Re: Power-In-A-Tube

Yay, we have discourse!

LOVE.

I must emphasize just how much I love to hear from you - I love to hear from you a lot! You totally rock my world. I would equate the joy of getting comments/e-mails from you with the kind I feel when I go shopping and find the cutest, most well-made item ever, marked way down, with the very last article in great condition and in my size. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

So after reading this post, the sweetness known as my friend, Ramir (who I miss ridiculously), wrote:

"...I was in Sephora two months ago and I saw this thing called Lip Venom...it makes your lips gi-normous to right amount of volume and pout. So, what are your thoughts about that Soap Heiress?"

Okay, I'm going to address this to everybody because it's an interesting one.

Is it better than lip injections? Well, it certainly is less invasive and way cheaper. I can't attest to its effectiveness though, because I avoid all plumping products like the plague, since my lips are already huge enough to take over the world.

Let me give you a little bit of background. DuWop's Lip Venom was developed by two makeup artists working on a TV show, who wanted to re-create that red plumpness of the actors' lips after they do makeout scenes. So they set to work to develop a product with that goal in mind, and came up with Lip Venom. The ingredients that purportedly create that effect are cinnamon, ginger and wintergreen essential oils.

As the heiress of an all-natural soap company, I must tell you that you have to be very careful about putting essential oils on your bare skin, especially if it's a high concentration. Most essential oils are very irritating - only a few, like lavender and tea tree, are safe to use on bare skin.

But of course, it's the irritation that makes your lips look bee-stung. You have to decide for yourself if it's worth it. I've read online that some people experience a lot of pain using this product - I'd stay away from it if you've got sensitive lips, chapped lips or broken skin. However, there are also many women who swear by it and love the results.

From watching a ton of trashy reality makeover shows, the knowledge I've gleaned is this: you can't drastically change what you were born with, even with the most drastic procedures. I often think that makeup, hair and wardrobe work make a bigger difference than surgeries (e.g. a person with a huge schnoz usually still has a huge schnoz post-surgery) - and the confidence boost in thinking you look better makes the biggest difference. So I believe that, with regards to lip plumpers, if it makes a difference to you and makes you feel better about yourself (and you don't have sensitive lips/broken skin!), I say go for it.

Watch out about kissing someone with sensitive lips, though!

And my friend Sabrina, with whom I survived the sorority experience and the misadventures of living in a sorority house, showed me this "sorority-inspired lipstick personality test" which was featured on Jezebel.

Well, let me announce here and now that they did not come up with this. I've seen it before, in some women's magazine or other. Because Greeks (by that I mean collegians in sororities or fraternities) absolutely LOVE to copy things. Our song book had re-written versions of everything, from Grease tunes to Disney classics to pop songs, all edited to mention and praise the members of our organization - and of course, we were the only ones.

That said, I think it's a fun concept. For me, it's pretty inaccurate though - I think it's just distasteful to use your lipstick to the point of grossness by completely mangling the natural shape. Do most women mess up their lipsticks? You get better results by using them they way they were meant to be used, I can assure you.

And really, how can you clump all women in seven or eight categories? But it's the same idea with magazine personality tests and with astrology, I suppose. My high school science teacher used to tell us, "Always remember that you're unique - just like everybody else!"

Philanthropy & Colin Asuncion Art 2008

Pardon me for sounding like the worst person ever, but - did you also suffer from charity overload when you were in school? You know, where there are a million different groups out there trying to raise money, crashing your classes and stopping you on campus day in and day out to bug you for cash and inundating your life with ads?

For me, it began in high school. But at least people were earnestly raising money for the sake of their causes and doing charity work really for the charity (except those two or three jerks who were only actually just trying to pad their résumés - but they were never the ones to work hardest, anyway).

In university, I got pretty disillusioned about philanthropy because I felt that people were always using charity as an excuse to do stupid things and/or to make a fool of other people. But maybe that was just unique to my circles. For example, the organization I was in held a frat boy beauty pageant every year. It might sound like fun, but really, we were essentially humiliating people in the name of charity. Some guys liked the attention, sure, but most were forced to participate by their fraternities to make a showing, because they were "pledge bitches." The mentality was, if you have a philanthropy quota to fill every year, might as well make it fun, right? Raising lots of money for charity also gives an organization bragging rights.

I won't even begin to tell you what the fraternities did "in the name of charity." Their events weren't ALWAYS negative or demeaning to women or humiliating or completely assinine, but the vast majority that took place when I was at school were. My point is that a lot of the time, students lose sight of why they are doing charity work and instead use philanthropy as an excuse to do stupid things/have fun at the expense of others, or to party, or to beef up their résumés, or to somehow benefit themselves. And that just crushes the spirit of doing charity work for the benefit of other people out of the goodness of your own heart.

And then there are people like my friend Colin. He holds an art show every year to sell his paintings and display his other artistic work, and he donates the money to a different cause every year. This year the proceeds from admissions will go to the Centre of Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, which provides care and helps the 1 in 4 affected Canadians. Sure, Colin enjoys painting and creating, but he donates his time, energy and his work for causes he believes in because he wants to make a difference, and I really admire that. I also love to see how he develops as an artist.

He held a joint show earlier this summer, which was fantastic, and his solo show is taking place tomorrow! If you will be around downtown Toronto tomorrow and have some free time between 3:00-6:00pm, go check out his show, located in St. Michael's Choir School auditorium at 66 Bond St. Enjoy the art, the fantastic food and most of all, help make a difference.

All-You-Can-Eat Japanese - Yang's Kitchen

I am helplessly addicted to all-you-can-eat (AYCE) Japanese cuisine.

It's a lovely phenomenon that has cropped up in Canada (and probably in other "New Worlds" where Chinese people have settled) in the past couple years. The beauty of AYCE Japanese is that it can perfectly satisfy all your cravings for any kind of Japanese food you may want to eat, at an affordable, set price (usually about $20CAD here in uptown Toronto).

But wait! Aren't I normally a huge stickler for authenticity, especially when it comes to food, and isn't AYCE Japanese obviously not authentic? Yes and yes, but since most (if not all) of these joints owned and operated by Chinese people and I am Chinese, I find that the menu items are very suited to my palate.

AYCEJ restaurants offer menus with hundreds of choices, and what I love about it is that you can order exactly how much of everything you want to eat (except maki rolls, which you have to order a whole roll at a time for each type). For example, if you were in the mood for three shrimp tempuras, four slices of salmon sashimi and two tuna handrolls, you can order exactly that. So that's just the amount of anything you want for $20, when previously at regular Japanese restaurants, you'd probably have to choose to order ONLY tempura or ONLY teriyaki or ONLY sashimi/sushi, etc. because it would be really costly to order everything.

The first AYCE Japanese restaurant I can remember going to in Toronto is Ten-Ichi, which used to focus on teppanyaki and was strictly à la carte. Soon after, as the popularity of this genre grew, these such restaurants started cropping up everywhere in Toronto like weed.

My AYCE Japanese joint of choice is Yang's Kitchen, this tucked-away hole in the wall at Hwy 7 and Kennedy, in a little plaza where there's also an RBC. I've tried a good seven or eight different AYCE Japanese places, and I keep coming back to this one for the following reason:

1.) Turnover is very quick, which means the food is really fresh and arrives promptly.
2.) The rolls are phenomenal - they don't scrimp on ingredients, but they also won't pack them down with a ton of rice to fill you up.
3.) There are a ton of choices and they vamp up their menu with new selections every so often.
4.) Even on really busy nights, the empty plates are cleared away really quickly.
5.) The food is just really good.
6.) You can almost always find a 10% off coupon in the Chinese newspapers.

I've read online that quite a few people aren't happy with the service, with one guy even going as far as calling the police - isn't that a little excessive for someone who's quibbling over a $3 mandatory gratuity fee that exists at every buffet? I've never had any problems there with the service besides the fact that they don't really have a system for taking down names when there are people waiting. But turnover there is so quick that it's almost a non-issue - and besides, I always go on weeknights because it's cheaper.

And the thing is - it's a cultural issue. Forgive me for making generalizations, but trust me when I say that I have it on very good authority to tell you that if you go to any casual Chinese-owned restaurant, you really can't expect too much from the service. We're all about efficiency. That's why the food arrives so promptly and why the turnover is so quick, which in turn ensures that the food is fresh and that they earn more money, of course. Being as efficient as possible and earning as much as you can is the name of the game. Time is money. That's also why they have a 1.5hr dining time limit but trust me, it's way more than enough.

So if you are looking to have really fresh, tasty AYCE Japanese for a decent price, I highly recommend Yang's Kitchen.

My picks:
*black dragon roll (BBQ eel and avocado slices over California roll)
*cubed steak (cooked with butter, garlic and black pepper - so good!)
*white tuna sashimi
*spicy crispy salmon or tuna rolls
*tempura shrimp
*any of the new items that are only available for dinner, like baked scallop, BBQ eel pizza and so on

Backwards Self-Discovery/Reflections

Tell me: everyone has a black hole in their room, right? Right?

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just kidding myself to assuage my guilt for my messiness. The black hole in my room is located in my closet - my clothes are kept on surfaces in my room, like my desk, my chair, my computer desk, the floor... Since grade 11 in high school (that would be junior year to you American It Girls), I'd clean out my locker and just shove all my stuff into my closet. In university (college, to you AIG's) it got even worse because I'd bring home even more junk.

In light of Retro Fashion Girl's impending arrival, I dove head-first into the abyss of the deepest bowels of my closet and finally cleaned it all up - and the experience was actually a lot more pleasant that I'd anticipated. In a way, I was almost sort of glad I left it all to do at a time, left a few years' worth of stuff to go through.

Going through my high school stuff was really poignant. I didn't so much pay attention to my work as I did to the evidence of how I enjoyed my high school experience, and through all this stuff, it reminded me of what sort of person I was.

I could clearly see that I was wildly creative and that I loved colour - my agenda and my binders were so spectacularly decorated! My agenda actually started a sensation, so I'm keeping it. I covered the front in dense, pink-sparkled nail polish and set it off with a gold, stenciled butterfly. It was totally worth the awful stink in my room that lasted a couple days. And if my sketches were any indication, I already had a wicked sense of style back then.

I plastered my locker with the characters of my favourite love stories, as well as my celebrity crushes. I found Lois & Clark fanfiction tucked into my notes, printed out on re-used sheets in the tiniest font and in the most crowded page setting possible to conserve paper. I had crushes on the most undeserving losers, but it was fun and totally overwhelming at the time. I could see that I had a ton of friends because I had a million candy grams, which I couldn't bear to part with then - I re-read them before I threw them out this time, of course.

I was superinvolved in extracurrics - somehow it was possible in high school (I find I can only concentrate on one or two in university). I had the lead in one school play and helped write another, both of which were really well-received. I thrived on being superbusy. And I effortlessly got really high marks - that I really miss.

I basically (re-?)discovered that I was a very vibrant, vivacious girl back in then, and I really like the high school version of myself. And the best part is, I realized that I'm still pretty much the same person. How awesome is that?

The whole experience showed me that it's so easy to forget how you were before because we get caught up in the present, and I think it's incredibly important to reflect on the past. It's both a great way to appreciate yourself and your previous accomplishments, as well as an opportunity to learn from your experiences and evolve as a person. Life passes by so quickly; it's such a rich treat for the mind to take a ride back to "before"!

Power-In-A-Tube, A (Brief) History

My lips will take over the world.

I surmised as much when I gazed upon my portrait three years ago in Montmartre, perhaps the third or fourth portrait I've ever gotten done. Somehow my lips are always one of the very first things people notice about me, which is evident by the fact that in each one of the three or so portraits mentioned above, there is always a pair of sausagey things on the area where my mouth should be.

And as I've said that I believe the right shades of pink can make a woman really powerful, I think the same is true of red - especially with respect to lipstick.

From junior high to maybe the middle of high school, my signature was supershiny, ridiculously glossed lips (sometimes with fine glitter in it) - kind of like Britney's in the first few frames of her Oops!...I Did It Again video (back when she was mostly sane - those were the days!). Then towards the end of high school, I graduated to matte, deep reds. Propriety for a teenager aside, it was my look and I rocked it.

Nowadays, I understand that the vampy pout is a little too intense and excessive for day/daily wear, not to mention the fact that lips piled a mile high with product don't look yummy to kiss. Besides that, it can totally send off the wrong message since, from a biological standpoint, the point of red lipstick is to imitate the deep flush we get when we're in the throes of passion. But every so often, when I'm heading out for a good time or at some chichi event with my girls, when I rock my bright red lips, people know I mean business.

Did you know that the first known lipstick was found in a tomb in Ur (now Iran) and estimated to be about 5000 years old? Ancient Egyptian Fashion Girls were buried with enough of the stuff to last through the afterlife. Cleo herself used to don this special paste made with henna and crushed carmine beetles. I wonder if they've run out yet in Ancient Egyptian Fashion Girl Heaven...

Lipstick became a fashion staple for both men and women in the 1600s but towards the end of the 1700s, the British parliament passed a law banning women from "tricking men into marrying them" through the excessive use of makeup. Hah! Then in the early 1900s women unknowingly slathered all kinds of toxic ingredients like lead, mercury and arsenic on their puckers to achieve that coveted Perfect Pout Power.

But luckily, these days we've moved on to using simply (and relatively not harmful) oil, wax and dye. A good thing too, because a study shows that on average, a woman consumes (as in eats) 4-9 pounds of lipstick in her lifetime. Kinda gross if you ask me, but c'est la vie. There's no way I'd give up my lipstick. And thanks to Guerlain, who made the first lipstick in tube form, we now have the kind of lipstick we know and love.

My Power-In-A-Tube of choice? Deep scarlet, of course, and more precisely, MAC's Russian Red. It's just the right shade of red that is on the dark side, but still really bright. Best of all, it's not too orange and not too blue, which means I don't have to worry about looking like a Massage Parlour Special!

Newest Addition to My Tech Harem

In a perfect world, I'd have several harems. That's right, not one, but at least a few. One for men (hee!), one for clothes, one for shoes, one for bags, one for jewellery, one for cars, one for books (I believe they call those libraries) and one for techie toys.

I've very recently added to my tech harem - it's a compact, little Dell XPS M1330 laptop! (But mine is black.) 13.3" screen, 3G memory, 250G hard drive, 9-cell battery - pure hotness, and quite an upgrade from my current Inspiron6000 (15.4", 512MB memory, 70G hard drive, 7 freaking pounds - that's more than I weighed when I was born!). I can't even tell you how excited I am to get it on Tuesday. EEE!!!

As such, I must honour the occasion by naming my new laptop. I have a thing for names; I name everything, you see. My little green car is Grasshopper (although admittedly, my aunts who owned the car before me came up with that one), my iPod is Raoul, my teddy bear is Jean Claude...

I've decided to name my laptop Cerveau, which is French for "brain", in honour of me going on exchange this fall and in honour of my heritage, because the Chinese term for "computer", translated directly, is "electronic brain."

I'm really pumped because it's got some pretty good reviews, which in turn means it's got my brother's approval. Don't tell him I said this, but I listen to him about almost everything. The only two times I ever went against his advice (joining my sorority and calling a boy who was supposed to call me) I was SO sorry. Like, intensely sorry. So I generally try not to deviate from his suggestions too much if at all anymore.

Now that I have a respectable, little tech harem going on, I think I should get to work on my man harem, don't you? ;P

P.S. It's a civic holiday here in Canada, which means we have Monday off. Happy Long Weekend!