RSSThe True Summer Child
July 2, 2009
You don’t expect a whirling dervish to come out of someone who looks like Mrs. Claus. Anne of Green Gables … less of a reach. Cruella DeVil … still less. We instinctively expect a personality and a coloring to be associated because it so often works that way.
Read moreProduct Review : Clinique Repairwear SPF 15 Foundation
June 12, 2009
I wasn’t planning on buying foundation but I got overheated with the excitement of finding this color and formulation. And I’m still on a Winter Self-Discovery kick. And I had an afternoon alone. So what, you might say. Or, you might say, “3 hours?! In a row??” . I myself fit into the latter category.
I went to Sears to buy another tube of Estee Lauder Zero-Smudge mascara because my daughter appropriated mine. And I had a gift card, you see. So I wandered over to Clinique because they make some good, and more affordable, stuff and they had a GWP.
Their gifts are pretty good and free has a certain appeal that I’m certain you can understand, especially if you have teenagers. I wish they’d put some new lip products in those gifts. The ol’ Different Grape (this is a widely wearable color?), Apple Cider ( less wearable than A Different Grape), and Raspberry Glace (kind of boring), they’ve seen their day. I guess that among Clinique lipsticks, I really like the Butter Shine best, but I can see how not everyone would because it’s so creamy. I do like the choice of gifts, the various glosses, and how they’ve done a warm and cool option.
Clinique has a PWP offer right now of Summer Pinks or Summer Bronzes.
I’m always drawn to foundation. It fascinates me for some reason. There’s a sticky spot in my head for all those nuances of beige. My own skin issues are,
-lines under eyes,
- a lot of pigment discolorations on sides of face,
-large pores on nose,
but the skin is pretty smooth in the sense of not-bumpy.
Foundation these days is astounding in the number of finishes available and even the more complete coverage products look and feel pretty good. So I started looking for a foundation with heavier coverage that might still look believable with a face full, and would allow for less coverage in some places and much more in others. Although we all need a darker skin-tone concealer (for imperfections on the skin) along with the lighter one (for shadows), I feel unlikely to begin mixing 2 concealers to arrive at my perfect shades. Even if I did, I don’t have time to dot concealer on a hundred little spots. What if foundation alone could cover well enough to hide those pigment spots?
Decades ago, foundation used to be too pink. Eventually, I think makeup artists convinced cosmetic companies that skin is actually more yellow than it is pink. Now, I wonder if a lot of products are too yellow. The salespeople tell you that they make it that way to diminish redness. Well, ok, but you’re not supposed to see the yellow tones. Your skin becomes a different color than your ears. I see skin as kind of grayish, but maybe that’s because mine is. I freely admit that I have no experience matching foundation to anybody but myself. Does anyone remember Club Monaco makeup? Monica Lewinsky wore it, just to date it for you. Those were neutral foundation colors.
I found Repairwear in Fair Neutral 03 and Neutral 05. Micaela, the very nice Clinique saleswoman who has worked at our counter for years and knows me to be weird, contesting, and hard-to-please but does a great job of pretending I’m a normal client, gave me a sample. I’m thrilled to see they’re taking a page from the MAC book and doing this now; must have all been at the same staff meeting. You should get a sample too. It’s very hard to get a sense of this foundation, or any foundation, at the store. Like mascara, it can only be tested in your own bathroom.
What happened was this. I tried it on, just the smallest bit, as Micaela advised. She said clients who buy it love it and don’t buy another bottle for ages. Your initial impression is “No way, this is too masky”. But once it’s all spread out, after about 10 seconds, dayam, it looks good. It feels a little bit heavy if you get too much on, but your skin seems rather perfect. Maybe a little too perfect, but I can get with the drama easily. This is not the formulation to begin with if you’re leery of the artificiality of foundation.
Pick a Saturday when you have a lot of time. Apply it as you usually do your foundation. Realize immediately the coverage is more dense than you expected and the only way to make it look real is by wiping it off which will make your skin red and uneven. Rinse it all off instead. Wait 10 minutes.
Begin again. Use ¼ your usual amount of foundation. 1 pump of the bottle is about right for your face. Apply it on the side of your hand and from there, put little dots all over your face and start blending them together. You have lots of time to work it around. The sunscreen in it doesn’t sting so it can go on eyelids and at the inside corners of eyes.
Take a little more off your hand and dab it, or stipple with your foundation brush, over pigment irregularities. It covers very well without looking cakey. If you have larger pores, drive the foundation brush into them end-on, with a little more foundation, and they’ll go away. Only the thinnest coverage goes under the eyes, as with any foundation, mostly just to blend away the concealer lines.
It is supposed to dry matte, and it does an ok job of it. You will need powder. I don’t need more touchups during the day than I normally would. I think the product looks a little “tired” at the end of the day, after a couple of powder re-applications. If I were going out at night, I’d wash it off and reapply. Luckily, I have no night life besides chauffering to soccer games so … if it ain’t my problem, … it ain’t a problem!
I start with Clinique’s All About Eyes concealer in Light Neutral, fabulous in its own right, and paint it in the usual places, the darker shadows. I don’t even blend it in, just paint it on with a lipstick brush. Wait 2 minutes and it will dry looking like Indian paint. The foundation brush will blend it for you but don’t smear. Keep your foundation brush strokes feathery, light, and quick. You want the concealer to stay where you put it.
Don’t buy makeup without visiting Paula Begoun’s group at Beautypedia. You’ll get another opinion and a better sense of what’s in this product than I can give you. You’ll learn whether it deserves Clinique’s “anti-aging”, or even better “de-aging”, label.
Unbelievable someone could have so much to say about foundation.
-->Your initial impression is “No way, this is too masky”. But once it’s all spread out, after about 10 seconds, dayam, it looks good. It feels a little bit heavy if you get too much on, but your skin seems rather perfect. Maybe a little too perfect, but I can get with the drama easily. This is not the formulation to begin with if you’re leery of the artificiality of foundation.
Read moreColor Clarification
June 6, 2009
Makeup Model : Warm Spring was posted on Friday. I wanted to change that content before it published but the week got away from me. I so dislike the month of June, you have no idea. I know women who find September to be the month of lunacy. Me, it is June, no contest.
I did change it this morning. I won’t repeat what I said before. My point should have come across more strongly as needing to see the person being analyzed in many colors. Instead, it sounded like “my system is the only right one”.
The article got written that way as a crash between my perfectionist self, my very inexperienced self, and the requests I get to tell people their season or have “color parties”. When I say it can’t be done that way and nobody can look at someone and know their season, the look I get back is one of “well, you must not be any good then, because I was told I’m a Spring and I like yellow and you must be holding back so you can be paid”.
That’s frustrating on many levels. Out of that frustration, I implied that color analysis MUST be done in person and that the system I use is the only right one.
What I do sincerely believe is that in any system, the analyst has to see the person in a variety of colors in slightly-overcast-midday light. Early day has too many blue wavelengths. Later on, too many yellow wavelengths. Too much sun overexposes. It is hard to look at one rendition of that person, be it photo or in person, and be able to tell the season. Maybe that’s just me, because I understand colour best by comparison with other colours and their effects.
Secondly, well, yeah, I guess I do want to get paid for what I know and the resources I use. At least, I’d love people to not make the assumption that it’s a hobby and I could just tell them their season off the top of my head if I were really their friend. I realize nobody means harm, it’s just a relatively unknown field and few people have been exposed to how it works (or the life-changing value it has). Most particularly, I want to get paid to get it right.
For many people, whether for reasons of distance or cost or other, personal analysis with the whole drape thing is not an option. That doesn’t mean that there are no choices. Having a PCA done in person costs upwards of 150 to 300 and takes 2-3 hours minimum. Online services like Pretty Your World, which is I still believe is the most powerful image tool available to most people, costs half that. Lora Alexander and I had a project going together awhile back. We’ve ended up taking different directions, but I learned an enormous amount from her. I also believe she has the most thorough and multifaceted online PCA out there.
The analyst might want to see you in specific colours. They might prefer your hair up or down. They might not mind makeup or forbid it. They will guide you in all these issues. You will still be so much further ahead in understanding your personal coloring. You will have a swatch book, which is worth its weight in gold for the clothes and makeup shopping mistakes it spares you.
The point is you need to send many pictures. Drape every piece of clothing you have across yourself and take a picture. Lora, if you read this, please comment but I think you’d agree that the more pictures, definitely the better.
Bottom line, if I had the chance to have an online analysis or not have one done at all, I have no hesitation in recommending you have it done online. I swear to you that it is an amazing experience in finding your place and your look. We look less fat, old, and ugly in our right colors because like colors find one another and enhance or complete the appearance. That’s why they’re called complimentary colors, the red-greens and so on. Unlike colors fight the whole time. What we’re trying to find are the colours that you were painted with at birth. It all happens for a reason.
Perhaps all PCAs go through this at the beginning and get used to it. I wonder when I’ll outgrow saying things I don’t mean and behaving like someone I don’t even like. I have no respect for anyone who tries to get ahead by pushing anyone else down. If you can’t climb on your own merits, then you shouldn’t climb at all. It disturbs me to think that I seemed to do that very thing. Still learning, I guess.
Whether you’re raising children or dogs, or practicing medicine, or doing color analysis, I really believe there are as many right ways of doing it as there as people trying. I am not someone with a lot of unilateral beliefs about raw food diets for dogs and cats, spanking children, religion, and most other hot button topics. If I sounded rigid and inflexible, I sincerely apologize. I’m not that guy but I sure sounded like I was.
Note : Things are happening in a funny order here. I just posted this and see that Lora wrote a great reply to the Makeup Model : Warm Spring article. It got diverted to my spam, I don’t know why, but it’s posted now. Read it. Talk to us.
-->I changed the content of the Makeup Model : Warm Spring article that was posted yesterday.
The article got written in that way as a crash between my perfectionist self, my very inexperienced self, and the requests I get to tell people their season or have “color parties”. When I say it can’t be done that way and nobody can look at someone and know their season, the look I get back is one of “well, you must not be any good then, because I was told I’m a Spring and I like yellow and you must be holding back so you can be paid”.
Book Review : The Omnivore’s Dilemma
June 1, 2009
What was the last non-fiction book that I could call un-put-down-able? That’s easy. There has never been another one.
I was speechless and spellbound.
Among its numerous awards, Michael Pollan’s book was named by the NYT Book Review as One of the 10 Best of 2006. I would say One Of The 10 Best, period.
You can read the first chapter and read what others have said on the book’s web page.
If you eat, if you talk about food, if you buy or prepare food, if you think you know what you’re getting or you think you know where it comes from, you’re about to be politely but definitely awakened. You might wish you could continue living in your old world of un-knowing.
The book is divided into thirds. The first section takes us through the depressing and horrifying labyrinth of corn production and usage.
The farm ain’t what it used to be and is only barely where food begins. A netherworld has grown between farm and food store, a dense and solid wall of chemistry and creative marketing. After all, there’s a limit to how much food we can consume. Or is there? The food bureaucracies keep finding new ways of making us pack away more and filling their pockets while they watch.
Meanwhile, the farmer is caught in a game that he can only lose. I wish he’s talked more about the psychology of the farmer. A more stubborn and independent group you will never find. They cannot come to an agreement about anything. Their collective character is part of the problem.
Section 2 takes us to an “organic” farm, though he explains that the “organic” label is so disputed as to be rendered almost meaningless. Salatin’s farm is what we want to believe we’re getting if we buy organic. Before anyone spouts another opinion about the Farmer’s Market, before you resist when your teenagers announce that they’re going vegan, before you decide if your organic strawberries are worth the cost, arm yourself with some facts.
I think most people who buy organic (I don’t, by the way) realize that it’s not what we hope for. Just as in buying Green cleaning products and non-animal-tested cosmetics (and I do), we are all trying to cast a vote for chemical-free cruelty-free world and saying we’ll pay more for it.
In the description of this farm is a prayer for our future that will never be answered. I felt almost overjoyed to read about Joel Salatin’s farm. This farmer’s understanding of natural process and his methods of miniaturizing them to suit his 500 acres are astounding. The workings of this incredible place in Virginia are so beautifully orchestrated to achieve cycles within cycles that it seems to be the only and obvious answer to the industrial mess that corn has become.
Except for one problem – it utilizes, even exploits, the inherent randomness of nature. The industrial revolution came about when business realized it was cheaper to product 1000 identical units than 10 different ones. They went on to notice that the numbers worked the same way for the productivity of human beings, meaning that 1000 people doing the same thing were cheaper to pay and easier to control than 10 people doing different things.
I wish he’d outlined the finances of Salatin’s farm better. Does his wife work? Yes, he has no inputs or loss to disease, but he needs buildings and machines. What does he clear in a year? The size of his animal and plant harvest are given and they are impressive but I’d have loved to see a balance sheet. For Salatin, it probably doesn’t matter because he’s living a life he loves and believes in and there’s no dollar sign on that. For farmers interested in trying to transition from industrial corn and soybean production to a model that allows them to truly be the stewards of the land that they pride themselves in being, more dollar talk would have been interesting.
The final example is an illustration of what a complete thinker Pollan is as he looks at a topic from every angle. We accompany him on a mission to prepare a meal that he has gathered and prepared at every stage. He forages for mushrooms and fruit. He decides that if he’s going to eat meat, he needs to experience the act of killing to defend his action of eating it.
Every spring, as I prepare to make the annual Tabbouleh, I look at the oregano and mint in my garden, and think “how sure are you?” I feel surging trepidation as I wonder if it’s mutated somehow. I worry that we’ll all have awful cramps later on. Who discovered that it was the rhubarb stems you could eat? and if it took awhile for the leaves to kill you, how did they trace it back? Pollan recreates for us the entire history of humans learning through trial and serious error what is safe for them to eat.
This section contains some of the most fascinating discussions in the book and raises some disturbing points. For instance, we might deplore hunting but eat meat. Regardless of how we feel about the moral decency of taking life or enjoying killing, our position may be untenable since the wild animal has had an overall better life and death than the farmed animal, most especially the factory-farmed animal.
If McDonalds’s has a failure rate of 5% at the abattoir, does this mean it’s acceptable if only 5 cows per 100 are skinned alive? Jesus. And apparently the situation at the slaughterhouse improved when McDonald’s came along and set some standards. As the WalMart of the food industry, McDonalds, and indeed the whole fast food machine, has to appear beyond reproach at every level, but even 1 in 100 seems to me too many. Fast food walks a fine line, as does the cigarette industry, because they are selling us something that is bad for us. We don’t have to choose to buy, but the argument is not that different. The less public inquisition, the better for them.
Maybe the level of complexity that we’ve allowed to overtake the food industry has been a way of protecting ourselves from the debasing ,ugly, cruel reality and allows us to blame someone else for the destruction.
You’ll also find the most intelligent discussion of vegetarianism in these pages. No single outcome is revealed to be the right one and no opinion is criticized or accused. Pollan doesn’t propose the right path or a new path. His goal seems to be to force us to question at the deepest level our feelings about food and recognize the level of complexity and near-impossibility of finding the solution.
I wish he’d contrasted European and Canadian farm policies with those in the US but I expect that’s the topic of another book and some distance from Pollan’s real interests. Canada doesn’t deserve to have farmers. The bureaucracy forces them to compete on a global playing field with a huge handicap. Perhaps cynical of me, but until we know what it means to line up for 5 hours to get bread or what empty shelves look like in the supermarket, nothing will change. Europeans know all too well what that looks like and treat their farmers more carefully.
For me, cooking is just another chore, a job that I can never cross off. Through his eyes and experience, I see that preparation, sharing, even the saying of a grace is the human tradition of gratitude for the sacrifice that an animal, plant, and place must make to feed us.
My brother-in-law, Xavier, is the only bred-in-the-bone forager I know. It always seems so odd to me that he thinks about food so much. I now understand that he is not perpetually hungry but simply showing the deepest respect for the true source of food. The skill of foraging, that most of us have long lost, takes enormous time as Pollan learned.
Once we sit at his table, sharing the final meal, we have covered a lot of territory.
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What was the last non-fiction book that I could call un-put-down-able? That’s easy. There has never been another one.
I was speechless and spellbound.
Among its numerous awards, Michael Pollan’s book was named by the NYT Book Review as One of the 10 Best of 2006. I would say One Of The 10 Best, period.
What Women Have Learned
March 25, 2009
Women often send one another words and passages that were uplifting in their humor and their sadness. The balance speaks for the experience we live each day. We are the bearers of our family’s emotional weight. We shoulder the role of stewarding a society’s acceptable behaviors (to paraphrase Tracy’s insightful words), whether we fully realize it or not.
A long time ago, a reader sent me the following in an email. I regret that I can no longer find her name, but I kept the email and have read it many times. Perhaps many of you know it already. It is a beautiful reminder of the many things our everyday struggles have taught us. At the end of a day that feels miserable, you just have to keep living. For how long? Until a ball comes at you that you can’t hit back.
Maya Angelou was interviewed by Oprah on her 70th birthday. Oprah asked her what she thought of growing older.
[[ Right there on television, she said it was 'exciting.'
Regarding body changes; she said there were many, occurring every day...like her breasts. They seem to be in a race to see which will reach her waist first. The audience laughed so hard they cried.
Maya Angelou said this:
'I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.'
'I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.'
'I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life.'
'I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as 'making a life.'
'I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.'
'I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back.'
'I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.'
'I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.'
'I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. '
'I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.'
'I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.'
Please pass this on -- you will boost another woman's self-esteem. If you don't...the elastic will break and your underpants will fall down around your ankles! ]]
Maya Angelou seems an enviably serene woman who radiates simple honesty. I expect that the notion that looking your age is not good enough was one of those things she threw back. More of us should do the same. You will be held in higher regard if you share your true human warmth than if you glow only from the surface of your perfect skin.
More recently, my dear friend, Gina, sent this. She knows I’m a terrible facebooker, but wanted to be sure that I saw it, so she e-mailed it direct.
These words, between a poem and a song, celebrate the small wonders for which we make time each day. Women are sisters and friends and soulmates and cheerleaders and we are each other’s beating hearts. We find ways to heal ourselves and each other with our truths and our deep connection to life’s most basic energies.
Alone, we can be frightened. We shortchange the value of our contribution to our homes and our workplaces. With two of us together, our bravery more than doubles. We can take on the world.
-->Women are sisters and friends and soulmates and cheerleaders and we are each other’s beating hearts. We find ways to heal ourselves and each other with our truths and our deep connection to life’s most basic energies.
Read moreColored Eyeliner
March 7, 2009
So you like blue, green, and purple? Me too.
Taking yourself seriously is never recommended but, in some situations, you do need to be taken seriously by others. Colored eyeliner is not the way to get there.
While exuberant colors on your face might still not be the best choice for a professional setting, color is too much fun to reject altogether.
There are 2 ways to add blue/green/purple to makeup that I think look great. Obviously, these are eye makeup – in fact, eyeliner - techniques. They’re both subtle enough to still be tasteful. They’re fast. They’re easy to get right and surprisingly hard to get wrong, because the color is used on such a small area.
This is not a dark eyeliner look or a smoky eye look. The color has to be softer to work as a subtle accent in its own right. Someone looking at you should not be able to see the color right away. Too dark comes on too strong and winds up looking hard with the first technique and fierce with the second one.
Naturally, women with stronger, more intense coloring will choose deeper colors. Women with very soft coloring, like Michelle Pfeifer, would pick something that would be too washed-out on Eva Longoria.
InStyle shows a photo gallery of colored liner looks. I’m not a fan of most of these looks. The color is too obvious. Kate Hudson’s turquoise and Blake Lively’s gold – they’re just too much. Rebecca Gayheart shows a good example of how to use a light to medium color in a more subtle way – there’s a light color lining the inner rim of the lower lid (that’s called the ‘waterline’).
Be careful not to choose a color with a lot of red pigment or you may end up looking as if you’ve been crying. Those pigments can often be very irritating to the eyes as well. Blue-purple, medium green, violet – this is the time to play (and not spend too much money) so try out different colors. Rimmel’s Exaggerate Full Color Eye Definer in Aubergine is a nice blue-purple. The same pencil in Pine is a good medium green. ( Rimmel does conduct animal testing. These were bought at a time when I was less judicious.)
To help choose a color that will be great on YOU, consult the color palette for your season. (Visit Pretty Your World to learn a lot more about Color Analysis. Once you get this figured out once, you’ll never again make a color mistake.). See a color that you’d like to try as an eyeliner? Teal on an Autumn? Soft plum on a Summer. Sounds gorgeous to me. Use it in one of these two ways :
First eyeliner technique
This method begins with the colored liner and applies it in the usual way, as a line around the eye, top and bottom, inside corner (where the lashes begin) to outside corner. The line is barely noticeable on the inside corner and becomes progressively thicker as you go outwards, but still never very wide. No need to get precise or do any smudging here The softer color intensity is very forgiving and we’ll be covering it with an eyeshadow anyhow.
After applying the liner, apply your usual medium matte neutral eyeshadow. The color might be camel, taupe, or grey depending on your coloring and the shape of your eye socket. Put a thin wash all over the lid , right over the eyeliner. Go into the crease, and just above the crease, but not to the browbone. This is simply a thin layer on a bigger surface area to tone down any cartoon effect of the color in the liner.
Here’s another gallery of colored eyeliner looks at ElleGirl magazine - and none of them are much use in the real world, except the third, which is a good illustration of this technique.
With what’s left on the brush, go over the line of eyeliner that’s under the lower lashes, or maybe just below it. Don’t go over the liner with an eyeshadow of the same color or the effect will be too vibrant. We want to hint, nothing more.
Finally, apply another, very light, layer of the liner over the first, just to give the color a little more depth.
If you wish to apply a light matte shadow right under the eyebrow, that’s fine. I usually just use a little concealer there to get the lift effect without needing an extra eyeshadow, because it becomes too complicated of an eye design. Personally, I think it looks best with less mascara than you might normally wear.
It ‘s got to look like it might have just happened on its own, like a blurry smudged impression of something more. It’s the power of suggestion.
Second eyeliner technique
You can see this illustrated in the eye at the top. Here it is again. There is no other makeup here, just the eyeliner. Which eye pops out at you more?
This takes a little practice but no time. Your eye color will stand out nicely. The color is on too small an area for anyone to really perceive that it’s there as long as you choose a color that’s neither too dark or too glittery. Once again, the color of the liner is an accent to emphasize your eyes.
Here, we’re placing the liner along the inside rim of the upper eyelid. That’s it. Just draw a line there tracing the pencil along the underside edge of the lashes.
The color above is Rimmel Aubergine.
A deep blue cleans up the white of the eye and looks nice on dark brown eyes in this second technique. It’s this (deepblueliner) .
It’s not this
or this
, and certainly not the metallic versions of these which is worse. Why are these colors such staples, especially on women with blue eyes? I think it’s a leftover from younger days. And yet, blue eyes are the easiest of all to accentuate with liner. Brown and gray (especially warm brown) look better on blue eyes than any other eye color.
On the rest of the eye, use your neutrals, though I think the liner’s effect is more noticeable if you use neutrals in lighter colors than usual – so camel instead of a deeper brown if you’re warm, or mushroom instead of taupe if you’re cooler.
These are not serious looks, so be playful. Try out various colors. As soon as you put green on your face, you’ve relinquished your gravity (in more ways than one).
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There are 2 ways to add blue/green/purple to makeup that I think look great. Obviously, these are eye makeup – in fact, eyeliner – techniques. They’re both subtle enough to still be tasteful. They’re fast. They’re easy to get right and surprisingly hard to get wrong, because the color is used on such a small area.
Read moreBook Review : Staging Your Comeback
February 26, 2009
The full title of Christopher Hopkins’ book is Staging Your Comeback : A Complete Beauty Revival For Women Over 45.
If you don’t know the book by Hopkins (a.k.a. The Makeover Guy), you have several hours of hugely enjoyable reading and thinking ahead of you. It recognizes our particular needs in a terribly honest way. He’s not too big with indulgence either, the talk is straight up, as in “ …you are not the right temperament for hair color.” Fun moments abound.
You will read some pretty raw admissions (“I am no longer interested in attention from men.”). The makeovers begin with 12 mommies and grannies, women way out at one end of the I-let-myself-go spectrum. He’s got every Before stereotype covered and achieves 12 remarkable transformations.
Check out the Befores right here. See you in about an hour.
Christopher proves that it’s not only certain men and women who can be more attractive than ever as they age. It’s all of us. Every single one. We make excuses for why we don’t care what we look like but the only result is to further and further weaken ourselves.
Nobody cares how old you think you look. We all know that’s a choice. If you don’t want it to be that way anymore, this is the guy to help take you through a transition.He has vision and imagination. There is so much that can be done before you even think about seeing a dermatologist for Botox or fillers. It doesn’t cost that much money. You use face cream anyhow, right? You do get haircuts, don’t you? We all go out in sweats and sneakers sometimes but there are a thousand small differences that matter.
What I love about this book:
1. The women are real. They’re not suspiciously gifted with wonderful skin or fabulous eyes just waiting to be revealed. You know me. I have little use for anything that’s not Real World, unless it’s meant as an entertaining diversion.
2. He’s brutally honest about what age does to bodies but still respects and enjoys the company and confusion of older women. You also know that I love aging, which I see as an opening of doors. And I love older women and their mind-blowing and completely unrecognized (especially by themselves) potential.
3. There doesn’t appear to be any Photoshopping going on, at least not too obviously. A beauty book with a pixel of Photoshop is rendered useless, IMO. Right away, the whole thing is out of reach.
4. He really really gets how to wear clothes, not just for aging but for all body types. Here’s one I never knew, but it’s obvious when he says it as all correct ideas are : The tighter your sleeves, the bigger your chest. OK, I can use that.
5. The pictures are bona fide, cringe-worthy renditions of the I’m-too-busy/old/young/comfortable/ugly/hot – to care. They are not forgiving or concealing anything. I got a few jolts because I think I saw me.
6. He’s not trying to get you to spend useless money. Quite the opposite actually. One of my favorite lines, “In the beauty industry, live and learn is taboo. Forget and buy is the name of the profit game.”
7. It’s comprehensive. The clothes, shoes, bra, buttons, hair, makeup, nail polish… all covered. He hits on every cliché and has noticed every detail.
8. The hair chapter is outstanding. If there’s anything that we all get wrong in every conceivable way, and that ages us the most, it’s hair. He covers it all, from color to cut, with a very comprehensive discussion of the very common problem of thinning hair.
9. He’s heard every comeback. He’ll tell you your fears before you tell him. Your objections get pretty weak when they’re No. 5 and 8 on the Exposing Your Excuses list.
10. His goal is to give you things you can do yourself. He just wants you to see differently, where seeing yourself is the hardest thing of all. He’s never showing himself off.
11. He’s funny. I spewed my smoothie on the line about the biscuits.
12. He can be brutally honest, ( I know I said that already) , almost sarcastic, in trying to get these women to see that they are so much more than they believe. Your best friend can say things nobody else can, not strangers or family, because you know he/she loves you and you can entrust him/her to take care of your feelings. Nothing is held back.
13. He doesnt’ see what is. He see what is possible. Possibility is what it is all about. Learning, change, it’s all in honor of what is possible. And there are very few limits.
See the man himself on YouTube.
He says his frustration with makeovers is that women don’t continue to practice what they learned, they just go back to the familiar. It may be because the transformation is too much of a leap to adjust to, too much like a fantasy. It can’t be incorporated into the woman’s life fast enough, so it just gets forgotten like a dream or a week on a Carribean island. Even I couldn’t maintain myself in the After Pics and I already use all this stuff. If you presently wear no makeup but would like to try, you’ll need a friend who knows how to do this or a makeup artist. Ask around. Book a private appointment, not a MAC counter on a Saturday afternoon.
Another reason women don’t stay with the changes is the time it takes. I don’t know about you but my tightest commodity is time. Change does take time. It takes trial and error and error and error too. So take on one thing at a time, and pretty soon, you’re in a whole new place, looking back and thinking “That WAS me but it isn’t me anymore.”
He writes a blog. I liked this post on aging. Considering the world of appearance that he lives in, he finds a good balance.
His personal experience with plastic surgery, the new addiction, and how easy to go a little too far with just a little more is here.
Enter the Sweepstakes to win a makeover with him!! for US residents only (how could they?).
We’re not trying to look 21. Or 31. We’re trying to look like fantastic 40’s , 50’s , and beyond. OK, maybe a fantastic 60 does look 50, but not 30!!
Sometimes the way you look IS what’ s holding you back. It’s not a symbol of the shallowness and superficiality of our world. This is completely internal. The whole thing is happening inside yourself. It’s your message to your subconscious that you’re slowing down, that you don’t see yourself or your future as worth the effort. If you believe the future looks just like the present, why expend the energy?
What you believe about the world makes it the way it is for you. If you can sincerely say “I like my life and I don’t want anything to be different, ever, not one single thing”, then you’re doing fine. Otherwise, change starts with you. You don’t have to see or know the endpoint. You don’t have to absorb the entire scope of possibility immediately. You are just signaling your subconscious that you’re changing your brain waves. It will get it. It works for every human being and it will work for you. It never doesn’t work.
If you look like you can take on more, this could be the first step in convincing yourself that it’s true. We’ve all seen (or been) the woman who got an amazing haircut but didn’t keep it because she couldn’t match her personality to that cut. Certain behaviors accompany, and are expected of, certain appearances. Amazing, subtle, and true.
Everyone else automatically believes what you believe about you - I mean, what your subconscious believes. You can strut all you like; if your subsconscious has doubts, that’s what others will hear. Can you know ahead of time where the break in the clouds will happen? No, that’s not part of the deal. All you’re doing is saying “I want the cloud cover to lift. I’m ready to think about a new chance.”
By the end of the book, you feel like you’ve travelled a little journey of empowerment with these women. He has given them back so much pride in themselves. In the After pics, they’re laughing and moving and playing in ways they probably never would have again.
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If you don’t know the book by Hopkins (a.k.a. The Makeover Guy), you have several hours of hugely enjoyable reading and thinking ahead of you. It recognizes our particular needs in a terribly honest way.
The makeovers begin with 12 mommies and grannies, women way out at one end of the I-let-myself-go spectrum. He’s got every Before stereotype covered and achieves 12 remarkable transformations.
When Anger Is The Easiest Way
February 23, 2009
I used to be a very angry person. I wasted two years or so on allowing a poisonous emotion to get hold of me. How embarrassing.
Finding strength in anger
It wasn’t trivial. I think the culmination was that we were forced to sell our farm, and a great deal more besides. I was furious with the world for having taken away what my husband had taken 18 hours a day for 25 years to accomplish. I felt sorry for him. I was afraid that we would lose our home. I felt sorry for myself, plain and simple.
Anger is easier than confusion, fear, and hurt. It gives you enormous strength. It was also the easiest reaction, the “all-about-me “ comeback. Maybe it came from exhaustion. You don’t always have the energy to devise imaginative solutions. It’s easier to pretend that you’re born with a certain personality and you can’t control it, any more than where your freckles are.
It becomes a habit, part of your self-identity. It becomes too comfortable. It’s your crutch, always there when you need it, just waiting for you to call. It’s your new security blanket.
Defining point
Eventually, I refused to recognize that anything good could happen. If it did, I’d feel compelled to add some grudge comment like “Well, it won’t last”.
I had to reach for some kind of other feeling. We all know what that angry woman looks like, inside and out. Sometimes she’s very young. She trusts no one. She’s easily provoked. She’s quick to assign blame and can find fault anywhere. She looks for things to flare over so she can keep the fire stoked. Once the flame starts to go down, the fear of having to take a close look at herself is too destabilizing.
We have watched that too many times and seen what it does to her. It wears her down, keeps her alone, and kills her slowly. I recognize this woman now because I used to be her. It’s like writing about being a teenager… I remember it but I can’t fully understand anymore. When I meet her, I don’t know how to help her.
Anger became her relief valve (and her revenge valve) on a world that didn’t come through. Now, she’s worn out from fighting all the time, though her opponent is usually herself. She drains others of energy because she can’t contain all her anger and some sneaks out irrationally now and again. People are careful around her, and pretty soon, they sidestep coming round at all. She keeps them on eggshells to avoid her nasty remarks. She learned that power play so she got treated gently and her fragility was respected.
If she’s not mad at the world for failing her, then she’s mad at everyone around her for not doing what she thinks they should. Internal conversations are bent on getting them to see things her way. She imagines the world is trying to hone in on the remains of her little piece of the pie and she’s going to protect it if it kills her.
Releasing
I had to choose. It takes big energy to maintain that level of bitterness and exclude all that is good in the world. I was becoming someone I didn’t want to be. Rage excuses habits in the treatment of others that discredits Your Deeper Self, the real you. Feeding fury is self-defeating.
I forced myself to think about what was good. I didn’t begin seeing much of it but there was always something. For a year, all I said was “There’s food in the fridge, the house is heated, the family is fine. I have everything I need.”
This goes beyond composure and restraint. Serenity comes from a deeper spring where no time is given to judging whether the world meets our expectations. We all worry about something but this moment, right now, is sufficient.
We know that angry woman. Don’t be her. Anger and disappointment are the most aging things out there.
Every hand’s a winner and every hand’s a loser. It just depends what you do with it.
-->We have watched that angry woman too many times and seen what it does to her. It wears her down, keeps her alone, and kills her slowly. I recognize this woman now because I used to be her. It’s like writing about being a teenager… I remember it but I can’t fully understand anymore. When I meet her, I don’t know how to help her.
Read moreHow Wall Street Fell And How To Fix It
January 17, 2009
Do you understand the recent turmoil? I lose interest when I read about it because I don’t understand most of what I read. I want to be able to talk about it because everyone else is. I don’t want to be accusatory or misinformed so I do more listening. Where can you learn the facts without being bored or confused?
When possibility and bankers meet
What if someone wrote it as a story about people? No graphs, no jargon (or not so much that the meaning is mired in it), not too many %. As a story about human behavior, it is nothing short of fascinating and not even surprising. The more you read, the wilder the story becomes. This debacle as fiction could never have been plausible.
Some people saw it coming. In fact they took out bets that it would happen. Who were they? How did they know? What alarms did they raise and who chose to ignore them? The most easily readable obituary of the financial meltdown is the article “The End” for the December 08 issue of Portfolio magazine.
Michael Lewis
Lewis begins at the beginning of the now-wreckage. It is the buildup towards the realization that collapse had to happen. The system was obviously, clearly, incontestably doomed. There was no other possible outcome.
When the end began
Actually, the pot was simmering long before the mortgage fiasco. It began 30 years ago. In Lewis’ 1989 book, Liar’s Poker, in the same story-telling vein, he describes Wall Street of the 80s. Again funnier and more far-fetched than most fiction, this is Lewis’ own autobiography in a tale about people, greed, and permission. Addicted to the wild risk ride, seeing themselves as indestructible, these were the rulers in the game of finding every legislative loophole possible to amass indecent fortunes by risking other people’s money.
There are good reviews here and here, if you want to get the gist of it.
What they did with the money
In the January 09 New York Times article “The End Of The Financial World As We Know It”, written by Lewis and David Einhorn, you’re brought up to date with what went on, what’s going on, and what they did with the money they were given. The role that politicians played in the background is explained. It becomes obvious that what they’re doing to fix things is as idiotic and doomed to fail as the scientific neglect that got them there in the first place.
How can so many people in charge of so much be so deluded ? Who would give $700 billion to someone with a gambling addiction without changing the rules of the game? How can single individuals still have so much authority?
Understanding the financial industry is not important. You don’t need to. It ‘s just a story about people posturing, bluffing, and ultimately hiding weakness. Showdowns are the name of this game, Old West style, gun-slingers trying to protect themselves and secure their glory. Wall Street is just human nature on a grander scale.
How to really fix it
The second part of the article above is “How To Repair A Broken Financial World”.
The warnings were always there. Reasonable solutions are offered but the choice seems to be made not to heed them. There are other ways out of this than just throwing more money into the pit that sucked it all up in the first place. The system that so mismanaged itself will have to propped up artificially to maintain some sort of status quo and prevent a complete unravelling. I hope something more is happening behind the scenes.
We all have a sense of the inexcusability. Bankers moved from invincibility through denial to protection. Can this lesson tame the insatiable greed? Of course not. Humans are humans. You don’t give a bully more attention. His reward system has to be taken away.
The gears of the political and financial machines will have to grind in sync to straighten this out. The legal loopholes will have to be closed. This second article presents forward-looking means of preventing a repetition because the weaknesses of human beings are foreseen and contained. It is the only thing that will really work.
-->I lose interest when I read about it because I don’t understand most of what I read.
What if someone wrote it as a story about people? No graphs, no jargon (or not so much that the meaning is mired in it), not too many %. As a story about human behavior, it is nothing short of fascinating and not even surprising. The more you read, the wilder the story becomes. This debacle as fiction could never have been plausible.
Sites To Know : Pretty Your World
January 9, 2009
I’ve been waiting a year and a half to find Pretty Your World. I read the entire thing in 3 hours. There are other color sites out there but few hold a candle to this one because it is so much more a teaching site than a marketing site. In most cases, the marketing is only thinly veiled by an attempt to teach, but PYW is about teaching and it does so outstandingly well.
The most important image tool
You may know how much importance I place on getting your colors right to look good. The terribly overdone choice of black for evening. The ubiquitous blonde highlights. The supposedly safe charcoal gray or navy suit. They just don’t work on everyone. Ellen DeGeneres in black, Nicole Kidman in washed out blonde hair, even celebs get it wrong.
We all notice it, not just people who like color. The dress you complimented someone on but really thought didn’t look special at all. The friend who spent a fortune on a new coat and she really looks pale and washed out, but you felt you had to say something nice. The warm brown hair on women with no warmth in their skin, so the hair takes over the face.
I really like Color Me Beautiful’s first book because it was my introduction the 4 color season way to analyze people’s colors. It made the whole thing simple enough to understand. It is unbeatable as a place to begin but there were still people I couldn’t fit into the scheme. I get most confused by celebs with hair dyed the color of corn or Springs with brown hair (like Julie Andrews in The Sound Of Music, who seems most often thought of as Spring). Or why some women that I’m certain are Autumns look so good in black. I’m hopeless with women of color. Ask and it shall be answered. Along came Pretty Your World.
Lora Alexander
Lora Alexander is an esthetician, a makeup artist, and a Certified Image Consultant. Color and Art are her primary interests, with close second loves of makeup, color analysis, and beauty psychology.
The 12 Season System
The system is based on a more complete 12 Season color analysis, which Lora believes to be the ONLY accurate system there is, and I absolutely agree. The 4 seasons we know are broken down to each have 3 sub-categories. You don’t begin by finding your season. Rather, you find yourself in the 6 descriptions of Deep, Clear, Light, Soft, Cool, and Warm. Secondly, you identify yourself among the 2 choices of Warm or Cool. Combining the first 6 and the last 2 gives you the 12 combinations. So you could be Deep Winter, Cool Winter, or Clear Winter. The breakdown is found on the Analyze Yourself page.
There are plenty of examples, using celebrities. There are excellent but not overly detailed explanations. The system is broken down in various ways, in a stepwise process, to help you find your place. There are links using Eye Color and Hair Color to help guide your choice. It is unbelievable to me that Lora began this site only 2 months ago. She’s already created THE best teaching site about personal color analysis on the internet.
A walk through PYW
I was completely amazed to see how much Lora and I have in common – like our love of Kevyn Aucoin, our belief in Paula Begoun’s work, our over-40 vintage, our season (Autumn), the fact that we colorcast people within a few minutes of meeting them (though I’m not nearly as good at it as she is), our thriftyness (but we are not cheap!) and our passion for finding beauty advice that works in the REAL world.
She doesn’t pull any punches. We are in perfect agreement when she states, in The Truth About Beauty , that the cosmetics industry lies to us day in and day out and we still can’t give them money fast enough.
Though it may be not be fair, she is also right that we are judged immediately by others and most of it is on appearance. We are not judged on whether or not we’re Gwyneth Paltrow look-alikes. We are judged on the use we’ve made of what we have. Following the “Even someone naturally beautiful…” link on that page will take you to the famous Dove billboard ad and how much artifice the beauty industry is based on. Empower yourself. Learn which products work. Learn your colors.
I love Celebrity Style because it shows celebs in their various hair color tryouts.
Just for fun, but fun it is, there are 4 pages of celebs without makeup. Would we look twice at any of those faces in the mall or pushing a grocery cart? We would not. Their 5’10”, 110 lb bodies, maybe.
How to most improve your looks
I totally get that not everyone wants the bother of makeup. Most women probably don’t. But, listen. Makeup is EASY once you know your season. Your makeup colors ARE your clothing colors. It’s all right there. Even your hair colors are in your palettes!
What I don’t understand is why a woman would not take the time to know her colors just to make good clothing choices. It totally transforms how you look. Why spend $200 or $100 or $10 on something that not only doesn’t flatter your looks, but actually detracts?
You might prefer a certain style of dress or cut of jacket and nobody could argue with your taste. But only 1 of the 3 Springs will ever look gorgeous in black. A Summer never will. You might as well paint a drab grayish foundation color on your face, darken the shadows under your eyes, and get it over with.
I know Autumn women reading this will be saying “I like ballet pink and I’m g.d. well going to wear it.” Do what you gotta do. Hopefully the pink thing doesn’t cost a lot. You will never look rich, vibrant, and powerful in pink. Wear it but not to a meeting. Or an argument. Or a 10 year reunion.
Experiment with success
Many women have some sense of what colors suit them but there’s still a lot of confusion out there. The whole topic seems intimidating. They might have a sense of their general category or some good safe basics. To find a collection of 50!! colors that would be great on YOU – now that’s a gift. You could be more adventuresome, get away from safe, and look amazing.
Where do you start? How do you find your colors when you go shopping? Well, you start here. Like everything else, you get help when you need it, even if it costs money. You send in your picture. You buy the swatch book. You take it shopping. The swatch kit on Lora’s site, and all the extras that come with it, looks fantastic.
Remember the articles on Gift Ideas 1 – 5, back in December? Well, no gift, and I mean NO gift, NONE, could come close to buying a woman her color swatches. Gift certificates are available but the surprise and gratitude of giving a woman her own colors would be worth it.
The palettes themselves aren’t at PYW – or anywhere on the internet. Lora recommends looking at the book Color Me Beautiful’s Looking Your Best for good explanations and 28-color layouts of each of the 12 Seasons, with verbal descriptions of the full 48colors for each season at the end. (The Click to LOOK doesn’t work, it’s just coming from Amazon.)
I bought this book and it’s pretty good. The best thing about it is that it explains the 12 Season system quite well, particularly how a season can crossover and borrow colors from another season. This expands your palette but in a controlled way that is understandable. There is still the hair/clothing/style advice but it’s outdated (the first version was published in 1991). Most disappointing to me was that the 28 colors are hard to see. They look like they’re painted on concrete, grainy and rough. The swatches in the original book were better. Still worth it for the explanation of the 12 Seasons if you’re into it, though.
Have your colors done!
Still don’t believe your color analysis can be done on the internet? In a future post (once I know the date, I’ll post it in the Upcoming link on the front page of this site), Lora will do an in depth color analysis using pictures of me with makeup, without makeup, close-ups of my eyes, and pictures of my hair color when I was young. I’m off to her site to fill out the questionnaire.
Take a serious look at what you get for $89.95 on that same page.
-->I’ve been waiting a year and a half to find Pretty Your World. I read the entire thing in 3 hours. There are other color sites out there but few hold a candle to this one because it is so much more a teaching site than a marketing site. In most cases, the marketing is only thinly veiled by an attempt to teach, but PYW is about teaching and it does so outstandingly well.
Read more-
A Greener Tea
Web Maintenence by Rick Beckman
