Rouge Rosette

I'm currently a wreck now.

I'm feeling lonely. Normally, I could go on and play games without feeling anxious but right now, I'm anxiously waiting for my close friends to reply my messages. At the same time, I feel bad if I have to trouble them, because the problem that's causing me to be a wreck is something I should have known... and so, I feel I deserve punishment for it.

I find it funny myself, that being heartbroken over immense guilt is worse than being heartbroken over someone I loved. One slight mistake and I feel I deserve the wraths of hell, even when the person concerned does not mind at all.

The rational side of me already knows that I am the one overthinking, but the emotional side blocks whatever common sense remains and instead, it screams condemning words towards myself.


I thought I would be fine, but now I'm a wreck.

This is my punishment for helping a man cheat on his girlfriend of many years.

I wanted to keep someone like him in my life. But... would that be wrong...? He has someone, and if I want to be friends, he'd have to lie to his girlfriend, and I know I'm not that worthy to be lied for.

I kind of wish we'd never met.

Why are you so nice to me? I don't deserve this.


And other fleeting thoughts which I can't remember. The man himself does not want me to spiral into depression, but for me, he was like a pillar which keeps me from crumbling at certain points. However, because he was the pillar, I easily crumble. The pillar should have been myself.

There were no goodbyes, and I could still talk to him and he'd reply normally. But talking to him about my passionate journeys while also knowing he is no longer the promiscuous guy I first knew him for.... it would kill me inside. Guilt, guilt, and more guilt. More free toxic for myself.

I have had bouts of depression thrice this year. And ironically it all was from interactions with him. The first one he suggested I go talk to a professional, and I listened. I got slightly better, and I say slightly because the root cause has not yet been taken care of: myself. The second one was after an argument with him, and I spiraled back into depression, albeit a mild one. He even wanted me to not be sad, but at that time, I criticized myself very harshly for acting childish and emotional. I felt I was so stupid, so childish, and so unfitting of my age to have taken the emotional way of handling things. The third one is... right now. I had hoped there would be some OTC mood stabilizers or something, but alas, there isn't any. At times like this, I understood the feeling of people who use alcohol or drugs to get away from reality, I really do, and had I had the wrong group of friends, I probably would've not just fall into a spiral of depression, but a much darker and likely inescapable one. On these three times of bouts of depression, I kept thinking, how good would it be to sleep forever and not wake up any more. I'd think again that I have a bright future ahead and remind myself of my dreams for the future, but some days I really feel like dying.

--

Friends have been telling me to stop talking to him, but I continued; I didn't think there'd be any harm... oh boy how wrong I was. Look at how much of a mess I am now, and I have no one to blame but myself. Even when friends tell me it's not my fault, I find it hard to convince myself otherwise.

And now I'm writing these blog posts because somehow, it feels different than when writing a diary. Each has its own perks, but right now I want to type more than write. I get distracted very easily when I write, constantly checking my phone to see if there's a new message from a friend, or play some games until I finally forget to write.

It's kind of a feeling of being afraid to confront my demons and weaknesses. I am afraid to face them, and my mind becomes blurry with gibberish thoughts, because if I confront them, I'll blame myself again and I'm afraid of feeling that self-blame again.

--

I admit that I want his attention, and if I can't be the first option, it's fine, I'll settle with anything as long as you can stay in my life for now. But this mindset is highly toxic and dependent of other people. I know this, but controlling emotions isn't as easy as it seems, and sometimes I like to free fall from a highly volatile emotional cliff just to see what I will experience.

--

Art is therapeutic for some people, but in my case, unfortunately it's one of the things I avoid instead. I keep imagining things to draw in my mind, but it is really hard to bring myself to draw again. It's no longer something that I enjoy doing, or can do without overthinking. I am bad at receiving critiques and rejections, and it's one of the key points you need to survive in this harsh world (aaaand I'll be back to self-blaming myself for not being good enough).

Honestly, if I had the money and not have to think about anything else such as responsibility, I'd go backpack around Europe and just do nothing for a few months, just wandering around. But it is only a choice for the highly privileged, and I am not, so...

--

I had told you that I definitely won't go back into my depressed and anxious state, but I'm sorry I disappointed you. I don't know myself, why do I care so much when I am only in love with the idea of you, instead of you as a person?

The world is full of mysteries, but I find myself a mystery far harder to crack than other people.

--

I have goals that I want to achieve but in the end, with so many obstacles, I somehow feel that I am just lazy even when I really don't have the willpower to, and I don't thank myself enough for the little things I do. I'm scared of doing that, imagine that! Thanking myself is scary. For me.

I have a book about meditation and forgiving myself from a hypnotherapy session I had last April, and yep, you probably guessed it, I find it scary to read. I'm afraid of what I might discover.

It is funny how fearful I am, living in my own country, and back when I was living my my host families for almost a year, I was brimming with positivity and eagerness to learn.

Well that's all for now, I've calmed down slightly, but my head still hurts. Tonsillitis with persistent headaches for almost a week, and then depression hits-- a tasty combo. Good night though, I need to sleep and hopefully be able to work.

Warning: Flow of reading may be confusing, as I didn't really proofread which goes along with which, it flows freely and confusingly like my state of mind...

Today I am feeling the second heartbreak this year.

First, it was a short-lived mutual romance, despite it being unofficial. I was ghosted by the man I had invested most of my soul and my feelings for. He was literally a stranger, as we had only met twice. But those two times were, as he termed it, intense. I feel the same way. For me, stranger or not, if the connection was there, although it may be intangible, then you're special. I leave myself unguarded, laying trust on someone I barely know, but as pessimistic as I may be, I am optimistic in these whimsical new relationships. Oh you sweet little folly, don't you know that you're climbing your own cliff to fall from?

He cut me off on Valentine's day. What a memorable Valentine.

The next day was the day I met the man who would eventually cause my second heartbreak. The difference was that, I was in love with the first man. As for the second man, I think I am more in love with the idea of who he is.

The second man appeared right after a huge heartbreak, and I was obviously mentally very vulnerable. But I wanted the attention, the intimacy, and the new adventure. He offered a daring new adventure I could try to explore, and I accepted his offer.

One thing about the second man, was that he was taken. He had been in a relationship for many years, wanted a new sensation and thrill, and happened to talk to me. The talk was great, and I was interested in the new world he introduced me to. We talked during New Years 2016-2017 while we coincidentally were in Singapore, and met two months or so later in the city where we reside.

The second man was my leaning pillar at that moment. He listened to me, and we continued talking too. I always felt some sort of guilt for continuing to talk to him, knowing he had a girlfriend, but my selfishness got the better of me. I wanted him, and I know I won't ever be able to become his lover, so I settled for physical intimacy. At that moment, I totally didn't mind not doing this again (and this will unfortunately change), and despite that things did not go as we expected, I had thought it was okay. I thought he was okay with it too.

Guilt has always resided in my mind when I talk to him after our meeting; sometimes it recedes and turns into temporary excitement and lust, and other times it full on blows and makes me very self-conscious. It's slowly eating me.

He also happens to be very sensitive in sensing people, and I'm always afraid he'll always be able to figure out what I try to conceal, in order to look strong and not show my weak side.

But alas, he always manages to expose it somehow. Left me feeling naked. I hated it when he guessed about me that accurately.. he has only met me once and our remaining interactions were strictly chats.

I didn't want him to see this side of me, the side that's selfish, who wants him for myself in the little chances I have with him. But I unwittingly exposed myself bare.

I trusted him too much. I spoke too openly and confided many things to him. In the end, I didn't know how to pretend, and I felt that even if I pretended, he'd just outright know what I was actually trying to convey. I gave him the win before he even achieved it.

There were two times where we had a little altercation, with the second more heated than the first, and those two times I made myself feel I am worthless. It's worth noting that I made myself feel that way. I doubt he had the intention to. I was already always feeling guilty, and apparently I am very, very bad at handling rejection when I want something very much.

I wanted him very much, because I found him very attractive and he was literally all that I want in a guy. He was my dream man: tall, very handsome, deep-set blue eyes, amazing sexual prowess, very kind and sensitive. But he was taken.

The first altercation actually wasn't really an altercation, but let's call it that way. We had arranged for another meeting with specific conditions from him. I was a bit reluctant, but hadn't really said anything definite. He sensed it, of course he did.

I cried a lot. I knew he'd have to go someday, but please not now. I was completely shaken. I was feeling guilty for not being able to fulfill his conditions, condemning myself for being a failure. I felt that, if I failed to submit to his conditions, he'd just leave me. And then I'd lose this comfortable leaning pillar. I made this relationship toxic for myself.

He was genuinely concerned afterwards, and asked about how I was doing sometimes. I was glad someone cared, and my conscience felt he was again, my leaning pillar. I could live without him, and not talk to him or think of him daily. Knowing he was there was enough.

Fast forward almost two months, I began talking to him again. At that time, I felt I was ready to open up to the possibilities of his conditions again, he seemed to like it, and I did too, but at the end of the talk, I was feeling reluctant again. The same exact feeling of reluctance.

Which means I wasn't ready for his conditions, and probably will never be.

Words that are said when you're lustful, are usually not words you'll say when you're sober. It was the case in his situation.

He felt that I felt too much emotions for him. I know it wasn't romantic emotions, but he was quite right on that. I may have a slight crush on him due to him being my dream man. I, however, was willing to kill those emotions just to get the intimacy that I wanted. He refused another meet up because he'd feel bad. Remember how I cried a lot because I was blaming myself and everything? Aside from avoiding too much drama from me, he is also genuinely nice and does not want me to get hurt... at least that's what I believe. And probably, I think, in his eyes, I will always be a woman who's unable to live a life of promiscuity.

I wasn't pleased. But the more I protested, the more I feel weak, and the more I proved his point. Now this second altercation really is an altercation, as it was full of arguments from my side.

In the end, I am stockpiling more guilty feelings for myself. Free toxic, from myself to myself. I felt very ashamed and embarrassed. This was not the side of me I was supposed to show to someone I admire and want to keep in my life.

This has happened once before with a different man. And it also began with guilt. And ended quite similarly when I felt it was highly unethical for me to continue talking to him.

I thought it was definitely over with the second man. For I have behaved so childishly. But I stupidly kept hoping. Until today.

--

His words were rather cryptic, but it probably meant he's going to stop his promiscuous life and start getting his life together with his girlfriend.

He'd still welcome me should I want to chat. But with all the guilt pent up inside me, I don't think I can continue talking to him like nothing happened. I want to apologize profusely for my past mistakes, but I also want to see him say he accepts my apology and tells me it's ok and don't be sad. I want that mental caress.

I also wanted to tell him, why didn't you just block me, but that would be very mentally masochistic of me, as it would deepen the ghosting wounds caused by the first man in this story. And I would again succumb into a depressed and anxious state.

With careful consideration, I didn't do any of what my mind wanted.

It's all over now. I'm heartbroken today, but time will heal, I will learn more from my past mistakes, and he shall stay only as a memory. Goodbye, M.

Omg I haven't been blogging in ages.

So hi everyone!


Nowadays, my daily activities include hanging out with my 4 close friends, food, and thesis. Yes, I am going to finish university soon! I am now an 8th semester student currently working on her thesis, which is about creating an illustrated guidebook of universal travel tips.

And what drove me to create this kind of book?

There are many local travel tips guidebooks, but I feel that not many of them are well-designed. An example of travel tips guidebook is 101 Travel Tips & Stories by Claudia Kaunang.

First of all, I am not a musician, nor am I a singer. I just enjoy music that I like listening to, and the ones I usually like are the ones that invoke emotions within me, or has relation to what I am currently going through. This is a personal blog post, so any opinions on this blog are more likely to be on the subjective side as I'm not criticizing Spanish songs.

Oh, and although this is irrelevant, I have an Ask.fm account. Ask me stuff so I don't get bored!

my Ask.fm

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Hello everyone!

I come from Indonesia, but I barely listen to Indonesian songs. Don't get me wrong, it does not mean Indonesian songs are bad, it is just that I prefer to listen to Western songs. My mother, too, never felt the "click" with Indonesian songs, so it's probably hereditary... HAHA no it just happens to be so.

Anyways, today I'm going to blog about one of the genres in Latin American songs, as it has become one of my favorites to listen to. The main language of songs that I listen to is English, but I also listen to some Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Italian or French.

Usually, the songs I listen to have romantic themes. It is not necessarily the case when I listen to English songs, but for Spanish songs I tend to prefer the romantic themed tunes, because usually the tempo of the song will be slow, nice to listen to, and often times they sound like they are packed with emotions (well they're supposed to! :p). I remember my mother saying the reason why she preferred Julio Iglesias over Enrique Iglesias; she preferred Papa Iglesias' songs because the way he sang it, it sounded like it was full with emotions. While Enrique, his songs were mostly about women.

My first exposure to Spanish songs were when I was small, maybe about 7 or so. My father liked Carlos Santana's Smooth. I also liked that song, but it did not last long. Then, I listened to Shakira when I was around 12 years old. I first knew of her when she released "Laundry Service". I immediately fell in love with her songs, and until now I still listen to her. Recently, I found about about Prince Royce, a famous musician who sang mostly Bachata genre songs, and began listening to various Spanish songs ever since.

I'm not very specific as to what genre I listen to, as there are MANY genres that classify Latino songs. Salsa, tango, cumbia, bachata, reggaeton, Latin pop, bossa nova, samba, merengue, etc etc. I have genre preferences and preferred type of tunes, and it's quite hard to explain, but I'll try my best below. My current favorite genre is Bachata, and I'll try to explain what I know and what I have listened so far. I have just recently liked this genre, so I apologize if I don't have many to compare with.

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Bachata



Bachata is one of my favorite genres when it comes to Spanish music. It shares the same name with a type of dance which originated from Dominican Republic. On the music genre, Wikipedia says, bachata is a Latino genre of music that originated in Dominican Republic in the early parts of 20th century with the African descendants in the country and spread to other parts of Latin America and Mediterranean Europe. It became widely popular in the countryside and the rural neighborhoods of Dominican Republic. Its subjects are often romantic, especially prevalent are tales of heartbreak and sadness. The original term used to name the genre was "amargue" ("bitterness", "bitter music". "blues music"), until the rather ambiguous (and mood-neutral) term bachata became popular.

Famous musicians that mainly perform music in this genre are Aventura, Prince Royce, Romeo Santos, Don Omar, Pitbull, Leslie Grace, and many more. I don't have a personal favorite yet, but I like to listen to Romeo Santos' and Prince Royce's songs the most.

Romeo Santos

Prince Royce

My favorite song by Romeo Santos is Propuesta Indecente, from the album Formula, Vol.2 and as for my favorite Prince Royce song, it is Mi Habitación from the album Phase II and Darte un Beso from the album Soy el Mismo.



Propuesta Indecente by Romeo Santos.



Darte un Beso by Prince Royce.

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Anthony "Romeo" Santos was the lead singer of popular band Aventura, a New York-based bachata band. He is often referred as Romeo Santos, and there's another popular bachata singer with a very similar name: Antony Santos, so thankfully he chose another name, if not, people will mistake one of them for the other. He was born in Bronx, NY.

Now onto a short info on Prince Royce. His name is Geoffrey Royce Rojas, and took up a stage name, "Prince Royce". Prince Royce, like Romeo Santos, was also born in Bronx, NY. Whee, New York is home to two popular bachata musicians. Royce is newer to the bachata music scene compared to Santos, but he is also very popular.

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The first song that got me to Prince Royce was "Darte un Beso", a single from his most recent album Soy el Mismo (2013). I instantly fell in love with the song, and began listening to other songs by him. I went to 8tracks to listen to more songs of Prince Royce and any song related to it that sounds good-- I may just like it too. I found a lot of them, and I started to look randomly for Spanish songs, to find songs that I might like.

I tend to like songs that make you just want to move and dance. I don't dance, I do random hip and shoulder swirls and stuff LOL, but I do like songs that just makes your body want to move. The tunes in Propuesta Indecente makes you just want to dance or just move randomly to the music, even more when you watch the video-- with a pair of man and woman dancing to the music.


Prince Royce also has unique characteristics in his songs, that makes you feel "oh I know this is Prince Royce's song" just by listening to it. Music is hard to describe +_+ oh, and he often says "Royce" in the middle of his songs. Like Pitbull with his catchphrases "Huuuuu oohh!" or "Dale"  just much less often.

Here's a video of Prince Royce's Corazón Sin Cara, one of the songs I feel has a very "Prince Royce" feel to it.



Both artists have similar guitar + bongo drums and other instruments in the instrumental part of the music, but I think that's what defines their music as bachata music.

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Here I'll list my favorite songs so far that is still in the Latin American music genre, that I'll recommend for you to listen! Many of them are of bachata genre, but there are others too. You may have similar tastes in music with me! :) I'll also list the songs I have already mentioned above, in case you wanted to copy paste these song titles along with the others.

Propuesta Indecente - Romeo Santos
Promise - Romeo Santos feat. Usher
Eres Mia - Romeo Santos
Odio - Romeo Santos feat. Drake
Cancioncitas de Amor - Romeo Santos
Darte un Beso - Prince Royce
Mi Habitación - Prince Royce
Te Me Vas - Prince Royce
Be My Baby - Leslie Grace
Loca - Shakira feat. El Cata
La Tortura - Shakira feat. Alejandro Sanz
Suerte (Whenever, Wherever) - Shakira
Que Me Quedes Tu - Shakira
La La La (Spanish Version) - Shakira (both English and Spanish versions sound good!)
Berimbau - Jazzamor
Perdóname - Pablo Alborán feat. Carminho
La Camisa Negra - Juanes
Real Love - Gotay

If you really liked them, you might want to buy some songs from them or even the album :D go find them in the iTunes Store! Most of the songs I list here should be available there. If you have suggestions, ask.fm me! Or comment below (if anyone even reads this blog haha!)


Bella

Hello everyone!

So on October 17th 2014, I was invited by my friend Zulaika to attend her concert. She's back from Germany! :-D (and now she's back in Germany). She once held a concert before she went to Germany (forgot what year, but it was a few years ago) and I was a bit reluctant to attend because I was afraid to go alone... what a mistake. But now I don't care-- I went alone nevertheless, and it was one of the best decisions I have made this year. Thank you for holding this event!


The performers are Diatra Zulaika and Daniel Chagnon-Kropp. They both met at Folkwang University in Essen, Germany. Zulaika studies Opera while Daniel studies Master's Degree for Classical Guitar. Their concert was held at Goethehaus Jakarta. Going there marks the first time I went to Goethehaus and the interior of the building was amazing! Very artsy. Also, because this building is quite old, when you go further inside, the walls, the paint, combined together they look very old school! It's nice to see a physical mark of history in this building; there are the modern parts and there's also the old school parts.

They held this performance in commemoration of World Peace Day 2014, as stated in the invitation. Commemoration comes in many forms! Relating to peace, well, I would definitely understand why music can be related to peace.

In the Romantic era, Arthur Schopenhauer created a hierarchy of fine arts, and music was at the top of the hierarchy. This meant that music was considered the highest form of fine arts, and his reason was because music was the "most universal form of art" because music could immediately affect human beings emotionally compared to any other forms of art. Classical opera music have stories in it, and often times, the songs invoke emotions in our hearts when we listen to them.

This is my personal opinion, but opera songs give you a feeling of tranquility, sometimes sadness, sometimes happiness, cheerfulness, or any other emotions, but definitely not any anger or aggressive emotions. That's why I could understand why it would be related to peace. Imagine performing a classical opera piece in front of an audience, what kind of emotions would it bring to people's hearts? I bet they're going to feel peaceful.

• "Come againe, sweet love doth now invite"
• "Whoever thinks or hopes of love for love"

• "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt"
• "Kennst du das Land"

• "Chanson des Bergères"
• "Zoraide"
• "Romance de Claudine"

• "Heiss mich nicht reden"
• "So lass mich scheinen"

• "El Paño Moruno"
• "Seguidila Murciana"
• "Asturiana"
• "Jota"
• "Nana"
• "Cancion"
• "Polo"

The performance by Diatra Zulaika and  Daniel Chagnon-Kropp

Me and Zulaika

The lady who helped take the picture had shaky hands :') but anyways it was a picture of me with Zulaika! It has been a while since I last saw her and I do miss her a lot! :-)

Attending her concert, I remember how I wanted to attend a performance in an opera house. This year I had gone to Europe, but sadly, the opera performances' schedules couldn't meet mine. Someday, someday, when I go to Europe, I hope I'll manage to see an opera performance. The tickets are expensive, but it's worth to watch once in a while.

One of the things I also noticed is that being an opera singer will probably make you a polyglot whether you like it or not-- you'd sing songs from different languages and of course you have to be able to pronounce the words well enough to be able to sing them. Aside from singing them, you will also have to understand the meaning behind it so you can build an emotional connection with the song, and to be able to sing it wholeheartedly (ok I'm exaggerating lol). In this performance only (with the encore songs), Zulaika sang songs in Indonesian, English, German, French, and Spanish. That's already FIVE languages. While you may not be as fluent in speaking them, you know how the pronunciation works in that language and that's already a plus.

Lastly, this is nothing related to opera, but I noticed something about stage lighting. In this case, the main character of the performance is standing still, so the lighting does not change while she's singing, but the lighting was positioned to make her have a "Rembrandt lighting" effect.

Rembrandt lighting

Those lighting effects are photography lighting that usually makes photographs look nice. Taking pictures with a smartphone from afar won't look very good (look at my photo of Zulaika and Daniel performing above as an example), but the photographers will definitely get good pictures, and us audiences will see it as pleasing to the eyes, despite probably not knowing why :-P

Alright, that's all for my post on Zulaika and Daniel's concert: International Peace - One Song at a Time! It was a wonderful performance and I'm looking forward to another one. Cheers everyone!

I have been longing to post a makeup related entry... and I finally got to it.

I am sure you've seen this look everywhere, but I'll be sharing how I do my eye makeup. It might be similar or even the same as someone else's, but below this will be basically about my eye makeup routine. My eyes have epicanthal folds and hooded double eyelids.


The epicanthal fold makes it hard for me to add highlighting eyeshadow colors at the inner corner of my eyes. I can still do it but it can be easily overdone, because the location of the supposedly highlighted inner corner is very near to my nose contour lines. As a result, I prefer to highlight the lower part of the eyes' inner corner. You can also see that I put some eyeshadow on my lower part of my eyes' inner corner.

Eyes like mine have been called as tapered eyelids, half-double eyelids, or maybe just hooded eyelids. However, when I think of hooded eyelids, I think more of someone with parallel double eyelids that is hooded by... "upper eyelid fats". I can't find a term to describe the part of the eyes that overbears the eyelid, and I don't feel like searching for its scientific name.

Okay, continuing on to the makeup part.

My natural makeup look

Available concealer shades

Milani Baked Powder Blush in Corallina shade

Rose Golden Goddess

NYX Eyebrow Cake Powder

Dior '5 Couleurs Iridescent' Eyeshadow - Earth Reflection

Estee Lauder Liquid Eyeliner

In shade 02 Brown

3 Step Volumecara

Estee Lauder Long Lasting Lipstick in Sugar Honey

Look at 'dem lashes!

Close-up look of the finished makeup look

This picture was shot from a lower angle, so you can see my double eyelids, and also how the eyeshadow looks after application + blending.

I don't mean to discredit any brands, and you might even have good experience by using these type of brushes to apply eyeshadow, but from my experience, brushes like this that is branded as "eyeshadow brush" usually don't do very well in applying eyeshadow to your eyelids. I don't know with the brushes in the picture, they may have soft hairs, but I've tried buying a cheap eyeshadow brush (unbranded) with similarly shaped hairs, and it sucks. Also maybe because it's cheap, the brush hairs are quite hard on your delicate eyelids.

If you sweep the brush on the eyeshadow (product), and then try swatching it on your hand, the color looks like it's not pigmented at all and also usually there will be clumps of eyeshadow on where you swatched it. You can trick your way by dipping the brush into the  eyeshadow. The color will usually appear more pigmented that way, but using a brush with different hair anatomy will do the eyeshadows' colors much more justice.

Take the picture as an example, the hairs look stiff and thin. Google Image eyeshadow brush and the top hits will show brushes (mostly branded though..) with nice rounded/elliptical shaped hairs, with the shortest hairs usually at the leftmost and rightmost of the hair, and becomes longer towards the middle, and the hairs are usually of elliptical shape (imagine 3D ellipse), not thin like the ones in the picture. Think only expensive brushes have these hair characteristics? Masami Shouko brushes are generally affordable, and the number 40 brush is just over US$ 4, I bought it for IDR 42900. It does a great job in applying eyeshadow to my eyelids, but as I said, the brushes are sharp so it might be quite a painful application. I can bear with it though, because it'll only take a while to apply eyeshadows.

Continuing on...


If the eyeshadows and eyeliner were drawn into some sort of chart, it would look like this. There's just 4 simple steps to achieving this look. Oh yeah, don't forget your eyelid primer! I'm using Too Faced's eyelid primer.

Number 1 is supposed to be the lightest shade of all the eyeshadows you're going to use. Apply the color all over the lid. After you finish step number 3, you may also reapply the lightest shade in the middle of your eyelid, but don't use too much so the darkened outer V won't get touched by the lightest shade.

Number 2 is second darkest shade. Apply it at the outer V of the eye, and at the hollows of your eyes. Just press your finger/brush gently on your eyelids and you'll find out where your eyeballs 'end'; that's the area of 'the hollows of your eyes'. Applying in this area will make the eyeshadows to have approximately the same shape and size with your eyes. If you apply too much outside the hollows of your eyes, you might look weird and messy.

Number 3 is the darkest shade. Apply only a little amount of product of the "darkest shade" on the outer V and blend towards the center of your eyelid. Make sure to not go overboard towards the center. You can also apply the color in the hollows of your eyes, but just until the middle of the eyes or just a little before the middle of the eyelid.

Number 4 is eyeliner. Here, I applied from the middle of the eyelid, carefully drawing a line on my lash line. No need to tightline, but make it as close as possible to the lash line and extend the line out of the edge of your eye a little bit.




I was using Dior's '5 Couleurs Iridescent' Eyeshadow Palette, so here's a guide to which colors I used. I picked the upper left color as my lightest shade, and the darker shades are the upper right and bottom left colors. I did not pick the lower right pearly white color as my lightest color because the upper left yellowish gold color complimented my skin better. The darker shades aren't exactly very dark, but because of that, it's good for a natural look.

The central pink color is the color I usually use as highlighter. In this case, I only put it on the lower part of my inner corner of the eyes like I said in the beginning of the blog. The pearly white color can also be the highlighter shade for the eye's inner corner.

As for the eyeliner, use whatever type of eyeliner you want-- pencil, gel, or liquid, but it's best to look for a color similar to your eyeshadow so it appears to be "blended together". You can also pull out a natural look even with a black-colored eyeliner, but when you use an eyeliner with a color similar to your eyeshadow's darker/darkest color, it will look very natural, more natural than if you used black eyeliner.

After all has been done, curl your lashes and swipe a good amount of mascara to your lashes!

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So... a mini review on the products I used. Just a piece of my thoughts!

1. My Estee Lauder GelCreme foundation does not make your skin oily for the first few hours. Today it lasted for about 4 hours until it started to feel oily, but I was mostly outdoors and not in a full-AC room. My skin is combination btw, and quite acne-prone. The thing I love about this foundation is, I really liked this shade because it's one of the perfect shades for my skin. I have always been confused whether I'm of warm, cool, or neutral undertone.. if I judge only from the vein test, I'm a neutral, but my skin tone tends to go to the warm side. Yet here I'm using a Cool Creme shade.

2. My HealthyMix concealer is nice, not extraordinarily nice. The packaging is nice though, because it's more hygienic. If I want to cover my dark circles using this concealer, it's best I use an applicator like a brush or sponge. I don't like to use sponge cause I'm lazy, but a foundation brush does a very good job in blending the concealer. Using my fingers will just overblend the concealer and then my dark circles end up still being very evident.

3. Milani Baked Powder Blush is my HG blush so far. I really liked the color payoff and the color itself, because I wanted a coral blush that's not too orange.

4. Rose Golden Goddess Bronzer is not a very good bronzer in my opinion... it's hard to use a brush to get even a small amount of product, so sometimes I use my fingers to swipe over the product and apply it on my cheeks and then blend with brush. If you use your fingers you'll get a decent amount of product with pigmented color, but I want the product to stick to my brush not my fingers. I'm wondering if I had to use a different technique to get the most of the product out to my brush or is it the bronzer's fault. I'll say buy a different bronzer instead-- Physician's Formula makes amazing bronzers.

5. I really like NYX Eyebrow Cake Powder! If I had extra money to spend I'd have bought Dipbrow Pomade by Anastasia Beverly Hills, but for now this'll manage. For a natural look you won't need the "cake" to make the eyebrow powder become gel-like. Even with powder you can get a pigmented brown color to your brows, which is good! And no pain at all. Before the eyebrow cake powder, I used Shiseido's pencil eyebrow liner and it hurt if I don't use foundation to smoothen its application. I don't always use foundation when going out so that's quite a big con. The surrounding skin will be red after I apply the pencil brow liner because it has hard texture. The sad thing is, the pencil brow liner was expensive (Shiseido...), so I'd rather buy other brand's pencil brow liners like from DollyWink-- I used my friend's and it's very soft.

6. My Dior Iridescent Eyeshadow is the first eyeshadow palette that works on my eyes. I used to buy these cheap unbranded eyeshadows and their colors are very poorly pigmented. And then suddenly my mom buys me this palette so I was totally amazed by the difference in quality. The colors stay ALL DAY with primer, forgot how long it lasted without primer.

During a similar period of time, my mom also once gave me an Estee Lauder travel palette (earlier than the Dior) but the eyeshadow colors were too nude and barely shows any color on my skin. After buying Dior palette, I concluded that my eyes need more expensive palettes/eyeshadows because it will withstand the constant movement of my "eyelid fats" on my eyelids (which will cause oil secretion.. yeah. Constant skin contact will cause it). I have tried many other eyeshadows but still, if you want to splurge on a nice eyeshadow, I recommend Dior's 5 Color Eyeshadow palette. They recently launched the Fall collection and I'm in love with the red, but if only I could easily afford it...

7. Estee Lauder's liquid eyeliner is really good. Very good. And I love the brown shade... it's a natural brown shade and it's such a shame they don't sell it in Indonesia--they only have the black one. I like the brown so much I'd rather not even buy the black shade liquid eyeliner.

The brown shows on pictures, with shiny finish, and then the felt tip applicator of the eyeliner is soft so it doesn't hurt your eyelids. A review on this, by Beautiful with Brains here, same link with my picture source, says exactly what I think about this eyeliner.

I have experience with bad liquid eyeliners, so I dare say that Estee Lauder's is really good. I once tried Maybelline's liquid eyeliner (old one) and it HURT. I threw the eyeliner away after 2-3 uses because I can't stand the pain. I also had experience with irritations from using Sephora's liquid eyeliner.

8. 3 Step Volumecara is one of my HG mascara! We don't have GreatLash mascara here in Indonesia so this is one good alternative! Have fun experimenting with the mascara as you can spin the middle part of the bottle to switch steps-- look at the mascara's reviews done by beauty bloggers and see how amazing it is. My lashes are super duper sparse and thin, and this mascara does great results, which I say is comparable with Benefit's They're Real mascara. One thing to look out though, you might want to buy these mascaras from online shops that import products from Korea or the resellers, because you'll save so much money. In the retail Etude House shops the price is about 200% to 300% more expensive-- I remember my friend saying it's around US$30++ (IDR 400k ish) while you can get them for just around US$13 (IDR 160k ish).

9. Estee Lauder lipsticks. I love them. It depends on what kind of colors you're looking for though-- I just happen to like many of Estee Lauder's very much. Sugar Honey is a "my lips but better" color, and is my lifesaver when I have heavy eye makeup. I think the color is discontinued but I haven't checked with the counters in Indonesian Estee Lauders yet. I hope it's not discontinued!

Edited this post a little bit. Whew, that was a long post. I hope you don't get bored reading my rants. And I hope this post could help you in some way, especially those of you who just started doing makeup or have eyes that are similar to mine. Remember, you don't have to use exactly same colors as I do; I use the same technique for other colors as well, and even with darker colors it still looked natural because when my eyes are open most of the colors won't be seen anyway! :')  Anyways, enjoy! :-) Cheers!