the hooded parka

Surely winter could not come and go without at least the consideration of a new coat. Surely.

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And wouldn’t you know it, I found one! An olive green parka with a fur lined hood, like I’ve been hoping to find for ages. Ages I tell you. Cotton, not down, but still quite heavy and warm, and not $600. Not inexpensive, either, but that’s a coat for you.

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It’s getting to be that time where the fashion element of the site consists of various outerwear and protective gear. I do love coats, but still. It’s going to be a lot of coats. A lot of a few coats. One does want to look just as stylish with or without a coat, true. I’ll be mostly wearing thermal shirts and sweaters underneath them so will probably look a good deal more put together with the coat on, but one does long for the days of bare arms and wearing whatever one wants.

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Two scarves!

Zara parka, Express Jeans, Jeffrey Campbell France Strapped boots (I do like olive and rust together). On the lips: MAC lipstick in Hang Up, a deep raspberry bordeaux, which liking very much. I need to do another bordeaux lip round up, I think. Have found several I like since the first one.

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I can’t get enough of dramatic hoods and collars, and dramatic necklines in general. Fur is an easy way to achieve this kind of massive sculptural volume around the shoulders and/or throat, and I’m always lamenting that some of the old school strategies have gone out of style, i.e. ruffs and vertiginously high collars. A generous hood can be such a pleasing frame for the head and shoulders when down (think the massively hooded cloaks the women are wearing throughout the Danish film Babette’s Feast – excellent film btw), it’s almost a shame to put it up. Then, though, up it is a completely different kind of pleasing frame.

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we like: Bite Beauty Cashmere Lip Cream

The Bite Beauty Cashmere Lip Cream formula is so interesting. It’s a cream-to-powder matte lip product that reminds me of a more posh, more pigmented version of the NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream (which I also like a lot). Evidently it features unprecedented levels of pigment for this kind of texture, which I readily believe. This gives massive color impact in one swipe.

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Here is their blurb about how it works, which sounds so cool,

“The cream-to-powder delivery system is achieved with an advanced formulation of butters, waxes, and oils that all have different melting and absorption rates. The balanced combination of waxes and butters with the powder texture of silica develop a creamy and buttery application that quickly absorbs into lips while the powdered pigments remain on the surface to leave a matte finish.” (via Sephora)

Bite Beauty is a compelling (and relatively young) brand, all about nourishing ingredients, most notably high levels of the antioxidant reservatrol, also found in wine, presumably the reason behind naming so many of their colors after wines. They are one of a growing number of smart beauty brands out of Canada right now (Toronto). Their Luminous Créme lipstick, which I’ll talk about soon, is absolutely gorgeous, and their various lip pencils are excellent as well. Solid all around.

I picked up the color Sancerre, a bright raspberry pink. This is quite a dry cream upon application yet doesn’t dry immediately on the lips (is blottable for many (say, 15 or so) minutes, with increasingly faded results). The curious thing is that even if you keep blotting, though product comes off on the tissue, the effect on the lips doesn’t seem to change at all. That is, blotting truly removes only the excess, not part of the foundation of color you want to keep. It comes off on drinking glasses and whatnot as well, minimally, yet still without diminishing the effect of color on the lips, at least not for a good while. Pretty impressive for a formula that doesn’t promise to be long-wearing. It has an interesting flexi-fuzzy-tip applicator, a little longer and narrower than the standard doe-foot. More like a short mascara wand, and I think it works brilliantly.

We like.