Maybelline Dream Velvet Soft Matte Hydrating Foundation ~ Review

In the last couple of years there has been more awareness of creating shades for people with darker skin colour like mine. With drugstore brands releasing some shades for darker beauties to compete with high-end brands, the everyday dark-skinned woman is happy to have access to products that match her skin tone (and friendlier to her wallet). Maybelline as I understand it have made a small attempt to release foundations for darker skin tones. I'd like to believe this.

The above product you see is their very popular Dream Matte line that was tailored for those with oily/combination skin, whereas their Dream Satin line is more for those with normal/dry skin.

I am actually terribly disappointed in this one. I was really excited to see a matte foundation catered for those with problematic skin like mine AND a shade range that matches mine. But the problem is, it only matched me when I was under the white light in the Watsons branch I bought this. 

It applied smoothly, the coverage is amazing! This is their darkest shade and within the range of caramel/tan skin tone that I am. It has a mousse-like texture and feels very cool when smoothed out on the skin. You really feel refreshed on this foundation.

It was chalky as hell. If foundation oxidation is an issue, a foundation that loses it's colour upon application is no less better or worse. It's just as bad. 

Even though the shade is a match for my skin but when spread out with a professional foundation brush, it was chalky and looked like I slathered talcum powder on my face like a schoolgirl from 1950's. 

I love, love, LOVE the feel of this on my face: it's airy and lightweight. You don't feel like there's something on your skin. It doesn't transfer too! So that's great. And it's definitely matte. My face remained shine-free and matte for a very long time. =) 

I just don't like how the shade is delivered on my skin. Maybelline should reconsider the formula on this Dream Velvet line to ensure their shades deliver for their intended skin colour. Beauties that are darker than caramel/tan...I am sorry but absolutely stay away from this tube! Oh yes, it's a relatively small tube (small standard 30ml). You may have better luck with their Dream Matte Mouse that comes in a really cute tub packaging. Not all Maybelline carries this in Malaysia so you're better off buying this online. 

*This is an unpaid review. A customer who purchased and tested from her own money. 

Sephora Collection: 10HR Wear Perfection Foundation ~ Review

If you don't know Sephora, you living under a rock.

For someone with a dark skin colour like mine (I'm like chestnut coloured), Sephora is a holy grail for makeup. Especially foundation. You East Asian and Caucasian folks wouldn't understand how hard it is to get foundation for my skin tone range.

This one is called the 12HR Wear Perfection Foundation formulated for oily-combination skin. Hence the label "oil-free". This is the shade 50 Deep Mocha. Matches my skin perfectly. One pump (yes, it's a pump, not a open glass bottle) is enough to cover the whole face and neck.

It's glides on smoothly on the face, has very high coverage. My face is riddled with scars and hyper-pigmentation. This liquid foundation makes my skin look absolutely flawless. You don't even need concealer if you're wearing this foundation. It's a matte finish that blends in with your pores.

It's not lightweight though so even in the first application you can feel it on your face. Which is why one pump is enough. Anymore than that you'll have a cake. The shade range in this series is pretty incredible. People with dark skin tones would appreciate the selections available in this range.

I used a flat top makeup brush to spread out the foundation after dollop-ping the foundation all over my face. I used a circular motion.

The only con about this foundation is that on a hot day it melts off your face. I use PORE-fessional by Benefit and I still have shine and oil from my T-Zone. This foundation is not long wearing as it claims. Use a good setting powder and primer for this foundation. I truly believe this one would work well on cold days or if you're only ever exposed to air-conditioning in the office. Keep a compact powder of the same shade to touch up throughout the day.

It is definitely on the expensive side for an everyday use foundation costing at RM78 per bottle. Mind you it's a pretty small bottle. Drugstore dupes of similar quality can be found for cheaper but drugstore brands don't carry too much of darker shades. They'd have 10 colours for light-skinned gals and maybe 3 for supposedly "dark" shades. They're caramel to tan at most. Ugh.

Do I recommend it? Yes for my darker skinned beauties because it does give a flawless finish. As said use a damn good primer and setting powder. 

Travelling to Hat Yai by Land: An Experience

I went with my family. We rented a bus decided to save on flights. This means that instead of reaching Thailand in one hour, it took us about 10 hours.

And that's just on the road, not including border control from both Malaysia and Thailand.

Because I travelled from Malaysia, passing through Malaysia land border was a breeze. Malaysian Immigration is suprisingly efficient this way.

It was the land border control at Sadao that killed us the most time.

Because our destination was Hat Yai, we need to pass through the land border control in Sadao. In the olden days when the old immigration office was in effect, my dad recountered that it took only 15 minutes between queue and stamping despite not being electronic. Now that they have moved to a new building with supposedly tighter regulations and modern equipments, it took me one fucking hour.

I'll tell you the "fun" facts now:

1. There is no crowd control in Sadao Immigration Office. So you see people cutting lines and pushing people like neanderthals.

2. There's only one queue line. This means the red-banner thing that supposed to keep a queue, only has one. You kind need to push people around JUST to get into the "actual" queue line. Picture this: a school of sardines pooling outside a cavern because only one fish can pass through at a time. It's absolute hell. I was lucky that we departed quite early in the morning and there were only 80 people at most. By the time I crossed, the queue had trailed way into the main road.

3. Immigration officers are rude as fuck. Just answer their question and smile. They can deny you entry simply because they are in a bad mood and can choose for the heck of it.

4. The new immigration office is extremely small and has no proper air conditioning. Be prepared to rub with sweaty, smelly, sticky people. DO NOT carry too many things with you except absolutely the necessary things. Forget about buying things in duty free during departure. Your priority should be standing in line first.

5. Empty all tanks and bring plenty of fluids, sunscreen and a hat. There's very little shade if the queue trailed way outside into the main road. They DO NOT make special arrangements for the elderly or disabled. You queue like everyone else.

6. Granted the new Sadao Immigration Office has only just begun operation but it's seriously badly managed.

7. If you must buy stuff in duty free, wait until Changloon Duty Free Complex. Throw all hope at Sadao Departure Immigration Office. Changloon has pretty nice chocolates.

8. Despite the general bullfuckery, it's a very clean place. You can shower and get spruced up there.

9. Because there will be shitloads of buses around, those with respiratory difficulties are advised to bring the necessary medications and supplies. Pollution is very bad there. Extremely important to stay hydrated. 

10. Once you have passed through the departure immigration office, go get you a nice cup of coconut water. It'll help with the heat wave, hydration and any pollution you inhaled. There are plenty of hawker stalls selling organic drinks like coconut water etc.

11. Don't be one of those nutters that wear heels during travel. Wear sensible shoes.

12. They sell freshly cleaned petai for dirt cheap. My mom bought 2 packets. My dad also bought larger than usual cashew nuts from the hawker stall areas.

About Hat Yai

Hat Yai has a significant Muslim population because it's so close to the largely Islamic population of Northern Malaysia. They have a very beautiful integration of Muslims and Buddhists living together in perfect harmony. Hat Yai has many Hindu temples (Vinayagar and Ganesha temples)

Floating Market is a MUST-SEE. You get excellent street food and very nice clothes for dirt cheap.

If you visit Buddhist of Hindu temples: make sure you get blessings from the monk to ensure a safe journey for you wherever you are. They ask only that you make a small donation for the temples maintenance. They'd give you a divined necklace or cloth bracelets as gifts. It is an experience in itself.

Muslim food is Hat Yai is not very nice in my honest opinion. I had it only once and never wanted to eat them again. Go for genuine Thai or Chinese food. They're better.

If you pass by Perlis highway to enter Malaysia from Hat Yai make sure you eat at the Indian-Muslim (Mamak) shop near Changloon Shopping Complex (not to be mistaken with Changloon Duty Free Complex). It's a little corner restaurant. I believe they have a Marry Brown in the opposite of you want fast food.

Any questions feel free to ask!

Castaway! Love's Adventure

It's part of Voltage Entertainment Inc USA romance POV game Lovestruck Series. You can download it in Android app store. You can buy Passes and Gems/Hearts if you need them for certain route choices. I usually buy passes as I cannot wait until the next chapter. By default you're given 2 passes but that's not nearly enough and you have to wait some time before they recharge.

Story is simple: You and a bunch of others are in a cruise ship. I have no idea where we're going but you guys for some reason are in the cruise ship. I was too distracted by the gorgeous characters to pay any attention. You are an aspiring and talented journalist, travelling with you is your colleague TK Yoon the Photographer, the ship Captain Clyde Hughes, the young millionaire funding this expedition Arthur Singh, a genius engineer who built the ship Logan and finally the ship's doctor Serena Zhang.

The ship capsized in the middle of the sea and as far as Otome goes you're all beached as Castaway in an unforgiving and beautiful island.

The MC appears to be a woman of colour and has a very curvy body. She's very beautiful and natural looking.

Now the characters:

Now you see our captain here is a total daddy material. Oh Captain, My Captain. He's reliable, mature, calm and will definitely keep you safe. Has a body you wanna bring home to mama. Oldest at 36.  

I suppose he's your jerk with a good heart. He's totally insufferable at first but he'll grow on you. Surprisingly reliable.

This mofo over here is straight up husband material. Ridiculously handsome with a good personality, how can you not catch on him? Plus he can cook. 

The genius engineer that created a drone from a bunch of coconuts. This guy you wanna keep with ya in case you need emergency helicopter or something. He's really cute but can be a little focused to the point that people can feel abandoned.

This snarky, no-nonsense doctor is your LGBT route love interest. She's brave and doesn't give a shit. It's hard to break through her shell but once she does, oh man she's irresistible. 

This motherfucker right here is straight up sexy man. He'll give you one hell of a good time but he's afraid of commitment. Plus, he's into BDSM. He's quite similar to Serena in the sense that he's a pretty difficult code to crack. He also doesn't take himself seriously so he's difficult to understand.

I would seriously recommend this game. I think it's meant for an older audience like myself. If you're more than 20 years old you'd appreciate this game more than teenagers. 

Dear Underage Girls

It's time for some real talk. Woman to girl. God knows I needed this pep talk when I was your age.

*this topic would be spoken in the heteronormative tone but will also be applicable for LGBTQI folks discovering romantic relationships*

Yes, adult women don't come out of our mother's vagina already 20 years old with life experiences. We went through confusing as hell girlhood just like you and Lord Almighty knows I am still trying to figure out this "living a life" shit.

But there are things in your life that you'd be certain about and you'd live through it with conviction. This does goes to say that this convictions won't change over time. Oftentimes what we perceived as right, can often be very wrong.

But one thing will always remain damn right until kingdom comes. Is that at the age when you're discovering your sexuality, men older than you should not be courting you.

I can totally understand the glee of having an older man showing interest in you. You'd probably think he's "seeing the woman underneath the girl", or "if he's attracted to me, then I must be really special", etc.

Honey, the fact remains is that he wants your age, not you. That's exactly why he's after you: at your age you're vulnerable. You're seeking validation and confirmation from your environment that you are something and somebody. At an age where you are also discovering your sexuality, you will be lured at the prospect of having scored an older man.

The cruel fact is, girls your age are an easy target for men of a certain type.

Let me tell you something honey, something you need to think about.

1. Why is he not hanging with women his own age?
2. If he's not attractive to women his own age, I guarantee you something is wrong as hell with him.
3. If you're under the legal age of your country, he has no business hanging out with a child. 
4. Why do an adult need to hang out with children? What is up with him that he's unable to hang out with people his own age?
5. We have words for adults that hangs out with children with the intention of exploiting them emotionally, physically and sexually: Predator. Abuser. Pedophile. 

If you have an adult (by the legal definition of whichever country you come from) soliciting your affections in a clear romantic way when you're below the legal age (by the legal definition of whichever country you come from), he's bad news honey. He's really bad news you run far. You run so far he can't see you over the horizon anymore.

Call him out on trying with an underage girl. Tell him to his face that he's a predator and pedophile. Tel him that if he's soliciting a child romantically he ought to be locked up and have the key conveniently thrown away.
 
I also think you should report this to a trusted adult (parent or teacher), law enforcement (police departments in most places have women's division for situation like this) or a friend whom you trust that can help you go through this. A friend that understands that an adult has no business talking to a child with clear unholy intentions. 

A predator, abuser and pedophile is not a creepy greasy balding fat man hiding in the bushes waiting to pounce on children or that windowless white van with a guy offering candy.

It's the slow, but constant grooming of a child's psychology, their affections and how they perceive an adult that gives them attention. They do this in YOUR safe space so that you are unaware of what they're doing to you.

Children coming from broken homes are very vulnerable to this. Children from stable homes are equally vulnerable to this too.

The reason? These horrid creatures have patience. They first tackle your need for affection and attention, gain your trust, gain your loyalty and then when they have you grappled in their hooks: that's when the "favours" come in. That when the "our little secret" comes in. You feel compelled to do things that you know is wrong in your hearts of hearts, but he has completely brainwashed you into thinking this is some kind of pure love. It's not honey. It's pure emotional manipulation. A rape of your innocence. 

So if an 18+ year old guy is after your 15 year old ass, you're in trouble missy. Real trouble. Confront him on so many things. Why he never talks about himself? Or talk about himself too much but doesn't have anything to prove him by? Why does everything have to be a secret with him?

If it's a relationship based on truth and honesty, there is no need to hide. When he reveals nothing and everything about himself: you got yourself some dangerous person honey. You run. You run as fast as you can. Post his face on social media alerting other girls about him, post in your local police department's FB page about him, anywhere and anything you could do help at least one girl from falling into his traps.

Sisters before misters. An older boyfriend is never a trophy. You should not feel accomplished at having snagged an older guy. There's simply no reason or excuse for an adult to want a child in a way an adult shouldn't. 

I wish my mother had protected me from all those men. I wish I had an intelligent, informed woman advise me about these things. I wish I had someone to believe me when things happened to me, and my cries for help were not replied with "why were you with him to begin with". I wish I had an adult step in between me and my offenders when it was happening and told them to fuck right off off me. I wish I was not blamed for something I had no clue of. 

Stop making excuses for someone who has hurt others. Instead challenge them and have them take responsibility. Too many men are getting away with their cruelty because society allows it.

It's time we have offenders be held accountable the way a female rape victim is held accountable for her violation.

This is me, an adult woman trying protect as much girls as I can, because God knows in my time no one did for me. 

Book Review: Karna's Wife by Kavita Kane

I have always had a soft spot for Karna, the most tragic hero in Mahabharata. Abandoned at birth, scorned by the upper-class for his lowborn roots despite being a worthy King of Anga, humiliated by a woman he secretly loved, cursed due to unfortunate circumstances, his worth as a Kshatriya would not be known long after he's dead.

The story is told by his fictional second wife Uruvi. Now Uruvi is definitely a character for a feminist. Strong, accomplished, confident, unapologetic. Uruvi created scandal when the high-born Princess placed her garland on Karna at her swayamwara, who is considered an upstart and social climber by many.

The story is largely observational from Uruvi and other pivotal characters from Mahabharata, dissecting Karna's decisions about Duryodhana and his person.

And that's what this book is: a dissection Karna aiming to bring a much-deserved justice for a much vilified hero.

Karna is by no means a paragon of virtue. He had made some cruel decisions and degradable actions. But this is the story of a man who was doomed from his birth, and this was a loving book attempting to give him the warmth and love he had been deprived of.

The only exasperating thing I found about this book is that it focused too much on glorifying Karna and Uruvi's love for him. This book takes place mainly on Uruvi's thoughts about Karna (like, she doesn't appear to think about anything else ugh), other character's dissertation about Karna. Karna, Karna, Karna.

Granted this book is about him but there's too much overflowing sugar. There are other instances in the book where actual stories in the book overlapped and interpreted in a different way. This I appreciated as it gives reader's another way to read into the actual events in the book.

For example, when Kunti finally confessed to Karna about his birth, he told her that she's always had 6 sons, but at the end of the war she would have 5 like she's always been known. Some people interpreted this a) he is telling her to prepare for his imminent death or b) during the war either one of her sons would die but she would still have 5 sons as she's known for ie one of the Pandavas would die.

I would recommend this book for long journeys in the car, train, buses, planes etc. This is a very good lighthearted reading but do excuse the author to be over-the-top at times for her generous attempt at giving some redemption for a much vilified character.

My Rating: 3.5/5

Your thumb determines your orgasm

Assume we're talking about penetrative sex here. Eg, male-female and female masturbation.

Here's the thing ladies, your husband/boyfriend/fuckbuddy might be dynamite in the sack. He knows his tantric, his kamasutra and whatnot. But for the life of you, you can't ever finish even when he's pumping through you at a jetset speed.

It's not about your sex drive, it's not that you had been asexual all along, it's not that your systems are faulty.

Blame your vaginal opening and clitoris.

That's right.

Have you heard of the "rule of thumb" when it comes to female penetrative orgasm? Turns out the distance between your vaginal opening and clitoris DOES affect how easy it would be for you to orgasm.

The rule of thumb is measured on the tip of the thumb to the first joint ie the fingerprint area. The closer your vaginal opening is to your clitoris, the easier for you to orgasm. The friction in penetrative sex does stimulate the clitoris, thus enabling you to have orgasm easier than most women whose vaginal opening is a mile away from good ol' Aunt Clit.

Who discovered this? A sexually dissatisfied French Princess, Marie Bonaparte discovered that she could never orgasm from penetrative sex alone. She surmised that the longer the C-V (clitoral-vagina) distance, the hardest it is for women to orgasm. Her sample of patients (she was a doctor so she was legally allowed to do this experiment) who complained of "frigidity" were found to have long(er) distance of C-V than those who could orgasm easily (lucky bitches). Princess Marie was unfortunately one of this. She helped to establish with her very empirical and reliable stats about women's ability to orgasm.

But the good news is she did discover a specific sexual position that could stimulate orgasm from penetrative sex: both in seated position with the woman having her hips raised slightly to match her partners peen and thrusting the hips while being face to face with her partner. This enabled the peen to thrust exactly right to friction against the clitoris, enabling the revolutionary princess to orgasm.

It took one sexually disgruntled woman to help dispel the myth of frigidity for the rest of the women out there. Sisters before misters.

The good Princess identified three (3) categories of C-V distance:

1) Paraclitoridiennes: C-V distance is the shortest and easiest to orgasm.
2) Mesoclitoriennes: C-V distance is in the intermediate. Eventual orgasm guaranteed. I think this bitch would be one of those who can last the longest.
3) Teleclitoridiennes: C-V distance is the longest. Women of this category have the hardest time achieving orgasm. Hey think about it though, longer sexy time?

How you can measure this?

Sit comfortably with your legs spread apart, and put a mirror in front of you. Spread apart of your labia and observe where your clitoris is, and where your vaginal opening is. If your vaginal opening is WAAAAYYY below your clitoris with her neighbour being the anus, then you're a Type 3. If you were to put your thumb in between this space, it would fit very nicely.

If your vaginal opening is right below or very near to your clitoris, congrats! You are the lucky bitch with multiple orgasms. And squirting too. Type 1 bitch.

If your immediate neighbour is the clitoris and anus at a same distance, you're Type 2. You're also lucky!

So the next time yo man get tuckered before you do because you never seem to genuinely say "oh yes right there!" truthfully,  tell him to WERK FOR IT.