Beauty Culture

Wearing a Bold Lip

Lips are considered the most sensual feature on woman's face. Soft kissable lips are considered feminine and sensual. Pink and red lip colors are often the most enticing lip colors that men are drawn to when noticing a woman. A bold lip alone can be a makeup look unto itself. The act of wearing lipstick in a bold color like red bring about confidence and boost your morale.

The Elegance of Long Manicured Nails

Long manicured nails are seen as feminine and luxurious. A woman's hands if well maintained and properly positioned can be seen as graceful and dainty. Two dance styles that add grace to a woman's movements are belly dance and ballet. From the little knowledge I have of both dance styles a woman's hands must be in line with the general aesthetics so hands must always form a soft shape and not be resting in a pancake form. Whenever I notice a beautiful woman my eyes gravitate towards her hair and then towards her nails. I am seriously a crazy nail fanatic and love seeing women with long well manicured nails. Long nails accentuate the hands and add a sense of luxury to the women's appearance. I personally am not a fan of add on nails and I believe if needed add on nails should be worn for formal occasions rather than on a weekly basis. Nail salons can can relaxing and fun and provide a professional manicure with fun beautiful designs an average nail fanatic can not do. But if not careful relying on salons for nail care can be quite damaging, so it's best to treat nail salons as a treat rather than a need.



The Poetry of  a Dress in Motion

The only good thing about pants on a woman,

 is seeing the shape of her butt.

Otherwise, they look clunky and industrial.

Now a dress... accents her curves....

and flows when she moves.

Poetry in motion.

Isn't that insightful and fascinating? A woman wearing a dress is akin to visual poetry in motion. A woman in a nice pair of jeans can be quite fashionable but a woman in a nice dress is quite stunning. No matter how nice the cut, wash, stitch, or style jeans can never compete on a equal standing with dresses. Dresses enhance and flatter a woman's figure while appearing more fun and flirty. Now I'm not anti jeans to the core, as jeans were once a core staple of my wardrobe. However I like the idea of a wardrobe consisting of 50% dresses and 50% of blouses, skirts, and jeans/pants. This wardrobe formula makes it much more easier to look your best and most feminine self. Dresses also provide a different feeling than when wearing a pair of jeans. A woman in a dress must learn to walk and sit a certain way to keep a fine appearance. Whenever I am wearing a dress I'm almost always mindful of the way I sit and cross my legs or ankles. I carry myself in a certain manner and my posture is almost always better. 


The Everyday Makeup Look

I love the look of subtlety enhanced makeup looks that give a nice warm healthy glow to the face. Makeup skills when executed well can subtlety enhance facial features or completely transform the face in a stunning manner.  Makeup should not give a cakey or a cheap appearance for a woman when its executed well. I consider makeup apart of the beauty arsenal that can help or hinder the woman who chooses to or not to wear makeup. Basic cosmetics can improve every women's looks.The easy basics of  a simple makeup routine usually include: mascara, a little blush, a dab of lipstick, and perhaps a flick of eyeliner. Everyday makeup even the minimal can be just that simple and help to polish a woman's looks.

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Are You Better Than You Were Yesterday?

There are 24 hours in a day and 168 hours in a week, which goes to say there are more than enough hours to accomplish what I set out to do. There is no such thing as I don't have the time, is what I have to remind myself constantly. The other day I was having a wonderful conversation with a dear cousin of mine and his conversation inspired this post. We haven't talked in a long while due to my own selfish and stubborn introverted nature of not keeping in touch. So when we do reconnect our conversations always last hours. When one thread of conversation ventured into a self improvement talk I was genuinely surprised and overjoyed. My cousin like myself is on a self-improvement journey and is always looking for ways to better himself. It's as if my two favorite cousins and I suddenly discovered our 20s is our decade to do better and become better lest before we turn into a scary version of our parents! His breakthrough statement that caught me by surprise "I'm always working on being better than I was yesterday". That one statement sparked a small fire inside me.

It's true competition is always a good thing but the only true competition that really matters is the competition to be a better version of oneself. Putting in effort everyday even on small matters when enforced brings about a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. Practicing certain habits over and over and over everyday with the intention of reaching close to perfection is the goal. So how exactly do I implement this mandate of becoming a better version of myself? I do a self evaluation at the end of every week. While I my jot down notes and tidbits here and there on a daily basis, weekly self evaluations seems less intimidating and much more efficient. My own personal self evaluation consists of the basics: school, health & fitness, social life, inner and outer relationships. Some typical questions I ask myself:

•  Did I speak up in class more than once?
•  Have I participated fully in a social engagement for my campus clubs?
•  Do I call my family members and friends once a week to keep in touch?
•  When engaging in conversations do I listen intensively more than I ramble?
•  Have I watered, nursed, and cared for my plants every day?
•  Have I completed my readings and gone over my class notes daily?
•  Do I maintain my exercise routine every morning and every night with one day of rest?
•  Have I written in my journal daily for reflection, honing my writing skills, and organizing my  jumbled  thoughts?
•  Did I avoid spending money on useless things like vending machine snacks and overpriced  bagels?
•  Do I cook at least three times a week focusing on proper technique and food prepping?
•  Have I practiced my language skills every morning for at least one one hour?
•  Do I listen to political news and podcasts at least once a day?

Readjusting my frame of mind to ask myself the question "Am I I better than I was yesterday?" That should be my one goal that I can be accomplish everyday like clockwork. Improving myself little by little everyday is a small but much needed habit to practice. Once I can re frame my mindset to this I am much better at evaluating my past performance and future potential at the end of the week.

The Radiant Smile of a Carefree Black Girl

Smiling French Singer Inna Modja

A SMILE is one of the most wonderful human expressions one can make. A smile denotes pleasure, happiness, and sociability. In fact smiling provides a positive feedback loop to our brain which generates a more positive feeling from within. So contrary to what some people belief a genuine smile does not show a sign of weakness but rather a powerful gesture when used correctly.

A woman's smile is in fact a powerful gesture that increases happiness within her and towards others. Now to take it a step further, the smile of a carefree Black girl is one of the most pleasing smiles to come across. But wait...what's a carefree Black girl? Per writer Jamala Johns in her fantastic article on Refinery29 Carefree Black Girls, its broken down like this:

Over the last 15 years or so, there’s been a heartening evolution in the works that I’ve been proud to be involved with. A while back, I launched le coil, a curated collection of natural-hair web finds and original photography. The more I worked on it, the more I started to realize that it was helping me explore a facet of the black female experience that went beyond just hair. I noticed that I instinctively leaned more toward more joyful expressions and regal poses, faces basking in natural light, and an overall tone that was warm, relatable, and encouraging. There had been countless conversations with friends where I lamented something along the lines of “I just want to see brown ladies having a delightful time and riding bicycles — and maybe having some brunch.”

Right now with the advent of the internet culture there are new range of ideas and concepts and archetypes. As of now the new archetype I am completely enamored with is the carefree Black girl.
A carefree Black girl is aware of the political and social climate but does not let the negativity consume her or let negative stereotypes define her. So she goes about her day to day being fantastically brown and glowing, enthusiastically happy, wearing her hair proud and crowned in floral headbands, and of course dressed in bright stylish clothing. However for me what tops off the look of a carefree Black girl is the all in the spirit of an authentic smile! When another Black woman smiles all the Brown angels harmonize in union ship. Okay, okay I know I'm being just a tad bit silly or a bit fanatical about smiling but...it's true :) If I was a person to constantly be a consumer of mainstream culture and entertainment you would swear Black women almost never smiled, because according to them Black women mean mug, smirk, nod and salute fists in anger but almost never smile. With the current political and social climate Black women have every right to display a current range of unhappy emotions. But to see Black women still smile through it all day by day and to not constantly wear emotions on our sleeves is a truly wonderful thing. Seeing another smiling carefree Black girl is a like sign your allowed to be stylish and whimsical and just plain awesome basking in your own brown beauty!

The smile of a carefree Black girl will always warm my heart and in turn make me smile :)

 

Black Girl Gardening

When I was a little girl I had a bright green thumb. I followed after my grandmother in her lovely garden extracting pesky weeds in the grass, picking and shelling gongo peas, plucking ripe ackee off the tree, and watering all the blooming plants like white orchids, french thyme.

Well many many years go by and my green thumb has shrunk, withered, and almost died. How that happened, well I'm not too sure? I just basically stopped helping in the garden. However as I mentioned in the previous post I alot of the books I have been reading has me interested in gardening again.  Well here's to a new start in living well and here to a start in my own little garden.




Gardening is a marvelous thing in of itself. Gardening allows me to be one with nature and help bring about life. From the seeds I am planting, watering, and nurturing a new life forms. Or I can look at it in another perspective; I save money by producing your own food :)  The wonderful world of gardening allows me to grow my own expensive fruits like mango, pineapples, and avacados. Compared to the stores prices the mango tree we have is better, sweeter, and having matured a long while back its priceless. Depending on what foods tolerate and thrive in the South Florida climate I can grow tomatoes, lettuce, kale, blueberries and more.

My lovely grandmother has been wonderful in the assistance of the start of my own little garden. I began with the cuttings of a french thyme plant and golden pathos plant, the baby pulp of aloe vera, and the roots of an orchid. I am recoloring my green thumb by starting out with plants, herbs, and flowers rather than cultivating food. I say this because I really want a few plants in my bedroom. In the meantime I'll help with my grandmothers garden which is mainly food produce and eventually branch off on my own later :)

Roots of the French Thyme

French Thyme by the Windowsill

French Thyme by the Windowsill

Aloe Vera Plant

Aloe Vera Plant

What's on My Bookshelf?

My thoughts lately have been centered on food; growing and cultivating it, consuming it, the history of it, and the politics surrounding it. My thoughts have also been a bit all over the place with relationships, from friendships to romantic ones, all types really.

 
  The modern era way of cooking and eating has ignited a desire in me to cultivate some of my own food and go back to the basics. It also helps that my grandmother has her own full fledged garden, that I used to tend to when I was a little girl. Why my little green thumb faded, I don't no how or why, but its welcoming back color now :)  So the herbs book I picked up at the local bookstore while browsing the gardening section really caught my attention, The book is perfect in the way the information is sectioned and designed. Speaks on gardening a particular herb, harvesting and storing, the medicinal use, and the art of cooking that particular herb. Herbs , I am looking forward to cultivating are basil, dandelion, chamomile, and in particular lavender. Imagine a bedroom smelling of lavender :)  Tastes of Paradise was a required reading book from my 10th grade AP world history class. Well the thing is...we never got around to reading the darn book that semester. Well this summer I set about reading the book and surely did so. Short read of only 200+ pages about how various stimulants, spices, and intoxicants became a social class cue, affected politics, feminism, and history. Like when chocolate was introduced to the European palette it became the drink of royals as a status symbol and only royal men of the court specifically. Then chocolate changed classes and became sweets and gifts for women and children, while simultaneously loosing its status symbol.

Rumi is a name I stumble across quite often on Tumblr posts but never really paid much attention. Now I notice his quotes everywhere. Its by random chance I stumbled across this book, because the front cover captivated me. Intriguing design, don't you think so? A translated book of poetry by a Persian poet and scholar, that comments on spiritual connections and mystical themes. One line that has really touched me: "Love is the soul's light, the taste of morning, no me, no we, no claim of being. These words are the smoke the fire gives off as it absolves its defects, as eyes in silence, tears, face. Love cannot be said." - Rumi, the Glance. Years ago I when I was a Netflix junkie, I binge watched random documentaries. Food Inc. was one in particular that was a strikingly good, honest, and eye opening film. That same year, I found the film's standout book for one dollar at my university Campus book sale :)  Its the rapid industrialization of food farming and production and its even more rapidly negative outcomes that genuinely alarmed me. Food Inc. is a book about the various sides to see modern American food production, the history and future of it and what everyday citizens are capable of when informed.

These last two books are bit controversial. But what's a blog without a bit of controversy, eh? No marriage is not just for white people but that's not entirely what this book is about. Its about the ever declining marriage rate for all Americans but especially for Blacks Americans. It's also about Back women's dating and marriage options reality based and those perceived. If one's pool of dating options is quite crowded or too shallow, then its best to come over to a bigger and better pool to fish and swim around in :)

Lolita is one of those books I was quite surprised to hear being raved about by various people. I have heard about this book for a long time and did not even consider buying it until I came across it for one dollar at my campus book sale. The book as the name suggests is very controversial and was banned at one point I believe. As of now Lolita is an iconic book and heralded as a literary work of writing.

EXTRA:

I am a magazine lover...but not just any kind. I treasure quality print publications with engaging articles, relevant subjects, excellent writers, humor, and awesome design. I believe I have found it all in this new magazine, WOMANKIND. The front cover of Frida Khalo grabbed my attention and the actually amazing content kept my attention. Womankind is a philosophy magazine with a geared focus on women. One article is o the history of bee keeping, why bees are disappearing, and why we should do our part and cultivate flowers to keep bees pollinating. Another article tells of a close knit community of women in a small town in central Mexico fighting against the uninvited logging community and winning. Womankind magazine is officially a new magazine staple.


Did any of these books grab your attention? Feel free to comment and say so :) By the way, what's on your bookshelf at the moment?

What Comes First...

What comes first race, gender, nationality, or religion? After first place is filled, what falls into second place, third, and last? However you order these labels numerically gives a clue into who you are as a person and whom you give your allegiance to.When I first came across this question I mulled it over and reflected on the labels earnestly for some time. Originally this question began with only race, gender, and nationality as identity labels. However I included religion due to religion being an immensely crucial identity label for most people.

Self-preservation is the first law of nature. It is universal amongst all living organisms and a hallmark of life. In enacting self-preservation mode it should be noted BLIND allegiance to any label, movement, or identity refutes the basic premise of self-presevation. So the answer to the question above, what identity label comes first... yourself. Yourself should come first before any social label you personally give yourself. I understand my answer to this question may sound a bit sarcastic or "above it all" because well 'yourself' is not presented as a choice in the question. However an inquistive person determines when to bend the rules and think outside the small box :)

Now in understanding social order, I am aware that other people tend to see the labels of gender, race, nationality, and religion first over individual identity. Therefore I choose gender as my second identity. Anything else in identity is of a lesser degree of importance to me. That is how i have always operated ad it as served me well. My allegiance is to myself as an indivual person and then as a woman.

I have a right to exist and so do you. Even more so you have a right to a lofty and well lived exsistence. Its imperative that you place your needs and wants first before giving any BLIND allegiance to anything or anyone else. Self-preservation is about honoring yourself first. Your identity as YOURSELF is more crucial than any other identity in regards to self-preservation. What say you... what identity label do you rank in order of importance? Did you rank yourself first before any other identity?

Treat Yourself to a Little Bit of Magic

In continuation with my self-love and self-investment journey. I implemented a new routine for my everyday morning. Now this routine came about when I started to overhaul my bedroom clearing all clutter and rearranging the bedroom decor. I decided to move my routine of This routine of primping and preening in my bedroom rather than the bathroom. Usually I would apply my skincare, sunscreen, makeup, and fix up my hair. All while standing in bathroom over the sink. Now once I finish my skincare and apply my sunscreen to the bedroom vanity I go...
and treat myself to a little bit of magic :)


Bedroom vanities in particular, gives the process of beautification a luxurious and glamorous feel for a woman. Every morning I awaken and after my morning routine of hygiene and skincare in the bathroom, I head towards the bedroom for my morning vanity time. Vanity time continues the self love experience because I am pampering my outer self and indulging in a ritual of feminine elegance.



There are various ways to style one's vanity. The main stays in the decor of a vanity usually includes:

•    Glass bottles of perfume
•    Container to hold jewelry
•    Simple vase of flowers
•    Container for makeup     
•    products
•    A Framed photograph
•    Vanity mirror

For my own vanity I have certain preferences. I use nicely decorated ceramic containers for my jewelry and makeup. Lovely glass bottles for perfume, and freshly cut flowers over artificial plastic flowers. I do my best to stay away from plastic as I prefer glass or ceramic as these two give a more luxurious feel. Of course nicely stained wood is nice as well for the vanity itself. Now to give the feeling of elegance and bits of luxury for your vanity this formula goes as follows. Apply the three senses of touch, sight, and smell:

Sense of Touch by applying various oils, creams, and powders for the hair and skin.

Sense of Smell by spraying a light cloud of fragrance
from perfume bottles.

Sense of Sight by preening in front of a mirror with adornments
 like pearl earrings or a nice gold hair piece.