The blessings have not end yet

I remember her last words while she was sitting with her weak shaky body "Mama ngantuk, mama tidur dulu ya" -"I'm sleepy, I'm just going to take a nap ok"

And then she peacefully slept until her last heart beat, 3.10AM last Sunday.

To be honest, I still cannot believe that she's gone. I still feel her around somewhere, somehow. Even though I witness they closed the coffin and brought her into the crematorium, I still hope this is just a bad dream and my phone vibrate an income call from her, waking me up to notify me that she's nearby to pick me up to accompany her to the hospital for her treatment.

Then, I remember a saying " when you love someone, you will impart bits of their spirit"

She has awaken to us who close to her. 

So dear God, I'm very grateful for You have brought her into this world. She is one of the greatest gift to us all, family and friends, who got to feel and witness her overflowing love, not only to us, but also to strangers when we went out together with her. 

I wish to let her know my words of gratitude

"Ma, even though I'm not your biological daughter, you took a great care of me and I didnt feel lonely growing up without my real one, all because of you.

We are surely will miss your presence, in the kitchen where you're passionately made us lovely home foods, in the car discussing the weather, in your couch, playing games with your Nintendo, in the bedroom watching drama. Your interesting daily life, your jokes, your guidance, your everything.

You're not only the super mom who bind your core family together, but also your siblings and their families. It just me and already feel a great loss, I can't imagine on how Papa, big brothers and sister feel. 

I'm sorry if I'm egoistically hope for your eyes to be opened again so I can please you, even though all this time you just wish to pour your love.

It will be hard for us now that you are not around anymore. But we will remember on how a great example you are for not giving up even in your last moments. You set your hopes high so you always look forward for tomorrow, with strong face and will, despite in the lowest chance of positives tomorrows offer.

If you're around you must be making jokes on how crybaby I am now. You know it so well on how I'm awfully difficult to stop crying. I hope you won't mind for now since this is the least I can do to show you how much you mean to me, but I promise not to cry too much in near future for you. You're no longer suffering cancer, will not be injected with needles, will not experience winter you hate anymore.

I love you ma, I hope in the future to see you again in heaven, seeing your proud face on how I've lived well as brave, cheerful, courageous and loving as you were."

Story of one great woman

In your lifetime, you will encounter some life-inspiring story. Heroes of your life, let it be parents, partner, or even yourself.

When one is talking about super woman in their life, most of us will tell the world their lovely mom. So here I am, writing about my methaporically mother, my aunty who raised me since I'm just 5

It started when I'm just moved to Jakarta, suggested by her for me to have better environment and education. I dont remember clearly but I start called her mama. I'm proud to tell others I have two awesome moms.

She looks so proud telling her friends on how I diligently reading the billboards ads when I went out with her. She also helped me prepare to the upcoming test, made and brought me yummy, dresses and toys. Even at one point my cousin were jealous.

Graduation after graduation, I will never forget her proud teary face. Even until now I am writing this in Melbourne, the place I love, with TR that I obtained easily, I give her big credits for that.

In the past years, she has been stand strong and still lovingly serve her family including me. Even in her medications and treatments, she's still able to make such beautiful home dishes. All of us having them feels back home in Indonesia.

At the moment, doctor has numbered her days and seriously it is not very long. Not even long. But hey, it is never long enough to have people you love isn't it?

"I love you, mama, still praying for you. Regardless what the doctor said, regardless the pain you feels"

Ps. I hope my mom dont get jealous if you happen to read this 

Hair color 101

2014 resolution: update the blog more regularly! So here it is my first post in 2014, I would like to discuss about lighten your hair color. But! Before doing so, there a few things you should consider, especially if you're coloring your hair for the first time.

Commitment

Temporary / Permanent?

Temporary color is less harmful for the hair too since it coats the strands and will wash out over time(from five to seven weeks). It is best for people who is afraid with the commitment and looking for subtle change from light to dark color. So yeah, not recommended for lightening your hair, it wont work.

So if you love the color will be permanent until your root grows(around four to six weeks), choose the permanent one! Permanent coloring usually contain amonia that open up the strands then deposit the color in, some of them also contain bleach(peroxide) that take off natural hair color. Since it's more damaging to the hair (scalps too!), it require more love to maintain the healthiness and the color brightness.

Choosing the color that suit you best

Quick selection guide

Whether the reason is to compliment your skin tone, subtle natural change or for extreme makeover, you should read this and this. Another thing they didn't mention but I find quite important; you should adjust the change with your make-up regime. The more natural color you choose, the less makeup you can put, or else you will look pale and not so presentable-looking. Also, opt to change the color gradually if you want it to extreme; from black, to brunette, then blond, or else it will very very damaging to your hair.

(side note; I'm super sad that the fact ash tone color that I love most make me pale)

Check for allergies and rash

I cannot emphasize enough why you should not skip this. First things first, health over beauty! Not that I've experienced it myself but my friend got a really bad rash that made her whole face swollen and she need to be admitted to hospital. And you know what, she did the coloring in a top notch salon! So yeah, make sure you test with the product you're going to use, wait for 48 hours and if everything is okay, then you're good to go! Since every products has different formula, its better to always do the test when you change the brands/series. Click here on how to test.

(side note: I actually want to show on how the rashes look like but it's quite scary, so if you're that curious please take it on your own risk with search words: "hair dye allergy")

Commit the coloring!

Depending on your budget and preferred convenient, you can choose to color it yourself at home or with professional at salon.

Choosing home-dyed products is costing you less fortune and less time to develop the color but if you pick the wrong products, the color won't show up, can be stressful to apply, and most likely will turn up uneven. Home boxed products also only limit you to certain shades. I'm personally would love to have ash brown but it's not possible to do it without the professional *sigh*

Salon? You get to sit down and relax, choose whatever color you like and consultation with the professional. However, some color need a pre-bleached hair thus you can end up hours in salon and it's rather expensive.

Tips; Dont wash your hair 24 hours before coloring. The natural oils can act as a barrier that protect your scalp from the harsh chemical you're putting.

Post-Color thought

Maintaining the color

Even with the permanent one, the color you got once its done colored will fade over time, unlike the temporary one, the permanent color will turn brassy and not nice if you dont attend it right. So, you might want to change your hair treatment at home too; from color-specific products (shampoo matter most in this topic!), conditioner, and additional serum or mask. The first 2 weeks after coloring is the most crucial time to determine if the color will last long depending how you treat them. Even if the color last with just any shampoo or conditioner, you still want to get a healthy looking dyed hair right? Damaged hair will get you into trouble in future when you want to recolor it, the color wont sip in and just worsen the hair condition. Another thing to think about commitment and budget for future treatment (beside just coloring your hair).

( FYI; I use Redken All Soft if you're that curious, since I love it so much since late 2011 up until now, I think it deserve a review post ;D )  

Matching the eyebrow

Especially if you went for extreme change, you should adjust the color of your eyebrow to the new hair color too. The rule of thumbs is 2 shades lighter for dark tone and 2 shades darker for light color. If you want to lighten the hair just a bit (your new hair color still in dark tone but your eyebrow just too black), I'd recommend to use lighter color eyebrow mascara on topped eyebrow pencil/shadow rather bleaching your eyebrow. I'd say that eyebrow bleaching will helps if you have blond hair. I personally tried to put less chemical to eyebrow, since once you get older you will have less and for the fact if you over-plucked them, some aren't going back to regrow.

It does turn brassy, what do i do?

Another option beside re-color the hair is, to find a color-enhancing shampoo and conditioner that has blue or purple color. The lighter hair you have, the more brassy-prone it will, so if your hair is still quite dark, don't worry about purchasing the products.

Regretting the color and would like to turn back

I have to emphasize it that you should wait at least 3 days(a week will be better) to recolor to minimize the damage. If budget isn't your problem, please do seek the professional. 

Much love,

Mel 

Circle Lens

Just recently I had an urge to try circle lens. I just wonder on how it looks like on me so I asked my cousin who bought a lot circles lenses where she usually get them. She recommends me to have a look at coseye since the lenses are affordables and it's free shipping worldwide including the tracking !

At the first time I looked at the website it doesn't really looks convincing but since my cousin and her friends bougt a lot from that website, I'd just give it a try and since the price really affordable there's just a little to lose if something happen.

I'm an asian with a really dark iris and always love those hazel iris. So, the first lense I bought from coseye is this! Then a week later it arrive at my place, I was so excited to try it out! But if you're reading this and you're a first timer as well, I would suggest you to do your research before actually buy AND try the circle lens itself. So as far my research goes, I found another website from xiaxue's blog that sponsor her and they give details on lens care. You should read this ! Another thing they don't mentioned is about when the lense turn inside-out, you will be able to tell once you put in in your eyes, it will feels very uncomfortable and the lense just feels like moving and if you're wearing a coloured one you  should be able to see your vision is distracted by the colour a bit so I suggest you to take it out and reverse it back before you head out. Also, always bring an eyedrop to wet your eyes, just in case.

before and after

As you can see from the above one I really mean it when I tell you I had a very dark iris and the lower one is the best picture of my eyes with it without looking creepy or weird. I just think this one doesn't suit me, especially with my dark irish and the lense being coloured light, you should be able to see the lense is bigger than my normal iris and it doesn't cover my white area well so it really looks weird and unnatural. Super wrong choice, I'm not sure if I'm going to wear it anymore.

Then again I was looking at my home country famous fashion blogger, the yamada sisters ! Beside blogging about their outlook, they also have an online shop that sells outfit and circle lenses (if you live in Indonesia you might want to buy the lense from them, I consider the price is reasonable for circle lense). In some posts, they mention about the lenses they're wearing, so I thought they always wear circle lense in their pictures because their eyes shape always looks consistent. In this post, Jess made a tutorial about her usual make-up routines for photoshoot and then I thought, "Hey, the circle lenses doen't turn out weird and looks very natural from afar!"

So I go to coseye again and have a look on the most similar colour lense they have. Although I dislike the website for looking dodgy, I love on how they listed the lenses based on the diameters. My hazel lense is 14.5mm in diameters and I thought it just the perfect size for my eyes, I'm sure I'd look scary if I wear a bigger lense. Then to looks natural from afar with circle lense, I search for lenses with a very dark outer ring. So I was looking at this, this and this. I love all of them but being broke and looked at the rating, I order the first one. Then a week later, here it is!

Packaging and the bonus case !

The cap tells the lense power, and mine is 0 !

Dreamy.i in Hazel - love it how the sunlight went through the lense

Don't forget to wash the case and put solution before put the lense in

So yeah, this is not exact the same lense that Jess wear but quite similar, right? I tried it last weekend and just notice I haven't got myself a decent picture wearing this lense but so far I love it and my friends told me it looks better compared my previous lense. So I'll just post the most uploadable one just in case you guys curious, but I'll post clearer picture sometime later. Promise! 'Cause I really like it ;)

It doesn't look that weid right?

Much love,

Mellemelch✨