Hold On A Second Man…

#Beautytips #perfume

How do I smell nice all the time?

I am pretty sure the best compliment (okay, if not the top 5 best compliments ever) is something along the lines of ‘you smell so nice’. It inflates my ego just right and I get giddy with happiness. Smelling nice isn’t just about wearing perfume. No, it starts at the shower and ends at after when you spray your perfume. The most important key to smelling good is scent layering. Scent layering is the art of wearing different scents at any one time and it can be traced back to the Middle East. Scent layering either really intensifies the one group of fragrance you are wearing or it helps you create your own bespoke signature scent.

Scent layering starts in the shower. Its actually very simple, if you want to smell very Vanilla- use vanilla scented products, if you want to smell like flowers, use floral shower gels and lotions, if you want to smell like musk… use musk scented shower products. Old rich people love the dove unscented bar and so do I. If you don’t know in the shower what you want to smell like, use a neutral smelling soap. It truly is the best bar of soap because it doesn’t leave an overpowring smell after using it. For your vulva, water is enough. Mild soap if you want to ‘really’ clean the area but stick to the outer labia and don’t put it in you. I use the dove bar after I have been to gym or during my period and I use just water to really clean between the folds. Also change your underwear everyday please. I like to store my underwear with some scented wax tablets or scented sachets. I like to put them in all of my drawers just so my underwears and socks can smell nice.

For everyday shower, I use a loofah, silicone body brush and a muslin cloth to clean my body but every third day I go in with a coarse mitt or a silk glove and exfoiliate my skin that way.  I spend a good minute cleaning both my armpits.  Thats the only place I really sweat so I need that place to be squeaky clean with no odour. I cannot have hair there either because I hate the way armpit hair traps body odour so I wax them every-week. My favourite deodorant is the Salt of the Earth, which hands down is the beat deodorant. I don’t know what they put in it but it is magical. It works against the worst of BO; I know someone whose sweat was very unpleasant and after I have gifted one to her, both of us have been very happy. I have all the spray versions and I rotate through each one depending on what I want to smell like that day. I have a whole foot care routine which I will talk about at some other point but for foot odour, I reccomend  wearing different pairs of clean socks everyday (you should not be sharing shoes and socks). I use the same Salt of Earth deodrant on my feet and if I am going to gym then I use foot powder as well. After I come home, I like spray the insides of my shoes with a shoe deodourizer and then go wash my feet in the shower.

Carrying on, scent layering phase 2 is lotions and oils. The same rule applies, stick to the same smell group. After you start getting the hang of how perfume and smell works you can start mixing different scented lotions and perfume but until then just stick to the basic groups. I use my body serums, lotions, moisturisers and on top of all that I put my scented moisturiser on. This way I can use my body products that help with KP and dryness and still smell nice. Perfumes and especially perfume oils stay on better on moisturised skin as the oils lock onto your skin better so always make sure you put some lotion on before you spray your perfume. I also mix traditional perfume oils that I have collected from all over the Arab world to South Asia into my lotions if I am going for a more traditional smell that day.

Tip🪄: Perfume brands will actually sell scented body lotions, shower gels and even hair mists in their popular acents. The body lotions are usually much cheaper and you can totally buy just that and still smell amazing for the fraction of the cost. They are also great for people who find perfumes in general to be a but too much but still want to smell like something. For my fave perfumes I buy the entire set so I smell like my fave perfume.

Spraying the perfume is phase 3. I use perfume before I put my clothes on. There is a lot of debate on how many sprays and how many whatnots but my rule is maximum one spritz on each and every pulse point and one cloud one. As much as I love perfume I dont like being choked by it. So I am always mindful about how many sprays because your perfume should be lingering and alluring not cloaking and invasive to people’s repository system. I will do one final spritz on my hair (using a hair mist) and that is me done. 

Your home smell is very important as well. You yourself are nose blind to it, but you do smell like your house and that can affect how others view you. What you cook, how you store your clothes, how stagnant the air is in your home, it all adds up. As a South Asian, the smell of my food ending up in my clothes is inevitable. To tackle this, I am strict at having different pairs of home clothes and going out clothes. As soon as I come in, I change into loungewear and spritz my clothes with a deodourizer and fabric freshner and put them away. When I cook I am mindful to open the ventilations, open the windows and keep the doors to my closet and rooms shut and I always wear an aporn.

I like everything to smell nice and that includes my home. I light various Thai/Japanese/Tibetan incense which makes my place smell like a monastery and some bakhoor to add sultry oriental feel. My old Sudanese friend taught me how to smoke my clothes with incense and I do that a lot too. I find it imperative to have mini dehumidifiers in the corners of my shelves and closet and these hanging ones on my clothing rails and in my drawers I have these tiny ones. They are great for humid enviroments and stop mold and mildew forming on the clothes.

Daphne xoxo

“Don’t allow the sad sight of human injustice to sadden your soul; someday you will see the unfailing justice of God triumph over it”.

-St Padre Pio

Coachella 2024 🌴

ꜱᴏᴘʜɪᴀ ᴡᴇʙꜱᴛᴇʀ ᴄʜɪᴀʀᴀ ʟᴇᴀᴛʜᴇʀ ꜱᴀɴᴅᴀʟꜱ 🏹 🩰🦢

One of the hardest parts about trauma is overcoming hyper-independence and understanding that you don’t have to do everything by your own strength. That there’s no virtue in suffering and doing everything entirely on your own. That it’s okay to have expectations for how you want others to show up in your life, and those expectations don’t make you a burden. That having faith means letting go of the belief that everything is in your hands and instead trusting your future to someone greater than you.

Overcoming hyper-independence is a journey in itself.

Any advice for how to deal with people being entitled to know your business? I'm often accused of being guarded and standoffish when really I'm just setting up boundaries. For example, I've been working towards an advanced degree for 3 years now. I have a well thought out, elaborate plan to achieve my goals. This is my business but people still get upset when they look at my life and say "you're not doing anything with your life". To them it looks like I just go to work and travel.

I say that I'm working towards something. But this never shuts them up. Then the questions "Well what is it?! What are you doing?! Do you have a plan?! Have you applied to school yet?! Have you thought about this, this, this and this?!!" They always word the questions like I'm incompetent and lack foresight. I always feel cornered when this happens, like my agency has been taken away. I usually just end up explaining my long, drawn out plan to them and I feel ran over afterwards. I've had people literally get mad and lash out when I keep details to myself. "What's with the attitude? I'm just asking a question, you don't need to give me an attitude." So it's easier to just give in.

"This is my business but people still get upset when they look at my life and say "you're not doing anything with your life". To them it looks like I just go to work and travel."

Why not just let them be upset? 70% of people who knew me in the past still think I'm broke and not doing anything with my life and I just go along with it. Let them create their own thoughts and ideas and tell them that they're absolutely right. At the end of the day what they think about you just isn't your business.

"I say that I'm working towards something. But this never shuts them up."

Unless they are someone important that you might need to use in the future, it's totally unnecessary to let them know anything at all.

"They always word the questions like I'm incompetent and lack foresight. I always feel cornered when this happens, like my agency has been taken away."

Because it is taken away. Corner them instead, let them know you're living on autopilot with no current ambitions. Like I said if they are no one important to you WHO CARES???

"So it's easier to just give in."

It's actually much much easier to let them think what they want... don't let yourself feel pressured and cave in. You can literally make up any lie and say that your focused on becoming a yoga teacher or something.... anythingggggg.

Hello there. I find you blog extremely inspiring.

I myself am something of a "former gifted kid". Back in school I was at the top of the grade, best skin, many skills etc etc. And though I'm still *extremely* young (~20) I've descended into a hellish level where I look disgusting, can't study properly or am performing poorly, my hobbies are all well and good but I can't spare time to do some actual intense projects like I used to, I couldn't get into med school this year and yeah. I just feel like shit. I'm trying my best to rebuild my life. Sorry for the rambling.

Everyone has their up and down cycles. This too shall pass.

Whenever you’re struggling/ having a hard time sticking to a routine, there is only one solution. Break your goals down to not more than 3, which can be achieved in a year.

One. your most important goal seems to be med school. What are the two-three habits that you need in order to achieve that?

two. Unless your school counsellor or advisor has recommended you take on intense projects, I think it would be a better use of your time to focus primarily on med school. Eliminate distractions and things that do not directly contribute to your main goal of getting into college.

if med school is not in the books anymore, talk to counsellors, advisors, alumni, teachers, and most importantly - figure out what it is you truly want to do in your career.

three. If med school is still your top choice, and you want to try again…. If you can’t study properly, stop studying the way you have been your whole life. There’s no one single way of studying properly. You can create a schedule that’s a mix of flash cards, videos, Quizlet, tv shows that are directly related to your career choice, podcasts, magazines, books, tv interviews… If any of my followers have any more suggestions for OP, shoot below!

and lastly. It’s okay to not look like a beauty pageant 24/7. Like I said, make your routine simple. A 20 minute run, a weekly face mask, focusing on skincare (face wash, toner, sunscreen and moisturiser is more than enough at your age), showering regularly, eating loads of veggies and fruits, drinking water - what goes inside your body is more important than how you look outside. The second you fix your inside, your outside gets fixed.