Photo from www.naturerepublic.co.kr/eng/

Before the year ends, I would like to share with you my number one beauty secret, yes, sleep, beauty sleep! But not just sleeping anytime of the day, it is the 10pm to 2am sleep that's the most important, optimal time when our body organs regenerate on their own. Do you also believe this, that our body repairs, heals, and regenerates its own cells? And from this, the skin, the largest organ of the human body also benefits.

photo from http://www.sciencedaily.com

As a matter of fact, I attribute my good skin from sleeping and I made it a conscious effort to make sure I'm not missing it unless I have very important stuff to do. So it's actually just okay if you miss your night creams sometime, just make sure that you remove makeup before hitting the sack :)

Happy New Year to all of you!!

It's holiday season and everyone's on their errands and a couple of holiday shopping rush here and there, or probably doing some event planning, organizing reunions, office parties, everyone's superduper busy at this time of the year And let's admit it, this could really give us a dull face every morning because of lack of sleep and not enough rest. But we want don't want to just to hide the ugliness under the mercy of concealers, right?

So to keep up with this hectic season, we go to a salon to get a facial, or put on facial masks at night. I love the simple facial at Flawless. And when it comes to facial masks, I favor more of the korean brands, The Face Shop and Tony Moly. Now if you do not have spare time to go to a clinic to have a facial, or if suddenly you didn't notice you ran out of your facial masks at home, you can actually do a home-made mask right from your kitchen. How about a turmeric paste (luyang dilaw in Filipino) facial mask?

photo from www.mrsikhnet.com

Skin Benefits
Now why turmeric as a facial mask? Turmeric have high antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Here are some of the skin benefits of turmeric:

1. Anti-aging - it helps reduce wrinkles

Have ever heard of dry brushing? Dry brush, preferably one with soft, natural bristles, for body and for the face. Of course, brush for the face should be a extra finer.

I got my body brush from The Beauty Bar, and my face brush from The Body Shop



The Skin Care Babe Loot I've won at The Beauty Junkee's 3rd Anniversay Giveaway

The Beauty Junkee had its grand 3rd anniversay giveaway last May, and I was one of the 16 lucky girls to
take home a beauty loot, I got the Skin Cage babe loot which is sooo nice. My prize includes: Carmex lip balms, Camaru Naturals soaps, Camellia beauty oil, makeups from Tamera Online, and L'Oreal product samples i.e. 50 spf BB Cream, Revitalift, Youth Code skin essence.

Martha set an informal meet and greet for those who are within Metro Manila so she can give us the prizes face-to-face. We met at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf at the Bonifacio High Street, and yes, it was my first

When drank as a regular tea, green tea definitely is ahead of the game among other kinds of tea, simply because it's proven to have, if not the highest, one of the highest antioxidant properties.  It also is high in flavonoids, meaning it has anticarcinogenic functions. Green tea can also aid in weight loss due to polyphenols and caffeine. Thus, it's good for the health, and good for the skin, too. No wonder you can now find it in different beauty products.

I have used Green Tea facial scrub and mud mask by Watsons, and a Green Tea facial emulsion by Ellianto, all of which gave me splendid results.

Green Tea mud pack by Watsons

Let me talk about this mud pack first. This mud pack is very inexpensive and it can even double as your

Aside from having sunblock as part of your summer kikay essentials, definitely a facial mist places second, with or without makeup. There are brands that has special ingredients to set the makeup and make it last for hours, but all the same, they refresh and reinvigorate the face.

Today is actually the first day I'm using a facial mist. Haha! Sadly, all this time, it was kind of new to me, If not for the Etude House Playhouse hype that's going to happen soon, that I needed to make some kind of a haul, I'm not going to be able to take advantage of the benefits of a facial mist.

It's lunch time, and I had to accompany a friend to the near-by building, The Medical City that is, because I work at Rockwell Business Center, it was scorching hot obviously and we didn't bring my umbrella. We went back to the office and I felt I'm melting my make-up, the cream foundation I used. I remember I brought this facial mist with me, the Bamboo Water from Etude House Aqua Cure line:

This is my facial toner story. After trying out so many different toners, I've found these favorites (in order) seen below. First, the facial freshener, or facial toner of the Collagen Moistfull product line of Etude House.

Etude House Collagen Moistfull

Application was a breeze after removing the bottle stopper, make sure you use a cotton to wipe allover the face and neck. The liquid is a little thicker than regular alcohol-based toners. This one is almost gel-type, in my opinion.

Weekends are best spent on indulging on home spa rituals. I did my home spa ritual this past weekend. And to complete the ritual, I did my occasional facial mask, using SkinFood's Black Garlic Mask. It says on the pack that it has allicin fermented black garlic extracts to moisturize the skin.



It is very essential to me to use facial masks to rejunevate and moisturize my tired skin, especially when I

I am just amazed at how ONE Naturales lotion or body butter moisturizes my skin, especially in this normally cold February.

I finished a tube and a half of lotion, plus a tub of ONE Naturales body butter in coconut named, You. How sweet. Now this time, I pulled out my from my stack, this



 Last December, I could not have resisted taking a picture with the huge poster of Kim Hyun-joong at The Face Shop store at SM Megamall, if not for my super kill-joy then boylet.

Okay. Now it's not because of this star why I'm hooked with this korean brand so far. For the record, I hate

2010 I think is the year when I saw I already have my fine lines on my face especially under the eyes. That time, I also noticed my facial complexion becoming worse everyday, and i started to have pimples and of course, pimple marks! I even went to a dermatologist to consult how to remove those ugly pimple marks. They were dark so I always needed to put concealer over it just to hide the ugliness.

Well, I don't want that to happen anymore. So what I did was I tried using toner and moisturizer on top of my daily facial cleanser. And it worked. I bought korean-branded toners (simply because they are milder to my face compared to the locally manufactured brands). I usually test a couple, or rather, use a different toner at different times, depending on my mood. Good thing they don't mess up, they don't give me any irritations whatsoever.

This morning, what I used as a toner is Skin Food's Agave Cactus toner.

The reason why I'm frowning is because I find it hard to take my own pic using my new phone.

 It's cool on the face and it clears out the pores on the face right after washing. The reason why we need to put on moisturizeris one, our skin needs hydration; two, after using a toner, the skin is somewhat dried out (although Skin Food toners doesn't completely dry the skin out). And this morning, I used my newly bought skin essence as a skin moisturizer. It is I think only available locally, but claims it is manufactured in Korea. Pure Beauty's Pomegranate antioxidant essence.




I'm not sure what's the difference between a moisturizer, essence, or an emulsion. Well, I also use emulsion as a moisturizer, too, and actually stopped buying the ones tagged as "moisturizer." But I think it is in the composition of the liquid how they are classified. I had read somewhere that in tropical countries (like in Manila), it is better to use an emulsion instead of a moisturizer.

Put on some sunblock, too. Have a good one, everyone!

Not too long ago, I wouldn't really care stacking up sunscreen in my toiletry basket.  But that is now a thing in the past. I work during the day now, like most normal jobs do, so I now need some kind of protection from the sun. I say that sunscreen is my new found bestfriend.

I have consumed all of my 30ml-tube Let's Face It sunblock that I got, so I purchased to try on Skinfood's Tomato sunblock cream.





It's kind of thick or heavy on my skin, like any other Skinfood creams, i.e. BB creams, but not as heavy as Skinfood Broccoli Sunscreen Cream. If you are going to ask me, I still prefer using Let's Face It sunblock with I think, SPF 25 simply because it's cheaper, kind of have this cool sensation when you put it on the face.

The downside of this Tomato Wrinkle Care sun cream aside from the weight, is it doesn't blend in well with your makeup foundation, especially if it's cream-based or liquid. But overall, I love using it since it has some anti-wrinkle properties and it really smoothes out the skin. I believe it's going to work out real good with those with a more mature skin in terms of smoothing out the wrinkles.

At the end of the day, it does its job of protecting the skin from the sun's UV rays.

How to use a sun cream:

Use it at the end of your daily skin regimen i.e. after using facial wash, toner, moisturizer. Put on the sun cream before puting on your foundation and makeup.

Want to wake up with a pretty, clear, and sweet-smelling skin?

Hooray! I have experimented it twice, and gave me the same beautiful result. How about using an eye cream as a face night cream? Yup. But it's not your ordinary eye cream, it's my fav SkinFood Potiron au Lait Eye Cream. Instead of using it on just around the eyes, I tried using it as a face night cream.





I'm telling you, guys, this smells great! Yum! It's skin food, hehe.

And the result is really good. Ehem.

Skin was really supple, clear, soft, and does have a sweet smell because of the eye cream. Smells like milk and honey. You wouldn't really notice a hard night  just passed. So if you would want to try this too, I would highly suggest to clean your face completely with a good facial wash, and then better if you also put toner before putting on the face cream (eye cream, rather).

I have been very busy, doing businesses and other stuff. That's why this is my comeback post here. But talking about SkinFood, and Korean cosmetics in particular, I am a big fan. Really. I find their products milder, or let's say, they better suit my type of skin when compared to locally manufactured products (with the exception of Human Nature, of course!).

This facial mask sits in my toiletries basket for a while now, but it's only recently when I truly have discovered its magic. I had a couple freaking ugly pimples two weeks ago all over my face, sort of like on the forehead, in front of my right cheek just under the eyes, and then a large one on the right part of the chin. Disgusting, really, and to make things worse, I did something really, really wrong. Himalaya mud mask was the only one that saved my face.

Here's what happened. One awful day,  I noticed that my current Neutrogena facial wash is out already, I resorted to use my travel pack korean-branded (Etude House) peeling wash. Peeling!  And the fact that I just put some acne gel on it like a couple of times! The last thing I want to do is make the skin more sensitive when I have pimples, especially when it's under acne treatment (using my acne gel) but maybe I just wasn't myself that very moment.

You can imagine, my face swollen, literally swollen on the parts where I've got pimples. And I go to work, looking like  a monster, thinking when will this suffering end. Bad, so bad. I realized I dont need to put anything on my face until it heals, but the pimple areas been peeled pretty badly.

Good thing I tried using this mud pack. I was thinking, I wasn't going to wash my face anytime soon, meaning using any kind of facial wash, because I was sort of in a kind of trauma, but let me just try this mask. And I was surprised, because it's so gentle, I didn't wait 10-15 minutes as it instructed me to do, but just after 5-or-so minutes, I washed it and it gave me a clean feeling.  It is so mild you feel it, especially after using it, you'll definitely look prettier, ehem. After several uses for one week now, I felt good and I realized I would use this as my facial wash everyday. Now my face is back.

I didn't believe in it when I first bought it, having used it like once every two weeks only, I didn't see its power. Maybe because it is very cheap, about php 200 or so for I think 150 ml. But now I do definitely! And I must rejoice that it's so cheap. And it's organic, made from natural mud, so it's naturally safe, and chemical-free. Ayurvedic herbals rock!

To see more info about the Himalaya Herbals, go here: http://www.himalayahealthcare.com/. It is available through all Watsons in SM departments stores. They also distribute their products in all over Asia and worldwide.