Tuesday 10 May 2016

Stop shaming...

*TRIGGER WARNING* I'm going to touch on the subject of rape culture at some point in this post so just a little heads up incase anyone wants to stop reading.

So it's a bit of a serious one today. And it's not all about make-up, although make-up is a part of it. It's something that's been bothering me for a while and after seeing some more of these "hilarious" or "inspirational" memes, I've felt the need to have a wee rant.

My Facebook seems to be plagued with memes regarding women wearing too much make up, men don't like you if you're too fat, men only finding women attractive who are curvy, men don't women who sleep around etc..

So much about this pisses me right off.

I'm going to open this up, not just targeted at men, but the human race in general.

I have full autonomy. My body is my choice, and so is what the hell I want to do with it! If you want to sit and judge me because of how I look, dress or act, then you can turn your ass around and make your way out of my life.

I don't choose my clothing or make-up to please any man or woman. If a man, woman or anyone in  between happens to find me attractive then that's great but none of my choices are made with the sole intention of pleasing a sexual partner or a potential sexual partner.

My choice to wear make-up is for a few reasons, none of which I should justify to anyone but I'm going to go ahead and do it anyway. Make-up is a creative outlet for me, it's a point of self-expression and it gives me a bit more confidence. Not the confidence that comes with looking good for the benefit of other people but using my skills to make something that I feel proud of. Whether that means looking like I've been rubbing my face in a paint box or not, at least I'm happy with the finished product. I won't stop wearing make-up because people find "cake face" unattractive. I love make-up, I can't wear enough of the stuff. It's awesome.

My body is slightly on the chubby side. I'm not going to lose weight just so someone else will want to give me one, if I choose to lose weight, it'll be to look in the mirror and find myself more attractive and give me the confidence I need to walk out the door and feel like a queen.

Now, putting my feelings about myself aside, everyone in the world has beauty and not everyone can see that individual beauty. Whether they choose to wear make-up or not, my hope in the world that the people in question feel happy in their skin. Even if that means using a little bit of make-up here and there or plastering their face full of the stuff, what's important is that they feel happy. Would it be better if I look in the mirror and feel like crap but be grateful that someone might find me more attractive because I'm not covered in make-up? Fuck no it wouldn't. That's not how life is supposed to be. What's the point in living an unhappy life for someone else's benefit?

As for the weight thing, nowadays, I see more body shaming geared towards slimmer women rather than curvier women. In support of the typical 'poking fun at fat people' mindset. Well, let me tell you something, if you feel the need to empower yourself by bringing another woman down, then you're just as bad as the people out there taking the piss out of people like you. Body shaming is not cool in any way, shape or form. I've been attracted to women who are very slim, I have been attracted to women who are very curvy. There is no "perfect" body shape. If you're going to be concerned about anyone's weight, it shouldn't be about how they look, it should be about their health and even at that, it's not your business to raise the issue.

In an ideal world, I'd make myself a few dress sizes smaller and my boobs a few cup sizes smaller but that's my business, that's about how I feel when I look in the mirror. If someone only finds me attractive based on how my face and body looks, well, that's a shallow bastard that I really don't want in my life to begin with.

On to the "slutty" clothing and sleeping around section of my rant. I can wear whatever the hell I want without earning your judgement. If you don't think I look good, then tough titties. I do. If I want to have my cleavage busting out of my top or wearing a skirt which comes just below my arse cheeks because I'm embracing my curves then that's my business, not yours or anyone elses. My clothes are not for you! They are for me. My clothes are not a representation of my virtue, neither are they worn so that you will find me attractive. Whether I want to wear a boob tube or a turtle neck, I'll be wearing it because I feel comfortable and attractive in it. Rape culture & victim blaming has a tendency to become more obvious an issue when it comes to clothing. If a woman is provocatively dressed then they're "asking for it" or should expect some sort of sexual advance. Yeah, you might end up with someone chatting you up but wearing items of clothing doesn't take away your autonomy and your ability to give consent. If you're sitting saying that a woman deserves to be raped or that it's her own fault simply because she's wearing certain clothing, then you're as bad as the rapist involved in the situation. You are sympathising with a rapist. That is the fact of the matter. I AM NOT DRESSING FOR ANOTHER HUMAN BEING! No matter what their intentions.

The most frustrating one of all is the sleeping around part. Humans are sexual beings. They want to have sex for pleasure, they want to have sex to procreate. So why is it that men are allowed to sow their seed as they please but women are slut shamed if they enjoy sex and want to have it? I've never understood this frame of mind. If a woman wants to have sex with one man or a hundred men (or of any gender), she has the ultimate right to do so because it's her body and if she wants to go out and get the same pleasure that a man would without being judged for it, then she bloody well should do it. As long as both parties are being safe, why is there an issue here? Again, the rape culture issue comes up in that people have the opinion that if you sleep around a lot then you're fair game. Why can't you see what is wrong with that sentence? If you're one of those people who says these things, you might want to take a seat and have a real think about the sort of person you are and if you really think that you can condone assault of any sort based on a woman's (or man's) appearance or actions. CONSENT IS THE ISSUE HERE, NOT HOW A PERSON LOOKS/APPEARS!

And what the fuck happened to feminism? A lot of these memes are geared towards the male opinion but most of the time, it's women I see sharing them! Why are we bringing other women down? Aren't we all fighting for the same thing? To wear what we want, be equals, look how we want, act how we want? Yet we have women ripping other women to shreds simply to make themselves feel better. Well, I'm sorry but that's not how life works. We're all in this together, we're all beautiful and we should all accept that we have the rights to our own bodies and what we choose to adorn them with or what we choose to do with them.


All human beings are beautiful. Yes, it might be that not everyone finds a certain person attractive, we all have our own tastes, but as long as they see the beauty in themselves than that's what's important here. Attraction is subjective. We like what we like and that's fair enough. But what isn't fair is using our preferences to make other people feel like shit.

I have no idea what the purpose is behind this rant except maybe to get it off my chest and let people sharing these memes see another perspective.

Stop shaming other people guys. Whether it's body shaming, slut shaming or whatever, I don't care, just stop!

Peace and love to everyone. Go look in the mirror and see the beauty in yourself. Embrace that beauty. Do not let anyone else tell you that you have to look different for anyone else's benefit.

x M x

Tuesday 3 May 2016

Budget foundation part 3 and Drag Wednesday!

So I kinda forgot to post last week about the latest foundation, I've been so distracted lately that I keep writing posts and forgetting to actually publish them, so here it is.

The third cheapy foundation I tried was from W7. The High Definition Camera Ready foundation. Now, I got this in B&M but I lost my receipt so I can't give the accurate price but I do know that it was under £3!

So there's no information about this foundation on W7s website so I assume it's either a discontinued line or a special promotion that they've chosen not to become a regular line. There's nothing on the bottle to suggest what the foundation is supposed to "do" ie wear time, coverage etc.

It comes in a pump bottle which is great because the other W7 foundation I bought to try (more about that tomorrow) comes in a glass bottle which you have to shake to get the foundation to actually come out and I really hate foundations in glass bottles. My pet hate when it comes to foundation!!

The consistency was quite creamy, not too runny (I loathe runny foundation) and not too thick. It applies evenly (I used my RT face brush to buff it in) and the colour 'Buff' was a pretty good match to my skin tone. It got slightly darker as it dried but I blended it right down on to my neck so if there was any noticeable difference in comparison to my skin tone, it wasn't visible.

As from the name of the foundation, it is supposedly "high definition" and "camera ready" but there's no further information as to what that entails. The foundation has pretty good coverage and there's nothing on the bottle to suggest that it has an SPF, which doesn't really go well with flash photography.

It's definitely worth the price and it's a foundation I would go back to again but it would be nice to access some more information on the product before buying again. I'll give it a 4/5 because the wear time was pretty good, I had it on for a good 8 hours and it didn't really show any signs of wear, maybe a little fading here and there but nothing noticeable unless you're being overly critical like I was!


Moving on to Drag Wednesday!! Since starting to trim my eyebrows after plucking or waxing, there's been a huge difference in the ease of covering my brows. Before, the amount of Pritt Stick I was having to use to get them glued down was a bit ridiculous and it took a hell of a long time but this time around it was so much easier. After gluing and powdering them, I decided to use the Primark foundation that I had mentioned before to go over the top of them and they were gone! It's probably the best coverage I've had so far eyebrow-wise since starting to do drag make-up on myself.

I decided to not use a runway look from the show this week and instead make it up as I went along. I saw a picture during the week of a sort of outlined starburst eyeliner during the week and I wanted to try something like that except huge and filled in instead of just the outline. I used the KIKO gel eyeliner and my Wilko eyeliner brush (as always) to map it out and fill it in with a large wing that joined up with the star burst at the inner corner of my eye. I was really impressed with how good it looked to be honest. I used my Make-Up Revolution 'Give them Nightmares' palette along with a cheapy palette that I don't know the brand name of (oops) to do a sort of gold and purple look. Unfortunately the purple in the MUR palette didn't show up too well on the area where my brow was covered but I actually managed to forget to prime my eyes before I actually started putting eyeshadow on them so I might have to try it again with primer underneath!!

Lips were another story altogether. I used the LA Girl Matte Gloss in Blackcurrant as it's a beautiful dark purple and I thought it would compliment the eyes well.  Which it did, but I had to use literally 4 or 5 coats of it to get a fully opaque lip. Now, I'm not going to blame the lipstick. The skin on the lips is pretty different to the skin covering the rest of your face and lipstick is for your lips. So overdrawing them to such a degree meant I was going over the skin below my nose and below my lower lip and it did need a hell of a lot of lipstick to totally cover that up.

I used my old faithful lashes, cheap and cheerful Primark ones and managed to get the eyelash glue everywhere, so that was fucking great. But it actually worked out pretty good in the end. My contouring looked so much better using my cheapy contour palette along with the Morphe blush palette. Usually in photos, my contour doesn't show up at all so I was pretty impressed.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to film a skincare review on the Boots Witch Hazel and Tea Tree jelly skincare products but that all depends on if we can actually get a hold of them in store! Failing that, it'll be discussing the eyeshadow palettes (that I've yet to try) from Primark! So hopefully that'll turn out better than the last video I filmed. Which was horrendous. Will also be talking on here about the final installment of budget foundations and a little bit about body confidence!

x M x