Outfit: Secret Garden

Marco and I ditched work a day before Klassy and Eric’s wedding so we could spend a romantic 24 hours together in scenic Tagaytay. Couples looking to get cozy in Tagaytay usually make a beeline for Sonya’s Garden, but my mom insisted that I check out this lovely place called Marcia Adams instead. I’ve never been to either restaurants, but I did not regret listening to mom’s advice. Marcia Adams turned out to be a beautiful hideaway of overgrown floral gardens, stone walkways, and delicious food.

We spent a few minutes to consider the menu and make our orders, but I was dying to explore the place. I can’t remember the last time I was in a garden that looked like a real garden rather than a landscaping project.

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Outfit: I Do Not Love You As If You Were a Salt Rose

Barely a day after coming back from Cebu, I found myself on the road again, this time to Tagaytay for the wedding ceremony of my friends Klassy and Eric (also known as the awesome people who let me crash at their San Francisco apartment). The ceremony is actually a renewal of the wedding vows they said at their city hall wedding in 2008, but you can’t really tell that they’ve been married three years from how happy they were all night. Klassy is one of the sweetest, most passionate people I know and I’m beyond happy that she found someone who is just as smart, talented, and loving as she is.

I don’t normally dress very outlandishly for weddings, but Klassy writes for Refinery 29 so I knew she wouldn’t mind if I went a little crazy with my outfit!

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Sinulog Street Style: What to Wear to the Sinulog Festival

The back page of my brochure has a few handy tips on what to wear to the Sinulog Festival, which mostly encourages a fail-safe shorts-and-sneakers combination and some form of protection from the sun. But what if you want to party in something more exciting than that? In the midst of the revelry, I went around snapping photos of random Sinulog-goers who were able to strike that delicate balance between looking good and staying comfortable. Their stylish ensembles made me feel bad for sticking to the guidebook recommended outfit (which is why you will not find any photos of me here), and I swore to myself that I will do better next year. Without further ado, here are my favorite outfits from Sinulog:

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Cebu: Pre-Sinulog Adventures

Hello! I’m blogging from my hotel room in Cebu, where I am spending the Sinulog Festival weekend with my mom and sister. It feels really great to be back here after all these years and with so many new things to experience! First, a quick outfit post to commemorate what must be the first time you’ll see me wearing sneakers in this blog.

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Review: Covert Operations Concealer Palette by CarmenClaire

You’d think that at 25 I’d be too old to have zits, but they still keep coming around the chin area, especially before my period. While a little tea tree oil helps them go away in two days, there’s still the glaring red bump to contend with in the meantime and the stubborn acne scar to deal with after. I’ve been looking for good concealer for this reason, preferably one with green tint so I can hide the redness. Unfortunately, every concealer palette I find is either too expensive and/or has too many shades of brown that I probably won’t use.

The perfect palette fell into my lap when Carmen of CarmenClaire Cosmetics sent me an email introducing her Multiply store and a little about herself. Carmen started her brand CarmenClaire because of her passion for makeup as a way to “lovingly minimize” flaws. Her line of cosmetics feature everyday makeup suited for this purpose, such as blush, concealer, lipstick, and lashes, as well as skin care, makeup brushes, and fragrance. One thing you are never going to find in her store are whitening products. Like me, Carmen doesn’t believe in using skin whitening anything, which is awesome and rare in a society that still believes that white skin is beautiful, while our natural morena skin color is not. For these reasons, I happily agreed to review a product from her makeup line.

It took me all of two seconds to decide that I wanted to try out the Cover Operations concealer palette in Neutralize.

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