April is always special to me because it's my wedding anniversary month. It used to be special for another reason, too: it's also the anniversary month of OK! magazine, the Hollywood entertainment title I used to helm.
I've actually forgotten that April is OK!'s anniversary month! This year would've been our 10th birthday had we not been killed off in 2012. After just three years, I've already forgotten details of what used to be a HUGE chunk of my life. I only remembered because I was looking for photos of my kids' Babiators on my iPhoto library (another story for another day!) and came across these old photos I took of OK!'s "Letter from the Editor" page.
I posted this on Facebook and felt a sharp pang of nostalgia. I miss my team! They are seriously the best people anyone could ever want in a magazine. Here are a few photos of my old team:
Black and gold theme.
Harry Potter theme yata ito haha
The very last staff photo. Party theme, I guess. Mostly, "Bye-bye, dear OK! readers but let's not be sad" theme.
Gorgeous!
Anyway, as an extra, I'm sharing with you more pics of me. I took these photos years ago because I wanted to see the progression of how I looked like in the 7 years I was editor-in-chief. So these were supposed to be just for my private consumption. But what the heck! Let me share with you!
My very first EIC photo! Look at my giddy smile. Look at my FLAT STOMACH!!!
I liked wearing T-shirts in my late 20s. I don't think I owned a dress at this point in my life.
And this was probably when I started wearing dresses. That'll be in 2007.
Nope. Still in a T-shirt phase! And mommy jeans with NO BELT! Why?!
This is my favorite photo. Vince designed that dress and I had it made. I love that dress.
This was when our shoots started to be styled. Not only are we wearing better clothes, we also have accessories now!
That cleavage had to be added because I was as flat as a board.
I loved this dress so much! When the shoot was over, I reluctantly took it off. I regret not buying it.
This was an orange dress that we turned red. We also whittled my waist because I looked so thick haha!
Aww. I had just given birth here! Look at my new mom smile!
With Vito!!!
My last EIC photo.
Good heavens, what was I thinking in some of those early photos?! Wala pa kasi akong stylist then. After a few years, especially when we got our fashion editors Nichole and Kabbie, our staff shoots were styled. Thank goodness! I mean, really, a t-shirt for an EIC photo? And inulit-ulit pa!
Oh, those were good days. Happy days! But I'm into motherhood now more than I am into magazines so the stressful life of helming a publication is in my past. I like that I'm back in magazines now but as market editor of BABY Magazine. I just have my 20 pages to think of and then I'm back to my little boys. I work from home, best of both worlds, very easy life. Happy days!
This post is brought to you by Transitions Signature Lenses.
Okay, I promise that this is the very last time I'm talking about Transitions Lenses because I know I've kinda been super enthusiastic about my fantastic new glasses and I keep going on and on about them.
But I'm really excited to really test drive my Transitions Signature Lenses this summer because we have trips planned out of town. I'm a city girl, you see, and a stay-at-home mommy, too. When I do go out, I am in malls or at events. So I haven't experienced what my Transitions Lenses can do under the intense summer sun.
Packing my beach bag with reading material, sunscreen and towels!
I am still not over Disney's Cinderella. Lily James, who I actually didn't like for the role, was perfect for it! She has that perfect blend of goodness, kindness and yet she didn't seem like a doormat. Her Cinderella was cheerful even when she was sad, and she faced each day with hope even in the midst of her grief. Hope. Yes, courage, kindness, and hope. Lily's Cinderella radiated hope!
And she was just enchanting as Cinderella, too. I told my Facebook followers that I wasn't breathing the entire time she was transformed by her fairy godmother, she met Prince Kit, she danced with him, and she fled for home, hounded by the clock. I only started breathing again when she was walking in the rain!
Now I'm not breathing again because I just saw the shoes Jimmy Choo made for Lily.
She wore these at the global premiere of the movie at the 65th Berlinale International Film Festival.
Grabe lang nasilaw ako sa ngiti ni Prince Charming! Robb Stark cleans up well!
To promote the film, Disney partnered with some of the world’s premiere department stores (in New York, Beverly Hills, London, Tokyo, Dubai, Beijing, Italy and Moscow) to feature the ultimate Cinderella shoe from the world’s top shoe designers. The one we see here is from Jimmy Choo and I hope to see the rest! The shoes will be promoted both with a dedicated window and an in-store display.
Here in the Philippines, we sadly won't see any special Cinderella shoe creation but we can still shop for fab shoes at Jimmy Choo boutiques at Rustan’s Makati and Shangri-La Plaza East Wing. Visit www.ssilife.com.ph for more information.
P.S.
Salvatore Ferragamo was in charge of Lady Tremaine's shoes in the movie. So chic!
You can just see a hint of her green heels.
Leather lace-up boots are so villainous!
Ferragamo is also available here at Rustan’s Makati, Rustan’s Shangri-La, Greenbelt 4, Power Plant Mall, Newport Mall and Alabang Town Center. I hope they're selling that boot!
First, the good news: I have a nail polish color named after my blog!
Girlstuff, a proudly Pinoy beauty and personal care brand, released its summer collection called "Bloggers' Elite Summer," and they named the four creamy pastels AskMeWhats (purple-pink), Go Jackie Go (lime green), Strutting on Sunshine (vivid blue), and—my favorite!—Topaz Horizon (chartreuse yellow) after the blogs of the same name.
This is so exciting! I have a nail polish color named Topaz Horizon!!!
Anyway, I'll talk about my fabulous yellow polish and the fabulous launch party soon. Today, let's celebrate Easter with the very Happy Easter colors of Girlstuff's summer collection! Yes, let's use AskMeWhats, Go Jackie Go, Strutting on Sunshine, and Topaz Horizon to paint our Easter eggs!
Okay, I edited the photos in the middle of the night so medyo grabe pala yung saturation! Sorry. The colors of our polishes are not that neon! Anyway, let's meet my Easter egg!
Two of my favorite things just got together! Disney and PLDT HOME (which is the same company as that of my mobile services provider, Smart) are now partners!
What does this mean???
Well, the new partnership means PLDT HOME subscribers can now enjoy over 300 online games, hundreds of e-books, even TV shows, without price components. All moms and dads have to do is click the Disney widget on their Telpad.
My kids and I were at the special press conference to announce this wonderful team-up. We had a yummy lunch at Cravings Shangri-la Plaza. Our kids (who came as adorable princes and princesses!) enjoyed the fun activities PLDT HOME prepared (face painting! balloon sculptures!), then we all trooped to the movie theater for an exclusive screening of the live action retelling of the best fairy tale ever, Cinderella!
Prince Piero!
Waiting for the presscon to start.
A princess introduces #DisneyOnTelpad experience.
After the presscon, we got our tickets to the exclusive screening of Cinderella!
Once upon a time, up to about last month, I had long hair. I don't know what it is about getting pregnant, but I had glorious hair. Nice and thicker than my usual fine and thin hair. Then you give birth and they all fall out haha But for the times I was pregnant with my second and third babies, I grew my hair long for the first time ever because my hair held on to my scalp.
Then, as I said, postpartum hair fall happened. So I decided I needed to cut my hair short again. Just a bob really, which is trendy with all the It girls.
Just my luck, Franck Provost has a new stylist and I was offered a free haircut. So I went happily along. While she created a really stylish bob, it wasn't suited to my mom lifestyle. Instead of the simple, fuss-free bob that I wanted, she made many tiny layers. For it to look amazing, I had to spend 30 minutes styling it to look like this:
If I don't do that (and as a mom of three babies, I don't have the time to do that!), this is what it looks like:
Eww.
So after two weeks of my strange bob, I went to Basement Salon and asked for a pixie cut like this:
Yes, that's me in 2008. But the stylist said we should go into pixie land gently so she chopped off my hair to a really short bob like this:
The hair I've sported since high school!
And now here's what people tell me:
"Oh, a very short cut! Is your marriage okay?"
"What a big change! Is anything big happening in your life?"
"Wow, how does it feel? You've never gone short before."
Wait. What?
First, unlike most women, my hair is not a barometer of the state of my love life. I cut my hair when I'm tired of it. I color it when I feel bored. It's hair. It's just hair. It grows back! So I like playing with it! Plus my husband likes it when I play with my hair. He says it's like having a new girl every time I come home looking different!
Second, I have actually always had short hair. Observe my hair while pregnant with Vito in 2010.
I dunno about you but those two photos look like I have short hair. Hindi siya Photoshop, promise!
I only grew my hair long three years ago, because one day I wore hair extensions and thought, "Wow, I look good with long hair!" And, like I said, pregnancy (I'm pregnant with my second baby here) made my hair nice.
Yes, that's hair extensions! They looked so good on me! So I grew my hair loooong for the first time in my history. But after three years of long hair, I am tired of it. Masyadong maarte. Blow dry, product, ang tagal pa pag i-dye! Four hours akong nakaupo sa salon! Who has the time?!
So I cut my hair short. That's all there is to it.
It's so crazy to talk to people who say, "But you've never had short hair before!" I mean, how does one respond to that? Even though I show them pictures of me with short hair, they still insist I've always had long hair. May picture na nga! Ano pa kailangan niyo? Labo.
Anyway, this is why my hair is short: A stylist gave me a cut that didn't suit my lifestyle so I had it cut shorter so it's wash and go. The end. Wag na gawan ng ibang storya utang na loob lang! Thanks!
This post is brought to you by Progress Pre-School Gold.
When I was a preschool teacher lifetimes ago, I had the great privilege to teach at Ingenium School in Marikina. In 1999, Ingenium started as a preschool. Now it teaches kids up to high school level! I was one of the first of four teachers. It was a new kind of school, a multiple intelligences school. I've never heard of anything like it. But I truly saw how each child we taught blossomed because we taught them according to their strengths and interests, or multiple intelligence.
There are various forms of intelligence: brain, body, and people. I remember one student, J**i, who transferred to Ingenium because his teachers in his previous preschool said he had behavioral problems. We believe he was just bored! We observed him for a couple of weeks and noticed he just couldn't sit down, making it difficult for him (and us teachers) to learn anything!
Finally, one morning, I noticed he was running around the school. I yelled to him as he ran past, "One!" and he yelled back, "One!" When he passed me again, I yelled, "Two!" and he shouted back, "Two!" We did this counting with every lap. By the time he was tired, he had learned counting 1-20. Yes, he had a lot of energy! J**I is definitely body smart. That means he learns faster and better if he isn't sitting down. He has to be moving!
This multiple intelligences applied to the other kids. And, fast forward to now, I'm happy that I can apply it to my kids, too! For example, my second child, Iñigo, learns fastest through music. He learned his alphabet and numbers and shapes and colors and words simply by us singing them to him. We had tried that with his older brother, Vito, and Vito just wasn't interested. What Vito liked to do was visual play. He liked to sit with an iPad or watch TV or draw with paint and crayons. For him to learn, he has to see it unfolding before his eyes.
Vito loves visual stimulation.
Iñigo loves to learn through song and dance.
They both love learning via play!
Of course, parental involvement and encouragement are also huge factors in giving our children an edge with multiple intelligence. For example, a parent must discern what his child's intelligence is. In Vito's case, for example, the iPad works. It doesn't help Iñigo much unless he plays with an app that has a lot of music. But if a parent can't see beyond what traditional education says, then he or she'll just think, "Oh, all iPads are bad!" or "Something must be wrong with my kid because he doesn't like music!" or "Why is my kid so makulit and malikot? He must be naughty!"
Okay, let's talk about that blog post title for a minute. Liz Uy's fabulous book on style (and yes, it is a very good book!) was actually written by another person. It said so twice in the book, and Liz said so herself while promoting the book. While I am sure the book was Liz's thing through and through, I just want to give credit where credit is due. And Liz did so, too! She was very thankful to Vicky!
So now that that's out of the way, let's do our review of StyLIZed!
First, let's talk about Liz. Liz is the stylist to the stars. She started as editorial assistant to fashion magazine Preview, then became known as John Lloyd's stylish girlfriend, then became part of the It Girls (Anne Curtis, Solenn Heusaff, Georgina Wilson, Belle Daza) group, then became wildly popular for going on dates with the President of the Republic of the Philippines. But what Liz is known for is her work—she's a stylist. And now she also has a book.
Second, this book is a year old na. I bought my copy last year. And it's a bestseller! So I'm hoping that means there are more of my readers who've read this book! Kasi the first pick for #TopazReads medyo isa lang ang nagbasa haha.
Third, my review! I love this book. It's actually more magazine than book but maybe I think that way because I've been reading Preview since 2002 and StyLIZed looks so much like the magazine that while I was reading it, I just had to think, "So is this how much Preview influenced Liz or is this how much Liz influenced Preview?!?"
My review then! What I love:
The focus of the book. The book is all about the ten style essentials that Liz believes every girl should have. These are a white V-neck shirt, a little black dress, blazer, slacks, white button-down shirt, leggings, jeans, tank top, shorts, and a pencil skirt. That's it. And then she shows you how to style these basic essentials so that you always have something to wear and you always look fresh and on-trend. It's very simple and straightforward.
The kinds of bags to wear with slacks, matched for any occasion.
The helpful tips and style tricks. One would think the above description wouldn't be enough to fill up an entire book, but because of the many styling suggestions (how to wear it on a weekday, on a weekend, to work, to play, etc), how to accessorize, how to give a basic piece second life, how to care for your clothes, how to find the style of a basic piece that suits your shape and personality, how celebrities—both local and Hollywood—wear the pieces, and soooo many more fascinating tips and tidbits, the book is just packed with chic goodies! It's super helpful talaga!
The editorial lineup. You know, if I'd done this book, I'd be consistent with each chapter, like so: closet piece, introduction, how to wear it on different occasions, how to accessorize it. That's it. But Liz, aside from that, came up with various extra topics per chapter: how to wear this piece on one chapter, the history of the piece in another chapter, undergarments for this piece in another chapter, etc etc! Hindi nakakasawa! Ang galing!
What I didn't love:
The celebrities. Okay, that's supposed to be one of the strengths of this book because, as a celebrity stylist, Liz of course should have a book presenting her star clientele. And she did. Luminous names like Kris Aquino, Anne Curtis, Marian Rivera, Sarah Geronimo, etc. adorn every chapter adorned in the style essential that Liz assigned to her. But that's it. Model lang si celeb. Sana there are other photos of her wearing the style essential—like Anne in a T-shirt sa bahay lang, or while shopping, or with a poufy skirt. Or Marian in a blazer with a sundress, or a shirt and ratty jeans, or with an evening gown. Like that ba! Diba mas masaya yun? Sa lagay, models lang sila so sana Liz just used models na lang talaga.
Plus, Liz always styles herself better than she does the celebs so sana si Liz na lang throughout!
The verdict? I think everyone should grab this book! It's a really good guide on the basic pieces you should have in your closet (although I have more to add: black heeled pumps, an A-line skirt, a classic watch, pearls, sunglasses!) and how to wear them so you look fabulous!!!
So! Did anyone else read Liz Uy's StyLIZed by Liz Uy and Vicky Montenegro? If yes, kindly leave your thoughts on the book in the comments section below. At 11 p.m. tonight, I'll be online for 30 minutes to respond to every comment and if you're also online, we can actually have a conversation! Do come chat with me tonight!
Last month, three new shades were added to my ever-growing collection of lipsticks. The strange thing is I'm not a lipstick girl. So it took me a while to try these new colors. Now, they're all I wear!!!
Ladies, meet the Happy Skin x StyLIZed collection of Shut Up & Kiss Me Moisturizing Lippies:
StyLIZed is the brand of celebrity stylist Liz Uy (and don't forget that we're doing her book, StyLIZed,on Monday for our book club!). She says, “Lipstick is a fashion essential because it completes a woman’s look,” Liz explains. “Just like shoes, the right lip color can change your entire look.”
According to Liz, the right lip colors are: 24 CARATS (pink), RED CARPET (red), and STYLE ICON (nude). “These are my favorite lip colors that I consider fashion essentials to our kits,” says Liz. “This is for the woman who is independent, feminine and fashionable.”
Sounds like me! Let's see how they look on me.
The big photo is me without any lipstick on. Top is Style Icon, middle is Red Carpet, bottom is 24 Carats. They're all creamy and smooth to apply, feels amazing and like nothing on lips, and has staying power. My favorite is 24 Carats. It's a nice, bold pink. Feminine and yet not girly. It's not too obvious in the photo above that it's pink so here's a better photo (with better styled hair, too!)
I do love these new lippies. I wear them nearly every day! I can always match one to any outfit I wear. Definitely lipsticks you should get before stocks run out (they're limited edition!).
Plus, they're just P599 each. Very affordable! Plus, for every Happy Skin StyLIZed lippie sold, a portion of sales will go to Gawad Kalinga Community Development Foundation, Inc., which helps end poverty by restoring dignity to the poor through community building. Gawad Kalinga made an unforgettable impact on Liz while she was volunteering for relief operations in Tacloban to help victims of Typhoon Haiyan.
Happy Skin is available at Rustan’s Makati and Shangri-la, Beauty Bar, Plains & Prints, The SM Store Makati and Watson’s Mall of Asia Store GeNxt. Shop online at www.happyskincosmetics.com.
Hi, everyone! I'm Frances. I'm the author of Not Invisible. I'm also a lifestyle and parenting writer, a book editor, the co-founder of Lean In Manila, and I have a day job in corporate communications. When I find time away from my busy life as all mentioned and as a wife and mom, I blog here.
Welcome to my blog! It's a 16-year-old honest and safe space for working moms, mothers of boys, and feminists (I just described all of myself). Thanks for dropping by!
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