into the Glossier

I’ve been reading Into The Gloss for years, a website about style and beauty getting the inside scoop from industry veterans. I especially enjoy the top shelf series, wherein beauty obsessives, models, actors, makeup artists, skincare moguls, etc, list their favorite products. So I watched the emergence of Glossier, a beauty brand founded by the founder of ITG, Emily Weiss, with interest. The brand is playful and modern, and obviously very carefully designed.

The product list is small at the moment, highly curated, and rolling out bit by bit with some really smart marketing. The brand presents itself as real, current, and friendly, building the line from the basics, which basics were created to be the happy combination of the best parts of all makeup everywhere, for the modern woman. [Or, more the modern girl/woman, as this targets quite a young audience, I would say.] The modern woman here being one who wants fresh, natural skin first and foremost (I agree with this completely, actually). It’s developed a solid community already, and, while I don’t want to get everything, I am paying attention. I definitely want to get some things.

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Check out this packaging situation! Stickers! Very cute.

I picked up the skin tint in medium, an extremely thin, smooth liquid formula that is truly difficult to detect on the skin, which was just what I’ve been looking for. It doesn’t make a large difference, but I don’t want a large difference…I want a very subtle evening of skin tone. I like this.

I also picked up the LE glitter liquid liners they put out around Christmas, because I am a sucker sometimes, when it comes to metallic gold shimmer, and I don’t like them as well. The texture is OK but a bit sticky, and I expected a more concentrated metallic shimmer. Still, I can tap my own glitter on to the sticky base…I can work with it but not everything I’d hoped.

So, Glossier, I’m watching. I’ll probably pick up you lipstick, when it comes out.

 

on the street: the pom pom

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Winter is that time of year when those of all ages can get away with an otherwise unacceptable preponderance of pom poms. When the temperature drops suddenly I can forgive all manner of ridiculous and excessively cute hats. I am even sometimes charmed. This slouchy take on the classic winter pom pom knit hat looks great here, I think. The oversized pom adds a youthful, playful touch to the casually stylish neutrals.

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I’ve yet to find a winter hat that I genuinely like and want to wear, and prefer to the absence of a hat. Hair problems, in part, but there’s also the issue of the hats being too cute. Cute is not really my look. That is, cutesy. Once in a while I’ll toe the line and am usually self-conscious as a result because it is unnatural to me. Or I’ll adopt an element that is abstractly cute but in the context of the rest of me it isn’t cute anymore; I overwhelm the cuteness until it reads more like eccentricity, or editorial—which is often a synonym for unwearable, in fashion—flair. This is my theory.

*Though these are external perspectives, and not words I use about myself or find internally useful (‘sexy’ being another term I would not even think of without a gaze, without an other), because I cannot see myself without knowing that I am myself, rendering objective judgments largely irrelevant/impossible. The age-old problem of being oneself.

Adorability does seem like one of those things you cannot achieve on purpose, though, anyway (except quite good actors, maybe, and even this is in the eye of the beholder). Ex. any given toddler in that stage where they realize that people think they are cute when they do certain things, and promptly stop being particularly cute. Premeditation spoils the whole effect.

I’m looking at hats, though. There are a few under consideration. We’ll see. One has a pom pom and little hearts. There is a possibility I’ll have to redact most of this post.