Oh preparations for traveling to Europe

They say it's extremely hard to grow up bilingual in a home where only one parent speaks the language other than English. This makes me feel better, because my mother is a native Dutch speaker, I've spent ample time in the Netherlands, and I don't know Dutch. Not that I haven't tried, but I got pretty much as far as those books they give to toddlers going "this is a moon, this is a giraffe, this a toothbrush." I can ask if you speak Dutch although I wouldn't know what to do once the answer is yes, or I can ask for you to give me another potato, or quite capably call you an idiot if you fall on your head. But that's pretty much the extent of it.

My powers of comprehension are another matter. I can generally suss out what's going on in a pretty basic conversation. "Where did I put my pancakes?" "Oh, yes, over there." "Can you set the table?" "Not today, my hair is on fire." All conversations that have been witnessed in my Grandparents' home in Amersfoort. If you start talking about economic trends and high Spanish art in Dutch, you can escape, knowing I won't understand a word.

Which is what makes what happened a few minutes earlier so hilarious. Today my mother sent an e-mail to my grandmother and my uncles and CC'd me on it. It was just after I asked for their e-mail addresses. She wrote it in Dutch, thinking she was safe from my knowing what she was saying. The first line, I kid you not, was: Lauren was kind of dumb and couldn't find your e-mail adresses so I'm sending you this to all of you.

As my friend Meredith put it: Thanks, mom. That's really great. I nearly died of laughter.

Sundaes every Sunday

How do you make a gloomy sunday better? My weekend was one of those exhausted ones where I spent a lot of time getting nothing accomplished. I was hoping to be finished with a paper and then I realized all my conceptions about it were wrong, so it was back to the drawing board. At least according to Marxist labor theory I achieved something. Anyway, the dining hall had all the fixes for sundaes, and I decided, what better pick me up?

Admittedly, I later bought myself a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich for a similar short burst of gustatory happiness.

Lookbook...

So, according to Fox News, the average woman in America is between sizes 11-14. Obviously this is subject to age (and as it is an average, it is sensitive to outliers). I know that we are the most obese nation in the world, but obesity is on the rise through out the entire west.

Those things in mind, there's a fair range between size 2 and 11, and I'm willing to bet a good portion of the young women of the world occupy that zone. It suddenly occurred to me, why the hell is everybody on lookbook so skinny? I know some curvy girls who are pretty damn fashionable. I guess I just have to question lookbook's tagline of 'The internet's largest source of fashion inspiration from real people around the world.' For those who don't know, lookbook is invite only. Well, who's doing the inviting? And has anybody ever stopped to ask them if they are aware there's a clear bias?

Money and the contemplation there of...

I'm kind of a spendthrift. I like buying things. And often times on Etsy, I find things I would love to buy if they weren't insanely expensive. So much of what we pay for when we buy expensive clothes and shoes and makeup is markup. And it makes me wonder then if the eco-friendly completely handmade shoes I think are cute are really worth $90. And if they're worth $90 because they're handmaid and completely eco-friendly...then where the hell does a brand I happen to like, BCBG, get off charging thousands of dollars for a couple of layers of intricately pieced together curtain fabric.

An amateurish look at the political theory of makeup

I've never been terribly enamored of Laura Geller. I'm going to start off by saying something incendiary. The reason we buy designer cosmetics from retailers like sephora or M.A.C or the Department store counters is that they come in cool awesome colors that just aren't available in the drugstore. Or let me not speak for you, that's why I buy designer makeup. After all, L'Oreal owns Shu Uemura, Lancome, Vichy, and Kiehls to name a few. And I can tell you they're not importing jade for their green shadows in the Lancome line and grinding up plain old sandstone for their Maybelline.

There's tremendous markup on designer products. Makeup is pretty cheap to make. I wish I could find some data on this, but I'm going with something a friend who works for Sephora's headquarters explained to me. Simply this: makeup is capitalism at its best. Designers keep the more fashionable and season appropriate colors out of Walgreens, because they know you'll pay more to look fashionable. Say it ain't so! Well I can't, but I will get to the point, Laura Geller is less expensive than brands like Nars or Lorac by a few dollars, but it's definitely pricier than the usual drugstore fare. So why should I buy it? It really IS expensive drugstore makeup.

All that aside, I don't really understand that whole thing about baked makeup. I'm no chemistry major, but it seems to me the baked shadows don't go on any different. You've got to love the fact that Laura's website harps over the fact that her marbled eyeshadow was baked for her special in Italy, like she got the Venice glass artisans to halt production for a day and cook her up some eye shadows. The whole thing is debilitatingly tacky. She needs to fire her marketing people. They're just heinous all over the place. Example: I don't want any shadow base on my face when it goes by the name 'spackle.' When I look at that it occurs to me that Laura Geller's product designers don't actually understand what spackle is. It's to plug up the damn holes in your wall, not to keep that shade of eggshell in your living room as vibrant as the day you first painted it. The metaphor of spackle for shadow base is lost on me.

Needless to say, when sephora sends me free samples, I try them. I wouldn't be here if I didn't like messing around with sticky shiny gunk. They sent me her line's new product, Lip Strip. Those idiot product designers are at it again. When I think of lip strip I actually think of my poor mouth being flayed off. Maybe that's just me, but with some trepidation I tested it out. It's like soap for lips--I guess they were smart enough not to call it that. Perhap, it doesn't slough off the dead skin as well as they claimed. Alas I had no hope at all, so when it did get rid of that horrible lipstick residue that makes me look like I've been socked in the mouth after I remove the color, I was singularly impressed.

Anyway, the product isn't active on sephora.com yet, but if you need some lip soap, which you know, maybe you don't, but if you do, it's available at Laura Geller's website for $19.00. It tastes good and has a muted tingly version of the effect of lip venom. Mostly though? Laura Geller sucks.

Next time: the merits of mederma, an experiment silver eyeshadow, and more on loose glitter.

On the topic of sunscreen

Sunscreen. You need to wear it. I know a lot of us are afraid of it. It's oily and gunky and seems like the monster come to clog your pores up. For those of us with problem skin that is like a death sentence. However, after I was in an accident, the plastic surgeon explained that any pigmentation of the skin (like from acne scarring) is only made worse by exposure to the sun. He told me I would have to wear sunscreen any time that I was outside during the day. I was horrified and sure that I was doomed to a life of pockmarks.

But, I discovered something in all that sunscreen use, my acne faded quicker and I didn't seem to get as much of it. So, a couple things to keep in mind. Whenever I put sunscreen on, I always put on moisturizer first. Now, I don't have dry skin, especially not my face, but I've found that when I apply lotion, my skin stops taking up the slack and calms down a bit.

The second is that Hawaiian Tropic for sensitive skin (the everyday wear, mind you)is baller. BUT, and this is a big one, if your skin burns or tingles when you first put on sunscreen, you are going to get sun damage. The sunscreen is expired or possibly you're allergic to the fragrance (be wary of Nivea, that stuff is hell on sensitive skin). Hawaiian Tropic Everyday is both hypoallergenic and unscented, so you won't be trying to disguise that horrible smell with a ton of perfume.

Also, lastly, you don't really need anything stronger than SPF 50. Dermatologists say that beyond 50, the difference is kind of negligible. Other things to consider are Stilla's tinted moisturizer with SPF 30 if you're really worried about how you're skin's going to look. It also comes in SPF 15 for those of us who don't have to worry about the power of the sun's rays quite as much.

Going Out On A Saturday Night

I really liked the way my makeup turned out tonight. I was going to one of those 'chi-chi' shindigs full of hipsters who dress up to smoke marlboros and drink cheap beer. Now I just smell like cigarette smoke and I feel like I've been judged halfway to mars, but I still kicked everybody's ass when it came to my makeup.


It's not terribly hard. I just put on lotion by bliss labs, because I find that it creates a shield against whatever gunk you're going to put on your face afterward. That way you're skin doesn't explode and you aren't cursing yourself for your three hours of awesomeness during the next week of acne craziness. I use the body butter, although they're weirdly insistent that you can't put that stuff on your face, probably because they want you to buy more products, BUT it works perfectly fine, so don't let them intimidate you.

Next is shadowbase, blah blah blah. I always wind up with horrible eyeliner tracks under my eyes when I sweat, so I rub it pretty much everywhere. This might not be your issue, but if I'm not lucky I end up looking like a prostitute caught out in the the rain. Eurggg.

I used that minty shade from the bodyshop that I was talking about in an earlier post. I was wearing duller blue clothes so I took a grey from my purple Pop beauty pallet. It's not the best shadow, but it's inexpensive (I think they might be going out of business). Any fairly silvery grey should work. Make sure it's not in the gunmetal range, because you'll just end up dulling the color out.

And then because I'm about as professional as a two-year-old who's gotten into her mother's makeup, I used a lip brush to work a really bright blue into the crease. Urban Decay's Peace is ideal. It's only just a little bit shimmery. It has a tendency to get everywhere, so have some makeup remover handy for quick fixes. Anyway, you're pretty much done after that. Just some black eyeliner on your lower lids. I usually extend it out past my eye and then draw only a little onto the top so that the color speaks for itself.

After that I lined the top lid with a glitter liner. You can find a few of those on sephora. Urban Decay makes one and there's always sephora brand. Sephora brand is actually cheaper and they give you more. And I'm always down for that.

Also, eyeshadow is probably going to migrate to your eyelashes, so I would recommend a black mascara to cover it up. I have yet to devise a way to keep shadow from migrating all over my face while I'm putting it on. It just flies off the damn brush! Don't be ashamed if you end up using remover to clean up excess. Also, since you're going pastel for this look, I would recommend only a very light blush on the apples of your cheeks and a pink lipgloss. Obviously everything is dependent on your skintone, but I have found red just make me look like I got lost in an episode of Popular where nobody understand the color wheel and they use lipliner like it's water.

Yay finished product. I put on a thin headband and then pinned the hair on one side of my head with that gigantic flower. I felt ready to face the weight of hipster disdain. Please ignore my maudlin expression. I do not photograph well.