TOPAZ HORIZON

Before the month ends, let me just announce the fantabulous things I almost forgot to tell you about:

Part of my job is to test the latest offerings of beauty products, spas and health centers. While that sounds cool, most of the time, I just dread it.

Recently, the editors and I were at the launch of L'Oreal Professionel's latest hair colors--green, blue and purple. You read that right. That's Robbie of L'Oreal Professional who successfully convinced Kat of Good Housekeeping to dye her hair blue. She bravely did it. She did not like it since a few days later, her hair turned gray. Robbie, if you're reading this, don't worry: I will try the purple! It looks rich. But I'll do that when I get tired of my current red.

Hair is okay, though. I'll do anything to my hair since it grows out anyway. It's the other things I worry about. One time I was in this super posh spa about to test their new massage techniques by therapists especially imported from some European country. I do not exaggerate when I say that my therapist almost broke my neck. The whole right side of my head felt tingly for the next two days.

Then I just tested this new facial that uses chocolate to moisturize your skin. Well, my face did feel soft and supple but the chocolate was also absorbed and I looked dark for two days! I exfoliated like crazy because my face was darker than the rest of me.

And now I'm being offered to do a colonic cleanse. This treatment is said to flush out bacteria and toxins from your system resulting to clearer skin, less allergies, fresher breath, and a general lightness of being. Still, just reading up on it makes my tummy turn. I don't like the idea of things going up my butt and I like my bacteria a lot, thank you very much!

Ack, I really don't want to do this colonic cleanse! Yes, editors aren't really very excited to try out stuff. I have a beauty editor friend who had the skin of her butt burned off--she could not sit for weeks... but when the burned skin peeled off, no more stretch marks! Another editor had orange skin for a week because of a tanning session gone wrong. Yikes!

So if you're from Manila and can write extremely well, why don't you drop me an email at frances.amper@summitmedia.com.ph and volunteer to test out things? Just as long as you don't sue us in case your face becomes dark, your hair turns gray or you break your neck!

Maybe I'll just drink cod liver oil, eat more oatmeal and veggies and try taking Colonix in the meantime.

When I said I looked to the '80s for hair inspiration, well, Beyonce went a few notches higher and created a whole video inspired by the '60s.

Here she says that her uber popular "Put a Ring on It" vid was inspired by choreographer Gwen Fosse (oops, posted a wrong vid! Here's the real one!):


And here's the incomparable Mrs. Fosse and her backup dancers shakin' their booty:


Wowza! Whoever said white folks can't dance clearly do not know the Lady Fosse! Here's Beyonce and her backup dancers paying homage:


Can you believe the lithe muscles on Beyonce and her girls? They must've been taking some HGH to get that strong! And those moves aren't easy, mind you. I can imagine the endless practice sessions and training. Anyway, here's the Philippines' very own Dancing Queen, Lucy Torres-Gomez!


I will give Lucy a big A for effort. I tried dancing it and looked pathetic so I won't even dare say anything against the lovely Lucy... But please feel free to comment!

OMG, Britney at the height of her career and her sexiness. "Toxic" is one of my favorite Britney Spears songs and when I found this on YouTube today, well, I just had to dance and sing along!

Note: If you're very conservative, then please skip to the next post.



Didn't that make your jaw drop? I hope pants didn't drop, though! I'm trying to learn the dance moves and Vince just laughed away. I guess I need a sparkly nude costume then!

And by hot, I mean literally sweltering hot. This week was just filled with events: product launches, store openings, press conferences. Ack. No matter what we did, our hair was plastered onto our scalps, neck and foreheads! Makeup melted, dresses were glued to our backs, and greetings were reduced to those deplorable air kisses. I love Manila but when it gets hot like this, I just want to stay in front of the A/C.

Been seeing a lot of my long lost friends lately. Aida, my dearest friend since first year high and who now lives in Antibes, was here all too briefly for her sister's wedding (best wishes, Arlyn!). Though she was here for about three weeks, I saw her only once since she spent all of her time as a tour guide to her French in-laws all over this beautiful country.

I really really want to cut my hair but everyone's telling me not to. So okay, I decided I'll let it grow again. And then I saw this retro video of "Blue Kiss." I so love this song! And I so love Jane Wiedlin's short crop!

I also love the rabbit on the album cover! Anyway, Jane's hair reminds me of Winona Ryder's cut, too. Gosh, I loved Winona. Especially in 1990's Edward Scissorhands. Or maybe I loved Johnny Depp there.
Anyway, the style is rather short. If I don't want it that short, then maybe we can go for something a bit longer, like this:
I think I have to lose some weight so that my face won't look fat. Here's what I look like with a blond wig (why I'm in a wig? Click here):
Nicole Delos Angeles, Beauty Editor of Cosmopolitan, told me short hair is a lot more work because I'll have to style it to death with mousse, gels, waxes, etc. Plus, I'll have to wear makeup and earrings so I won't look like a boy. Gee, I never realized short hair was so high maintenance!

Oh well, it's just hair. If I look terrible, it'll grow back. Trouble is no one wants me to cut my hair short. Especially Vince. When I showed him that wigged pic, he totally looked at me with horror. I think he won't make love to me if I cut my hair short! Then again, I don't think my husband can resist me tee hee.

OMG. I saw this video in The BagHag and I just laughed my head off silly. Because I know exactly how this poor woman feels!


On our honeymoon in London last year, Vince and I decided to go to the National Gallery after checking out of our hotel at noon. Our flight was at 6 PM. Surely, 2 hours in a museum can't hurt. Oh, boy, did it hurt! First of all, 2 hours are not enough in a museum as breathtaking as the National Gallery. So of course, we lingered. Still, Heathrow was just a 30-minute train ride away. Unfortunately, the tube had so many problems on that particular day and we were stuck underground between stations for quite a while. So basically it took us some frikkin' 2 hours and 50 minutes to get from Kings Cross to Heathrow.

We ran and ran and ran with our luggage and shopping. We got to the gate 5 minutes after it closed. I begged, "Please let us through. It's just 5 minutes. Please. We want to go home." I did not cry. In fact, I was so upset I was whispering because I felt if I raised my voice just a bit, it would escalate to screaming fury (like the woman in the video).


Of course Cathay Pacific refused, politely but firmly. We stayed at the check-in counter for the rest of the evening, waiting to be chance passengers but all flights to Manila were fully booked. There was another girl who also missed her flight, and she was sobbing so much I wanted to hug her. Anyway, we then decided to fly to Hong Kong, stay there for a night then try to get a flight from there to Manila. No luck.

I tell you, dear readers, getting left behind by your plane is one of the worst things that can happen to you! Vince and I spent the night at Heathrow hoping airports offered free hotel rooms for unfortunate people like us (tip: stay at the arrivals section--it's warm there and the convenience shops are open all night). Good thing we had the Sony PSP to keep us sane. We watched episodes of Lost (and we commiserated with the characters!), listened to music, played games and read comic books all on the PSP. I also finished reading The Kite Runner, which made me sadder.

We were finally able to book a flight first thing in the morning and as we were having lunch, Vince tried to cheer me up: "As soon as we get home, we'll eat tinolang manok and sinigang and adobo with fried garlic rice..." He trailed off because by then I had started bawling. I wailed, "I want to go home! I want to go home!"

Haha, we joke about it now but I swear upon the Gucci bag I just won that I will forever check in early! No more missed flights ever!


*to my non-Filipino readers, tinolang manok is chicken stewed with chili leaves, sayote/green papaya and ginger; sinigang is a sour soup of pork/fish/prawn and vegetables; adobo is pork/chicken simmered to fall-apart tenderness in garlic, vinegar and soy sauce. Oh my, I got hungry...

Remember my quest for a netbook? Well, right after I wrote that post, my husband got inspired (or maybe finally got impatient? Hee hee) and got himself--yes, not me!--his newest baby, the aluminum 13-inch MacBook:I love it! He's so cute! He was super excited when opening the box: "It's like Christmas!" Hehe. Vince always gets like this--photo shoot and all--when he gets himself a new gadget. It's too cute for words really. I only got to post it now because, well, the hubby's very private and he got shy to share this but... it's public knowledge now!

Vince has been doing some really amazing stuff with his new toy, which ironically finally convinced me that I don't need a laptop as powerful as the MacBook. I already have an iMac, which is powerful enough to send a rocket ship to the moon and back. And we have an iPhone, too. But I still want a netbook! So, yes, I'm going to get myself an MSI Wind. Best thing about the MSI Wind? You can install OSX, so it's like using a Mac for a fraction of the price. Perfect!

My dearest darling friend, Mariel, is here from a too-long stay in New York. She'll only be here for a month--meeting friends, family and fixing the details for her upcoming wedding to Alvin. Finally!

Anyway, we had lunch at C2 at Shangri-la a few days ago. She was starved for Pinoy food. So was I actually. Been eating unhealthily these past few weeks, just chowing down on burgers and pizzas. Ack!

This is the fruit and seaweed salad. It was interesting. The seaweed was salty and pops in your mouth. The sweet fruits were an excellent foil to the saltiness of the seaweed and the bitterness of the cabbage leaves.

This is Matthew, Mariel's adorable six-year-old brother. He's super jetlagged and tired from all the family reunions but he's valiantly trying to fight it. So cute! It's his first time in the Philippines and finds our food too rich. So he had McNuggets.

This is pan de sal with kesong puti. Is kesong puti goat cheese? Anyway, the cheese is toasted and put in freshly baked crunchy rolls. Yum!

This is pansit Malabon. Pansit is noodles. Malabon is a place. So this is a noodle dish from Malabon, I guess! It's noodles drenched in seafood. So it was kinda really salty. Not really my type of pansit.

Okay, quick post today, dear readers and lurkers alike! Am having a very busy weekend--a wedding, a seminar, an eyelash extension repair, a play, and a dinner! In fact, I do have to run by a tech shop, too, for flash memory drives. Need more storage for all my photos! More updates soonest!

If you're vegetarian or from PETA, skip this post. You've been warned!

Food master (chef, author, TV host) Anthony Bourdain finally visited the Philippines and the show was on last week (and it took me this long to post about it because my new Nine West shoes and new Gucci bag totally distracted me!). Vince and I love his show "No Reservations" because we loooove food and any show that tackles food is a good show! Anthony's is different from most because, unlike most people, he has a very open mind on food and he tells it like it is, so if he says it's good, you betcha it's good. And if it's bad, I'll take his word for it, too. Other hosts are such huge fans of their own food (usually bland) that they can't appreciate the cuisines of other cultures.

So when he came over and said that our lechon, or roasted pig, is the best in the entire world, well, I assure you that a lot of pigs will get roasted as Pinoys all over celebrate the fact that Anthony Bourdain just proclaimed our lechon as the "Best. Pig. Ever!"
I just want to say that, while "No Reservations" is a food show, he tackled one mighty question: Who is the Filipino? It really bothered Anthony that if our food's so good, why isn't it on the culinary map? Why aren't we promoting it and pushing it because, to him, the few dishes he ate were some of the best-tasting stuff he's ever had. Hell, yeah! Pinoy food forever! In fact, our food is so good, Filipinos are fast becoming a nation that desperately needs the best diet pill ever! Tee hee.

Anyway, this is a very serious question that applies to all aspects. I've had the opportunity to meet many foreigners. When the hosts of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" visited, they were surprised to see how fashionable Filipinas are, which begs the question: Why aren't Filipinos on the fashion map? Some American and European friends of mine who've been to many beaches and diving sites all over the world visit the Philippines and get so flabbergasted at how beautiful our shorelines are, which begs the question: Why aren't our beaches--the very best in the world!--in the travel books? And so on and so forth.




Watch the show as Anthony and the Pinoys he interviews grapple with this question. This is the comment I left on Anthony's blog:

"Our identity has always been debated on. Everyone says we have none because--like you said--we are too nice and struggle to please and be integrated. But underneath that, there is a Filipino identity, very subtle, but we recognize it in each other as soon as we step out of the country. Like you said, Filipinos are nice. And everywhere in the world, if you meet a friendly, smiling, eager-to-please, kind, happy, funny, all-suffering person, I bet my life you just met a Filipino.
"And I want to add that the Filipino identity is wrapped around food! Why do you think your show has so many Filipino fans, it makes you nervous? =D As long as it's about food, Filipinos will devour it!"

If you're Pinoy, stand up and be proud! And let's have some lechon while we're at it!

*photos from Anthony Bourdain's online journal

British Vogue:
InStyle:
Current hot movie of the month:
Everything hot pink, sunny yellow and bright orange is back! So, of course, I dug through my closet and found this old dress I bought from Karimadon about three years ago for a mere PHP500 (USD10). Don't you just love fashion? Never throw away anything because trends just keep coming back!

Now that my screaming orange dress is hot hot hot, I wore it to the most exciting day of the week...

When I finally got my limited edition Gucci shoppers bag! There's only 100 of these babies around the world, and I got one! Yippee!

The bag comes with an 18-carat gold plated bag tag. I'm removing it, though. It attracts too much attention.

I won this delightful prize with my blog post on the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic. The contest was sponsored by Columbia Pictures, Walt Disney Studios and Nuffnang Philippines (here I pose with them happily). Thank you so much! Now off to shop I go!