the future's so bright, i gotta wear shades

by now you must know i am a huge bea alonzo fan.

and in the unlikely event that you don't, well, i'm saying it here, for the record: i am a huge bea alonzo fan.

that said, i must also admit that in my wildest fantasies, i'd be bea alonzo. once upon a time, i even launched a BEAutiful project wherein, in true bea fashion, i wanted to lose weight, pretty much the way that she did before she did one more chance.

*sigh* to be young and with john lloyd by your side.

now, all ramblings aside, i must admit now that the reason behind this post is that yesterday, i bought my very own pair of pacific blue sunglasses ... for P215.00 (or something like that). here's the back story:

i was crazy tired, not to mention crazy sleepy, so true to form, i spent an hour or so walking around my favorite mall. i got a couple of stuff that i intend to wear for the KL trip, checked the home stuff (and found treasures which i ended up not buying, good job me), and was at the second floor just walking around when i spied the area where they sell sunglasses.

now, because of my unusually round face (and head, and body ... yes, all of me is round), i've always had difficulty buying sunglasses. as a matter of fact, for the longest time, i had to live with squinting against the sun while driving. then i read how squinting makes you get wrinkles, and i started spying wrinkles around my eye area, so i said to myself that i gotta go on a quest to find shades that'll fit my face.

it was tough at first, but thank goodness that oversized frames became a huge thing, and boom, all of a sudden, i could find some that would fit me.

the first pair i got my friends called my "aging artist leaves rehab look". it was dark, it was round, and i got it from one of those ubiquitous i2i counters. i loved it and actually wore them a lot, until i gave them to a friend's sister who loved them too and wore them a lot. why'd i give them away? well cause i found pair #2 -- square-ish frames from bayo.

the bayo sunglasses were light, and i loved the case, except that (1) i lost the case and (2) the frames started peeling. i guess it might have been cause i wear them even when i'm on the water, hence the saltwater makes the plastic icky. so i used them until i found pair #3 - my "oh-so-sad-someone-passed-away" shades.

and, not to make light of my grand-aunt's death or anything, but i actually bought them the day before my grand-aunt's funeral, and i wore them to said funeral, and that's it. they're a pair from charles and keith, and i love them so, and i actually wear them all the time. and they're still fine.

but, unfortunately, it has nothing against my uber-love for bea alonzo and my desire to buy shades from a brand she endorses.

(okay, the fact that the shades are (1) cheap (2) fit my face perfectly and (3) did i say cheap? factored in too☺)

so, now i have a new pair of shades.

incidentally, i was actually intending to write more about shades -- right now my future is feeling so bright and i'm terribly excited about it. maybe that'll be part 2 instead.

and the quest to "fix" my skin goes on

If there's anything at all that getting horribly sunburned has done to my routine, it's that I've become pretty much obsessed with my skin. After I got back from Calaguas and saw my horribly fried (I've begun calling myself crispy lechon precisely because of it) skin, I scrounged through my closet and unearthed every single Clinique sample my mom sent from the US. Then, as you may have all read by now, I went on a body wash shopping spree at Watson's.

For the past couple of days, I must admit, I had been bouncing in extreme shower love.

Today though, yes today when I was supposed to be checking papers and writing pleadings and doing laundry (I eventually did two out of three before the sun set), I moved on to face stuff. I'm thinking, now that my nose is finally normal once more and now that my forehead has stopped peeling like crazy, I can now move on to making my face presentable once more.

First things first though: while I do dabble occasionally with Clinique stuff and while there are times that you'd find me getting a facial, I'm one of those cheap girls who doesn't spend much on her skin, not even on her face. I did stock up big time on Celeteque when it went on sale (I loved the fact that not only was it cheap enough for me, it was no nonsense) and for a while back, I did my own version of the three step routine (cleanse, tone, moisturize), but for the most part, I hardly pay much attention to my skin and just hope for the best. After all, I'm the girl who (sometimes) uses regular bathing soap (read: not Dove) to wash her face.

Given everything I've said so far, you'd understand why I did my search for face stuff at the beauty aisle in the grocery store. And, you'd also understand why, instead of buying those lovely products in boxes, I stuck to something that came in pink and white packaging (pink happens to be my favorite color).

The come on:

It wasn't really the Belo name, or the fact that Bea Alonzo is one of their models. It was because Xeng Zulueta, on twitter, mentioned how Belo's pore minimizer facial wash actually works. That same day, I went to Watson's with every intention of buying it except that I was turned off with the fact that it was also a whitening product. I haven't really got anything against whitening products (I did, after all, rely heavily on them after I got chicken pox at 24 and my face was crazy spotted) but let's just say I honestly think I don't really need them.

Of course, when you do turn into a crispy lechon and your nose morphs into a rainbow of reds and browns, you begin to realize (once more) that whitening products may exactly be what you need.

I also loved the fact that products were easy on the pocket (P1__ for the facial wash and P49.00 for the toner) and therefore, very, very attractive to me.

The verdict:

The facial wash comes in the form of a gel (I think it's a PINK gel too!) and you'll need more than a pea sized amount to get it foamy. It was relatively easy to wash off and that is a good thing (especially since I live in BF, that part without water yet, boo!) After that, I used the toner and I was pleased with the fact that it didn't leave my skin feeling tight. Since I didn't buy the moisturizer (apparently I had to get two: one for day and one for night), that was pretty much the end of my routine for the day.

After a couple of hours, my t-zone is oily, but then again, it's almost always like that. My pores don't seem any smaller (I just checked the mirror), but then again, I've only used the products once – I guess I need to give them more time to work on my ginormous pores.

For now, I'm giving Belo more time to work her magic on my skin. Who knows. Maybe one day I'll wake up looking like Bea Alonzo too.