Review: Yes To Tomatoes Daily Balancing Moisturizer

I am so pissed off with this!!

I was fully expecting this to be decent. Is that too much to ask??

So I’ve already had poor luck with the Yes To Tomatoes line. The Clarifying Daily Cleanser didn’t prevent or clear my acne, the Skin-Clearing Facial Mask did squat (though it did smell delicious), and the Deep Cleansing Facial Pads scratched and stung my face. After sporadic use during my stay in Singapore, I picked it up once again to test it out. Being back in Berkeley means clean-living and the zits that had appeared while in Singapore are healing, and this made for a better canvas on which to test the moisturizer.

Photos by thevoiddeck

It was a very short shoot, but the number of photos that I love…!  Gavin brought his cinematic style to our shoot to create photos that are intimate, natural, even candid.  Like if you and your lover were romping in bed and one of you whips out a camera…  Yeah, that was the feel he was going for and I think we really hit it.

These are SO NSFW I am not even joking.

And these are the tamer ones.

Not like the others are pornographic or anything.  They just… show more.

Ahem.

Anyway, click on to see the photos… you perverts.

The arsenal

What does a girl pack for five days of photoshoots?

The following:

The shindig didn’t officially start until Saturday, but I had a little work to do on Friday afternoon (and then later that evening), so doll up I did.

Holy eyeliner!

This is my Michelle Phan (Ricebunny) smile.

Foundation makes me look so much better.

I slapped on a whole lotta make-up so I can have some beauty shots.  I NEED beauty shots.  I doesn’t help that I’m not super pretty to begin with, but well, a girl makes do with what she has.

Do you know how much make-up it takes to get all beauty-shot up in here?

THIS much.

(Actually, it’s not all that much.)

Click on to see the run-down of the products.

Curly Asian hair

It’s like Lisa Rinna‘s lips.

That just ain’t how Nature intended it.

But, new toy tool in hand (I’ll talk about that soon), I set out to change my hair.  Just because I can.

Over the past few days, I’ve learned something new about my hair: it takes to heat well.  I don’t know if it’s the ceramic or the temperature I used, but the curls set and stayed that way with no styling product.

This is how my hair looks after curling and fluffing:

With flash:

Working on the cat eye

I’m kinda chickensh*t when it comes to eyeliner.

I used to think that extending it way out beyond the eye was not wearable in real life.

So for my celebration dinner, I decided to take a chance.  After all, I was wearing leather.  The total value of my entire outfit was… well, a very desperate person could’ve mugged me, sold everything I had on me on eBay, and pay off two months’ rent in SF plus food.

Anyway, check it:

See, this was as much of a chance as I was willing to take.  Sad, right?  I mean, the line extended out far, but it wasn’t very thick.

Well, baby steps.

Click on for a run-down of all the products I used:

WIW – The Picasso shirt

The weather in the Bay Area has been shit lately.  It’s just overcast, overcast, and more overcast with a generous helping of fog.

I received my shirts from The Breton Shirt Company and they make me happy!  I bought the Original, the Nautique, and the Picasso, which is my favorite!

The shirts are 100% cotton and they are so extremely comfortable!  The smallest size fits me just fine at the shoulders and the crewneck is big enough that you can even do a little shoulder peek-a-boo, but the sleeves are too long… though I might just leave them that way.

If you visit the website, you’ll notice that the prices are kinda high for “just a cotton shirt”.  Y’know, I used to be of that mind – I’d shop at Forever21 and buy the cheapest decent things because I couldn’t afford any better – and you know what happened to all of that stuff that I’d bought then?  They’re GONE.  They were long ago tossed into the garbage because frankly, they sucked.  They looked cheap because they were cheap.  And I treated them like they were cheap, meaning I didn’t care if they got damaged if I even wore them at all.

So my point is, I believe in paying for quality.  My new Breton shirts are thick, soft, comfortable…  Can a shirt be plush?  It’s not reserved for stuffed animals and throw pillows, right?  Because that’s how my Picasso shirt feels. 

I decided to wear make-up – a form of self-motivation.  So click on to see pictures of my face.  If you’re into that sorta stuff.

Kawaii ne

I thought I would never ever do this.

FACT: I AM NOT A KAWAII PERSON.

So when I was asked to do a photoshoot with a “kawaii” theme, I thought to myself, I have to be absolutely nuts to do this.

I must be absolutely nuts then, because I did it.

I was asked to act cute and pretend I’m stupid.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I liked that last part.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to act stupider than you really are??

Anyway, I didn’t get the chance to take pictures before leaving the house (I had cute little pigtails too!), but here are pictures I took after the shoot was all over.

Hot lips

This is the look I did for yesterday’s shoot.

(I have to admit to myself, my make-up skills have come a very long way and I’m super-confident in them now!)

The whole run-down of the products I used, plus a couple more pics of my face, under the cut!