but i miss out on a lot of cute flats because i can only wear mary jane type ones!
i bought these a few weeks ago because they were super cheap. they offer no support but damn it, they are shoes with ruching!
damn that’s a huge pic
I own two pairs of shoes and two pairs of trainers I actually wear (I have some sandals and dressy shoes and stuff that only come out for holidays and “occasions”—i.e. virtually never,so I don’t think they count and none of them cost over £10). One eyeliner, one lipstick, one bottle of foundation (virtually unused), I had a mascara but I can’t find it and I don’t care. I totally fail at being a girl.
I am glad someone else admitted to not having a cleanse/tone/moisturise routine. Do I get away with just a bar of soap / once a week face pack thing because I don’t wear make-up?
maria—insoles! when i was going through awkward pre-teen growing my feet were like half a size different for a bit—insoles work—you can get ones just for the heels, the toe, the arch or the whole foot (okay you prob know this but still)
jaq, i hear you on the skin probs—my skin used to react to everything too, kinda still does, but i’m pretty good at choosing products now and knowing what foods/environments i react to. if just water’s working for you, then so be it! it’s not enough for me though—but i wear (minimal) creame and makeup—i alternate btwn cetaphil bar soap (not the cleanser stuff—that kills me) and quite like the mychelle products, though even their fruit cleanser, while good for my skin, can’t be used often around my eyes (clinique makeup remover seems to work fine for that—haha and i’ve never bought a full bottle! all samples ever)
ok it’s all cheesy and infomercially, too, but all the women of my family have gotten hooked on the bare minerals makeup stuff. i was lagging behind, so someone gave it to me for christmas. it’s actually kind of cool because it doesn’t look overly makeupy (i think) and you feel so much freer pore and skin-wise than when wearing a liquid makeup. i have yet to watch the included dvd to really find out all the tricks, though! lol... makeup with an instructional dvd!
yeah, i hear good things! i’ve tried psychician’s formula mineral makeup but didn’t like it so much—is the one you’re using actually called ‘bare minerals’ or is it barecscentuals (or whatever it’s called)? (i have missed out on infomercial land!)
i tried the neutrogena mineral one but all the neutrogena stuff is too dark for me, plus the applicator was fuxored and stupid (powder in the brush, it was weird).
the one i got is the id bare minerals. i think actually it might be a tad dark, too, but they have 1 lighter shade that i will probably go pick up and my sister said i can mix it with mineral veil to lighten it up (the starter kit thing comes with the 2nd and 3rd lightest shades, and there isn’t a kit with the lightest shade in it, but i wanted the brushes so i kept it).
Yes yes yes about insoles! There are little cork pads that go under the balls of yr feet or in the heels to take up space (but putting pads in the front is better for natural heel fit). Ask for them at a good shoe store or repair place, they might not be a regular drugstore kind of product like Dr Scholl’s. No one’s two feet are exactly the same size!
i tried bare minerals and could never find a shade light enough for me.. their lightest turned orange on me. :( i then tried mineral makeup from another company, they had super pale shades, but i realized i dont like the way mineral makeup feels, at all! it really feels DRYING. i went back to my cargo foundation after 2 days of experimentation.
robyn, i tried mychelle recently too because my co-workers are always raving about it and it’s a local business, but i found the pineapple facial cleanser smelled SO fake it turned me off. but that was the only thing i didnt like, it did a good job of cleanin’ and stuff.
can i direct you all to makeupalley.com for great cosmetic and makeup reviews? i get really addicted to it at times.
I have flat feet, and size 11 too! Mind you, I’m 5’10, so it’s fairly proportional. If my shoes don’t have the right amount of support for the puddle jumpers, I’m crippled up like an old woman. I only wear heels on special occasions (save these uber cute brown kitten heels from nine west), as they WRECK my feet. My daily shoe routine usually consists of Wallabees from Clarks. Mind you, work has no problem with me dressing in jeans and sneakers every day.
One of my gay boyfriends tries to get me to wear heels more often (coincidentally, he taught me how to walk in heels too) as I should “work” the tall thing. I can’t help but feeling a little self-conscious when I’m a teetering 6 feet tall.
Maybe you just need to get used to being looked at? Being that tall commands a lot of attention — head up, girl.
No, it’s not that. It’s that I’m super-wobbly when wearing heels. I’m afraid I’m going to fall over.
There is NO WAY the shoes I was going to wear will stand up to the rain we’ll be getting. Let’s talk about wellies.
Ooh! I have a very cute, sensible pair of black wellies. It’s raining here too, and not a bad idea to wear when I trudge over to a friend’s party this evening. But, I’ll have to carry other shoes, which is a bummer. I wish there were wellies that one could wear all the time and not have to take off due to WARM FEET.
I used to use Almay one coat back in my goth days...
Well, that just takes a little practice to get over. xpost
Seeing as I’m wearing green it’s even more sad than usual that they don’t make those green frog wellies for grown ups cos they’d even match and everything.
Sarah! They do!
I can’t help but feeling a little self-conscious when I’m a teetering 6 feet tall.
You should join the DCchixors in xtreme towering. Ally, dar1a, and I are all v. tall and all rock the heels on a regular basis—except maybe dar1a? I can’t remember the last time I saw you in heels, dar1a. But also we are usually sitting at bar with feet hidden, so hard to say.
I just spent way more than usual (but half-off original price!) on brown Stuart Weitzman pumps with the most beautifully shaped heel I have ever seen. Can’t wait to wear!
Well, that just takes a little practice to get over. xpost
But the pain! Is this a normal occurrence with heels or is it my miserably flat feet which make it terrible to walk, stand, etc.
I actually find heels to be easier on my arches (which are high-ish) than flats, but heels definitely shift pressure onto the ball of the foot, which is where good design and ball-of-foot cushions come into play. But in flats I have way more of a tendancy to pull my arches, which hurts like a motherfucker and takes forever to heal.
me too, i’ve only just broken my running shoes in to the point that i don’t get horrible cramps in my arch after the first mile! i suppose as insoles make up for differently sized feet, arch supports make up for flat feet in flats, but i’ve not got around to buying any of either. didn’t know they made special insoles for the ball of the foot, the full-length ones haven’t worked for me.
They’re not proper “insoles”, they don’t absorb shock or support yr arches, they just make shoes fit better. I mean, since they’re cork they probably absorb SOME impact, but not like athletic insoles. They’re just err...kind of teardrop-shaped cork pads that go under the balls of yr feet and push you back a little bit into the heels.
good enough!
Yeah, I get the horrible cramps in my arch that then shoot up my shins. Major buzzkill.
regarding eyeliner that won’t come off, which rosalind was wondering about upthread: i got some mac liquidlast eyeliner in a really nice shade of plummy burgundy, and after washing my face vigorously, using moisturizer on a cotton ball, and trying two different kinds of eye makeup remover it was still on. and not faintly, either—it was like nothing had touched it. the next day i got an old fashioned oil-based remover, which seems to be what this stuff needs.
Baby oil. That seems to work for eye make-up removal. I’m not sure if it’s bad to put that stuff around your eyes, though, hence my purchase of proper Almay eye make up remover. Although, I find that baby oil works much better.
q, I do wear heels.. just not so much for walking around the city.. it’s a problem b/c most of my trousers except the zara ones are from club monaco and only long enough to wear with flats. I got a great pair of charles david ankle boots that have 3.5“ heels plus a little platform so with those I’m about 6’1” which is awesome
how bad can baby oil be? it’s for babies!
Probably not bad at all, but I just feel weird putting something around my eyes that should be going all over babies’ skin. This is probably just my own neuroses talking.
anyone know how long apc trousers run & sizing in general? looking for at least 34“ inseam. hmm
on the makeup front, I recently discovered that Loreal has a faintly ridiculous new line for women of color called HIP, which stands for “high-intensity pigment” (ridiculous #1), wherein all the lipsticks are named things like “feisty” and “daring” and “don’t fuck with me or I’ll cut you” (ridiculous #2; seriously, not a single one of their lipsticks has a descriptive-of-the-actual-color name). I have a problem with lipsticks not looking on me the way they look in the tube, though, so I bought lipstick “daring” and lip gloss “tempting” (translation: red) and they are actually very pretty. fyi.
okay, I just double-checked and the lipstick I bought is “brave,” not “daring.” it’s a nice, deep, not-at-all-orange-y red.
Maria, in answer to the baby oil thing a lot of people don’t like lanolin products.
Standard issue baby oil is just mineral oil (a petroleum product) and fragrance.
Oooh sorry, i misunderstood about the pain thing; I thought you just meant it was difficult to walk or balance in the shoes. I have extremely high arches so heels are more comfy to me than flats (I am another one who tends to get blistered and cramped wearing flat shoes). You could probably get insoles and etc but that all seems very trial and error, and maybe not worth it unless you really, really want to wear heels. :\
I would definitely buy any lipstick called “Don’t Fuck With Me or I’ll Cut You.”
I’ve always used baby oil or just old Vaseline to remove eye makeup! Though I don’t wear waterproof make up anymore due to irritation and lash breakage issues, so nowadays my Cetaphil does the job decently enough.
I totally want lipstick called “don’t fuck with me or I’ll cut you”.
I imagine it would have to be blood-red.
I do kind of hate that, though, you are right. Stila does that too which can make it a huge bitch to order their shadows without actually going into the store and looking them over. I mean, how am I meant to know that “Barefoot Contessa” means plum and “Kitten” means sparkly beige? Also, why is my kitten not sparkly!?
yeah, mostly I thought it was hilarious. like, I could imagine the marketing meeting. “you know these colored girls, all ‘fierce’ and filled with ‘moxie’!” (“fierce” and “moxie”=actual HIP lipstick names. not a “demure” or “on-the-job-market” in the bunch.)
i missed out on being a girl too and now i have to buy fancy suits and shoes and crap (LAWYERING) but i gained 10 pounds this semester (might be good? i was too skinny in the summer) and i need to shop NOW but how do i know i won’t lose it again? i imagine i will. but i don’t want to buy a 6 knowing it doesn’t fit just because i believe i will shrink back to normal. i also need like a 34“ inseam and i’m having a horrendous time finding anything like that that i like.
oh and shoes, i have narrow size 11 feet (so a typical 11 falls off my feet) and don’t believe in high heels i guess. i don’t know how to be fancy.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Carey put on my eye make up in a sixties stylee and I made her put on my mascara too but I think it kind of looks like I have spider eyes because the mascara makes certain lashes stick together and spindle outward in a frightful fashion.
I’m sure that’s lovely! I’m wearing like a quarter inch thick line of eyeliner.
flats and i are BFF. although, the lack of support sometimes makes me knees hurt. i am a geriatric before my time.
sometimes, i just want to get my eye make up to look like this:
I can’t walk in heels, even little tiny ones. Platforms are easy though.
wait can someone explain this to me? i went shoe shopping with my mom and she picked up heels and i was like NO, so bad for my feet. then she said flats are bad for your back? they are also bad for your knees? what is this? i just don’t want to wear heels, i’m too tall and they just look so uncomfortable and wrong and um, like, patriarchal. like guys never wear them and their knees are fine, right?
My mom is very anti-stiletto due to the heels she wore in the late ’50s/early ’60s. I didn’t actually wear heeled shoes until I was 30 owing to the prevalence of brothel creepers, Chelsea boots and Doc Martens in my shoe collection until then, and then it was all about granny shoe low heels and Patrick Cox loafers until people started busting out the kitten heels. I love all sorts of different wedges as a compromise because they give the arch support that normal heels just do not. You’ll all be thrilled to know that Cuban-heel WINKLEPICKERS are the coming thing according to my colleagues at the Edgy Style Mag, who are BTW still wearing impossible towering platform wedges, particularly if they are already tall girls.
Fucked knees are kind of an equal-opportunity injury. Just make sure you play shoe roulette and all should be good.
Puhleeze, winklepickers have never been out! The problem is finding the right angle from toe box to point. Continental makers are usually quite narrow throughout the shoe, which is unhelpful for some of us.
And I don’t know about knees? The worst thing for my knees has been my Frye motorcycle boots, because they’re so heavy that when I throw my foot forward sometimes the knee hyperextends. Have found heels to be painful in myriad ways, but never on my knees. My idea of the perfect shoe is probably a partial wedge with a notch mid-way, so there’s flex at the hinge; otherwise 2–2.5“ winklepickers, already broken in.
Third, I don’t care what Mary and Carey say, M’s hair had tons of crown volume and was perfectly swept back, and C was wearing a mini-ish-skirt of her own manufacture that was really kind of complicated! Love to both.
no i mean flats, bad for knees?
The old lady librarians I work with always snicker when then see some 20 y/o student teetering by on her heels. “She won’t be wearing them when she’s our age,” they scoff. They even had a diatribe against pointy-toed shoes, but I haven’t heard it since I’ve been wearing my cute FLAT pointy toe black shoes.
Also, these women are terribly grumpy.
that sounds bogus to me. (xpost)
Also, I have bad knees from my failed career as a high school volleyball star. I think the lack of arch support in heels exacerbates any pain I might develop in my gimpy knees. The two could be related (flat feet / bad knees). I have no idea.
I am such an old woman.
caitlin, move to dc, we could share a wardrobe it seems
as far as suits go.. buy what fits now—you can always have it taken in by a tailor, right? esp. trousers. the thing that can’t be altered is fit in the shoulders of a jacket, and it’s pretty hard to make a too-small garment larger. i usually wear a 6 but some lines an 8, not wanting to admit this means i have a $130 pair of club monaco trousers never worn b/c a touch too small, i keep thinking i’ll lose 5 pounds and they’ll fit. (new year’s resolution! right!)
I figure either flats or heels can be painful if they’re not well made and don’t fit properly. I would’ve never believed it w/o trying but honestly my charles david 3.5“ platform boots are the most comfortable shoes I own that aren’t sneakers, because the insole is actually padded + comfy. what about the nike air shoes for cole haan? a lot of them are ugly but there are a few that are cute.
My 91-year-old grandmother wore heels on Christmas day.
Daria, you don’t need to lose any weight! Do I need to hold an intervention for my numerous slender and statueesque DC girlfriends?
Thanks Laurel! I loved your outfit. Carey did my hair and gave me a mini cat’s eyes lesson. My shoes were killing the balls of my feet though. Do I need to build up calluses there?
Back to mascara: I was under the impressions that one coat was one swoosh of the wand, all lashes at once. But is one coat that painting of each singular lash bit by bit?
A new clumping culprit: my lashes might be long but not full. Mascara-ing them draws certain lashes together to form varigated spindles.
One coat for me is generally whatever I decide it is, I am not really clear on that terminology because one “whoosh” with the brush doesn’t really get your lashes, so it isn’t that. We’ll go out soonish to some stores and look at some really light formula mascaras, I THINK that should help solve your mascara woes significantly.
Mary I think the teddy bear mascara brush (such as the full and soft one) is helpful for not pasting long lashes together into spidery spindles. Avoid the Great Lash, which definitely does spidery spindles, but for my (short, sparse) lashes that wasn’t really an issue.
Also: why can’t I find Max Factor stuff anywhere (anywhere = CVS, in this case)? I want to do a head-to-head comparison between full and soft and 2000 calorie, but can’t fine 2000 calorie!
Wal-mart has Max Factor
If you wiggle the brush from side to side as you work upwards, it can help prevent the spindles.
I shouldn’t try to wear mascara, I never manage it without it getting a bit spindly, which is ok for looking quasi french new wave but not for everyday!
xpost, yeah, don’t really need to lose weight but could use more exercise, mostly to have more energy.
^^ cosigned, maybe we should have a DC Fitness Club for 2007??
If I wiggle it past the bottom half of my lashes, they spindle back together again. I have really, really fine, long, curly lashes though so they’re a bit difficult to keep neat.
Oh yeah, my heart just bleeds for you people and your long, curly eyelashes. Such suffering in this world.
Yeah. Ya’ll have it really, really tough.
If it makes you both feel better my eyelashes are almost completely invisible without mascara despite length and curliness.
Confession, I have never used an eye lash curler and they kind of scare me.
I am a daily eyelash curler, for realz.
eye lash curlers look kind of like torture devices, no? I am afraid of them, even though I have very straight lashes so could clearly benefit from their use.
xpost: so quincie, they won’t accidentally pop one of my eyeballs out?
My facial hair thinks it’s blonde = do not leave house w/o mascara. Never curled mine, either. I think all that “opens up your face” business is mostly nonsense, nothing a little creative eyeliner couldn’t do just as well.
I have an eyelash curler but never used it.. i dunno, i get freaked out enough by wearing contacts & not having glasses protecting my eyes, much less trying to use curlers, pencils, etc.
I’ve never had an adverse eyelash curler event, and I’ve been curling for like a decade now. So go for it! Get a Shu Umura (sp?) one and it will last foreva.
Also: I needs to jump on DC Fitness Club bandwagon.
one benefit to uber-straight lashes: people sometimes think I’m wearing eyeliner when I’m not. actually, is that a benefit? not sure.
That is a benefit, I think.
eye lash curlers look kind of like torture devices, no?
This has to be the only reason they were banned on planes in the US. “Get back, before I CURL YOU!”
C. combed and curled my lashes, after I complained of sticky clumps. The medieval torture devise (cf Joey Potter) actually didn’t hurt at all.
Maybe I should just go for the Priscilla Presley stylee fake lashes. Also, I thought my lashes were average brownish black but I looked at them in the light today and they start off brown and then end up blond at the tips.
There must be a Sephora in DC, right? Maybe the tall DC gals could meet me and instruct me in the ways of womanhood:)
there’s a Sephora in the Pentagon City mall if I remember correctly. there’s probably one within DC proper, too.
Oh yeah there is a Sephora in G’town!
Oh god Georgetown—my mom and I had a post Christmas breakdown there.
By breakdown do you mean SHOPPING?
Unfortunately no; it was a parking breakdown which led to a bitter and acrimonious quarrel, somethat soothed by after-fight tea.
so since i obsessively buy cosmetics and perfume anyway, and i am looking to get some more writing experience under my belt, i decided to start a beauty blog last night.... can any of you ladies help me out in thinking of a really dead clever name? i am totally BLANKING right now.
Lipschtick.
I’m really, really bad at naming things :\
And yeah, M, there is a Sephora in Gtown and def. in Pentagon City, might be one at Tyson’s as well but I am not 100% on that.
lipschtick is good! i bet its taken already...
beauty mark?
I want there to be a pun somewhere in make-up/mark-up but I’m missing it.
Yay! I left a comment.
re: baby oil—i would think it would just be moisturizing! reminds me i need to buy eye cream cause i ran out like a month ago and i am getting old!
can someone find me an awesome pair of black pumps? i need a heel that is not too ridiculous so that i can go to work in them but everything with a normal heel is ugly and it seems giant heels are in this year. i’ve been putting off buying a pair but i really need to now since i seem to have lost my other ones (which were far past their prime anyway).
What is a good eye cream? I buy some Neutrogena kinds every now and again but I forget to use it because I think to do so would be to accept the aging process.
loreal eye defense is what i had before. my aunt recommended it and said she’s used it for years. she has very nice skin for someone close to 50, which she credits to lots of moisturizing. i credit her not having kids to wear her out. but i try to keep a nice skincare regimen anyway!
baby oil kind of creeps me out because its mineral oil.. its like, yuck, i am smearing petroleum on myself!
i just realized how dumb i sound
yeah but after removing the makeup you still wash your face... i think it’d be ok!
shiny black patent. classy.. (delman—$150)
My girlfriend got those and the burgundy ones. They’re awesome!!
can we recreate this thread on nuilx?
bump! I missed this whole thread until today and am so bummed cuz so much cool info was exchange. I spent most of my dull work day today reading all the posts you made more than a week ago. Now all of you are gone and I have no one to play with and talk girly things with. I am just gonna continue this thread my ownself!
I am in total mascara crisis now. I thought I had found the bomb kickin mascara, Loreal Shocking Volume. It’s one of those with 2 applicators one is a brush to “prep” lashes and the other is a really cool tiny comb that coats your lashes with black mascara (starting at the base of lashes and pulling all the way to the top.) It looks so great once it’s on, and I have wimpy lashes & brows that I have tinted every 3 weeks otherwise it looks like I have no lashes up til recently (for like 4 years) I haven’t worn mascara first cuz I had an allergic reaction to it then it just stopped being a habit and I got used to seeing myself without it and so did everyone else. The tinting was enough to at least look like I had some lashes. Back to my Loreral story. The stuff looks so great on, and it stays on…and stays on and stays on. No matter what you do, remover, Vaseline, soap water nothing! It won’t come off. It starts to get really sticky after a couple of days and I can’t help but touch my eyes – to find my lashes are coming out in clumps! Argh! It begins to break down and do the raccoon thing under your eyes on day 4 and by then I have rubbed my eyes so much and put so much crap on to try and get it off, I have a red irritation all around my eyes and look horrible! So much potential for that product but not after all that! Into the trash it went.
Do you all know that Lancome Loreal Maybelline and Biotherm are owned by the same company (Cosmair) and that many of the products are the same or only slightly different but are packaged and of course sold in different places (pricy Lancome in the department stores and Loreal at CVS) they are marketed for different customers and wallet sizes. Same for Estee Lauder and Jane being the same. I rarely buy “luxury” brands for this reason unless I know them to be (or at least believe) that I am getting something I can’t get at the local drug store.
I use Loreal foundation really lightly and doesn’t rub off on anything and it’s not that horrible orange or fake redish color that so many base make-up’s get when applied. I use very little bluse and it’s still after 5 years “orgasm” by Nars. Lipstick—always a dilema, hate dry lips, but hate it when the lipstick rubs off on everything, cups, people, clothes, phones....yeech. I have wound up with one of the “indelible” types (apply once in the morning and its on til you take it off at night in a really neutral shade just a little darker than my own lips are. That’s my routine, boring but quick.