Last week, I was complaining to Kira that I am running out of content. "It's such a struggle! I have nothing to write about! How am I going to maintain my two posts every weekday routine?", I moaned. The universe must have heard me and decided to send a deluge of stuff all at the same time. My place is a mess right now since it's full of press material!

I'm not complaining of course! I only wish I have a minimum of three faces so I can churn out reviews faster. As it stands it's going to take a bit of time to go through everything I received from all the kind brands who support this blog (thanks so much, you know who you are!). In the meantime, I'd like to share some of the things I'm excited to try! Out of everything I got, these are the most intriguing and promising. My beauty product sense was tingling as I swatched these.

Skincare and illuminator in one? Why not! Estee Lauder recently launched their Idealist line which features a Cooling Eye Illuminator and an Even Skintone Illuminator serum. I've been using the eye cream, I am always amazed that the applicator is cold even though I never put it in a fridge. I can also skip under eye concealer with it!

I squealed (internally!) when I received the Clinique Superbalanced Powder Makeup yesterday. I'm on the hunt for a new HG powder foundation and who, knows, this might be it!

Yesterday, I dropped by Tony Moly's recently opened branch in Megamall. I wasn't able to attend the press launch last Tuesday due to work but Foz, their marketing person, kindly set aside my press kit for me anyway.

The kit included a bunch of goodies, but I also bought this Baby Doll BB Foundation (P398) because it looked super promising when I swatched it in the store. So yeah, here's my Tony Moly loot! It'll take a bit of time to review them but I'll add my first impressions here for your reference when you visit the store. ;)

The Baby Doll BB Foundation is supposed to control oil. I tried it on half my face and it's light, it dried quickly enough. It's the only foundation at Tony Moly that can match medium skin like mine - everything else is too light. The cute bunny bottle is a face mist, I haven't tried it yet. It's called Pocket Bunny Sleek Mist. The tomato jar is their best-selling Tomatox Brightening Mask that instantly brightens skin (I swatched it on the back of my hand, it does).

Before I ever got interested in cosmetics, I was into drawing and painting. If you've been following my blog, you know that I love colors - how we pick them to adorn ourselves and our surroundings, how they work together to look even better, how a good color story can change moods and create inspiration. Now you know where that came from!

Doing makeup and painting are not that different. Both are mediums of self-expression, using colors, brushes, and moods to create a story about who you are. They follow the same principles of color and technique. In the end, the only difference is the the canvas used.

I stopped painting when I was in college though.

I woke up at 2am today and started reading blogs since I didn't feel like working yet. After going through my usual routine, I visited Pammy's post on beauty blogging again to see if there are any new comments. I've been keeping track of it since she wrote it, and I really appreciate all the insights in the post and in the comments page. This time, I'd like to share what I think about beauty bloggers "selling out" or losing credibility. This is my comment.

Been following this post for a while, and I'd just like to share what i think. :) Ideally, in beauty blogging, the blogger must pay for all the products that she reviews. But while that's ideal, it's also unrealistic. First of all it's difficult to get content unless you're sitting on a mound of money exclusively for makeup/kikay things.

Second, a good beauty blogger spends a lot of time coming up with a post - swatching, taking pics, testing, and finally, writing are all time-consuming (I spend 2-3 hours on one detailed review on average). Sure we do it out of love, but then again, it's unrealistic to continue unless there is some form of return.

Hi girls, hope you can grab Manila Bulletin's Style Weekend issue today! Aside from its the excellent cover story on our homegrown international supermodels, there's a great article on BB creams by Pierra Labrador. A couple of weeks back, she asked me for a quote about my fave BB creams, to which I wrote down an 890-word treatise. MY GOODNESS. 

What can I say, I got carried away. Pierra expertly cut it down to some two paragraphs. Whew. Here's the ish, plus my quote. :D Hope you like it!

I usually politely decline whenever PR companies and brand managers invite me to events about products unrelated to Project Vanity's niche. But last week, I made an exception for two events hosted by PLDT MyDSL! You see, Marco is crazy and I mean crazy about cars right now. Most of his free time is spent tinkering with his race car, watching car films, and reading car websites. It's quite irritating (to put it mildly).

In his favorite talyer (auto garage) in Fairview. Fairview! The things I do for love.

He watched the last four films of The Fast and the Furious franchise because, while he thought the story sucked, the fast cars alone are enough to make up for it. So when PLDT myDSL invited me to the exclusive movie premier of Fast Five last week, I knew he'd love to come! I do like seeing him happy.

I'm in our house in Cavite for the Holy Week. You can imagine how extremely boring it is, so I've taken it upon myself to explore some papers stashed away in cabinets and boxes. Like my mother, I had a tendency of being a pack rat. I'd keep all my stuff, especially papers, since I can't let go of this idea that they'll be useful someday. I became a different person when I started living in a condo so I don't hoard everything anymore - at least, not as much as I used to.

While rummaging through notebooks, test papers, and school projects from as far back as seven years ago, I found treasure. It's a stapled-together sheaf of paper where my high school classmates wrote down all their dreams and ambitions.

The first skincare product I EVER reviewed was the Pond's White Beauty cream. That was in 2008! I loved it, and I used it for two years until I switched to the Flawless White variant (more potent and slightly more expensive than White Beauty, but almost the same thing). I switched moisturizers again - I found awesome, expensive ones in the course of trying out so many things for this blog - but at the back of my head I sometimes wonder if they're better than my first love, Pond's.

Best skin ever with Pond's: A few pounds lighter, two years younger

I encourage you to click the links above because they document my long-time affair with Pond's, and maybe you'll also understand why I work with the brand. :) If you read beauty blogs, I'm sure you've already seen that there is a Pond's Flawless White Blogger Contest where bloggers and their friends document their 14-day experience using the Flawless White line exclusively.

It's a contest with a prize, so of course everyone wants to win. I think that fact may make you think that the point of the contest is undermined. You may think that our "reviews" are already compromised because of the campaign. There's a high probability that you'll be reading raves for Flawless White from all the contestants, and it may also be difficult to believe 100%.

As a beauty blogger, the only thing I can really be proud of is credibility

Trivia: Project Vanity has received 3,395 comments since it went live last year. I don't get to reply to every comment (I try though) but I read each one and I do appreciate them. I don't really earn anything significant from blogging - sometimes it's grueling, sometimes I even wonder why I keep pouring so much time on this. But when I get a comment saying this small project of mine is useful to someone, it's all worth the work.

To thank Project Vanity followers, I run contests (check out the current one for Inches Off shapewear) but winning contests are too chancy. So, I thought of setting aside a personal thank you gift to readers who follow this website regularly.

I was thinking of putting this off since I have a few looong overdue beauty posts, but I figured, if I don't write this down now, I'll never get around to it. It will probably suffer the same fate as my Boracay trip last year - I have dozens of photos, even a video of us helmet diving, but I never blogged about it. And now I just have a hazy memory of a vacation to show for it since I left all the photos in my old Macbook.

So! Last weekend, Marco, Luis, Vanessa, and I went to Marinduque to visit Elefante Island. The solitary island houses a beautiful, Satorini-inspired resort called Bellarocca. To say that I enjoyed my stay there is an understatement! The place was breathtaking, private, warm (in terms of service), and just perfect. I am obviously running out of adjectives so it's time for a photo dump.

The only airline service that flies to Marinduque is Zest Air. It's a 40-50 minute flight from Manila.

We're here!

Bellarocca provides a 40-minute van transfer to their jetty

Eeeeek! The article I wrote for OK! magazine is out! This is the first time I've ever been published on print. I've been featured a couple of times, but I've never actually written anything. OMG.

Okay, okay, I'll calm down. The article is about fragrances - how to pick one that suits your personality, great perfumes to try, and how to properly wear that hard-earned bottle of goodness.

So yesterday Marco and I went to Makati. He attended a meeting, while I, well, I just tagged along and decided to work outside for a change. 

Marco recently bought a car and he's crazy about it. That's the first thing he'd think about in the morning and the last thing he'd think about at night. It's a Toyota Starlet GT, a rally car with a turbo engine. Yes I know that because he won't stop talking about it. It's supposed to be a rare car, which is why he chose it over a new car, but I don't get it. Men and cars. I just don't get it.

It's a beautiful Saturday morning! You best get up and spend it outside, lol. I just came from Mercato Centrale with Marco, where we took our car out for the first time. All went well. Whew. Anyway, I was disappointed when I didn't find this mushroom and artichoke dip that I bought a few weeks back. It was quite memorably delish with bread or crackers.

Moving on, I just want to share some great reads from the Beauty & Fashion channel at thePOC! I love the topics we've been publishing lately.

Danica Flores Magpantay wins first place in Ford Supermodel of the World 2011  A Pinay makes it to the top of the most prestigious modeling competition in the planet!

Professional and theater makeup in the Philippines  There's makeup, and then there's Makeup. Find out what the pro makeup brands are and where you can find them locally.

Do men hate what you're wearing? Guys are animals from another planet. What are the things we wear that they just don't get?

A study of trends: The Longchamp Le Pliage bag  Why are Longchamps so popular, and should they even be?

10 common beauty blunders  We never even notice them!

Tête-à-tête with Jot Losa  Here's an interview

I don't use planners, but I can see a lot of ladies (and gentlemen) loving this planner by Sunlife, in cooperation with actor Piolo Pascual, called Sunpiology. This stands out because it's a planner that encourages you to help save the environment as well as accomplish your goals every month. There's none of that pretentious crap that planners seem to promote these days (e.g "this planner will change someone's life"? O rly?)

It also features Piolo's photos from all over the world. It's all about nature, to show us what we'll lose if we aren't more careful of our environment.

More photos of the planner inside!

I have terrible memory, which is one of the reasons I started keeping notebook diaries, and then eventually, blogs. I want to be able to remember the things I've done and thought. However, since I stopped personal blogging, I only have what little this beauty blog has on my personal life.

Now, I want to capture the year that was in one post, just for posterity, you see. I mentioned earlier that 2010 was an awesome year for me. I had so, so much fun! Let's do a review, shall we?

Press Mentions

April. I was given a half-page feature on The Philippine Star! I talked about (what else) blogging. My mind was blown. I still keep a copy of this page in a special folder, lol.

Unexpected packages are always a joy to receive. It's nice to know that someone is thinking of you out there, right? So imagine my glee when this package arrived on my doorstep just yesterday:

I know the message is generic, and Avon probably had their media agency send dozens of these out to the press, but I really appreciate that Avon remembered me and of course, Project Vanity!

Click after the jump to see what's inside!

The reason I haven't been blogging is because I have been reading. A lot. I used to read dozens of book every month when I was younger, but all that changed when I started working. I've marathoned a few books, but always in spurts. Tis' the perfect season to devour books along with the tastiest food! Hehe. 

Yesterday, Christmas day, my dad, mom, and I visited Tagaytay. It seems as if we weren't the only ones who had that brilliant idea. It was traffic-fest as carloads of families poured into restaurants and tourist spots! It feels as if we spent most of our day trip there mucking in traffic. Still, it was fun, and I couldn't have thought of a better way to spend the day.

Now, what I'm really waiting for is New Year.