My own personal "Mental Illness Awareness Day"

Five years ago, I was struggling with the absolute worst period of my life, of which some of my best friends have been a part of, and because of which a lot of my friends exited my life quietly to never return. 

Dealing with men and women who have mental issues, mood disorders, depression is difficult and exhausting; a lot of sacrifice very often brings very little results over the course of months, and this can be highly discouraging for whoever stands at their side. The road to mental health is long, and it takes time and love.

People who suffer of mental disorders are NOT responsible and in control of their mental disorder; they ARE NOT doing it on purpose to get attention; they CANNOT stop acting like they do: hence, it is totally unfair to ask somebody with depression to use their will power, or somebody suffering of bulimia to stop eating in a non-healthy way: if they could, they would! 

People who suffer of a mental disorder often are mistakenly considered moody, or passing through " a phase"; it is of absolute importance to recognize the signs of a mental issue as soon as possible, so that they can get a correct diagnosis and pharmacological and psychological therapy BEFORE things get out of control. 

Mental issues often DO NOT have anything to do with bad parenting or bad family history: even if you think your educational model is perfect, your child could still be experiencing signs of mental disorder! Don't ignore them because of your pride. It's not your fault. It's really NOBODY'S fault. 

People with mental issues are NO different, in any way, for any reason, from people who experience other health problems: they deserve a cure, attention and understanding just like patients who experience cancer or a heart attack do. 

There is no mental and physical health, no mental and physical illness. 

There is just health, or illness.

My Make-Up Collection ~ ANNA SUI products ( part I)

In the past two years my passion for make-up has almost become an obsession. I have never been very good at drawing, painting, sculpting and, really, at any figurative art, but I seem to be okay at using my face as a way of expressing myself through colors, shades and lights. 

Today I am gonna start by talking of a brand I recently discovered: I am talking about Anna Sui, which fascinated me particularly from the beginning because of its super bohemian-gothic packaging ( yes, I often choose my make-up because of the packaging ...). This are the products I bought during my recent trip to Montreal:

- La Vie de Boheme ( eau de parfume)

- Forbidden Affair ( eau de parfume)

- Anna Sui Loose Face Powder ( n.200)

- Anna Sui Rose Cheek Color ( n. 301)

- Anna Sui Spot Concealer ( n. 02)

- Anna Sui Lip Gloss C ( n. 400)

- Anna Sui Lipstick ( n. 401)

All this products and, as far as I can tell, all of her products, are made in Japan. 

I'll give a quick review of all this products, but you might have already understood I am in love with this brand!!

La Vie de Boheme ( eau de parfume)

La Vie de Boheme  is classified as a fruity-floral perfume that creates a colorful picture that celebrates the bohemian philosophy of living life to its fullest. The hint of dragon fruit lingering in the floral and fruity opening is captivating and sensuous, playful and mysterious. It creates a feeling of never knowing what is going to come next, which is a perfect description of those who enjoy living by the bohemian code. 

I absolutely LOVE this scent and I find the packaging to be adorable:

Forbidden Affair ( eau de parfume)

Forbidden Affair begins with a romantic fairy tale told by fresh lemon and red and black currants, which are slowly developing into the heart of raspberry, rose petals and pomegranate. Tempting and somewhat mysterious aromas make this perfume not as innocent as it may seem. 
Top notes: lemon, black currant, red currant.
Heart: raspberry, rose, pomegranate.
Base: violet, musk, cedar.

The whole design concept is dedicated to a secret rendez vous between a prince and a princess with the taken from traditional fairy tales like Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. It was inspired by Baroque and Rococo gardens, Baroque palaces, boudoirs, royal fashion and the lavish lifestyle. This style brings us back to the mid-18th century, which is quite obviously one of the reasons why I love this perfume and its packaging so much! 

Loose Face Powder

Although I do like this powder, I have to say I won't probably be using it every day. Now, here I am gonna list a series of pros and cons:

PROS:

~ the smell: like any other Anna Sui product, the scent is amazing. This powder smells like a bouquet of violets, which are also my favorite flowers. 

~ the packaging: need to say anything else? It's the perfect mix of gothic and baroque. A little over the top, so not exactly something that you can carry in your purse for touch-ups. 

~ the quality: although it's kinda shimmery it does its job and makes my skin less oily when wearing a liquid foundation. 

CONS:

~ the packaging: I know, eh?, how is this possible...? Unfortunately, I hate to say that in case of loose powder I find that it's important to be able to lock the lid somehow, so that it's possible to carry in a suitcase or in a make-up case without fearing to find powder and sparkles all over the place.

~ the color: no, this powder doesn't match my skin tone, and all the other ones available were either too peachy or too yellow. Overall, this is not a deal breaker for me anyway, because I do sometimes wear a foundation lighter than my natural skin tone.  So really, if you are looking to match your exact skin color, this powder might not be ideal for you. 

Well girls ( and guys), this was all for today, but stay tuned for the second part of this post and for the many more posts to come :-) 

My thoughts about abortion - Introduction

Due to personal reasons and to some of my friends' personal life experiences, I have been finding myself lately more and more engaged in thinking about abortion. A lot of material has been written about this subject, and I have personally studied it in University; I also find a lot of posts and links on Facebook, usually published by anti-Christian or anti-religious groups, and sometimes by representatives of the feminist movement ( I would like to clarify right away how I am NOT against feminist per se: in fact, I share a lot of their believes). 

Abortion has been in use and illegal for many centuries, while in the last decades it has become a common and substantially accepted practice in most countries ( first of all, of course, in first world countries); certainly a change in the religious, sociological and juridical situation has had an enormous influence on the way we had discussed and looked at this practice in the last few years but, while a lot of attention has been given to the juridical aspect of the discussion, not enough has been given to the moral ( and with "moral" I certainly don't mean religious) aspect of abortion. 

This is, obviously, the aspect of the debate that has raised in me the most problematic questions: what I mean is that what I am really interest in is to give an answer to the question: " Are there moral reasons that justify the possibility of abortion, independently from the existence or not of good reasons that make it in certain situations juridically acceptable?"

As much as I can I'll try to provide an overall summary of the late philosophical debate over this matter; I will examine different opinions and then try to get some conclusions out of this whole work.

I have always believed that we can be against or favorable to anything, but we are morally responsible to be able to give an explanation of our thoughts and opinions; I hope this series of posts will not be too boring, and that it will be able to get an interesting debate started. 

Enjoy :-)

A purple girl

I have been wanting to start this blog for a very long time now: as a teenager, I used to have an online journal on which I noted mostly my feelings, my impressions, fears and loves. Today I am 27, and even though I have not yet a totally normal life ( but who does, after all?) my interest in dark and obscure matters is more introspective, and I have developed more profane and common interests. 
Some people ( mostly my guy friends) like to define me as a girly girl: I sure own a large collection of make-up, shoes, purses, clothes of lots of different styles, perfumes and jewelry. I, on the other hand, like to see myself as a "purple girl": not totally pink and girly, and not a total tomboy either. Reality is: I don't think a tag or a definition can apply to me or to anybody else, for that matter. But in this blog I'll try to put together all the different aspects of me: the make-up lover, the dark soul, the wanna-be writer, the greedy reader, the nature enthusiast, the "people-watcher", the traveler and, yes, the fantasy/sci-fi geek. There will be a large amount of pages written about my personal life so, of course, if you don't care, or you are not interested, "turn the page" ( Metallica). 
I'll start off with some more pink posts, to make some pink friends happy and satisfy their curiosity... but more "blue posts" are coming! Stay tuned...