Category: Style

Style

Blonde on the Inside

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In the past 8 weeks, I have colored my hair 7 times.  That’s probably bad.

It started like this:  I decided to go red and used a permanent color (John Frieda), which was really gorgeous, but I had huge streaks of blonde where the color didn’t take well in the back.  So, I grabbed a semi-permanent (no ammonia) color (Natural Instincts) and colored over to get everything.  It was all right, but a little dark.  Still, those semi-perms wash out swiftly, and as much as I swim, I figured I’d be set.

I didn’t account for growth and blonde roots.  After a couple of weeks, I started looking like one of those sad elderly women, whose gray roots are showing out of their bottle-red heads.  So, I grabbed another John Frieda and did myself up right.

Somewhere in the early part of last week, I became extremely tired of having to color in my eyebrows every day.  Jeez!  And style my hair.  Because red hair looks crummy on me if I don’t style it.  I was also finished pretending to be a redhead.  So, as I have done many times in the past, I grabbed up a lighter shade of red from Feria and started easing my way back into blonde.  Ugliest color ever.  I gave it a few days, then grabbed a baby blonde from Feria (as I have done before) and–it did not change the color at all.  Save for the virgin growth at the roots.  Nice.

I had bright, strawberry blonde hair and white roots.

Last night, after pricing out color corrections and the amount of time it would take, I gave up and went back to WalGreens for another semi-permanent color.  This time a L’Oreal in a dark brown.  To kill the freakish red.  So, I have a dark reddish brown head of really well styled hair.

Thank dog it’s just hair, and my husband likes it.  (And it’s still not as bad as that time a salon gave me chemical burns!)

2the9s, Style, WWK Events

Stylin’

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I am going to be the special speaker at our next Women Worth Knowing event, and I’ll be talking about a topic I am frequently asked to discuss: Style. I won’t be telling you how to get MY style, though. I’ll be talking to you about how to take your personal style, your personal comfort level, and build on that to find the next step up in your look.

Here’s what I dislike about the shows where stylists go throw away everything in someone’s closet and force them into a-line skirts and tiny blouses: Not everyone feels comfortable in Spring’s Hottest Fashions. I sure don’t. If you don’t feel good in it, you won’t wear it with confidence, no matter how cute it is. And, 3/4s of Style is confidence.

I firmly believe that everyone’s personal fashion choices are valid. How else can you explain the success of Patricia Fields? It’s a matter of fit, and functionality, and feeling good about yourself. It’s also a matter of understanding your audience and your core demographic.

If you are looking for a job in the finance industry, you have to adapt your style to meet that audience. Your core demographic is different from Lady Gaga’s. If you are dressing for a night at the opera, your audience is different from a night at Coachella. (My grandmother loved telling the story of a friend who dressed up in finery and furs to go see the Grand Ole Opry, thinking it was her Southern friend’s way of saying Grand Old Opera. Boy was she disappointed. Grandma was delighted, though. Gave her a story to tell for 60 years.)

So, I’ll be talking about a few different things:

  • Finding your personal style/comfort zone
  • Understanding other people’s perception of your style
  • Adapting your style to different audiences/occasions
  • Appreciating yourself and other people as fine art

I hope we see you there!

Style, Women Worth Knowing

June, Non Seulement un Bijou…

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…mais aussi un trésor.*

I had lunch with my friend June, of June Bijou jewelry, today. Aside from how lovely it was to catch up after all these years, I am really looking forward to getting to know her again. I had no idea she had learned metal-smithing, or that was selling her original designs to the likes of Fred Segal and Barney’s New York, and doing private label work for BCBG! I should keep better track of people.

She was so kind as to bring me a pair of her handmade earrings, and I know exactly where to wear them for the first time!

June makes these by hand. I know some amazingly talented women!

If you are coming to the Women Worth Knowing event, June is donating the prize for our giveaway. I can’t wait to see it!

*Nancy, feel free to correct my French. I learned it at Sears. 😉

Style

Drapes

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I tried on all my dresses last night, and just stood there frowning at myself. Nothing looked as good as I imagined that one dress would, so on my lunch today, I went to the store of The One Dress and found it in what I thought were my sizes. Happily, I was way wrong about which size I wore, but unhappily, I did not fit into any size. One was way too big. The next size down was too big, and the size down from that wouldn’t even zip up the back. What is up with that? How can a dress be so big I can spin it around my body, and the size down be so tight I can’t even zip it?

Fortunately, The One Dress (which I wanted in navy) did not look nearly so lovely in person. What looked like a lovely drape was actually an overlay that was sewn into little pintucks all along the side seam, making it look like someone had pinched, then sewn, creating the illusion of drape–also belying the realism of cheap, given that the zipper was sewn into the overlay. It is hard to make chiffon lay right in a zipper, and even harder to make it look right when it is sewn into a zipper as part of three layers of fabric. I was sad.

I’m still a little sad! But it had to be cut funny because the hips fit beautifully, but I was swimming in the bust.

I’ll try Ross tonight. Ross rarely lets me down.

Style, Women Worth Knowing

Women Worth Knowing: Meet Shrinkle a/k/a Sugarpill a/k/a Amy Doan

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I love makeup. Love it. Love, love, love it. A few years ago, when I was looking for a particular shade, I came across a girl selling loose kryolan pigments on Ebay. Shrinkle, as I knew her then, had a robust store that included cutesy-pie dresses, vintage slips, and accessories I coveted. The cute clothes of her own design and a revolving door of vintage are still available on the Shrinkle etsy store, but the makeup is long gone.

Why, you ask? Because Amy Doan, Shrinkle herself, developed her own line of cosmetics called Sugarpill.

Since I’ve been following Amy’s stores and blogs for years, I have watched from afar as she made the transition from simple seamstress to sylph of a makeup mini-empire (Sugarpill is the official makeup brand for the 35th Anniversary of Hello Kitty.) Amy’s photo filled blogs are always full of color and energy. She is positive and exciting, and I love her story. I love her makeup. I want to hang her eyeshadows on my wall as art because they are so pretty.

You should get to know Amy and all her enterprises. Shop her stores and read her tutorials. I thought I liked Amy before she responded to my WWK inquiry, but reading her answers to all my silly questions…I want to put this girl in my pocket and take her everywhere with me. She is just fabulous.

Meet Amy.

Amy Doan aka Shrinkle
Age Range: Just turned 30, wooo!
Preferred Job Title: Fashion designer and owner of Sugarpill Cosmetics
Industry: Fashion and Cosmetics

(In a departure from the usual WWK interview, I added some very Amy-centric questions that I thought would be interesting.)

How did your business evolve from you making outfits for yourself to a new beauty empire?
I started out making clothes for myself because I had nothing to wear. I was a broke college student and couldn’t really afford to go shopping much. I got lots of compliments whenever I wore the outfits I made, so I began selling them on eBay. It kind of just took off from there, and before I knew it it had become my full time job! I decided to branch out into cosmetics when I realized that makeup can really make or break a fabulous outfit. A super awesome outfit never looks complete without the perfect makeup to compliment it.

What designers do you like?
I don’t really have a favorite big name designer. I don’t care too much about labels, I mostly just wear vintage flea market slips! But I do love to support my friends who have their own indie clothing and accessory lines, like Jessica Louise (www.jessicalouise.com) and Cutie Dynamite (cutiedynamite.etsy.com).

<What inspires your colors for Sugarpill?
I love obnoxiously bright colors that sparkle and shine in dark clubs! No subtlety here.

How do you pick names for your colors (because that just sounds like fun!)
Whenever I think of or hear a word that I like, I write it down on this giant master list I have on my computer. Then when it’s time to come up with color names, I pull up the master list and start mixing and matching a bunch of the words together. I am also a super nerdy bird enthusiast and love to name colors after birds. And my cats!

The usual Questions
Who are you? I am a crazy cat lady and the owner of Sugarpill Cosmetics and Shrinkle clothing!

Describe your family: I’m the youngest of 3 girls, no brothers. We all live within an hour of each other, so we see each other quite frequently. I am really close with my sisters and we share all our secrets. My parents are pretty cool too, although I don’t really tell them anything. But I think my mom already knows all the scary details about my life because I found my Twitter and blog bookmarked on her computer. My mom is also my favorite shopping buddy. We love to hit up the senior discount days at Ross and Savers! My dad is awesome and can beat anyone at tennis, even competitors half his age!

What does the first hour of your day look like? I usually wake up covered in warm purring cats, so I’m a slow waker upper. I spend the first hour of my day laying in bed with my cats, reading my emails.

The last hour? I answer work emails until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore, then I pass out!

What makes you feel successful? I am terrible at keeping track of my finances, so unlike most people I’m unable to gauge my success with dollar signs. I guess I feel successful when the people around me are happy. Whether it’s my customers, my friends, or my family. It means I’m doing something right if people around me aren’t complaining, haha!

What brings you joy? Sewing, being around animals, cuddling with the boyfriend, and discovering super amazing vegan food even though I’m not vegan.

What women do you admire? I love and adore all of my female friends. They are adventurous, creative, talented, funny ladies who inspire me!

What do you like best about your closest friend? That we’ve been best friends since the 3rd grade, know each other’s flaws inside and out, and still like each other! Also, we’re so over impressing each other. We are the hugest scrubs when we hang out!

What do you like best about yourself? I can finish a foot long burrito in less than 10 minutes! It’s 100% true, I have witnesses.

What advice would you give boys about girls? Just because girls are more independent now than in the past, it doesn’t mean you should stop doing nice things like holding doors open for us or offering to carry heavy objects if we’re obviously struggling with it. Common courtesy and gentlemanliness never go out of style!

How do you overcome adversity? I’m an optimist! Whenever things look shitty, I remind myself that it can only go uphill from there. Wait it out, it will always get better!

How do you want to be remembered? I hope people remember me as someone who was happy and made others feel good about themselves.

Find Shrinkle and Sugarpill Cosmetics on Facebook and follow for updates on new product, and just to have pretty pictures pop up in your feed now and then.