Booty Booty Booty Booties Everywhere

Thursdays are my chillest days at work.Instead of being stationed at my hospital, I get to go my agency office that is quiet as it houses no more than 10 people and usually, there are only about 6 people working at a time. No supervisors. All chill people. So of course, Thursday is my favorite work day. LOL.

I had finished my work much earlier than expected and decided to make a video dedicated to my relatively new black Liz Claiborne booties. I love them. I love the quilted back. When it comes to boots, I love a slight two-toned look or a duo textured look.

[ credit : www.jcp.com ]

Here goes it. LOL.

As you can see, I had some time on my hands. 

And don't mind the choice of song. For some reason, that was the only accessible song out of all the songs on my phone.

Anyhoot, enjoy and have a good laugh ;)


<3<3<3

Haul: Kicks + Rite Aid + Ulta

I don't know what happened in the last week but I somehow managed to go to Lady Foot Locker (though this was planned), Rite Aid and Ulta and bought goodies! Some I needed and some I maybe kinda sorta impulse bought? >_<

Nike

I done did it you guys! I bought my first pair of Nikes! That probably has no grounds for excitement for anyone. At the age of 30, I finally got my own pair!

I am not a sneaker person. They make me feel like a boy so I hate wearing them especially if they are black. I need my sneakers to be something girly looking like pink or purple.

I never thought to buy Nikes because they are expensive and everyone has them. Part of me did not want to give in. I did not want to spend so much money to buy a name brand shoe. I'm not a name brand type of gal.

The more I became a Zumba princess (LOL), the more interested I became in sneakers and the higher my urge became in wanting Nikes. They come in such fun, bright GIRLY colors!

I FINALLY CAVED!!! And I feel no shame ;)

Nike Women's Free Flyknit TR 5.0 Training Shoe

The Pros:
- Color
- Lightweight : great for Zumba
- Flexible
- Purple! :P

The Cons:
- The shoelaces are practically ribbon. I need to replace them

- This black insert is kind of like partial sock. It sometimes gets in the way of putting on my shoe. It is very flexible so it's easy to step on when putting on the shoe.

Now, the makeup!

Wet 'N Wild Kohl Eye Liners

Top : 605A Don't Leaf Me!

Bottom : 610A Of Quartz

The green is a beautiful olive green / military green with shine. It applies evenly as you can see.

The purple was ehh. It was chunky. I even swatched it again hoping the first swatch was just warming up.

I swatched each of them again, but this time I wanted to just do a line. Again, the green swatched smoothly and perfectly. The purple was still chunky. Sucks.

Don't Leaf Me! on bottom line. It does not look green on the eyes which is a letdown. 

Of Quartz did show purple 

Both liners did not make it throughout the day even WITH primer. No traces of them at the end of my work day. It was like I didn't even put on liner. The green swatched beautifully but the color payoff wasn't the same on my eyes. Sad.

Essence Lip Liner + Maybelline Color Sensational Lipcolor

Top : Essence Lipliner in Satin Mauve

Bottom : Maybelline Color Sensational Lipcolor in On The Mauve

Top : Essence Lipliner in Satin Mauve

Bottom : Maybelline Color Sensational Lipcolor in On The Mauve

The essence lipliner is beauuuuuutiful. I was trying to find a matching color and the closest I could find in my time-crunch hunt at Ulta was the Maybelline Color Sensational Lipcolor in On The Mauve. It's actually a little darker in person and to my dismay, it has a shimmery, shiny finish. For now, I can just dab with a tissue to reduce shine.

Essence Lipliner in Satin Mauve

Ahhhh so beautiful!!! If only it came in lipstick form. The pencil gets used up pretty quickly needing a constant sharpening. I know this color is in demand when I grab the very last one. Luck was on my side that day! :D

Maybelline Color Sensational Lipcolor in On The Mauve

I was really hoping this lipstick was matte but it definitely isn't! It has a super sheen finish to it, almost shimmery but not quite frosty. I tried to convince myself that it would be okay, that all I had to do was dab it with a tissue to remove the top layer of shimmer...I eventually returned it.

Maybelline Color Sensational Lipcolor in On The Mauve after dabbing

Lipstick over the liner + dabbing

Redkin Shampoo

Redkind Color Extend Shampoo + Condition

This was recommended by a friend. I had told her that my hair just kept fading to orange whenever I went lighter. My hair would fade to orange in 3-4 weeks. That is way quicker than it should. I can't really say if it works or not. I last got my hair done in late August and it has faded, but this time NOT orange as I got my hair dyed an ash brown. I like the lighter color it has faded to now so hopefully the shampoo will keep the color at what it is....is that what would happen??

Tarte Lights, Camera, Lashes

This was part of the Ulta 21 Days of Beauty Steals. Original $24, sale $10. This is also the purchase (besides the shoes) that I was most excited about. I never buy purchase non-drugstore mascara when the drugstore has some really great ones.

The only downside to this mascara is THAT I LOVE IT. Not a good idea to fall in love with expensive things :(

<3

Revlon Precision Clear Lash Adhesive

At some point in time, +AprilAthena7 of Youtube's AprilAthena7 had mentioned this as her favorite lash clue and I had to get my hands on it. I use the ever so popular Duo glue but dang, that glue smells so bad, it feels wrong putting something that funky smelling on my eyes. Can't wait to try them!

Ardell Natural 109

I really did not need another pair of lashes, but they were there and they called out to me >_< I have tried Ardell Natural lashes before and loved them. I am not sure if 109 is the only set of natural lashes, but all I know is that the ones I tried were "Natural." Soooo....I just had too.

That's all for my haul. 

When I think about it, it wasn't too bad :D I don't think I went too crazy as the majority of my purchases are drugstore....right? Right?? LOL


Xoxoxox

30th Birthday Diaries: Feeling Older Shoe Haul

Hello there!

It is my birthday month and this month, I am turning the big dirty 30, flirty 30, thirsty 30 - whatever you would like to call it.

As it comes, I embrace it...but I think subconsciously I am freaking out.

1. Going [dirty] blonde
Why?? I think it is just a phase because this thought only came in early April and it's starting to exit my brain. A good friend of mine told me that when she turned 30 a few years ago, she dyed her red in a "30 life crisis" moment. I think I am starting to understand. Haha.

This is what I'm thinking:

But this is what I don't want - having half natural color and half salon color as it grows out. I am not high maintenance when it comes to my hair. I've only dyed the bottom layers of my hair so that when roots grow out, no one can see. I'm too lazy and can't afford constant touch ups and special maintaining shampoos. And then I wonder, do I have to lighten my eyebrows?! So much work. Decisions, decisions.

2. My first white hair
My friend pointed it out on 4/24/16. At that moment, it did not phase me. She told me I should cut it off because it's really noticeable as I have a white hair very distinguishable from my jet black hair. I was fine with it. Hours later at home, I freaked out and went to the bathroom and cut that sucker off. Dang. It's happening.

3. Old lady feet
When I was younger, my mom would tell me that as you get older, your feet do not like flat shoes anymore. Shoes have to be soft with a meaty sole for support. I thought she was just making silly talk, but dang! She was right. In the past year, my feet has not been liking those ballet flats. Oh no, oh no. Especially since I work in a hospital, I am on my feet for a long time, walking around or standing, sometimes 3 - 4 hours at a time. And oh my word, my feet hate me after all that. 
I decided to bite the bullet and go on a mini spree to buy shoes that would provide comfort. I call them, and please don't take offense, "old lady shoes." Shoes with a chunky sole. 
Here's what I purchase:

Modellista Miranda Ballet Flats

Andrew Geller Wilmot Wedge Pumps

a.n.a. Sicily Ballet Flats

I purchased them all from JC Penny and all were on sale. I've worn all three and the first two are so comfortable!! It's like walking on pillows!! Why did I wait so long to choose comfort instead of enduring pain?

The nude pair is comfortable at the heel. The picture does not capture the true cushion at the heel, but there is a nice little pillow. The toe area is a little more flat.

My purchases look boring as they are just simple black and nude, but honestly, black and nude go with everything.

My current flats are trendy, colorful with shimmery stones at the toes. They are cute, but not always practical and sometimes difficult to match.

Here's to being a grown up with foot pain, white hair, and to professionalism and no twinkle toes.

Cheers to my upcoming 30!

xoxoxox

Shoes Haul!

Shoes are definitely at the bottom of my priority shop list. Despite the fact that I needed new shoes (oooh, I wear shoes til there's holes in them!) for almost a year now, I just don't buy them! I'd love to go wild and buy an immense supply, but I get more excited to purchase (in this order): FOOD, accessories, makeup, hair products, clothes...and then finally shoes. 

I recently finished paying off all of my school loans, and initially, I was just going to treat myself to an ice cream cone (I live on the edge, don't I?!) with my first paycheck post-loans. My family and my friends encouraged me to celebrate a little...and so I did. 

I called my first paycheck after paying off my loans my PLAYcheck. For the first time in a loooong time, the majority of the money was for me to keep and save. I gave myself a budget and went on a shopping spree!!

I just want to make a disclaimer! The shoes I buy are mostly for work. The older I get, the more versatile I try to make my wardrobe. Spend less by buying things I can wear to work and in my personal life. LOL. I'm such an "old" lady. Since I do a lot of walking for work, I opt for comfortable shoes.

Here are the shoes I purchased:

Mad Love Lynnae Crochet Loafers, $19.99 from Target.

I love how these look! I love that they're off-white because I am certain that if they were straight-up white, they'd be off-white in a day! I love the femininity and texture contrast that the crochet brings to the shoes.  I love that the shoes are dainty and fit so well with summer. I love the overlapping of fabric to add intricacy to the simplicity of the design.....and they are so work appropriate!
**CON: I've only worn them once to work, but they hurt my feet by mid-day. They hurt on both outer edges of my feet, on that bone right by the pinky toe. I'm going to put a band-aid in that spot as I break it in. Hopefully, breaking-in is all these shoes need because they are just too cute to not be able to wear!

Report, $16.99 from Ross

I've been debating on a pair of shoes like this for a while. I love how the style, but I just can't stand putting them on! I love the easiness of flats in which you just slip it on, slip it off. Shoes like this take effort! And since I'm Asian, it's pretty custom to take your shoes off when entering Asian homes. This is really annoying to bend down or lift my foot to take them off. Then when I come with a group or leave with a group, they're just standing there waiting for me as I try to rush, but rushing only makes me take longer.  LOL #FirstWorldProblems Silly rant over. 

As I get older, I have been digging the pointed toe. I love the ladylike-ness that the snakeskin print gives to the shoes. AND THE GOLD!! I have been into gold lately, and more specifically, gold detailing against black or white backgrounds. LOVE! I love everything about the gold in this pair from the zipper to the studs. The gold detailing give the shoes a bit of an edge and a pop of pizzazz and you can never really go wrong with pizzazz. 

It was a little awkward wearing them just because I wore them with bare feet. For the past 3 years, I've worn ballet flats with ballet socks. Check out my current favorite socks here. It was weird and it will need some getting used to!

Bamboo, $13.99 from Ross

Stepping into these shoes are like stepping onto pillows!! Everything about this pair is soft!! This is probably one of the few shoes that do NOT need breaking in. That is always a plus. 

This is the most vibrant pair of shoes I have worn in a while. Today was the first day I wore them and I received compliments left and right. They are definitely a hit. In the sun, they glistened and shimmered. I was a walking disco ball. It was pretty awesome :)

These are shoes that I cannot wear with socks either. It was a lot less awkward for me to wear these shoes bare footed. I'm guessing the immense comfort of the shoes overrode the fact that I did not have socks.


These are the shoes I bought. You probably won't be seeing another shoe haul for a long while. But I must admit, it was a lot of fun :) My next shoe haul may come sooner than expected ;)
 
<3<3<3

Mini Philippines Haul

Aloha!

I am saddened that I walked (or flew?) away from the Philippines with very few items. I guess you know when you're getting older when the pasalubong you bring back home is mostly food and items for others. Pasalubong is somewhat like souvenirs? In Filipino culture, it is custom/tradition to bring back gifts to family and friends back home.

Here are the few items I bought for myself:

In America, shoe sizes mean "size 7" or "6 1/2" or whatever number. That's how we refer to shoe sizes. In the Philippines (and I'm sure other countries do this too), sizes are 26, 27, and so forth. I have no idea what size I am in that measurement so it was difficult for me to guess. I just had to pick a random number and go from there!

They are both size 38 (according to family, I have giant feet). Weird thing is that the silvery purple is longer than the nude shoes, but it's tighter. Maybe I haven't broken into them yet.

The silvery purple shoes are from the department store Landmark in TriNoma Mall, Quezon City, Manila. The nude shoes are my favorite because I love neutral colors and I love gold accents. It's a double win. I bought those in Lee Super Plaza in Downtown Dumaguete.

I know I'm getting older when these ballet flat socks are some of my favorite purchases. HAHA. They come 3 in a pack. One pack was 200 PHP (Philippine peso). That's about $4.54 US. That's so cheap! In the U.S., a good pack of 2 is $8...You see why I'm so excited about this? I've already tried them and I love them. I also love that they are low cut. Amazing.

So my next purchases are kind of embarrassing, but I have no shame!

In the Philippines, they played three commercials ALL the time. One was the summer music video which I did a post about. The other two were different (but very similar versions) of the Palmolive shampoo. 

In the U.S., Palmolive is a brand for dish soap so I was definitely intrigued.


This commercial was played over and over...and over and over again! It made me want to be a Palmolive girl! HAHA



This commercial was played over and over as well. This is a shorter version that showcases 10 Palmolive girls. I believe there was a contest and these are the winners.

If you got a chance to view the videos, you'd see that it's so cute and so catchy!

So look what I did...

I bought three different kinds! In my defense, the two bottles are travel size. They are about the size of my hand. 

Purple is for Frizzy/wavy hair
Pink is for Dry/coarse hair.
Red is for Color-treated hair. Sadly, there were not any travel size ones. They only had the red in large bottles and these small packets.

As you can probably guess, my hair is dry and frizzy. I'm using the pink one right now. I do like it! It smells good - fruity. What's weird is that it also smells like cherry cough syrup. If I smell it too long, it reminds of cough medicine and makes me cringe. Thankfully, that cough syrup smell does not stay on your hair. The fruity smell does linger! You're probably thinking "she does not make any sense." HAHA SORRY!

And that's it...see, it was mini. It makes me sad, but I have made a mental note to pick up some makeup when  I go next time. For fun, I swatched lipsticks on my hand from the brand Careline. It stained my hand! I definitely need to check that out next time.

That's it for now. I hope you enjoyed!


<3<3<3

I'm Back From the Philippines!

Over 24 hours of travel time, over 5 hours of layover time, nearly 10 hours of waiting for boarding; after 5 trips to the airport, 6 boarding passes, 4 baggage claims, my vacation has come to an end.

Last week, I came back from vacationing in the Philippines! I had the bestest time and I really wish I was still on vacation, but back to reality I must go! Boo :(

I was there for nearly two weeks. I spent most of time in Dumaguete City which is in Negros Oriental, or the the Visayas. I spent about 3-4 days in Manila. As mentioned, there was a lot of travel time and airport time involved, but it was all so very worth it. And I would it again in a heartbeat.

In Dumaguete City is where my grandma (or Lola, which means grandma in Tagalog), my aunt and my cousin live. They are more homebody than me so we didn't go on extravagant adventures. It was also Holy Week when I was here. The majority of the Philippines are Catholic. It was crazy because the majority of shops closed on Thursday and Friday of Holy Week. It was so quiet!

W went to the mall, which is what many many people do in the Philippines to avail of the AC because of the hot hot heat and humidity. March is when summer begins. I was lucky because it was supposed to be dreadfully hot, but thankfully, summer started late this year! My first day in Dumaguete was pretty hot, but after the first day, it rained at night (and sometimes during the day) for 3 days straight. Rain brings cooler weather. It was pretty funny because the weather was in the 70s and my family were cold! It's usually in the 80s and 90s in the Philippines. Add on humidity and you have recipe for sweat central.  Funny thing is that when I left the Philippines, summer started full-fledged! Thank you mother nature for sparing me hot misery!

In Dumaguete, we also went to the Boulevard, my cousin's university, and downtown. I bought some shoes at Robinsons mall. I'll show my very few goodies that I bought (I totally wish I bought more) in an upcoming post. I really didn't do much in Dumaguete, but spending time with my family meant more to me than anything.

FAVORITE DUMAGUETE MOMENT: Sitting with my Lola on a bench at the ball. She was telling me about her life when she was younger. I just have to share that she uses the word "preggy" for pregnant. It is adorable. I love her!

After Dumaguete, I went back to Manila where I stayed with my aunt and two cousins in Cubao, Quezon City, Manila, Philippines. Yes, that was a long description. The Philippines have a long description of a location incorporating neighborhood, district and city! My aunt took me to the mall which I enjoy doing. We took many pictures. I saw my cousins. I met my nephew and niece for the firs time. It was adorable! The little girl is 5 years old. She loves the camera and knows how to work the camera. 

FAVORITE MOMENTS IN MANILA: 1) Easter lunch/despedida (going away party) with my family, 2) holding hands with my niece when we walked throughout the mall, and 3) when it was time for her to go home, she didn't want to go and said she wanted to stay with me. 

Here are some photos from my journey:

Manny Pacquiao was boxing this day! Filipinos at the mall had to stop and watch it!

I claim being Pacqiao's good luck charm because he won. The last time I was in the Philippines, he fought and won too. You'e welcome, Pacman! LOL

Dumaguete City

Beautiful view from a patio at Robinsons mall

Dumaguete City

Silliman University

Dumaguete City

Watermelon crush and brazo cupcake. AMAZING. I need to find this in Los Angeles!

Dumaguete City

The Boulevard. This sign is new and gorgeously lights up at night

Dumaguete City

I love going to and from Dumaguete. You board the plane this way. Makes me feel like a celebrity. 

Dumaguete City

Makati

Makita, Manila

 Some of the Easter decor at Sky Garden, a part of the mall (P.S. Filipino malls in Manila are every girl's dream! There's usually 2-3 HUGE malls that connect by a bridge. My poor wallet!!)

Quezon City, Manila

LOVE. She didn't want to let go

Mister Donut, my favorite donut spot. Mine was mango custard filled!

Quezon City, Manila

Random crosswalk

A super cute donut I purchased at Dunkin Donuts Incheon Airport in South Korea. I am obsessed with teddies so I couldn't resist. Too bad it wasn't good :(

That's it for now. Thank you for joining in on my journey. I hope it wasn't too boring :)
I will be posting a mini (literally mini since I bought more food than clothing items) haul soon. I'm still getting back into the swing of things. And my job just recently asked me to be part of a pilot program at the hospitals so I've been busy and exhausted!

Talk to you soon!

<3<3<3