Street fashion in Paris at Winter

Okaaaay, this being the Philippines, winter fashion is non-existent. We only buy the winter stuff for when we travel. Yep, that's the only time I bring out my coats and leathers and muffs and gloves. So I'm not really interested in winter clothes but since I'm subscribed to Refinery29 and this story on winter street style came up, I browsed through it and totally got floored at the Parisian girls.

Seriously, if that's what Parisian girls wear, then I need some seriously fab clothes when I visit Paris.

*all images from Refinery29

Dry body brushing

Okay, after my feature on Divasoria's Glossy, many people are asking about dry body brushing. Since Twitter's 140 characters can't contain all the wonders of this regimen, I decided to blog about it!

I'm really skinny. My friends always tell me, "Why are you always covering up? If I were skinny like you, I'd be in shorts and tank tops every day!' Well, the reason is one ugly word: cellulite.

When I turned 30, dimples appeared on my butt and thighs. Not a lot but they were spreading. After I gave birth at 33, I was suffering from post-pregnancy cellulite like you can't imagine. Cellulite on thighs, arms, butt, stomach. Nothing got rid of it. Then I got pregnant again and after I gave birth, cellulite quadrupled. I've tried all the creams and exercises. Nada. I could live with the stretchmarks but cellulite was just damn ugly.

Then I read on her website, Kora, that Miranda Kerr—only my peg on looking absolutely fabulous!—uses dry body brushing on her beautiful mommy body. And so I have done the same.

Dry body brushing is brushing your entire body with a brush. Ya, it really is as simple as that. Your skin and brush have to be dry so it's a bit painful at first. You also have to be naked so you can brush every inch of skin. So do this in the shower. Here's a long video on it. It's very home video so be patient but it's the most comprehensive one I found.



I find it so interesting how her mouth hardly opens when she talks!

Anyway, I started dry body brushing last September. I use a long-handle brush I bought from MUJI for about P700. I think Body Shop has nice ones, too.

I count 10 strokes per side. So it's like 10 strokes on the top of my foot, 10 strokes on the sole, 10 strokes on my shin, 10 strokes on my calf, front thigh, back thigh, butt cheeks. And so on and so forth. Ten strokes on every exposed part of me! The brushing exfoliates your skin so you get softer and smoother. I brush towards my heart, towards my lymph nodes. This stimulates blood circulation, which facilitates distribution of oxygen and vitamins and minerals all over your body and to your skin, and flushes out toxins.

That was the first thing I noticed actually—the flushing out. As the woman in the video mentioned, and I hope you don't get disgusted by this paragraph, you'll really notice your bowel movements change. I've always been constipated. In the first week of dry body brushing, I noticed that my toilet appointments have become more regular and much easier. But my cellulite was still there. I figured, "Okay, my skin still looks awful but at least I'm no longer constipated!" So I continued with the brushing.

After a month (yes, just one month!), I noticed that my skin was less dimply. Much smoother. Bowel movements still regular. After almost three months, I have no more cellulite on my limbs. No more cellulite! I look so frikkin' good!

I still have some bumps and dimples on my tummy, though. Really still ugly. So no bikinis for me. Yet!

Try dry body brushing! I highly recommend it!!!