For the longest of time I struggled with my... aura, for the lack of better word. Back then, from the early 2000s, we didn't, or well, I didn't know of Kibbe, nor Kitchener and I tended to follow whatever I saw on others and worked for them, thinking the same will inevitably, work for me too. I like the style, the colour choices, the overall [vibe], so what could not work in this equal? I wear whatever others wear and it will work, right?

Haha. Wrong.

Life is never this simple and easy. And while yes, sometimes I did touch up on what will, someday, in the future, work for me, I never wasted too much time around these styles because I didn't understand the reasons and of course, I didn't understand myself. Who I was, what was the tone, the mood that I wanted to broadcast to others, what was the aura I wanted to drape myself with, like a perfume. So for years, I searched, ditched one style after another, not understand what was missing from my look?? I just couldn't crack the code.

I remember asking my therapist, not so long ago, that whenever I dress up, I feel like a hobo. Not in a chic, careless and hippy way, but someone who looks like clothes are hanging on her like a potato sack. In my eyes, I always looked like someone who was two seconds from completely slipping apart like a landslide. Someone who was a Mess™ and I couldn't, for the love of my life, figure out just W H Y do I look like a complete disaster while others look casual and put-together in jeans and a simple t-shirt.

Then, little did I know, came Kibbe. Then Kitchener.

Now I have to disclose that I have to thank both systems.

At first, I couldn't make out a single thing about the Kibbe system. I even thought it was some hocus pocus, something that boring people found and made a hobby out of but my sister - my fashion obsessed sister - insisted that she got her analysis by a professional in our country and how much it works. So... I got curious and looked it up. Took me a month or so to make something out of it, to even understand what even the test was talking about. But since I'm naturally a determined and patient person, I persisted, started looking up videos and slowly, but surely, with a long wayaround, arrived at Classic Kibbe.

And POOF. Came the mindblowing experience.

Wait, what do you mean that I can look bad in a piece that is universally considered flattering on everyone? "What, I can dislike jeans? Is that legal???" Oh boy, was I in for a big shock.

So after another few months of thinking I'm a pure classic, came a picture with a friend of mine who is a dramatic (not sure about her subtype! Maybe a dramatic classic or a pure dramatic) and I had the heureka moment that sadly, or not, no matter how much I workout or get fitter, I will always have some flesh on me. Hence, I had to face the (back then) sad truth: I was indeed a soft classic.

Now, looking back at it now, knowing my kitchener essence, and the things I want to achive in life with the atmosphere I have around me, it makes sense and I'm happy with it. Even the things I used to like as a child, the muses and inspirations I held in front of my mind, they all fit. But back then, I wasn't happy with it. Curves you say? In this gothic, dramatic economy that I wanted to achive?? Oh no, sir. I wanted to be thin, fit and LEAN. But that dream, to my knowledge then, went to dust.

I knew even back then, that gothic, dark and mysterious styles suited me and that it was the thing I felt good in. I jumped from style-to-style as years went by, but never really stopped dreaming of being a Morticia Addams in a way. And then came 2023 and I finally accepted that yes, this is what I actually want. So in 2024, I started looking around in this direction and found Silkymochi's system of dark Kitchener essences.

Now again, it sounded like something made up. Essences you say? I mean, it can happen but please... Kibbe and now Kitchener? A little too much fantasy for me. Buuut.... as I started to get familiar with it, it started to make more and more sense. And once it clicked, it slapped me in the face.

So I was a Soft Classic Kibbe and discovered that I was a Classic Kitchener too! A LOT started to make sense: as someone who turns out has absolutely no natural or gamine essence in her bones, random, playful or laidback things just looked horrible on me. Jeans? Good lord, how I ever wore jeans, I hate the fabric. Basic T-shirts? Drags me down and I lose my shine. But if I look everytime like I'm going somewhere important where elegance is a must? Yes, please!! I started to explore formal clothes and suddenly something I always felt off, it fell in its place: I looked like someone put together.

🎉🎉🎉

It was like watching magic as it was happening. I suddenly looked... like myself? Felt like myself? It gave me a huge confidence boost. Classic essence you say? Okay, yes, I can see that. But then I discovered Gabriella Arruda, I saw a video of hers where she talked about essence blends and then came the big question: So a classic, yes but what ELSE then?

I joined Gabby's Facebook group and saw someone talking about chatgpt analyzing her and I never used the AI but you know... I was too shy to upload my photo for people to see so I tried the bot and it came back with a suprising result: classic, yes, I knew that, ingenue, which, I did suspect since I look 10 years younger than I am and... romantic!

Ro... Romantic? Me??! Like Marilyn Monroe, like Monica Belucci? Like all those beautiful women? ME??? I doubted it, highly, but the thought just didn't leave me alone.

Romantic huh... Then I looked back at all the muses that I have always loved and looked up to and wanted to be like. My first crush and inspiration, Jessica Rabbit (lol, really!), Cameron Diaz in The Mask movie, Veronica Lake in every femme fatale movie of hers, Catwoman in the Batman movies, Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rogue... the list goes on. And honestly? I was raised on the early 90s movies where the femme fatale was a very dominant trope. For me, the femme fatale IS The Woman. The one I am both in love with and want to be like. And once that clicked... honestly, it wasn't difficult to see the romantic in me. Yes, maybe not the tragic, italian lover or the dramatic Lana del rey who I once really wanted to be like. But I am that woman. In a different way, but still as romantic, as tragic, as mystical and as melancholic. And once I arrived to my true essence, I really, truly never wanted to be something else or try out other styles or new things. Because I discovered Me.

There is just something about tragic, sad lovers that speak to me as a feeling. While femme fatales are the ones I find utterly drawn to, something that I feel in my bones, as my aura but usually I find that femme fatales are just tragic, melancholic heroines in a world full of hardness and cold. To me, they are the personification of yearning, of love, of loss and heartbreak. They long and they suffer, they mourn the love that they had or would want to have. For me, they are never cleverly tactful nor coyly elusive. They are wishing for it all, for the one, the true who will see them, not just as a price who will decorate someone's side or a mystery to keep up the interest. For me, they are real, full of depth and intensity, only the one who they find the worthiest will see.

Something always intriguted me about the trope of the sad, longing woman who was waiting for their lover to return to them, the lover who was lost to the sea, then or forever, in Italian movies. I'm not knowledgeable enough to quote examples but I can capture and picture the feeling of a melancholic woman sitting in an Italian square, at a cafeteria and while the children are playing around her, the people are talking loudly and the elderly laugh, she is a pause in the evermoving world, in her memories, in her sadness, reading the last letter she had received of her love who has been missing for months if not years. The sad muse, the tragic beauty, the one who stops you in your steps when you glance in her direction and wonder... if melancholy could be a painting, it would be her on the canvas.

I know I have a hopelessly dreamy heart. That is actually where I discovered my Romantic essence. It is weird looking back at it, never taking the obvious and loud hints of what was my calling.

They say the classic essence is the most elusive one, the hardest to understand and see because it is so nothing, yet everything. I find that the opposite, for me, it was very easy to understand the classic essence. It was balance, understated elegance, poise and restrained modesty. It was easy to spot in the way I carried myself - always composed, collected and put together. I had comments on how I was an "ice queen" beucase I never lost my temper. I will come back to the Classic essence because I fully believe there is more to it then what meets the eye, but that is for another time. Now it's Romantic's time to shine.

As I have said before, I never really would have guessed that I have any Romantic essence in my bones. Let alone be it my dominant type? Not in a million years. But as I kept thinking about it and started to interpret what this essence really means without the obvious sensuality that, yes, is present, but the feeling is so much more than just being sexual.

The first thing I thought of was being flirty and while that can be a part of it, is not all. Still, I went with this idea and it came to me that I am a very touchy-feely person. Not with everyone of course, but the people I know, I tend to touch while talking. Nothing intrusive, just a subtle touch on the arm or the shoulder to make the other feel more connected, or on the back to catch someone's attention.

And that is where I discovered the Romantic essence's strenght.

As I have discovered, the Romantic essence isn't about sensuality or sexuality. It is about closeness, about being inviting, warm and most of all, intimate. It is not about being physical but being trusted, confined and feeling understood by this type. I think this essence has the ability that when they look at you, they can make you feel like the only person in the universe existing. They make you feel like you matter in depths you have never experienced before. You feel important, included and close. The Romantic essence embodies emotional honesty, vulnability and rawness - it makes you feel safe, understood and cared for, like a hug that envelopes you and you can breath for the first time in your life. We have this way of saying with our presence that "We share a connection. We are close. This is just between us. You matter.". Romantics can tease too, not just Ingenues. It's not the playful teasing but voice dropping, head tilting. It's a quiet whisper, the "you're the only one i am listening to and giving my undivided attention" kind of way.

Romantic is about being intimate - not in a physical or sexual way, just in a human way.

This essence isn’t about seduction - it’s about inviting someone into your inner world and creating a sacred little bubble between just the two of you. Where Ingenue flutters and Classic glows, Romantic draws you in. It’s private, personal, and deeply felt.

It is emotional exclusivity.

Romantic is the essence that reminds people they are lovable and worth attending to. It’s magnetic not because it demands anything, but because it offers something rare: genuine emotional presence. It is a shared concern, a confession of dreams, things that are personal, soul opening, someone who gets under your skin. It makes you feel seen, chosen, remembered. It’s a warm hand on a bruised soul. It makes people feel like a main character in a tender story. It lures you in and haunts your dreams.

But here is the most unexpected part of the Romantic essence: it is personal in a very impersonal way.

I, for one, when talking to someone, I give them my undivided attention. My eyes see you, only you, you capture my interest, you feel like the only person existing in the universe. You feel special, seen and important.

And then I turn away and the moment is broken because the next person is just as special to me as you were, just seconds ago.

And what I find, it is addictive. People miss the way I look at them, they crave the attention and chase the feeling. But to my heart, everyone is like you were seconds ago. Not because I am shallow but because in a way, everyone is interesting and worth listening to. Everyone is the main character of their own life and I respect that. Everyone deserves to be seen, heard and feel like they matter. But only for a fleeting moment.

But when I find that one who makes me feel seen, is when the real magic happens. And that, stays with a Romantic essence forever.

While my tragic herione will charm anyone who is brave enough to come close, her heart only bleeds for one.