You babybats are so cute....

With your white face powder, hair dyed to hell, thick eye makeup, black lips...

I know, you all want to smack me a good one. I don't blame you. See, at 13, I was exactly the same way. See?



and 2 months before that I looked like this:



Kindergoff extraordinaire, I am. And yes, those are manic panic streaks thanks for asking.

But then my dad got married and his wife basically was like: "you look stupid.." and I found Youtube and Michellephan and last year I bought Gothic Charm School by Jillian Venters and Cherry Bomb (the book) and I realized "OH MY GOD I LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT!"

So I went from this:



To this:



(maybe that's not a perfect example but I don't dress uber gothy anymore, so you'll have to deal.)
Trust me, BabyBats, I know what I'm talking about. And let me just say COME ON YOUNGER ME! STOP SHAVING YOUR EYEBROWS!

So, here's some advice for you lil babybats all obsessed with being the perfect Ville Valo and Amy Lee clones.

1. No one is goth 24/7. No one. Some days even Robert Smith of The Cure prefers to sit around in his pj's and watch Tough Love with no makeup on.

2. do not go to bed with your makeup gone. Seriously. Don't.

3. black lipstick and heavy eyeshadow for school makes you look stupid. You WILL get made fun of, sorry. And black lipstick looks good on nobody. Brandon Lee is the only exception and see how well that turned out.

4. Corsets and fishnet tights/gloves in school are no-no's. Especially middle school. And if you're in high school, wearing them to a job interview is a huge no-no. You can wear gothy clothes to an interview, but they should be corporate and professional. No shirts with naked vampire girls.

5. Stop wearing Bloody Mary powder foundation and hot topic eyeliner. It's 99 cents, and trust me it looks like it. If you're poor, drugstore companies like covergirl offer very pale foundation and dark liners. If you save up, Sephora's Kat Von D collection has pale concealers and a few dark liners. If you are REALLY rich, English company Illamasqua has foundations for paler skin. DO NOT GO WHITE, that's for clowns, but they have pale foundations that look good. And wear some blusher please. Illamasqua has blush for the pale. Drugstores don't. Use pale pink eyeshadow. Anyway, Their company also has a charity for Sophie Lancaster, an English Goth beaten to death for being goth. Their darkest black eyeliner is even named Sophie. So not only are they makeup geniuses, knowing not every woman is naturally tan, but they are pro tolerance, of ALL lifestyles.

6. Please know where 'goth' music comes from. There's a never-ending debate on which bands are goth and which aren't, but we all seem to agree on what started us off. The Cure, Joy Division, Bauhaus, Sisters Of Mercy...those are starting points. You don't have to like them, I certainly don't, but at least know who they are.

7. You can't listen to only My Chemical Romance or Evanescence and call yourself an expert in goth music. You can't. You can call MCR your favorite band, but don't try to sell them as the gothy-est band ever because most of us will disagree violently.

8. Prepare to get taken seriously in all the wrong places. My parents accepted the goth thing a while ago, and set a few ground rules (No Corsets or bustiers, for my dad at his house it's no all black ensemble.) Your parents may not. Expect to hear 'it's just a phase' a few BILLION times. And yes, your classmates will tease you. If I had a dime for every time someone asked if I was reading Twilight or hissed at me or called me a vampire I could afford 2 bottles of Freak by Illamasqua, and 3 full coverage foundations in RF115. Also, no matter how joking you are, don't say 'I will eat your soul' to a classmate. Because they will somehow take THAT seriously, or they will make fun of you endlessly. This has happened to me. My sense of humor is very...dry and somewhat morbid, so when I dead pan 'your soul', when someone asks me what I'd like to eat, it gets taken VERY SERIOUSLY.

9. You do not have to wear all black. For me, it's not possible 24/7. Also, with my black hair, my skin looks even paler. You can find gothy shirts in red, purple, gray, orange....even White. Yes. White. And be prepared to answer some stupid questions. Such as "You're not goth, you're not wearing all black!" or "You're not goth, you don't have on black lipstick/eyeshadow/hair." don't be like me and snidely ask them how many goth people they know besides Marilyn Manson, then get REALLY sarcastic when they answer none. It's not their fault they're...(grits teeth)...misinformed. Blame the Media, who portray us, at best, mopey depressed freaks in a corner cutting ourselves, at worst, satan worshipping sluts who kill cute bunnies. So do not get rude, it doesn't help our image.

10. Find your own style! Yes, Amy Lee looks hot, Emilie Autumn is beautiful, Ville Valo is great, Gerard Way is...well, and Jyrki 69 is so gorgeous he makes me want to go straight, but do not dress exactly like perfect little clones of them. I categorize my style into 5 different sub categories. Horrorgoth, which is my Wednesday 13, Al. B. Damned, Rob Zombie side, Electric Gypsy, which is Motley Crue, Back in Blood/Lost Boys/Devils/Angels era 69 Eyes, LA Guns, motorcycle LA trash, Hollywood Vampire, which is mostly Back in Blood 69 eyes and Sixx A.M. Corsets and velvet blazers with jeans and knee high boots. Girly goth(Perky goth), which happens to shop at Kohls and does my makeup, and Victorian, traditional goth, which is Wasting the Dawn/Gothic Girl/Dance D'Amour 69 eyes, Emilie Autumn, corsets, velvet lace style. See, I work many different styles, and so should you. Don't be a clone.

So, that's it cuties! my advice for you adorable babybats.

Kat Von D Makeup Reviews

Just for fun, I'm going to review the Kat Von D items I own and use.
Most of Miss Kat's items are hit or miss for me...everytime I order I lose a bit of my soul I hate her THAT FRIGGIN MUCH. However, the woman knows makeup. Just look at her. You don't wear that much eyeshadow and not know anything about makeup.

She gets great reviews on her eyeshadows and lipsticks, and for the most part I tend to agree. Again, some can be hit or miss, and I can't be a great source because my lids and face get very oily. This is what science calls a variable.

Just for background, I own all her perfumes and they're all ah-mazing. Except for Poetica, the purple one. That one is very floral so it's only a 'good' in my book. I got Saint And Sinner when they first came out. I was 13. So yes, I did have vague knowledge of the Sephora Kat Von D line. Then I got a Sephora giftcard, bought her makeup, and...well.

Of all her products I own: Poetica/Saint/Sinner/Angeles Eyeshadow Palettes, Hustler/Party Animal/Stormy/Gunshine/Retox/Sexer Lightning Sheer lipgloss,High Voltage Eyeshadow Primer in Skin and the Lock 'N Load Makeup setting mist.

Let's get to it shall we?

First, eyeshadows. I don't have the swatches right now, but they are on my facebook.
As for why I'm providing two definitions? Well, In person and on the skin, they look nothing like they do online. Especially the Saint palette.

Angeles:


I sort of love this palette, sort of not. The colors(With sephora descriptions in italics, mine in regular), left to right are:
Venus(Shimmer bronze/Golden bronze copper), Leather (Matte Dark Chocolate Brown/Orange based matte brown), Specimen (Pearly Medium Brown/True beige), Rehab (Pearly Beige/Creamy light beige), Peggy (Pearly Turquoise/Jyrki 69's eye color), Bukowski (Pearly Aqua/Shimmer Turquoise), Bellbottom (Pearly Slate Blue/Shimmer denim), and Morphine (Cream White/Worthless crap white)

So, what's wrong with this palette? Not a whole lot, actually. The brushes that come with are worthless, and the cream eyeshadow, as it is in ALL Kat Von D palettes is crap. My only problem, not even with this palette in particular is that her shades are VERY shimmery. Too shimmery, at times. And her browns and grays, if you blend too much, can end up being orange and blue. Yes, I'm serious.

But this palette is not bad, even with the shocking blues. The blues are very blendable, and nice for a pop of color. The browns are very subtle and wearable.

Except for Venus. Venus is not a color for very fair women like me. It ends up not being a nice color, way too dark and...copper. It is just not a good look.

My favorite color is Rehab. It's a nice skintone, and looks very cute. I wear it daily, as a matter of fact, for a little shimmer on my lids.

Overall, 3.5 out of 5 stars!

Sinner


The ultimate goth girl's palette. This is THE dark palette, and not a very wearable one.
Again, colors, left to right:
Disco Dust (pearlized soft pink/shimmery baby pink), Linzy-Jane (iridescent purple/Light purple), Ace of Spades (burgundy w/ purple sparkle/Dark purple with purple and silver sparkles), Violator (smoky purple w/ purple sparkle/gray-purple with silver and purple sparkles), Holy Bible (pearlized silver/Silver tinged shimmery white), Glock (pearlized gun metal/blue-gray), Dorian Gray (pearlized charcoal gray/darker blue gray), Lucifer (matte black).

With these next 3 palettes, they all come with a mini eyeliner, which isn't worthless, but isn't exceptional either.

Like I said, gothy and dark. Except for Disco Dust, which I use as highlighter on my eyes and face, they are be very hard to wear to say, work or school. Unless you think the smoky eye is okay for those places (It isn't. More on extreme makeup in my Advice for KinderGoths post, should be up by tomorrow.), or you're IN a field that requires dramatic makeup, like a makeup artist, or a stripper, or model. (An aside to Twin and Kelly. Your makeup is NOT a smoky eye. Yours is acceptable, and very cute.)

This is a beautiful palette, I love love love the colors, I really do. It's just hard to find a place to wear them, so if you're not able to find a place (For me it's concerts, pictures, Dance Recital, and Theater), don't shell out the money for this.

4 out of 5!

Poetica



LtR: Forgiveness (pearlized butter-cream/Shimmertastic cream), Sand Timer (pearlized sand/Matte beige-skintone), Chandler (pearlized copper/ Venus in a new palette), Tijuana (brown and black with gold sparkle/Matte brown-lots of black with minimal sparkle), Wonderland (burgundy with gold pearl/Burgundy with a hint of gray, a few sparkles), Skiba (purple with gold pearl/gray purple with sparkle), Babe (lavender/Neon purple), You Alone (matte vanilla/Shimmery vanilla).

Another palette hard to wear in the daytime hours! This one actually looked exactly like another (CHEAPER) palette named True Love, only instead of copper, there was gold, and a matte black instead of the brown black. Also the white was matte. Otherwise they were exactly the friggen same. Go figure.

2 out of 5 because it's a ripoff of a cheaper palette by KAT VON D AS WELL.

Saint



This is my favorite palette because I can wear it! Daily! And it LOOKS NATURAL!
(Also I call this palette the shimmerbomb. It's very very shimmery, and requires a lot of blending if you want your eyes to look more natural, less beige disco-ball.)

LtR: Heavens (pearlized vanilla/See You Alone), Enjoy the Silence (pearlized butter-cream/See Forgiveness), (soft pink with sparkle/Disco Dust's color, but matte, with silver sparkle), Downtown(pearlized champagne/Shimmery beige), Sunny (pearlized gold/Unspectacular sort of gold.), Pray For Me (pearlized taupe/Dark grey beige), Bookworm (pearlized brown/Brown with gold sparkles), Caravaggio (dark matte brown).

I love this palette. Just saying. I use Pray For Me and Bookworm on days when I feel like making gradiation. <3 is cute, I use it both as highlight and in the inner corner of my eyes.

4 out of 5.

Lipgloss!



So I own 6 shades in the Lightning Sheer lipgloss line. 5 bucks each, that's a steal.
I own the colors Gunshine (Sheer gray), Hustler (sheer yellow gold with iridescent glitter), Stormy (Burgundy red with silver sparkles) Party Animal (Orange with gold sparkles) Retox (On Sephora it says this is baby pink. It's actually a peacy nude.), and Sexer (Sephora says peach, more or an apricot pink.)

The rest of the line was discontinued, but the other colors/names as near as I can guess are Stripper, Rocker, Marg, Strutter, Fierce Red, Saint and Bam. Those, of course are the really sexy pretty ones. -eye. roll-

I love this lipgloss. For 5$ from a huge place like Sephora that's a steal. They are also very shimmery and glittery. A few of the shades (Hustley, Sexer, Gunshine) are very sheer and provide minimal color, but there are a few colors (Party Animal, Stormy) provide some real color payoff. Party Animal is...orange, and Stormy is a sexy dark burgundy. The only problem is it tends to wear off easily. But it also smells very nice, like candied cherries, vanilla and apples.

So.. 3.75 out of 5!

Makeup Setting Mist



This...was a real disappointment. Thank god I got this on sale because its claims are crap. Fine mist? Locks your makeup down all day? No sale. The mist is really really awful, hardly a 'fine' spray. And my skin is still oily and foundation still needs to be set an hour later. Thank you oily skin!

1 out of 5 because it smells like cucumbers. Otherwise, don't waste your money.

Eye Primer



Another case of AWESOME container, bad product, like the Setting Mist. The name is Skin, but I have no idea who has skin color this yellow. It's 2 shades away from being flat out orange yellow, if you must know. And as far as priming goes? Not a whole heckuva lot of difference. My eyeshadow still creased like heck, and my lids still got oily. More oily in fact. Using this as a base also seems to make it HARDER to blend they eyeshadow, especially the darker ones. It gets patchy.

1 out of 5 for the scent (red apples) and awesome container.

That's all folks! I've reviewed it all. Hope you enjoyed.

Xmas list

Mom told me to put it up so here it is:

Kat Von D Poetica/Adora/Saint Angeles Perfume
Kat Von D Metal Orchestra/Ludwig/Beethoven Eyeshadow
Hot Rod Voodoo Erzuli shrug
L'Oreal HIP Cream Liner in black
Kat Von D Tattoo Liner in Trooper
Kat Von D Eyeliner Pencil in Puro Amor

That's it, and the last 3 were added on right at this moment.

Reasons Why I'm NOT Wiccan.

Contnuing with my pissy posts of late, concerning controversial areas, let's talk about Wicca and why I'm NOT one, and why I am SO OVER teenage kids believing everything a book says.

Your honor, exhibit number 1: The Sweep series by Cate Tiernan. It's not an awful series, in my opinion. I read the first 6 books and I don't hate it. It's an interesting series aimed for teenagers, mostly girls. It does address Wicca in positive lights, indicating the author does know what she's talking about. So far so good right? We're off to a good start? Well...kinda. Cate brings in the whole idea of Blood Witches, which means you are part of an old family of witches and your powers are derived from your family, making you royalty.

Lets deal with that 1 problem at a time, ok?

I understand without the 7 Families concept, Mrs Tiernan wouldn't really have a story. I get it. It does make for interesting subtext.

But if you are a 13 year old girl very much into Wicca, or your notion of it, the 7 families concept is not a good one. Like it or not, other teens, but we are subtly influenced by what we read. And these 13 year olds do actually think Mrs Teirnan is showing what Wicca is actually like. They think there ARE 7 families of witchcraft,oddly always Celtic (Irish and Scottish), based mainly Wicca. And they start claiming they're a part of one of those families.
How do I know this? Totally happened to me. I WAS that 13 year old.

Also, powers? Come on. I'm going to leave it at that.

Like I said, I understand why Cate Tiernan wrote these books, so it's not her I want to freak out at. She's just writing a book series with a few glaring inaccuracies, albeit a VERY interesting series.

Exhibit 2: Silver Ravenwolf and TeenWitch.

Let me just say, Raven Digitalis and Silver Ravenwolf, even if you both didn't have really bad books, you would still be snickered at for your names. Silver. Raven. Wolf. You sound like a goth 20 year old girl at the clubs.

Alright, that was a bit snarky of me, but come on, when you hear Silver Ravenwolf, do you think seasoned witch of 20 years, or angsty teen girl?

Silver Ravenwolf is not popular among the Wiccan crowd, mainly because of her bestselling book Teen Witch.

I read Teen Witch, and since I was 12, I don't remember much, but reading snippets and clippings now...

Wow.

She's really controlling in the whole concept of Wicca. DO NOT HARM! and NO BLOOOOOOOD! seem to be her main arguments, though any Vodou Mambo could tell you sacrifice (Not of the human kind, calm down.) is a good thing, nay, needed in most of their rituals.

She also cals herself Mama Silver, which just makes you think of that sweet 30 year old woman at the occult bookstore, guiding you on the right path. This lulls the parents into a false sense of security, until she busts out with:

Teen Witch! Is at the bookstores NOW. Call 1-800-THE-MOON to place your order, or bug, bother and pester your neighborhood book store till they can't stand it any more. Oh, and for the adults that don't like this statement? Maybe you don't care about their future, but I do.

If I weren't going to let my kids read her books before, I'm most assuredly not now. Really? Bug your parents? For a dang book?

My parents would smack me, not buy it.

She also encourages lying to parents, by telling them you're 'praying to angels' or some such nonsense.

Surely there are easier ways to tell your parents you're exploring a new religion. It wasn't easy for me, but I pulled the bratty 13 year old approach, not the mature adult approach in which you calmly explain why you are interested in this particular religion, and offer to let them read the books you have so they can see for themselves what exactly you're looking at.

Side note: this would probably work for my parents, but every parent is different, and in some cases, NO they aren't always going to understand you. My mom is still twitchy about the goth thing, and my dad has gotten a lot better at accepting my fascination with the darker side, but still won't let me wear all black.

Oh well. In 2 years I can do whatever I want, though I've started accepting that you do not have to wear all black only black 24/7. Now, if only other people could understand that because I'm not wearing black lipstick and dramatic eyeshadow doesn't mean I'm not goth.

But I digress.

Silver Ravenwolf does not portray Wicca in an accurate light. She makes it fluffy and rainbows and sometimes its not. Not all witchcraft follows the Harm None ideal. (I'm not Wiccan but I still try to hold to that ideal.) For more info on 'Mama Silver' check out the links below.

Silver Ravenwolf also makes anyone not Wiccan out to be stupid simpletons. The main targets of her wrath are usually Christians. I may argue some parts of Christianity, often angrily, but I will never say they are stupid sheep who blindly believe everything, and can only be saved by turning to us, where we must deprogram them. And as ridiculous as I find the deeply fervent followers to be sometimes, some of the greatest, nicest people I have ever met are christians. A good friend of mine is Mormon, and he is great. My mom's family on her maternal side are Christians and they are great people. I babysit for a christian family every tuesday while the mom goes and works at church. Again, great people. I may not agree with their way of thinking, and though I may have said it in the past, they are not naive stupid sheep. they are AWESOME people.

I mean come ON.

So, why exactly am I not Wiccan? Well, besides the actual initiation into a Gardernarian circle and all the ho-do, I just have moved on from the fluffy bunnies part of my life. It was cool and unique when I was 13, but I don't really connect with nature like many do. Don't get me wrong, I love being in unique nature spaces. They're just usually overgrown graveyards, not forests or fields. When I went to New Orleans last March, I really connected with voodoo and the energy there. I don't practice it officially, I sort of blend what I've been doing with what I understand now, but I'm still learning and progressing.

However, I will say, it's because of the inaccurate information that I do distance myself from Wicca, ever so subtly.

And that's the skinny.

http://www.ecauldron.net/opedtarnishedsilver.php

http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/vanthal/608/id57.htm

http://wicca.cnbeyer.com/ravenwolf.shtml