My eyelash wars, and the LiLash victory

Earlier this summer, plagued by vanity and a circle of friends with amped-up eyelashes, I succumbed and had eyelash extensions attached to my sad lashes, as many of you will recall.

Don’t do this. Let me save you from yourselves.

In the beginning, I looooved them — they meant the end of mascara, 10 minutes saved from my morning routine, and they made me feel pretty in all my photos. But they only stayed attached to my spindles for 8-day stints, and then it was $50 and an hour at the salon to have my vanity restored.  I was like a junkie, calling my contact for last-minute appointments, asking her to stay late, meeting her in the back room of the salon, desperate for a fix.

Pathétique, my friends. And so I stopped, let them all fall out.

I was left with stubs. War victims. Eyelashes so short and sparse and damaged that I probably cried my three remaining lashes out onto my pillow. I said bad things about my former eyelash goddess. I didn’t know this was going to happen.

Picture something like this:

So I wore false, drugstore glue-on eyelashes to work for two weeks while they filled in a bit, and I bought a tube of LiLash. It’s like Latisse, but without the eye color-changing risk. (My eyes are precisely the kind that it changes.)

You can put it on at night, or in the morning, pre-makeup. It helps your natural eyelashes grow. It’s been about 7 weeks.

 

My babies are back, and this time, they’re real.

I feel like a gospel choir: Lilash, baby, it’ll raise you up and carry you home.

I particularly love it with my beloved “They’re Real” mascara by Benefit, which has the most precise brush and allows me to coat the tiny inner-eye lashes and goop up the far end lashes for the Bambi effect.

It’s been a long seven weeks my friends, but I’ve been saved. The war is over. Hallelujah, Amen.

And happy Friday to you all.

By |2012-09-28T07:35:43-07:00September 28th, 2012|Style|2 Comments

Beauty find: MAC Prep + Prime

I’ve just discovered that the makeup I’ve used since I was 14 is making me look older around the eyes. I kept seeing myself in photos with weird, white, dry under-eye circles and would cringe. What was THAT?

I have dark circles so I have to cover them up, but that white streak business had to stop. This is my new find: MAC Prep + Prime Transparent Finishing Powder, $24 at Nordstrom and MAC.

I’m a less-is-more makeup girl and skip foundation in favor of  just moisturizer with a little under-eye concealer. YSL Touche Eclat is my desert-island beauty product, $40 at Sephora, Nordstrom, Saks, or Neiman Marcus.

Now, I add a light dusting of MAC Prep+Prime powder all over to keep things where they belong. It doesn’t add color or texture and cuts just enough of the shine to keep the dewy look that I like.

I only apply it once a day, in the morning. (Although a more valiant cosmetic user would probably include an afternoon touch-up as well, but I’m a lazy makeup girl.)

It also comes in a pressed compact version, which I’ll need for my purse post-haste.

(Do you have any other tips for keeping away makeup lines under the eyes? I’m still learning.)

Happy weekend!

 

 

By |2012-08-24T07:59:04-07:00August 24th, 2012|Style|2 Comments

Is there such a thing as hair stalking?

Last night, at Postino, I fell in love. She sashayed in wearing white linen, big gold hoops, and had perfect just-blushed cheeks. But her hair, her hair! I was at a table with seven girlfriends, fashion mavens all, and we couldn’t take our eyes off it. She had one of those cool braids  framing her face, and it swept back into a loose bun. It was the perfect summer updo. Every thirty seconds, one of us was twisting about to look at her. How did she do that? How is it so fabulous? How can we be her?

“You guys, STOP staring,” Christina said. “She’s going to think we’re insane.”

We stared some more. Examined. Pondered.

My friend Jami imagined aloud how chic she would feel at work, walking in with easy, lovely summer hair. I was envisioning all the flowers I could pin next to the bun.

Finally, we sent Alissa over to explain all the staring and to demand instructions.

Today I tried them. It is HARD to french braid your own hair at that angle. I wonder if Tyson would learn and do it for me. So I tried a twist instead.

Behold:

How to do it: section off the front part of hair that you’re going to braid or twist. It’s about 2 inches back, and you want to take some from behind your ear, too, not just in the front.

Put the rest of your hair back in a pony or a clip. French braid or french twist the section, going all the way down to the end of the hair. Fasten the braid with a rubber band. Take down the rest of your hair, and then pull all of your hair, including the braid, into a bun in back.

More inspiration:

I’m going to try the braid with the hair left down next, like this:

Except I will try not to think of Lauren Conrad. I interviewed her once on a red carpet, and she was mean. If I ever get to walk down a red carpet wearing clothes I don’t pay for when all I’ve done is be on reality TV, I will not be mean. I will be very, very grateful that anyone finds me interesting whatsoever.

By |2011-05-15T20:51:18-07:00May 15th, 2011|Style|0 Comments

Stealing Magnolias: D-I-Y Hair Flowers

My Southern Belle fantasies set me on a hunt: in Georgia, I wanted to wear magnolias in my hair. I have no idea if southern belles wear magnolias in their hair, but I saw the movie Steel Magnolias and decided to steal the magnolia as my own.

I wanted it to be big. Giant. Everything in the south is oversized.

You might say I succeeded.

I looooove it. I’ve worn it in Las Vegas, Scottsdale and in Savannah to dinner at the oh-my-heaven Elizabeth on 37th Street, pictured above. I also wore it to a Savannah drag club, made famous by Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil’s Lady Chablis. The flower gets oodles of compliments, but you’ve got to wear it with sass. Own it, as my friend Angela says.

(I saw this real magnolia blooming on a tree in the Okefenokee swamp, Georgia. It took all of my willpower not to snatch it. See. They have magnolias down there.)

The best part: I made it myself from a flower I bought at Michaels. Actually, I made a big pile of flowers for my hair. It’s easy. Here’s the technique:

Pick a flower – the flatter the better, so that they don’t stick out too far from your head. I used these orchids and they were the simplest kind of bloom to work with.

(Note: if you’d like to try a magnolia, rose, peony or other unflat flower, pull the entire thing apart, take out all the plastic spacers that make the flower poufy, and glue and sew it back together. It will lie flat and look much better attached to your head. It’s not as hard as it sounds.)

Next, invest in pair of wire clippers – I got mine at Michaels. Snip the flower off the stem entirely. (You might need to add a little glue or run a needle through it once or twice to hold it together. The orchids did not require this.)

You will also need glue, (I used Gem-Tac), hair clips (from Michaels), and a scrap of thick, kind of stiff fabric. I used linen, but felt would work, too. Cut a piece of the fabric just slightly larger than the clip.

Insert the piece of fabric inside the clip, like this:

Next, paint the back of the clip and the fabric with glue. Do it carefully to keep it out of the inside of the clip.

Next, position the glue-smeared clip onto your flower, like this:

Let it dry, and you’re all finished. I made a couple of the orchids, which I like to wear together, like this:

 

I’ve also been leaving my hair down, and tucking the magnolia behind one ear. It requires bobby pins to stay in place, but I feel like I might be in Savannah, sipping sweet tea on a deck.

 

 

 

By |2010-06-15T20:59:21-07:00June 15th, 2010|Style|0 Comments

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