Archives for August 2013

Tination To TinaBytes: A Merger Was In Order

August 18, 2013 by Tina Lee Leave a Comment

A couple of friends/colleagues helped me remember the times when I was less boring with terrible, terrible grammar. They also reminded me that I have a long-forgotten blog site called Tination, which was formerly the infamous, “Road Less Traveled” blog. I remember creating Tination as a way to preserve the blog that I deleted, Road Less Traveled. I totally forgot it even existed until Benny gave me a couple of links to it, including this particular post that really put me on a really queer mood. Yeah, made me chuckle but it sorta made me feel sorry for the things that I lost, like fun friends.

I’ve been posting way too many beauty products and unintentionally made this space a beauty blog. Mixing things up here, won’t be posting any beauty finds (though that Bifesta makeup remover is DA BOMB) for a while and will focus on other things.

As you know, 2010 was probably one of the most horrific year of my life. This was the year I lost my job, had problems at home, got fooled into a relationship with a completely psychotic deadbeat (probably the grossest one of all) and generally came across a myriad of shit. My old posts took be back to those dark days. Seeing how I chronicled everything with bitter, angst-ridden, sinister posts full of self-loathing, damn, I haven’t wrote anything that passionate (or personal) for years. I’ve turned into this boring, preppy, makeup-obsessed dipshit in a boring apartment leading a boring life. It’s crazy how much I don’t look forward to things anymore.

Seeing my old blog posts, I can’t believe this person used to be me. We are completely different now and I’m not quite sure if growing up is a good thing. Meh, I don’t like the Peter Pan complex concept either but you know, this shit made me feel old. Or old-er.

Not sure if anyone noticed but this is a fairly new blog with posts only existing from 2011 to 2013. I’ve been blogging way before but I just didn’t include the older posts with the new ones. But now when I think about it, I can’t let three years of immature ramblings go to waste, now can I? So I did what was right, I finally integrated the 2007-2010 posts I had stowed away at Tination into this space. I had most of the posts filed under “Just Sharing” because the old categories I had with my original blog are just lame and they no longer fit my personality or this blog.

I did, however, left a few categories alone because they are just a gem of a find. Check out it:

The Year in Review
What I Really Wanted To Say
I Quote You!
Angels and Pornoland
And of course, one of the most popular categories of Road Less Traveled:
Pork en Chop Chronicles

Of course, most of the photos from my old blog are gone now as they were hosted by now-inactive photo sites or some other sources that are already gone. But the good stuff are still there so yeah, these gems now found a permanent home here and I’m happy the puzzle that is my old and new blog sites is complete. May it never break again.

Kiehl's Midnight Recovery Concentrate

August 8, 2013 by Tina Lee Leave a Comment

Been road testing Kiehl’s Midnight Recovery Concentrate (MRC) for the past two weeks and so far, results have been very promising. For one thing, I wake to indescribably soft, glowing skin. It’s just a joy waking up to plump, luminous skin!

Kiehl’s Midnight Recovery Concentrate is a combination of different essential oils working together to achieve softer, more youthful skin. Not sure if this is made for mature skin but I know even those with oily skin can use the MRC. Seeing how bad my zits were, I thought adding more oil to my skin is a bad idea but I did a little digging and found that it’s relatively safe.

I visited Kiehl’s newly-opened store in Shang East Wing and had my skin type checked. I am, to my surprise, normal to dry, not combination skin. As much as I liked the idea of getting my skin type checked, I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed because the personnel gave me the impression that they just want to sell and not that all concerned about a specific person’s skin problems.

For example, they wouldn’t give you samples unless you buy something. I mean, I get that they need to sell something but not a lot of people would readily fork over money for a very expensive skin product they’re not sure would work. I sure won’t. I will need samples and will road test the product first before I buy anything. And unfortunately, they don’t have a sample for the Clear Corrective Dark Spot Solution so I won’t consider buying that unless I get a decent sample.

So there, I used this for more than two weeks now and the result is quite surprising. I wasn’t really sold to the idea of using oil concentrate on the face but it turned out that this is one of the best things that happened to my skin in a long time. I always wake up to super supple skin.

I heard that results may vary according to skin types and thank goodness the MRC didn’t break me out at all. My skin’s been extra smooth lately and when I apply makeup, I get great results. It didn’t heal any of post-acne marks though but I really didn’t expect it to. My only gripe is I feel that I am not doing enough to moisturize my skin. Sure, the MRC is nourishing but since this simplified my routine, I feel like I should be doing more, if that makes any sense. Overall, this is a fantastic way to heal and moisturize the skin and I will definitely buy a bottle soon!

A Tutorial: Depotting The Smashbox Studio Pop Ultimate Palette

August 3, 2013 by Tina Lee Leave a Comment

The first high-end makeup palette I bought was the Smashbox Studio Pop Ultimate Palette. It’s a holiday palette with 48 eyeshadows (?), blushes, highlighter, cream eyeliner, glosses and a bronzer thrown in for good measure. Quality-wise, this is better than Urban Decay, I kid you not. Read the reviews from Makeup Alley and other beauty blogs and you’ll know why I pined for this thing for weeks before I finally coughed up the monies to get it.

Now, I love the palette and all. It’s one of the first things I grab when I do my makeup. However, the packaging is not only bulky, the plastic sheets covering each side of the shadows and blushes makes it extra challenging to holding up the palette itself, I struggle with this each time I do my makeup. Worse, the sheets actually scrapped off a couple of my favorite eye shadows! Que horror! What I did was to cut the damn sheets. Bad idea. Stuff got on the lipglosses and I only used just one! Eeeek!

So after much tinkering, I discovered that Smashbox made the entire palette depotting-friendly. In fact, you can take out each pan without using heat at all. To start the project, I got a magnetized cosmetic case from Wild Peach. They do a selection of cosmetic cases which you can use to depot and create your own customized palette. I loved their product the first time I read about them somewhere but I’m quite disappointed with the limited prints especially the big one which only comes in black. I suppose they will come up with more prints in the future and when that day comes, I’d be all over that shit like white on rice.

Anyway! I found out Wild Peach cosmetics cases are available at Lavish Lash Studio in Megamall so with my sister in tow, I hunted the Wild Peach down and got me a couple of cases, the big one and a cute personal case in ornate print. Love the quality 🙂 hate the limited choices. You know me, I live for more choices (that’s why I buy makeup in palettes). Okay, so here’s how I managed to depot my Smashbox Studio Pop Ultimate Palette without breaking anything.

First, I peeled off the soft foam stuff that divided each pan from one another. I used the wooden handle of an old lipbrush to get just enough force to lift the foam ever so carefully.

See?

I didn’t use heated hair tools to dislodge the pans because I’m doing this for the first time and I want to minimize damage on the eyeshadows (the brown pan above shows damage caused by the plastic sheet before I cut the damn thing off). They are hella tiny, you see.

So next, cut a long string of floss, loop it on your fingers and onto the pan and simply pull down carefully. Do not attempt to remove two pans at a time if you want to avoid damaging the product.

Right, so I had to do this several times and the eyeshadows are about 40+ so you can imagine how tired my arms were after this exercise.

Alright, so after I removed all pans from their former container, I started building my personal palette first. See the two pans of eyeshadow with scrapes *weeping*? They were damaged by the plastic sheets, not by depotting. And they were my favorites too, le ugh.

Voila

I went a bit cray cray on the coral combo for the face but this is just one of the palette I have in mind. I will need another case from Wild Peach to build my pink palette, hahaha! Anyhoo, I picked out all the neutrals I use all the time and because I get bored easily, I added five bright/dark shadows to diversify the palette. Then I finished off with a deeper brown eyeshadow which I use t define my brows and a cream liner just in case I need it 🙂 This palette will definitely simplify my makeup kit.

The rest of the eyeshadows, I placed in the bigger case. They are now more accessible and I can mix and match the colors as I please!