Beauty brands are stepping up these days in incorporating treatment with their makeup. Issy and Co’s Hydragloss (P209) has made waves in being a lip treatment and lip color in one cute tube. Let’s test it out!

The Hydragloss colors I have are Jell-Oh, H.O.T. and Punch. They appear super pigmented on the tube, making one think of fruity summer colors. Upon smelling, there was no fragrance or “flavor” that I would usually get in some lip glosses. I swatched them on my arm and it was surprising that I didn’t get a sticky texture. It glides more syrupy and didn’t leave an overt residue when wiped off with a tissue.

When I dived into the perfume-collecting rabbit hole, I discovered some homegrown perfume brands with a more affordable price range. They smell really good and are, to me, comparable already with imported brands. It’s great to know that we have some very talented noses right here in the Philippines. One of these brands is called Maison Phillipe.

I started practicing yoga in 2012 – from the humble beginning of joining a yoga event up to enrolling in a studio for cross-training in pole and getting my first yoga teacher certification in 2014. I was in the middle of a yoga teacher training course when the lockdown happened. From the face-to-face sessions with manual adjusting that we were used to for many years, we had to continue through video conference and focus on verbal cues.

Just as we care for the skin on our face and body, our lips shouldn’t be taken for granted even if they are covered with masks. In fact, I’ve noticed that mask-wearing sometimes parches and dries out my lips and throat. Hence, even without statement lips, I’ve appreciated lip balms more as this helps to hydrate. I’m always on the lookout for lip balms that actually do its job of moisturizing the lips rather than just coat it with a waxy coating which doesn’t do much.

Part of our “new normal”-acquired skills is learning to DIY things that we usually outsource – manicures, pedicures, foot spas, and facials. I also know some who have braved cutting their own hair learning from TikTok tutorials. While I still leave the scissors to the professionals, hair coloring at home is something that I have learned to embrace.