Retail Therapy At the Sale Racks

After a long workweek last week, I finally had some time to blog. And for it, I'll be sharing a few retail therapies I got post-typhoon, where I finally had time to shop.

Being intrigued at Forever 21 for the longest time, I thought I'd give the most-talked about store a visit and probably score a few items if I can. When I got in SM Megamall, I asked the conceirge where the Forever 21 store was. They motioned to me which escalator to take that would lead me straight to it.

It wasn't hard to miss. The moment I reached the end of the escalator, I could see the famous logo. Since I brought a larger bag with me since I was going to head off to Meralco after this little side trip, pictures were not taken during the store, even phone ninja shots. The store occupied a huge area transversing two sides of the mall. There were lots of choices, from the summery, frilly, girly, classic, tough-girl, or laid-back vibe. Aside from clothes, they also had dresses, accessories, and shoes.

The first section I went to were the accessories section, where I spotted a great deal of headbands, jewelry, and other knick-knacks to spruce up any outfit. Since I'm not much on the jazz and baubles, I went through the sunglasses section. I'm a sucker for large sunglasses since they not only protect my eyes from the UV rays, but they keep me looking chic in hiding my dark circles during the time when I forget to reach for my concealer.The lenses are tinted red. Me like. But you know what I like more?Do you see the price on that one? It reads Php95.50. I kid you not. The cash register verified that too. I reserved that one for me by holding on to it for dear life as I explored the store.

As I was searching for the dresses, as usual, I went through the neutral palettes. I wanted something that I could use for quite a long time and something that I should have. This posed a challenge for me since most of the items in the store were either embelished, printed, or frilly. I'm not much of a fan of ruffles and pastels and I wanted something with a clean silhouette. What caught my attention though was a pencil-cut knee-length skirt in my signature black color. I picked out the medium thinking it would fit me better since I have full hips. Turns out it was quite loose for me. Unfortunately, they didn't have it in small. The gray variant had it in small though, but since I didn't want to line up again at the fitting room, I used my intuition. Turns out when I tried it at home it fit me fine. So for my second purchase, it was the gray pencil-cut skirt.

It costs less than Php400.00. When I lined up to pay for my purchase, I'm glad that they accept BDO auto-debit (i.e. ATM or cash card) and your purchases add up points in your SM Advantage card.

Forever 21 indeed does have lower prices. Actually, their prices were lower than I expected. It was like shopping imported outfits at department store prices. If you're pressed for time that day though, the store might take a lot of time from you since it's quite big. A time-saving tip would be to know your size already beforehand so it would be easy to choose clothes to fit already.

After Forever 21, I passed by the Promod store seeing that it put up some of its items on sale. Rumaging through the sale racks made me discover a patchwork dress in gray, black, and white. I tried ignoring the dress first but it somehow called to me. Remember incidents where you see a dress and wonder whether to buy it or not but it somehow "calls" to you to buy it? That's how I felt. Looking at the humongous price drop shown was what sealed the deal.


That's a huge markdown! It's a lovely long-sleeved mini-dress that I could work into a top by either tucking it in and pairing it with pants. I could leave this as it is as well if I want to show some leg. The sleeves could be pulled up when the temperature gets warm. I like the open neckline too, which contrasts well with the conservative sleeve. To wash this though, mild detergent like Perwoll was what I used for this. A bad accident with stronger detergent might cause the colors to bleed. Oh, and minimal soaking here.

I like the light jersey material to go with my on-the-go casual style. If I want to go glam, heels would be my best friend. But for just hanging out, flats would be my best bet.

I guess it's great to give myself a bit of reward since I've worked hard during this month. Which reminds me, I have to work on my post birthday post as well. Till then!

Playing With My Brows By Making them Pink

Hello, my name is Bambi and I sported smoky eyes today. Oh yes, your eyes are not fooling you when there's a slight red tint on my brows. They're pink.

Here's a cam phone picture with flash to show that they are indeed pink. Nevermind the wide forehead and ghostly effect. The ghostly effect is due to Lightful's high SPF.



Browsing through face charts at the MAC website, I thought I'd have fun at the end of my shift with pink brows from the Lady Gaga face chart. Wearable-if-you dare is what I might call it. I used Pink Nouveau and Sushiflower to create the brow. Since I do not have blond eyebrows to begin with, you see a bit of my natural brow color through, but it's pink nevertheless.

To go with my pink brows, I opted for heavy smoky eyes, a combination of idol eyes, carbon, and black tied eyeshadows. My brow highlight was kept matte, so I chose brule. I intentionally skipped blush and contoured my cheeks with Dark MSF. Lips were a light pink. That's All Styled Up from MAC's In the Groove collection.

I call this my semi-avante garde look. :) As usual, my inspiration is always Lady Gaga whenever I go outlandish with my makeup.

Legally Blonde Week 3 in Pictures

So as the musical that painted musical theater pink comes to a close, let me share to you a few snapshots of what happened backstage last week:
Here's Don helping out reshaping and grooming the wigs for the characters so the wigs still look soft and natural instead of ratty.Carlos does fantastic makeup for Ms. Jinky as she gets ready to wow audiences as Paulette. I so love Carlos's pink-and-platinum blonde mohawk.

I do Kaich's eye makeup as Jett gets a retouch from Crystal.

The makeup artists for Saturday's show. Great job guys! Jarwin, known for his fabulous play of colors in eye makeup does his magic on Alice, who plays Enid Hoops, one of Harvard's law students.

The two leading men of the show also had to look fabulous.


Here's Guji after I did his makeup.

and Nyoy with Cay, his MuA for that day's show.
I'm off there in a bit to do makeup . I'm really gonna miss this show. I had fun here and it's been great and I did love the show. Congratulations to the cast. Break a leg!

My First Wedding Magazine Editorial

Yay to MAC and yay to Wedding Essentials for this gig:

I got to do a spread for Wedding Essentials. I was really excited for this shoot I made sure I prepped up for this well and did research too on the looks that I could do.

This was a feature for Mich Dulce as she ventures into bridal wear. Mich has been known to do bridal hats and funky avante garde accessories and here, her work as a bridal wear designer gets featured. And who else to model it but her muse and best friend, Ciara Sotto!

Ciara models her wedding gown and hat designed by Mich. Before makeup, I was thinking fresh and natural bridal for Ciara but when I saw the gown and the peg for the hair, one word came to my mind : Vintage. I immediately thought red lips, winged eyes, very Dita Von Teese. I asked Mich and Ciara if they were okay with a deep red lip and they said yes. I really love the vintage classic look, so I was so inspired to do this shoot. I gave a subtley defined eye with a bit of a wing and false eyelashes to accentuate her eyes. I didn't want it too strong since the lips are already red. Since it's bridal, the bride still had to look like herself, so no makeup adventures or experiments here.

Aside from bridal wear, Mich also does period corsetry, which she studied abroad and underwent training. Corsetry cinches someone's waist to about 4 inches less. Ciara originally had a 26-inch waistline but it was down to 22 on her wedding day. Apparently, if a bride wants to have that done, she would have to wear and wean into a corset for about a month before her wedding day. It's the same as what they do during the olden times, where they shape the body into that hourglass shape. It was quite interesting to know, since this is the first time someone actually brought it here.

Photo-op with Mich and Ciara:

Thanks again to MAC Cosmetics for giving me this opportunity. :) I really had fun. This is currently the July 2010 - December 2010 issue.

Starstruck with Dior's All Star Red

Again, my interest for red lippies and lipsticks in general plus Avy's frequency at the makeup counter led me to discover this new red lippie I would love to keep for myself:


I've never explored Dior until Avy dragged me along since I was with her as she was shopping for foundation. I was tinkering with the lipsticks and everyone knows that the first thing I look for are the bright and bold reds. Okay so this is Rouge Dior Replenishing Lipcolor, which happens to be Dior's bestselling lipstick lines, not because of their shades, but for giving lush, smooth, and luminous lips.

This shade is #848 aptly named All Star Red.
Papparazi shot shows it to be more on the red-orangey side. This is another Level 2 red shade if you want to try red. Since it's orange red, it would compliment the warm-golden Filipina skintone more than the cool bluish-reds. The sosyal-looking packaging looks fabulous too on our kikay kit. Imagine whipping this out during retouch. Fab.Personally, I'm a matte-type of girl. As in the no-shine, no-to-dewy, not-a-drop-of-oil-matte,but I could use the sheen this has. That's how it looks like on my lips. It's somewhat more subtle than my in-your-face-seen-a-million-miles away reds. The shine it has is rather healthy, like the sheen on lips taken good care of.

Girls with dry lips would like how it glides on like butter on the lips without enhancing the chapped lines. It's creamy on the lips and it's perfect for those who want to try red but don't like matte. I could top it over my dry matte lipsticks when I want sheen without the stick.

Currently priced at Php1650, the cost is pretty steep as compared to my usual lipsticks. However, if I do want to indulge on lipstick that's opaque while leaving my lips cushy and soft, I'd probably drop by the Dior counter and get myself one. Just now, I'd stick it with my mattes and retro mattes.

My Gorgeous May Brides

May 2010 was the month of my two brides, two of them who have been my friends as well. It's been a couple of months since their big days and I would like to share my work with them to all of you. After all, they are my two May brides. I've already shared my trial makeup with them. I'll also insert some of my input with wedding makeup and all, for those interested in a bit of wedding makeup 411.

JILL

My very kikay lawyer blogger friend Jill gets married. I was so happy that she considered me to do makeup. Not only do we live close to each other (a cartwheel and tumbling away, as I would joke), we are both openly kikay and share our love for beauty despite our "serious" backgrounds.

Wacks and I arrived at Parque Espana hours before call time. Hours meaning we were the first to arrive and the bride, groom, and maid of honor were still fixing souvenirs. Why hours earlier? I thought the call time was at 9 but it turns out, it was 11. It was a good thing though because we were able to set up equipment first and study the place on where to get the best light source. While at it, we chatted with Jill and Tessa and helped them fix the souvenir boxes.

When time came for makeup to start, we had our equipment ready on by.

Makeup is MAC, nonetheless. :)

It was good that we were there really early because we had time to relax first and setting up wasn't a frenzy. We were able to move stuff around as well. Plus, working is relaxed rather than rushed so I was able to take my time to make Jill look her optimum best without my brushes moving like speeding bullets tensing us up.

Much of her look and its technicals were described already in my post on her trial makeup. As I was doing her makeup, Wacks set her hair in pre-heated pin curls for her updo. For Jill's look, I made her look fresh and glowing. She's not much fond of heavy eyeshadow and so do I so I opted to define her eyes so they don't end up looking washed out and dead and did a very rosy lip color on her. I opted for Viva Glam Cyndi Lauper as a base and topped it with Viva Glam gloss. By this time, Jill has been used to falsies and she totally loved them.

It was good that I already did my trial makeup on her because I was able to analyze her skin condition and know her foundation shade. I already have her look already mapped out. It saves time on the actual day, so there's more time for picture-taking.

With her dress and headpiece, here's a picture of Jill with her flower girls:

I love the all-white scheme Jill chose for her entourage dresses. It matches the Greek theme of the wedding. For colors, I really prefer a classic and warm palette with my brides since it looks more natural and glowing. I do like the matte texture, and this really looks nice on photos rather than shimmer overload, which could look oily. However, to prevent the matte from looking too flat, I break the monotony with a bit of shimmer and satin textures in moderate amounts.

The flower girls may opt to wear makeup or not. I honestly do not like too much makeup on children. Children naturally have nice skin so there's no need to put on too much. I just brush pressed mineral powder on the face and dab a bit of blush on the cheeks. A slightly tinted gloss just gives the right healthy glow. I use makeup that's hypoallergenic and safe for children. For their hair, the hair wreaths were too heavy on the little girls' heads and kept falling off so Wacks just picked the flowers from the wreaths and pinned them on the hair.

For Tessa, Jill's cousin and matron of honor, I had more leeway to play with color and style. I still wanted to keep it classic and beautiful though, so I made the look balanced. Since Tessa sported a bob, Wacks gave her a blowout with a bit more volume. I went for smoky blue-gray eyes to go with the wedding motif and to make her eyes stronger so they don't get lost with the bangs. Falsies kept the look feminine and opened up the eyes more. For Tessa's lip, a light, creamy pastel pink was my choice of color for her. So here's Tessa and I in an obligatory camwhore shot pre-wedding march while on guard for last-minute bridal touchups
And Tessa's solo shot

AIA

A trivia I learned too with Aia and Jill is that they were friends in high school. It was thru Jill's trial makeup pictures that Aia finally contacted me. I'm glad she booked me and I've been wanting to do Aia's makeup since day one. Another coincidence is that Aia and Jill also had the same wedding gown designer and a similar Greek-inspired theme.

Instead of a cool white, Aia had a very warm palette of golds and bronzes for her wedding motif. Since she would be sporting a gold and ecru dressfor her Big Day, I went for a more dramatic eye while still keeping the look classic. Aia didn't want red or dark lips and her husband, Ted, didn't want much gloss when it's time to kiss the bride. In fact, I promised Ted I'd hand him tissue on that very day and be on standby.

So here's me prepping Aia.

I'm still a traditional girl when it comes to makeup. I don't have a gun yet, but I make sure that I blend my makeup so it looks like perfect skin. The look is somewhat bronzey with a nude lip in a bronze shade. I used brown waterproof liner and mascara for Aia since she said she tends to get overly emotional.
After makeup, this is a shot of Aia. Her eyebrows are perfectly shaped so all I had to do was define them. The headpiece and earrings were a surprise gift from her mom. During the trial makeup, we suggested to use a gold metal headband so that the headpiece doesn't pop. Unfortunately, most of the metal headbands we found were silver. However, her mom and brother found one at a department store and surprised her during her special day.

The new headband looked absolutely beautiful. The hairstylist, Tintin styled her hair in an updo since it would be an outdoor reception and she didn't want her hair down due to the humidity. It was very neat but it was according to Aia's preference: not very tight. Just loose and handcombed. While walking, Aia looked like a golden Greek goddess with her dress.
Bride, Maid of Honor, and their dream team. I had a bit more leeway with entourage makeup since they wear more colors. For our lovely maid of honor, Nathalie, we were inspired by Kim Kardashian with her almond eyes and morena skin tone. Big, loose curls was what Tintin gave but since it was a wedding, she made it into a half-updo so it was still neat. Her eyes were made smokier with a bit of cat-eye accentuated with falsies.

So here are my May brides. I really had fun working with them! To my lovely Grecian Goddess friends, Congratulations again and may you have a great life ahead!

Legally Blonde Week 2 in Pictures

Where else do I spend my weekends at least for this month of July? In Meralco Theatre of course. Week 2 of Legally Blonde was just last weekend and here's my update.

Saturday surprise: Gifts from the UPS Guy
Calvin gave corn chips to the cast and crew. I got the barbecue flavor. Yummmm! Thanks Calvin! Isn't it cute? The package says, "Do me a favor and have yourself a SUPER Day!"This orange tabby kitty was outside waiting for his (or her) two other tabby kitty friends.

Okay.... back to the makeup room. Cay here does makeup on Yannah, who plays Margot, one of Elle's sorority sisters at Delta Nu.
Mikee and I do a photo-op in-between work.
Anthony and I after makeup. It's his birthday today, by the way. Happy birthday Anthony!

View from Cay's fabulosa makeup case/light source.

The show's already halfway through its run and I'm really having a lot of fun working my weekends here. Anyone watch the show yet? Twas fun, huh?

Avy's Brush Luuuurve

Just sharing my friend Avy's brush collection, her most precious possessions and the envy of many makeup artists. Avy's a makeup artist friend of mine who regularly guests at MAC. Her addiction happens to be, as she would tell us to be brushes and lashes. When she posted her collection in Facebook, I was gawking at her brushes. While hanging out with her at the mall earlier, I asked her if I could blog about her brush collection and feature them here and I'm glad she agreed. And so my friends, I am sharing pictures of them to you for inspiration.

Here's a close-up view of the smaller MAC brushes for eyes, lips, and face.

However, that picture is only about a quarter of her entire MAC brush collection. Those are all original MAC brushes and some are backups of brushes still in their protective coverings.Huwaaaaawwwwww!!!!! Check out the stippling bruses, the face brushes, kabuki brushes, and eye brushes. Avy shares too that she gets asked a lot by customs when she shows her brush collection. But guys, brushes are our best friends!

Aside from MAC, she also has completed the Bobbi Brown brush collection:
Bobbi + MAC brushes = Bambi's dream come true. I could just stare at her collection all day. She takes care of them really well. I've seen the brushes up close and they are in excellent condition. She shares too that she uses Joy dishwashing liquid for cleaning brushes stained with heavily pigmented makeup to get rid of all of that gunk and keep her babies in top condition that's absolutely germ and stain-free.

Aside from MAC and Bobbi Brown, Avy also collects brushes from Body Shop, Chanel, and Make Up For Ever.

Avy loves the foundation brush of The Body Shop. It was Avy who also introduced me to this Make Up For Ever nose contour brush that fits exactly the sides of the nose for a perfect nose line.

Sometimes looking at makeup and brush hauls uplifts the mood. How I do wish my brush haul was as fantastic as hers? Maybe soon. ;-)

Thanks for letting me feature your brush collection, Avy!