Moving out permanently

Hi Ladies,

Hope you’re all doin’ great!

I just wanted to let you know that although I’ve been juggling blog updates in two sites, I’ve decided to officially move Lootwagon to Blogger. Don’t get me wrong though….Wordpress has been super good to me. Plus I do love the stats function. But I guess when a friend told me that there really is no point in keeping two blogs if its just the same content (good point!) that kind of shook me up a bit. Plus being the make-up junkie and shopaholic that I am, I have to admit it does get a tad bit lonely here in WP especially since most of my sistahs are in Blogger. It’s also kinda hard to cross-comment without having to fill in the standard name, URL, message box fields…. I’m sure ya’ll know what I mean. 🙂

So, this ain’t goodbye at all. Just think of it this way…it’s as if Lootwagon is just moving to another town or something….still very much accessible online so no worries.

Hope you’ll still drop in to check on some shopping tips and make-up finds regularly. It’s been truly awesome hanging out here at WP. Remember the new link girlfriends!

http://lootwagonista.blogspot.com

Kiss! Kiss!

LW

Lootwagon opens a site in Blogger

Hi Bellas! How was your weekend?

Just thought I’d catch up with you today and let you know that I’m opening a new site in Blogger, which is my original home and where most, if not all, of my fellow bargainistas, shopping addicts and make-up junkies are. Why? well although I love the ease of posting and the blog stats that this site offers, I admit it’s been quite difficult to cross over and comment to the other side, and vice versa.

Don’t worry, I’m still keeping this site, well until further notice I guess. Plus whatever you’ll see here, you’ll find there too.

So that’s it for now…Oh the new site is http://lootwagonista.blogspot.com 🙂

Stay beautiful Chikkas! 🙂

Bloggers Book Club Announcement

I know this has nothing to do with loot. Am just helping spread the word. BBC Members, please spread the news to other members.

Have a great Saturday people 🙂

Suesh featured Lootwagon link

Thanks to Suesh for featuring a link of Lootwagon in their site 🙂

Looking forward to the make-up workshop this March and getting my hands on those delish brushes! 🙂

What’s in my kikay kit

The ultimate girly girl’s must-have is the kikay kit.  “Maiwan na lahat, wag lang ang kikay kit!” as I would put it.  So bellas, here’s a peek inside my cosmetic case. Since what you see here is just a smorgasbord of different things, let me go through each piece while giving you my take on these items, as well as the corresponding prices (memory please don’t fail me!). Okay, warning….in case you’re looking for the dirt-cheap corner, I’m afraid only one item here fits the bill. The rest are a bit on the price-y side.

The Kikay Kit

With another year fast approaching, I decided to give my old Lancome Cheetah cosmetic purse (gift from my sister) the old retirement plan and went on a cosmetic-bag hunt. I found this little cutie in SM department store. I like that it’s super colorful and is spacious enough to fit all my kikay finds. The best part about this kit is, from the original price of  PHP 229, I only got it for PHP 125.

My Luxury

I got this over the weekend at the MAC store in Glorietta. It’s the MAC Studio Fix pressed powder in NC40. I so friggin love it! It blends like silk on the skin and it does super wonders in covering my acne marks and flaws.  After drooling over tons of haul videos about this baby, I decided to finally get myself one to see if it’s really worth all the raves its been getting. The damage is quite painful in the pocket though at PHP 1,500, but its definitely one of those products that will make you feel like a rockstar.

My Holy Grail

This is the Loreal True Match Super Blendable Foundation in Golden Beige. I have been using this product for the past four years and I’ve never been disappointed with it. When I finish a bottle, I can easily get another one at the local Watsons store. This foundation blends well into my skin and feels like nothing after. No retouches necessary. I simply just use my fingertips to apply it (believe me kahit nasa loob ng tumatakbong tricycle pwede!) and in a matter of seconds, it’s done and you can just totally forget about it. Damage for this product is PHP 900 plus, but I noticed that around the holidays, this product drops to as low as P699.  it’s well worth it because a bottle lasts you about 3-4 months. I wear this first, followed by my MAC Studio Fix. But that’s just me. You can just wear this on its own, and your basically good to go.

My Lippies

Got this Full Lip Palette at The Face Shop for PHP400+ at their store in Bonifacio High Street. Again, I’m a sucker for packaging so the cute paisely design on the cover just called out to me (haha, yeah right).

Take a look at the brush. First thing that came to my head was, I’ve never seen a thicker lip brush in my life! Seriously it’s so thick. But it makes application quicker, so who am i to complain. Love these colors for everyday use. Looking at the colors, I guess you’ve noticed that I’m not a big fan of  full red lips. I guess I just leave that for special occasions. Anyway, here’s the lowdown (colors starting from upper left going clockwise)— Matte deep rose (which I love and use very often), Glossy Shiny pink, Glossy Soft Peach (for that neutral glossy finish) and Matte Violet Rose (which I hardly use).

The rest of the stuff in my kikay kit, well, you’ve already seen in my past Elianto and Face shop blogs. That plastic case that you see in the middle is another world of its own. That nifty thing carries my make-up brushes, lipstick, mascara, liners, etc. I’ll post details in another blog 🙂

Elianto loot

Alright, so I hit Elianto at The Block last week, and got myself a few things. What you see below is the Elianto Baked Eyeshadow (duo) in brown. Actually, I bought it mostly because of its nifty packaging (I’m a sucker for packaging) plus I’ve always been curious about the benefits of baked make-up. I remember, The Face Shop doing this huge launch for their baked make-up line.

So anyways, I checked Elianto website, and lifted  this info from the site (just added a few corrections on the grammar. hehe), it says “This unique powder has been baked in Italian terracotta in high temperature for hours, thus the powder texture is more fine and with better powder compression. After mixing with water, the powder will “bounce back” (bola itoh? sorry couldn’t take that out…too funny. hehe) to a micro-fine feel without glazing, thus creating the ultra-shine and high hue effect. This silky powder eyeshadow can be applied either in dry or wet, for sheer make-up.” There, so that explains it. On to the loot…

Like I said I like the packaging and the fact that the product is rounded on the surface, which gives you more product to work with. Hmmm…I bet they patterned the packaging from the MAC eyeshadows. Anywayz, I use the off-white shade as base, and the bronze-y color on the edges of my lids to add shadow. I use this duo now for everyday make-up. Don’t be intimidated by the dark bronze color, as it’s actually very light when applied and stays long, no need for retouches.  Refer to swatches above. Third color to the right being the blush.

These are the other juicy colors which I plan to purchase next time.  Take a lo0k at the blue duo, doesn’t that look a lot like MAC’ Sea and Sky? 🙂

This is the Elianto Glitter blusher in 07 Pecan. Got it for about PHP 239 (if I’m not mistaken). Anyway, this peachy color is a very good everyday blush-on for Pinay skin. Plus it looks very natural on photos especially when you use it with a highlighter, thus giving you a dewy glow. Downside is, you just have to do retouches once in a while.

Below is the blending brush that I highly recommend, as it delivers as promised and blends eyeshadow very well. It does a great job of taking out those nasty harsh lines on the crease of your eye. Well it should be good if it was featured in an issue of Cosmopolitan as one of the best beauty brushes avalable in the market.

Here’s a tight shot of the bristles. Very soft. Elianto brushes range from PHP 169- PHP 399. Good buy.

Closer to my Dreams

Notice the new addition to my blogosphere? hint hint: look to your right and put on your earphones. Just another addition to make stopping by… more entertaining. I discovered it while tinkering with www.mixpod.com , an online MP3 site. I initially posted a virtual ipod, only to find out that once its posted, it’s as big as the actual thing so it hovered the whole upper right column of my blog space. And instead of posting India Arie tracks, i accidentally posted an audioclip of somebody from youtube singing India Arie songs! The sad part is, she didn’t exactly do a very good job at it! hahaha! Well I sure hope nobody got to hear that for the whole day that it was posted. It’s embarassing!…hehehe.

Anyways, inspired by the first track that you are probably listening to right now as you read this…is a very laid back, easy-listen song by Goapele called “Closer to my Dreams”. How so? Well recently, I got an unexpected phone call on one rainy evening. It went something like this…

“Hello?”

“Hello….Good evening po maam”

“Good evening! Sino to?”

“Maam, ako po si A. B.” (Not his real name, of course)

“Huh?”

“Opo mam…tatanung ko lang po kung kayo po ba si Ms. A., yung misis po ni Mr. D.?”

“Umm…” (I paused awkardly for quite a long time) … bakit niyo po gusto malaman?” – at this point I was getting a little shaken up. obviously this strange fella on the other line has some of my information.

“Kayo nga po ba si Ms. A?”

“Ahh…ummm….oo ako nga. Baket?!” (I tried to inject some fake courage into my tone)

“Ahh! Mabuti naman kung ganun…” (He said dryly and paused for what seemed like forever)

“Gusto ko lang po na malaman niyo Ms. A……” (another pause that literally made me hold my breath…)

….“Na tinatatayo na po namin yung bahay niyo, pwede niyo na po bisitahin. Ako po kasi yung contractor niyo, contractor ng Lara…” (Lara being the name of the project)

When he said those words…I was speechless. I couldn’t believe what I just heard. It took a while before I managed to articulate a few words, as the guy on the other line was hanging on to my every word….or breath for that matter. I thanked the guy immensely, got the details and hung up. I just stared at my phone for a while and then the most unexpected thing happened, I just choked up and started sobbing….

See, we’ve been paying for the house for over a year now…Just shortly after we exchanged “I Do”s. We got a lot of encouragement from my mother-in-law who helped us with the paperwork. After mustering enough courage to take that leap of faith… and finally accepting the fact that it was definitely going to be a very difficult ride, especially with the huge dent it was going to leave in our pockets… we went ahead and signed the papers. From then on, we pledged almost 80% of our monthly earnings to fund the project.

To make the long story short, we made our first site visit last weekend…and yes, true to the contractor’s word, the bricks and foundation are up. We’re crossing our fingers that by end of the year, we can already move into the house… our house. Just saying those words sound like cherries to my ears.

While at the site, we couldn’t help but take photos of the model units (how our future home will look like). There, so now you know why this blog is inspired by the song, as we are literally just counting the days. All I can think about now is…we must have done something good to deserve all this. And as cliche as it sounds…all I can say is, God is good. Do I hear an amen? 🙂