July 1990: even without blurriness, no foundation necessary
As I was having crucial and excruciating eyebrow topiary the other day, I realized that I missed The Chronicles. I put them on hiatus six months ago to focus on The Dead Dad Diaries. But it turns out hair keeps growing during times of grief. It is still necessary to wear clothes most of the time and even to buy them occasionally. Even a tear-filled eye can alight on a Sunday style supplement and be disappointed and incensed by some of the unoriginal, sexist copy therein (oh bite me back, hand that doesn’t feed me).
One blog is about my dad, my memories of him and how I’m dealing with his death. The other blog is my take on retail, fashion, beauty, and more or less whatever takes my fancy or gets my goat. A memory while putting on makeup recently made me consider how the twain might meet in this post.
When I was eleven or twelve and had just moved in with Dad, I was big into Hi! Magazine, then a set text for the tween market (though I don’t think the word tween had been invented). Hi!, like most such media outlets, was cheerfully engaged in encouraging its young readers to buy as much stuff as possible. I gobbled up articles on “makeup bag essentials” and “your perfect daytime face” which instructed me to cleanse, tone, and moisturise, then apply foundation, concealer, blusher, powder, eyeshadow, mascara etc.
My makeup collection started with an ancient lipstick and powder compact handed down from my mum. But Hi! made me realise that this wasn’t nearly enough. I needed foundation and concealer to even out my (already perfect) skin tone and hide my (non-existent) blemishes. I was 12 and fortunate in having very good skin even for my age. I can say that now. I’ve always been lucky with my skin, have never done much to it, and am still mostly using the same moisturiser I started on when I was, well, about 12 (Simple). But I haven’t got through 20 years entirely unscathed. My 32 year-old face is helped by a splurge of tinted moisturiser (Laura Mercier is the best, but expensive), but I almost never use foundation. And yet at 12, when I needed it less than ever, I was convinced I should, because Hi! said so and a magazine is more trustworthy than a mirror.
There was no way my modest pocket money was going to stretch to the full complement of “essentials.” So I put the case to Dad, explaining why he really needed to buy me all this slap and backing up my arguments with the printed evidence. Poor Dad! Recognising that he was no makeup expert and yet questioning whether my peachy cheeks needed embellishment, he asked the secretaries at work whether they thought a 12 year-old needed foundation. Probably not, they ventured.
But Da-a-ad …
I got the makeup but was too lazy and clueless to use it much. Now when I see 12, 13, 14 year-old girls dolled up to look ten years older, I think about how much of wisdom, whether in writing, cooking, making up, is shedding the unnecessary or unhelpful and learning that less is more. And I think about Dad, and how well he rose to the many challenges of having a pre-teen daughter, all the new things he had to learn because of me. Also how he took me seriously and let me make silly mistakes and find things out on my own, knowing that if he tried to tell me I wouldn’t listen anyway.
That was the good kind of foundation.
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Over here.
The Brow will continue to chronicle when she can, albeit from a less fabulous location. Think more balaclavas than Balenciaga. But of course you don’t need to know that — that’s the beauty of blogging, isn’t it? For all you know, I am currently lounging by the pool at the Four Seasons Punta Mita (otra pina colada, por favor!). Until you read el otro blog. Que sera, sera.
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I’ve been M.I.A. for a while now. My dear dad died on 27 December, and I haven’t had much heart for blogging since. But it’s coming back. Hang in there.
]]>In my opinion, there are two ways to do festive dressing, and no, head-to-toe fleece is not one of them (unless you’re a sheep). You can do all the drama with your dress and downplay everything else, or you can use accessories to liven up a simple base. If you’re going for the former, here’s some inspiration (from fantasy to reality):
Hanna silk and velvet dress by Christopher Kane
Beaded silk tunic dress by TIBI
Raindrop dress from French Connection
But if you don’t have a festive frock in your wardrobe, there’s no need to go out and buy one. You can take a simple black knit dress — one you might wear to work — and dress it up with a statement necklace, sparkly belt, or patterned tights. Start with something like this:
Sarafina knit dress by Trina Turk
And add something like this:
Sunken Treasure necklace by Subversive
Subversive has several highly covetable collections of jewelry featuring the brand’s signature tangles of chains and baubles. It’s easy to recognize and easy to rip off: J. Crew, for one, has comparable (though undeniably less fabulous) pieces for a fraction of the price.
Mint pearl mega cluster necklace by Subversive
Pearl and crystal avalanche necklace from J. Crew
With decorations like that, who needs a tree?
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- cashmere wrap (acts as scarf to and from airport and blanket on the plane because even though I know they must clean those horrible scratchy ones they give you, they still disgust me)
- footie socks
- iPod
- mini hairbrush (a plane is one of the few places it’s OK to brush your hair in public)
- EmergenC — not sure it works but trying to compensate for amazingly vitamin-free plane food
- snack (in case of cheesy pasta)
- four different ways to try and get some moisture back into the Sahara a.k.a. my skin
- a good book
- a notebook and pencil
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Etsy has some very cute offerings in the handmade hottie department.
It’s snowing in London. It’s too cold to snow in New York. It’s pretty bloody chilly in Dublin, where I’m going to be next week. At times like these, I fantasize about all things warm. Cashmere, cats, hot chocolate, saunas, thermal underwear, real fires, wool tights, big fluffy duvets … and hot water bottles. There are many new-fangled devices for warming beds, things like electric blankets and shapeless objects you put in the microwave. But I secretly wish I lived in the days when a maid would come to your room and run a copper pan full of still-glowing coals over your sheets just before you got into bed. Of course, if I lived in those days, I would more likely be the maid, who then has to climb a draughty staircase to a freezing attic where the wind howls all night long and fur-coated mice nibble frostbitten toes. But anyway. Maybe it’s because they were the stuff of my childhood, but I still have a fetish for hot water bottles. In fact, I’m quite sad that I don’t need one where I’m living now; the radiator squeals and burbles alarmingly and emits more than enough heat. But encased in a snug wool or felt cover, a hottie is the perfect bedmate: it won’t steal the covers or snore or wake you up to tell you its crazy dream about making sandwiches with Kim Jong Il. Find the one pictured here, or browse Etsy for other designs. Just make sure the top of your hottie is on tight, though, or it could wet the bed.
Lately, I’ve been seized by the idea that there’s not enough poetry on the internet. I don’t mean you can’t read poems online, I just mean that most of what’s on Facebook, Twitter, and, to a lesser extent, blogs like this one, is depressingly prosaic. This has already inspired some odd behavior on my part, including posting a tweet in Latin. I’m sure one could argue that social media sites have encouraged many kinds of creative, anti-utilitarian verbal experimentation. Rather than diving into that debate, I think I’ll just leave you with one of my favourites by the Northern Irish poet Paul Muldoon. A copy of one of his collections would be an excellent addition to any bookworm’s stocking.
Quoof
How often have I carried our family word
for the hot water bottle
to a strange bed,
as my father would juggle a red-hot half-brick
in an old sock
to his childhood settle.
I have taken it into so many lovely heads
or laid it between us like a sword.
An hotel room in New York City
with a girl who spoke hardly any English,
my hand on her breast
like the smouldering one-off spoor of the yeti
or some other shy beast
that has yet to enter the language.
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Behind every great woman ...
... there's a big bear giving her a hug.
Those who know me know I love bears. Those who know and love me tell me that I will never be tenderly hugged by a bear. I maintain a surface bravado but deep down I have a niggling fear that they might be right. With this French Connection T-shirt, though, all my dreams could come true. Safely.
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This ad (for the jeweler Michael C. Fina) got to me. And not in a rush-out-and-find-the-one-in-a-million-who-thinks-I’m-one-in-a-million-and-sulk-until-he-buys-me-a-big-f-off-rock kind of way.
Let us parse:
“She’s one in a million.” OK, so far so not that rage-inducing (though more on this later).
“Now let the whole world know.” Sir? Sir? I have questions.
1. Why? Seriously, why not keep it to yourself? Does the world care? Did you think about this, Michael C. Fina: maybe the world ALREADY knows. Maybe the world already has a population of roughly 6,692,030,277 and therefore couldn’t give a rat’s arse about one in a piddling million.
2. Why with a diamond and not with a song, poem, painting, tattoo, teacup pig, Krav Maga training she’s always wanted, or by volunteering to do laundry for a year?
Oh, because the world might not get it. The world is a little slow. The world doesn’t speak in laundry, teacup pigs, or Krav Maga. The world speaks in diamonds aka small, portable symbols for lots of cash.
I’ve got nothing against diamonds (aside from the dead miners, the civil wars, and the indentured child slaves). I’m sure a lot of people buy and wear them just because they look nice and not because they want to let the world know anything. And a hand-woven caftan can be as much about making a statement as a five carat solitaire. Oh, bugger. I’m actually starting to respect the simple honesty of this ad. Some people will buy diamonds to “let the whole world know” that their net worth girlfriend is superior to that of everyone else. Those people are probably the ones most likely to be swayed by an ad in a Sunday newspaper.
One thing still gets me, though. I’m one in WAY more than a million. What kind of stone do I get for that?
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Bottoms are a different story, especially trousers. So hard to get the right fit! And when oh when will harem pants go away? Not for some time, I fear: Topshop and Marks and Sparks just showed next year’s collections to the press, and M&S is banking on “the new pyjama pant” being the next big thing. How does it differ from the plain old pyjama pant? Well, I bet it will cost a lot more. The best solution might be just to stop getting dressed. Or, better yet, stop getting out of bed.
harem scare 'em
J. Crew recently told me that if I thought I couldn’t “do skinny,” I might be mistaken. So I went into the Time Warner Center store to test this hypothesis. I tried on a pair of ankle stretch toothpicks, which sounds like a form of torture for mice but translates as short, stretchy, and tight.
mouse torture instruments
Surprise: there is some truth in advertising. I thought I couldn’t do skinny, and there I was, doing skinny! Bigger surprise: they only looked good from the calf up. I guess I can do skinny but I can’t do short. They would probably look SUPER HOT with preposterous heels. And a white ribbed tank top, dark roots, crumbling trailer in the b.g., loser boyfriend named Darryl Wayne a blur on the horizon as he makes off with my welfare check in his beat-up Mustang.
Dang, I shoulda bought them jeans!
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Know how I always say the greenest thing you can do is not buy anything? Well, I do. And when I’m feeling really grouchy, I’ll say things like “buying green sh*t doesn’t make you green.” Even though I know replacing the “i” in shit with an asterisk doesn’t make it pol*te.
Anyway, it turns out I may have been slightly less than a hundred percent correct.
How many pairs of underwear do you have? I don’t mean that in a creepy way. I only ask because one of the easier ways you can be greener with your wardrobe is to wash your clothes less often. But to do that, you’re going to need enough smalls to go the distance between laundry bouts.
The biggest environmental impact from your clothes comes from washing and drying, not manufacture or transportation. Do you know how much energy that washing machine uses? About 0.256 kWh per load, plus about 40 gallons of water. Most of the energy goes towards heating the water. So if you love those hot washes, think about going warm or cold a bit more often. The good news is that hot water shrinks and fades fabric, so your clothes will last longer if you lower the temp. The bad news is that hot water also gets things clean. To get around that, you can soak your dirtiest things in warm water before washing. Also, treat stains as soon as they happen. You might not even need to put the item in the washer at all.
Thought your washer was bad for your carbon footprint? It’s positively smug, sitting as it does next to one of the biggest energy hogs around, the dryer. One dryer cycle uses more than 10 times the energy of a wash, and it destroys your clothes so you’ll end up buying new ones sooner. Got a yard? Stick up a clothes line. No outside space? Get a clothes horse, leap on its back and ride it all the way to green heaven. Or just hang the stuff on your shower curtain rail. Yes, it’s unsightly, but so are dead polar bears.
Need I mention environmentally-friendly detergent? Some are better than others; nothing works quite like chlorine. Just console yourself with a well-earned feeling of smugness if the grey-ish tinge on your running socks gets you down. And keep pre-treating those stains!
The best part is that you get to do all of it less often, and you can use the time you would have spent on laundry for other, low-impact pursuits.
(Stinky guy who was sitting near me on the subway yesterday: none of this applies to you. Wash, wash, wash the stench away, using all the industrial chemicals in China if necessary.)
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