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I Stopped Making My Skin Pay for the Money I Spent

  For the longest time, I kept products I already knew I couldn’t use. Not because I loved them. Because I’d paid for them. My COSRX Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence stayed because I kept waiting for the day my skin might finally tolerate it again. Maybe when my skin calmed down. Maybe when the flare-ups stopped. Maybe later. Every so often, I’d try again. And my skin would flare up again. The purple moisturizer was different. That one actually worked for me for a while. Then the formula changed, and suddenly something my skin had been perfectly happy with wasn’t working anymore. Still, I kept it. And then there was my NARS primer. I stopped using that a long time ago. Yet somehow it continued living among my things, occupying its tiny piece of real estate as though we were merely on a break. 😆 Eventually I looked at all three and realized something. I was making my skin responsible for recovering the money I’d already spent. As though keeping the bottle made the purchase les...
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Part 2: Yes, I Used a Christmas Foot Mask Months Later

  Once I’d finally done something about all that dry skin, I decided my feet deserved the second half of the operation: moisture. Enter this extremely cheerful Christmas-themed rose nourishing foot mask . Did I use it at Christmas? Of course not. I only recently got around to using it because apparently this is where we are in my life now. I am so busy that even my seasonal beauty products have a backlog. 😂 Do you remember that I usually celebrate Christmas in January or February because of atelier work?  Apparently, it’s the same for my beauty routines. 😑 The little reindeer had been patiently waiting for its moment. The masks themselves were essentially little moisturizing socks. I put them on, sat there looking mildly ridiculous for a while, and let them do their thing. They felt weird. I’m neurodivergent, so being able to stick through the 15 minutes was a big deal  And afterward? My feet were happier. They’re not yet the ridiculously smooth, soft feet I want. We’re...
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Part 1: I Finally Had Enough of My Dry Feet and Did Something About It

  I have been annoyed with my feet for months. Not because there was anything particularly wrong with them. They were just dry . Really dry. And you know I have a problem with dryness (hello skin, lips). And somehow, despite noticing this constantly, I kept doing absolutely nothing about it. The moment that gets me every time is when I’m waiting for my son at piano class. I’ll sit down, cross my legs, look down at my slip-ons or sandals and there they are. My dry, flaky feet. Then I become painfully aware that there are other people sitting beside me who can probably see them too. 😂 Every time, I think, I really need to do something about this. And then piano class ends, life resumes, and apparently my feet are no longer part of my jurisdiction. Eventually, I had enough. I found this Mond’Sub Chamomile Foot Peeling Spray at KKV and decided that my poor neglected feet were finally getting some attention. The process wasn’t glamorous. There was peeling skin involved. There were bits...
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My Brush as My Daily Diagnostic Device

  I don’t count the hairs that fall out of my head. I have a much simpler system. I look at my brush. Most days, I brush my hair, pull out whatever has collected in the bristles and don’t think much about it. But every now and then, there is noticeably more. That’s when my hairbrush stops being a hairbrush and becomes a tiny daily report from my body: Excuse me. We need to discuss some things. For me, more hair than usual tends to coincide with periods when I haven’t been eating as well, particularly when I haven’t been getting enough protein, or when I’ve been under more stress than usual. Or I haven’t had enough sleep.  So I pay attention. Not obsessively. I’m not counting strands or turning my bathroom into a laboratory. I simply take it as a cue to check in with myself. Have I been eating properly? Have I been getting enough protein? Have I been pushing too hard? Have I actually rested lately, or have I merely stopped moving while continuing to mentally run seventeen depar...
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Drugstore Luxury

I have a weakness for little luxuries. Not necessarily the expensive kind. Sometimes it’s something as simple as putting gold eye patches under my eyes and walking around the house looking like I have a skincare appointment somewhere far more glamorous than my bedroom. These Bioten Hyaluronic Gold Hydrogel Eye Patches are exactly that kind of thing. They’re hydrating, de-puffing eye patches with hyaluronic acid and golden proteins, and they’re fragrance-free, which immediately made them more interesting to me. You know me and my sensitivity to strong fragrances.  But I also like the sheer ridiculous pleasure of them. They’re gold. They’re shiny. They make an ordinary few minutes of skincare feel just a little more indulgent. And they’re not flimsy like that pair I got from KKV that I used in Baguio.  There is something I love about finding products like this at the drugstore. Beauty doesn’t always have to arrive in a heavy glass jar with a three-digit price tag and a ...
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