Women today are faced with difficult decisions. The world we live in imposes gender norms that we are expected to conform to. We fear being judged which makes us constantly doubt ourselves. It’s even more difficult for those who are mothers who are expected by some to stay at home and care for their children. These are the issues that Youtuber Kris Lumagui addresses in her new vlog.

How’s your 2021 going so far? If you haven’t already, you need to get your hair off its artfully disheveled look and give yourself a salontastic hair transformation! We previously showed you some celeb-approved hair styles that you can try for yourself at home. But in order to nail these hair trends of 2021, it’s important to have salon-worthy smooth hair first. Celebrity hair stylist Renz Pangilinan, who has worked on the hair of Gabbi Garcia, Ivana Alawi and Kylie Versoza, shares three steps to get salon hair at home:

“Your hair looks amazing,” a stranger on the street comes up to me with a smile on her face. “Where did you get the curls done?” I then proceed to tell them that the curls are natural. It’s often met with an amazed face when I tell them I got them from my dad or a smirk that shows they don’t really believe me. Sometimes, I get someone who wants to touch my hair just to make sure. You see, all this has been pretty recent. Growing up in the Philippines in the 90s and early 2000s, my hair was never considered pretty. Straight, shiny hair was glorified and curls were often seen as unruly or buhaghag.

There are plenty of good things associated with plants. Some are recommended by NASA to help purify the air around us. Others are acknowledged to have medicinal properties through the years. When it comes to beauty, certain plants are used to power up our routine. Here are a few ways I’ve been incorporating them in mine!

The most dedicated curlies know this by heart: Washing your hair every single day is like sentencing your mane to a sad, dry, and frizzy life. When the pandemic hit, one of the major considerations I had whenever I would step out of our flat is if I’m ready to give my hair another wash the moment I get home. Will it survive this constant abuse and come out bouncy once this is all over?

If you need a salon–at–home experience to keep the frizz away – use Pantene Salontastic Collection! Made with salon-inspired ingredients so you can have Collagen smooth or Keratin Straight hair.

How are you celebrating the holiday season? The years before meant lots of big parties and reunions, but this year will be considerably different because of the pandemic. Safety is naturally the most important thing. Still, that doesn’t mean that we throw all celebrations out of the window. Zoom parties or parties with your own closed bubble are great ways to share love and cheer to everyone in your life. And you know what that means - it’s the best excuse for glamming up!

That’s why we asked celebrity hairstylist Renz Pangilinan for hair looks that we can do at home for the holidays. Some of Renz’s clients are Pia Wurtzbach, Heart Evangelista, and Kylie Versoza, and he’s here to serve us some inspo and tips!

Asian beauty is rich in ingredients derived from nature. Here in the Philippines, coconut oil, aloe vera and papaya are used in a wide array of products. K-Beauty products, which are also widely available, contain a lot of green tea, ginseng and centella extract.

The Japanese love their skincare too and it shows. Their secret ingredient? As it turns out, it’s rice! You might be familiar with sake-infused skincare. There’s also rice oil, which is produced by extracting oil from the hull of rice grains.

When our skin is dry, our first instinct is to reach for the richest, heaviest moisturizer we can find and apply generously. However, this is not always the best solution, because we can just end up looking greasy and possibly clog our pores. Instead, we’ve talked about layering our skincare with lightweight, moisturizing products. The same goes with our hair.

Don’t you just wish you could go to the salon to have great hair everyday? Well, achieving salon-ready hair at home is easier than you think. We asked Francis Guintu of Culture Salon Manila in BGC for some tips on how to achieve salon-looking hair in your own home without your favorite hairstylist’s help!

As the old saying goes, “Your hair is your crowning glory.” So naturally, we want to take very good care of our hair by cleansing it well and using conditioner to keep it in tip-top shape. We even style it, use heated tools, or have it colored, permed or rebonded. These things can damage hair but even little things like too much sun exposure can be damaging too.

Two months of isolation have left me sorely in need of a haircut and a good wax. While we ladies might emerge from quarantine with slightly longer hair, the men are starting to look downright shaggy.

Most guys go to the barbershop every three weeks to refresh their ‘do and to have their facial hair professionally landscaped. We show how three guys dealt with a 12-week barbershop ban in different ways!

Imagine your hair brush riddled with hair after every brushing. Or when your shower drain gets clogged from way too much hair each time you shampoo. This became my story post-partum. I would even wake up to the sound of my husband vacuuming beside our bed because there are strands everywhere and our baby likes to pick them up. Now my doctor did advise me that some hair fall is to be expected after giving birth, so I wasn’t initially worried about the amount I’m losing. But of course, I did not want to lose as much if I can help it!

I am an introverted person, a true homebody. Everyone I know will agree that this is true. So staying in and working from home to help keep the community safe at first felt like such an easy task. Of course, I do realize that I am privileged enough to have a roof above my head and food to eat even during this time, but after a week of being stuck at home, I got this urge to do something different because every day started to feel the same.

One of my favorite beauty things to do is to contemplate which hair color I’m trying next. Over the years, I’ve experimented with red, done bronde, gone sunkissed with highlights, and I’m currently Team Au Naturel with salt and pepper strands. I love how the color of my hair can change my look without the commitment of chopping or perming my hair strands, and if I don’t like the results, I can just dye it again. If you’re thinking about refreshing your look and need some #inspo, here’s a look at celebrities rocking this year’s trends.

A member of the PVC Facebook Group recently raved about a hack that we'd never heard of before. Instead of the usual hair gel, Katrina used water-based lubricant as a styler for her curly hair and got great results! We were definitely intrigued and had to test this out for ourselves. 

I care about how my hair looks more than I care to admit. I agonize over bad hair cuts more than bad skin or makeup #FOTDs! But because I don’t have the time to bother with hair tools and styling products, I prefer to get wash-and-wear hair styles that require very little maintenance. My straight hair is usually in a lob (long bob) with slight layers at the end, and I just use a normal shampoo and conditioner. 

I’m probably a little late to the game but I first heard about the zero waste lifestyle mid last year while browsing group pages on Facebook. This movement is about making the conscious effort to reduce the amount of non-biodegradable waste that one produces on a daily basis. I’m sure you’ve heard about switching to reusable straws, reusable coffee cups, and even menstrual cups! When it comes to our beauty addiction, there are a lot of ways to make our routines more environmentally-friendly, but let’s focus on a personal care staple that (almost) everyone uses: shampoo.

Hair dyeing is infinitely tempting for those looking to change their look, and also infinitely intimidating for the first timer. What kinds of dyes are there? Do you need to go to a salon? What’s a toner? Why does the shampoo need to be purple? There are so many factors to consider when getting your hair colored and it can be quite confusing to a hair color virgin. I was once a clueless noob, too, so I’ve outlined some tips from lightening, to dyeing, to maintenance to help you dip your tips into the wonderful world of hair coloring:

First things first: I apologize that my bottle of the Love Beauty And Planet Volume and Bounty Shampoo (P390 for 400ml in Lazada) is so grotty and old in the photos. There is literally only 10% of product left inside this bottle because I’ve used it pretty much everyday since I got it! I didn’t plan to write about this product let alone rave about it and yet it has been a part of my life ever since it launched last March. It is time for me to break my silence on this gem of a shampoo!