my best kept secret: carrier and essential oils mix - a body and face oil in one

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Alright. Here's another skincare post! I'm on a roll these days on skin care, huh? Well...okay.

It seems many have been commenting about my skin lately. Last one was a good friend of mine in Davao City. Before her was my grandmother. The thing is, I don't really have a very strict skin care routine. I don't go to the dermatologist often either. I do listen to or read their advice on twitter. I follow the Nerdy Derma there. She's also on youtube, the Nerdy Derma, btw. She's just not that active in the latter.

Comments from my friend and grandma include: "your skin is glowing," "it's really nice," "it's soft," and etc. For these really nice comments, I'd thank them. I don't know if I've always had skin as they said they noticed, a really good one but I haven't really changed much on my skin care routine from many years ago.

One thing about my daily skincare routine is, like everything else in my life, I'm super lazy around doing it. Sometimes I just don't do it at all. Most of the time, I only do it when I'm going out. Lol. I also have a very simple skincare routine. My cardinal rules are:

• NO to whitening products.

    There are a ton of whitening products sold in pharmacies or drugstore chains like Watsons Ph (and you know how huge a fan I am of this that every time I go in, I always go out with something...s on hand) and even the skincare aisle/s in supermarkets. You might even find them in the most basic sari-sari store in your neighborhood. But yes, for me, I just have to avoid whitening products like a plague. I sometimes use Myra E lotions (if you're here in the Philippines, you'll know this is very local. They've been around for a while now) so I stick to the moisturizing line they have. Myra E has this in Classic Moisturizing (red packaging) and Moisturizing Plus (darker red or maroon packaging). You can get Myra E's stuff everywhere in the Philippines, of course, so it's pretty convenient for something you'd like to have at a good Ph-native price and if you'd like one to have quickly without having to order online or so and wait for them to get to where you are in the Ph.

    That's generally just it, avoid whitening products. If you can't help it and you'd like to be whiter or lighter then go for the brightening ones. Whitening products aren't exactly the best for Filipina skin from what I know. They don't really work well either so brightening stuff is the better way to go if one wants to be lighter here.  

• Keep it simple. Indulge in only a bit of the pricey stuff (to save up).

    I very rarely use lotions, body butters and the likes from Victoria's Secret and/or Bath and Body Works (B&BW). I only get these when people, my aunts send me some of them from abroad. Most of the time, I will stick with local stuff like Myra E's moisturizing line I mentioned above. Oh and introducing my time tested---I've been using it for years and years now---carrier and essential oils mixtures as body oil, lotion etc. in one. I come up with my own mixes, of course. 

    You might want to ask, where do I get these oils? Carrier oils like coconut and sunflower oil are actually everywhere now. I use Human Heart Nature's, of course. You can get them on their shop on site or coconut oil in 200 mL here and sunflower oil here: 50 mL via Zalora in the old, classic packaging; and the 50 mL via Zalora in new packaging. I would get the 100 mL ones to last me a long time, maybe...2 months, tops? When mixed with other carrier oils and some essential oils. You can also go for the Sunflower Beauty Oil LUXE in 45 mL here that's sweet smelling. My personal favorite is, however, the Sunflower Beauty Oil Bloom. It's slightly pricier than the classic one but likely, less expensive than the LUXE one but it works well for me, yep. The Sunflower Beauty Oil Bloom is available 100 mL here and 50 mL here. Coconut and sunflower oils are my main carrier oils for my body oil (which can also work as a face oil, btw) mixture.

    

    Other carrier oils I use are Vitamin E oil via Myra E and Avocado oil you can get at Casa de Lorenzo Philippines here. You can get Myra E's vitamine E capsules everywhere. It's in local chain drugstores or pharmacies like Rose's Pharmacy, it's also in Watsons Ph. Avocado oil is not available at Casa de Lorenzo Ph's site at the moment. It's also not available in Casa de Lorenzo Ph at Lazada, unfortunately. Their Lazada store only carries their castile soaps. I haven't really tried their castile soaps but I have tried their coconut and avocado oils and I love these two. Hopefully they restock the avocado oil soon. 

    After carrier oils, I would add in essential oils into the mix. Currently, I just put in 10-20 drops of Jojoba Oil (it's available on Zalora's Human Nature/Human Heart Nature shop in 30 mL here) into the current mix I'm using. You can use other essential oils, of course. Some would use sweet almond oil, maybe, argan oil, the more local ylang-ylang oil for fragrance---I'm not sure what its other benefits are but I love the ylang-ylang scent ever since I was a kid---and more. You can check our ylang-ylang essential oil, sweet almond oil and more at Casa de Lorenzo Philippines here. You can also check out more of their stuff at their site here: Casa de Lorenzo Philippines (or CDL Organics).

        I heard on the grapevine Rosehip Oil works wonders for those who have stretchmarks. One of my best friends who's pregnant again used this one before. You can definitely add this in with the carrier oils if you'd like to preempt the appearance of stretchmarks around the waist and hips and other parts of the body if you're carrying or even after you've given birth. It's super pricey at Php 795 for a measly 15 mL bottle of it but Human Heart Nature's is pure and it can go a long way if you mix it with their carrier and essential oils.

        You can read more about using and mixing carrier and essential oils on healthline here: Carrier oils and  Essential oils. You might also find the body lotion vs body oil/s discussion article on healthline interesting. I use both interchangeably, along with body butters, but I stick to mostly my mix of body oils so yep, there's that.

The key to having good skin for me is simplicity and not overdoing things or overthinking these things. Sometimes, I use these body butters, body oils, body lotions when I remember I have them and other times, I just shower or take baths and that's good for me already. I do use exfoliating products once in a while but it's like, just a once a week or once every two-weeks thing for me. My go-to body scrub is the Sunflower Beauty Body Scrub. Alternatively, the Coffee and Vanilla Body Scrub should work too and if Human Heart Nature isn't up your alley, there's always St. Ives Philippines to explore. You can check out St. Ives Philippines' stuff at the Unilever Offical Lazada store here. Home made alternative for body scrubs: granulated sugar + honey + I usually added bits and pieces of papaya or mashed papaya in mine. Go for the ripe papaya, of course, yes.

All of those and if all else fails you, you can always go for a lifestyle change. Going vegan helps, I think. Or being more into seafood and vegetables and fruits. I normally am into those more than I am into meat.

A way to save up on Human Heart Nature stuff---as the cost of theirs can add up along the way---is to be a member or an advocate of their line of products or brand and get 15% discount off of every product. I'm already a member and an advocate so if anyone here is interested in being one, I can be a referrer. Just leave me a message here or email me at: kgrace_1987@yahoo.com. I check the latter almost daily. For Casa de Lorenzo Philippines' stuff, I think you'll have to email them to let them know you'd like discounts when you buy in bulk or so. They're likely still very active on the site and on their contact pages or so. 

Human Heart Nature's products are totally available in USA and Canada through their HHN USA and HHN Canada websites, respectively. I think their products are quick to get sold out, however. You'll want to look out for the next dates their sunflower oils will be available there (I just read it's December 27 for CA).

For those looking for other oils like Grapeseed oil, maybe a cheaper rosehip oil, and avocado oil given Casa de Lorenzo Philippines doesn't have them...these, I found Jade Essentials Ph on Lazada. The carrier and essential oils they carry are pretty affordable. Some essential oils are expensive there but if they are the kind that's imported from elsewhere but the Philippines, then that's understandable. The only thing that Jade Essentials Ph on Lazada disappoints me in is how they don't have ylang-ylang essential oil. They're still pretty good with their lineup of affordable carrier and essential oils, though, so that can be easily overlooked here.

And if you're the type who can afford anything, there's Rodin Olio Russo but I think a good number of people aren't happy with their parent company rn, Estee Lauder. Apparently, the guy owning or heir to the business empire is a misogynist. As I can't afford ROR, I don't really buy and use it and make my own instead. :) Doing this is better on the savings, too.

And that's it for now. Until the next post! Or you can follow me on my fangirling twitter and personal instagram for timelier updates. :) 

2020 review and hi, 2021!

I've missed so much posts over the holidays but with so much happening around and nothing much at the same time, I don't think we can blame anyone, including me, for this. For one, the pandemic is still ongoing here in my place and we still don't have vaccines for it of decent or good quality here 'til now. The rest of the world, especially the west and even Japan are getting vaccinated already. So there continues to be this fear and anxiety of going out unless we want to contract the virus that's already mutated in several countries and continents like the UK and South Africa. As for there being nothing much at all going on---a lot of us are still stuck at home either working from home or mostly doing nothing at all so, yeah. 

Heaven knows I have a lot of stuff to post on there but the lack of tripods around here keep me from really posting and no matter, I have stuff coming in over the next few days that has to do with that. Ugh. FINALLY! We'll be doing A TON of catching up over the next few days, weeks and months or so. Yay!

Meanwhile, let's catch up on some of life's going-ons today and see what I'd been up to since the holidays until now and a few other things that you might be seeing on this blog in the next few weeks or so.

A regular, slightly uneventful but family everything-laden holidays

My holidays are usually spent with family. That's just how I roll. It's how everyone goes on here in the Philippines because we're a family first country. And the Philippines wouldn't be it if there was no feeling of family or community in here.

It goes without saying, then, that I spent my holidays---all of Christmas Eve and Christmas day, my granddad's birthday last December 28 and New Year's Eve and New Year's Day---going back and forth from the city to the country side, 30-45 minutes away from the said city with my younger brother at the wheel of the Ford pick-up. Present in the drives is my cousin from the United States who's studying in college here for the time being and sometimes, my mom and dad. In those occasions, it's mostly me, my grandparents, brother, cousin and parents in my grandparents' home. It harks back to the old days when I'd go home there with a lot of family to spend the weekends when school's out for me here in the city so it's really just super nostalgic, yeah. That's basically 8 people spending time together in one huge, two-tiered house in the countryside still mostly, adequately socially-distanced from one another so it's been a kind of safe and healthy celebration of the three occasions somehow.

Of course there was a lot of food had, there's Noche Buena on Christmas Eve and Media Noche on New Year's Eve, and cake and ice cream on my grandad's birthday. Just...your regular, simple holiday and birthday celebrations. They only became closer to a party when we zoom called everyone in the SoCal and another family member in Texas so it's been so fun catching up with everyone so far, even just, digitally.

There were no trips to the beach even if a lot of it is just a stone's throw away. Well, just a walk or hike away, anyway. Nor was there a trip to the nearby waterfalls made like last year's so that's quite a bummer. These are usually what I look forward to when I'm in that place, Jasaan. Which reminds me I still have to take someone's offer to take me to the sandbar on there I've only been to once just for R&R-ing, professional beach bumming. I miss doing the latter this whole time we've been on the longest ever lockdown from all over the world. Yay, Philippines! Nay. It sucks to be here when you can't do the very thing people do here all the time: swimming, sunbathing and picnicking in really pretty, picturesque beaches and pools of the lot of resorts we have here and oh, backpacking to islands one has never been to which I had been planning for so long pre-pandemic.

But anyway, how about you? How did you spend the holidays this year?  

An equally, slightly uneventful few weeks of January 2021 at home, of course!

....because, really, what else is there to do when you can't backpack to an island you've never been to like Bantayan Island in Cebu and a few others?

I don't really have much to update on here because there's really nothing going on save for that catch-up with the best friend on discord one time early into January 2021 and me, joining my first Cupsleeves event for the Pentagon maknaes (the youngest members of the boygroup, Pentagon, namely Yuto, Kino, and Wooseok). so there's really, really just the in-betweens. Now's the time to start counting how many times I write really on here and you can even play the drinking game to it. LOL.

And this brings us to...

....the tiniest, most miniscule, simplest In-betweens

This pandemic period and it's accompanying, quite lengthy lockdowns have got us staying home, working from home, and even re-examining and reconnecting with ourselves at home. This has all been about self-discovery, a lot more self-love and should we be living with others like I do, spending more time with both extended and immediate ones. It's definitely a time for the in-betweens, the simplest kinds there is---those tiny details we tend to forget actually exist because we're too busy with the big things pre-pandemic like travelling, working away from home to earn our keeps and more.

So yes, basically late 2020 and 2021 is also all about the tiniest, easy to ignore and forget they exist in-betweens for me, namely:

• the ongoing addiction and attachment to Dutchmill's Soy Secretz in Chocolate Hazelnut. I buy about 4 solo boxes of it every two weeks or so. Maybe almost every week...hmn...
• there's also the attachment and obsession with cans of Mug Rootbeer. Sometimes, it's the whole bottle but mostly just the cans because I get them with Soy Secretz from Savemore, Capistrano, yeah. 
• in connection with the latter, I really like pairing 7-11's mushroom sisig siopao with Mug Rootbeer too. As someone who's not huge on caffeine---I only drink black coffee either iced or with bread on hand to dunk into it, very sparingly---I like Mug Rootbeer because it says on the can it contains no caffeine...so...yeah.
• ....on January 26, a day early into Pentagon Kino's birthday, I celebrated his birthday with the cupsleeves and A LOT of really fun freebies I got from SunriseBlissPTG on twitter. I registered for the cupsleeves event (CSE) and bought and paid for my cupsleeves and very fun inclusions or extras last December 2020 and received the package a day after Yuto's birthday so since I missed Yuto's birthday, I made sure to celebrate Kino's instead. Here's how this one went below:

So on the eve of the 26th, before Kino's day on the 27th, I had strawberry fruit tea with no add-ons from Chingkeetea. I'm not a huge fan of boba or whatever they put into milk teas and fruit teas like this so I asked for no add-ons. Boba in drinks disturb me a lot for some reason. The fruit tea aside, there's also DIY-ed vegan hamburger and avocado and banana toast on the other plate. 

I got the vegan burger from a seller in Talisay City, Cebu via shopee here: Veg-E Burger. The slices and pieces of iceberg lettuce, yellow onions and cucumber are from Savemore, Capistrano, the tomatoes are from our own stock of it at home. The bread for the toasts and hamburger bun are whole wheat and wheat respectively from a bakery I frequent that's right across the college I attended way, way back awhile ago. I'm a regular at the bakery so the people kind of know me in there. They know I love their freshly baked/cooked piaya in muscovado mostly so there's that too.

I've kind of missed the kitchen so it was cool to be there after a long while. I'll be spending some more of my days of the week in there for other dishes to make from time to time, yes. And especially now that we have a food processor here I asked my aunt and uncle to get my from the US. Yay.

I didn't get to go anywhere today, it's Wooseok's day now but I'm going to celebrate his birthday the simplest way I can tomorrow. 

This CSE is my first and it's also fund raising for a foundation so I have no regrets joining it and getting the cupsleeves. I'm definitely joining another one soon. I'm thinking...around April. There are a lot of my kpop idol favorites celebrating their birthdays on April and July based on my datebook for it. All-in-all, it's money well spent for a fun event I could do solo at home in this time of a global pandemic.

I'll try make the lay for the next CSE better and will probably get additional or extra cupsleeves, too. We'll see.

• ....in connection to the one above, I'm also currently, very much addicted to toast. Mostly it's avocado toast but it could also be just regular toast. So addicted to it that I'd even eat toast or lunch and dinner. lol.

• ....then there's the attachment to Burger King's plant-based burger meal, yep. I'm planning to get some more sometime soon. It's either this or 7-11's mushroom sisig siopao. lol.

• ....finally got to use my Sampleroom account! Here are those that came in the mail from last December 2020's transaction with them:

I'm usually not big on mainstream products since I have Human Heart Nature but because of Sampleroom PH, I finally got to try some I'd been eyeing from Watson's and some others. St. Ives is definitely a brand I can get behind. I love the soothing mask and the scrub is definitely fun to use 1-2 times a week! The Hygienix wipes are handy when you're travelling or out of the house for stuff. The only thing I don't like about Sampleroom PH however is how long they take to approve reviews. Mine still aren't approved until now and I don't think they'll ever approve those. Ever. I live in the south, well away from the NCR so I can't hand in the reviews at the allotted time they've given because it takes weeks for the products to get to me here---thanks, covid 19-caused delays in delivering packages---so yeah, I think this is one kink in their systems they need to fix. Some of us aren't exactly from the NCR so it'll take us more time to review stuff. 

It's against their regulations to have two accounts on there but I've signed up for another because I doubt I'll ever get my points back from them, ever. Heh. 

• ....journaling and datebook planning again, yay! I just have to have some photos printed out in some small sizes or so for the latter, yeah. I'll work on that one sometime soon. Tools of this trade include the Coffeebean and Tea Leaf planner I redeemed last December 2020---got it in fun light pink so yay~---and the Human Heart Nature Thrive journal. The journal is an anniversary one I'd been meaning to get way, wayyy back but I couldn't really get on with the price so it took me until the beginning of this month to decide to get it. It's buy 1 journal get 1 free so it's ALL GOOD.

The only qualm I have about this one is that some pages of it have biblical quotes in them. I'm agnostic and am more of a lapsed, non-practicing Roman Catholic---mostly an apatheist now---so I can easily ignore them. It comes with coloring pages but I'm not coloring them because I'd tried that before with the Bo's Coffee creative journal thing way back and I found out I'm not really into coloring stuff so yeah. And the dotted lines give you a lot of freedom to do anything with it. It's actually why I like this journal. When it works, it works.

• ....buying or stocking up on a lot of vegan stuff from shopee.
• my current favorites on this are:
• Jack's Produce Vegan Sardines in tomato oil/sauce, it's also available in chili oil, rice bran oil and corn oil
• Veg-E Tapa, also available are frankfurters, sausages, choplets, meat/meatloaf style ones, and hamburger (the one I used for the vegan burger above). I saw that the store I got this from has the vegan isaw ones so I might try that one next.
• and rereading a lot of my favorite Nora Roberts short stories. The ones she published on Silhouette anyway. My current favorites to reread: the Night Tales' Night Shift, Night Shade and sometimes, the Night Smoke...I've yet to get Night Shield and I saw someone on ebay have this so we'll see...hmn... oh and her Donovan Legacy's Entranced. I love Sebastian Donovan on there and like him among the three Donovan cousins so there's that. Ah...I'm looking to get the fourth one, Enchanted, too on ebay since I saw someone has this there too. I'll wait until I can justify actually getting those along with some three books of Sara Shepard's Pretty Little Liars I'd been eyeing, oh and a Washington Irving short stories book. 

Almost to the end of this post now... I'm still not entirely sure why I never really got around to posting about Chingkeetea on here. I should've done that one a long time ago since the number of times I frequent that place in a year is, to tell the truth, just a decent handful, but my friends and I have grown up alongside it from college moving forward so it's like, an established part of the typical Kagay-anon life here. Since I'm celebrating Wooseok's birthday simply tomorrow and thereby concluding this two ish weeks long celebration of Pentagon's trio of maknaes' birthdays, I'm posting more about Chingkeetea in the coming few days, yeah.

More posts will be coming soon because I'm waiting for a few things to come in the mail so...yay! 2021 will hopefully, definitely be more fun. Now if only our national government can do better and actually function better to manage this virus rampaging everywhere in our country now like how the rest of the countries are vaccinating their people day in and day out...yeah. I don't really expect much from them anymore. They're as dysfunctional and corrupt as can be up there.

the very late christmas gifts ideas post

A disclaimer, to start this post with: Human Heart Nature did not sponsor this. I'm really just a huge fan of their products since they first started.

A very quick veering off of topic here: I'd been lazy with blogging all of November, last month, due to catching up to a lot of TV content. Mostly, it's just me re-watching old shows I love like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, even Nickelodeon's The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius and my current addiction, MTV's Teen Wolf. I'm really late on the latter, I know, but I'm so, sooo stuck on seasons 4-6 and it's mostly thanks to Liam Dunbar---I love Liam and Hayden too! They remind me of Jimmy and Cindy somehow. Lol. I'm also following a lot of classic, really old movies that are likely on loop on TCM but sadly, the cable provider took this out of our subscription package. It would be nice to have HBO Max and TCM in there. Even HBO Go. I'm a huge HBO nutcase, yep. I need my daily dose of HBO shows like True Crime season 1, Big Little Lies, to name a few. I'm not really all that fond of Netflix and consider it a waste of money but I really wish we have Hulu here, so there's that. ....and let's steer ourselves right back to this post's topic...hmn...?

So...have you shopped for Christmas gifts yet? I have. I'm probably still lacking a few others. My grandparents' gifts mostly. Although this is because I have no earthly idea what to give them... But I'm close to completing my gifts to people around me. Immediate family, including a cousin, mostly and my closest friends. The sweetest thing about gift shopping this year? I didn't have to go out much to get them. I mostly shopped online. It comes with the quarantining at home territory for most of us. 2020 showed us that a lot can be done at the comforts of our home including gift giving. You'll know more of this as you read along.

Every month, I get at least 1,500 Php's Human Heart Nature products to keep my 25% off dealer privilege or so, so I figured, it was only right I stocked up on giftable stuff around the beginning of this month. I was able to get the items and a good number of gift boxes, gift bags and christmas gift cards around last week. It's now only a matter of me putting them under the plastic christmas tree that we have downstairs. I think I'll do this sometime middle of this week. I have yet to write stuff on the gift cards.

That all said, brick and mortar stores, we all know and love, migrating online definitely didn't have much an effect on the likes of me who has a strong dislike of crowds. Going slightly off topic again, I was at the malls a couple of times last week to see if my ancient Samsung J2 Prime, that died on me last week of November or so, could still be fixed---I ended up getting a new phone, a Samsung Galaxy A21s which I'm quite settled and content with---and to take advantage of about one of five of the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf's double stamps promo days to finally get my 2021 planner...and I was horrified to find a lot of people flocking Centrio, for one, around 3 in the afternoon onward for god knows whatever they are there for as if there's no pandemic around. News flash, in case people have forgotten, there still is the pandemic and people are still losing their lives in the hospitals to it, both health care professionals and not. I only really go out to the mall when I need to do so or lately, for some late-ish Christmas shopping due to some sales here and there. Otherwise, I'm better off just really just ordering things online.

If one follows local news on and off, we should at least be aware that a ton of unpleasant things have happened from a trio of storms wreaking havoc up north to our government here, still not knowing how to deal with this pandemic that they fail to secure cost-effective, very reasonably-priced anti-COVID 19 vaccines because the people in there's bff seem to be China and Russia's leaders much like USA's Trump...so...well... To soften the blow, we're royally f*cked here in the Philippines until further notice. ....and going back on track, all I can probably say is that Human Heart Nature offering ways to help people by their feeding program or really helpful kitchen, Kusina ng Kalinga and their new feature on the online store that allows people to send gifts to others' homes're a relief to know of today. Not a lot of stores do this and so far, all I know is, Human Heart Nature is the first to do so, so I kind of hope there'd more doing this to make the difficult 2020 life easier. At least there's something good like this in 2020. Hopefully more stores would do something like this. Things like these're exactly why I love Human Heart Nature aside from how I like their products are made for Pinays' skin and all. More of this, you'll know of later too as you read on.

So, without more of my beating around the bush here...here are some of my Human Heart Nature favorites to give people this Christmas, this year:

All of these, when purchase on the shop site, comes with a box or a bag and a Christmas gift card already. I didn't really use this feature because I could still afford to meet some friends in a maximum of 2's at least once a month anyway and I don't have that much close friends here to begin with. So, now, let's take a closer at my favorites among them, shall we?

1. Happy Helping Hands - we have the global pandemic to be wary of and be really cautious with---it's best not to contract the novel Corona Virus at this time, yes---so this duo of pocket-friendly hand soap and hand sanitizer is the basic anti-COVID 19 starter kit to gift people that matter with. I love Citrus Burst's tangy, refreshing scent as much as I do Pomelo's really sweet one so this is a double win in my book! Price at somewhere not going above 250 Php, this is a good deal already and very useful to people who're receiving it.

Human Heart Nature hand sanitizers are CDC approved and have a plant-derived alcohol content of 60%. It makes it as potent as regular alcohols and other such topical disinfectants in killing bacteria, viruses, other harmful microscopic organisms that make their way into our skin on a daily basis. That is, if we're the type to go out for work or otherwise, often.

This duo is definitely handy to have in one's bag at all times. I know so because I, at least, have one of them in bag. Mostly, it's the sanitizer but I do have the liquid hand soap too, from time to time.

2. Zesty Pomelo Party - the sanitizer has been established in number 1 to be a daily necessity. The hand and foot salve I have yet to try, however, can prove useful to people who work in an airconditioned environment 24/7. If you know people who are the kind who can't work from home without the ac on at least 8 hours a day or so, then this is a great gift to give them. The salve keeps the skin from chapping or going dry and soothes a lot of aches and pains away, too, when it counts.

3. Minty Floral Yule - a bar soap, along with the sanitizer, isn't a bad gift to give to people. It's a bit like numbers 1 and 2 except the soap can be used either as a bath soap or a hand soap. It's entirely up to the one receiving this gift bundle now. 

I've yet to try the Lavender Mint scented bar soap as I love the Peony and frangrance-free ones the most but seeing as I currently have a thing going on with energizing and relaxing minty stuff from Human Heart Nature---I love the cooling body cleanser to shower with after a day of being out and about lately---I'm likely to give this one a go soon.

Yep. As with numbers 1 and 2, this is a great gift to give people too. 

4. His & Hers Plastic Bottle-free Joys - they're plastic-free! They're environmentally friendly and they're for him and her! What more can you ask for? 

I'm really looking forward to trying the shampoo bar for women since it came out but I'm still stuck on Human Heart Nature's vanilla scented moisturizing shampoo so... But like their Lavender Mint bath/body bar soap, I'll get there one day soon. I just have to finish the remaining bottle of moisturizing shampoo I have left in the bathroom.

If this package isn't to your liking, you can always customize like I did and replace either one of the shampoo bars with the men's charcoal body cleansing bar for the gents in your life or the other with the fragrance-free cleansing body bar. Both my favorite fragrance-free and shampoo bars for the ladies here are plastic-free too. They use paper wrapping instead of the usual plastic these bars come in with. I think the exfoliating bars, the lavender mint and lemon scented bars are still using the plastic wrap and I'm not entirely sure but maybe the charcoal body cleansing bar for men may be plastic wrapped still, too. 

5. Pocketful of Peace - the very tiny and handy eucalyptus balm is really useful for when one has headaches and other such body pains to contend with in the middle of a work from home or the office day. I know so because I always kept 10g of this within easy reach on my cubicle's desk when I was still working from the office. I've worked from home since around May this year until my eventual resignation around September but I still have this thing in my make-up bag to-go.

People working in the office or ac-ed rooms 24/7, be they at home or in the office, will be forever thankful with this one, I'm sure. I know I will be. 

All of these 5 gifts are priced below 350 Php and are hardly really break the bank. I spent a good 2K Php for these I'm gifting people with but I'm seriously all good! Like, really all good. I just have to figure out what to give to my grandmother and grandfather and I might have to give them the his and her shampoo bars I still have left somewhere just to get over this agonizing hunt for what to give them. 

I've been encouraging a lot of people donate to victims of the three typhoons up north through my fandom slash real-life rants and all twitter account but my preferred way is to actually purchase stuff from Human Heart Nature. They have Kusina ng Kalinga that's a regular feeding programs for kids. You automatically donate to them when you purchase the ones with the red balls with a ribbon on them. Options 4 and 5 here have them. You can also check on others on the gifts page here for other such gifts that can feed kids through the said kitchen. They're likely going to be more expensive now, however. The more items in the gift bundle, the more expensive they are. It's just the way retailing goes. Simple logic. Lol.

Human Heart Nature is pro-environment, pro-Filipino, pro-poor and they ARE always for their people's and others' good and to me, that's money, hard-earned cash well-spent. Not only do I give people useful items to have this really scary time of the global pandemic, but I get to help my fellow Filipinos too! I've chosen to become an adovate solely for this reason and of course, because I love their products. Haha.  

With this local Filipino brand, you can skip the dreaded Christmas shopping rush in the malls or the markets and choose to send gifts to others on the online shop site, too! I, myself, was beyond livid to find so much people out and about in the nearest public market here last week---I didn't go but the public transport I was at passed by there and...you get the picture---so yeah, I'd really rather not be there even when their wares are likely more affordable and their choices, quite as extensive as the ones online. I do understand that most people prefer to see the goods in person but we still have COVID 19 lurking around so... Anyway, going back, Human Heart Nature has a 'send gifts' option you can click here on the shop site so you don't have to personally meet up with friends and family to send them gifts. You can find the option encircled here below to make navigating the site easier:

You can also get more discounts if you become a member. To become one, simply click on the encircled option here once you're in the online shop site or page and register. It's at the top of the page like the 'send gifts' option is, yes. 

I know. 2020 sucks. Like, A WHOLE LOT. 

Christmas parties have gone online as did a lot of other things. Trade fairs, concerts, even city and town fiestas have gone online. A lot of things are online. I was in a virtual concert not too long ago, maybe three or so months back to be exact so I understand how people are experiencing work-from-home, being online all the time fatigue at this time. But there's really not much we can do about it when even our own government can't handle COVID 19 and its spread decently. It's not entirely helping that we're frequented by typhoons getting stronger by the year---thank you, global climate change crisis! global warming! *insert sarcasm here*---either. I envy New Zealand so much. They have such an awe-inspiring leader in there and I can only wish ours were the same but he's not. For the rest of us, this pandemic has only revealed how ugly politics, socio-politics and especially real life can be.  

And, like, heck, my closest friends and I are definitely having our Christmas pajama, home sets, ugly Christmas sweater party online on facebook messenger (one of our friends do not have Discord, unfortunately, and is quite busy with her growing family these days) and Discord this weekend after Christmas Day so believe me, I. KNOW that 2020 sucks. 

The least thing we can do now, however, is to grab onto what little hope we can and try to survive and keep living amidst this pandemic. Even better is if we can do what little part we can to help out as what this post seeks to steer people into doing so here. 

I've actually done very little shopping for myself although, well, you can say it's quite an understatement when I've shopped for undies from Bench last week. It's not my fault though. They were on sale and I needed them because I was running out of functional ones. Heh. And I did spend on ankle boots and flipflops from Rubi on Zalora PH's sale not too long ago. I don't think they'll be seeing the light of day soon. We'll see. But I'll blog about this and my couple of purchases from essentielmanila, a new favorite online store of mine that carry a ton of work-from-home basics, sets mostly and yummy, fun sets at very, VERY affordable prices I just really couldn't help myself. I'm a humongous clothes lover and the more options to play with, the better. I might have to gift away some of these things I've shopped to some others one day. We'll see. But it still really stands that these purchases aside, all I've been keeping on the regular is stocking my instagram shop (it also has a facebook page with the same name) a monthly basis and trying my best to curate its contents as much as possible in a way that it's benefits not only me but my soon-to-be local suppliers, too. I'm curating Treasure Chest of Sorts really carefully. I'm filling it with locally made products I actually swear by so that it does not become just another run-of-the-mill 'sari-sari store' type of online shop we have an abundance of nowadays. I need something to make it stand out in my locale and hopefully, one day, I can even open a brick and mortar store for it, too. I can dream anyway. I'm keeping myself ridiculously busy and preoccupied with A LOT of things aside from tv shows marathoning and a music tripping on spotify, yes. It's a terribly trying time but somehow, I manage and I'm pretty sure all of us can and will get over all of this, too.  

The most important thing, as we continue to struggle and figure things out even with the COVID 19 global pandemic hovering around us, is to do what little we can to keep this matter light between us and others. It can be by supporting and buying local or maybe going more sustainable? Donating to causes we love, too, should be a good thing. I would do so as an animal lover, yes. I have an indoor cat I take care of aside from myself, of course, so animals are another passion of mine. ....all of these mostly because, even if we already have 1 to 2 cost-effective and somehow tried and tested COVID 19 vaccines now, it's really still, just a trying time for a lot of us. 

In less than a couple of weeks, it'll be 2021. But first, we have Christmas and the day of gift-giving (hopefully everything good) to contend with before we try our best to festively, gayly usher in the new year. Now, Christmas isn't really my favorite time of the year to be honest. It hasn't been since about three years ago or four due to tragedies that I've gone through that seem to happen this latter half of the year. My favorite time of the year actually is Halloween for this and several other reasons. So yes, let's make this gift-giving season good by gifting people that matter the GOOD and spending it with them, too. (I'm really not all that sure if we can all go home to our grandparents this Christmas weekend but seeing as their place is close and only less than a 30-minute drive from here, we'll see...)

So, happy Christmas, happy holidays and let's remain kind and good to ourselves, our environment, our fellow country men and basically just anyone, everyone and everything else...even if the world isn't that kind to us at this time. One day, this will all be over and one day, it'll all get better.

And if it helps those who feel everything is grim moving onto 2021 and onward, you can go and feel free to slide on my DMs (direct messages) on my fandom and personal-ish twitter for a random chat/conversation or...to see and empathize with how pessimistic and very real I can be on there. Lol. My tweets are very telling of how normally grimly realistic I am on there. I'm actually more of a pessimist than a jaded optimist nowadays and this is reflected on said twitter account. But I make do with what I am given. I can still afford a tiny bit of positivity or optimism. Somehow.

PS

I know this post is already a very long read as it is but is it just me or has everyone else migrated from blogging to either vlogging (I'm not too into this however and nor do I like a lot of vloggers...only a good few, I'm ever really into) and especially instagram? I dunno. It's just a feeling. The blogging world hasn't really been all that teeming with life lately. I miss the days back when it was livelier in here. Don't you?