Etude House Play House Princess Academy + Pink Artiste 2013

Hey guys! This post has been put off long enough! Today I'll be blogging about my fantasmical experience at Etude House Philippines' Play House Princess Academy 2013 held at SM North EDSA The Block last July 28!

Needless to say, this was undeniably the pink-est event I've ever been to, and I'll be honest -- I'm not usually the biggest fan of pink, but Etude really knows how to pull it off and the air of princess-y (and prince-y) cuteness was saturated all throughout the event!

The Play House Princess Academy is, I think, Etude's way of saying thank you to all its valued customers out there with two days of fun activities, makeup workshops and cute pink sweets. The event played host to a number of different attendees - little kids, teens, girls who will stay forever young ;) (*coughmecough*).

Etude House Philippines' President, Andrea Amado wasn't lying when she said that Etude aims to make every customer feel like royalty. So I tried my best to live up to the occasion and dressing in my best cutesy outfit.

Okay, so it's not exactly that cutesy. My makeup was pretty neutral with nude-pink accents on the eyes and lips and my hair was more of an intricate cheat than anything. And while I tried to look as cute and pink as possible to suit the occasion, my outfit turned into more of a pin-up crossover with a milkmaid than a princess haha. But really, I'm not one of those cutesy types of girls - I'd rather stay true to my style but also bring some of my own princess-y cuteness to the table :P

While engaging yourself with the various activities, you also have the opportunity of brushing up on your makeup and fashion know-how with all the workshops Etude House organized just for you!

Activities like Kiss the Prince were definitely a huge hit and there were free makeovers galore to make you feel like a true Etude House Princess. Not to mention you get a cute princess-y souvenir photo afterwards.

*Ninja Shot of my good friend, Amz from Punky Bunny http://amz88.blogspot.com/. Please don't kill me haha*

Unfortunately, I wasn't exactly in the position to enjoy all the activities of the event, having been asked to be on standby backstage. As a result, I didn't even get a chance to meet all the awesome blogger people I had hoped to see during the event itself D: *sadface*. I eventually just gave my ticket to my good friend and partner in girly-crime, Joanna haha. Full support all the way :P

While Joanna was out enjoying the activities, I was backstage, being utterly starstruck at the number of celebrities there. I'm not a huge follower of local media so I barely knew anybody, but good thing Kyala, one of my fellow Pink Artiste Finalists, and her sister were there to clue me in.

Backstage with the Pink Artiste 2013 Finalists, Shebby Liquete and Kyala Cristine Oplado

I was surprised as to how down to earth all the celebrities were, and while I didn't exactly have the guts to muster up the courage to actually talk to them, let alone ask for a picture with them, at least I can say I got to see them face to face haha.

The event kicked off with a few words from Etude House President Andrea Amado and the bulk of the event was hosted by the lovely Carla Humphries. There were guest workshops by Ryuji Shiomitsu and the lovely Bianca Valerio, not to mention appearances by Coleen Garcia, Brett Jackson, Miles Ocampo, Paul Salas, Niel Coleta, Ella Cruz, and Dominic Roque! Whew! I'm surprised I remember all of their names LOL. Not to mention, last year's Pink Artiste, Orange Tuazon was there as well!

Despite the star-studded ensemble of guests, we were all surprised to hear that the "main event" was actually our makeup showdown.

I am hardly an expert at applying makeup on other people. I can only reall vouch for makeup on myself. That being said, I tried my best to do justice to the products provided by Etude. We were all rather caught off guard actually. We were hanging on the basis of having 5 minutes to pick up and organize the products we were to use, but because of time constraints, that entire segment was cut and we had to just go straight on ahead to the actual application :P

Despite that, we all managed to finish a Glam Princess look within 15 minutes - albeit my model looked like a hot mess haha. I definitely don't do makeup well under pressure x_x

Not your best angle Andie -- blame the photographer haha.

A special thanks to the lovely Andie Reyes, one of my underclassmen in college, for allowing me to ravage her face with my lackluster professional makeup skills haha. Just goes to show you how she could probably pull of any look :P Seriously, you could probably paint her face brown and she'd still look high fashion.

In the end, Shebby bagged first, I got second and Kyala walked away with third! But by the end of it all, we all felt like winners. We also felt like ants, by the way, considering how tall Bianca and Carla are. We look like hobbits in comparison haha! But like I told Kyala - we're not short. We're FUN-sized. haha

Shebby's absolutely glowing, isn't she? Congrats and do us proud!

Despite not getting first, this truly had been a wonderful learning experience for me and has motivated me to try and pursue makeup to greater heights :) That way I can be the first Molecular Biologist / Makeup Artist / Fashion Model / Blogger to grace the covers of renowned magazines haha.

Also, I got to walk away with these awesome prizes. Tada~! Three mystery bags of Etude House products worth 20,000PHP!

There's still a lot more in store for me, and for my readers *wink wink*. I really would not have been able to come this far without you and your support, so I have a few things planned ahead!

Stay tuned for Part II of this series of Etude House posts, my Etude House Play House Princess Academy Haul! Stay tuned~!

Ada, signing out.

Photos courtesy of Brandon Sy.
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Hair Story: Feb - March Compilation

Whoo! It's been ages since I've done a post like this. I've been wanting to post up a few more inspired looks from the months of February and this March, but I honestly didn't think that they would constitute an entire full-blown post. So I thought maybe I'd just do a compilation of some cool hair adventures every month haha.

For those readers new to my Hair Story segment,  Hair Story posts are my way of encouraging myself to be more creative with my hair, since most times I either wear it down, or in a boring ol' ponytail D: Hopefully these types of posts will encourage you guys to try out new things as well :P

I'll have to apologize since the pictures aren't as polished as they usually are for my other posts :P Nor is this post as structured as my usual posts, but I reeeeaaa~lly wanted to share these haha.

I've gotten better at braiding! Below was my second or third attempt at a diagonal french braid. It used to be so hard feeling for hair and directing the braid down the right direction but now, I have it all down perfectly. It's definitely a cute twist to a normal french braid :)

The one below is similar to the hair I did for my Back to School Floral OOTD but this one ends in an elegant bun. Decorating it with flower clips gives it a really nice, regal look if you ask me.

And last but not least, my latest experimental look haha. My hair has been getting long lately so as a simple little hairdo, I've taken to simply braiding it all down to one side and then looping it up to make a cute side "bun" which is actually a loop of hair. I fixed it up to the side of my head with bobby pins and more flower clips! I'm obsessed.

So what do you guys think? I'm getting pretty better at fancy hair styles :P Goodbye to old boring ponytails! I hope I gave you guys some awesome ideas to try out! Feel free to ask for specific tutorials if you need. I'll be glad to answer any questions :)

EDIT: my flower clips are all from Forever 21 :)

See my other Hair Story Posts here:

Waterfall Twist Braid

Floral Spiral Dutch Lace Braid

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Hope you enjoyed these!

Ada, signing out.

Hair Story: Floral Spiral; Dutch Lace Braid

Whoo~! Hey guys! It's been a while since my last hair story segment. I was hoping to follow it up with a bang of beautifully intricate hairstyles shot at reasonably artistic angles, but unfortunately, the mirror available refused to cooperate.

That being said, that's not stopping me from sharing one of my fave formal up-do's that I've regularly been wearing to special occasions. It's something I tried doing after I learned how to Dutch lace braid properly. It was actually an experiment as to whether or not I could properly maneuver a Dutch lace braid (only adding hair to one side of the braid) into a spiral or something similar. The result was surprisingly regal.

Needless to say, this was not exactly a fun time to do, considering I did this blindly (no mirrors) just by feeling for strands to incorporate into the braid and going through back-breaking proportions to steer the braid into a somewhat spiral conformation and eventually in a bun. The result itself was satisfactory, but I needed bobby pins to hold the braided bun flat. But because my bobby pins have seemingly ventured off into the world of the unknown, the only other pins I had left to secure the bun were these floral clips. They actually add quite a girly effect if you ask me :P

Below is a close-up of the actual braid. The lighting is horrible and the mirror is old, grainy and stained. Let's just pretend it's an antique filter okay? haha. My hands are still quite unskilled when it comes to doing braids on my own hair because I can't exactly see what I'm doing behind my head, but I'm pretty much set for braiding other people's hair haha. It's somewhat of a hobby for me. Also, I neglected to dampen my hair prior to trying this braid, hence all the unsightly fly-aways. Sorreh D:

Out of frustration, I eventually tried getting a picture of the hairstyle by stretching my hand as far back as it could go. I managed to snag a closeup of the bun and the flowers used to hold it together. If you're wondering why the flowers are on mirrored in the following picture, you basically answered your own query. Physics, people, physics. LOL.

You can't exactly tell from the picture but the bun is also a braid. I bet this hairstyle would look gorgeous on lighter more textured hair. If only I had a blonde Caucasian friend to try it on... *coughKirstencough*. Despite the boring-ness of my hair color, I still got lots of compliments on my hair that day and it lasted surprisingly long! Six hours to be exact.

Looking at it now, I'd probably want a similar hairstyle on my wedding, except probably in a French lace braid, not Dutch, just to be subtle.

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this post! Feel free to request hairstyles and/or tutorials. I was too lazy to film how I did this, plus it was honestly experimental, but if anyone's curious, I might actually get the motivation to film a proper video LOL.

Ada, signing out!

Hair Story: Waterfall Twist

Hey guys! I'm finally on holiday break and I actually have some time off to do whatever the heck I want. Well, not really. I have a novel to finish, two exams to study for and an entire room to clean up but at least I don't have to wake up at six everyday, right?

So this post is basically part of what will become hopefully a regular post-schedule, if not, a new addition to my array and variety of post. It's a play on "history". Get it? Hair-story, her-story, his-story? OHOHOHOHO, Yeah, I'm not that clever. Ether way, I've becoming less lazy with my hair. You guys wouldn't notice because I've always done my hair in some effort-requiring way for my OOTDs, but IRL, I usually just wear it down or in a side pony. Recently though, I've actually been exerting effort with braids and styles. I'm still not fond of curling my hair, but the pretty waves that come after braiding are forgivable.

Today I share with you a look I recreated (and altered) from one of the more prolific beauty gurus on youtube, Nee from Bebexo.

It's half a twist waterfall braid and half a regular three-strand braid and I think the two strands coming together with the cute floral clip really give it a cute elegant feel, don't you think? If you guys are wondering why my hair looks so brown here, thank the natural sunlight. I wish my hair looked like this everyday, but unfortunately, in the dim light it just looks a boring black D:

For all of you guys who think this may be daunting to pull off on yourself, I think it'll be a comfort to know that I did this on myself all under five minutes. It's actually quite easy!

If you're looking to recreate this look, or just to see how the twist waterfall braid is done, you can find Nee's particular tutorial on that here.

Look forward to more of these posts! Also, if you're looking for some awesome giveaways to top off your holiday season, check out the sidebar and my recent posts. There's lots of love going around, why not share in it?

Ada, signing out.

Haircut: I look TWELVE again!

I didn't realize how much younger (or rather how immature) full bangs made me look lol. I already sort of have a young looking face because my eyes are so close together but looking at these pics, I'm not sure if it's just my clothes or my hair that makes me look like I'm twelve again :))

I got my hair done at the wonderful Beauty Brick Hair Art Studio of which I have been a client for about two years or so. I'm in love with the place really, and the staff (and their head hairdresser/owner of the place) have taken to calling my mother お母さん because we've been regulars for so long. The place is owned by a Korean hair stylist who studied hair dressing in Japan, Mr. Shin. Yeah, mix the meticulous prowess of Japanese hairstylists and the ingenuity of Korean haircuts and you're sure to have a winner there. All the haircuts and styling are done personally by Mr. Shin and he communicates with his clients through a Japanese translator. Save of course if you're Korean or Japanese, then he'll just talk to you directly.

They specialize in Digital Perms, Stra-Curl (Rebond + Perm), Volume Rebond and Coloring - all of which I have tried in the duration that I have been their client. In fact, if you're a regular, you enjoy a 10% discount on all their services :3 Pretty nifty if I may say so myself.

This time though, I just settled for some retouching and a haircut (haircuts are free if you avail of their other services, but normally cost 1000 PHP). Mr. Shin is a genius when it comes to haircuts. Just bring him a picture and he'll be able to replicate it to the tee, even recommending what services you need to avail of to get the exact look. I came to him with a full 2 feet (yes, I measured) of hair and ended up with 6 inches off after having asked him to remove my damaged ends. Ick, I didn't think my hair was THAT damaged. He still managed to salvage my hair though, and I was still able to retain most of my hair's length. Yay!

I booked my appointment on a Tuesday in the hopes that I'd be able to blog a little bit more freely since it was a weekday, but because a lot of people were on their holidays, it ended up being one of their busier days, so I wasn't really able to grab any decent pictures. Don't worry though, I may be returning sometime in November to get my hair dyed. I was thinking I might go with a more natural Ombre Hair type of style. Something on the lines of my natural hair color to a deep brown to an ashy brown instead of the stereotypical bleaching. Mr. Shin said he could do it, but he recommended my hair take a rest first so what is a girl to do but listen? So I'll save the blogging for then (when it's less crowded)

So instead, how about a few more shots for the road?

So what do you guys think? Do I look as much like a twelve year old girl as I think I do? hahaha

Ada, signing out.