Hair, Hands, Personal Care Liz Lanuzo Hair, Hands, Personal Care Liz Lanuzo

Editor's Picks: The top five best hand and body cleansers to try right now

How obsessed are you with washing your hands and body on a scale of one to ten? I would say I’m pretty up there. I’m not yet - I think - up to the point of being truly obsessive-compulsive about it, but I probably wash my hands at least 15 times a day. Aside from pandemic reasons, I have a very fluffy dog who is an instant dirt magnet. So washing for me is up there on my list of daily priorities.

I’ve accumulated quite a few favorite cleansers for this purpose, and I think you should try them out if you haven’t yet!

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Features, Finds, Hair, Hands, Health & Wellness, Shopping Marielle Ong Features, Finds, Hair, Hands, Health & Wellness, Shopping Marielle Ong

I’m spilling it: Here are my top five secret Shopee finds

Ever since the start of the community quarantine, online marketplaces like Shopee have helped give us convenient access to certain things from the outside world. Learning a new hobby? You're likely to find competitively-priced supplies. Forgot to pick something up from the last supply run? Perhaps one of your favorite sellers has it. Want to try something new? There’s tons of listings to discover.

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Seven local hand sanitizers that you can buy along with your makeup

The ongoing pandemic has made alcohol and sanitizers essential to our lives. It’s something that we always need to have on hand to help protect us as we go about our day. Making sure we have our stash full is now more convenient as beauty brands release their own versions. We can shop for our beauty products and sanitizing essentials in one stop!

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Hands, Nail Marielle Ong Hands, Nail Marielle Ong

Only P299, and I look like I win at life: How these new local stick-on nail wraps gave me an instant mani

Since lockdown started, I can proudly say that I was able to put in a lot more effort into skincare. When restrictions eased up, I was even able to gradually go back to wearing makeup. But a manicure - self-applied, of course - only happened exactly once in the last eight months. The housework scattered throughout the day and all the frequent hand-washing didn’t exactly leave me with a lot of downtime to painstakingly wait for each layer to set and dry. But Luxx Lash is giving my used and abused nails some hope.

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Hands Liz Lanuzo Hands Liz Lanuzo

Love: The Lush Dream Cream is heaven-sent for dry hands

Constant hand AND dish washing both make it easy for my hands to dry up like a prune if I don’t watch it. I use gentle cleansers yes, and I moisturize regularly, but sometimes I need a heavy hitter like the Lush Dream Cream Hand and Body Lotion (P345/45 g and P1,150/240g at Lush PH). The Lush Philippines team sent this to me a couple of months back - they have an online store btw! - so I’ve been testing it out. The verdict? It works.

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Health & Wellness, Hands Denise Bengzon Health & Wellness, Hands Denise Bengzon

Here’s why you shouldn’t buy 99% alcohol - and what you should get instead

While my personal preference is to avoid alcohol in my skincare products, it’s an important item for helping to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Unfortunately, people have been panic-buying and hoarding bottles at the grocery, leaving others to find other means to buy alcohol. You’ve probably seen people selling commercial alcohol online at unreasonable prices, but did you also notice those posts with gallons of 99% alcohol? Don’t buy that until you’ve read this.

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Hands, Skincare Liz Lanuzo Hands, Skincare Liz Lanuzo

Burt's Bees Shea Butter Hand Repair Cream

It peeves me when negative things attract more interest than positive ones. People who think other people are stupid, those who are jealous, those who are just a certain flavor of malicious - it's like a snake eating its own tail. They're the source of negativity and they also feed that negativity. They love a story where they can show just how superior they are to all the other people making mistakes, as if they never make one. 

You may not be a negative person normally, but tell me honestly, did your ears prick up with that first paragraph? I notice that I do the same thing whenever I get a whiff of controversy in my circle. I try to be conscious of and try to control it, but sometimes I just can't help it. I wanna know more. I wanna sneer more. I wanna take the high ground as if that's my permanent address.

However, I always tell myself never to judge. Or at least, not to judge harshly. We never really know the full story - we may never do. I think it helps us to be kinder just to know that.

Anyway! Today I'd like to show you the best hand cream I've tried so far: the Burt's Bees Shea Butter Hand Repair Cream (P950 for 90g). I got this as part of a gift set so I'm not sure if 50 grams is the full tube, but I do love the size (update: the full tube is 90 grams, and 50 grams is only P550 but this isn't available at Beauty Bar). It's ideal to bring during the day when my hands get dry!

And boy, do they go dry. I've never had such serious dryness before. When my partner touches my hand now he says it feels like cardboard! Ugh. It must be all the hand washing after scratching my dog's belly, and the dish washing too. I'm lucky not to need to wash my clothes, but I imagine that the dryness would be much worse if it were otherwise.

I've tried other hand creams before but I honestly can't use them as regularly as I want to. They are usually greasy and they take forever to get absorbed! I have this compulsion to always check my phone, my laptop, so ten minutes away is such a hassle. I always end up washing my hands to remove the cream, just so I can move on with my life.

Enter this Burt's Bees hand cream.

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