you can enter.

I really enjoyed the Jeju Stone and Bonsai garden the most!

For dinner, we had Chicken Ginseng Soup, a popular dish there. Ginseng is known for many health benefits so I understand why people like them. Unfortunately, my mom and brother weren't into it. I like it though. :P

On our second day, we stopped over this street to take pictures of these beautiful cherry blossom trees.

My mom really enjoyed the trip so far because she just loves flowers. I think this part was where she enjoyed the most.

The rest of the day was rainy which was a let down, but that didn't stop us from continuing the tour. We visited the Seongeup Folk Village next.

We bought some fresh oranges or tangerines from some ahjummas while we were taking a break because we didn't have any umbrellas. They gave us a free raincoat after that. They were so sweet! :D

We also visited the orange farm! We weren't able to try the oranges here but we were able to buy some really big ones during the third day of our tour and they were very sweet! 

This is what we had for lunch. I can't remember what this was exactly, nor the name of the restaurant (I'm sorry). I think this is an Osam Bulgogi, please correct me if I am incorrect. (The picture was taken while the meats were still raw)

Next, we went to Aqua Planet, one of the largest aquariums in asia.

It really was big and full different kinds of marine life.

I enjoyed seeing the seals and the dolphins the most.

And I love these two little creatures here who were so photogenic! Haha!

We also visited the Seongsan Ilchubong also called the Sunrise Peak.

My brother and I wanted to reach the top to see what it looked like up there.

I stopped halfway because I was getting tired and we only had 20 minutes left before we go to our next destination. My brother went on though.

The pic above was taken halfway from the top.

But according to my brother, the top was too foggy to see anything so the effort wasn't rewarding. :(

We had a quick stop at the Canola Blossom field where my mom also enjoyed the yellow flowers. Yellow's her favorite color! :D

Hello pretty flowers! 

On our third day, we get to do some shopping! WOOOT!

But of course, we took more pics of the pretty cherry blossoms while we were still there. :P

Had authentic Beef Bulgogi for lunch after (my pics are uncooked though). This was the tastiest Beef Bulgogi I have ever tried!

Our next stop was the Teddy Museum Bear Museum. The place was really big and I liked the clothes of some of the bears on display. I'm not so into this though because I'm just not into teddies (sorry). :P

I do like these displays where teddy bears replaced some famous art subjects!

Our next stop was the Hello Kitty Island Museum and Cafe. I made sure I took many photos of this place because my friend is a fan of Hello Kitty. Everything was so cute!!!

Even the food we ordered were so adorable. I didn't want to eat it because I didn't want to ruin the presentation! Haha!

The other places we went to were shopping places and I didn't take pictures because I was too busy... errrmmmm... shopping. Haha! We also watched the show "Painters Hero" which was super entertaining! I love that they mixed the art of painting and comedy together. We also passed by the Mysterious Road wherein our bus' engine is off and at neutral but we kept moving. Mysterious, right?

Anyway, here are the items we took home...

Skin79 Snail Nutrition Skin Care Set

Skin79 Super BB Cream

Skin79 BB Cream set (travel size)
(freebies)

Skin79 Syn-ake Lifting Ampoule

Missha BB Cushion + refill

Skin79 Dual Effect Eye Gel Patch (freebie)

Skin79 Lotus Mild Cleansing Foam (freebie)

The Face Shop Cleansing Foams (bought sets of them to be given to friends)

Dewins Q10 Coenzym Mask Packs

Zenibell  Green Tea Ultra Hydrating Essence Mask

Jenny Sweet All-Round Snail CC Cushion + refill

Skin Food Eyebrow Pencils and Nail polishes + freebies

Innisfree Jeju Volcanic set

Aloe Soothing Gels (Skin79 + Missha)

Code Nail Polishes and some freebies

Laneige White Plus Renew Trio Set

Dewins Snail Mucin Repair Creams

And we had some extra Won so we used them to buy some Jeju Orange Candy and Korean spicy noodles!

We surely had fun on our vacation and I truly enjoyed the sites and the food... and of course, the beauty shopping! The beauty products there were a lot that I can't imagine how many they are in Seoul! I wanna visit that city soon. :P

Anyway, that's all for now. :D
Have you been to Jeju? Would you like to visit the place? What country would you recommend us to visit next?

And if you like me to review an item we bought from there, please comment below! :)


Cheers,
DAWN