Music

Favorite Song: TWICE - “Dance The Night Away”

As part of their Summer Nights repackaged album, TWICE kicked off their July with an energetic, upbeat dance title song, “Dance The Night Away.” The girls find themselves stranded on an island and, obviously, break into dance and song. TWICE are my personal K-Pop princesses, and I might be biased, but no title song of theirs has spent less than a week stuck in my head. “Dance The Night Away” stuck with me the entire summer, making me feel like I was dancing on the beach with them even while surviving summer rain storms in Brooklyn. The queens of bops did it again and had me singing along to their iconic bubblegum pop choruses all month long.

Favorite Music Video: Boi B - “Neymar” (ft. Ted Park)

I have to admit, I wasn’t all too focused on K-Pop this July because, as a good Brazilian, I was hyped about the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Soccer was all I could think and talk about this month (aside from, you know, having to go to work) so having Boi B release “Neymar” decked out in the Brazilian national soccer team outfits, singing about our most notable player and even including elements of Brazilian funk to his chorus was refreshing, to say the least. At first I did take it as comedic and had a blast watching the music video and listening to the song, but it grew on me—badly. I spent the last two weeks of July watching “Neymar” and sending it to anyone who even mentioned a soccer game to me. Parabéns, Boi B.

Favorite Music Show Performance: Triple H - “RETRO FUTURE” on Show Champion

I might have fallen in love with E’Dawn after KCON NY 2018, and our own Marketing Director, Roxy, might be to blame, but Triple H won me over with their Show Champion performance of “RETRO FUTURE” on July 25. I did like Triple H already before their latest release, but just a few days prior to this performance I was mentioning how I missed raw performances focused on the song and dance and not much more. Triple H gave me all of that, plus beautiful wardrobe and to-die-for ‘80s aesthetics. I’m sold.

Beauty

Favorite Skincare: Nature Republic - Super Aqua Max Soft Peeling Gel

I have annoyingly sensitive skin and am allergic to basically anything, and because of that I have a very limited pool of beauty products I can pick from. Not only that, lucky me, for the same reason I always have to keep my skin as clean as possible. I walked into Nature Republic looking for face masks and left with a Super Aqua Max Soft Peeling Gel sample and decided to give it a go before using the face mask. Long story short, my life has changed. You only need a small drop to clean your entire face and, boom, old dead skin is gone, my pores are clear, and my face is as soft as a baby’s butt. I will never deny samples ever again and now am the proud owner of not one, but three tubes of Aqua.