*UPDATED* Biore Deep Cleansing Pore Strips

OVERALL RATING: 4/5
WHERE TO BUY: Most drugstores (Walmart, CVS, etc)
WOULD I REPURCHASE?: Yes

MY THOUGHTS: This is my first time using pore strips. I purchased these because everyone and their mom seems to use them. I followed the instructions on the box for application; I wet my nose, placed the strip on, and peeled it off after 15 minutes. It stuck on to my nose really well. Removal was a little bit painful, but tolerable, sort of like taking a band-aid off your skin. Inspection of the strip showed that some blackheads and whiteheads were removed, but not everything.

UPDATE [May 09, 2010]: I don't think I did anything differently but these worked a lot better the second time I used them. They removed a lot of whiteheads so I'm bumping up the rating from a 3 to a 4. I'm also adding new pictures :)

Each pore strip comes in its own individual packet.


Here's what a brand new pore strip looks like.


On my nose.

First pore strip I used. Removed some blackheads.

Second pore strip I used. Removed a lot of whiteheads!

MAC Viva Glam Cyndi & Laugh A Lot

I got a lovely package from MAC this week.. a birthday gift from my other sister. Thank you Ate Lisa, Kuya Bobby, and baby Gabriel! :) They sent me lipsticks that were on my blog's wish list, so here are some swatches.

Viva Glam Cyndi


swatched lightly on the left, heavily on the right


coral-red. i heard this suits a lot of skintones.


Laugh A Lot


swatched lightly on the left, heavily on the right


this is like like my natural lip color, but a tad darker.
i can definitely see myself wearing this on a daily basis.

Lush Haul

Here's a collective LUSH haul using a gift card that my sister got me for my birthday. Thank you Ate Anna <3 Everything here was purchased within two visits. The employees at the store are starting to recognize me, haha.

- Baby Face makeup remover
- Shampoo bar tin
- Ma Bar bubble bar
- Cupcake fresh face mask
- Fresh Farmacy cleanser
- Buffy body butter bar

Baby Face and Ma Bar were used already but I wanted to include them in the group photo. I got a lot of these things based on good reviews. Oh the influence of the online beauty community..

Physician's Formula Shimmer Strips Custom Eye Enhancing Gel CreamLiner

A few weeks ago, I saw a blog post by vintageortacky about new gel liners from Physician's Formula. Gel eyeliners are my absolute favorite and 3 shades for $11 seemed almost too good to be true. I was excited when I found them at CVS! This isn't really a review, just my initial thoughts and swatches.

The 3 gel liners snap together. The kits come packaged according to eye color; I purchased the one for brown eyes.

You can see my fingerprints all over the packaging.. I can deal with that though.

It comes with a brush that's actually not half bad. I prefer to use angled brushes though.

Dark brown.

Purple.

Black.. once you dip the brush into this one, it actually has tiny purple glitters!

After applying these, I rubbed my hand over my arm for a few seconds to test out the staying power. They did not budge. At all. These are definitely worth checking out.

Outfit of the Day + Webcam Pictures

For once, I finished getting ready before my parents! We went to a friends house yesterday for a filipino party; the kind where dads sing karaoke and moms gossip. Since I had some extra time, I took pictures on my webcam. I thought I should post them here since my face has been MIA from my blog.

I haven't worn eyeshadow in a really long time since I'm lazy to put it on for school. My skills are pretty rusty so I just did some neutral browns using the 88 palette - nothing too exciting or close up worthy. Didn't wanna scare any parents. My mom compliments my smokey eyes by telling me I look like a vampire, ha.

I also took a picture of my outfit. Jeans, tank, and vest are all from Forever 21.

Lux Naturals Haul

My Lux Naturals goodies came today! I love finally getting packages in the mail because I'm kind of impatient when it comes to ordering online. You might remember that this company sent me some of their products to review a few months ago. Everything here was purchased with my own money.

http://www.luxnaturals.com

Soo much bubble wrap and packing peanuts.
You obviously don't need to worry about anything breaking on the way ;)

Moonlight Pomegranate soap - this is a repurchase because it smells amazing. I didn't get to use all of the first bar because my mom took it. It was my favorite but I let her keep it anyway. I previously described this as smelling like candy, but I realized today what it really reminds me of.. do you remember fruit stripe gum? It had a zebra on the front and came with temporary tattoos..

Blackberry Sage soap - this is a new one for me. It's kind of difficult to describe. It's like a deep berry scent. Strong, but not overwhelmingly sweet or fruity.

My package came with 2 free samples of soap. These are small pieces of Sandalwood Amber (left) and White Tea & Ginger (right).

I'm not too fond of Sandalwood Amber. It smells woodsy and musky. Kind of manly, so maybe my boyfriend will like it. I do really like White Tea and Ginger. It's a light, clean smell; the kind of thing you'd reach for when you want a nice scent without a lot of fuss.

Moonlight Pomegranate shea body butter - This is nice, although the soap smells a little better in my opinion. The consistency is different from the last shea butter I got. It's more like a thick mousse. It's still really moisturizing though and a little bit goes a long way.

At first I thought I was just imagining but the size of the jar has definitely gotten smaller. The new one is on the left and the older one is on the right.