September, 2013 - The Seventh Sphinx

I love to be well dress’d Sir: and think it

No scandal to my understanding.

– George Etherege, Man of Mode. 1676.

There are bugs on the ground.

I gathered my hair into a topknot when I was messing around with different turban styles and liked it so much I decided to try it officially. I like it, though I think I liked the really (incredibly, horribly, could-not-be-worn-in-public) messy version better.

Oh, this is the bag I usually carry around, these days. A great thrift find that looks like a still-slightly-grubby re-purposed vintage leather football. I don’t necessarily like a bag to look pristine (then it doesn’t look casual), and I don’t want my daily bag to be something I have to suspend in a bubble of anxiety to keep it like new. Better for me to have something that, when it does incur wear, grows in character and interest.

At which point it begins to rain, and I am unimpressed.

Calvin Klein silk jumpsuit, Steve Madden realove heels, Zara scarf, Skagen watch, vintage LuckyBrand hobo bag. On the nails: OPI polish in Mermaid’s Tears.

These heels make me about 5’11”, and I feel that I take on Amazon-like proportions in them. The pale blush color extends this illusion further still. I like this very much.

I’ve mentioned before that I take heels with a grain of salt, valuing the absence of pain as I do*, but it cannot be denied that they create new lines and angles. When only a bit of standing or sitting is required, I can quite enjoy those lines, those angles.

*The amount of discomfort I’m willing to tolerate seems to depend on many factors.

I know I am not alone in often resorting to subpar formulas for the sake of a tremendous color. That is what makeup really comes down to, for me, a straight issue of color. Do I love it? Do I want it? Is it worth it?

Color has powerful effects on us! Or can have. There are studies. I have immediate, often visceral responses to colors, for good or ill.

I’m debating this eyeshadow palette right now, the Kat Von D ladybird palette, just for the sepia color on the end. I hardly even wear eyeshadow! I have no money to waste! But this color…it is exactly, exactly the color I have been looking for. I just want to gaze at it and marvel at it. And maybe I would wear it! If I had that perfect color…(is how it goes in the brain).

You see, on the far right, what I mean? That rusty, burnt sienna color? I have seriously been looking for a sepia eyeshadow like this for years! The rest of the palette is nice, too, conveniently.

Helllooooo…

I have been thinking about makeup this way constantly lately, as a tool for controlling color–hills and valleys of color, planes and angles of color–, and the paradigm works every time. A nice simplicity to it.

Uhh. Where was I? Oh, yes.

Ideally, though, you don’t have to compromise with the formula, and in NARS Heatwave (called ‘semi-matte’ and accordingly matte but not in that unfriendly way) we see a happy confluence of form and function. A brilliant, almost neon red*(which sometimes plays a heavily saturated neon coral) that performs exactly how you would hope. At least, exactly how I hoped. If I’d had it at the time, I would have included Heatwave with my earlier red-orange/orange-red picks.

I was in no way disappointed, and perhaps you begin to gather how particular I am.

*Wearing it here.

Month: September 2013

the jumpsuit, the topknot

on the lips: NARS Heatwave lipstick