I did say I would be posting up free stuff and samples from time to time when they come my way! These aren’t affiliated with any third/fourth/fifth party Brandarama style marketing programs or anything like that, nor will take you to other ads. Those kinds of roundabout things annoy me so much. They always seem too good to be true and you never end up getting what they promised you!

Anyway! So I always go out of my way to find freebies that are from the original manufacturer website instead of from other people’s blogs or “free stuff” pages to make sure these take you straight to the freebie and back. No pop-ups, no poos. Hoho!

Lacoste Essential for men! I just sent off for mine, and after the registration, it asks you to fill in another form for your friend so he or she may receive a sample as well. Funfunfun! There’s a list of countries that can receive this. Forgot which ones besides U.S.A and Canada, so go see for yourself at the official Lacoste website here.

Another perfume sample! Hugo Boss Pure for Men! Same deal as the Lacoste one. Get one for yourself, send the other to a friend. A lot of countries listed. China being one of them. Er… some other ones too… that’s all I can remember, sorry!
Anyway! Click this link to get to the Hugo Boss Fragrances official website! All the other samples are out of stock, only Pure is left so act quick!

I like this one! It’s so cute! The site is called TheSoapLady and it offers handmade soap loaf. Here’s the offer from her site (Canada only):
For free samples of our handmade soap
send a S.A.S.E. (self addressed 1.15$ stamped envelope) to:

This one is especially for Kris W. of Vancouver. Enjoy and I love you well… slightly. Anyone else who feels like spreading the love but not the STDs can click here. This is a Canadian site so I’m not sure if they ship anywhere else. I’m also not sure if they’ll send you exactly what the picture is but you can only try and ask!

American readers, click here! So sue me, it’s really hard getting good free stuff online you know. If you don’t need such things pass them on to your married friends you good moral and pious people you.

Must run! Leave a comment or five
-J

Recently, I’ve been reading a lot about the phenomenon of blogging away excess weight. It seems like the wait at the supermarket is so much more bearable with these interesting articles in female magazines, about strong willed individuals who were once unhappy with their heavier selves, and are now enjoying a much more fulfilled and energetic life..hmm.. all from starting a blog and letting the world know how their progress is. It does sound very weightwatchers-ish, but I suppose that’s the main thing in any venture. Support and Encouragement.

I can’t see why it would hurt to try! Why, even Sakuraku has gone and done it, and although all you can gather is a lot of starvation and cheating and apples and fainting… It’s a start

*Sakuraku! - This is Lynngirl’s personal blog. Go visit!

I was flicking through the Asian Pacific Post yesterday when I found this:

Looks like Asian women (and men!) have started changing their minds about eyelid surgery, as in, instead of getting eyelid surgery to create wider, Westernized eyes, more and more of them are beginning to request double eyelids, while still retaining the oval, oriental shape and look, known as “Asian Blepharoplasty”.

Statistics indicate (I really should quote my references but I’m too lazy! Sorry!) that Western Eye Surgery is still the most popular request in the plastic surgeons offices across Asia, while in North America, it seems that eyelid operations are the third most popular body enhancement choice after breast augmentations and nose jobs, although now, more Asian American women want their double eyelids to still look Asian instead of Western. Hmm. Even though the reason for surgery may have changed for Asian women in the West (to look like the other 50% of Asian women who are born with double eyelids, instead of trying to look Western), the actual number of Asian American women requesting surgery continues to rise rapidly and exponentially year after year. Apparantly, “Beyond the aesthetic benefits of the procedure, women patients who have had double eyelid surgery frequently cite greater ease of applying eyeliner as a major benefit of doing the surgery.” Double hmm.

So it seems that the double eyelid craze has gone down a notch so Asian women are beginning to choose to retain their identity although still opting for surgery. What do you think? Is it aesthetically viable? Too severe? Too permanent? Fantastical? Gorgeousness?

My opinion: both the mono-lid and the crease can look amazing depending on how you work it. Wouldn’t it be great to have temporary ways to create double eyelids so you can mix and match your eyes to your outfits? (More on that coming soon! Watch this space.)

What DO you think? Leave a comment.

I spent a weekend by the beach and am now quite tan. I went out and bought a whitening infusion mask pack. This was the first time I had ever bought or used such a product, or felt the inclination to do so. The fancy-shmancy packaging might have been a contributor, I don’t know.. Heheh.

But still, after using one and wondering if it made any difference*, I was thinking about why I actually tried it out. So, yeah, this post is kinda about the role of skin colour in the concept of beauty.. (the Yahoo Answers link in this post actually has tips for fairer skin, if that’s what you want..)

I looked it up and there are a bunch of questions on this on the Yahoo Answers thing, such as How to get fair skin? Thing is, lots of comments were from people saying “check your attitude, not your mirror”, “love who YOU are”, and similarly themed stuff.

Guess the desire to be fair is regarded by some as a kind of self-esteem problem? But beauty is only skin deep. Who you are has nothing to do with what you look like, right?

Personally, what I look like always surprises me. Sometimes when I look in a mirror in some shopping mall I even fail to recognize myself.

Stereotype me for a bit - Asian female, not very well-educated, desires fairer skin - probably has issues with ethic identity, might even regard the whole fair skin thing as some sort of status marker maybe? That’s racism even within the same racial group!

Nowadays, euphemisms of whitening lotions or luminosity boosters replace the Michael Jackson-esque term bleaching products. But the concept’s the same.

Blatant stereotyping continues:
Backward-thinking Asian girl, somewhat naive maybe, thinks looking fairer makes her look better. Does it really make her look better? And isn’t beauty in the eyes of the beholder?

A typical Asian with a geographically-limited social circle would likely agree that a fairer-skinned girl would be more attractive. And if that’s her world, her social-circle, who’s to argue with that? A paler Caucasian who thinks a “healthy” tan looks great is also molded by her own culture and experiences (doubtless experiences not related to skin cancer, heheh).

There’s no right or wrong, it just goes to show that different people have different perceptions of beauty. Physical traits have always been part of the construction of ideal beauty. Beauty is outward, beauty is shallow. Beauty is vain and beauty is for display.

Who you are on the inside, who you really really are, is a totally different matter.

I guess it doesn’t matter what you look like, or what you choose to look like, as long as you know who you are inside.

Vanity is not to be confused with pride.

So, back to my original musing.. I suppose I bought the whitening product just because I felt like it. Partly to see if it worked, and partly because I might look better fairer, but for the most part just because I wanted to. And I think I look fine with or without fairer skin anyways.

Dressing like a bimbo make you no less smart. It just confuses people more. And isn’t that more fun?

–

* decided it was inconclusive, might be a placebo effect?