Living With Less, Part Two: Beauty
Sep. 6th, 2022 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kimberlysteeleBeauty is an industry and more specifically, a racket. One of the primary goals of mainstream media is to make people feel insecure about the way they look. Especially funny is how the same media extols the virtues of being beautiful on the inside while blatantly overvaluing youthfulness and attractiveness in every frame, billboard, and song.
Being beautiful on the inside and the outside are far from exclusive conditions. Consider the late George Michael of the 1980s musical duo Wham! who kept several charities alive via anonymous donations, worked in a homeless shelter and begged other volunteers not to reveal what he was doing, and secretly paid for a woman's IVF treatments so she could realize her dream to become a mother. Michael, who died of cancer at age 54 in 2017, gave away a $200 million dollar fortune and may have done so undiscovered had it not been for his untimely death.
Though I would argue it is far more valuable to be like George Michael than to look like him in his prime, spiffing up what you've got on the outside is a good idea. As in all things, moderation is key. The trouble with our modern age is the drive to physically resemble one's own version of perfect. "Perfect" can be extremely warped. Nowhere is this more tragicomically demonstrated than the plastic surgery addict who refuses to let go of his or her youthful self and winds up as yet another slightly ghastly clone as if that younger self had a love child with a Madame muppet. Far better to let the hair gray, the jowls emerge, and the crows feet to spread, I think. There's something about the natural aging process that makes humans resemble ancient trees in their grandeur. They are big, old, and gnarled with complex networks of lines. One can only imagine the tangled complexity of their roots. The last thing I would want to do would be to zap that complexity into oblivion with a surgeon's knife.
Starting From the Bottom with Footwear
I used to wear heels as a young woman. I associated them with classiness and adulthood, plus they made my short legs look a bit longer and my big hips appear to be more narrow. I no longer wear heels, though I would consider it for a special occasion. I have never had a problem with buying gently used shoes, and this has saved me a fortune over the years as I tend to beat my shoes up fairly badly. The main secret to shoes looking good for short people is to create a solid monochromatic line from the waist down. When socks match shoes and shoes match pants or skirt, the effect is very pleasant to the eye. Contrarily, pairing chunky, white or multicolor athletic shoes or sandals with shorts or too-short pants and further breaking the visual line at the waist can make a person look slovenly or careless. If you want to instantly look saner and more put-together, think monochrome, baby.
Clothing
According to valuepenguin.com, the average cost of clothing per month is $120. This is absolutely absurd and unnecessary. I rarely spend $120 on clothing in an entire year. The number one inflator of clothing costs is buying new. The second is buying too many clothes.
When I was in college in the 1990s, I thought I had a fairly large amount of clothes. I had 4 pairs of jeans, 4 skirts of various length, and about 20 tops. I had at least 6 dresses. Then I met my roommates. My roommate had 50 pairs of jeans. I have no idea how many tops she had. She had dresses, T-shirts, and a trunk stuffed with accessories. She had a leather bomber jacket that got left in someone's car and was ruined with mold. Most of my roommates had similar amounts of clothing.
I visited Antioch College in Ohio (where I did not attend) to see a friend of mine in the 90s. Antioch was woke before it was cool. Back in the day, Antioch was the school that started the whole trend of forcing young men to ask permission at every phase of mating in order to avoid nonconsensual acts that would otherwise immediately be construed as rape. Antioch was a rich kid utopia where children decided exactly what activities made up "class" half of the school year. The other half was spent on campus doing drugs. Once every few months, every dorm student would convene in the center of campus for a makeshift parade/freakshow, with young adults doing whatever came to mind, such as riding tricycles. Antioch collegiates did not bother with laundromats. Instead, they bought any clothing that fit from local thrift stores, wore the clothing until it was stiff with bodily excretions, and then either threw it away or let it accumulate in piles in the hallways of the co-ed dorms.
When well-cared for, thrift store clothes can last much longer than the paltry few months they would spend on a faux-bohemian at a party school. I have had a few of my thrifted items for two decades. They are usually nicer items than anything I can afford to buy new. I have somewhere between 8-10 skirts, five pairs of pants, 25 or so tops, one blazer, one winter coat, one spring coat, two bras, other assorted underwear, a dozen scarves, and about 25 pairs of socks. My entire wardrobe fits into 3 large pull-out drawers and half of a small clothing rack. 80 percent of it, excluding socks and underwear, is thrift and the rest was Christmas gifts. I have not bought a new item of clothing for somewhere going on fifteen years.
Hygiene
I am lucky that my Japanese genetics took over my bottom half and I never grew much hair at all on my legs. Shaving sucks and personally I wouldn't do it to my legs even if I was paid to do so. That said, the secret to a great shave is hair conditioner. Once you have used hair conditioner as shaving cream, you will never go back.
Isn't crotch funk a fun human predicament? Crotch stench is usually the result of not wiping thoroughly enough or not bathing frequently enough or both. I have never been able to grok people who have access to perfectly luxurious baths and showers who go without for days or weeks like a medieval European serf. Another issue is many cannot smell their own body odor. Please, for the love of Pete, take frequent baths or showers. It's really not OK to stink. Body odor is its own form of perfume. Just like department store perfume, I don't want to smell it on someone from a few feet away, and I'm going to be super-grossed out if I can smell it across a large room or coming at me down a hallway from 30 feet.
I have mentioned in past articles about calcium packing teeth at night. Calcium packing is where you squish out the contents of a gelcap calcium supplement and rub the white goo into the cavity prone parts of your mouth at night. It works very well and done regularly enough, can combat halitosis and prevent tooth decay.
I wear regular antiperspirant/deodorant from the dollar store in the warm months and deodorant only in the cool months. Deodorant can easily be made with one part arrowroot powder and one part coconut oil with a dash (anywhere up to a teaspoon) of baking soda. A few drops of essential oil of lavender or tea tree oil can be added for scent.
Plucking hairs makes them grow back more slowly. Native Americans in Thomas Jefferson's time hated facial hair and plucked theirs out without mercy. Pluck enough times and the hair will not grow back at all. Keep this in mind when you pluck your eyebrows!
Body Butter
Just as conditioner is better at being shave cream than shave cream, body butter is better than lotion at being lotion. Body butter is one part coconut oil, two parts shea butter, and one part olive or jojoba oil. Melt all of the oils together for about ten minutes on a low heat stove or double boiler, pour into a large bowl, mix with essential oils if desired, and then sit the bowl in the refrigerator for two or more hours. When the oils have semi-hardened, take the bowl out and whip it as if it was whipped cream. The resulting butter is absolutely amazing.
Hair Care
I feel like I have some expertise where hair is concerned because I have always had a ton of hair. I was born with a full head of black hair. My hair is very coarse and thick. It wasn't always fun to have this hair -- it can be extremely crazy and it requires much care and handling. Believe it or not, I used to have three times as much hair on my head as I do now. I believe my insane hair is an indication of my weird etheric body, which is excessive in its own way.
It's just not necessary to spend a ton of money on hair. I have not had my hair done in a salon for fifteen years. One reason is I don't like to be fussed over as I sit in a chair. I find it very weird. Salon styling is also way, way, way too expensive for my budget. I don't dye my hair. Dye and bleach are both very harsh and strangely addictive, but if you like dye and bleach, whatever, you do you. My natural hair color is dark brown shot through with gray. When I finally start having big gray-white spots near the scalp, I plan on removing most to all of the brown with bleach and going completely silver.
Long Versus Short
I have had short hair and medium length hair. Ironically, long hair is easier to maintain and takes less time to style than short hair. I believe long hair is appropriate for men and women of all ages. Long hair is great for everyone except for people with the thinnest of hair. There is often no way to hide a pronounced cowlick with short or medium length hair. If you have long hair, all you need to do to erase the cowlick is to put your hair up or in a ponytail.
My Hair Routine
I wash my hair every two days. After washing with normal cheap $3 shampoo (right now I'm halfway through a bottle of Suave Ocean Breeze) I condition with whatever conditioner I have on hand. Suave conditioners are particularly nice but I like anything with a pleasant smell. After rinsing out the conditioner, I spritz my hair at least ten times with a mixture of one part vinegar to three parts water. I towel dry my hair by daubing, wrapping, and squeezing, but not rubbing. Then I rub a small amount of coconut oil into the ends of my hair and at the nape of the neck where it likes to get frizzy. I put a turbie twist towel on my head and then sleep with it on all night. I do not own a blow dryer. I style my hair in the morning by using a straightening iron to flatten out my bangs.
Cutting Hair
I have cut my parents hair for years. Both of them have thin, short hair. I cut my father's hair with an electric razor and my mom's with a combo of electric razor and scissor. They both get hair cuts about every eight weeks. I also cut my own hair using the Unicorn Horn method. This method is where you put your hair in two ponytails, one at the top of the head near the forehead and one at the back of the head like a more traditional ponytail. You then pull both ponytails in front of your eyebrows and cut a straight line. When the ponytails are loosened, the result is extremely flattering layers. People with thinner hair can do the unicorn method with a single ponytail. I use two because I have too much hair to get it done in one.
Overall, beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. When I look at an Instagram model, often all I can see is thirst and Photoshop. I don't understand the appeal of Kim Kardashian at all and I think she was much cuter before she went whole hog on lip fillers and butt implants. There used to be a makeover reality show I watched called What Not to Wear. What Not to Wear nominees were recommended to the show for a $5000 wardrobe, makeup, and hair makeover by their friends and family. Though sometimes the show genuinely improved the appearance and the pride of its nominees, it was far more common for it to strip the nominee of her individuality. The show was proficient at turning biker babes, anime princesses, and amateur street walkers into posh suburban mom clones in kitten heels and tasteful blazers. In short, sometimes ugly is beautiful. If I don't like your tattoos or your neon bustier, no one is making me look at them. Somebody likes it, and if that somebody is you, all the better.
Men's hair
Date: 2022-09-07 11:34 pm (UTC)Re: Men's hair
Date: 2022-09-08 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-08 07:09 pm (UTC)On haircare: I haven't cut mine in years. The secret to having hair that looks nice, for just about anybody, is *stop damaging it*. Damage is cumulative, because hair isn't alive. It doesn't "heal" and nothing will "nourish" it. Once a hair is damaged, the damage is there until the hair sheds, you cut it, or it breaks. So here's the thing: blowdrying damages it. Ripping a brush through tangles damages hair. Dyeing damages it. Bleaching damages it. Letting your hair blow around loose in the wind and get caught in car doors and rubbed on chair and seat backs damages it. Putting it in a ponytail too much causes damage. Using hair elastics or clasps with metal bits, or that your hair gets caught in, damage it.
So if you want it to look nice, get a nice seamless comb, never use any other implements on it, get the tangles out the right way: comb the bottom inch, then the bottom two inches, then the bottom three inches, etc. , don't blowdry, bleach, dye, tease, spray, or gunk your hair up with "products", and once it gets long enough that it rubs on your seat-back, wear it up, with a stick, or one of those little hosiery-type elastics, or hair-pins. This is 90% of having your hair look nice the way God and nature intended it to.
I just use a wee bit of shampoo and wash my hair in lukewarm water, then rinse with diluted vinegar in lieu of conditioner. I have thin, fine, mildly-wavy hair and this works for me-- conditioner makes me look greasy. I've heard if you have curly hair the situation is very different so-- whatever works, you know? But the vinegar thing works because shampoo is alkaline, and causes the "scales" on each strand of hair to sort of fluff up, which makes it hard to comb because then everything wants to stick together like velcro. So if you do a mild acid rinse, it makes all the scales lie down flat again. Works just as well as, or better than, conditioner, but only if you haven't damaged your hair fifteen other ways. I keep a squeezy ketchup bottle in the shower for the vinegar solution :) If nothing else, it's hella cheaper than conditioner, even the cheap stuff.
And like you, I don't own any clothing I purchased new, aside from socks and underwear. Everything's either thrift or consignment, and I can afford much better quality clothing for ridiculously little money that way! It's one of those areas where actually knowing a little about clothing brands is handy-- like I would never buy a shirt or a dress from LLBean-- way too pricey-- but if I find one that fits for $5 at a secondhand shop... heck yeah. Those will generally last a long time. My one winter coat is LLBean, and my sister bought it new for me... fifteen years ago. Still going strong. The fuzz on the lining has pilled up a little, but the zippers all still work, and nothing has ripped or worn holes in it.
On socks and underwear: these have gotten ridiculous lately. Not just the price going up, but the quality has tanked. I used to just go buy the six-pack of cotton Hanes whatever for everybody at Walmart. But it got to where I'd wash the kids' socks twice and then have to throw them away, because they'd be all pilled up and dangling threads. Total garbage. Same thing with the underwear: two or three washes, and there are little holes in the fabric! For socks, I'm now crazy brand-loyal. I went looking for stuff not made in China, and found the No Nonsense sock company, made in the USA (could have been Canada or Taiwan or whatever, I'm not that picky-- I've just had a really lousy run with Chinese goods lately), and by golly they *last*. I first ordered from them about two years ago, and none of the socks have worn out yet**. The only reason I've purchased more has been attrition from sock gremlins, who run off with small laundry when the lights are out. No holes, no pilling, they're great. They cost a little more than the Hanes junk, but given how many Hanes socks I'd have needed in that same time period... I saved a bundle. If anyone has any leads on something similar for ladies' cotton underpants, I'm all ears! So far I'm stumped on that one. Once you get out of falls-apart-in-three-washes territory, all of a sudden they're like $15-25 a pair. At that price, I'd better learn to sew them myself. Maybe little drawstring linen drawers like everybody wore before elastic and jersey knits came along.
**caveat: I live in the subtropics and go barefoot/sandals all summer. If you wear socks year-round you might wear them out faster than I wear out mine. I have replaced a few of my son's socks, but only because he is a dingus and wears them outside, without shoes, on pavement (see Mama shake her tiny ineffective fists in the air, choked with inchoate frustration), so of course they sprout holes. But it still took him a year.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-08 11:16 pm (UTC)I will definitely look into the No-Nonsense sock company! I am trying to cut down on Chinese made goods as much as possible.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-08 11:35 pm (UTC)My kids gripe about the poh's because they come in randomly-assorted colors, and I'm the only girl in the house, so we run out of acceptable neutral colors first, and then it's all pink and purple :D I felt weird about getting so many, but I haven't had to buy any toothbrushes in two years, so that's cool.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-09 12:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-10 06:37 am (UTC)Ruth Goodman’s book _How to be a Tudor_ was fascinating in its entirety, but I especially enjoyed the parts on hygiene and food preparation. Life for most at that point in history wasn’t nearly as dirty and miserable we are led to believe. Here’s an excerpt about body and clothes hygiene: https://newrepublic.com/article/129828/getting-clean-tudor-way
no subject
Date: 2022-09-10 08:01 pm (UTC)How about henna?
Date: 2022-09-10 11:00 am (UTC)I'd like to recommend henna for those who like to dye their hair. It's inexpensive and doesn't damage hair - it's made from ground up leaves and has been used forever for skin and hair dye. I've been using it off and on for decades to get a natural looking auburn but it's available in colors like brown and black too. All you need to dye your hair is the henna, hot water, glass bowl, wooden spoon, and a towel you don't mind getting stained.
Re: How about henna?
Date: 2022-09-10 08:02 pm (UTC)