natural - The Seventh Sphinx

It’s getting cold here, time for the serious sweaters. This cozy Donegal wool sweater with its simple, speckled design was a great find in the men’s section of J Crew. Another fisherman’s sweater.

I love these colors. It’s rare to see a mix of grey and brown done well.

Sometimes simple clothes can provide a clean frame for a complex face, I mean a distractingly made up face, but sometimes simple clothes call for a simple face.

It’s strange the extent to which thinking about my identity is equivalent to, parallel to thinking about my face. Or not strange, rather a combination of natural, the face being how we identify one another, being the feature that evolves with us, and arbitrary, the face being one of many, many things we do not choose about ourselves. Strange that it is what everyone sees but means nothing, in a way. Serves only to identify, and it’s not so simple to pin down just what it is identifying.

9-10mm metallic freshwater pearl studs from Pearl Paradise

My own face gives me so much grief, its troublesome skin. And maybe it’s on account of eating so many sesame bagels lately but it seems especially round, like its childself. To you it looks always the same, perhaps, but to me it has so many moods. Looks so different depending on the angle. Is at times inexplicably (or perhaps totally explicably) unpleasant, ghastly, at times unexpectedly fine and radiant. Now irritates me with some quirk or asymmetry, now charms me with another. Is of endless interest to me, for good or ill.

It feels like it is mine, which I will say for it. It feels like a reflection of me…or part of me, as it can be deceptive as well. I wonder how much I am a reflection of it, rather than the other way around. Like names, faces can shape destinies.

This ultra natural look is Tarte cheek stain in Blissful (love), MAC Nude on Board ProLongwear Bronzing Powder (I really like this, LE but findable), Clarins Instant Light Natural Lip Perfector, and the teensiest lashing of mascara. This is how I look most days, with my hair in a 10 second bun, or some harried version of this.

Stay warm.

I was determined to wear a garland before the summer was out.

This kind of easy, beachy look is a good example of a summer uniform for me: bikini top, loose sleeveless thing over top (if there can be an ancient Athenian garb situation going on, so much the better), trusty gladiators, piles of rings and bracelets, tote-scale bag.

This is a simple, no makeup makeup look, using a few new favorites and a few old favorites. Bioderma Photoderm, a tinted moisturizer/spf, is very sheer and natural, a bit like Origins VitaZing in texture. There is a regular (untinted) version that is also really nice, lovely texture. MAC Huggable lipcolor in Love Beam (already sold out it seems, quelle surprise), much blotted, Tarte cheek stain in Blissful, a peachy pink that adds instant freshness to the face (mine is so well used nearly all the text has worn off, and this is the old packaging because these things last forever). Josie Maran Argan Illuminizer, my current favorite highlighter, which is saying a lot given the formidable competition, which competition includes this MAC bronzing powder Nude on Board (also sold out but available here). More on highlighters soon.

American Apparel drawstring dress, garland from Etsy, Seafolly Neo Tribe bikini (new, really incredibly tiny on the bottom, Brazilian-style, I like. Not looking like it’s going to see a beach this summer, unfortunately), French market basket, Ray Ban aviators.

Tag: natural

getting cozy

the beachy nymph