Archives for August 2013

Tination To TinaBytes: A Merger Was In Order

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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

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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!

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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

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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.

IMG_3868See?

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.

IMG_3882Voila

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!

IMG_3873 IMG_3876