The right to be shocked

I thought I wouldn't say a word about what happened in Paris on Friday.
Honestly, I didn't think there was much to say. Just silence and respect.
And I couldn't talk about it. I didn't have an opinion about it. I was just feeling sad, and sick.
I spent my Sunday trying to process it all on my couch, with my cat on my lap and a heavy feeling of inertia.
Shell shocked, I thought that there was nothing meaningful enough that could be said in a moment like this.

But then I made the big mistake of opening Facebook.
And there they were, the Social Media Columnists.
Everyone and their mother has their opinion, their lesson, their sentence.

The right wing-minded people who shout slogans of death against all Muslims and refugees, in their ungrammatical and almost primitive language, and want all EU borders to be closed.
The wannabe-priests who mistook Facebook for a church where to give their sermon of good Christians.
The left wing, pseudo-intellectuals with their very predictable lessons on who you should be sorry for: "Thousands of people are dying in wars every day in the world, but you feel sorry for just 129 who died in Paris because it's part of the Western culture". Or that are publishing very well-argumented dissertations on how this is a lesson we deserved, how it's normal that it happened because of the wrong political choices of France.

Of all these, the latter kind of Social Media Columnists are the ones that are making me angry the most.
Maybe because it's the "group" that often shares my thoughts and ideology, the one that I usually relate the most to.
It makes me feel sick now.

And angry, especially because I wanted silence and now I am among the ones who are talking. It pisses me off how much I'm letting them get to me.

But I just need to let it out now, and I want to do it on my blog because I just need to let my anger out in my own personal place.
I know that if someone will read this they might not like it. I don't care.

To this kind of Social Media Columnists I just want to say one thing: just SHUT UP.

Why does everything always has to become a political debate? Why does such an atrocity has to become a tool to show to the world your Facebook wall how much of a critical thinker you are, how cool you are by getting your news only from independent sources, how not selfish and friend-of-the-World of you is to think of all victims of the wars that are happening globally instead of the "few" people who lost their lives on Friday in Paris?
Why does, in your point of view, feeling bad for Paris exclude feeling bad for everyone else?

We have the right to feel sad and we have the right to mourn who we want.
We have the right to be shocked.

My lashes are bigger than yours

Every make-up addict has her own quasi-OCD beauty obsessions.
I know girls who have drawers full of lipstick and lipglosses and still have to find the "perfect shade", others who do their nails perfectly every two days and own a closet full of nail polishes, others have every possible formulation of foundation from every brand (think of: "I've got the one for when it's hot outside, the one for dry and cold weather, I have the high-coverage for evenings and the water-based formula for the days in which I like my skin... Oh and the compact ones... actually I only got the Shiseido and the Lancôme but I totally have to try the new Chanel!").

For me it's mascara (oh and blush. That's another huge one, I'll talk about it soon).
My lashes are pretty short and straight and kinda blonde-ish (well more like light brown-ish, but still), so finding a mascara able to duplicate quadruplicate their volume and length as much as possible has always been a huge quest.
Mascara was the first make-up I bought when I was 13, and I still remember sneaking in my aunt's bathroom and trying on her Helena Rubinstein mascara, a real treasure unreachable with my pocket money at the time.

I had already two big favourites, the Zoom lash from MAC and the Diorshow from Dior, when I discovered an amazing one: the Lash Sensational from Maybelline.

This mascara ticks all the boxes: it curves up the lashes and it makes them extra long and thick. The first time I put it on, a WOW! came out loud from my mouth (and I was on the train, I'm the best at making a fool of myself in public places).
And the most amazing thing is that it stays put ALL DAY. Once I went to bed with it because I forgot to remove it (ooops) and the day after it was still there! Without smudging! And the best part: it doesn't cost more than 13 euros (depends where you buy it, I think it's between 10 and 13 euros).

I was so excited that I ended up not only drawing the tube itself (still need some training with product drawing I'm afraid...) but also making the illustration above, with biiiiig faaaaat black lashes.
(the middle image is just the color testing I do while I draw, but I liked this one so much that I scanned it: it looks like pink rain!).

Do you have any make-up obsessions? And what are your favourite products at the moment?
I never get tired of trying new stuff so if you've found something amazing that you would totally suggest let me know in the comments below ;)

xxx Al

Miss insecurity

Lately I feel so ugly that every time someone is coming in my office to ask me a question I feel the urge to hide under my desk.

My head lives in a constant bad-hair-day, I have horrible circles under my eyes and it looks like every pore on my face has decided to explode in a horrible pimple. And of course I've got nothing to wear.

But my boyfriend still tells me that I'm beautiful, my friends still make compliments on my style and a colleague of mine told me I had a nice make-up a few days ago.

I might not be at my best, but apparently I am not so horrible. So why do I keep seeing a monster in the mirror?

I know why.
It's because I'm affected by the same illness that (almost) every girl I know has: it's called chronic insecurity.

All the cool girls: Léa Seydoux

Léa Seydoux portrait

I've always been crap at making portraits.
Really.

In theory, you could really make a portrait with astonishing similarities in 2 or 3 lines or brush strokes. Ever seen the work of David Downton? He's the master of portraits.
It's all a matter of catching the right particular that makes that face unique.

And nope, I can't.
I start correcting and correcting the sketch so many times in order to make it better and I end up with a face that doesn't even resemble the original anymore.

Which is pretty frustrating when all friends ask you a portrait for their birthday or Christmas and you have to say "I don't think I can, you know, I'm pretty shitty at portraiting people" and they think it's an excuse because you don't want to do it or because they think you think they're ugly (aaaah women and their insecurities) and in the end they just hate you. Pffff.

But there are girls, famous girls I mean, that I really admire and sometimes I find myself fantasizing about how I would draw them. Which colors would I choose? Which pose? And which mood would I try to convey?