Ka'Oir Lipstick Review: Sex

It's been a very long time since I did a lipstick review - I believe Mac's Ruby Woo was the last one I did back in 2010. This blog has gone through a variety of changes since then as well. Recently I've been looking at pop culture and lifestyle more so than make-up products. This blog is kind of like a revolving door to be honest. You never know who or what's going to come through.

Disclaimer: Image courtesy of kaoir.com

Anyway, to the lipstick! So I found out about the Ka'Oir brand through an upscale hair salon on my island (Algernon Edge Hairdressing) which also now sells make-up and does facials, nails, etc. I happen to know the owner of the high-class salon personally and when I went to visit him recently, he liked my afro so much he insisted that one of his girls put some make up on so he could take some photos for their facebook page. Now I'm never one to refuse a free make-over, so I was all for it.

They used some Medusa eyeshadow and some eyeliner, filled in the brows etc., but to be honest all I was really interested in was the lipstick. At first I was hesitant because it looked black in the tube and I actually told the girl flat-out that I did not want to wear black lipstick. Because trust me, I have tried to make that look work and I just don't have the face for it. She assured me it was not black. I was still worried but I let her have at it.

When I looked in the mirror I could not believe it. I was wearing dark lipstick and I actually looked good! First of all, its not black but a deep vampy red-purple. Its somehow pigmented yet sheer at the same time. It's very buildable. One coat and you can still see some pinkness of your lip shining through. Two coats and its opague. It's extremely moisturizing so its the polar opposite of my last lipstick review of Ruby Woo in that it isn't super-dry and won't flake. However, some cons are that it will stain your lips. Just tissue alone  won't get this off. You will need to use witch hazel or something even more intense like an oil or my go-to makeup remover which is Pond's cold cream (its a creamy classic!). It also tends to spread. Not past the lip line, as in the majority of the colour migrates to the limits of the lips, but then doesn't budge any further. So that you end up with a lipliner effect even though you have only used lipstick. Now I don't know about yall, but I love a lipliner effect so I was pretty happy about that. But I can see how other people would hate that the product does not stay put.

Its still pretty long-lasting in my opinion, but not as long lasting as a matte would be. But for a pearl-creme (which it was described as on the tube) I was very impressed by its endurance. I have sadly had to give up wearing matte lipsticks as my lips are naturally too dry for them, no matter how much I exfoliate, regardless of how much lip balm I apply before and no matter how much lip gloss I apply after. So I am all about cream lipsticks like KaOir's sex and also satin lipsticks like those of Mac's Pro Longwear collection.

Sex has been a great introduction to Ka'Oir's cosmetics and I'm very impressed. The deep purple/red feels very nineties to me and reminds me of Lauryn Hill. The lipliner effect reminds of Selena somehow too. But the nineties icon it reminds me the most of is Dawn from En Vogue in the "Don't Let Go" video. Her dark lipstick looks so FIERCE here!

I will forever be an En Vogue fan. En Vogue and Salt and Peppa and TLC were the females that made the 90's great.

Anyway, back to Sex! I didn't like the price of the lipstick, it was $45.80 on my island but everything is super-expensive here because of the high standard of living, shipping, etc., But in the U.S it's only like $17 so it's not so bad there.

I think back in the day when I did the Ruby Woo review I mentioned that it is super hard for me as a dark-skinned girl to find a lipstick that suited me. Quite frankly, the make-up industry decides to make make-up for black people as an after-thought and even then they tend to get it all wrong. I also recall pointing out that this is a problem which girls at the direct opposite of the spectrum: very, very pale girls also have to contend with. So now I do this odd thing where when checking out lipsticks of seeing whether it will not only suit me, but also very pale girls. Cause the ebonies and ivories are all abandoned on this make-up game so we gotta look out for each other right? Anyway, I found another review of this lipstick by a pale girl and it looks great on her too which is excellent. Here is the link: Cult Colours and Ka'Oir Lipstick


That's all for now folks!

Musings on Gender

I have been thinking a lot about children lately. Mainly because of my nephew. His name is Christopher, and his first middle name is Robin. Believe it or not, he was named after Christopher Robin from the Winnie the Pooh children’s story. My sister really loved that cartoon. Plus she was going through a depression at the time of her pregnancy so I guess she thought that maybe if her kid was named after a cartoon character he’d be happy and not depressed like she was.

 

 Anyway, the point is that I have been much about children, and babies recently. Christopher turned a year two months ago in April. But what I am intrigued by is how manly he is already, even from as early as nine months. Everything he does: how he twists his body, how he deliberately does things to annoy the girl holding him, how he immediately stays silent and unmoving when a male holds him… 

This is highly ironic because his mother is one of the girliest people I have ever come across and his father is rather metrosexual; the epitome of the Western, civilised, self-effacing, 21^st century male. The only other person who lives with them is sister’s mother-in-law and she is a very sweet little old lady herself. So where did all this manliness come from all of a sudden? 

There is something interesting in my family in that all of us look very muscular and tough even though we hardly exercise. Both Christopher’s mother and I have rather large calves. People always ask my sister if she was an athlete. I have very well-shaped arms and whenever I stand with my hands akimbo people ask me if I work out because biceps appear from nowhere. My other two siblings, another sister and a brother, have smaller limbs but even they look tough. The brother because he is a martial arts champion has trained his body to look fit. But what was startling was that as soon as he started to work out, he very quickly looked super muscular. Honestly, I work out for a week and I start getting a six pack.

The true test is my other sister. She has very smooth slim legs and arms, which have only recently started to get bigger because of her diet, but she is changing that now. But she has the kind of extremely firm, very large, round behind that one would normally associate with an African American athlete. I’m talking a Serena Williams behind. How can her derriere be so firm if she hates exercise?

Anyway, I’m getting off track. This isn’t meant to be about fitness or my family’s weird athletic looking features. This is meant to be about Baby Christopher (never Chris). And I’m about to get academic sounding here but its nothing too ivory tower so its cool. Baby Christopher really challenges all the beliefs of the gender theory and Judith Butler's Gender Trouble. She and that school of thought believes that gender (not equal to sex) is not biological, but taught. This theory believes that all of the behavioural traits that come along with gender are taught to us by society and not inherent by our sex. I am still a firm believer in this because notions like boys shouldn’t cry and girls are hysterical pretty much get thrown out of the window when babysitting at daycare I observed the fact that male babies tend to cry more than female babies who are often more composed. Anyway, then along came Christopher with his masculinity who made me doubt my beliefs. I still believe many traits are taught and I hope Christopher’s masculinity won’t hold him back from crying (which indicates emotion which is a necessary sign of humanity and the denial of that component in masculinity is what turns some men into uncommunicative, heartless monsters). But the intuitiveness of his masculinity really makes me wonder. Is this an essential, unchanging part of him? Or will it change? Will he outgrow it? Or will his masculinity only get more…intensely masculine? 

I see a problem here. Masculine is too vague a term. Interestingly, its not as fixed a meaning as feminine which brings more (mostly negative) connotations to mind. Maybe that’s because women are constantly told what a “lady” is supposed to be by men. Men don't suffer from the Madonna/whore dichotomy that women do after all. In any case, masculinity in terms of how I am using it here refers more to an “Aroo! Aroo! Aroo!” Sparta warrior cry ideal. Or think the series Spartacus. Hmm, all these movies/shows are set in ancient times. For a more 20^th Century example think of Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. A great 21^st Century example is Ali in Rust and Bone. It shows the kind of brutal, oblivious, insensitive force that I characterize masculinity as.

But of course, there are other types of masculinity. Forget the warrior/abusive husband/boxer uber-machismo ideal and think of the more debonair stereotype. The smooth talker. The charmer. Benjamin Schwarz wrote a FANTASTIC piece on the charmer that I suggest everyone read because it explains the manipulation of the charmer better than I can.

To be honest it doesn’t matter which one you prefer because both those stereotypes are calculating and cruel. One uses brute force/uncontrollable rage and an inclusive brotherhood that women are not allowed into, while the other uses smooth language and manipulative schemes to get into a lady’s pants while not giving a shit about her.

I don’t want either of those masculine ideals for Christopher. But you know, I am an open minded girl and so I think what needs to occur is a re-evaluation of masculinity.

Can we have a masculinity that respects women? One that, yes, provides, but understands that a woman can provide too and that that does not mean she is trying to emasculate him? Can we have a masculinity that is able to accept and understand that a man can cry and that is okay because it makes him human? Can we have a masculinity that doesn’t try to manipulate and seek to destroy womanhood at every turn? Can we have a masculinity that is not self-destructive and de-humanising of himself and harmful to all other people around him?

Cause that’s the kind of masculinity I’d like for Christopher. I love him very much, and this is why I am prepared to teach him the kind of masculinity I’d like to see in the world.

So that one day, when he falls in love with a girl or a boy or whatever, he will be the kind of caring, loving partner that everyone wants. And hopefully he will have the good sense to fall for a caring person too that gives him the kind of love he deserves too.

This is my wish for Christopher, and for the world.

Look closer at One Direction

For a long time I've wanted to talk about this boyband that has turned into this international phenomenon and because there are so many badly-written articles out there that have missed the importance of this band I just wanted to give my two cents worth. Below is a very long and hastily written post about the social impact of One Direction.

In Defense of the Hipster

To begin, I should say that I'm not a hipster. Or at least I don't think I am. It's true that I have a tumblr, an Instagram, love the Vaccines and I think hand-me-downs are cool. But I'm also a massive fan of cheesy boybands (my proudest twitter accomplishment is that the Backstreet Boys follow me), I see nothing wrong in buying clothes from major shopping outlets and I think Rihanna is everything. So I'm really not a hipster. I mean, I like One Direction in a non-ironic way. But anyway, I tend to champion the underdog, and I really have a problem when a subculture is put down the way hipsterdom is.
 You don't have to go much farther than wikipedia definition of hipster to see that hipsterdom is a very hated subculture. No, I mean its REALLY hated. As in the wrath it stirs up in people would make you think hipsters regularly commit genocide. Even on their own wikipedia page which should seek to explore the subculture and be fairly objective, their are more anti-hipster quotes than those which support them. In preparation for this blog post, I read a ton of anti-hipster material, mainly written by bitter, cynical old male journalists who are actually hipsters themselves but just don't know it and the loathing this subculture attracts is astounding.
First off, there is nothing more annoying than a journalist who clearly disdains the subject he is writing about and therefore resorts to cruelly insulting his topic without attempting to understand the phenomena he is attempting to describe. This is lazy journalism. But let's move onto why I'll defend hipsters.
I have a lot of respect for hipsters because they resist the consumer-driven outlook of the twenty-first century. Instead of buying the pre-packaged cigarettes, they roll their own. Instead of getting a case of Corona they produce home-made beer. Instead of buying from H&M they hunt through countless piles in little-known thrift stores and at Goodwill.
Plus you have to give it to hipsters: they have the best sense of irony around. While some think the word hipster is pejorative, others embrace it to the point that they call themselves the "hippest hipster" and endlessly make fun of themselves. The twitter accounts @HippestHipster and @Hipstermermaid thrive on this.
Another great thing about hipsters is that they at least try to be individual. In a world of mass-produced clothing made in sweatshops in China and pre-packaged mass-appeal pop music, you gotta give them some respect for trying to do life a little differently from the masses. I know the hipster culture has become so popular that people now say that the individuality aspect of the hipster is now void but as far as I know Nicki Minaj has sold a lot more records than Mumford and Sons so I think hipster subculture is still a much smaller subculture than people actually think. The problem seems to be that we all think that everyone who buys from Urban Outfitters or American Apparel where they mass produce hipster clothing are indeed hipsters. Nope. Wrong. True hipsters are not gonna pay exorbitant prices on pre-washed jeans when they could get them for $5 with the perfect natural fade of having been worn previously.
I have a feeling the real reason so many ppl hate hipsters is because there is a sense that they are not playing by the rules of the capitalist society that rule us in the West. I don't want to go all conspiracy-theorist on you, but for the powers that be, people who are not the mindless consumer-driven sheep must be the WORST nightmare for those who rule us (Maybe Step 1 is hipster. Step 2 is leftist. Step 3 is full-blown anarchist) I mean, sheep are not supposed to think for themselves; they are supposed to follow the shepherd without complaint. Perhaps the reason hipsters are ridiculed the way they are is because the people in control realized the danger of a sheep getting away from the pack and before it gets too far wants to hook it back using insults and condescension.

There is however one problem I have with hipsterdom: re-gentrification. Re-gentrification may be described as the process where a low class (usually urban) area is taken over by a higher class of people. So take Harlem for example. If you know anything about the Harlem Renaissance which took place in the early twentieth century you will know it was a predominantly poor, black area. And it remained so for much of the rest of that century (can I just interject here and point out how cool it is that we can finally talk about the 20C in a cold dispassionate tone as if we haven't lived through it. 21C ROCKS). But coming on to the end of the twentieth century lots of upwardly mobile middle class people started moving into Harlem again. This on paper should be great. More wealth in the community could only be good. But what it also does is make property prices a lot higher than they used to be so that it might be difficult for poor people who have grown up in that area to buy/rent somewhere to live in that area. Basically, a lot of poor people are starting to feel the squeeze because of hipsters moving into what they consider their territory.
There is one really, really good spoken word performance that speaks of this regentrification and also of the appropriation of other cultural symbols/clothing/jewellery that some hipsters unwittingly think they can get away with (these include appropriation of Dreamcatchers, Native head pieces, Adinkra tattoos, bindi decoration are a few I can think of.)

On the basis of re-gentrification and appropriation of cultures you don't understand and have no right to, yes, hipsters can be problematic. But please don't tell me that there is something wrong with hipsters because they don't like mainstream shit. That's just lazy. And lbr, most of the mainstream shit like a lot of pop music (looking at you Ke$ha) and movies (Twilight, anyone?) are quite frankly really terrible. I salute hipsters for not buying into the capitalist regime, for thinking for themselves and being all DIY-ish, even if its just with homemade beer and rolled cigarettes, or whether its going underground to search for what they consider to be good music themselves, instead of just downloading whatever they hear on the radio. Instead of all the "Death to Hipsters" articles, what we need is MORE hipsters to topple the consumer-driven regime, they just need to be more culturally respectful.

Anyway, that's my rant, on the worth of hipsters and shitty journalism in general. I just needed to get that off my chest.

5 Favourite Albums

Hello all. I know I've been gone for a minute, more like a year. That was because I was focussing on my tumblr but my sister pointed out tonight that I was using my tumblr as a method of avoiding blogging and I realized she was right so I'm back. But going forward there are going to be some changes. Whereas I mainly focussed on fashion and lifestyle, my life has changed considerably so that blogging about those things isn't going to cut it. Plus it was limiting myself to those two concerns which led to me becoming disenchanted in the first place. Basically, I'm too random to be limited to anything so going forward I'm opening up the subject matter to anything and everything. Thats right. So if I feel like talking about movies or music or pop culture or feminism or university or sports or whatever, I won't hold back.

Anyway, to kick off this new blog of randomness, here is a list of my favourite albums of all time.

I think you will notice my randomness extends to my taste in music. I like everything from rock to reggae to pop to folk music.


5. Distant Relatives  - Nas and Damian Marley

4. Appetite for Destruction - Guns N' Roses

3. Exodus - Bob Marley

2. Absolute Greatest - Queen

1. Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman (self-entitled)

A New Phase

I'm going to cut off almost all my shoulder length black hair for a short pixie cut a la Halle Berry and Natalie Portman tomorrow.

My appointment is set for 10 am tomorrow. And nothing will stop me, despite my brother and grandmother's attempts to keep me from cutting it because I have "good hair." As though my hair will be any less good when its short. And they should be glad that I'm not going any shorter because I was considering pulling an Amber Rose,

but the barber convinced me not to. But I'm absolutely going to go that low eventually. I think every woman should shave her head at least once in her life. Not because she is having a Britney moment -- you don't have to be going through a breakdown to shave your head -- but to grow stronger. More women need to realize that like India Arie sang we are "not our hair". And we can be just as strong, powerful, or even more so, without it.But thats just my humble opinion.
But anyway, I'll leave you with this great video from India Arie and Pink:

 

Wish me luck! 

And sorry that I've missing in action for the past... what, five months? Been very busy. And now my final year on uni has started its going to be even crazier. Actually, I'm supposed to be preparing two presentations now but I wanted to tell y'all about my hair before I did it.

This is the beginning of a new phase of my life, and I'm cutting my hair off to represent the greater strength and increased independence I have in my life. Plus I can't be working on my thesis and be blowing my straggly hair out of my eyes every two minutes. Truth be told, this is the main reason I'm hacking it off. My annoying unruly hair is the bane of my existence right now. It needs to go. I'm sure I'll feel much lighter and fresher and newer after!

LDN Style

I went to London a couple of years ago and one of the first things I noticed on the high streets was the style. It was amazing. Its truly just like what you see  in the video below. No one seems to give a shit in London about how they dress. And the freedom of expression that that allows is fantastic. It was particularly fascinating to me, as I was (and am) a young island girl from the Caribbean, and people around here definitely don't dress like they do in London. Anyway, without further ado, behold the video that does a better job of summing up the rebelliousness of style that exists in London better than I ever could.