To my lovely readers:

In case you’re wondering why I haven’t been posting, its because I’ve moved to a new address. Kellymisa.com is now up and running! I hope you would continue to visit my new blog. I know, a new blog means having to deal with a different format, but I promise you it is better than it was before! (Really!) So pretty please visit my new blog! Hahaha.

Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you knew, especially my Tumblr followers, who have been so great in welcoming me to this blogging community. I will always love Tumblr, because this was where I learned how to blog, but now I’ve moved on to my own site! See you there!

Love always,

Kelly 

It is now my fifth year with my Greenwich family, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. This is the longest endorsement I’ve had with a brand, and I am just so grateful to be part of the barkada after all these years. 

I still remember the first commercial I did with Anne in 2009. We were asked to ad-lib one scene and I remember getting so nervous about it, I was shaking. It wasn’t the first time for me to do a commercial, but it was the first commercial I did that didn’t stick to the storyboard. It frightened me that we were given a free hand to do what we wanted and be ourselves. Coming from a modeling background where I just did what I was told, this proved to be difficult for me.

But then I got into showbiz in 2010 and immersed myself into the industry for about a year. In this time I learned so much about myself and how to use my “tools” (my body and my voice) to act out a scenario. It was only after this time that I let go of my shyness and inhibitions and began enjoying all the freedom we were given during our commercials. It was also this year that I did the craziest Greenwich commercial to date, and it was a solo board! I had to sing and dance in this TVC, but since I had to be terrible at both, I found it to be very fun. 

And then came the year when the pasta girls (Anne, Solenn and I) met the pizza barkada (John Lloyd, Lloyd, Mikaela and Joe Vince). This was super fun to do, because we all just had to be silly in our own way. The story lines of the three commercials were light and funny. Very Greenwich. 

Last year, the pasta girls came out with a TVC that gave more. And we really pulled on all the stops for this one. We had super slow-motion effects, trampoline jumps—the works. Award-winning director Yam Laranas even came on board to direct the commercial for us. 

For this year’s commercial, well, I can’t really give anything away, but its a definite must-see. We shot the TVC and print advertisement a few weeks ago and as usual, it was so much fun making kwentuhan with the girls on set. I keep saying it again and again: it really doesn’t feel like work when we’re doing a shoot for Greenwich! 

So before the new commercial and print launches I wanted to revisit the Greenwich shoots I’ve done over the span of five years. There are really so many great memories! I am so lucky to be part of this family! 

I’m sure you’re as excited as I am about this. International pop superstar Rihanna is set to come out with her own makeup line, thanks to MAC Cosmetics. RiRi [hearts] MAC will surely be a sold-out success! I just can’t wait to see what kind of colors, textures and tones she picked out for the four collections coming out this year. She is undeniably one of the most successful 25 year olds in the world. 

I thought you might like to read an article about this Rihanna x MAC collaboration that came out in Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) last February 20, 2013. It was written by Samantha Conti and Julie Naughton, photos by Merry Brownfeld. Interesting read. 

LONDON — For Rihanna, life couldn’t be better.

Sure, there’s the ongoing media fascination over her relationship with Chris Brown, but that’s counterbalanced by her Grammy-winning singing career, her new fashion collection with British retailer River Island and, now, a new, groundbreaking deal with MAC Cosmetics.

The only downside is all the media attention. 

“The only thing the media really can get in the way of is my privacy,” said Rihanna — fresh from taking her runway bow in a cavernous former post office sorting space in central London after the Rihanna for River Island show last weekend. “Privately, yeah, it’s a pain in the ass, but at the same time they help me to get my message across. My creativity — I’ll never let anyone interfere with that — because that’s something I love. And if I’m not doing that, I’m wasting my time.”

The MAC agreement — which Rihanna called “a no-brainer” — will help her be even more creative. In an unprecedented deal for both, MAC and the Grammy winner have collaborated on multiple collections of color cosmetics that will roll out later this year.

The first product to launch will be RiRi Woo, a lipstick inspired by her favorite MAC red, Ruby Woo. Its release will coincide with Rihanna’s Diamonds Tour concerts on May 4 and 5 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where MAC will open a pop-up shop on the first night to showcase the line.

“When you think of makeup, the brand that pops into your mind — for something legit — is MAC,” said the singer, who was dressed in a black, strappy, curve-hugging dress of her own design and matching Manolo Blahnik heels during an exclusive interview with WWD. “Whatever color you want, it’s like ‘Let’s go to MAC.’ I’ve been using MAC on tour for such a long time it was a natural fit for me. I have always loved makeup, and I always said that if I do it, I want to do it with a credible brand.”

Rihanna argues that creating makeup is no different from making songs — or clothing, for that matter. “Being creative is something that I love, so I can put that into different outlets. Music happens to be the first thing that I gravitated to, and now music opens doors to just so many different opportunities, and they all tie in. My makeup looks, my fashion looks…they help me to express myself as an artist. I think it helps people to understand me or my mood, my story.”

Although MAC has collaborated with myriad brands and celebrities in the past, this is the first time the brand has worked with a famous person for more than just a one-off project. “We always say that MAC likes to go on a date but doesn’t really want to go into a relationship,” said John Demsey, group president of the Estée Lauder Cos. Inc., MAC’s parent company. “This relationship with Rihanna is a long-term one that involves the development of four distinct color initiatives.”

The four collections, to be known as RiRi [Hearts] MAC, will break throughout 2013, and current plans call for 31 stockkeeping units. In another first, MAC is calling Rihanna, who turns 25 years old today, a “creative partner” rather than a collaborator. Her name will appear on the packaging, and her signature will be embossed on the RiRi Woo lipstick case and on the bullets of the summer lipsticks, as well as several of the fall and holiday pieces.

RiRi Woo will be sold at the Rihanna concerts and online, and a summer collection will follow, which will also be sold online. A third will land in brick-and-mortar stores for fall, and there will be an on-counter holiday collection. 

The signature piece of the lineup, RiRi Woo, will be sold with all four collections. The summer collection also includes two additional lipsticks, a Lustre Drops shade and a powder blush duo. Fall’s 16 sku’s include four lipsticks, a deeply pigmented Lipglass version of RiRi Woo, two multishade eye shadow palettes and false lashes. (“She likes to wear two pairs at a time,” said Jennifer Balbier, MAC’s senior vice president of global product development, in an aside.) Holiday will bring another 10 items, including nail polish, a makeup bag and additional lipsticks. 

Demsey stressed that the collections did not involve Rihanna slapping her name on generic product. “This was not a front,” he said. “This is a true, organic collaboration based on mutual admiration and respect. These four collections are like four tracks on a Rihanna compilation. Each one has its own vibe, look, special makeup packaging and flavor. This is really the convergence of pop culture, fast fashion, and iconic style and makeup,” he said, adding that he had been closely following the singer — with an eye to a potential deal — since she released her first single in 2005. “She’s a star. The world follows her look — how she wears her hair, her nails, her clothing, how she styles herself.” 

While Demsey declined to discuss sales projections, industry sources estimated that the complete lineup could do $15 million at retail globally.

Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott have shot the campaign for the fall and holiday collections. “And that’s a #wrap on my shoot for my new #topsecret ad campaign!!!” the singer tweeted Jan. 27, sparking Internet speculation that she was doing a Chanel campaign, as she left the shoot wearing a Chanel necklace.

Seemingly everything Rihanna does makes news on an almost-daily basis — including her on-again, off-again relationship with Brown, her allegedly abusive boyfriend. When asked if that coverage was a potential downside for MAC, Demsey didn’t skip a beat.

“She’s a grown woman, and whatever makes her happy makes us happy. Life’s complicated. Far be it for us to judge,” he said.

Rihanna said she loved working on the collections — and even got her girlfriends involved. She said MAC gave her free rein with regard to packaging and colors, makeup textures and finishes, which she concocted with Balbier and James Gager, senior vice president and creative director of MAC. 

“I really got to play,” Rihanna said. “There’s so much to choose from, and you can mix different textures with different colors and different greens in different eye shadows. I learned so much about the detail of makeup and what makes things look different. What makes it apply different is really important. Every little detail is important.”

Among those details were the rose-gold packaging, which will be used for her fall collection, and compacts in a pearly white with pink accents that will be used for the holiday collection. She said that one of the biggest surprises was seeing the result. “The package that we designed and the product that we created, to see it sitting there in your hand was kind of scary. It was like, ‘This cannot be real,’” she said.

Creating RiRi Woo was a particular challenge, she said: “Working with MAC, it’s difficult to get a red lipstick that beats Ruby Woo, because it works on every skin tone. I had so many different samples to choose from and so many different colors underneath — blue, yellow, orange and pink bases. And I got to pick one that worked, and I tried it on all my friends to make sure it worked on all of our skin tones.”

Balbier noted that Rihanna approached the task with a laser focus. “She wanted RiRi Woo to be slightly more blue-red and retro matte — a matte with moisturizer finish we’d used in a collection years ago and currently only have in one product,” she said. “She was especially adamant that the color be suitable for every skin tone.”

Gager was similarly impressed. “She could name all of our creative collaborations for years back and was pulling many of them out of a bag she brought to the meeting as she explained what she wanted in her collections,” he said. 

As excited as she is about the MAC project, the entertainer is also reveling in her collaboration with the British high-street retailer River Island, a 120-piece collection for spring featuring sexy crop tops, hooded jumpsuits and skirts with high slits that will be sold through the retailer, and exclusively in the U.S. and Japan at Opening Ceremony.

“When it comes to creating things, I like to get my hands in there,” she said. “Tonight just blew my mind, it was like a dream come true. I mean, to have a fashion show in London Fashion Week. For this to happen so quickly was just sick. It was the same with MAC. I never thought I’d be able to create makeup with such a big brand so quickly at such a young age. It’s kind of sick to even say aloud when I think about it.”

WWDCopyright © 2013 Fairchild Fashion Media. All rights reserved.

Everyone loves an instant beauty fix. I mean, who doesn’t want to see immediate results to a longstanding beauty problem? Like if you have dark circles under your eyes, wouldn’t you use a brightening concealer to hide the discoloration? Or if you wanted to balance your uneven skin tone, wouldn’t you make use of a medium coverage foundation? (Of course, you would—to both problems. :)) 

My personal beauty fix when I want to look pretty is I apply red lipstick that has blue undertones. I find that it brightens my complexion and it even makes my teeth look whiter. But I can’t really wear red lipstick every day of the week. I mean I would, but it is such a pain to keep checking if it is perfectly in place, and if I haven’t gotten any on my teeth.

Thankfully, I’ve been introduced to a product that is just as effective as my trusty red lippie, without the hassles of wearing red lipstick. Closeup recently introduced its newest toothpaste called Closeup White Now. It is the first and only toothpaste that instantly whitens your teeth in just one brush (really). 

It works by using basic color science. The toothpaste uses “Blue Foam Technology” which is a blue tint that conceals the yellowness of teeth surface in just one brush. The toothpaste temporarily leaves a thin layer on your teeth and is removed over time through chewing or eating food. Apart from this, it has a gradual whitening action that provides long-term stain removal and whitening, and all the anti-cavity protection you’ll find in your regular fluoride toothpaste.

And so the beauty industry—made up of writers, editors and well-known personalities (myself included)—learned all about this newest breakthrough product through a series of lunches simultaneously held at various Raintree group of restaurants: M Cafe, Kabila, Stella and Mr. Jones. The lunches were designed to include dishes that will intentionally stain teeth (we were served black dishes like puto’t dinuguan and black pancit). And after, we were all handed an SOS beauty kit that contained iconic beauty products like Chanel Gabrielle lipstick, NARS Orgasm blush, Maybelline Hyper Curl mascara and of course, a Closeup White Now toothpaste in a convenient, handy size for us to use right after our yummy lunch. 

The industry’s best and brightest in one table.   

Jessica Tan-Gan and Alexandra Rocha. 

Maggie Wilson-Consunji.

Candy Dizon, Toni Palenzuela, Cristalle Henares, Joanna Preysler, Cindy Manlapaz, Janina Dizon-Hoschka and Frances Lim.

Ria Prieto, Donna Cuna-Pita, Myrza Sison, Tweetie de Leon-Gonzales, Raymond Gutierrez, Rissa Mananquil-Trillo, Patty Betita, Apples Aberin, Bea Ledesma, Jigs Mayuga and Liza Ilarde. 

Maggie Wilson, Nikki Abella, Isabel Hernandez, Nicole Jacinto and Erin Campos. 

Isabel Roces, Bianca Fernandez, me, Bianca Santiago-Reinoso, Claudia Vega, Mikaela Lagdameo-Martinez, Jessica Tan Gan and Alexandra Rocha. 

Closeup White Now.

So much has happened in these last few weeks, my head is still spinning. Balancing family/home life and work is definitely NOT easy. There is just so much to do every single day—chores and work-related tasks take up most of my time, and when I get home, there’s more to do! I am getting overwhelmed, but I feel like this is something I have to overcome. 

I should put the blame on my list of resolutions this year. I had this bright idea of making this the year of self-improvement, and boy, these things are really easier said than done! There isn’t enough hours in a day to accomplish everything. But I guess its better to have tried than not to have done anything at all. 

One resolution I’ve been proudly working on is learning how to cook. This has been such a happy surprise for me because it turns out, I actually enjoy cooking. And to think before this I didn’t even know how to cook rice!

And so I’ve been cooking every single day since my husband and I moved to our humble abode. Usually its dinner, but when I have some time to spare I whip up a simple lunch. I’ve had no complaints (yet), and I don’t know if its weird or not but I like my cooking. I know, its so biased, but some years ago when I lived alone in Hong Kong, I hated my cooking. I’m not quite sure what I’m doing right, or maybe I’ve convinced myself to like my own cooking hahaha.

What I really wanted to share was my little mishap with a knife that happened a few weeks ago. I can actually laugh (and type) about it now because my pinkie has completely healed, but when it was still fresh I would shudder at the sight of it. 

For those of you who follow me in Twitter and Instagram, you already know that I cut my pinkie really badly while chopping a zucchini. You see I wanted to make buttered vegetables to go with the breaded fried chicken I was making and whoops, I cut a chunk of my finger clean off. It was a small chunk, but it created a lot of mess (I was surprised at the amount of blood that came out of that little thing). Sooooo, lesson learned: always be careful when handling a knife! 

A newbie cook like me had to learn it the hard way, but like I said, at least I tried (to cook, not to cut myself). I am also pretty happy that this hasn’t discouraged me from being a (feeling) chef. I continue to cook my simple but yummy meals and I think I’m improving, too! Maybe later on Ill be sharing my own recipes in here, but that may take years, so don’t hold your breath. Oh, and I wanted to ask: if you guys have recipes to share to me, I would love to try them. Lets exchange notes here! Hehehe. Should be fun!!! COOKING ROCKS! :) 

Tetanus shot, check. Pinkie wrap, check. I am a certified master chef now. Well, not really. But at least I have the battle scars to prove I cook. 

And here is that dish I made (of course, I had to take a photo of it). Breaded fried chicken and buttered zucchini and tomatoes. 

Another one I made was a big salad with the works: its got lettuce, tomatoes, grapes, oranges, croutons and chicken tenders topped with a sesame dressing. 

This one was made from leftover ingredients. I had to be creative: its Turkey Spam with soba noodles and sauce topped with seaweed.