NOTD: Girl Stuff in Stardust

Girl Stuff in Stardust; P140 

I think I've found my Chinese New Year nails (February 8th this 2016) It's happy-colored, confetti for those of us who are too chicken for real fireworks.

Stardust is a base of lavender-pink, with round fuchsia glitter, and fuchsia and lavender hexagonal glitter. The base evens out on the third layer, and is, for the most part, chip resistant. Without top coat, I got one week of wear before it started chipping and coming off in chunks because of the hex glitter. I would recommend top coat though, because some the topmost glitters fade to silver when exposed to daily activities. Average drying time, at about 1 hour for 3 coats (take note that manufacturers usually recommend a maximum of 2 coats, but I'm a stickler for evenness)

Evenness / Color Quality: 4/5

Application: 4.5/5

Drying Time: 4/5

Longevity: 4.5/5

Price: 4.5/5

Some background on the Girl Stuff brand, as it's the first time I've featured one of their polishes: Girl Stuff is one of the rare local brands whose products perform well, are non-toxic, and are so beautifully affordable. They also claim that their products are made in France, which I'm not too ready to believe, but I'll let that slide for now.  

According to their website: girlstufforever.com (9 January 2016)

"Girl Stuff polish is absolutely 5-FREE! Our polish does not contain any of these 5 harmful chemicals commonly found in other polish: Toulene, formaldehyde, dibutyl phthalate, formaldehyde resin and camphor. You can be assured that our polish is gentle on your nails and won’t cause any damage and yellowing usually caused by formaldehyde-infused nail polish."

Stalls are located in: Mall of Asia, SM North, Megamall, SM San Lazaro, Glorietta 3 (not on the website, but I bought this bottle from there), and Ayala Cebu.

 

Review: Maybelline Velvet Matte Liquid Lip Color in MAT12

Maybelline Velvet Matte in MAT12

Price: P349 for 5mL/0.17 oz.

I’m at that stage where I don’t have enough energy to play with toys, but get excited anyway when there’s something new or different. Cases in point: Maybelline’s new Cream to matte liquid lipstick, which I had to get – in spite of my not being a big fan of liquid lipsticks – just because it  reminded me so much of those little plastic lipstick toys we used to play with as kids.

Review: Daiso Make Up Corrector

Who else is guilty of doing their makeup in the car/cab? Why not make use of all that time you're stuck in traffic, right? You feel like a productive, multitasking wizard and the lighting is pretty neat in the morning. 

Unfortunately, our roads that are world-renown for their pot holes, speed bumps, swarming motorcycles and crazy pedestrians that can lead to this.

Bad things happen when you try to wing it in the car.

So let me introduce you to one of the many hidden treasures in Daiso that you didn't know you needed until you saw it: The Daiso Make Up Corrector

Ta-dahhhh!

Daiso Makeup Corrector 

P88 for 2 g

Review: V&M Naturals Bikini Bomb Salve

Beach season might be officially over, but we all know that this is the perfect time to score a few deals on discounted beach trips and resort accommodations. And with all the long weekends coming up, not to mention the Holiday Season, it's time again for some beach prepping with V&M Naturals' Bikini Bomb Salve.

 P280 for 40g

Review: Etude House Lip & Eye Remover

I'm usually down for trying various Korean products, what with their miraculous formulas, cute packaging, and encouraging prices; but there has been one kind of product that I have held off trying ever since: the Insert-body-part-here Remover products.

Call in an unhealthy obsession for words, or maybe chalk it up to suspicions with untranslated ingredient labels, but I have been uncomfortable about even touching bottles that say "nail remover", "eye remover", "lip & eye remover", or anything of the sort. Because if the stuff ends up burning through the nail polish and removing my actual nail, people would go "Duh, Valerie, that's what it said on the packaging."

But I did end up with a bottle of this Lip & Eye Remover (yikes) from Etude House after my dad misunderstood a text I had sent him to get a different brand of makeup remover.

So here we are.

Etude House Lip & Eye Remover
P198 for 100mL

Resurrecting Broken Powder Makeup

On today's episode of Making the Best Out of Being a Clumsy Fool, I'll be sharing how I salvage cracked powder products. AND because I just got this idea last night, here's a picture of my new pressed horse blush.

Eh? Eh? Neat, right? Now you can make it look like you destroyed it on purpose!

You just need 5 things:

1. Formerly pressed powder (aka clumsiness fatality)

2. Crushing implement (like a bobby pin, ball pen/pencil/brush butt, or your fingers)

3. Rubbing alcohol

4. Cling film (Cling Wrap)

5. Anything with a shape you want to press onto the new pan - pick something with a nice silhouette, because the powder might not be able to take on the little details. Alternatively, you can do this with stamps - letters would be great for this!

6 (?) And maybe a hair dryer 

Review: Maybelline White SuperFresh

When was the last time you got well and truly pumped for a new product? With all the “innovations” coming in minuscule increments (hello, front camera “upgrades” from 0.3 megapixels to 1.2 megapixels), coupled with baldfaced marketing tactics that get old after the 15^th “best foundation EVER” of the season. There are so many empty promises being flung about that it's obviously going to take something special to convince us skeptical consumers, right?

Something like a live demo? A live demo you can actually try with your own hands? 

Yup, you guessed it; here’s a .gif of me shamelessly playing with the Maybelline White Superfresh in-store demo.

Brand X versus White SuperFresh

(And I obviously  don't have enough coordination to shoot this horizontally)

Review: V&M Naturals Bare it All Cream (Minty)

One of the shopping "rules" I always break is the one where you're not supposed to get something without trying out a tester or a sample pack, first. And when some (read: almost all) local brands don't provide testers, it gives off the impression that they don't trust that their product will appeal to anyone who isn't playing beauty roulette: Will this make me smooth, or will it make be break out in oozing hives?

But at the time I told myself "Hey, it's body cream, it's not like I'm going to pick out the wrong shade, right?" So here we are.

Price: 285 for 100g; 595 for 250g; P695 for 300