Hangover-free this holiday
MANILA, Philippines - The holidays have a way of putting you in your place. No matter how slender and successful you perceive yourself to have become over the course of the past 12 months, you’re still not married with three kids. Or you are blissfully wed with three brilliant, beautiful offspring — but to the sort of people you always encounter in the annual gatherings that pop up this time of year, you are still too fat, too thin... And why did you have to leave your career? I’ve accepted that you just can’t win — and when there is more to be grateful for, you don’t have to be and that’s perfectly fine.
The influx of Christmas brunches and dinners also have a way of reminding you of your mortality. Never mind if you summited a mountain or ran a marathon or attended five days straight of spinning classes. This month, you will attend your office Christmas party even if you’re drained from meeting deadlines, wake up hungover, but still go to a long boozy brunch with your current squad and then an annual high school reunion in a club at night for the proverbial “one drink.” Yet you will still resurrect from the wrappers of McChicken nuggets littering your bed to eat as much lechon and tres leches as your lola deems necessary — which is bottomless. So that’s calories, sodium, and alcohol overload — and by week’s end if you’re not feeling it, they’ll be all over your face. And so you pile on the makeup and are too exhausted or intoxicated to properly cleanse.
I am equal parts lazy and vain, and this is how I make this rare period of overexposure and socializing as painless as possible. These are the best shortcuts.
My nightstand hangover SOS kit includes Koh Gen Do Cleansing Spa Water cloths, Rohto Lycée Nano Eye Clearshot eye drops, Laneige lip balm, still water and coconut water. These are my essentials. If I am drunk enough to get hungover I am probably too inebriated to cleanse off my makeup and do my nighttime regimen of retinoids. While the very act of wiping is quite harsh, the Koh Gen Do wipes are second to none for one-swipe cleansing.
If you must eradicate one telltale sign of your partying ways, it’s bloodshot eyes. Eyedrops are a must. You don’t really need those blue tinted ones. It lubricates and relaxes dilated eye blood vessels, the actual cause of redness. Depending on how steady my hands are, I also tightline a fleshy nude kajal — Chanel Le Crayon Khol in Clair — on the center of my waterline, never the sides. Then I apply RMS Beauty Living Luminizer on the corners of my eyes, under and over my brow bones, and my cheek bones for the most natural-looking highlights. In this state, the tip of my nose and Cupid’s bow get moist on their own.
The next sign to eradicate is dry, chapped lips. A tinted lip balm — sorry Dior and Rodin, this is a job for K-beauty brand Laneige — is perfect and I also use it as blush. Not a half-minded decision though. It’s a lovely raw offset to this season’s gilded lids.
Light, fast-absorbing, and highly moisturizing are your keywords to beat the look of holiday hangovers and fatigue.
The cosmetic things are proportionate to how much time I have left in the morning and how much energy I have. Stealth makeup — foundation, concealers, powders — just do not adhere to my complexion the way I’d like in this state so I try to do less, thus skin lasers and a flattering haircut and color. Early this year, I got my brows semi-permanently tattooed by Pauline Ylaya and her lifelike strokes have saved me a lot of trouble since I don’t go for “on fleek” arches in the first place. I still get my real hairs tweezed and trimmed though. I also get lash extensions when I know I’ll be assimilating into social settings for at least three nights straight. Together, they lift my eyes without the need for eyeshadow magic.
I hardly use moisturizer, but to perk up my sallow complexion, after prepping with La Prairie Essence-in-Lotion, I mix whatever I am using with a color corrector like Becca Backlight Targeted Color Corrector in Lavender and apply on my T-zone for instant radiance. I’ve been told Estée Lauder’s Aura from the Victoria Beckham line does this too but with some high-tech skin tightening action.
If you’ve gotten a head-start on any one of the parties in the past two weeks, chances are you’ve collected a distracting pair of dark undereye circles. My eyes never get puffy — you can have your frozen teaspoons and cucumbers. My eye sockets just get deeper and darker, and for this I find that La Mer’s The Illuminating eye gel and Skincolor de La Mer concealer work like a dream. Together, they cost like somebody should be applying them for me, and in practice, they are the next best thing because they don’t require much work. If I can afford it, I’d get Restylane Skin Boosters (I wrote about it when it first broke on the market early this year) by Dr. Windie Hayano, which is also used for the “bridal glow facial,” all the rage in Seoul right now. It’s a temporary hyaluronic acid filler best injected on the tear troughs so that, for three weeks at least, you will never look tired.
But despite all these product shout outs, food is still the best medicine, even if you feel overfed. I find that incorporating anti-inflammatory vegetables and spices into my food intake — I look forward to turmeric, ginger, lemongrass, beets and watercress — softens the blow, in that my body rids itself of toxins on its own and in less embarrassing ways. To “detox” the skin of all the beautifying gunk, it’s also back to the kitchen for me. Virgin coconut oil does the job for cleansing, moisturizing, and the dreaded yet effective oil pulling.
