MAC Fantasy of Flowers Collection: Photos, Swatches, and Reviews

The MAC Fantasy of Flowers collection is MAC’s spring 2014 product line that was released in the Philippines last March, specifically on the day of the workshop with Ms. RB Chanco at SM Mall of Asia. The collection also included blushes and eyeshadow pots (some of which were featured on the previously linked post), but they didn’t interest me so I got just two of the lipsticks and one lip gloss, all of which I will be doing a review on below.

MAC Flare for Fantasy, MAC Heavenly Hybrid, and MAC Dreaming Dahlia

Club Balai Isabel, Batangas (May 15-16, 2014)

A little more than a month ago, my best friend was still on her summer break and we were frustrated over not having gone out of town for summer yet (that wasn’t a problem in my case because I knew I was done with my undergraduate degree… forever… mwahahahaha). That led me to looking for places to stay in in Batangas, and thankfully I came across this gem called Club Balai Isabel. I had never heard of the place before I went to their website, but the moment that I did, they were throwing a 70% off promo for the last of summer. How lucky!

Now, this was supposedly just a photo post of our trip, but then I thought… why not make it a review as well, in case some of you guys had been thinking of checking in at the same place? 🙂

CLUB BALAI ISABEL RATING SUMMARY
Price: 5.0/5.0
Accommodation: 4.5/5.0
Outdoor Facilities: 4.0/5.0
Customer Service: 3.0/5.0
Food: 5.0/5.0
TOTAL: 4.3/5.0

Lime Crime Velvetines in Pink Velvet: Photos, Swatches, and Reviews

Hello from the perpetually missing-in-action beauty blogger! Long story short behind my long absence: my mom went home for a visit because I graduated from college (YES WOOHOO I AM NOW OFFICIALLY A BUM YAY [F]UNEMPLOYMENT), and I got lazy to update. I’ve taken lots of photos of the products I’ve been planning to post, though, and here’s the first batch of them!

You might have read my review of the first two colors of the Lime Crime Velvetines (if you haven’t, check it out here)—Red Velvet and Suedeberry—and I mentioned in that post that the Pink Velvet color had yet to come out. It was released during the Holiday 2013 season, I believe, and I was able to get my hands on them just last month, so… here’s the review.

Erika’s Secret Closet Has Migrated To erikadejesus.com!

Remember one of my New Year 2014 blog posts and how I planned to register my own domain for my blog? Well, I finally got to registering it two nights ago and I decided on getting erikadejesus.com despite the poll results favoring the other option, because I simply can NOT “un-see” the ASS in erikASSecretcloset.com. 😆

So, aside from the domain change, here are a bunch of other site-related announcements!

1. Erika’s Secret Closet has a new favicon to go with its new domain! You should be able to see it beside the URL on the address bar of your browser, but here’s the larger version, anyway.

2. I just recently revived my Ask.fm account (it’s the round question mark icon found on the top-most portion of my blog’s sidebar), so please feel free to leave me questions and/or messages anytime and I’ll be sure to respond to them ASAP! 🙂

3. Lastly, in case you need to contact me for more formal purposes, my official email address for the blog is now contact@erikadejesus.com (ooh, spiffy), so I’ll appreciate it if you don’t send emails to my other addresses anymore in case you know of them. Thank you! You can also access it via the round mail icon found beside the Ask.fm button on the blog side bar or through the contact page, BTW.

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…well, I guess that’s pretty much it. What do you guys think of all the new site changes (especially of the revamped favicon)? I mean, they may be minor, but I sure am happy about them! I can’t wait to update my blog with all the pending posts I had been putting off since December 2013—I reaaaally love that I finally have the time! 😆

Guerlain Crazy Paris Eyeshadow Palette: Pictures, Swatches, and Reviews

If you can recall from around two months ago, I posted a photo of my Guerlain and MAC haul, which mostly contained items from Guerlain’s Crazy Paris Holiday 2013 collection. I never really got to doing reviews on the individual items from there (and of the rest of my makeup supposedly within the scope of my Holiday Haul 2013 blog segment), but it’s better late than never, isn’t it? 🙂

To kick off the continuation of the much-delayed blog segment, here’s a review post on the Guerlain Crazy Paris Eyeshadow Palette followed by an EOTD I did with it from a couple months back!

Money can’t buy happiness… but it sure helps.

The best things in life are free. The second best are very expensive.”

— Coco Chanel

Axe Gold Launch Party at Republiq Club (14/05/2014)

Last week Wednesday, I went to Republiq Club at Resorts World Manila for the Axe Gold launch party. Everyone had a can of Axe Gold on their tables so we all got our chance to get a whiff of the lovely fragrance, and boy did it smell good! It sure lived up to its tagline, you know? It had that touch of sophistication—something I’m sure the ladies would adore. 😉

Hair and Makeup Stint for Tricia Castillo (31/03/2014)

I started a beauty blog because of my love of hoarding makeup and cosmetics in addition to experimenting with them on my own face—I had no formal background on makeup education (I still don’t), and I felt like even though I may have the skills to do makeup, I had yet to earn the right to do makeup on other people and charge them for it (I still do).

Fortunately, someone thought otherwise and I was given the opportunity to do hair and makeup for a graduation ball occasion! I kind of failed miserably with the eyeliner (at first it was okay, but the client blinked and we didn’t have the time to erase the eyeliner and redo it, so she requested that I just thicken the eyeliner overall), but I think the rest of the makeup seemed fine (the lips could have been better though, had I used an exfoliant on it prior to applying lip color).

Check out the photos below! 🙂

Tricia Castillo: before and after. I really wish we had the time to redo her eyeliner! I feel like the whole look could have been at least ten times prettier if the eyeliner was on point…

It’s MANGO International Shopping Day at Zalora: One-Day ONLY 30% Off Sale Happening Today!

Hey everyone! I haven’t posted OOTDs in a really long time, but do you recall how a lot of my OOTD posts contained merchandise I purchased from Zalora? If you haven’t tried out or even heard about Zalora Philippines, let me just say that it’s absolutely one of my favorite online stores in the country—they deliver quickly (there was a time that I ordered a bunch of stuff and I received the parcel a day after), accept a multitude of payment methods (cash-on-delivery, PayPal, credit cards, bank deposit, etc.), and carry an EXTENSIVE selection of both local and international brands! In fact, just a few months ago they started having MANGO’s updated summer collection in their catalogue, and I couldn’t be happier!

Anyway, I just heard news of a one-day sale happening over at Zalora right now, so please scroll down to check out the deets of the MANGO sale (or just click the link to start shopping immediately)! If you haven’t tried shopping at Zalora and/or MANGO yet, this is the perfect time, isn’t it? 😉

MAC Technique Day-to-Night Makeup Workshop with RB Chanco (16/03/2014)

Exactly a month ago, I got to score an invite to the MAC Technique Workshop at SM Mall of Asia. It was the second MAC invite I have ever gotten, but unfortunately I didn’t have the time to attend the first one because it came on such short notice (and I had no idea how to drive to Fort back then LOL I’m so geographically challenged).

From L-R: the barefaced makeup model, Ms. RB Chanco, and Ms. Kim of MAC Mall of Asia

The guest speaker that was invited for the workshop was the famous local celebrity makeup artist, Ms. RB Chanco. I checked her out online and she has a REALLY impressive profile—first and foremost, she’s an alumna of my alma mater, the De La Salle University – Manila; second, some of the people in her extensive celebrity client roster are Kris Aquino, Kathryn Bernardo, Julia Montes, Julia Barretto, Erich Gonzales, Bianca Gonzales, Maja Salvador, and even Manny Pacquiao; and third, she started her craft as a senior makeup artist at MAC Philippines in the year 2000 and was trained at certified MAC headquarters in Kuala Lumpur in the year 2002. Amazing, right? I wonder how it must feel to be THAT successful in the makeup artistry field!