Are you a snob? A snob is defined as a person who believes their tastes in a particular area are superior to others. You can be a music, food, bag, beauty, or shoe snob - all at the same time. It doesn't mean you're a terrible person, just that in the course of pursuing the things you care about, you've already narrowed down the qualities of a "good" find. 

I am a snob. I'm particular about how I dress and the products I use on my face and body, simply because I already know what works and what doesn't. :) However, I'm not as concerned about how luxe a brand is as I am about the quality of the product. If it works and it's affordable at the same time then all the better! In my experience though, quality - the kind I will cherish, enjoy, and maximize to the end - often comes at a price.

And that is why I love Taste Central. It's a well-curated online store that contains only things that cater to, well, snobs. Haha. It's a website by tastemakers for tastemakers; for people who are willing to blow cash on the good suff. Taste Central is actually the sister site of Deal Grocer. Instead of discounts though, you can buy products outright.

There are quite a few awesome things in there for beauty enthusiasts such as we. There are hard-to-find brands like Jo Malone, Aesop, Fresh, Philosophy, and Bumble & Bumble. There are also quietly famous brands you've never heard of before but are too expensive to be hipster (lol) - Chantecaille, Percy & Reed, Red Ken, Mukti, Babor, and Frederick Feckkai. 

I spend serious time taking product photos that I even have it down to a science. So understandably I'm not happy whenever an online store filches my photos to earn money. I mean, how hard is it to take your own product photos or even just ask permission from the owners? 

Those are my Revlon Colorburst Lip Butter photos. Do not approve  ಠ_ಠ

Not meaning to be a bitch here, actually. I'm not mad, just baffled. All my photos are under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-SA 3.0) license. It means that:

I think that the Internet should be a free place to share our ideas and output, and to police it by banning people from using your photos is just pointless.

One of my top three favorite songs on The Phantom of the Opera is Masquerade. It carries a joyous tune but there's a strong undercurrent of malice and fear in between the lyrics, a contrast that I really appreciate. The whole sequence in the film draws heavily from Edgar Allan Poe's masterpiece, The Masque of the Red Death - even the Phantom himself comes as the Red Death to the party. I have always found this story chilling, up there with Annabel Lee and The Tell-Tale Heart.

Anyway! If you haven't watched the movie yet, I hope this clip of Masquerade will convince you.

The rambling is brought to you by this pretty ring I got from Ivy. She was the Commenter of the Month winner for July, and while I was perfectly fine with shipping her prize, she asked if we could meet up. Of course I said yes! I love meeting Project Vanity readers, they are almost always cool. And Ivy is cool. She just started her own beauty blog, you guys should encourage her. ;) There's nothing more inspiring than someone going out of her comfort zone to share the things she loves.

I have read in tons of blogs that the Koreans and Japanese make some of the best makeup and skincare out there. However, the obvious road block is that this stuff is in another country! The good news is that there are a lot of enterprising Filipinas who are very much aware of this demand and know the best products to sell online. One of them is Bon, owner of a store called We Have It 43. I have seen her store way before she approached me, and I was duly impressed by the wide - and I mean WIDE - range of products available there.

She carries popular BB cream brands like Legere, BRTC, Missha, Etude House, Dr Jart, and Liole. She also has famous Japanese brands like Majolica Majorca, Shiseido, Kanebo Lunasol, and Jill Stuart. There are more than 70 brands to choose from! What I like most about the store though is the fact that the prices are not super hiked up. They're more than fair, actually. Bon can afford to do this because she is based in Taiwan and she has direct access to the products, which she ships to a friend here.

Anyway, when she asked me if I want to try some of her wares, I asked her what her best seller is. She pointed to the L'egere White Multi BB Cream (P1,000), which she has sold more than 300 tubes of! I was skeptical at first, until I read that it has a 4.4/5 rating at Makeupalley.

The short of it is that this is the best BB cream I've tried to date. Here's why!

A friend of mine recently launched her own online shop called Streets of Seoul. Chrissy is a professional fashion merchandiser venturing in the world of e-commerce, and I have to say, she does a wonderful job! The clothes are edgy, looking like something you can find off Topshop or Mango. Nonetheless, they're very affordable, selling for only an average of P500-700.

Check out my top picks:

Everyone needs a faux leather biker jacket in their life. Now that the biker look is hot stuff at 2011, there's no reason not to get one that looks like it will fit gorgeously - for only P900, too!

Exciting news! Beauty Bar, the Philippines' closest thing to Sephora, is now selling online. Brands like Burt's Bees, Smashbox, Styli-Style, Youngblood, Prestige, etc. can now be purchased directly from Beauty Bar's online store. Neat huh? 

I like that the prices are prominently displayed, with clear pictures of the product one can zoom in. I also appreciate the feature on top ten best sellers in front; very useful for those who come just to browse. Lastly, I like that the online store pretty much has everything a walk-in Beauty Bar store has. The selection is pretty comprehensive!

Of course, the shipping is door-to-door, so this saves us busy gals from having to go out of our way to visit Beauty Bar. This is also good news for those who live in the provinces.

Now on to the cons.