How to Pull Off Dark Lipstick

I used to wear neutral lips.
Then I got older and discovered lots of cute bright matte lipstick, I was hooked. Bright matte lips are my staple. 

I have some dark lipstick because I wanted to do the ombre thing. But last week I decided to wear it separately, in the day time, for work in the ministry. Here's the selfies:

Purbasari EC87

Wardah Intense Matte 12

Wet N Wild Sugar Plum Fairy

and I love the result. I didn't get much compliment, but that wasn't I intended to. I wear them to please myself. 
Also I realize that Wardah Intense Matte 12 is not flattering for my skintone because it's too brown.

So, what does it take to wear dark lips?? Here's some advice:

1. Wear it with confidence.
2. Being old helps too. I didn't have the confidence before I hit 35.
3. Confidence itself is useless if the color doesn't suit your skintone. So pick the right shade.
4. This kind of makeup requires flawless skin (or concealer, if you don't have good skin).
5. Keep the eyes neutral. Don't wear dark eyeshadow AND dark lips if you don't want to fall into goth territory.
6. Exfloliate. Dark, patchy, flaky lips are not flattering.
7. Have fun. It's just makeup, not a tattoo. Wipe it off if your friend says it's ugly!

Catokan Mitsuyama MELEDAK!!!

Yah, judulnya bukan lebay.
Tapi ada prolognya sedikit.

Sebelum2nya, gue gak pernah suka ngurus rambut. Ketika rambut gue masih bagusan (tebal), jaman kuliah sering gue lurusin karena males banget ngurus rambut. Gue sering banget ke kantor dalam keadaan rambut basah, biarin kering alami, habis itu diikat atau dibiarkan dilepas aja dalam kondisi mengembang (frizzy, not voluminous). 

Sampai, bulan Februari 2016, gue kesambet Setan Catok.

Waktu itu gue iseng jalan2 ke Plaza Cibubur, lihat2 Marco dan ada alat sisir panas. Bukan bentuk hairdryer bersisir model Kuru-kuru, melainkan hot brush. Gue coba, bagus juga. Merk Mitsuyama, harga 145 ribu. Gak perlu lah beli mahal2, toh gak bakal dipake tiap hari....

Mulai lah gue bereksperimen. Pertama, gue gulung dari bawah ke atas, ternyata keritingnya gak awet padahal udah pakai mousse dan hairspray. Lalu buka2 youtube. Eureka moment. Ternyata harus diputer2 makenya.. Bingung? Untuk lebih jelasnya, lihat tutorial dari Instyler Ionic Styler Pro ini.

And I was addicted. Countless selfies. I felt prettier. Life was no longer beautiful without bouncy hair.

cakep kan..

BIG HAIR whoa!

Jika gue kesiangan, catok akan gue bawa ke kantor. Jika PNS umumnya ke kantor lalu ke kantin sarapan, gue akan nyatok dulu. Gak sampai 10 menit, maklum rambut gue udah menipis. 

Sampai minggu lalu. Tanggal 11 Agustus. 

Ketika catok yang gue letakkan di meja (kantor) tiba-tiba MELEDAK.

Memang tidak berkeping-keping, tapi BERAPI dan mengeluarkan bunyi. 

Alhamdulillah masih disayang Allah, meledaknya di meja bukan pas lagi gue pake dekat muka. 

Habis itu gue merasa hidup gue hampa --lebay--

dan dilarang beli catok murahan. 

Sekarang sudah punya catok baru merk Panasonic dan Remington, review menyusul. 

catok baru!!!

How Do You Describe Yourself in One Word?

In my business trip in the Philippines, the facilitator asked us (participants) to describe him/herself in ONE word.

Turned out, the one with same description or same hobby would be seated together.
No one came close to how I describe myself. So the person I seated with, actually we had nothing in common!!

So, how did I describe myself?
I'm 37 and I still don't know how to explain myself in one word.

Here's what crossed in my mind:

• I can't describe myself physically like "tall" "pretty" or "sexy". Yeah right, I got compliments years ago, by female and male, but I think I'm too old for that. And it was a professional meeting, I can't write that! (Anyway, I'm not THAT pretty. I realized that LOL).
• "singer"? I love to sing and I can sing very well, but I'm not a performer. So I won't describe myself as a singer.
• I was thinking about "material girl" but that would be not appropriate :)
• I don't like to read, don't like to study and love to browsing about unimportant things, I should write "shallow" probably. 
• I should write "environmentalist" but to be honest I still don't ride public transportation and don't compost my organic waste, so I think I'm still far from that title. 
• I can't write "two cancer survivor" because people would be sorry for me. No way. And that would be 3 words instead of one. 
• Too bad "makeup freak" is 2 words. Otherwise I'd write that.

So...I describe myself as a 'catlady' and nobody there liked cats. I ended up sit with one nice lady who described herself as 'civil servant'. I'm a civil servant. That's close :)

Holiday Activity

I took eight(!) days off during the end of the year and what did I do on holiday?
Practically nothing, other than doing household work, playing with my animals and went grocery shopping.

First I wanted to learn how to cook. I cooked sweet-sour chicken (my mother taught me how to) and it was the last meal I cooked because after that my assistant got sick.

sour-sweet chicken

So I did the cat-cage cleaning, helped my mom with the household work. Then slept. Watched TV. Went to nearby mall/plaza and did little shopping. Then ate. What a life.

We also had cute (cat) babies because Beti and Congek gave birth around the same time, babies were supercute and mix (half long haired) we just loved to play with them.

This is older kitten: Mino (male) and Moni (F), Neri's kits. They're mix too.

Mino (male)

Mino (front) and Moni playing on cemetary roof

Beti's kits are special because they're so expensive, the mother can't give birth naturally we had to send her to the vet and paid expensive medical bills :D

Beti and 3 kits (with sister Jeli)

 And this one is our bundle of joy. Shelly, Beti's baby.

Shelly with mother Beti

our favorite, Shelly (female)

This is just ordinary day, Bodas my fixed male cat (who stays in Cat Room most of the time) with Petril, Panjat's adopted black kitten.

Bodas (white) and Petril

 Congek with her 2 babies. This female cat is one of the trouble maker, she stole Beti's babies all the time, so we sometimes gave her 1 of Beti's baby. Hers are mixed: one is short hair, one is long haired.

Congek and babies (with Mr. Kendul, a baby lover)

 Then some picture of cats from Depok Train Station, 2 of 4.

Depok Tidak Lucu (male)

Desi (female)

 This is Panjat, who gave birth in neighbor's place and brought her kits when they're bigger. Named Lighty and Darky  because one has lighter coat than the other. Both female

Panjat with daughters

Another activity was learning how to drive manual transmission. My father is a matic-freak, we didn't have many MT cars so I never knew how to shift gears. I took driving course and went there by motorcycle and didn't have any helmet. People here in Kranggan don't use helmet at all, it was terrifying. They just use hats. so first I used bicycle helmet, then decided to buy a REAL helmet. Here's the selfie

After 4 course I think I don't need to continue (I still have 5 lessons).

All the holiday activities included eat, eat, eat, eat. I bought lot of snacks, ate ice cream everyday and of course that leads to weight gain. Here's some wardrobe tips to conceal 2 kilos: use black.

black tunic on black jeans

 On last day of the holiday, I went to Ayang-ayang Shelter, a cat shelter located in Cinere. Around 100 cats there but I didn't meet all of them. The most impressive cat was Sparta, a blind cat who looooved human attention. Somehow he knew my presence and gave me a rub. That's cool.

posing with one of the members

some of the members

Not every cat is in the cage. Some were inside of the house, some were in cages because they loved to travel to neighbors (and neighbors hated cats. Ewww). They're not in perfect condition, but they're OK. Please donate if you can because the owner can't afford by herself.
(and if you comment "if she cant afford 100 cats, why keep those cats?" the answer is "could you leave small kitten, abandoned left to die in street, starving and crying for help??" And people are cruel, they just left the cats around the Shelter and left no food with them. Not cool.)

Last but not least, I have 3 new handbags

Aigner

Elle

It was just cleaning the house, shopping and playing with my cats. Not cool huh?!

What I Did On Holiday

For those who love travelling, probably you'd think I have a boring life.
In fact, probably I do :D

Here's what I did on Eid Mubarak Holiday: I helped my mom with house chores..I slept. Lots of sleep. I went to nearby malls (we in Cibubur have three malls and one hypermarket) and bought clothes and grocery shopping. Then I went back home and sleep.

And most of the time, I removed weeds on my yard. Our grass can't compete with the weed and it's fun to remove if, since the cats think we entertain them..

I took lots of pictures...here's some of it:

What happened when my 25 kg female dog, who loves to bite stranger, jumped into my lap. Her name is Coklat, she's spayed and mother of six.  

 Here's a view of eight cats in backyard

This is Dodol, my mix longhair kitten, son of Kampret (a longhair himself) 

View of some of the pups, with mother Coklat 

This cute brown marbled is named Macu, the most expensive cat I ever had. He had hemorrhoid and needed expensive surgery. Look at his shaved cute little belly!

Then came the fun-est part: cats playing in my 'pengki', something to collect the weeds......

 Cimi, red (no name yet) and Odi in 'pengki' , inspected by Taffy (collared) and Macu

Cimi and Red tried to sleep, while Odi and Maci played

Odi and Cimi sleeping, Taffy and Maci playing

Sometimes they jumped into my lap and scratched my flawless skin. It's hard to maintain perfect skin during holiday 

parky the dog observing... 

My not-too-healthy kitties....They just sleep and not playing 

but Odi decided to join the unhealthy kitties.. 

And last one: Macu is recovering well and we joke "Don't die, you're so bloody expensive!!!!!" so I called the vet to give  Macu and his cage-mate vaccine shots.

....and I'm broke :D. So glad my vet gave me discount because she knows we raised stray cats..