Early this month I was one of the lucky ladies who received two trial kits of the Avon PRO Line Corrector Treatment with A-F33, from the heavily marketed Anew line. This 28-day trial kit contains enough of this anti-aging lotion to last you a month, and then some! Rather than haul everything off abroad with me, I decided to share the second set with one of you.

For the few of you who don't have this kit yet -- or even if you do, and would like another 28 days to roadtest it -- feel free to join this tiny giveaway!

Inspiration

Five Valedictorians. Sir Roni was a second-year resident when I was an intern. On my duties I was always paired with another resident, but J spent a lot of his Neurosurg rotation with him and holds him in high regard; somewhat of a role model. Brilliant mind, brilliant teacher. It was this rotation that cemented J's decision to apply to a Neurosurg residency. It's no surprise to find out that Sir Roni was his high school's valedictorian. What is amazing is that so are his four other siblings. This is the kind of family you wish every Filipino home had. Not the struggling part obvs, but the hard work and determination that reap results and inspire others.

Having just celebrated 30 years of marriage last December, my parents stand proud with one UP doctor and two UP engineers, all cum laudes, with two more engineers on the way. While debts remain to be paid, life is beginning to change for our family. [...] we no longer have to fret about having to divide 1 liter of soft drink or the meat pieces in the sinigang equally among us children.

Some wise and not so wise advice for my last 3 1/2 years in this decade: 21 Ways You Should Take Advantage Of Your 20s.

Food

Preparing for independent living, yo -- 18 Microwave Snacks You Can Cook In A Mug.

23 Insane Things You Should Know About Snack Foods -- All I got from this is that eating is pleasure and that the louder chips crunch, the better they taste (TRUTH).

Photography

This article on how to take a great passport photo also applies to portraiture of any kind, including self-portraits. Check out the workspace photo; all you need to know right there.

Beauty

A great piece on 10 glowing beauty lessons by Lisa Eldridge.

Make-up is so marketing heavy these days, it’s all about the new palette, and the new this and the new that, and actually, there’s the basics of make-up which is to do with knowing your own face and learning what works for you.

An insightful look into why (luxury) lipstick is so expensive. (Basically it boils down to the packaging and the brand name.)

Great glossy by Olivia Wilde, and how different hair colors influence the way people perceived her.

I will only ever touch up lipstick in public. And I agree: this is a no-no in business meetings -- Beauty Etiquetter: The Lowdown on Public Touch-Ups In Public

Days after I was looking into the mysterious NMF ingredient in the Celeteque cleanser, The Beauty Brains comes out with this informative article.

Something on my drugstore wishlist for the coming trip: Maybelline Color Tattoo 24hr Cream Eyeshadows. I love my palettes but I want a single in my kikay kit for that quick wash on my lids while on the go. These (as well as the L'Oreal Infallible eyeshadows) look perfect for that. The Maybellines are limited edition, if I'm not mistaken.

The Naked palette is on also my wish list but a look at this LORAC Pro Palette is seriously making me reconsider my choice. Look at those mattes!


Sources: @divasoria, The Dalaga Project, my click-fu

Meta

A very interesting look on beauty blogging in Taiwan and what happens when blogging becomes commercialized, written by an insider (brand manager/beauty enthusiast). I've often wondered how much control brands can have on blog content. In Taiwan, it's quite a lot. Particularly interesting is the bit about bloggers signing up for samples in exchange for very specific directions on reviews. (It seems a bit like paid advertising.)

The Complex, Often Idealistic Reasons Feminists Become Housewives. I was having a talk with one of my professor-mentors the other day and he laid out all these possible paths for a young female doctor. Residency, fellowship, sub-sub-specialty training, pioneering -- and remaining a general practitioner, or cutting back on work and studies, to start a family. He believed that serving the country doesn't automatically mean taking care of all the patients you can handle; that it can mean raising a family in the right way, with the right values, with kids that will continue to serve the country in their own way. I wholeheartedly agree with that. I believe being feminist means standing up for your rights as a woman. Including the right to stay at home and raise a family.

I won't get to do this, but for you young professionals out there: why you should travel young.

The demise of Google Reader (huhuhu) has Google users pondering the problem Google has created for itself -- namely, can you trust Google to keep any of its services?

Art & Beauty

Stunning photos of Martha Stewart as a young model

Something to keep in mind when traveling to the US and Europe: the best budget makeup.

And something to keep in mind when taking exams and going on interviews in the US: how the brain detects an aging face. (Need to look older to be taken seriously.)

A great Gaiman quote transformed into watercolor.


Sources: @divasoria, @budjette, @fueledbycola, my click-fu

I was in Watsons in search of a mild alcohol-free toner when I saw this travel kit by Celeteque Dermoscience. I love travel sizes; they're a great way to sample products from brands you've never tried before, but really this was just so cute I couldn't resist picking it up. This is the Hydration line; as you may know I'm really into moisturizing and hydration, so it was perfect.

Oh god, these pictures are a reminder of how badly I need to get back in shape, but here they are anyway. This is what I wore to the Project Vanity Event. Summer is upon us in the hottest, most humid way so I went for something airy.

I love how flowy this skirt is. It's just a little hard to pair a blouse with it because anything not form-fitting makes me look like a sack of pudgy white rice.

I've been MIA as of late because I've been taking care of some things for my upcoming trip. I've been so busy I haven't even had time to study properly. But now it's time to share happy things!

Last Saturday was one of the best days ever. I was in my favorite store (National Bookstore -- don't laugh, I know you guys love it there too) in my favorite mall (Robinsons Place Manila, where I lived during my internship, aka the best year of my life) with my favorite person (my bb, obvs).

NBS Robinsons Manila is one of the better-stocked branches, despite being in the vicinity of a busy university (unlike NBS Katipunan, ugh). I was so happy to come away with this mini haul. (Bookstore hauls, hey, those exist.)

In the last CSS post, I tackled where you place your custom CSS. (Refresher: the most simple way is Dashboard > Template > Customize > Advanced > Add CSS.) What follows is a short list of the simpler custom CSS I used in this layout.  Click on the links for more information.

On the Agenda

• Remove padding from your header
• Hide the space where the navbar used to be
• Remove the Blogger icon from your profile name
• Remove shadows from the Simple Theme
• Simplify your images
• Remove the "Powered by Blogger" attribution

If you read me even sporadically you will know how much I enjoy finding new blogs. It's one of the drives for my Links Loved posts. I was happy to see Liz's 5 local beauty bloggers who I wish won't quit -- being a seasoned beauty blogger, Liz's picks were guaranteed fresh reads. Not to toot my own horn, but I was super flattered and frankly honored to have her seal of approval. *blushes* More importantly, I have new blogs to enjoy! The post was so timely, published a few days before the Project Vanity Event, so I was looking forward to meeting the other girls she listed. And I did -- the very kind Mariana.

Drea has these really cool DIY Galaxy Chucks that you can do with any canvas shoe!

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere has a BBC radio show? \o/ Starring Benedict Cumberbatch too.

A list of posts on crafters' favorite tools that I have to keep in mind when I raid craft stores in the US next month.

The primary reason I left Wordpress was because I found the lack of support for custom code quite restricting. The rest was great: clean interface, lots of plugins, elegant themes. But I couldn't find a theme that fit my exact specifications. And you have to pay for the ability to customize your CSS. Being the cheapskate I am, I moved after 3 weeks.

This is a primer on customizing your code, primarily using CSS. This is written for Blogger but should be translatable to other platforms. Those who already code with CSS (and readers of Pugly Pixel) will find nothing new here, as I will be tackling the very basics of layout customization.

Last Saturday Project Vanity made one of my 2013 goals possible: to meet other local bloggers. (Is it weird that I'm still not used to that word? After all, what would you call someone who has a blog, but a blogger. Yet it comes with so many ~connotations.)

For the Five Years of Vanity Anniversary Event, Liz arranged a meet and greet at Beauty Bar Boni High. Ever the gracious host, she went around introducing strangers to each other, so no one was left alone.

I'm constantly beta-testing and tweaking code, partly because I can always find something that needs improvement, but mostly because I'm fickle-minded about layouts. :p

In its months-long lifetime, this blog has gone through 4-5 layout changes. I think I've finally settled on the one that will last for some time. Even though my header font is already starting to irritate me...

Months (and months and months) ago, Kiera tagged me for The Leibster Award. I'm finally getting around to doing it!

Kiera is from the UK and she blogs about beauty and fashion. She has me lemming for accessories, and I love her quirky photos.

What is the Liebster Award?

I don't know how it started (closest I could find was this post), but basically it's a chain letter type deal for bloggers who have under 200 followers. Liebster means "dearest" in German. This is not an actual award, there is no winner -- except people like me who love discovering new blogs. :p As far as I've seen, the rules differ from blog to blog. These are the rules I was given:

1. List 11 random facts about yourself
2. Answer the 11 questions which are given to you by your nominator
3. Ask 11 new questions for all the bloggers that you nominate to win the award
4. Nominate 9 bloggers with less than 200 followers to win the award
5. Go to each of the blogger's pages to let them know about their nomination
6. Thank the blogger who nominated you by mentioning them and link it back to their blog on your post

At its heart though, the Liebster Award is about sharing new blogs that you think others would like to read as well.

Just when you feel like your skin is looking its best, the next day you leave your SPF on for 12 hours and BAM BAM BAM you've got 3 newborn pimples. Just in time for the Project Vanity Anniversary Event too, dammit all.

So I reached for my current pimple buster, the Garnier PureActive Anti-Imperfections Roll-On. I picked this up last year when I was searching for a salicylic acid-containing product for breakouts. I was happy with the performance of its twin the BB Eye Roll-On, so I gave this one a shot. Long story short: this spot corrector really does work.

After I finished my Nivea Baby Smoothy Cream (down to the last dollop!), I wanted a moisturizer with anti-aging properties. I popped by VMV Hypoallergenics during one of their frequent sales and picked up the Re-everything Face-Hand-Body Lotion.

Cellular renewal, regeneration, microdermabrasion (unbuffered glycolic acid + kinetin growth factor), antioxidant (kinetin, green tea + rice phytic acid) + intensive hydrating glycerin anti-aging therapy for body skin. Gentle enough for use as an interim facial moisturizer when slowly increasing application frequency of Re-Everything Creams. Notably smoother, firmer, rejuvenated skin with a subtle "post-peel glow" from head to toe.

The "gentle exfoliating" part is what sold me. Lisa Eldridge advocates exfoliation and moisture as key anti-aging practices. Seeing as she's in her 40s and has great skin, I'm inclined to believe her. If the lotion's instructions are anything to go by, it's not meant to be a daily facial moisturizer, but I use it as such. I've been using it for a month and I love how it's treating my skin.

The Good

Wow — new anti-TB drug approved by the FDA! First one since the 1960s! Active against multidrug-resistant TB! This is incredibly exciting, especially for countries where TB is endemic, like our very own Philippines.

More exciting news: Toddler 'functionally cured' of HIV! In yet another serendipitous discovery (the mother had stopped giving the child the anti-HIV meds), a baby infected with the virus that causes AIDS was given high doses of three antiretroviral drugs within 30 hours of birth. Two years later, standard clinical tests cannot detect the virus in the child's blood.

The Bad

A recent study from France suggests that diet sodas also raise diabetes risk. The findings don't necessarily imply causation, just that drinking large amounts of diet soda (and the artificial sweeteners in them) can put you at risk for developing type 2 diabetes. Those that drank the highest amount of diet soda (more than 600 mL, or about 2 cans, per week) more than doubled their risk.

During my grandfather's wake, I did without my usual makeup routine. My eyes would well up every few hours, so it was pretty useless. At the same time, my skin was in a bad state. Dehydrated, red, blemished, you name it. Then add puffy eyes and dark circles from late nights followed by early mornings.

Still, I wanted to look presentable for Grampa :) so I reached for the most subtle but indispensable makeup product: Zero Kuma Concealer by K-Palette. It turned out to be a face-saver.

As one of my 2013 Skincare Resolutions, I've been looking for ways to amp up my  moisturizing regimen. So I stopped by Yves Rocher Trinoma to check out their heavily marketed Hydra Vegetal line. The campaign, featuring clear water and a minty blue color scheme, is more akin to juice ads than skincare. But I can tell you it really suits the products.

Mostly local artists in this edition!

Catholic Girls: A Dei In The Life (part 2)
I stumbled upon this comic months ago but recently reread it. The first panel alone brings back so much nostalgia. Not of elementary school actually, but of medical school! I almost wasn't allowed to get my diploma from the Registrar because I was wearing shorts (and they weren't even short shorts)! Oh my gosh golly gee. It was a good thing J was there and convinced the guard to let us in. And omg, the gala uniforms and PE in jogging pants - MEMS!

There are a number of ways to dry your brushes after washing: lay them flat on a towel, hang them off the edge of a table, or, for the densest brushes, hang them straight upside down. But using brush guards is the easiest way I've found to do it!