Face Wiped

So, I am a user of "facial towelettes", despite their un-eco-friendly ways. It's the only way I can clean my face after one job, put on new make-up for the evening job (ew, that makes me sound like a lady of the night and not a retail zombie), and then be able to make sure that my face is clean before I pass out into bed. Or, if I'm not on top of things enough to remove my make-up on the car ride home, I need the towelettes for the ride to work in the morning on the days where I wake up five minutes before stumbling into my car and need to remove all signs of racoon eyes and stray brow powder. Or, hell, sometimes it's to remove the last bit of whatever face mask I fell asleep with on and didn't remember until I pulled up to work and checked myself in the mirror.

There's no other way to easily wash my skin on the go. And without stupid towelettes, my skin goes to hell.

For a good two years, my go-to was the Yes To Cucumbers wipes that I could find at almost any Walgreens or Target. They were sensitive but effective.

Or, rather, they were. They disappeared from both stores for a few weeks over the summer and when they came back... my skin couldn't take it anymore. I can't figure out what it is in the ingredients that I'm reacting to, but I'm reacting to something with a lot of burning skin. I'm worried that it's the cucumber.

So, the search for a new brand began! I didn't like the generics from Target. I hated the Neutragena. I still like the Korres and Ole Henriksen wipes, but they're way too expensive.

I ended up settling on the Walgreens generic Ology "Gently Soothing" towelettes. They don't burn my skin, the packaging keeps them moist, and they can remove my waterproof eye liner better than anything- while somehow now burning my eyelids. The only real difference in ingredients, from what I can tell, is the lack of perfume. Which I haven't had an issue with in ages, but... sure. It also helps that they're really affordable.

At least I found something, though. I was about to resort to getting baby wipes to use on my face.

Gosh, this is a boring post. I apologize.

Cut Your Own Damn Bangs.

In the past decade, whenever I have requested bangs to a hairdresser, they have been reluctant. Even when a dear friend of mine cut my hair, she was hesitant to give me full-on bangs.

Now, I understand it to a point. Pictures of me from ages 6 to 12 are pretty good evidence for why I shouldn't really have bangs. But that had more to do with the terrible helmet-like bob cuts that I had with those bangs while also not being allowed to wield a curling iron yet.

Since those days, I've gotten pretty good with my hair. I understand what different brushes do to it. I can french and dutch braid. I can do a lot with a single curling iron.

But hairdressers still will never go full-on with bangs. Except the one time where I let a woman that barely understood English give me a $10 bang cut and she gave me really uneven baby bangs rather than "just above the eyebrow" like I wanted. All others will basically give me nothing more than short layers that can work as bangs for about a week before they grow out too much to work with.

And when I got my hair cut this past August, once again I had a hairdresser that was hesitant to give me bangs. I convinced her on the grounds of trying to frame my face to thin it out a little, as I have a round pale Irish pie face that is made worse by frequent swelling in the jawline from my TMJ problems. I need my hair to make it not quite so daunting and terrible to see.

So, the hairdresser gave me some angled long fringe into some long side pieces. But it was rather thin and, when I went to style it the next day, I realized that she hadn't been very precise about where she got the hair for the fringe from. Which seems to be the case when it comes to giving me haircuts. I don't understand why, though, as it's pretty easy to see if you made a straight part in my hair as my hair is so dark brown that it's almost black and my scalp is so pale that it almost glows.

Over the past few months, I bought a cheap pair of trimming scissors. I mostly just tried to keep trimming the fringe to keep it out of my eyes and also try to even it out a little bit into more of what I was looking for. But I didn't want to go crazy with it, as I've had my fill of "I let my sister cut my hair and now I have this one chunk that's mysteriously too short for my ponytail" moments.

Until today. Armed with nothing but hazy memories of a "how to give yourself bangs" guide that I read online over a year ago, the cheap scissors, a mirror, and a terrible mood motivating me more than ever- I just did it.

And I did a pretty awesome job!

It did take hours to get it perfect, however, as the key to not fucking it up was to do a lot of tiny trimming with the scissors almost completely vertical, something I had picked up from the few times I could get a hairdresser to cut me some bangs. They're not as super blunt looking if you do it that way and easier to play with and cover minor uneven-ness. It possibly also creates texture.

The other thing I did was carefully map everything out. I found the center of my face and, using the pointed end of a make-up brush, I etched out a perfect triangle in my hairline, with the point lined up with the center of my face. I pulled the rest of my hair into a ponytail. Then, out of the wide triangle (think Zooey Deschanel-style), I carved out a smaller rectangle in the center and pinned back the rest of the triangle for later. Basically, I first cut a pretty uniform set of straight bangs that went just the width of my eyebrows and were just above the rims of my glasses. Then, I unpinned the triangle and let those have some more length to them so that they skim the rims of my glasses for the most part and then go longer on the sides.

It's hard to explain and I'm not putting pictures of myself up here (too incriminating about other parts of my life- like who I am). But it worked out really well. This way, I can have thick and full straight bangs  covering my entire forehead and framing the sides of my face without pulling out the curling iron to fix them.

BUT! I can also style them as slightly side-swooped, which is what really looks best on me. And, best of all, I can do it from either side- which was not an option with what the hairdresser had given me. To add to that, because I made them thicker and start further back on my head than previously, they're also easier to fluff and fix.

The biggest downsides to the self-cut:

1) Uh, I did it in my bed. So, I had to shopvac the bed and change my clothes to stop itching.
2) My scalp in the front of my head is now very sensitive from excessive brushing to make sure the hair was even as I was trimming. Ow.

Return of the Amazonians!

Hey, remember when I tried the Amazonian Clay face mask sample and bitched about how Tarte expected people to pay $38 for five applications of the mask?

Well, a couple months ago, Sephora started carrying a "Limited Edition" version of the Double Detox Amazonian Clay face mask that is one 2.64 oz tube for the same $38 price. That's quite the better deal than the 5 tubes of .1 ounces.

And, yeah, I bought it. Even though it still smells like pee every time I use it. And I like it. Although, it seems to be no better than any thing else at dealing with the pours on my nose, but that is the curse of the glasses wearer, I guess. And I should just be thankful that I don't have a W.C. Fields nose going on yet.

But why does it smell like pee? Does anyone know? Is it just Amazonian pee mixed with mud and jojoba? Because I think that might be the case.

Pretty Girls in Puff Sleeves

So, you've seen that Dustin Hoffman clip that's been circulating online, right? If not, here it is.

Now let's talk about that. Because the topic is one that people don't like to talk about. About how a woman's value still rests on her beauty as a major factor. A man can be as fucking grossly ugly as possible, but if he's funny? If he's smart? If he's rich? His worth will always be higher than a woman with the same factors.

Hell, that's sort of where the "Invisible" part of this blog's title comes from. Because some days I do feel that because I'm not attractive enough looking, I am essentially invisible. And how sometimes I'd rather just remain invisible than be seen for what I physically am. I can talk "ra-ra-feminism" all I want, but I still struggle more than I walk the walk. I do still have image issues and self-esteem problems like everyone else. Like what Dustin Hoffman realized when he discovered how lucky he was to be born a man and therefore his looks barely mattered- even as an actor. Everyone knows Dustin Hoffman is tiny and has a big nose but it never slowed down his career one inch because he's a man and that doesn't matter then.

I've only recently realized that this underlying fact might be why Anne of Green Gables is often my default comfort story.

People spend so much time making sure to tell Anne that she's worthless- saying that just by being an orphan she's not worth the trouble ("Anne Shirley is a conniving manipulative child, she's pulled the wool over your eyes!") saying that by not being a boy she isn't worth adopting ("You don't want me because I'm not a boy?"), saying that her red hair and freckles are ugly ("Couldn't you send her back?/Her looks are certainly nothing to consider/ she's terribly skinny and homely/ Her hair's a red as carrots" all said in seconds by Rachel Lynde) saying that because she has a temper she isn't worth giving a chance ("That's the kind that puts strychnine in the well!"), saying that he imagination and dramatic ways are silly ("I can't imagine how I let that child worm her way into my affections), and so on.

And she just takes it all and fucking trucks on until everyone is in love with her.

Until they realize how smart she is ("You're a credit to us all and we're all proud of you."). Until they realize how sweet she is ("I thought Marilla Cuthbert was an old fool when I heard she adopted a little orphan girl. Now I see now which of us was the old fool!). Until they realize how talented she is ("After standing first at Queens, you can do no wrong in this community!"). Until they realize that she's going to be able to do things and go further than all the "proper" girls in Avonlea ("Matthew and I are both proud of her. She has the talent to make something of herself.").

And then, suddenly, she's beautiful in their eyes.

Of course, she was beautiful all along anyway. Megan Follows is no slouch and the illustrations on my old copies of the books are all lovely looking redheaded women, too. But I've always adored redheaded women.

I guess I just don't understand beauty. I've always thought my older sister was beautiful and envied her. Her athletic and properly shaped body. Her thick light brown hair that wasn't so dark that hairstyles got lost in it. Her freckles. Her graceful way of dancing and moving. Hell, even the shape of her smile. Everything about her that we didn't share in common, I envied. Wishing and hoping for the day where I'd magically wake up to look like her.

But I'll never forget being about twelve and having my mother tell me that she never really felt my sister was beautiful. And then continued the thought to tell me that I was beautiful. It just left me perplexed. What made her feel the need to say either thing? Was it that I looked more like both my mom and my dad than their other daughter and it was some weird genetic thing? Did she worry that my self-esteem was low and think that saying that would help? She told me that while I was an awkward greasy chubby twelve year old. Then again, my mother was an unbalanced bi-polar mess at the time- so I really shouldn't be trying to figure out what was going on in her head.

But then, years later, I remember listening to my sister and my brother-in-law discuss how they needed to find a cute girl to hand out fliers for a club event they were promoting. I suggested a mutual friend that was extremely social and they both went, "Weeeeell, she's kind of ugly." I stared at them as if they had said, "Weeeeeell, she's got that third eye in her nose that freaks people out." I still would never classify her as "ugly". Not even close. I can't understand why they were both so quick to say she was not pretty enough. This is the type of girl that can make friends without speaking the same language. She has shining eyes and a great smile. She's fit and wears great clothes and jewelry. She wears maybe a little bit too much make-up but that's perfect for a club. I can't understand what makes her ugly in their eyes.

Then again, up until I was about fourteen, I was totally with Anne Shirley on her love of puff sleeves, so... what do I know?

I think the main issue now is just that her hair wasn't yet big enough? Also: it's very "I'm a tea cozy"-esque.

So, What Exactly Does "Amazonian Clay" Mean?

In the midst of rubbing in a sample's worth of an Amazonian Clay detox mask onto my face, I paused as I put a little bit more on my nose and realized...

... this face mask smells like pee. I don't think that was the intention.

Amazons are some rugged broads, putting pee-scented clay on their faces. Oh, you mean it's from that other Amazon? The one in South America? Huh. Why do we have mythological Amazons and then the Amazon River/Rain Forest in a completely different location from where the Amazons were supposed to be? Is this a West Indies/East Indies type of thing?

Anyway: Apparently this is beauty week for this blog? Okay, then: face masks. I like doing them, especially when I feel like I've gotten behind on my skin regime and need a crash-course for my skin. Especially when they're free samples from Sephora. I don't think I'd ever feel okay paying $38 for five applications of a face mask (seriously, talk about a price that's mostly for the packaging!). I probably wouldn't feel okay even stretching it to ten applications. The stuff was good, but not miracle-level good. Right now I'm on a Murad kick with their 30 Day System and it comes with an awesomely sized sulfur mask that is gentle enough to put on, let dry, and then just sleep in it without getting super-irritated skin. And it's just as effective as the one ProActiv makes, if not more so.

But back to the Tarte Amazonian Clay mask. The nice thing about it is that it has the jojoba beads, so you are reminded to really try to rub the mask in rather than just painting it on. I never feel like jojoba beads actually do any exfoliating (I can already hear my AVEDA Institute graduate friend grumbling about me just saying that.) but having them there does give an impression of exfoliation happening.

However, the best part was that I applied the mask while sitting on my bed watching Mad Men and right after plucking my eyebrows (sidenote: what's with the fashion world suddenly embracing brushy eyebrows right as I finally figure out how to shape and fill-in mine? Argh). To pluck my eyebrows, I use a little lamp that uses a 15 watt bulb so that I can get bright light right where I need it, and usually turn off all other lights.

So, the sun was setting, my room was getting darker, and I just had this little un-shaded 15 watt light casting shadows while I covered my face in a face mask.

Then, I heard the front door unlock. You know where this is going, right?

The roommate walks down the hall, visibly flinches when she sees me with the mask on and weird "I'm telling a ghost story" shadows happening, and just sighs and goes, "Did you do that just to freak me out?"

"Yes," I answered, "I did it just for you."

The Ol' Factory System...

I worry about smelling bad. A lot.

I worry about antiperspirants being unhealthy. Not as much as I worry about smelling bad, but enough to get in the way of more productive thoughts.

My mother feels it is her duty to tell me when I smell. It could be 105 degrees out, I could've been moving furniture all day, and could've just stepped in dog crap right in front of her, but she will feel the need to inform me that I smell. Because she worries that I don't know that already, I guess. Like I said, she feels it's a duty of hers.

I'm so glad I never shared space with her during my air condition-free summer in Arizona. I also did not have temperature control on my shower at that time (and it wasn't that great of a shower, it was a whole big thing) and couldn't take cold showers to help the situation. And I worked at home most of the time. I think I would've spent the summer crying if she had been around. I already knew I smelled not-good a lot of the time, even if I made sure to shower right before leaving the house and used as many good smelling body products as possible. But it was southern Arizona in the summer and I had no air conditioning, what could I do? Thankfully, I was never the only person smelling a tad ripe.

Back then, I would use over-the-counter (or, rather, on-the-shelf) clinical strength antiperspirants when interacting with people, and keep a bottle of a matching fragrance cheap spray for last-minute scent touch-ups. I'd try to not get hugged. And I was constantly searching the food co-op for hopes of a "healthy" alternative product. And be it a crystal rock or Tom's of Maine, nothing worked.

And the one thing I have noticed with the clinical strength stuff is that while it helps with your underarms, it makes the rest of you sweat more. My back and thighs end up soaked in sweat (or with those weird under-knee sweat beads running down my legs) so much more when I'm wearing clinical strength deodorant compared to normal stuff.

These days, I live in Illinois with no air conditioning (we're working on window units for the bedrooms). I do, however, have temperature control on my shower now and work full-time in a place so air conditioned that my face sometimes freezes in my cubicle. 

I still worry about smelling, though. I worry about smelling like a litter box (I love my cat, but her box stinks when I get home from work and I frequently worry that my clothes and self might smell like that as well but I don't notice it), I worry about smelling like my downstairs neighbor's bong, I worry about smelling like the girl that hasn't done her laundry in four weeks.

 I kind of suck at being a lady, but I do have a few (get ready to roll your eyes!) "signature" items- including scents: I try to stick to just plain ol' vanilla mostly. I've tried flowery stuff (I had a couple years of using only Stella McCartney's Stella), I've had samples from every major perfume carried by Sephora, and have sampled everything Fresh makes. While I like the Fresh stuff enough and like smelling of sugar and fruit as well, I still prefer a straight-up rich vanilla scent.

For a few years, I'd buy the various vanilla type body sprays from Bath & Body Works (again, for on-the-go "I worry I smell like a cat box" touches) but those go away pretty quickly and have a chemical-y undertone to them.

Now, I've fallen in love with Lavanilla's roll-on forever oil fragrance. They have several different options, but I stick to straight-up vanilla for the forever oil. Because it's just Madagascar vanilla and almond oil. Nuthin' else. There's something so nice about it just being a single scent. And a vanilla scent rich enough that it can't be twisted by something else (something I've recently had problems with when using my Neilsen Massey Madagascar vanilla extract in a body scrub and having it end up smelling like vanilla yogurt. That was not ideal). I now have a theory that you should keep scents simple so that you don't end up with a pile-up of fragrance from all your beauty products.

I keep the tube of forever oil it in my purse or coat pocket and use it once in the morning and again in the evening if I'm going out- and it lasts many hours and smells amazing. Only rarely does it result in people around me asking if anyone else smells cookies, and when it does I'm just amused by it- it's nice to smell like something nice!

Of course, as soon as I wrote this entry, I then was asked if I was wearing Karl Lagerfeld's Sun Moon Stars, which does have vanilla notes to it, although I don't have any memory of ever trying it. However, that does prove my point. I applied it at about 10 am and was complimented on it after 6 pm. That's impressive!

In the past few weeks, I've also become accustomed to also rubbing myself down with virgin coconut oil after and between showers to help with skin issues. This has also given me a very slight coconut-y smell at times and I think it also helps with keeping over-all body odor between showers at bay long (I swear!). It's not a strong coconut smell, though. Or, at least, not the strong coconut smell I associate with my grandfather, a man that was very fond of sunbathing in the stuff.

As for when I am freshly showered, I'll still smell a little coconut-y from my homemade body scrub, but the Lavanilla body wash I use doesn't leave a scent on the skin. Same from my tea tree oil shampoo- no real scent left from it.

And, the biggie now, I've started to use the Soapwalla deodorant cream for most days. I've read so many people raving about it on the internet, I had to try it to see if it'd finally get me off of the stuff on the shelves. While it hasn't been warm enough to really test the Soapwalla stuff's strength yet, it seems to be holding up okay so far. I did, however, switch back to a clinical strength antiperspirant for C2E2. As I wanted to do my best to not be yet another smelly nerd.

And the deodorant cream has a distinctly non-deodorant-y smell to it (although, you can barely smell it at that). The official description says lavender, peppermint, and tea tree oil but I mostly only smell the tea tree oil- and it's a soft scent of it at that. So much better to catch a whiff of than anything by Dove, Secret, or Degree.

I do think that the Soapwalla stuff still needs to be re-applied if I'm going out after work and haven't applied any since 7 AM, though. Which I would be doing with the clinical strength stuff anyway. Like I said, my mother loves to tell me when I stink and I don't want to encourage anyone else to feel like they can be that frank with me (I have, however, decided that my payback method is to frequently tell her she has a booger hanging out of her nose when she doesn't).


Now that it has finally started to get warmer out, this stuff is really on my mind. I'm hopeful that this year, I will really win at smelling good 90% of the time. I'm still trying to find a fabric "freshener" (I know, they're horrible, but sometimes I need to space out my laundry loads more and more as I don't have a working washer and dryer in my building) that has a good vanilla scent. I've done Lavender (which is sort of my go-to back up scent, despite how even I find it a little grandmother-y smelling. Despite how neither of my grandmothers ever smelled of lavender. One always smells like clean linen and the other always wore White Shoulders. I digress...) fabric fresheners but it's just not the same.

Maybe the next step should be making vanilla potpourri that my cat won't eat (or, at least, won't get sick from eating).

But that's sort of where I've landed recently: vanilla, lavender, coconut, and a bit of tea tree oil. Am I simplifying it too much? Should I be embracing my natural stink more?