Yesterday afternoon I realized that you can’t see my blush at all in the cell phone pictures I posted yesterday for my blush color theory experiment. Before the sun went down, I went outside to take real pictures with my real camera. I have updated my Blush Color Theory post to include the new, more color accurate photos.
Blush used: CoverGirl Instant Cheekbones in “Peach Perfection”
Shades used: Light and Medium Peach
Technique: Brush the lightest peach all over cheek area. Dust a small amount of the medium peach on the very bottom of cheekbone line. Blend well to create contour.
*Click to view full size
Friend testimony: This combination of shades has been Kristin approved. In her opinion, this look is natural and not at all clownish (something I feared as I am not at all used to seeing myself with cheek color).
Beginner’s Note: If you’re new to contouring, CoverGirl has a great tutorial for beginners:
P.S. — I’ve started the process of lightening all of my hair back to blonde. So far it’s going well.
There once was a time when I would not leave the house without full makeup. Those days are long gone; in their place are times where I often go a number of weeks without a makeup brush touching my face. After years of Sam’s regular declarations that I am every bit as beautiful without makeup as I am with, I’ve accepted and even learned to truly love my bare face. I wear my naked face with pride. It’s extremely low maintenance and quite a liberating way to live.
A week or two ago I accompanied my friend Kristin to the MAC counter. A delightful makeup artist matched Kristin with a shade of StudioFix powder (something I’ve used for years and recommended that she try), and then warned that because of the extreme level of coverage StudioFix provides, she would need to use blush to give life and contour back to her face.
That’s when I realized that I’ve never purchased a blush in my entire life. Despite a year-long period of wearing little to no makeup at all, I immediately felt compelled to remedy the situation.
This morning I spent a good half hour researching how to determine my skin tone. I found that I have light olive skin — a cool color with yellow and blue undertones, rather than a warm color with pink or red undertones.
You can see the difference between warm and cool skin tones very clearly in this photo of Sandi and I taken last weekend:
Sandi (left) has distinct pink undertones. My skin is very yellow in comparison.
I then researched which shades of blush look best on olive skin tones and found that I should try colors with yummy names that make me hungry.
Shades of blush that work well with olive skin:
Armed with a piece of paper scrawled with delicious color names, Kristin and I went shopping. Along with a box of bleach-blonde hair color (a story for another day), I bought 4 different shades of blush ranging from orange creamcicle to mauve.
Over the next 4 days, I’ll be doing a daily blog where I’ll post a photo of me wearing one shade of blush in comparison to no blush at all. After wearing all 4 shades, I should have an accurate evaluation of which shades work for me and which shades don’t.
Let’s hear it for a fun little color theory experiment!
This past week has been a dangerous mixture of extreme highs and lows. Here’s a list of the things that have happened:
Dear Stress,
I’d love it if you would tone it down a notch or two before I explode. Let’s concentrate on the positive things for a while, m’kay?
Love,
Ester
1. Where are my sunglasses?!
2. If wishes were horses I’d have a hell of a lot of horse shit to shovel.
3. I’d like to see you try.
4. When I was a teen, I thought being an adult would be a lot easier than it really is.
5. I’d have a hard time doing without my steady paychecks every 2 weeks.
6. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to kicking off a much-needed weekend with Sandi, tomorrow my plans include Saturday Market and Sam’s race day, and Sunday I want to relax and do some house deep-cleaning.
*Questions from Friday Fill-Ins
I’ve caught a terrible cold. Yesterday I stayed home from work to rest up. After throwing up sinus drainage from 5am to 7am, I forced myself to drive to Safeway for more cold medicine, apple and orange juice, antibacterial tissues, and 3 cans of chicken noodle soup. Then I settled in with blankets, pillows, and 2 snuggly, warm kitties on the couch. I barely moved until it was time for bed around 10 pm.
Around noon while watching one of 3 fascinating documentaries (I’m definitely obsessed with documentaries), I decided to work on the shawl I’m currently knitting. A few rows in, I fell asleep with my knitting on my lap. I’m not sure how much time went by before Gir stealth’d his way in and grabbed it, dragging yarn from the living room to the dining room and back again.
I woke to what Sam and I now call the unmistakable I’ve Got Your Yarn! Growl. I look over to discover the yarn massacre; Gir looking up at me from the corner of the room in a crouched position, a tangle of yarn in hanging from his mouth. (Wednesday was poised on top of the futon, watching this scene unfold. She knows better than to partake in yarn-binges. She clearly has significantly more self-control than her counterpart.)
Thankfully, my shawl was left in one piece - not a single stitch was dropped from my needles - but my beautiful center-pull ball of Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn was strewn across two rooms. Just thinking about untangling such a mess left me near tears.
I forced myself off the couch, successfully removed the yarn from Gir’s teeth, piled it all together, and set it down on a shelf far from kitty’s reach. My Traveling Woman shawl was abolished. That’s what I call a project Time-the-fuck-OUT.
Enter Kristin, the amazing woman that she is, who absolutely LOVES untangling nasty yarn messes. Why? Don’t even ask, because I couldn’t tell ya. It boggles my mind, the workings of her logical reasoning when it comes to tangles, but I’m not complaining in the least. I purposely brought my yarny mess to work with me this morning knowing that once she laid her eyes upon the brutality, she wouldn’t be able to resist untangling it, yard by yard.
When first break rolled around at 10pm, she went to town. I mean, if there were an award for Master Level 3 Yarn Untangler, this girl takes home the Gold. This isn’t the first time she’s saved my knitting project (and my sanity) from certain death, and I give credit where credit is due.
Kristin — thank you, dollface. If it weren’t for you, this project would have been thrown into the firey pits of hell by now. Because that’s how I deal with tangled yarn messes when left to my own defenses.
Here’s a crappy cell phone shot of the cute little yarn ball I can now happily knit from after Kristin spent 15 blissful minutes untangling.
I also realized I have quite a bit more yarn left than I originally thought. I just might have enough to finish this thing with one skein. Maybe.
What does a girl do on a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day? She hits the MAC counter, that’s what.
I think spring might actually be here! This is Portland though, so I don’t expect this weather to last much longer before April showers continue, but it was FINALLY warm enough to enjoy the outdoors last weekend. It was also warm enough to pull my flip-flops, a pair of capris, and my favorite tank top out of winter hibernation. (Can I get a HELL to the YEAH for summer clothes?!)
And then came my Big Realization — it was FINALLY warm enough to wash my car without catching pneumonia!
It was exhilarating.
Until Sam came home unexpectedly during this spectacle and rushed inside to grab my camera to “document” the fact that he wasn’t the one scrubbing away. I couldn’t tell if he was impressed or if he thought at any moment I might disappear into thin air. The Ester he knows wouldn’t possibly wash her own car! Which is, by the way, totally not true. I actually quite enjoy it. I simply require a temperature of at least 65 degrees to do so.
Last weekend was a great one, and included tons of things I haven’t been able to do in MONTHS. Here are a few that top the list:
In other news, I lost another pound. I’m now just 2 pounds away from my first goal of losing 20 pounds. I cannot wait to celebrate that victory. I’ve decided that I’ll be rewarding myself with a month-long tanning package for 3 months of literally working my ass off.
Maybe I shouldn’t have splurged on that white mocha this morning…
There was a span of about 7 years through my teenage and early adult life when I was a closet Wiccan. During that time I read as many books about Wicca, Paganism, positive witchcraft, and the practice of homeopathic healing that I could get my hands on, and I practiced behind my parents’ (and most of my friend’s) backs.
When I moved from conservative North Pole, Alaska to liberal Portland, Oregon in 2005, I was finally able to openly declare my religious views and practices. I proudly wore pentacles and held mini rituals, but I could not honestly believe in a higher power. And that’s when I realized that nothing was adding up — no matter how desperately I wanted to practice witchcraft, my beliefs just didn’t match.
I spent the next few months researching many religions, from Judaism to Unitarianism to Buddhism. And that’s when I started accepting that I have been atheist my entire life. Though I had wanted so badly to believe in a higher power, I just didn’t. Plain and simple. I am a realist; a person of facts and science. Religion just doesn’t work for me.
A few months ago I was walking through a hippie shop on SE Hawthorne, my favorite district in Portland. I came across these tiny hand-made voodoo dolls and fell in love with a small black figure holding a pink heart. His crotch is covered in stitches, his jaw line is pierced, and one eye is dwarfed by a giant gash across one side of his face. This little guy has clearly been through hell and back, but he’s holding on tight and has successfully kept his heart in one piece. I commend his perseverance.
I couldn’t resist; Little VooDoo Guy went home with me that day.
I spent the next few days reading up on the practice of energy concentration and vibrational charging. One might consider prayer kin to energy concentration, as the point is to devote all of your energy on one thought or one idea in order to encourage it to absorb some of the energy you are sending. Vibrational charging works in a similar way: each person exudes a certain vibrational frequency that we cannot feel or hear, and we can transfer that vibration to another object simply by concentrating on and being in physical contact with the object. The basic idea is that sending your own positive energy into an object will allow it to exude that positive energy back to you when you are around it.
When I felt confident with my new knowledge, I grabbed my little voodoo guy and gave it my best shot. I spent about 20 minutes virtually dumping all of the positive energy I possibly could into that little doll knowing that it would forever hang from the rear-view mirror in my car. I honestly have no idea if what I did really makes any difference at all, but I don’t believe it could have done any harm.
I love him. And I like to think he keeps me safe. So far so good!
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