Halloween Make-Up Fun!: Once Again, With Feeling

My third and final costume, and the one I actually wore for Halloween since my work had our official dress up day and costume contest on Wednesday, October 30, was a last minute idea.  I was actually working from home on Halloween because I was fighting the creeping ear/nose/throat crude. 

Costume Number One: Mystic Falls Vampire

I've always used a vampire as a fallback costume because it requires nothing more than fangs, but since I was on a fancy make-up roll this year, I decided to look at different vampire looks on Pinterest. I was surprised by the varied approaches to doing vampire make-up (though I noticed absolutely no one was covered in sparkly glitter).  One that appealed a lot to me, though, was surprisingly simple when I started looking at how-to videos.

What really appealed to me was the messy wet mouth look, the one that says, "Hi, don't mind all the blood, I was just eating." I would never have thought to get all crazy smear-y before looking through photos, but once I did, my immediate presumption was that it would require some costume make-up.  Given that I was more or less housebound due to unwell feelings, I did not have the inclination to go out to buy anything.

Luckily, it turned out it was a pretty easy look to do with what I had on hand. But first! The face. Once again, I used  MAKE UP FOR EVER HD Microperfecting Primer in Mauve to move my natural paleness even further toward ivory. Then I mixed on my normal base, MAKE UP FOR EVER Mat Velvet + Matifying Foundation in Ivory, with some of my leftover MAKE UP FOR EVER Aquarelle in Pearly White. Thanks to the amazing powers of the BEAUTY BLENDER, possibly the greatest single improvement in make-up application ever, I ended up appropriately and wonderfully pale without feeling coated with make-up even though I was, in face, covered.

For my cheeks, I used URBAN DECAY COSMETICS Naked Flushed to add in shadowing under my cheekbones and some contouring around my hair and jawline.Lastly, I added an extremely light coating of MAKE UP FOR EVER HD Microfinish Powder to set my face.

Now that I was thoroughly and deathly pale, I went to work on my mouth.  It turns out that if you want a crazy, "Don't mind me, I was just feeding on the blood of the innocent" look, it's actually surprisingly cheap and easy to obtain.  

The first thing I did was outline my lips and then fill them in with the bloodiest lip pencil I could find.  I tried a couple but the real winner was the cheap but surprisingly creamy and luxurious MILANI Color Statement Lipliner in True Red. Seriously, this $4.00 lip pencil kicks serious butt. 

Then I applied a healthy layer of WET N WILD GLASSY GLOSS Lip Gel Through the Looking Glass, a clear glossy gloss that cost me a whole $3.00. Next -- and this was the crazy, hilariously easy part that never would have occurred to me if I hadn't seen a how-to video to prove it -- I took the pads of my fingers and dragged them through my freshly done lips, down my chin and even over a little to my cheek. Then I reapplied the lipliner and gel and did it again! Yep. That was the secret.  Fill, cover, drag your hand over your mouth until you reach desired disgustingness.

Once I was appropriate covered in smears I outlined by lips one last time, added a light coating of MAKE UP FOR EVER Rouge Artist Intense in Moulin Rouge, and then finished it off with one last coat of the lip gel to complete my wet lip look.

Moving to my eyes, I knew I wanted a dramatic look to match the eyes. I looked at red eyed looks and decided I would do one that was both heavy on the black and the red, because really -- when else does a girl get to rock that look on a random Thursday?  The first thing I did was use a  cheap black liquid liner, MAYBELLINE Eye Studio Master Duo Eyeliner in Black, to put down a heavy black base outlining my eye. I used a smudge brush to diffuse the line.  The I laid a layer of URBAN DECAY Crave over it, covering my lid.

In the crease, I laid down a layer of SEPHORA COLLECTION Colorful Eyeshadow in Cherries On Top, then used a brush to blend it up and outward with both, carrying the colors across the whole of my lid.  I then blended the crave into it, adding more as needed to fill in my crease but maintaining a defused red aura around it.

Next, I added an additional layer of Cherries On Top below my lower lid eyeliner, then used an angled brush to create a streaky veined accent down into my cheek. These reddish veins were a last minute impulse accent, and it wasn't until someone pointed it out to me later that I'd essentially done something similar to the vamp face on The Vampire Diaries that I realized that's where I'd pulled if from.  Subconsciously all I knew was that my eye look didn't seem 'finished' without them. I added a white eyeliner along the inside of my bottom lashes to bring up the contrast, which I think worked out nicely.

Lastly, I added a set of SEPHORA COLLECTION Fringe Benefits Lashes along my top lashes, filled in with a little extra eyeliner, and then swept them up with a lash curler and a healthy coating of BENEFIT COSMETICS They're Real! Mascara.

I added a fake bite on my wrist and neck as final make-up touches.  It was surprisingly easy to make the bites look a little bloody.  I made two heavy dots with BENEFIT COSMETICS Benetint, a rosy lip and cheek stain that I adore, and let the stain run a little, then added a teensy dot of the aforementioned black eyeliner in the center. 

For a costume, I wore a short sleeved, floor length maxi dress, which was very comfortable and a pair of dangly rhinestone earrings to add some bling.  The whole thing was comfortable, easy, and meant that I looked like I'd put a lot of effort into a costume that took me very little effort.

Sadly, we didn't have a single trick-or-treater this year. By the end of the evening, I was feeling a little better, and David took me to the local 24-hour diner to get soup and pie. It wasn't an ideal holiday this year, but it was plenty enough for me.

And thus wraps our Halloween make-up review!

I have to say, one of the great things about this Halloween was how much I got to experiment with make-up.  Growing up today must be so different for girls without mothers. My grandmother was never one much for getting creative with the beauty products, and though my mom was an adept hand with a make-up brush, she was gone by the time I could have really used her help.

Nowadays, there are blogs and articles and even whole YouTube channels where talented amateurs and even professional make-up artists will teach you everything you need to know.  I love that.  I love that this crazy community of people can come together through the silent electric pulses down the wire to provide the kind of guidance I never had on a whole host of topics, including how to do your make-up so you don't end up with a lot of unfortunately teenage photographs.

I love that they will tell you how to do it on the cheap, and which drugstore lipsticks are duplicate colors for the expensive kinds I could never have afforded as a girl. I love that competence in blending in can come a little easier for some girl out there like me.

And, as a feminist, let me say this: I like make-up. I like the art and artistry of it. I don't feel compelled to wear make-up. In truth, since I moved to the Pacific Northwest, I've been made fun of more often for wearing make-up than not.  I wear it because I like it. I like the costume aspects of it. I like the way it allows one to acknowledge the constructed nature of gender.  In that way, perhaps my attitude toward make-up is something akin to that of someone who enjoys drag.

As Ru Paul once eloquently pointed out, “We're born naked, and the rest is drag.” Perhaps one of the nicest things about the how-tos of cosmetics in the digital age is that has never been more apparent how much of what women are being sold is constructed, which not only makes learning to control and vary our own physical appearance easier, but also allows us all to see more clearly just how fake it all was to begin with.

Halloween Make-Up Fun!: The Sequel

My second costume and second make-up day this year was a quick costume I threw together to attend an evening event several days before Halloween. I needed something I could wear during the day because I did not have time to run home after work to change, something that was kid friendly, because this was a kid oriented event, and something that fit the theme of entertaining kids at a party.  Necessity being the mother of invention, I grabbed this glass globe I have from Ikea and declared myself a fortune teller.

Costume Number Two: Fortune Teller


This costume came about primarily based on a scarf I bought that features an awesome skull (right). As I was looking at it, it just seemed like the perfect thing to build a costume around.

I skipped the primer this time, and went straight to my normal base, MAKE UP FOR EVER Mat Velvet + Matifying Foundation in Ivory.  I didn't mind my undertones coming through here since I knew I was going for a dark pink and purple palette.


For my eye color, I turned to URBAN DECAY's Ammo Palette. I love Urban Decay. I used to think that all eye shadows were more or less created equal. Within the last year or two, though, thanks largely in part to my friend Thu, who has this great blog you should check out.  Part of the magic is definitely URBAN DECAY's Eyeshadow Primer Potion.  However, having tried other shadows with it a shadow primer, I have to say, it's more than that. Urban Decay shadows have great pigment and staying power. 

At this point, I have a couple of Urban Decay palettes, most of them relatively small.  I have a couple of Sephora palettes, some Wet & Wild palettes, and a few other items, but nothing beats those UD palettes. (I don't have the Vice or Naked Palettes, but I soooo want them.)  Anyway, between Grifter and Last Call over a URBAN DECAY's Naked Basics base of Walk of Shame and Faint made for a very nice eye.  

Once again, I busted out my KAT VON D Tattoo Liner in Trooper, which is really easy to do wings by the way. Then I layered with SEPHORA COLLECTION Glitter Eyeliner in Purple on top. I love the Sephora Glitter Eyeliners, and I am quite sad they appear to be discontinuing them. You have to give them a good solid 45 seconds with your eyes closed to let the liner dry so you don't get a weird crease line, but if you do it stays on all day. And I mean, alllllll day.

I finished off my eyes with BENEFIT COSMETICS They're Real! Mascara. As mascaras go, I like this one, but I also admit to not having tried all that many mascaras.  (I really want SEPHORA FAVORITES Lash Stash. I have for several years. Maybe I'll pull the trigger on it this year.)  I really like the wand that comes with They're Real!

For my blusher, I applied what has got to my be all time favorite bronzer, BENEFIT COSMETICS Duo Bronzer Ten. (Benefit has discontinued this particular bronzer because apparently they know I am in love and they hate me.) Then I added ORIGINS Brush-on Color in Mulberry.  I bought the Mulberry years ago on a bad recommendation from a sales assistant. It's really too dark for daily use but I find it comes in handy for dramatic looks like this one.

For the lip, BUXOM Full-On Lip Cream in Lavender Cosmo layered with SEPHORA COLLECTION Ultra Shine Lip Gloss in Shimmery Glowing Amethyst. I don't usually (or really ever) sport a lip in the plum family, but with the rest of the make-up, it really worked. I'm sort of excited it made the trend list this fall or I might never have tried it at all!

I also did my nails in Sephora OPI What a Broad, which has been discontinued in the wake the great Sephora/OPI split.  Sephora is now doing their own nail color line, Formula X, which I hope to god is better than their old Sephora line, which was some of the worst nail polish I ever used.  It was cheap, which was great, but it was so plastic that it literally peels away in one plastic sheet within an hour or two of putting it on.


In the end, everyone at work was, ummm, a little unclear I guess on whether I was in costume or just trying a new look.  I'm going to take this as a compliment to my make-up skills rather than an insult to my general fashion choices.  While the style was described variously as "gypsy vagrant" and "gyp-ster," I like to think that mostly means that my make-up, which I thought was quite dramatic, was something I could pull off on a normal day or evening out as long as my clothing was...less bohemian.

As for scents, I took a moment to consider what the inside of my fortune teller's den would smell like: incense smoke, herbals teas, lamp oil, and worn, aged paper.  In the end I settled on L'Artisan Tea for Two, which is both lovely and seasonally appropriate for Fall.

What about you, dear reader? Have you ever worn a costume only to find out that people couldn't actually tell you were in costume?

Halloween Make-Up Fun!

This year I had so many social obligations in October it made my head spin.  A lot of them were costume-related affairs -- parties, volunteering, work costume contest, etc.  While I admit it was initially daunting, it was also a great opportunity to stretch myself creative and, in terms of make-up, artistically. I started looking at costumes almost a month in advance and settled on sticking with costumes that used my own clothes and relied more on a little make-up magic to sell them than on buying anything.

In the end I settled on three completely different costumes, each with it's own separate make-up palette and scent profile.  I thought it would be fun to share these with you.

Costume Number One: Pop Art/Lichtenstein Girl


This was my big costume, the one that I wore to a costume party thrown by a coworker, and also the one I wore to work for the work costume contest. It was inspired by the artwork of Roy Lichtenstein, like this piece on the right.

I got the idea from looking at different make-up profiles on Pinterest and once it took root in my brain, it simply would not let go. I liked the bold colors.  I liked that I could wear my own clothes. And I liked that this costume did not require me looking like anyone else -- a celebrity or character -- just myself, but like a comic book version.


The most fun part of this Halloween costume was that instead of spending money on costume clothing that I will never wear again, I had an excuse to spend some money on fancy make-up from Sephora. Since this was going to be an intensive cosmetic effort, I knew it would take a lot of products, especially colors I don't normally wear from day to day.

Since I had a full day before the party, I took my time the first round, making sure I had a pretty good handle on the techniques before moving on.  I knew I'd have significantly less time when I tried again on the morning before work.  The following documents my process the first time through.

The first thing I did was thoroughly clean my face and moisturize.  I know that sounds simple, but if you're going to put on an epic amount of make-up, I wanted to make sure I wasn't all going to be going directly into my pores.  Then I put used MAKE UP FOR EVER HD Microperfecting Primer in Mauve to help reduce any potential yellowing in my already pasty skin.  I already owned it for doing Gatsby period make-up earlier in the year, so I had it on hand. Then I put on my normal base, MAKE UP FOR EVER Mat Velvet + Matifying Foundation in Ivory.  For me, this creates a pretty flat, pale palette.

Then I started in on the outlines.  I bought a brand new KAT VON D Tattoo Liner in Trooper, then promptly set it aside and pulled out the one I already owned.  I decided I would kill my old pen, and since this is by far my absolute favorite black eyeliner, I wanted to still have one when I was finished.

What do I love about it? It's basically like using a Sharpie on your skin. It's easy to use, waterproof, and yet still comes off quickly with a little eye make-up remover. I actually tried doing this with a cheap liquid liner first, and let me tell you -- it was worth using up an expensive pen to get the lines right. Since the Tattoo Liner dries almost immediately, it helps you avoid the crazy smeary mess of using a real liquid liner. Also if you screw up drawing the lines like I did, it allows you to remove small sections without a lot of weird smearing.

For my eye color, I used MAKE UP FOR EVER Pure Pigments in Yellow. I picked it despite seeing a lot of blues and purples in the photos online because it seemed super cartoonish, and it was a color I would never otherwise wear. The red lip was courtesy MAKE UP FOR EVER Rouge Artist Intense in Moulin Rouge. I used a pop-up lip brush from Sephora to color in my lips and to leave the white spot, which was filled in with a cheap white eye pencil I had already.

For the white dots, which was by far the most time consuming part of the costume, I used MAKE UP FOR EVER Aquarelle in Pearly White. I chose this instead of white for the slightly reflective quality the pearlized white had.  I found a how-to online that recommended using the end of a brush or pencil to make the dots, and it was a great recommendation. 

This might be the one of the only products of the whole lot that wasn't 100% perfect for my purposes. It doesn't smear once it dries, but it does tend to flake.  This meant it tended to flake away and fade over time, but it was better than any of the smeary other make-up options I had looked at.

The other product that I wasn't thrilled with was ANASTASIA BEVERLY HILLS Hypercolor Brow and Hair Powder in In The Pink. I should have known it wasn't going to go well with the word "hypercolor" involved, but I decided to try.  Part of the reason I chose the teal sweater for the party is that it was a high contrast color for the pinked hair I was sporting.  The problem with the hair powder is that it got just everywhere, even with me using gloves and covering myself with a towel like a cape.  It took several days to get the pink off the back of my neck; it looked like I had a weird sunburn. Also, I did not feel like it made enough of a difference for the time it took to put in and take out, so I skipped it the day I wore this costume to work.

The final results?  I wore the teal sweater on Saturday to the party and the black and white polka dots (below) to work.  I ended up taking third in the company costume party in large part because most people had no idea who Lichtenstein is or what pop art is. This is not a new costume choice phenomenon with me, as I have spent most of my life explaining my costumes to everyone. 

In the end, I was beat out by a group Duck Dynasty costume and a very impressive Star Trek/Zachary Quinto Spock.  But I had a lot of fun doing all my make-up, and that was really the point of it.  Besides, for the people who did get my costumes? I was getting amazingly positive feedback all over the place.

I wore different scents for the two different events.  For the party, I wore the period appropriate Worth Je Reviens, which I really enjoy. It was nice to feel like I'd stepped right out of the pages of a '60's comic book.

For the work day Lichtenstein, I wore Prada Infusion D'Iris. I picked it because I thought it was a fun, light, flirty scent that seemed like an olfactory equivalent of pop art. Given that irises are so often serious, expensive, exquisitely beautiful scents, I felt like Infusion D'Iris was captured the fun equivalent that Pop Art is, and yet manages to be good in its own right.

So there it is! Costume number one (and three) of four total dress up days this year.  How about you, dear reader? What scents do you think fit the theme of Pop Art girl?

On Being A Corpse Flower

One of the most common questions in response to my interest in perfumery is one I suspect every diehard marginalized hobbyist encounters with some regularity. “Oh, that's interesting. How did you get into that?”

I smelled like this...

I've told the story of how I came to clutch my first few sample vials a couple of times here on Feminine Things., but I don't think I've ever told the story of the moment I knew that this wasn't a temporary interest, but a lifelong passion I wouldn't be giving up. It wasn't when I first noticed my house was covered in smelly packages or that my collection was worth more than my car. It wasn't when I started carrying around a small tin of one milliliter glass samples of ten to fifteen scents at a time so I could, on a whim, whip out a new perfume and try it on or even just sniff lightly from the vial.

The moment I knew I had crossed the rubicon from someone who appreciates perfume into a true, diehard, lifelong perfume maniac came in one hard, somewhat hilarious slap to my fragile perfume ego.

I still remember it clearly. I woke up one morning, got dressed, carefully applied my make-up, and then completed my morning ritual the way I always do: I stand in front of a large cabinet of scents, trying to decide what I wanted to smell like for the day. Do I want to wear something only I can smell and enjoy, or do I want a scent someone else might notice? Do I want to wear the perfume or do I feel up to the challenge of trying out a perfume that will more or less wear me? Do I want to find comfort in a tried and true favorite, or boldly go where few olfactory explorers, including myself, have gone before? What do I want to say to the world today, or to myself?

On this particular occasion, I was feel daring. I would try something new, an impulse purchase from an indie perfumer I liked who was discontinuing a number of her scents and had offered them at essentially bargain basement prices. I'd tried the scent a little when I'd gotten it, but this would be my first full fledged wearing of the scent. I pulled a small one third ounce roller out and applied it amply – my wrists, my neck, the backs of my knees, even the dip of my cleavage. I smelled earthy with a hint of old, slightly mouldering moss that was covered in aged leather and coated in heaping dose of patchouli and civet. It was a powerful, rich, sexy perfume and I smelled wonderful.

...well....sort of.

With a spring in my step and a bass heavy song in my heart, I headed out the door and off to work. I was bouncing in time in my satin heels as I hummed all the way across the parking lot to my building. I said hello to the security guard and slid into the elevator, followed at the last minute by two women, their arms loaded down with folders and paperwork.

The women, who had been chatting quietly between themselves, became silent almost as soon as the doors closed. It seemed abrupt, but sometimes that happens in elevators, so I didn't think a lot of it. One of them started coughing, and I backed away a little, trying to avoid getting sick for the umpteeth time that year. The elevator pinged, the doors opened, and I exited quickly trying to outrun the germs and headed for a long day's slough in my cube.

I settled in and got to work, focused on the day's tasks. Occasionally, I would get a whiff of my lovely, sexy perfume, and I would give a small inward sigh of satisfaction. I loved it. I felt like I was some sort of woodland nymph, or like my Greek goddess namesake, Artemis, hunting through the woods with her bow and arrow.

About an hour after I arrived, the coworker who shared my cube wall abruptly stood up and headed for the kitchen, carrying his full trashcan in hand. “Great,” I thought. “That dude is finally emptying his trash.” A few minutes later he returned, and sat down. I could hear him banging agitatedly on his keyboard, but I tried to ignore it. After about ten minutes, he stood up again and began prowling around, openly sniffing at different people. Finally, and without any further introduction, he demanded, “Okay, who here smells like death?”

Dear reader, the death smeller was – you guessed it – me.

Titan Arum in close up.

As it turns out, not everyone enjoys the earth smell of rotting greenery, dirt, and yeah, shit. To me, I smelled primal. Sexy. Even, yes, dirty, but in the greatest way. To my coworker, I apparently smelled like something had died. I was a walking olfactory corpse. It was the perfume equivalent of aiming for goth girl reading Poe in a cemetery and instead managing to capture the smell of being found dead and half-eaten by cats after a week of decomposition when someone finally came to check on me because the mailbox was overflowing.

Now let me be clear: the perfume did not smell like death. It never did. But there was something about the combination of my own body chemistry that day and the somewhat inaccessible scent that made my coworker think that of rotting flesh and uncleaned litter boxes. And he was not nice about it, reader. He was on a mission to remove the death stink from his area. I snuck off to the bathroom and tried to scrub away the olfactory evidence with a wad of paper towels, then dabbed over it with an inoffensive aquatic sample I thought smelled like dish soap. When I returned to my desk, he was quiet, but it didn't matter. I was the death smeller, and everyone knew it.

Corpse Flower in bloom.

That was the moment I knew. Like the people who travel to experience the amorphophallus titanum bloom, those of us in the olfactory know become far more adventurous with our noses than any 'normal' person can really imagine. The Corpse Flower, as Titan Arum is more commonly known, is losing its natural habitat. For a flower the can go more than a decade between blooms, things don't look good on the survival front. And yet, I suspect few people will mourn the loss of a flower that has been described as smelling like rotting meat. But I will.

The truth is that the world is as full of smells as it is sights and sounds and tastes and touches. Like all those other senses, scent is evocative. Scent is illuminating. Scent is revolutionary. And that requires all kinds of scents and scent experiences, even challenging ones. We need to have our preconceptions of what someone should look like or sound like or, yes, even smell like, challenged. We need to be open to the possibility of something new, something different, and yes, even something 'bad.' And if that makes me a woman that smells like a Corpse Flower on occasion, then so be it. Let the zombie decay comparisons begin.

And for the record? I love my dirty perfume. I still have it. And my partner doesn't seem to think it smells like death at all.

__
License for Titan Arum in close up - some rights reserved by massmarrier
License for Corpse Flower in Bloom - some rights reserved by ingridtaylar.

We'll Never Be Royals.

Internalized Criticism and My Perfume Collection

So one of the things I've been noticing lately is that I've been a little embarrassed about the way my perfume collection is settling out. I've stood in front of my perfume wardrobe, trying to decide what to write about, and I find a judgey little voice in my head criticizing my perfume choices. “Wow, you have a lot of this house, which isn't very well respected. Don't you think you should have more of that house instead?” I get dressed in the morning, and as I reach for something, this same voice slithers in. “Really? You're going to wear that, again? Isn't that a bit...pedestrian?”

Some days you'll only
accept the fanciest
of salads...

Yes, dear reader. I have a little perfume hater living inside me, and she is a critical little snipe who does not think my perfume collection is sophisticated enough, that I wear too many accessible and mainstream scents, and that I am not living up to my full perfumista potential. This same hater wants to know why I haven't gotten into collecting vintage scents more, why I haven't started studying French so I can really understand perfumery as an art and industry, and why I spent so much time running around the U.S. when I could just as easily be saving my pennies for a trip to Grasse.

Frankly, I'm kind of getting tired of the little hater. Sometimes I think she stands between me and my enjoyment of things I really like, no matter how widely accepted they are or how many supposed connoisseurs would turn up their perfectly trained noses at my collection. It's the same voice that makes me hide my affection for Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey from my coworkers, to hide my Twilight fascination from my roommates, and to feel a certain reticence about telling people I write Young Adult novels.

 Frankly, I like those things about myself. I enjoy and admire Taylor Swift as a song writer, even if she is young and her work, right now, reflects that. I think Lana Del Rey has talent despite a bad early album. FN1. I find the entire Twilight fandom interesting and entertaining and I love YA literature. I love writing YA. I want nothing more than to be published. And I'm tired of feeling judged by others and worse, prejudged by some internalized version of them, for not being cool enough. You know what? I'm not cool. I have never been cool. And in terms of perfume, I just need to accept that I'm probably not going to be cool there, either. And that's just going to have to be okay with me.

...but most days you just want
carbs with nutella and
 bananas smeared on them.

This week I had a wonderful moment of olfactory delight when several people told me I smelled good. I spend a lot of time thinking about the way I smell and how I want to present myself from a scent perspective, so it's nice when people notice. Part of the winning combination this week is the addition of a new layer in my olfactory repertoire.

A few weeks ago, I broke down and bought myself two of the Jo Malone bath oils. I like them because, when mixed with water, the oils turn milky and don't leave a greasy sheen on the skin. I bought them in the two scents I tend to layer the most among the Jo Malone collection – Red Roses and Orange Blossom. My reasoning was that if these scents were layered underneath my perfume, even faintly, that it would be a nice combining experiment, and if I did not want to mix them, I could just skip the bath oil.

Three different people at work stopped me to tell me how good I smelled the day I layered Red Roses bath oil with a healthy dose of DSH Perfumes Hemlock. The result was strangely earthy and green, and yet also fresh, floral, and feminine. It walked the line between Red Roses primness and Hemlock's less traditionally feminine aspects. One of my coworkers, smiled, asked me if I was wearing something with roses in it, and then went on to tell me how his very first girlfriend had a rose body wash or scent and how he always associated the smell with first love. I love that. I love that he told me the story and I loved the slightly goofy grin he got on his face at the memory.

The truth is, I am a pretty simple person, scent wise. I have always loved the smell of roses. I am a sucker for a good vanilla. I generally enjoy sweet, foodie scents. Tobacco notes always remind me of my grandfather which I cannot get enough of, and I have a disproportionately high number of “beach-y” scents because I love the ocean so much that sometimes it's pull is like a siren's call I can't deny. In other words, I like a lot of scents traditionally marketed for women. I don't yearn for the difficult scents. I enjoy smelling them occasionally, and I appreciate their beauty, but honestly? I wear a lot of Jo Malone. I own a huge amount of L'Artisan, a disproportional amount really. I am very into ultra-realism, so I love CB I Hate Perfume and I have a scary amount of Demeter Fragrances which are an impulse shopping habit of mine. I am not embarrassed to own Stetson for Men, which I like wearing. I have favorite indie perfumes, and I tend to stick with them because I like what they do.

Someday, maybe I'll like Guerlain Mitsouko enough to own it. I do think it's a gorgeous scent. It took me a long time to like it, and then to love it.  And I do.  It's a difficult but beautiful scent.  I just can't imagine reaching for it often enough to justify buying it. But life is long. Perhaps my Mitsouko days are still ahead of me. And if they aren't? I still smell pretty damned good, even if my tastes aren't as sophisticated as other perfumistas.

And that little voice in my head? Well, it can kiss my massive bottle collection.

And we'll never be royals.
It don't run in our blood.
That kind of luxe just ain't for us.
We crave a different kind of buzz.
Let me be your ruler.
You can call me queen bee.
And baby I'll rule.
I'll rule. I'll rule. I'll rule.
Let me live that fantasy.
~ “Royals,” Lorde
________

FN1. It's not like she's the first artist to have a bad early EP/album while she was figuring out her musical and personal identity. Y Can't Tori Read was no winner, and I'll never stop loving Tori Amos.

Is it gonna be the best time or am I just saying so?

Dear reader,

I was doing a tally recently, and I realized I have traveled more this year than ever before in my life. For the purposes of record keeping, I though we'd do a little review:

• January:    Boston for job training
• February:  Seattle to visit LillieMae & Becca
• March:      The Dalles for my birthday
• May:          Port Angeles/Forks/Port Townsend/Olympia for things with David's family and writing
• July:          Nashville to see Kate; Boston for the company on-site; Boston/New Haven for Jason and Jill's wedding; Maine for vacation with David
• September: Nashville to see Kate
• October:    Boston for work and to see Jill; Chicago to see LillieMae and Chad
• November: Seattle to see Becca
• December: A week at the Oregon Coast with David, Becca, Steven, and Kate

This doesn't even count my random trips to the coast. If 2013 has a theme, it appears to be that I cannot keep still. I was thinking recently that I've been feeling a little traveled out, and now I know why. I think for the rest of the year I'll be content to keep closer to home, though my intense yearning for the Olympic Peninsula tells me that I'll probably head that direction before my birthday.

What does all this running around mean? Well, for one thing, it means that I desperately owe my brother a trip home. It also means that I haven't been as present here as I'd like. It's been tough, particularly given that I've also had a new job this year and the learning curve was, and is, steep. I love what I do now, though, which is a huge gift. As afraid as I am to say it, dear reader, I'm happier than I have been in a long time.

At the same time, I've been entering a new phase of my perfume collecting. I feel like my tastes are starting to settle. I no longer feel that unquenchable urge to buy every single thing I smell that I like. I'm starting to look at my collection and feel like it's time to pare down a bit, time to give or trade away things I'm not really using to a better home.

Feminine Things. has been going for a little over five years now. I still can't believe that. I never imagined when I started this blog what a gift it would be. I've met so many lovely people, I've grown in olfactory experience, and I have enjoyed the crap out of these five years. I've been thinking a lot, though, about if I'm doing as good as job for you as I should be talking about my perfumed life. And I think, if I'm honest, the answer is no.

I have no intentions of closing up shop. In fact, I'm working to make a commitment to myself to post at least once a week, and I will continue to review perfumes on what I hope is a regular basis. Lord knows I have enough unexplored samples in my backlog that I could keep going for years. But I've also been thinking that I might write a bit more about the ways perfume plays into my day-to-day life. I've been thinking I might focus more on the way I interact with scents and other people instead of sticking strictly to reviews (which, let's face it, I never really stuck to very well). I hope this slight shift in focus will be okay with you dear reader. I, for one, am excited about it.

Thanks, as always, for reading. I appreciate every single one of you. And I hope you'll keep reading.

Until next time.

"It really was about driving--
not fame, not wealth,
not driving away from myself.
It's just myself drove away from me.
Now I gotta get it back and it goes so fast, 
so I am traveling again.
Sitting at the all-nite, picking up a pen...
And I'm afraid.
Oh, was there any good reason that I had to go
when all I know is I am all alone again?
And you are the ghost town, and I am the heartland.
And I can say, oh, 
that's a very good reason that I had to go, 
but now all I know is I can never come back.
And I will never go back."
~ "Traveling Again," Dar Williams

That's some crazy strength.

Neko Case has a new album out. I love her, so I bought the album the day it was released. The next morning, I was playing it as I got ready for work. All of the sudden, track six, “Nearly Midnight, Honolulu” came on, layers of a cappella singing ringing round the tile and mirrored room.

Hey, little kid that I saw at the bus stop one day.
It was nearly midnight in Honolulu.
We were waiting for the shuttle to take us to the aeroplane
when your mother said, your mother said,
like I couldn't hear her, she said,
"Get the fuck away from me!
Why don't you ever shut up?
Get the fuck away from me!"

I was struck silent and still by these lines. There was something so painful and familiar about those words. I can't remember if those exact words were ever said of me. I'm missing a lot of time. But I know the sentiment was there, often enough, in both my parents, when I was a kid.

Recently, I was talking with someone who seemed not to understand what it means to be haunted, literally, by your own past. To be stalked through your dreams by loved ones trying to kill you, reliving moments that are like something out of a scripted nightmare or a gritty after-school special. Even today, I live with a hyper-vigilance, and it isn't against my triggers anymore as much as it is against myself.

I am constantly afraid of my own body, of the way a song or TV show will cause my breathing to catch or my hands to shake or my body to shudder out of control. In that moment, my own nervous system will betray the cool, calm, collected professional exterior I manage ninety-nine percent of the time and I won't even be able to breath, tears rushing down my face and words I don't want to say aloud tumbling from my mouth. I can't stop it when it happens. I have to just sit there until I calm down. Sometimes it takes a while. And the whole time, I wish for nothing more than for it to stop.

I live with the constant fear that this will happen in public. That it will happen in a movie theater. In a restaurant. At work. I am sitting in a coffee shop in Nashville right now, and as I write this to you, I am crying. I wonder what the lady sitting across the table from me thinks of the tears I can't contain as I write this.

Well, I just want to say that it happened,
'cause one day when you ask yourself,
"Did it really happen?"
You won't believe it, but yes, it did.
And I'm sorry.
And I'm sorry
'cause it happens everyday.

There is a tendency, particularly in people complicit in abuse by their silence, by their ignorance, or by their reluctance to intervene, to deny its reality. Though they are doing what is natural, protecting themselves from the brutality of the world, their denial gives them a role in that abuse. They contribute to its perpetration, its perpetuation, its prevalence in the lives of otherwise bright and hopeful beings, sometimes long after the abuse has ended.

This denial of what has happened has a tendency to eat away at survivors. Our abusers are already skilled at crazy-making, brilliant liars and manipulators whose strength depends on communal silence in the face of horror and our isolation as victims. It takes a lot to admit what has happened to us. Our abusers condition us to keep our mouths shut, to deny it if asked, and society furthers that effect by its tendency to ignore and marginalize. That those around us, even years later, will minimize, deny, or otherwise ignore the truth of our past compounds that pain, makes it difficult for us to name the ghosts in our heads, in our hearts, even after we've long since accepted and acknowledged the truth of them.

They won't believe you
when you tell them.
They won't believe you
when you say, "My mother, she did not love me.
My mother, she did not love me."
No, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no.

If you are ever confronted with a survivor, do us a favor. Don't pretend it didn't happen. It happened. You don't have to like it, or like your role in it, but don't pretend it didn't.

Also, don't pretend you know what we've been through. If I've learned anything from my own abuse, it is that this kind of horror is deeply personal. Even two people – a mother and child, a brother and a sister – experiencing the same abuse, won't experience it the same way. Don't assume that your pain looks or feels like what ours looks like.

Just accept what we tell you. Say it's horrible. Say you're sorry it happened. Say you're proud of who we are now. But don't deny us, or say you know how we feel.

You don't.

And I, for one, am glad you don't. I wouldn't wish my bad days and terrible nights on you. I don't want this kind of suffering for anyone.

Some days you feel like a cartoon
and people will rush to make excuses for you.
You'll hear yourself complain
but don't you ever shut up; please,
Kid, have your say...

I recently dropped something about being an abuse survivor in passing conversation to someone I thought already knew my backstory. We've known each other for the better part of a year now, and I just assumed it had come up already. When I realized I'd just dropped a bomb, I gave him the shorthand run down. “I had no idea,” he said. “I would have never guessed any of that.”

I hear that a lot. When I left the DV unit at the DA's office, I sent out a thank you to everyone in my department. I'd been there for over nine months and I'd never told most of them. When I wrote that they'd helped me heal and that I wanted them to know that there was at least one survivor who saw how committed they were, how hard they worked, how much they tried, and was grateful, some of them were shocked. “We didn't know,” one said, surprised etched across his serious face. “We had no idea.”

Of course not. You'd never know it to meet me. You can know me for months and months, maybe even years, and never know. Not anymore. I'm glad of that. I'm glad that you can't always tell just by looking anymore. But just because you can't see it, that doesn't make it any more or less true.

The friend I told recently speculated in passing that being survivor had shaped my feminism. “Of course,” I said. “How could it not?” Truthfully, though, it shapes everything. I don't always say that it does, but I know in my heart of hearts, the experience is indelibly imprinted on who I am and how I see the world as much as those unseen bruises used to be.

I've occasionally run into people who are curious as to why I would ever tell anyone, especially when I can hide it if I choose. They ask: “Aren't you passed it?” and “Don't you want to be passed it?” and “Aren't you worried that continuing to talk about it continues to allow it to victimize you?”

No.

God, yes.

Absolutely not.

The truth is, I can be healthy. I can be happy. I can be a functional, contributing member of society. I can be, by any measure of the word, a success in life. But I will also always be a survivor. I will never stop being a survivor. And there are a lot of us out there. I have lost count of the amount of my smart, successful, educated friends, most of them women, who are all those things despite being abused and assaulted by someone they believed was safe and trustworthy, someone who was supposed to care for them. I can tell you that when I tote up their numbers, the survivors outweigh those that aren't, and that's just the ones I know about.

The truth is, we are all around you, every day, and you may never know it. And as an adult with a happy life and a healthy relationship, I write these pieces because I know how scared I used to be of my own voice. I know how many people ignored all my not-very-subtle cries for help. I know, from working with survivors first-hand, how many of them feel like I used to: feel crazy, feel ignored, feel like no one will listen, and even if they do, that they still won't believe.

I am an educated, upwardly mobile, full-abled, cis-gendered, relatively young, relatively attractive white woman in the first world. I live in a privilege position now, socially speaking, and talking about my experiences is one of the ways I take what happened to me and I make something good out of it. I speak for those who right now cannot speak for themselves. I speak for those who are still too afraid to. I speak so that we are not invisible, and in the hopes that someone else will hear me and know they are not alone. That they know they will be believed if they talk to me. That I am here, and I can help. That they can get through it and get past it and make something fine from their lives.

Every time I do this, I don't feel revictimized. I feel empowered. I feel my own strength. And those ghostly shadows in my life grow a little smaller compared to the truth of what was then and what is now. And by talking about it, I also acknowledge the ways in which I am still a work in progress, and the areas I still have to work on. It keeps me humble. It reminds me that there are still miles to go. And, I've found, far more people believe me than I ever would have imagined. Far more people love me despite my flaws and my fears and my demons than the abused little kid I once was ever would have believed. In acknowledging the truth, I find acceptance. I find a kind of peace.

'Cause I still love you
Even if I don't see you again.

“That's some crazy strength,” my friend concluded when I had finished telling him my story.

“Yep,” I replied, because that's the truth.

That's some crazy strength.

Every survivor I know has it, whether we feel it every day or not. I have it. You have it. And we are successful despite everything that has happened. That is our true secret superpower. We are not defeated, and every day that we get up and keep going, we are demonstrating a kind of super-human strength.

So if you're reading this, and you feel alone, or broken, or lost, know this: It really happened. It may still be happening. But you are a superhero. Every day that you go on breathing in spite of it, you are a success. You can get out. And, in spite of it, you will be okay. Even when you're not. You will still be okay.

Because I believe in you.

And I did it.

And you can, too.

And I love you
even if I don't see you again.

Top Five Favorite TV Shows Returning for Fall 2013

Having posted my top picks for best and worst of the new 2013 Fall line-up, I return, dear reader, for one more TV-related post. For those die hard fans of this blog that are always blowing up my Facebook and twitter with book, TV, and movie recommendation requests (you know who you are), here are the five shows I'm most psyched to see returning to the Fall schedule:

1. Nashville - Great original music written by such musical talents as Elvis Costello and The Civil Wars, good lead casting in Connie Britton (Rayna James) and Hayden Panettiere (Juliette Barnes), this is a prime time soap in the classic sense with a country twist. If you like shows like Parenthood, Brothers and Sisters, or Private Practice for their interpersonal drama and angst, then this is a show for you. Forget the Dallas reboot; Nashville has all the country you need. The entire first season is still available on HuluPlus. Season two begins September 25 on NBC.

2. The Originals - I refuse to list this under new shows because the backdoor pilot ran during last year's The Vampire Diaries season and it carries with it, for better or worse, all of its TVD lineage. The good news is that the spin-off is being helmed by Julie Plec, one of the more talented writers from TVD's creative team, and someone who is very invested in getting this right. They will rerun the pilot soon, but if you really want to prepare for The Originals, you need to start watching a lot of TVD pronto. The show is set-up so you can jump in without the backstory, but I have a feeling you're going to get a lot more out of the show if you have a little Mystic Falls history under your belt. Plus, the show is being set in and shot on location in New Orleans, so if you're missing the Big Easy, take heart. The vampires, witches, and things that go bump in the night are bringing NOLA to prime time. the first three seasons of TVD are on Netflix, and six episodes from season four are still up on HuluPlus.  The pilot airs again on October 8 but you can catch the director's cut now on Hulu.

3. The New Girl - I will admit to originally writing this show off after two episodes as a bunch of hipster nonsense gifted to Zooey Deschanel because she's practically the poster girl for the ironically sincere youth of today, but I was wrong. I sat down and watched the first season last summer and the show was so weird and awkwardly funny it even sucked David in. Now we are both devoted fans of Jess, Schmidt, Nick, and Winston, and we can't wait to see what happens next. (Also, we really want to figure out more of the rules to True American). If you know David and I, you know we have fairly opposite tastes in TV, so if something manages to amuse both of us? That's probably something worth watching. Season one is available now on Netflix, and the last five episodes of season two are currently on HuluPlus. Season three begins September 17 on Fox.

4. Grimm - Yep. I'm addicted. Where Once Upon A Time lost me because the plot seemed stuck in the mud and the melodrama weighed down any sense of humor the show might have had, Grimm manages to remain fun, interesting, and full of dark humor. If you haven't been watching this lovely little show set in and shot on location here in Portland, you really are missing out. Start at the beginning, but give it two or three episodes to really find its feet. Once it does, the show is off and running with an originality half of the fall's new supernatural/sci-fi pilots wish they had. All of season two is available on HuluPlus. Season three begins October 25 on NBC.

5. Hart of Dixie - I cannot get enough of this Doc Hollywood remake starring Rachel Bilson as a Dr. Zoe Hart, big city surgical resident turned small town family practitioner. The cast is great and the writing is pretty funny, but what really works on this show, surprisingly, is the character development. I appreciate a show that can make the villain a sympathetic character, and can turn people at pods into believable friends. For people who enjoy films like Steel Magnolias, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, or Sweet Home Alabama, this show was tailor-made for you. And for those of you who share my affection for small town settings and interpersonal hijinx of The Music Man and Our Town variety, Hart of Dixie has a little something for you, too. I'll also add that anyone who misses the weird holidays and festivals of Gilmore Girls' Starshollow will find similar shenanigans afoot here in Bluebell, Alabama. Season one is available now on Netflix, and the last six episodes of season two are currently on HuluPlus. Season three begins on October 7 on The CW.

Runners-up: The Vampire Diaries; Haven; Community (mid-season return); The Mindy Project; Arrow.

So there you have it, folks. The best and the worst of the new shows and my personal favorite returning series. What about you? What are you most looking forward, old or new, to on the 2013 Fall TV line-up?

New TV is coming! New TV is coming!

On my flight to Nashville, I was treated to a preview of one of Fox's new fall shows, Sleepy Hollow. This reminded me that the new television season is upon us, and I have no made a single recommendation, prediction, or condemnation. This is a failing on my part, dear reader, for as we all know, I follow television development like other people follow sports.

Having already seen one of the fall's newest creative offerings, allow me, then to pontificate a bit on the state of new incoming entertainment options. Without further ado, here are my top five picks for the 2014 fall schedule:

1. Sleepy Hollow

Complicated premise is complicated. Read the wiki synopsis here. Based on the description alone, I would have never even green lit this to pilot. Amazingly, though, despite my deep misgivings, this may turn out to be one of the more interesting concepts on the fall schedule. The casting is terrific, particularly Tom Mison (Ichobad Crane) and Nicole Beharie (Lt. Abbie Mills), the two leads. FN1. As a person who is far more interested in writing and world building than the sexiness of celebrities, I am pleased to see how credible the acting is.

What makes the show enjoyable is that it manages to balance a legitimately creepy degree of horror with the humor of a man out of time.It's funnier and less dramatically hysterical than Haven (which I admittedly like) and less revolting from a human perspective than American Gothic or Hannibal. In the end, the pilot works because the writing works. Part of what saves this show it that it manages to treat the human relationships with sensitivity, handles responses to supernatural threats with the right blend of disbelief, fear, and acceptance (buy the premise, buy the bit), and yet also manages to make fun of itself and its situation. It's closest counterpart on TV right now might actually be The CW's Arrow. If the writing manages to stay as strong throughout the rest of the series as the pilot, we're in for some entertaining small-town New York shenanigans, ya'll.

Sleepy Hollow premiers Monday, September 16 on FOX. Recommended for fans of: Practical Magic; Witches of Eastwick (the film, not the poorly written show); the canceled-before-its-time series Happytown; the film adaptation of Constantine; Puddletown local favorite, Grimm.

2. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Agent Phil Coulson puts together a small team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to handle strange new cases. Each case will test the team in cooperation and ingenuity as they try to work together figuring out newly emerging superhuman individuals in the world.

Yeah, yeah. Everyone and their mother is excited for this one. But, in their (and my) defense:

1.  Joss Whedon writes really good everything, including tv;
2. SUPERHEROES! Well, peripherally;
3. It helps fills the aching wound left by the cancellation of Alphas;
4. There is something really interesting about the lives of fragile humans who run toward, rather than away from, danger. These people are NOT gods and monsters. They're just like you and me (well, sort of). If you ever wonder what it would be like to be someone of extraordinary courage and ordinary talent in a world where superheroes are real, this is going to be one great show.
5. And seriously -- would you trust anyone else to do that good a job with these themes other than the man who wrote Buffy? NO. You would not. FN2.

Premieres Tuesday, September 24 on ABC. Recommended for people who: love anything Joss Whedon has ever written; love the Avengers universe; thought Noah Bennet was the real hero on Heroes; roots for the poor red shirts on Star Trek; remember that one time when Xander saved the world with his mouth.

3. The Michael J. Fox Show

Alex P. Keaton is back on prime time! This time playing a version of his real life self:

After being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, Mike Henry had to give up his career as a news anchor and focus on his health and his family. Five years later, Mike decides to get back to work and struggles between family and career.

Is it emotionally manipulative? Yes, to some degree it is. Am I going to watch it? YES. Why? Because it's the most real thing I am going to see on television next fall, and that includes any 'reality tv' anyone produces. We've come a long way when a network will give a show to someone with a debilitating illness, not just someone PLAYING a person with an illness. Also, while the trailer makes it clear that the show will be full of feels for MJ regarding his condition, there will also be a lot of the humor derived from it. And there is something poetically human about that, about the way all of us find humor in our own suffering to make it through the day.

Premieres Thursday, September 26 on NBC. Recommended for: children of the 80s; people who enjoy family-style sitcoms; people who want to understand why every time the Glee producers have Artie go into a 'dream sequence' and magically be able to walk, I want to stab something.

4. The Tomorrow People

For those of you thinking, "Yeah, Joss Whedon, humanity is great and all but I want people with actual powers, not scrappy humans with moxie" then the CW is here for you. Premise? "Based on the original British television series of the same name, the series follows a group of young people who possess powers as the result of human evolution."

The Tomorrow People is the latest iteration of this trope, with a decidedly more YA/NA bent. This places the concept right in my wheelhouse, and the trailer seemed to have more going for it than Star-Crossed or The Hundred during Upfront season. Perhaps that is why it is the only one of the three with a fall time slot.

The Tomorrow People premieres October 9 on The CW. FN3. Recommended for people who love: Heroes; Alphas; Jumper; Push; the X-Men universe.

5. Mind Games

Okay, this is admittedly a little bit of a cheat on my part. Mind Games is not on anyone's calendar anywhere yet. It may never see the light of day. And yet, of all the upfront videos I watched, this was actually my favorite new show. I'm including the trailer here, so you can check it out:

Premieres midseason on ABC. I am hoping the fact that over 41,000 people have already liked the trailer on Youtube means Mind Games will eventually show up on ABC's mid-season fill roster. Casting was still active as of last month, so… *crosses fingers* For those of us already missing our regular "shady group of people manipulates situations for the greater good" shows, this one might fill the bill.

Recommended for fans of: Leverage; Lie to Me; The Mentalist; Franklin & Bash.

That's it for me on the new shows front. Anything you are looking forward to that I didn't mention? I'm happy to discuss in the comments below. Also, tune in tomorrow for my thoughts on the five WORST shows to hit the 2013 Fall line-up, which will appear over on my writing blog.

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FN1. Did anyone else notice this is the same protagonist name as Harper's Island? I hope it's a subtle shout-out. If so, well-done.
FN2. Though I STILL have not forgiven you for Buffy Season 9, Joss Whedon. Do you hear me? I AM NOT OVER IT. That was some Dallas-level plot betrayal, and those wounds cut deep.
FN3. CW is premiering everything late this year, I suspect in a bid to catch people watching new shows that fizzle after 1-3 episodes. I hope it works out for them.