Tag: tools

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stuff you didn’t know you needed: eyelash curlers

IMG_2336

 

Huh.

Eyelash curlers.

With that peculiar blend of bizarre and coveted, I wanted some; sitting on my vanity, baffling the uninitiated, adding an air of medieval torture to my beauty regimen.

If you are going to get a pair at all you might as well get a good one (sometimes a cheap version of a thing will serve…but this is not really one of those times), and that means Shu Uemura. I went for this special edition pair with the cute/crazed/terminator-esque mon shu charm.

Many report eyelash curlers as their #1 beauty step (Really. I have heard them. The idea is that they make you look more awake and alert, and maximize the visible surface area of your lashes.) but actually I think my eyelashes are naturally pretty curled already. Making this acquisition that much more frivolous.

“An upward looking eyelash propels your happiness upward!”, Shu Uemura informs me.

Well, shu, we shall see.

♪ ♫ Judas Priest – You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’ ♪ ♫

 

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history: grooming is my favorite pastime

Sure painting and drawing, sure knitting and crafts, sure cooking and organizing and shopping and eating, sure hanging out with friends and writing and photography, sure calligraphy and wine and Shakespeare and the 19th century novel…but what I really love? What I do whenever I get the chance? What I find maximally calming and therapeutic and satisfying? What I put hours of attention and effort into, and investigation, and all the money it takes?

Yasuyuki Tagaki, Untitled #10, Forest. 2011 (via artligue.fr)
Yasuyuki Tagaki, Untitled #10, Forest. 2011 (via artligue.fr)

Grooming.

I groom.

O how I groom. O the tools. O the unguents. O the potions. O the experimentation. O the time.

No centimeter of my body escapes care.

Like weeding a garden, editing a text (I find editing to be a fitting metaphor for much of my life), cultivating a path through the wilderness…

Yasuyuki Tagaki, Untitled #5, Forest. 2011 (via artligue.fr)
Yasuyuki Tagaki, Untitled #5, Forest. 2011 (via artligue.fr)

 

This means clipping and trimming, oiling and treating, masking and exfoliating, cleansing and brushing and smoothing and massaging and just…addressing in the most comprehensive way.

I liked what I heard someone say recently, if you had only one suit to wear for your whole life, imagine the care you would take with that suit. I like this way of thinking about the body, particularly the skin.