Dear Dahlia is a fairly new Korean brand that quickly gained Instagram fame for its trademark marble-and-gold aesthetic. Beyond the dreamy packaging design, this brand strives for timeless beauty backed up by an ethical commitment to promote vegan, cruelty-free, “8-free” formulations. While I’ve often thought that having a vegan thrust means a compromise with quality, I was pretty pleased to see this brand didn’t fail to deliver!

It’s that time of the year again when beauty brands make a special effort to relieve us of our money via tempting holiday releases. Blk Cosmetics certainly rose to the occasion with new products, lippie shades, and—for the first time ever—MINIS! Let’s take a look at their complete lineup for the holidays, themed Little Luxuries.

What do a wing tip, a bunch of lipsticks, and a crazy eyeshadow palette have in common? This beauty roundup! We’re welcoming the month of November with some crazy launches that’ll have you seeing stars! We’ve got the latest on Glossier’s new makeup baby as well as to Maybelline’s newest lippie craze and Huda Beauty’s sold out palette.

Pink Sugar just seems to hit all the right notes with their product mix, affordable price point, and excellent quality. They offer great value for money, so you’ll often find their products making their way into our favorites! If you haven’t tried anything from them yet and are on the lookout for good budget buys, consider adding these picks to your collection:

Last weekend, I accompanied 20 winners (and their plus ones) to enjoy 3 days and 2 nights at the Shangri-La Boracay, courtesy of Watsons. I honestly used to think that no one ever really won at raffles just because I’ve never known anyone who did, and some of the winners felt the same way. They couldn’t believe the news that they had won the Share the Sun promo that was held last March. I think that’s partly because of how easy it is to actually join the raffle; there are no stubs to fill out or hold on to. You just get an automatic entry just by using a Watsons Card when you shop at their stores!

The Korean beauty craze is continuing to go and grow, thanks to more brands finally making their way to our side of the world. In fact, SM Beauty is taking us several steps closer to our glass skin goals (and our favorite oppa) by bringing together the best K-beauty brands under one roof!

Confession: During the height of the liquid lipsticks craze, I owned over 50 tubes of liquid lipsticks from more than 15 different brands. I was obsessed with the matte liquid lip, until tints and velvets later came into the picture. These days, I reserve wearing liquid lipsticks for special events. While they are generally more dependable and longer wearing, they also often have the most drying formulas.

Wearing SPF daily is Beauty Rule #1 here on PV, and we’re borderline obsessive about it! Sunscreen is the best anti-aging product, and of course it’s important for preventing skin cancer. As necessary as this step is, applying sunscreen can feel like a chore when there are several more steps to get your face ready. So some people may find using tinted sunscreen as an alternative solution – quick, easy, and perks up your look in no time. The fact that it offers light coverage plus sun protection makes it a busy gal’s go-to, especially when you literally just have five minutes to do your routine. But is it actually enough to protect your skin from sun damage?

Halloween has literally come and gone, and already our favorite beauty brands are busting out their holiday collections! This week’s roundup has got the scoop on Happy Skin’s new (and super cute) look, some amazing mini treats from blk (it’s going to be a sparkly Christmas), and CoverGirl’s new brand ambassador. Put on your Santa hats - it’s about to get festive!

Growing up in a conservative environment, I wasn't taught much about my body. All I knew about breasts were that they start to grow when a woman hits puberty, that you should wear a bra when they do, and that they were a food source for babies. There were no other explanations or discussions, so I had a lot of unanswered questions when I began to notice the changes in my body. No one was willing to talk to me because boobs were and often still are treated as a taboo topic in the Philippines.

I was at Happy Skin’s first event: their brand launch six years ago. I remember the invite only had the logo and a few words, so the entire time until the launch I thought that it was about a skincare line! But I was in for a massive surprise: Rissa Mananquil-Trillo and Jacqe Yuengtian-Gutierrez launched makeup that was designed to care for the skin. It was a simple idea but a groundbreaking one at that time. None of us knew it then, but Happy Skin was on a journey to become one of the best beauty brands in the country. It paved the way for the rest of us who only ever had wild dreams of our own breakout brand. For that, I am forever grateful to Happy Skin.

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. 

ICYMI, Project Vanity now has a Store tab with a curated collection of products we love! One of the things that I remember Liz being really excited about is an antiperspirant made especially for the face, called the Neat 3B Face Saver Gel (P850 for 50g, Project Vanity store). The parent brand is Neat Feat, a New Zealand company that focuses on a wide range of antiperspirant toiletries. The Face Saver Gel is labeled as a “facial antiperspirant” and because of its promise to reduce sweat, athletes and people in hot climates are encouraged to use this product.

I’ve been wanting to try Colourpop products since Angeli wrote about her brand must-haves last year, so when they announced a sitewide sale a few months back, I couldn’t resist the opportunity. So, some of the PV girls and I pooled all our orders together for a sizable Colourpop haul! Though we had enough orders to qualify for the free international shipping, Liz generously offered to lend us her My Shipping Box account so the package would be shipped faster and directly to our address instead of the post office.

Happy weekend, PV fam! It feels so good to be back into the swing of things, and with Halloween just around the corner, the festivities of the Ber months have truly started! This week’s beauty roundup has got the latest in Victoria Beckham’s newest baby (we’re talking makeup here, btw) as well as Shu Uemura’s limited edition Pokémon collection (got get ‘em all). Glossier is celebrating their 5th birthday with a special gift for us all, and Marc Jacob’s liquid eyeliner is just the treat we wanted.

Do you like painted nails but find manicures to be a chore? Or have you ever wanted to try having long nails, but couldn’t commit to growing them out? You should check out press-on nails!

Nine and I were supposed to try press-on nails with Den before, but chickened out at the last minute. So when Girlstuff’s Press-On Gel Nails arrived at the PV HQ, we volunteered to test them for the special events we were attending that weekend!

Do you have to pay a lot of money for good makeup? Well, if you asked me this seven years ago, I’d have to give you the bad news and say that yes you do, most of the time. There were such limited options back then from local brands, and imported brands cost a pretty penny - even affordable ones required international shipping and taxes factored in the price. But now, there are so, so many amazing products available in the home front! It’s good because it empowers Filipinas with the beauty equipment they need to conquer their day with confidence - no matter the budget!

I went a little mad for eyeshadows a few months ago, and one of the collateral damage during that time is the then newly-released Alyssa Edwards x Anastasia Eyeshadow Palette (P3,380 at Sephora.ph). This was exactly the kind of candy bright, has-zero-fucks-to-give palette that I was looking for! It’s my first ever Anastasia palette. I passed on their other ones because while I felt that I had them in some version in my other palettes, I have nothing like the Alyssa Edwards colors, period.

So, now that I’ve had this for some time, do I still think it’s worth the splurge?

You’ve probably seen this Thai cosmetics brand making the rounds on Youtube and online beauty communities. 4U2 has actually been in Watsons for as long as I can remember, with their packaging and marketing designed to appeal to teens. The brand has since upgraded their look, and the renewed interest has led to speculation that their cream blushes might be dupes for the popular 3CE Multi Pots. I’ll cut to the chase and tell you now that they are NOT.

With all the drama that’s happened in the beauty world this 2019, this week’s BNR features some familiar brands and faces moving on to the next chapter. Beauty gurus and brands alike have made some major changes, from Deciem’s apparent rise from the ashes, to a Japanese cosmetics giant Shiseido acquiring cult favorite US skincare brand. We're also anticipating two very different beauty brand launches from YouTube gurus both stateside and local, and it's definitely made the second stretch of October pretty exciting for us beauty news diehards!