One of the best things that you can do for your skin is to get a bottle of Cure Natural Aqua Gel (P1,500 at Beauty Bar). I have yet to meet a person who didn't fall on her toes (figuratively) to buy this after a couple of tries! This is actually a cult favorite product in Japan, changing the way women exfoliate their skin for many years now. I'm happy to announce that it's finally here in the Philippines!

Okay let's backtrack a little bit. I tried Cure about two or three years ago, when a friend gave me a sample. I felt it broke me out (my skin was extremely reactive then) so it dropped from my radar. Fast forward to today. I got a bottle of this early this year and held off using it for a month. When I felt that my skin could take a breakout, I finally tried it and holy cranberry - it is amazing! I didn't get any pimples too.

But wait, what does Cure do exactly? It's a gommage exfoliator. It's a gel product that hardens into soft, paper-like bits as it dries. These bits, when massaged onto the skin, exfoliate gently and thoroughly. I cannot emphasize enough how thoroughly this gets rid of dead skin and even mild blackheads! My skin feels squeaky clean after I rinse it off. Think of a newly washed plate, and how the surface is so clean that your fingers get some resistance when you drag it. That's what a newly "Cured" face feels like.

Since I started using Cure twice a week, the tiny bumps around my eyes, nose, and chin have significantly lessened.

Last Christmas, Tony Moly sent me a package that contained one of their best sellers: the Tony Moly Appletox Smooth Massage Peeling Cream (P525), cutely nicknamed as the Appletox. I've never used it until last night mainly because I'm anxious about breaking out. I've never used a Tony Moly skincare product before so I really took a chance here!

Since I had a bit of free time last night and needed to get rid of some dry skin anyway, I decided to try the Appletox. It's supposed to be a face mask-cum-exfoliator as it dries into flakes you can rub off. 

How to use the product. Apply a light layer all over your face. Wait for it to dry, usually in 10 minutes or so. After drying, gently massage the mask off your face to get rid of deep-seated dirt and peeling skin.

Exfoliators are useful in removing product build-up and other accumulated junk on the skin's surface. They also clean up dead skin and pore blockages, two common causes of acne. Nonetheless, you don't actually need to use exfoliators everyday. As with everything else, use them only when you need them!

That said, many exfoliators out in the market now have a tendency to be harsh on skin. Their scrub beads can be abrasive and the formula drying so they may do more harm than good. If you feel that your current exfoliator fits that profile, then perhaps it's time to switch to something more gentle yet equally effective.

Say, the new White Result Exfoliating Gel (P300 ish), for instance. It is a gommage exfoliator that starts out as a gel and dries to form physical scrub.

This Exfoliating Gel is mostly water infused with botanical extracts like bilberry, sugar cane, and citrus fruits. It also has moisturizing ingredients and film-formers in the ingredients. Once it's massaged (a minute or two), it becomes this soft, papery film that scrubs out all the junk on your face.

Observe:

Thw White Result Exfoliating Gel starts out as a cloudy gel

I really need to be visit drugstore aisles more often. It seems that I'm missing valuable news! If a reader didn't tell me about the new Asian Secrets variants, I wouldn't have known until oh I don't know, next year. Tsk. Anyways, yes it's true: there are now more Asian Secrets products to love!

AS now has two more versions of its best-selling lulur scrub: Licorice and Mulberry Extract (purple) and the Seaweed Extract with Vitamin E (blue). They both smell nice, though they're more on the soapy kind.

I don't buy magazines. Well, with one exception! I love Yummy because that's where I get ideas for cooking. I mean sure, I can probably find those recipes in the internet, but I buy Yummy because I can tear the pages and bring them to the supermarket. The pictures help me visualize what I'll be making!

As for other magazines like Cosmo, Mega, Preview, I prefer to read them online. It's an entirely different format and there are no editorials but I'm content since I can find those in other sources.

The only time I ever get to leaf through magazines is when I visit my mom's house. She has stacks of the stuff! She loves showbiz so she follows Yes! She gets Cosmo from one of my Titas who lends it to her. Last weekend, I set down my usual routine and started reading some old magazines. Guess what I saw!