One more little thing mama loves

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me if women really use hairspray anymore. I gulped, "Ummm, yeah. I guess."

But really, it wasn't a guess. She lives in Manhattan, where women have their own full-of-effort, effortless-looking style. Here in the Midwest, most of us aren't afraid to show off the hours we put in and that means there's plenty of ozone depletion still happening from our hair up.

I'm one of those hair sprayers. I don't use a lot and I certainly am not calling forth any coifs from the late 80s, but I do spritz up some volume at the crown and smooth down a little curl at the jawline. While I'm not as worried about my hair product as my cosmetics, I still wondered if maybe I needed an update.

Then, because the universe works in the most delightful ways, I opened up a bag full of samples I got earlier this year and tossed into a drawer in my bathroom. Among the rosemary soaps and vials of body splash was a packet of Frederic Fekkai Glossing Cream.

I've used it for three days (judiciously since it's a small packet and I'm parceling it out like a four-year old who has been forced to share M&Ms) and it's a little bit of heaven in my hair. It really does shine up all those "crazy colors" (as Lil E calls my highlights) while also smoothing the frizzies and coaxing the waves into the style I am intending to come out of my haphazard blow-drying.

And so, because I am a sucker for marketing (apparently even in adorably small sample sizes) and implications that hairspray is so passe and for hair that looks slightly more like it does when I emerge from the salon than normal, I am hooked.

A word of warning, this stuff is spendy. But if it makes you feel better than its equivalent of thirty bottles of Suave gel spritzer or even five tubs of some kind of organic pomade, then it's worth it, right?

Now that I'm not talking to my hairspray, I have room in my life and bathroom cabinets for more tubes and tubs and pots and pumps full of goodness that really does the trick. What product are you investing in that you think other sassy mamas must use?



If you're doing a little economic stimulation of your own, here are three more things I love (and I'm not ashamed to say, won my heart one itty bitty sample at a time).

Click to read more ...

It always comes back to the boa

Lil E is tucked away in the suburbs with his dad for a blissful weekend of Scooby Doo and chicken nuggets and I have some time for me. I have plans -- drinks and a party with my grrrlfriends and working on some writing projects that have been whispering to me for weeks now.

But tonight, I looked back a little to a time before everything changed. I went to a burlesque show my former teacher does with several other women on Friday nights. It's called Lipschtick and pairs the burlesque numbers with comics for what her site says is a bit of "honey meets funny."

Really, the funny was just sort of funny. But the burlesque...well, it got me thinking.

It made me really miss how good I felt shimmying and stripping off satin gloves in one of the best workouts and hours of empowerment, courage and delight I've ever had in a big room lined with mirrors.

I want to go back. The logistics aren't that easy. The teacher has her own studio that's tricky for me to get to at the times I'd need to be there. But I need something. And not just to tone up my thighs, but to get me back to the feeling that was sinking in a year ago. The feeling that shaking it serves a purpose -- me. It feels good.

I've been working so hard on all the internal stuff and I think it is time to take some of that freedom, wrap it in a boa and fishnets and get to work on all the rest.

I'm not sure how I'm going to do that yet, but I've taken a good ankle-strapped step forward. I'm thinking about it.

Click to read more ...

This is not a shoe blog: I think I am falling in love with the cobbler

I missed a day. How can you blame me? I was preoccupied with shoes. Delightedly, somewhat obsessively preoccupied with shoes. Crazy enough, I wasn't craving some new designer heels that could cash in my rent check (OK, I am pretty much always lusting after those, but mostly in that same way I tell people confidently that Matthew McConaugheeeeeeyyyy is my second husband...no really, he is, and he's bringing me engagement shoes).

I am actually embracing this time of economic crisis by taking better care of the shoes I have. As might be expected of a lower class shameless shoe whore, I admit to having plenty of scuffs and worn down heels on my favorite shoes. I try to take care of them, but apparently I walk hard (or something). This year, though, I decided to get out my well-worn favorites that might have otherwise gone neglected or lost their place to a new pair of shoes. I got out my boots and in what felt like a flurry of self-care and ultimate shoe-love, found a cobbler and gave them over to him with his polish-stained hands and tiny shop that smelled horribly of leather and something too toxic to even think about what it did to my lungs in that eight minutes.

I had heels repaired, toes mended and each pair shined. It wasn't cheap but it was well worth the price to pretty up the boots that I am now excited to wear now that the weather's turned. I lined them all up just as the cobbler returned them to me, standing tall and proud with rolled newspapers inside, and I couldn't help but clap and say, "Hello, lovahhhhs." (Don't judge, we all have our partners in crime. Mine require a taut leg to zip up. Either that or platforms that allow me to pretend I am a more Ann Taylor version of Christina Aguilera for the ten minutes I can stand in them.)

My tip for today, then, is to pick a few pairs of your favorite shoes and bring them into the season with a visit to the cobbler. Now that my boots looks so lovely, I feel the need to prepare for summer by handing over my sandals now, so I'll meet you there.   

Click to read more ...