A year ago, I had no idea what a highlighter or luminizer for the face was and then when I learned about it, I couldn't live without it. It's one of the secrets to healthy looking and glowing skin (or face). Some people would ask me why in my selfies I look really "blooming" and that's not just because I'm tremendously happy all the time. Why is that? Most of those photos are well, you guessed it, thanks to a highlighter/luminizer.

My first BDJBOX for this year came with one. Hurraaayyy!!! It's the AVON Illuminating Face Pearls. It's not your conventional highlighter/luminizer since only gives cheeks and browbones a subtle, radiant sheen. It's so perfect for everyday wear! With my other highlighters/luminizers, I needed to be very careful in applying or I'd go overboard and look like a hot mess with a face like a disco ball. Tee hee. However, the AVON Illuminating Face Pearls comes in a jar which isn't really convenient to bring along. You can transfer some product easily to a smaller container if you wish to take it with you and without it cramping your kikay kit.

It has three hues of illuminating powder balls and altogether gives a very nice warm peachy glow. I've been using Avon's Illuminating blush in Peach ever since I got it last year and this is a great match for it! I did expect there'd be more product in the jar but it contained maybe 1/3 of its container. :( Nevertheless, it's a lot (22g according to the package) and with everyday use, it seems like it will take a long time for me to finish this whole thing. The product is "buildable", too. So if you want to use it as a blush, you can just keep applying and it will show more color on your cheeks. That means your PHP 599 will surely go a loooong way.


I use a small blush brush when I apply these on my cheeks and brow bone. I also like to apply it on my nose bridge and forehead, cupid's bow on my top lip, and chin for overall subtle glow. The AVON Illuminating Face Pearls really looks natural on my skin. I'm not sure with fairer skin though but I'm a medium (light?) with yellow undertone and it shows up just fine.

As you can see, it illuminates the skin with a pretty sheen to it. Sometimes you can't really tell if I'm wearing it but I love how it gives my skin a very flattering look and I don't have great skin as of the moment with a lot of unevenness and blemishes (although I should say it's currently clearing up now).

I think this highlighter/luminizer is great for people who need something they can use daily without worrying about wearing a ton of makeup on their face, because let's face it, it's another layer of product on your face if for you foundation and powder is already a tad heavy. I do use the AVON Illuminating Face Pearls as blush as well.



So it seems the AVON Illuminating Face Pearls is the answer to a healthy, glowing skin. Did I say that already? But it is! Although it doesn't mean you should skip all your other skincare routines to promote healthy skin. In the photos above, I washed my face with Beauty and Bright Moringa soap after which I used an emulsion and a snail cream from Tony Moly to brighten up my skin first and then used the Avon Illuminating Face Pearls as my highlighter/luminizer to complete a natural radiant look.


And sometimes when I want to look even extra "blooming",  I gather the lightest of the face pearls and group them together and use that color solely for more oomph! It does make those #selfies so much better. LOL!


Okay, enough of my face. Here's a classic happy family photo from the RameNoodles. Again, you can see a very nice subtle highlighting effect and overall, I am enjoying the AVON Illuminating Face Pearls which has become my daily highlighter/luminizer after doing a 7-day challenge. A lot of people would say it's an unnecessary product to include in your everyday look but for me, it's indispensable. ('Coz I take a lot of selfies! Tee hee!)


I am still working on getting back that naturally healthy and glowing skin without makeup as I did pre-pregnancy, but for the meantime in spite of sleepless nights and graveyard shifts, I got highlighters/luminizers such as the AVON Illuminating Face Pearls to save the day.
 


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Cue in Anna singing, "For the first time in forever..." *record scratch* Okay, no more Frozen soundtrack L.S.S. What? You can't stop singing Let It Go, too? Last song syndrome. Tsk.

Anyway, the second month of 2014 is here and I've lived almost 3 decades of my life already but yet there are still so many FIRSTS to experience. In this most recent case, my FIRST Android phone is here! I had declared that one of my NY resolutions was to be more open to new things. New products. New brands. New ideas.

So this is actually my FIRST raffle win for 2014! (More wins this year please?!) Because I needed to have my prize shipped to me I found out that LBC, Hari Ng Padala, actually accepts prepaid packages. Oi! That's a first! I mean, I knew about freight collect courier services but those are for cargo mostly; however, LBC Express does allow you to pay for packages when you need someone to send you something and you're shouldering the shipping fee. So it's like this:

• First, you ship them an empty transpack. I included in a bubble wrap since they were going to ship me a mobile phone.
• Then you pay for the two packages. (In my case I paid around Php460)

So that's it! All the other end has to do it ship back my prize inside the empty transpack I sent him and he doesn't need to pay anything. Just drop it off at an LBC branch. This sure as heck is easier than finding a representative to claim a prize! This was actually suggested by Mark Clutario when I told him my situation of being geographically-challenged. Daghan salamat, Mark!

So anyways, I got my prize and it was an O+ 8.52 Anroid phone that I won from Yugatech's 25 Days of Christmas Giveaway. I'm not going to write a technical review because there are many dedicated sites on the web for that, so I instead I'll show you how an Apple fangirl learns Android and well, how I turned my Android phone into an Apple wannabe.



Moving on with my review of this mobile phone unit...

The O+ 8.52 Android phone comes with the usual bells and whistles of your typical smartphone. It utilizes a 1,450 mAh battery pack though it runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS with its 1 GHz Dual Core MediaTek MTK6577 processor with a 4-inch 480 x 800 pixels IPS LCD. The RAM is just 512 MB but I don't play games on my phones so that's not an issue for me. The camera has 5 megapixels but we all know quality is all about the sensor. For me, it's very slow and the quality, nevermind. I do love that it's got the Dual SIM Dual Standby capability, connects to WiFi as well as has Bluetooth and 3G connectivity options. The Air Shuffle is actually the biggest thing about O+ phones (as advertised) but I can't be bothered with that either. It can only be used on apps such as the built-in photo gallery and you can't really apply it to 3rd party apps. Toinks!



Oh, before I forget... the charger that came with the USB cable was busted in less than 24 hours. Eeek! On the second day that I had the phone, it wouldn't charge! I hadn't even rooted it yet so I figured it's not bricked and I ought to use another charger with the supplied USB cable. Voila! It worked... So the charger that came with it is probably a lemon. Tsk!

Dead charger. Used for just a day. USB cable still good though.

When I got this phone (same holds true for any phone I get my hands on), I immediately try to change it's theme. What can I say? I like to be different and I'm all for customization. This is easily accomplished via Google's PlayStore. I found a nice iPhone Launcher Theme that matched the Pink Leaves Go Locker Theme and GO SMS Theme WP8Pink.
 

Get a load of that SUN CELLULAR Scammer's SMS!

So that was easy. Now my Android phone looks like an iPhone! I'm not too crazy about widgets because basically those things drain your battery faster from what I gathered so I'm perfectly fine without installing any of those. My O+ 8.52 still was functioning fast in spite of the themes so I'm happy. It's not as fast as I want it to be though. I did install a couple of apps that are meant to speed up your phone by deleting caches and releasing memory, etc.

The one other thing I always want to tinker with and change in all my mobile phones is the FONT. I love my handwritten and fancy fonts. But then I discovered I had to ROOT this damn phone before I could download and use all these free fonts from the PlayStore. Ayayay! It took me an entire morning just to get it done. I had no idea what's inside an Android OS but thank goodness for forums and techs sharing their knowledge. So let me show you a step-by-step tutorial courtesy of ProZoLD*cK from PHCORNER.net.

You'll need the following: (I suggest you download them all before proceeding to the steps on how to root below.)

1. MT6577 USB VCOM drivers (Download HERE.)
2. MTK Droid and Root Tools (Download HERE.)
3. SP_Flash_Tool_v3.1244.0.sn85 for Android 4.1 jellybeans (Download HERE.)
4. Moborobo installer (Download HERE.)

Now follow the instructions below on how to ROOT your Android mobile phone. I'll make it as clear as I can.

IMPORTANT: Install the Moborobo installer on your computer (first so that your phone can be detected by your computer. Close the program after installation, select recommend and OK if that comes up on screen.


Here are the steps for rooting:

1. Turn off your phone and connect it to your computer. Extract the MT6577 USB VCOM drivers and install it on your computer. Make sure to finish installing it before proceeding to the next step so the phone gets detected by all the other tools we will be using subsequently.



2. Remove phone from your computer. Turn on your phone and enable USB debugging. Go to Settings > Developer Option > enable USB debugging then connect your phone to the computer. Now extract MtkDroidTools. Run MTKdroidTools.exe. Wait for the computer to detect your O+ 8.52 Android phone.

3. On the MTKdroidTools, click Blocks Map , then CREATE SCATTER FILE. Save the TXT file to your Desktop to easily locate it later. Then click RETURN.


4. Run Flash_tool.exe which is located in the SP_Flash_Tool_v3.1244.0.sn85 file you downloaded. Click Scatter-loading then locate the TXT file we just created that should be on your Desktop. Then on tabs located on the program where it says Download | Read Back | Memory test, just click the Read Back tab.



5. On the Read Back tab, click Add, double click the one below Read Flag, then save your output to your DESKTOP with the filename ROM_0.


6. When the Read Back block start address comes on, click HEX then enter the value 0x27ee8000 for Length.

7. Now you can turn off your phone and disconnect the USB connector from your computer. At this time, on your Flash_tool you'll see options for Add | Remove | Read Back. Now just click on Read Back before connecting your phone to the computer once again. This is so the computer recognizes the phone even though it's turned off. After re-connecting your phone, just wait for it to finish uploading to your phone. Depending on your computer speed/power, it will take quite a while. Don't worry about it.



8. When that's done, you can remove your phone from your computer. Then turn it ON before connecting it back again to your computer. Then let's go back to the MtkDroidTools, and this time click on the Root, Backup, Recovery tab. Then click To process file ROM_ from FlashTool, and look for the ROM we made during step 7. That's the one presumably saved on your Desktop. Wait for it to say "task is complete", then just click OK if anything pop ups on screen. This may take some time and when it's finished, just disconnect your phone from the computer and turn it off.


9. Now back to the Flash_tool, click on Scatter-loading then in your MtkDroidTools folder, you'll find a backups folder containing a file  then yung backup na folder then may folder na O+ 8.52 forFlashtool etc, open it and look for the file: MT6577_Android_scatter_emmc.txt, click OK. Uncheck all boxes except for RECOVERY, double click this and inside your backups folder, click the O+-8.52-Android_130201__recovery_130610-180612 or a similar file to this. Now back to Flash_tools, you'll find options such as Format | Firmware | Download, and just click the Download button before you connect your phone to the computer while it is turned off. After the process is complete, remove your phone.


Note: If you're wondering where the heck is the backups folder, it should be inside your MtkDroidTools folder.


10. The next step is to boot your phone into recovery mode and you can do this by holding volume up + power button.



After the recovery mode is displayed on screen, you can connect the phone to the computer once more. Run MtkDroidTools to root the phone. At the Backup, Root, Recovery tab, you'll notice the options BACKUP, SUPERUSER, BUILD PROP, and DELETE CHINA are no longer greyed out so that means YOU DID IT!!! Go ahead and click Superuser so to install apps necessary to be rooted. Wait for until it displays "task is complete".


It is recommended to also click BACKUP so that you will have a copy of your stock ROM for your Android phone just in case it gets bricked in the future. ;)

You can check your Root and Superuser status via the Root Checker Pro app. Just install it to your phone. Here's a screenshot of mine with my current font, too:


WOOT WOOT!!! Now I can tinker with my Android phone some more...

So why ROOT your phone? For me, I just needed the fonts installed. But other people choose to do so because rooting allows you to run special applications that requires you to be "Superuser". Certain apps need access to the "root" system of your device. Once rooted, it also allow you to tether a computer to your Android phone so that the computer can access the Internet using the phone's data connection. And then there's a program that can allow your Android mobile phone to be used as a WiFi Hotspot without having to pay your provider for the feature, though I haven't really tried this and don't intend to because then I'd kill my battery faster. So no thanks. Another huge advantage of being rooted is the option to free up your phone's memory. It goes without saying you can move your installed apps to your memory card. And the topmost reason why people want to root their phones is the ability to install Custom ROMs. Gosh! I suddenly remember my Windows mobile HTC days like 10 years ago when it was all about customizing your ROMs. I feel so old now. LOL! Remember Airfagev?

Of course, there are disadvantages and risks involved when you root your phone. First of all, rooting will void your phone's warranty. No surprise there. And secondly, rooting involves the risk of "bricking" your phone, meaning you might kill it in the process especially if you don't do it right. So be careful and follow instructions! Some people claim that after rooting, their phones become slower in performance despite the fact that it's supposed to speed up your phone and also some phones can get viruses.

So rooting may not be for everybody. "ROOT" at your own risk! ^_^ But if you like livin' on the edge, I say, why not chocnut? :D

If you're curious about the performance of the O+ 8.52 Android phone, check out my short video below:


Overall, as a secondary phone, I'm satisfied with the O+ 8.52 Android phone. Though it can't replace as my primary phone. There are bigger and faster models from O+ USA that you're better off it if you're here because you're looking into buying this particular model. I say skip this one and get a newer/upgraded model. However, I cannot sway you if this 5K+ phone meets your budget requirements, but still I recommend to splurge 1 or 2K more and get a better model. But as a backup phone, yes, it will definitely do.

Just my 2 cents. ^_^





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Hey, everyone! I'm back with a hot new review of an ever popular INSTANT whitening milk lotion. Now take note I say instant because this doesn't take 7 days or a fortnight to see results. I can't stress it enough... THIS IS INSTANT, BABY! In this day and age of instant gratification, this is probably the next best thing to instant noodles or instant coffee for me. But then again, I'm vain like that. So yeah. Let's get on with my review.

Notice my face is now a darker shade on the second photo with product applied on my neck, shoulders, chest, arms, and hands.

We all have our reasons to want a lighter (if not whiter) skin. I do love the skin I'm in but that doesn't mean I don't want to improve it. I have very uneven skintone. My body is basically composed of 3 or 4 different shades. My face is a different color and so are my neck, my back and my arms. Heck, if you should see my legs, it does not match any part of my body at all! I do not want to be Snow White but who doesn't want flawless looking skin with EVEN skintone??? I sure do not want to look weird wearing a tube top because my face, neck, and body do not match. Makeup such as foundations and concealers can do wonders but if you're using the wrong ones, do not even bother getting your picture taken (especially with flash!) because you're sure as heck going to look like it's "FOUNDATION DAY"! Que horror! Mura'g na mudmud ang nawng sa harina!

Step-by-step light brown smokey eyes makeup tutorial

This is a step-by-step tutorial I took some time to create for you guys. My tripod broke so please be a little forgiving with my photos and also I haven't perfected the lighting in my room yet. I promise I'll do better next time!

Anyways, for the love month (specifically Valentine Day week), I drew inspiration to create a look based on Sigma's Ravishing Romantic face chart from their awesome newsletter. They suggested to pair a soft-sultry eye with a poppy pink lip for a look that's unforgettable. *light bulb*


So I took out my babies and told them we were going to have some fun!



Using some of my existing makeup products, I set on to recreate a look that is perfect for a romantic date with your beau or even during a girl's night out for singles who are still searching for THE ONE.

I used only 4 shades of brown for this brown smokey eyes look.

I've already applied my favorite concealer using my Sigma P88 Precision Flat Angled brush and applied foundation for my entire face using the ever popular F80 - Flat Top Kabuki. So now let's go right ahead and do the eyes! It's really not that difficult to create a smokey look as long as you have the right brushes. It takes me more or less 15 minutes to finish both my eyes. I'll show you the steps to do it. It should take roughly a minute or less for each step.

 
STEP 1: Prime your eyes with an eyeshadow base so whatever colors you use will absolutely look intense. In my case, I only used the eyeshadows from my BH Cosmetics 88 matte palette which are quite pigmented already.

STEP 2: Using a Small Tapered Blending brush such as the Sigma E45, take a light brown shade and apply to the crease. This will add depth and dimension to your eye. Also take it out the outer lid to serve as a guide for the deeper shade later.

STEP 3: Now using an Eye Shading brush with soft and dense bristles like the Sigma E55, pack a shimmery bronze or copper color to your lid. This brush is great a picking up product.





STEP 4: A Pencil brush like the Sigma E30 is the best one to use when applying a dark eyeshadow color on the outer lid. I feel it's more precise this way and you can also blend it into the crease if you want it to be more intense. The size of the pencil brush is perfect for small Asian eyes like mine.

STEP 5:  Now it's time to line the eyes. You can use a dark brown pencil eyeliner or in my case, I opted for a gel liner and applied it using a fine tip and tapered Eyeliner brush which is the Sigma E05. Using this particular brush helps me get so close to my lash line so that it doesn't leave an unpleasant white gap from the lashes to my eyelid.

STEP 6:  Using the same dark brown eyeshadow used for the outer lid/crease, use a brush with a flat and sharp thin edge like the Sigma E15 Flat Definer brush and apply it to the lower lash line. This will create a nice shadow for sparse lashes and define eyes some more.

STEP 7: Time to blend out harsh edges and highlight the brow bone. I found out that a Tapered Blending brush with a soft and fluffy rounded tip like such as the Sigma E40 accomplishes this task rather quickly. Just a few quick windshield wiper motions and you're all set!

Light brown smokey eyes by MyMaria.

And finally...

STEP 8: Curl your lashes if you need to and apply your favorite mascara. You can opt for false lashes for more oomph, but since I'm going for a "ravishing romantic" look, I decided to skip the falsies.


That's it! You're done with the eyes.


Now you'll just need to pick the right shades for the lips to complete your look and of course, don't forget the blush and luminizer/highlighter to look glowing and in love!


A hot pink lipgloss or a lipstick complements the soft sultry eyes as well as a peach or rose wine blush (hey, did you know you can also use a nice rosy lipstick as blush too? YUP!) to complete the whole RAVISHING ROMANTIC look.

RAVISHING ROMANTIC for Valentines. MyMaria version. Inspired by Sigma Beauty.

I hope you liked my simple tutorial. I hope to create more in the coming days (as soon as I get my camera settings and lightning right!) so please leave a comment or suggestions as to what kind of look do you want me to (re)create. Thanks for reading and dropping by!

"Anyone can catch your eye, but it takes someone special to catch your heart."

Be in love, with love!


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