Raise your hand if your skin is so oily that you wake up every morning with enough grease on your face to fry your breakfast in! I know this; I’ve been there. Over the years, I’ve learned how to better manage my extremely oily skin, but I still find myself waking up with an oily nose and chin. During the daytime, I also still have to blot my face every few hours, as the Philippines’ heat and humidity can make our skin glands produce more oil. Recently, Den challenged me to make certain changes to my skincare and to see if those changes will help my skin become less oily. I was very curious if it could make a difference so I modified my usual skincare routine and products to give it a try.

If you’ve ever had pimples, chances are that you’ve also experienced getting cystic acne. These pimples occur deep in the skin, making them extremely painful and also very difficult to get rid of. Worst of all, they often last for weeks and can’t be treated with your normal routine. Don’t feel desperate though; we’re here to help!

Though the weather has gotten quite rainy, the unbearable heat of living in a tropical country continues to be something we struggle with. We try to keep cool by adding lots of shorts and skirts to our outfits, but this gives rise to another problem: the chub rub.

I’ve been complaining to Nine and Den about finding the perfect dark lipstick, a la Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Never mind that my collection of orange lippies were the perfect choice for summer - my desire for vampire lips had to be sated! While I was very tempted to buy a tube, I couldn’t find the color nuance at the price point I wanted (aka, cheap) because of my low-buy. So I was super intrigued when I watched a tutorial by YouTuber Sarah Cheung, who created a 90s look inspired by Canto-Pop Queen Faye Wong. She used a brown Colourpop pencil eyeliner and mixed it with her red lipstick to create the signature grunge look of the era. And so, here I am with a bunch of pencil eyeliners and lipsticks to test how well this hack works!

Doing group reviews on PV are honestly quite a challenge as we all work remotely, but it’s definitely more insightful as we get more varied feedback from different types of users. We also had a lot of fun doing it for the Tom Ford Lips and Boys Lipsticks so we just had to do the same for these three Tom Ford Eye Color Quads!

Happy weekend, everyone! If you’re like us and still recovering from those insanely campy and absolutely glorious MET Gala looks, this week’s beauty roundup will help bring you that zen, back-to-reality beauty dose that you need. We’ve got the latest on a new skincare player to rival TO’s fuss-free formulations and Happy Skin’s latest high-tech creation! We’re also spilling the deets on Gucci’s return to the beauty world and something called a puppy dog highlighter?!

Today I want to talk about something new called the Sephora Collection Rouge Lacquer Lipstick (P745 at Sephora.ph). This line is all about shine, shine, shine! It looks like a lip lacquer but comes in a tube that has a buttery melt-on-your-lips texture. There are 20 shades available from demure to intense so there’s sure to be a color for you.

Let me do a quick rundown of the product!

If like me, you don’t have the time, budget, or patience to sit through a salon hair treatment, you’re going to want the Kracie Dear Beauté Himawari Oil in Treatment Gloss & Repair to your shower essentials ASAP.

To be honest, I never really cared much about my hair before I let Sam dye my hair (for the first time ever!) in a rocking purple hue. While I totally loved the crazy color, the bleaching process totally fried my hair to the texture of straw. My hair became dry and rough and prone to tangles and split ends! For a while I tried to manage it with tubs of conditioning treatments that only seemed to help if I applied them every day. Eventually I got tired of doing these daily 10 minute-long hair masks, and just had the damaged hair chopped off.

What if you wanted a change? What if you’re looking for something better? What if you dared to dream and strive to do? Just realizing that there are endless possibilities available is a source of empowerment, but sometimes we need a little help to become aware of them. Neutrogena and Belle De Jour offered a fun afternoon of imagination and positivity as we learned about the newly formulated range of Neutrogena Deep Clean Foaming Cleansers and created inspiring vision boards with Trixie Esguerra!

Full-on matte lipsticks have had their day in the sun, but now their time is over. It’s all about hydrating tints and glosses these days as the beauty crowd moves towards a more comfortable aesthetic! Today I have a new release from one of my fave Japanese brands called the K-Palette Lasting Semi-Matte Lip Tint (P795). It promises to be non-drying and long-wearing - two things that are non-negotiable to the discerning lipstick connoisseur.

The intense heat we’re experiencing this summer has made my lips drier than usual. Although I love wearing matte lip products, it’s just too uncomfortable to wear now because even with a balm underneath, my lips still dry out like a raisin. I’ve been reaching for tinted lip balms more instead, as the fuss-free application gives me juicy moisture and a hint of color at the same time! Whether you want just a sheer tint or full-on pigmentation, we’ve got great recos for every kind of budget.

It’s gonna be May! Well, it’s already May, but that doesn’t mean we can’t start the weekend without a little song and dance, right? There’s loads to celebrate because this week’s beauty roundup has a ton of new-ins, bright and bold colors, and a fantastic way to support a charitable cause with just a lipstick purchase! Find out what Glossier has been working on for years, and why Rihanna is sporting the craziest and brightest eye and lip looks. And if your skin has been damaged by a nasty sunburn, Ouai might just have the perfect solution!

Apart from coconut oil, one of the OGs in the Philippine skincare scene is sunflower seed oil. Human Nature’s Sunflower Beauty Oil catapulted the ingredient to fame, and it’s become a cult favorite, and for good reason: it has a lot of beauty benefits! Let’s take a closer look at what this miracle oil can actually do.

Remember when Lush Sleepy became viral online? People claimed that this body lotion helped them sleep within twenty minutes of application! I thought that was incredible. There’s really nothing in the ingredients list that will help you do that; the lotion banks on its sweet lavender vanilla scent to relax you and leave the rest to the power of online suggestion. Otherwise it’s a normal body lotion in terms of composition. If it works for you (in terms of improving your sleep), that’s great! It’s a lovely lotion and quite enjoyable to use if you like the scent. If it didn’t work for you then, I am sorry to hear that you spent P925 on false hype.

Getting physical has a multitude of health and beauty perks, but who says you can’t also sport a winning #FOTD while doing it? Read on to our cop our kikay tips and tricks for sweating it out while staying in style.

As someone with dry skin, I always thought that moisturizing would be the key step in my skincare routine. For many years, I would slather thick and heavy creams all over my face in the hope that they would get rid of my dry patches and ashy gray complexion. And then I learned about the existence of acids. I researched about chemical exfoliation feverishly because “acid” sounded so intimidatingly potent and I was afraid of burning my skin like Liz did when she did a chemical peel. The treatment worked for her but I didn’t want to deal with the downtime!

Konnichiwa! Were you able to visit Japan in time for the cherry blossom festival this year? That’s personally on my bucket list of things to do when I travel but until then, I’m quite content with all the goodies that J-beauty offers! But before I go into that, we have an important announcement:

What’s good, PV fam! Happy weekend! We hope you enjoyed the restful Easter break and are now fired up for yet another beauty news roundup. This time around we’re talking about a K-beauty staple that’s gone local, a new foundation (with A TON of shade options), and Kendall’s new toothpaste (we know, it’s weird, but we’re curious). And as we steel ourselves for the big battle on Monday, we’re cooling our nerves with even more Game of Thrones makeup!

Your girl loves a luxury foundation. Although it’s not necessary for creating the perfect base, I do find that there is a difference in formulation and how much easier it is to blend and wear versus what you can get from the drugstore. That said, I’ve always invested in full-coverage, long-wearing foundations when I buy luxury brands, so I was surprised to find that Guerlain’s L’Essentiel Foundation (~P3,500) provides a happy medium that’s suited for every day. We’ve reviewed a fuller coverage Guerlain foundation before, so I was curious to see how different this take on ‘natural’ foundation would be. I tested it for two weeks, and here’s how it panned out:

Truth time: I rarely use watery lip tints. While they deliver a nice pop of sheer color, I find that they are ultimately too drying to wear by themselves. I end up having to use proper lip balm afterwards, so what I do instead is dot a bright/dark lipstick, blend it out in a sheer layer, then finish up with lip balm. It’s a lot of work but on casual days out or if I’m just playing tennis or rowing, I want my lip color to be as stained and therefore low maintenance as possible!