Summer is a time for wearing brighter colors and sheerer face bases. Yes, you heard it right - sheer! The thicker and heavier your base is, the more likely it is to melt noticeably under the heat. So if you're out for a few hours (or all day) everyday, stick to foundations, concealers, and powder that cover your issues juuuuuuust enough, but no more. This is the secret to looking fresh even when you sweat and oil up! 

Now one of my favorite ever concealers is the Shiseido Shiseido Natural Finish Cream Concealer. This offers heavy coverage and amazing staying power, plus the formula can be used for covering up blemishes and under eyes. There aren't many concealers that can do that! Nonetheless, I still love using sheer, brightening products on my eye bags. They appear more natural while still making my eyes look totes fresh (you'll see a pic later!).

That said, I am so happy I got a tube of the new Shiseido Sheer Eye Zone Corrector (P1,500+). This is a sheer, watery concealer that only offers light coverage yet seem to lift up my eyes with just one layer. It literally feels like nothing when worn! It also looks invisible as soon as you've blended it on. Your eyes will just look like they were lit up by ~magic~.

Smart people who are nice are the best kind. They know when you're lying, being incompetent, stupid, or malicious, yet they can look past that and still be nice to you. Like, really be nice to you without being fake. How? Because in spite of your worst qualities, they're smart enough to understand why you have them and can't seem to let go of them. Maybe they'll try to change you, or maybe they'll let you do whatever the hell you want. Whatever they choose though, they'll be kind to you because they know you need it.

Stupid people who are honestly nice, on the other hand, are nice because they can't see past the surface of your words and actions. That said, which kind of person would you rather be nice to you? Does it matter?

Anyhoo, here's my last post for my Benefit Cosmetics Week. If you haven't joined my giveaway though, please do, as it's ending in 24 hours. Okay! Here's a review of an interesting concealer, the Benefit Fake Up Crease-Control Hydrating Concealer (P1,300). This promises to conceal your undereyes while thoroughly moisturizing them at the same time!

If you're terribly lazy at applying eye cream before makeup, Fake up is exactly what you need. Its main ingredient is castor oil. It rather smells like castor oil, too, but I don't really mind as it's extremely effective in trapping moisture around my eye bags! The oil makes the concealer super smooth so it glides on the skin with zero tugging.

I was a bit worried that such a heavy oil will clog the pores around my nose and eyes, but it didn't. I didn't get breakouts or anything. 

I was also apprehensive about it staying on and not creasing while i'm wearing it. Thankfully, it stays put for about 5-6 hours when set with powder. It also barely creases as it settles onto my skin.

Light reflecting concealer, what? This type of concealer excels at softening fine lines and lifting up dark eye bags. It is able to do that with shimmer and a feather light coverage - not enough to cover up dark circles, but enough to make them look presentable if they aren't that dark. I prefer to use a light reflecting concealer on a normal day out. I don't think I have super dark eye bags, and in any case pen concealers are fast to work with!

I haven't tried many LRCs, but my favorite is the Clinique Airbrush Concealer. This stuff is awesome! It stays put, never feels heavy, and lightens my under eye area prett well even though it only has light coverage. :) Today I'm going to review something similar yet slightly more affordable - the Make Up Factory Light Reflecting Concealer (P1,180).

Make Up Factory is a German cosmetics brand that you can find in Bonifacio High Street and SM Aura Department Store. Its pricing is just right - not cheap but not overly expensive either. It's a brand that makeup artists will surely enjoy using. ;)

So! The MUF Light Reflecting pen concealer delivers a bit of coverage and shimmer. It's a bit difficult to spread if you're not wearing eye cream, but I do like that it sets completely unlike many cream/liquid concealers.

Good Monday morning! Thought I'd start the week with a skincare review. It's something I've been using consistently since late May, so I thought it's about time to blog it with conviction. :P 

The Benefit It's Potent! Eye Cream (P1,800) is a brightening eye cream that promises to fade dark circles and smoothen lines. It's an extremely lightweight product that gets absorbed on skin without leaving any greasy residue. It doesn't have any fancy star ingredients that are only called in letters and numbers; what it does have is extracts of linseed, almond, wheat, oat, apple, and plankton.

What I love about the product

• It's incredibly light. It almost melts upon contact with skin, making it easy to massage evenly on lids and under eyes. 
• Moisturizing even if the cream isn't heavy at all. In four months I've used it, I've noticed that the skin under my eyes has become more supple, elastic, and the lines, smoother.  

Whoever formulates and makes K-Palette cosmetics should get a medal. Seriously. All their products are amazing! Well the ones I've tried so far that is. Remember their Real Lasting Eyeliner? The Lasting 2-Way Eyebrow pen? These are staples for me!

It's no surprise that ended up loving their under-eye makeup as well. The K-Palette Zero Kuma Concealer (P895) is a heavy coverage, heavy duty concealer that can zap the darkest eye bags. It comes in three variants, three shades with different skincare and color-correcting purposes. You can also use them for skin discoloration and blemishes!

Here are my thoughts on this gem of a concealer. 

What I love about the product

• Coverage is opaque yet very smooth - perfect for really dark eye bags. It looks like skin when blended properly; no cakiness here.
• It is water and oil-resistant. You can cry with this and it won't budge. It's also great for girls with oily under-eyes.

Many factors cause eye bags. For some it is just plain aging and genetics, in which cases it will be improbable to remove the eye bags short of surgery. For others, it's a stressed and unhealthy lifestyle. Eyebags caused by lifestyle factors can at least have hope in being corrected!

Now, the best beauty "secret" is a healthy lifestyle - there's really no going around it. So if you look haggard beyond your time, perhaps it would be wise to cut down on drinking, smoking, salty and fatty food, and maybe throw in a bit of exercise once or twice a week. And please, sleep!

So! With that out of the way, I'll be sharing some beauty products and concealing techniques you can use in hiding your eye bags. I don't have particularly dark eye bags, but my under eyes look puffy and shadowy because of their bulging shape. Yes, that's just how it is.

And here, my friends, are the things I do to lessen the appearance of my eye bags!

Before

After!

Skincare

Never rub. Ever. Don't rub or touch your eye area because the skin around it can easily be pulled out of place. Resist the urge and keep your hands away from your eyes or else you can develop fine lines before their time.

Concealers and foundations rank high in my list of beauty must-haves because I am prone to pimples and their unfortunate progeny - blemishes. Why else would I wear so much makeup if not to cover them up? Thankfully my blemishes are less bothersome now thanks to a consistently good skincare routine, but I still have a few left over. Recently I am letting the Cinema Secrets Foundation Palette #2 (P1,998) handle them.

This palette is quite expensive, but it is literally everything you need for your face if you're looking for full coverage. It's an all-in-one palette, which makes the price tag look cheap compared to buying separate products for your face base.

It's a great palette, and here's why!

What I love about the product

• It's as opaque as you get, but the texture is surprisingly thin! It adheres like second skin and covers even the darkest blemishes.
• Different shades allow for different functions. It has a blemish concealer shade (I use a slightly lightened #607-19), undereye concealer (#603-21, a beige salmon), and of course all the colors can be used as foundation (I either use a mix of #605-61 and #606-26 or just #602-65). So it's all-in-one face makeup, basically. I think it's a better buy than the single-color pans.

I'm a huge, huge fan of Lisa Eldridge. She's a celebrity makeup artist based in London, who has done the faces of Emma Watson, Katy Perry, and Nicole Richie to name a few. Even with a successful career in makeup artistry, she still took the time to go into vlogging on YouTube. What sets her apart is how clearly she explains and demonstrates makeup techniques and trends with the experience of a true professional.

So, when she posted this video of her top makeup favorites after twenty years of using tons of products on herself and her clients, I got interested in the Clinique Airbrush Concealer (P1,300). If you've watched a number of her videos, you'll notice that this concealer is one of very few products she constantly uses. It's practically her default undereye concealer. Of course I had to get one for myself!

What I love about the product

• This concealer was not designed to be opaque like, say, the Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer Kit. Its coverage is quite light, working more as an undereye illuminator than as a traditional concealer because of its light-reflective properties.

Dark eye circles can not always be cured - well, short of surgery that is. They may simply be a genetic predisposition, or stress and sleepless nights are just part and parcel of your daily life. I do love Eyliplex-2 for lessening dark circles, but undereye creams can only do so much if you're stubbornly prone to darkening in that area.

The next best thing is to use a great undereye concealer. Mind you, not all concealers are good for the undereyes. That area requires something that can both stand sweat and watery eyes without being too opaque and hard. A good eyebag concealer is creamy, moisturizing, natural yet with good coverage, and wears well throughout the day.

The new Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer Kit (P1,900) fits all those qualifications. It contains a pan of concealer and a pressed powder that goes really well together. I believe that this is the improved, reformulated version of the old kit (double-deck compact with loose powder at the bottom), which I think is too emollient and messy to use because of the loose powder.

What I love about the product

• Opaque, yet looks like skin when applied. It only takes a few dabs to completely cover up my dark circles! It melts on skin, looking natural and invisible (you'll know what I mean when you see the before and after photos).
• I've worn this during long work days outside the house, and this has withstood the humidity and sweat during the whole day. It doesn't become patchy nor does it fade considerably. 

I once joked on Twitter that I should be ashamed of myself if I still have eyebags after going through all the eye creams I have. Ha ha. But seriously, the skin around our eyes should be well-cared for. All that rubbing we do when you're tired, the late nights, the unnecessary exposure to the sun - these will take sweet revenge in twenty years, even ten. That's why it's important to find an eye cream that can serve as a maintenance product. 

Eye creams are basically designed to moisturize and to keep down the puffiness of the eye area. They should also be able to soothe the distressed skin after a long day of exposure. After trying out the famous Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair Eye, I can say that this product does the jobs I mentioned above.

The Estee Lauder ANR was first formulated in 1982 and has now become one of the brand's key products. The texture is similar to a serum - not too heavy and absorbs easily.