Tunay Na Mahal: Philadelphia

Showing posts with label Philadelphia. Show all posts

Philly Loves Lacquer Nail Polish!

While browsing photos on Instagram one night looking under different hash tags for nail polish, I came across Philly Love's Lacquer. A Philadelphia Indie Polish maker. Being a fellow Philly girl I was so excited! I don't know of any other indie polish makers in my hometown! (Philly Pride!)

I ordered the duo of Rocky & Adrian. Adrian is a sky blue with shimmer and Rocky is a gorgeous glitter, packed with blue, white, silver and holographic bar, stars & micro glitter. (Sadly they are out of stock at the moment. I hope she restocks the holo top coat 'It's Always Sunny'... sometime soon! I want!)

When my order arrived it was in such cute packaging! Shipping only took one day... but that's because I'm local and only a few zip codes away! :-p

Adrian is a bit thick, so I used 3 very thin coats and then I topped it with Seche Vite fast dry top coat. It's a very pretty sky blue! Rocky is awesome, the glitter comes out easily and you don't have to go digging very much at all to get a few stars out. I added a few fleur di lis from my new Messy Mansion stamping plate MM06. (More on these soon!)

My new Messy Mansion nail stamp plates. Birds, Bird Cages, Fleur di lis', Damask... love these! I will have another blog post about these soon.

Disclosure: All of the products above were purchased with my own money. I was not asked to blog about them.

Family Marriage Philadelphia Philippines

Visiting the Santa Catharina Cargo Ship.

On Tuesday we got to visit my Father in law here in Philadelphia. My Father in law is a ship captain and gets to travel the world. (He goes back home to the Philippines for around 6 months every year). The ship he is on right now is trading between Costa Rica, Columbia and Philadelphia.

So on Tuesday my husband and I drove down to Pier 82 at Coloumbus Blvd, on the Delaware River to meet up with my Father in law. (The last time I saw my Father in law was January 2010, and F.B. hasn't seen his Dad since he came to the USA in 2011).

The ship was docked until the next morning. They were unloading lots and lots of bananas, (that are probably in almost every supermarket in Philadelphia right now.) My Father in law gave us a tour of the ship and we got to visit for about 2 hours. I should have worn my sneakers, instead of flip flops though! Lot's of stairs in the ship!

We needed guest passes to tour the ship.

They were unloading bananas.

Map of the Delaware River

My husband pretending to "drive" the ship.

My Father in law showing us the ships radar.

All of us.

Up on the deck. You could see the sport stadiums, etc in the distance from up there.

Historic ship also down at Pier 82, that Philadelphia is trying to restore. The SS United States.

In my Father in laws office on the ship.

The Benjamin Franklin Bridge on the way home, stuck in traffic on I-95.

My husband got some Pringles from his Dad, from the ships private stash. Lol.

Holidays Nails Philadelphia Revlon WinstoniaStore Zoya

Happy 4th of July!!!

Here are my festive 4th of July nails! With Zoya Liberty & Blaze. Konad special stamping polish in white & Winstonia Store stamping plate W107. And Revlon Celestial FX stars!

(You can click to enlarge the photo).

I did a clear coat of Seche Vite over Zoya Liberty so I would have a more even surface for stamping. And I used a toothpick to place the little stars from Revlon Celestial FX once I fished them out of the bottle. Then a few more coats of Seche Vite covered everything. I'm really happy how this turned out, I don't usually do "Nail Art". :-)

(Left to Right: Independence Hall, Liberty Bell, 1st Congress and the Betsy Ross House, from our 2011 trip)

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday! My husband & I are just hanging out in the air conditioning (It's in the 90's outside) and I'm making barbecue chicken later on our George Foreman grill, with corn, squash & fried onions. And we have apple pie & fruit salad. :-)

Beauty Birthday's Coffee Food Lush Philadelphia Shopping Travel

Lush Cosmetics & French Macaroons!

My cousin & I got together for her belated birthday last weekend. We hadn't seen each other... since last year! We're both either always busy working, sick, or it was snowing, lol. So it was nice to get together with her and have a girls day out. We took the train down to Center City Philadelphia so we could do some shopping on Walnut Street near Rittenhouse Square. It was a nice sunny day even though it was a bit windy and only in the low 60's.

Comcast Center

City Hall Philadelphia

One of the things we really wanted to do was check out Lush Cosmetics. My cousin had already gotten stuff online from them and I've heard about them so it was fun to actually visit the shop. The staff was incredibly friendly. They let you try out products, they give demonstrations. They were nice and laid back.

My Lush Haul: I got Sexy Peel soap... which smells so amazing. Like lemon candy drops. It makes my whole shower smell good. I also got Lemony Flutter cuticle butter. It smells of lemon and lavender. And Mint Julips lip scrub. It tastes like chocolate mint.

I loved the Sexy Peel soap so much. I just ordered 2 more bars online. And a facial soap I liked the smell of. And one of their all natural herbal deodorants. Can't wait until they arrive!

Another thing my cousin & I have wanted to do is try French Macaroons! You see them everywhere online, in blogs. They are always so colorful and pretty. But boy are they tough to find around here! We found out there's a patisserie & coffee shop down near 17th & Walnut Street. Miel Patisserie. So we were super excited to stop there and try some French Macaroons for the 1st time ever!

The shop is really cute. They serve coffee, some food items. They have gorgeous looking pastries and chocolates. And soooo many flavors of French Macaroons. I wish I could have tried every flavor! (They are $1.50 each). I ordered an iced coffee & a Cappuccino and Pistachio French Macaroon. My cousin ordered Blueberry Lemon & Salted Caramel.

Oh. My. Gosh. They were beyond what we both imagined. At first we were scared to try them because of all the hype and we were afraid they wouldn't be what we were thinking. But wow. French Macaroons are small, they have a crispy exterior, but when you bite into it it's more a chewy cake consistency. And the filling... oh my wow.... the ones I ordered had a very rich sweet cream center. The Blueberry Lemon one I tried of my cousins had the most amazing sweet blueberry center. They were so good we got some more to take home.

Leftover French Macaroons.
(I took home Raspberry, Pistachio & Cappuccino).

To finish our shopping adventures. We stopped at Ruby Tuesday's near Liberty Place for an early dinner. I got a yummy salmon salad. And we both got top shelf long island iced teas. We did so much walking downtown! We were exhausted on the train ride back home.

Other Philadelphia Adventures:

January 2013: Weekend Getaway!
September 2011: Philadelphia Trip: 8/31-9/1/2011
July 2011: Philadelphia Zoo
May 2011: Hot Day in the City!
December 2010: The Nutcracker
April 2009: Playing tourist in my own city

Beauty Loccitane Philadelphia Philippines

My L'Occitane Obsession...

My L'Occitane obsession started on my honeymoon in the Philippines in 2009. We stayed at the Manila Hotel and they had the verbena L'Occitane toiletries.... I was hooked. (Philippine residents, there's a L'Occitane in Greenbelt 5).

I don't get to shop from L'Occitane too often. Once a year, or twice a year at the most. Infact the last time I had purchased anything was back in April of 2011, the year my husband arrived in the USA and we had visited the King of Prussia Mall. I stocked up on Verbena lotion then! L'Occitane is not cheap, so it's something I get to splurge on once in awhile. My favorite scents are Verbena, Almond, Rose for Reines.

During our little weekend getaway in January, I got to check out the L'Occitane shop on Walnut Street in Philadelphia... and rekindle my obsession with L'Occitane!