Sup!

Here’s an unusual post. I’mma review the Tony Moly Berry Trendy Hair Color Cream I snagged from Tony Moly SM North Edsa a few days ago, and which I used last Friday night. My girlfriend does makeup blogs so I decided that hey I have hair color, why not do the same? XD

So anyway, I was craving for new hair color last week, it was already 2 months after my last color box, which was Revlon Colorsilk Luminista in Light Golden Brown, which went on top of Dariya Men’s Palty WAX in Caramel Clear 3 months before, so yeah I haven’t had black hair in almost a year. I had a haircut the week after I did the Revlon color, so it was shortened quite a bit so right now my roots were already poking out, and the effect of the current hair color then was a little too subtle for my liking, it wasn’t obvious indoors but it looked great outdoors. I wanted something that really popped everytime, so I went for Tony Moly, just because the box style and colors really appealed to me visually. By the way, Tony Moly is just one of the more popular Korean cosmetics brands that made its way to the Philippines along with Etude House, and other places like The Face Shop and Skin Food before it.

I got this one right here, its Berry Trendy Color Cream in Milky Blonde.

Now I wasn’t really going for that kind of blonde since, I’m not too keen on bleaching my hair. I just really went for the lightest shade to really just help my hair pop, but at least it wasn’t going on a really really dark present color which would really have been hopeless to color.

The experience using it, was well, hard…ish. There were absolutely no english instructions provided, all text is in Korean, so the only real reason I got through this smoothly was because of prior hair coloring experience, though I couldn’t help feel uneasy since you might be missing a lot of stuff on the pamphlet. They could have done what the importers of Japanese hair products in Singapore do, which is to provide english translated instructions inside the box, and sometimes put english translated stickers on the box itself. Apart from that, I’ll state for the record that THIS HAS TO BE THE BEST SMELLING HAIR COLOR PRODUCT I HAVE EVER USED. I mean really, it smells like berries and juicy fruit, I was loving it! None of the harsh smelling chemical stuff you get from other brands. Also the box came with a nice plastic bib along with the usual plastic gloves which was a nice touch, you needn’t sacrifice a towel to potential stains-

Anyway, the application experience was typical, nothing new if you’re used to coloring hair with cream-type applicators. Wish it was bubble/foam type like Palty and Gatsby are promoting in Japan though. The rinse after, it came with its own packet of hair treatment which is ALWAYS GOOD, but it felt a bit skimpy on contents. The hair treatment that came with Revlon Colorsilk was way more generous, although one thing I’ve noticed is that my hair was softer during the rinse before treatment with Berry Trendy than with Colorsilk.

I know the next pics are color treated, but it brings out the color in the hair so you guys can see it more clearly. Anyway they were both taken on sunny days with the same camera and applied with the same effect.

Here’s the before picture.

And here’s the result after using Tony Moly hair color.

Overall I’m very very satisfied with it and the result and I’d really recommend it to my friends! The only real con for me was not being able to read most of the details on the box and pamphlet, but aside from that, I have no complaints at all.

I wish Tony Moly had these colors in bubble type hair color though, I know Etude House has a line of bubble hair color available locally but the shades available don’t cut it for me. Too mute a set.

Story of my day. Today I finally got a job offer, spent more time in school as an almost alumni, spent a boatload of time in a park in the middle of a business district and ate Japanese hotdogs. And wew, for half of those, I managed to take photos :,D

Day started off with me heading to Ortigas Center to wait for my girl here to get off work. What started as a long walk in a business district turned into an hour-long wait in Starbucks, which eventually saw me go into a nearby park near her building, where I waited for a good hour and a few minutes more~ :,D

That’s her building on the right. Well, part of it. View from the park. Pics taken on my iPod touch using Instagram or Hipstamatic. Y’know, with my music blaring on my earbuds, trees shading me from the hot noontime sun, like a proper hip artist, I started taking pics of the scenery around me. Coz, that’s what artists do. Right?

It was a small park, cute, had a CBTL in it. Had a wall with some stuff dedicated to one of the richest ass clans in the Philippines, the Ortigas(es). Well they do own the whole area XD So yeah, not much to see, but its a cute park. You can intake the scenery in just one pan, then go all deep thinking on how about its set in between numerous cold concrete buildings. Blah. More pics.

Hey look my shoes! Just repping Onitsuka Tigers. The Mexico 66 is my new favorite shoe. It had all that I liked from the Adidas Rom…which, you don’t get anymore. The Rom was my favorite shoe throughout high school. I have about four pairs at home of Onitsukas XD

At this point I was losing my mind and now I went all hipster mode. Slapped a crazy filter effect to Hipstamatic and started taking these pics. Which, randomly sometimes ended up actually looking cool.

Well anyway, she eventually arrived, we walked a lot, went to school, blah blah. We had dinner at Hapadog in SM North, my new favorite eat. Before we went home the girl went to Etude House, bought makeup and got me this intensive care treatment mask for me to use. And a CNBLUE album. :D

Yep. Fast forward, later, I shower so I can use the mask. My hair’s been pretty beat up within the last few months. Well within the last four years its been chemically straightened 2 times, styled for shoots, gigs, random times, and I’ve had it colored a lot of times already. Seriously I have a bunch of Gatsby Japan products on my desk, I have a Moving Lock hairspray, 5 kinds of Moving Rubber, 2 kinds of Moving Mist. Endorser much? Hahaha, not to mention from my last SG trip, I bought a box of Dariya Men’s Palty WAX hair color, which I tried out. Used it months ago, but just last week I had a new coat applied, something you can get locally, Revlon Colorsilk Luminista in Light Golden Brown. My hair isn’t exactly that color, its just a mute brown shade, seen best in daylight. What can I do, I have dark hair! Hahaha, I wish I bought some of the Gatsby Foam color, because they mixed some mild bleach with the dye so that the color will appear brighter even if you have dark hair, but at the time I was scared of bleaching. Also I iron my tips and roots sometimes when I style, not to mention teasing some of the top layers to create air, very vain yes I know. Chalk it up to me being inspired by Japanese and Korean fashion for guys.

So anyway, decided to give my hair a break and used the Etude House mask.

So here’s the packaging. It comes in 2 parts, a sachet of the treatment cream and a sachet that contains a shower cap that’s dipped in some fragrant chemical that smells like strawberries. I was gonna have a pink shower cap that smelled like strawberries on my hair for a good 15 minutes. Brofist anyone? Shampooed the products out of my hair first and had a light conditioner before removing excess hair and applying the treatment.

Here’s the aforementioned shower cap and the total amount of treatment cream I squeezed out. It doesn’t look like much yeah, but it was way more than enough for a guy with chin length hair. Unlike other treatment creams I’ve tried (local fare like Sunsilk or Creamsilk), it smells way better and spreads throughout hair way better, a nice good coat all around. I sensed it’ll feel good. The whole process is just the same from other treatments, for me there isn’t really any difference, only with the twist that there’s a shower cap dipped in some other liquid and you’re asked to massage certain pressure points on your head while waiting for the 10-15 minutes soaking period of the product in your hair. The pressure points are illustrated in the packaging on the pictures above. Crazy right? For the price of one packet of this, you can buy a Creamsilk or Sunsilk treatment tub. Bring your own showercap. But no, really that’s just being a killjoy. You paid for an imported Korean product. That’s more than enough hahahaha. Anyway, so this was one of the longest showers I’ve had in a long time since, whats a guy to do in 15 minutes in a bathroom?

To keep track of time I played Alice Nine’s Blue Flame single on my iPod, a total of 14 minutes in three tracks. Anyway, time came eventually to rinse and finally get out.

And…well, yeah. A picture would never do it justice. What do you expect from such a long-treatment? Well during the towel drying my hair hair was so smooth, light and it smelled hella good. Did the oh expensive Korean product work? Looked like it did. Eventually it dried completely, and I can say that my hair does feel smoother, although it will take a lot more than just one treatment to really get it rejuvenated after all the abuse it went through. But hey, at least until after I style it again and take a batch, its good.

The verdict? Yeah, why not. I’m interested in trying Etude House’s bubble color, its their own take on the bubble color trend in Japan. Instead of mixing the dye in a cream like applicator that just makes a mess, you mix it with a liquid that’s like shampoo, you just pump some out, and work it through your hair and it lathers up good just like real shampoo. It promises less mess, more coverage and it’s easier to apply, its all the rage in Korea and Japan. The Palty Wax that I tried was a variation on this that was targeted for men who would be less tolerant of a mess, but would have significantly shorter hair to try to color. The dye applicator was like your usual wax, you scoop some up, spread em on your hands and work it on your hair. Unlike the cream and foam, your hair is coated with hard wax, and of course you’d style it like a giant mohawk- Hahaha, seriously, these products should reach our local Watsons soon.

I’m a vain guy. I know that. Seriously half the conversations I had with my girl today were about hairstyling, working with hair, products, etc.

:D

For most of the 1 hour pre-match coverage of the friendly match between the United Football League All-Stars and the Philippine National Football Team, this was my face. No really, especially when the National team walked out in their horrible t-shirts. Man I was ticked off enough to be motivated to rant out in a blog. Seriously.

I’ve ranted countless times about how ABS-CBN Sports still puts out a horrible presentation for Football matches, from ugly graphics, presentation, camerawork and even trash commentary. There was even a big typographical error during half-time (HALFY TIME), and again, I hear FFVIII’s battle theme being used as background music. I mean sure I’ll cut them some slack since its only the second time (I think) local media has presented football on live TV, but still. Not even research how the pros in other countries do it? The next match is a FIFA match, they better step it up.

What burst my bubble though was the one reason that always manages to tick me off when it comes to local football. Its even part of the reason why instead of enjoying the game as a neutral, I started rooting for the UFL team and wanted the National team to freaking lose. AZKALS. That fucking “brand”.

Personally I have no problem with the name. I saw that name take shape in an old football community online a few years ago, and I like what it stands for and I do like them using it, but what ticks me off is how its now a brand and everything to do with the local team revolves around the monicker. Sure, the local basketball team has been called Powerade-Pilipinas once and now Smart-Gilas, but spare football from the EXCESSIVE nicknaming. Azkals is a nickname you affectionately refer to the team with IMO, not a name you use for the scorecard, news reports, features and whatever. Its getting too much. Heck, you even have Azkals magazines littered around bookstores. The scoreboard on TV even used Azkals instead of like PHI or PHL. I mean c’mon, even the coaching staff was decked out in Azkals gear. Whatever happened to Mizuno?

Sometimes I think its not football that’s getting the spotlight, but the Azkals. If we didn’t have Younghusbands, Aranetas, Greatwiches and Etheridges in the team, they probably won’t have the same appeal they have (not to mention have the same strength too), but seriously, half of the news features you’ll see are on the ongoing Phil-Angel chismis. Yeah, gossip happens in other countries too, but obsessive na masyado dito eh. IMO, the whole obsession over Azkals even disassociates the people from the team, its like they’re a separate unit. Fans would bitch at me for this but that’s what I think. Whenever national teams play, fans over the world are so passionate because its as much their battle as the team’s, that’s why even with their nicknames, the world’s national teams are always referred to first by their Nation. Its the Philippines versus the world. Saying its the Azkals or Philippine Azkals as they put it, kinda closes off the unit to just them. Adding some fuel to my fire is how fans have to always prove how they’re not bandwagon jumpers, have to establish themselves as ultras or whatever. C’mon, you’re a fan of the team, then go ahead, you have just as much right as anyone else to get behind the boys.

You don’t need to label yourself as a Kaholero to establish yourself as a hardcore fan, if you’re hardcore, then that’s just the extent of your devotion, IMO, on the stands, all people that are for the Philippines are kaholeros, or fans, whatever you wanna call yourself. The fans that go blasting the team after losing games like these are just plain crabs, the cancer that kills our country. Friendly nga diba? At hinde ako hipokrito, I’m just a fan that’s slowly being disenchanted. After watching the Vietnam win live on TV solo, and the whole Philippines not even caring until news reports caught up on it, it kinda sucks to see them today, there’s a lot of decisions that were made that were hasty or not really the best IMO. Mahaba i-type ang “Philippine National Football Team” kesa Azkals, pero wala sakin un, mahal ko ang team eh.

Haay. Even the goals scored by the UFL team were better than the National team’s. I don’t think Neil was taking the game seriously, he could’ve stopped 2 of the 4 UFL goals, and he was way out of position during the free kick scored by UFL. The run to the last goal was beautiful, my fave goal of the game definitely.

But seriously, what pissed me off to no end was the national team’s outfit. An all-red (with from some angles, a star pattern) kit. Seriously school varsity teams have better uniforms. Talk about ugly. What happened to the Mizuno kits? The UFL team kit was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better, heck it was prettier than the kits the team wore during the Suzuki Cup run (y’know, the ones with light shade of blue and the misplaced football association crest). What the fuck was that? Football kits are part of the whole footballing culture, they’re shirts you can wear outside and look like a proper human being with, unlike basketball jerseys. Whenever a team whether club or country puts out an ugly kit, the fans are never impressed. Hello, pinipilit ka na nga paggastusan ang pagbili ng uniform, pangit pa ibebenta sayo- Manchester United 11/12, I’m looking at you! Seriously, the uniform should be a standard, something you’d be proud to wear and not just because its damn pretty. They looked freaking cheap today.

Could have been a game that me, my footballing brothers and family friends could have enjoyed, but no. Instead, we freaking enjoyed seeing the Azkals concede. Imagine the shouts of joy when Dirk Nowitzki won game 2 of the Heat-Mavs series. That’s probably how we sounded when El-Habbib won the game.

They better not fucking wear that kit during the Sri Lanka game.

The Legea kit of North Korea looked way better than that horrible piece.