Posted by: dykebeauty on: April 15, 2007
I’m reminded by my friend the Bass Cat Lady that the removal of mascara needs to be addressed pronto–before one more person’s eyelashes are “decimated”! The best way to avoid breakage, hands down, is to remove all eye make up, especially mascara, before bed or as soon as it’s no longer deemed necessary. Since mascara formulations must strike a balance between staying power and easy removal, any regular user has probably ripped out lashes, at one end of the spectrum, and at the other end of the spectrum, has seen only a grey under-eye smudge in the middle of the day to remind them they even put any on in the morning. One example: as much as I love Dior’s Diorshow mascara, I learned to fear the tenacity of their waterproof formula–for my needs, it was too, too solid. I accept that I have to watch for flakes and creeps under my eyes during the workday (and cheerfully concede the incipient allegory’s subtle as a brick!) but one can usually take a powder room moment to repair and reapply. If you can keep a tiny bottle of Lorac’s regular or oil-free makeup remover with you, or even better, a plastic bag with a soft makeup sponge or two soaked in either formula, you can be ready for anything. Almay’s eye makeup remover wipes are a very frugal and readymade alternative, effective little white disks in their own small flask, but contain so much solution that those without extremely dry skin will probably have to clean up the clean-up with a dry tissue. And if you’re too exhausted by bedtime to do anything else, like my loved ones who toil as a homeworked-swamped high school student and an ER doc, at the very least swipe a pretreated Almay disc or Lorac-saturated sponge over your tired eyes and gently pat your whole face with a damp warm washcloth for sweet, eyelash-healthy dreams.
Posted by: dykebeauty on: April 15, 2007
From the cats’ eyes of the 1950s to the smoky eyes of just last season, sandwiching Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy and Joni, Madonna and Cyndi and Chrissie and Joan, Halle and Angelina, in between, fashion has never yet in my lifetime (and for some time before that personal milestone, smile) championed minimalism where the dark fringe of our eyes is concerned. Only Tilda Swinton is the exception, that lovely androgynous thing: to practice eyelash minimalism, thanks to her, is to follow her, and it’s simply futile. You’re Tilda or you’re not.
Like anything and everything else in fashion’s shimmering barometer of zeitgeistical fluctuations, this could be changing as I write, but it has been oddly consistent for fifty-some years. So for the next few weeks at least, perhaps months or a year, we’ll be emphasizing that penultimate vestige of approved body hair. [Or for even longer, should one live away from the coastlines and practice the wily art of protective coloration.] I’m going to cut to the chase here; what’s the best way to help our eyelashes carry the burden, be the concentrated microcosm of all the information sent by healthy shiny rich shadowy fur?
It’s essential to use a fine primer before applying mascara. While many of Shiseido’s products have inspired me to rapturous awe over the years (starting in my twenties, theirs was my first comprehensive skincare system), their mascara primer is not among the pantheon; it’s shockingly useless. Smashbox makes an adequate mascara primer, if used in conjunction with the balance of the system I’m breaking down here, but it’s to Sue Devitt’s that I always return. Devitt, justly revered for the Sari sheer lipcolor that is minimalism at its prettiest, makes the mascara primer product that would simply evaporate on contact when it hit Sephora shelves in the more amusing parts of Manhattan. [Remember, as with any product review here, please don’t hesitate to share with the class if you’ve discovered a splendid alternative.]
Primer is the first key, heat is the second. Even a so-so drugstore mascara will be more effective if you heat the tube under hot tap water until its very warm to the touch before applying. When you do the same with your Sue Devitt lash primer and your Diorshow black mascara, you’ll get an effect so gorgeous you may want to skip eyeliner. To be continued!
Posted by: dykebeauty on: April 15, 2007
I miss Mudhoney, the tiny shop on Prince Street in Manhattan: it was there I first chopped off my long blonde locks last June and have never regretted it for a moment, my new style was so pretty and so universally complimented. Besides the talent of their staff, they also had a super pleasant environment, with loud punky music and funky/artsy decor; I’ve even gone back to Manhattan, from my current home Out in the Country, twice for more haircutting. But given my exhausting day job schedule, less schlepification is always welcome. Thus my delight in finding Becky, at American Mortals (see the link) on Walnut Street in Philadelphia. With a (very) short haircut, more maintenance rather than less is required–more maintenance, and a lot more often. I knew as soon as I saw Becky that she was much more compatible than the the weird older lady whose heinous botch-up of my color had caused me to run crying from a salon nearby AM–she has lots of lovely ink and spirited rock and roll style (her favorite bands are even listed on AM’s website). I took extra cards and told her I was going to be recommending her to all my friends…another plus, her workstation, naturally, has the best music!
Posted by: dykebeauty on: April 15, 2007
Laboratoire Remede is another highly recommended sunscreen, also available at www.Sephora.com, in light, medium and dark tints. Its silky liquid texture, I admit, is different from most sunscreens, but if you can get used to shaking it up before use, you get SPF 30, a degree of coverage from fairly sheer to medium, a nice non-drying smoothness, and a mild degree of mattification. It’s not inexpensive, but hardly exorbitant. I consider it a much better value than drugstore brands because it’s highly effective against sun damage, doesn’t make your eyes miserable if you exercise reasonable care, and its oil-free formula won’t give you breakouts to deal with later. I’ve actually come to like the goopy texture, finding it sensually similar to heavy dairy cream. So far have only used the fair and the medium tints, though, which correspond to my winter and summer skin, so if you use the dark formula, please let me know how it works for you. When I lived in New York I once had to put some on while waiting on the 14th Street 2-3 platform and some skanky Eurotrash heterosexuals were giving me the fisheye…but one must be brave and resolute in skincare, grasshopper.
Posted by: dykebeauty on: April 15, 2007
Sunscreen is not optional. Unfortunately, many sunscreen products either blind you painfully if you sweat (or even glow); cause breakouts; smell like wound dressing; or magically spawn what looks like pencil-eraser detritus when you try to apply foundation or blush over them. It does not help one’s quest to make one’s nacreous spouse wear the stuff when she gets to clear her throat, look grim, and point with sardonic reproach to the huge headlight on her nose after wearing it for just one day! Thus my appreciation for Murad’s Oil-Free Sunblock SPF 15 Sheer Tint is partly for all it isn’t.
On the positive side, its pomegranate-based formula is great for your skin: we know even oily skin needs hydration, which this product provides without any hint of greasiness–it even mattifies a reasonably oily complexion. Its delicate, fresh scent is pleasant but unobtrusive. While the benefits of pomegranate are still being explored, the lovely results of this stuff may convince you to be part of the Continuing Pomegranate Research cohort. While I still love my Stila, Urban Decay, and other blushes, I don’t want or need foundation when I wear it because of how nice its light, creamy tint looks.
My only wistful sigh: when I remember this product is only SPF 15. Sunscreen at this protection level really needs to be reapplied every two or three hours. As delicious as this one feels on your skin, that isn’t a hardship by any means, I just don’t always remember to do it.
Posted by: dykebeauty on: April 15, 2007
I know great haircutters in Manhattan and Philly…every Sephora in NYC and their ratings from best to worst…rockin’ tattoo venues in Brooklyn and Little Falls (upstate New York)…an amazing vintage clothes store in Burlington, Vermont…but after moving to the Northeast, I’m not so in touch with what adorable dykes are wearing in Portland, Seattle, my hometowns of San Francisco and Santa Cruz, or my native South. I so want to hear from everyone everywhere about what the trends are where you are!
You can post your observations, insights and eloquent comments here, or email me, angela@dykebeauty.com! ALso, if you have specific beauty questions, and email questions@dykebeauty.com, I’ll post your question (and the best answers available) on the site, for as long as possible; you’re free to be anonymous or notorious :-) whichever you like.
Posted by: dykebeauty on: April 15, 2007
Diana Vreeland’s pronouncements that “any set of features can support beauty” and that the only real elegance is of the mind (”the rest comes from it”) made simple sense to me as an artist. The self-portraits of my fellow art students, always seeming to focus on the lineaments of struggle and wear in their young faces; the absolute charisma of the women around me in the punk and lesbian communities of the late ’70s where of all moments conventional notions of beauty were demolished; and my childhood among Southern women who blazed with beauty even free of makeup, with brutally chopped hair, beaten and scarred, confirmed it with such naturalness. Of course my studies in various media of the faces of those who fascinated me was further evidence–what to debutante DV may have been calculated defense against her mother’s excoriation of young Diana’s “extreme ugliness” was an inherent truth.
Posted by: dykebeauty on: April 15, 2007
One of my favorite makeup companies is Urban Decay. Their grouchy little garbage cans of shadow with flip-up lids are among the most underrated products around: get past their campily overpunked names like “gash,” “uzi,” and “asphyxiation,” or my fave: “polyester bride,” and you’ve got really lovely, wearable, durable color that’s as silky as a dream and as sheer or as bold as you choose to make it. It’s the combination of these shadows’ tenacity and their creamy-silky texture I can’t praise enough… but people who’ve never bothered with makeup will never share my wonder at Urban Decay, because they weren’t dopey enough in high school to wear the horrid, chalky, crumbly cheap-ass drugstore crap eyeshadow I endured. I shudder at the bitter memories! But perhaps if someone were to lure such complex fascinating women to indulge themselves in a playful session of ornamentation, they’d like the little garbage cans, or the bright satin feel and look of Urban Decay’s deluxe shadow line, in spite or because of the fact it comes instead in jewelboxy little thematically embellished mirrored compacts with more elemental names like Peace, Honey, Graffitti, and Fishnets. Peace is acid-trip cerulean, Graffitti pungent green, Honey warm dark gold.
I swear my makeup obsession really began when, as little Southern girls, bunches of us would be playing outside and choose one to be The Queen, put flowers in her hair and berry juice on her lips, bedeck her with more flowers, and any “dress-up stuff” fabric or jewelry our female relatives let us play with, and adore the female beauty of our peers (which could be anyone’s)! Actually, it more likely started with those female relatives. Of course, we were damn lucky we didn’t get poisoned by the wrong berry, bitten by brown recluses, or felled outright by some deadly birdshit-borne virus…
Like deep-Southern little girls, the Urban Decay folks know how much fun makeup is supposed to be. More importantly, they take a stand against cruelty. Although Urban Decay states that they are “not a vegan company,” they are nevertheless kind enough to designate, with an appropriate paw print, the significant number of their products which are vegan. Further, they don’t do animal testing. The site http://www.caringconsumer.com/ is a great help in finding other companies we critter-lovers can actively and happily support. PETA also offers a downloadable catalog of cruelty-free companies as well as a yearly caring consumers’ catalog one can order at http://www.petacatalog.org.
