Dogged Blog

Lipstick of my dreams

 I bought a new lipstick yesterday. I've been wearing it since then. I love it more than any lipstick in the entire history of ever.

My lips have been cracked and dry since I got back from my trip to the snow world two weeks ago. I've been wearing lip balm, but even that wasn't helping -- and I wanted to wear lipstick, but it got all mucked up and dark in the crack lines on my lips, even after I would exfoliate them and sleep in night cream. It was bad.

So I read about Cle de Peau on my favorite beauty blog, The Non-Blonde:

This Cle de Peau lipstick is one of the softest, smoothest lipsticks I've tried. It's almost like a balm, but with great coverage and excellent pigment (though some of the lighter shades are a bit more sheer). The staying power isn't as amazing as the regular lipsticks, but there's only so much you can expect from a super moisturizing lip color. I chose no. 117, which as you can see is a reddish plum, but I already see a couple of others in my future.

So I trekked down to Neiman-Marcus, the only place in San Francisco that sells the line, and tried it out. And guess what? Even better than expected. My lips are so soft and moist now. I mean, I'd be thrilled to get results like this from a lip balm. To get them from a lip color product? Awesome.

And incidentally, I also bought 117. Beautiful and an amazing amount of color in a moisturizing lip color!

One thing I feel a bit unsure of, however. I always investigate whether a product is or isn't tested on animals before I buy it. My initial investigation of Cle de Peau indicated they do not test their products on animals, and neither does their corporate owner, Shiseido.

Today, after I'd already bought the lipstick, I came across this list in Beautypedia, which indicated that while Shiseido does not, Cle de Peau's animal testing policy is "unknown." And I also saw some stuff on the web that suggested that while Shiseido doesn't test its end products on animals, some of its ingredients were. I'm not sure if that's true, and if so, if it's ongoing or in the past, and if Shiseido conducted those tests themselves or they were conducted for Shiseido, or if the ingredients were tested by someone else and Shiseido just used the same ones.

I sent an email to Cle de Peau through their website seeking clarification on this. I want nice soft lips, but not at the cost of giving my money to those who test cosmetics on animals. I mean, there is room for honest disagreement on animal testing for drugs and lifesaving medical procedures -- but eyeliner? Lipstick? Blush?

Not even close.

Is my long love affair with Aveda over?

 Aveda skincare products were like a miracle to the stressed-out, ravaged skin of my early 20s. I've been a faithful user since then, and it's consistently been the only skin care line and foundation brand that didn't irritate my rosacea.

Then they discontinued one of the few nighttime moisturizers that I could use, Night Nutrients. Still, I stocked up and soldiered on.

Yesterday, I discovered they've discontinued their liquid foundation. The salesperson at the Aveda store told me they were discontinuing it because "Aveda isn't known for their makeup," and would not be replacing it.

I have no idea what that means, but I'll tell you this: a skincare line without a foundation is only half a skin care line. We all need sun protection and those of us with dry skin and rosacea need to protect our skin from wind and temperature extremes, too. And yeah, I'm not wild about the blotchy redness showing through when it flares up, which it unpredictably does at odd times during the day.

So now I'm back out in the big world, looking for a really soothing, protective liquid moisturizer with sun protection and more-than-sheer coverage. And please, don't talk to me about the mineral powders -- I've tried them, and they make my skin feel like I have a sunburn. Not gonna happen, no matter how great they are for your skin.

Coco Before Chanel: Fashion? Design? Clothes? Not so much.

Imagine a film about Albert Einstein that doesn't mention physics, and you pretty much have "Coco Before Chanel," a film about Coco Chanel that barely mentions that oh yeah, she was a designer.

The first woman designer to break into the male-dominated Paris fashion houses, who went on to build an empire in her name, a name that became synonymous with style and elegance right up until today.

But of course, all that pales into meaninglessness in the face of the fact that she fell in love with some guy once.

I understood this film was about her life before she was famous. I simply assumed it would be about the development of her personal sense of style and also, that we'd get some sense of what made her tick. I got none of that. I found her motivations in most of this film incomprehensible, and while Audrey Tautou is beautiful and compelling and charismatic as Chanel, I simply had no freaking clue what I was supposed to think about her character.

And I don't mean that in a mysterious and intriguing sense. I mean it in the "Huh?" sense.

Big disappointment to me.

And thus do shoes make potential criminals of us all

I had to take my mother to a doctor's appointment at 8 AM this morning. I was sitting there waiting for her to come out of her exam, wishing I'd had just one more cup of coffee before I left the house, when a woman walked by in the best wedge-heeled, high backed super cool Mary Janes I've ever seen. If she hadn't been a tiny little thing who probably wore, like, size 4, I'd have thrown her to the ground, torn off her shoes, and run away with them and let my mom take a cab home.

Equally fashionable: Plus-sized clothes, deceptive marketing, and why I'm returning a skirt

If you've known me or been reading my blog for a long time, you might know that I lost a great deal of weight a few years ago -- more weight than most people weigh, period. I pretty much hate the way we talk about weight in this country, and it's very hard to discuss this topic without pissing me off, so although I'm always glad when I accomplish any goal I set for myself, I still tend to get annoyed when people congratulate me on my weight loss. Consider yourself warned.

I also think the visceral disgust with fat in this country is a fucking social disease, and that being fat is no worse for our health than sitting on our asses in front of the computer all day, or breathing the crap stale air in an office building, or eating processed foods. So if someone is fat, I have no agenda to judge or change that, but I also ask that they respect my right to do what I want with my own body, including lose weight.

Disclaimers aside, let's get to the part about clothes.

Although I've lost all this weight, I'm still "big and tall" by fashion standards -- I'm 5'10" and wear a size 18 Tall, 20 in some styles of pants. (It was actually hard to type that; I'm not as liberated as I would like to be.) So I mostly shop in the department known euphemistically as the "women's department" -- which must make size 3 women wonder WTF they are -- or, somewhat more descriptively, the "plus sizes."

Some stores, like Nordstrom, have a dedicated department for plus sizes, and other stores cater exclusively to sizes 14 and up.

Plus-sized clothes at Nordstrom are around the same price and quality as smaller sizes, although not always as fashion-forward. Companies like J. Jill, one of my favorite places to buy clothes, make the exact same fashions across all size categories, including tall sizes up to 20, bless them, although they don't always make everything in all sizes.

Among the "plus sizes only" stores/catalogs are some moderately expensive ones, like Silhouettes, and many, many really inexpensive ones, most notably the entire family of catalogs sold at "One Stop Plus," a retail aggregator of Woman Within, Jessica London, Roaman's, Avenue, and several more.

And after that very very long lead-in, which would no doubt make my editors and journalism instructors have heart attacks, we get to the main point.

Why are so many plus-sized clothes so badly made?

Look at the photo at the top of this post, and the skirt in the photo to the right. Set aside the issue of whether or not these clothes are to your taste or things that would look good on you.

But do consider this: Both images are promoting and depicting a new line of slightly higher-priced clothing with a fancy French designer tag, Taillissime, marketed as a more fashionable, slightly edgier, brand of plus-sized fashions through a group of companies that normally target a lower-end market.

To understand what I'm saying, compare these images with a couple of the same company's non-Taillissime images:

Now go Google "OneStopPlus coupons" and see how extremely aggressive these brands are with their discount policies. Their marketing is a heat-seeking missile for cost-conscious plus-sized women.

Because I'm lucky enough to have a fairly decent clothing budget, when I shop from these types of catalogs it's for basics like sweat pants and jeans, you know -- dog walking clothes, lie around the house clothes. I've known for years that their "fashionable" or "career" clothing  is of  poor quality -- not well constructed, and of cheap materials, as well as not being expensive. But I recently gave the new Taillissime line a try. And I bought that black skirt in the photo, because it really looks cute to me.

And it's a piece of crap that's going back as soon as I can slap some tape on the package.

I wouldn't normally care, but I do today. Because large-sized women should be able to freaking buy a skirt that at least looks close to how it does in the photo and not have to spend a hundred dollars on it -- because their smaller-sized peers can do that, easily. There are many, many places to buy reasonably priced, fashionable clothes in non-plus sizes. While they may not last beyond a single season -- the "cheap" has to come from somewhere -- they at least won't be made of glaringly tacky fabrics, as this skirt was, or have uneven hem lines, as this skirt did.

Large women on a budget are at the mercy of some pretty crappy choices for clothing. I'm sure this is a problem for women of any size, but when you're doing your best to look sleek and professional in a world that judges you on first impressions and how put together you are, and that's already assessing you negatively because you defy the mandate that all women must maximize their physical attractiveness for the viewing pleasure of the general public... you can see the problem.

If only Taillissime and the companies that sell it had put as much care into the execution of these clothes as they did into their marketing, photography, and even their design. Because some of these things would be cute if they actually looked like their photos.

And if they know their customers want more stylish clothing -- which would be why they created this line in the first place -- doesn't it logically follow that we''ll also be able to tell when we get the stuff out of the package that it's not really more stylish clothing, and certainly not worth even the slight premium it costs?

In re-reading this, I know I'm likely to set off a storm of, "You can buy inexpensive plus-sized fashionable clothing here and here and here," and I'm always happy to have new places to buy clothes recommended to me, so go for it.

But don't let the availability of inexpensive cute clothes at one group of stores or catalogs obscure the fact that the brands sold at One Stop Plus absolutely dominate the budget-conscious plus-sized clothing industry, and have for years. Large-sized women should have more choices at a lower price point, but more importantly, I think we should be treated with respect.

Short is the new black

I've been living in a fool's paradise these last few years.

Long skirt and dress lengths have been in fashion for quite a while now, and although the knee-length skirt look came in around four years ago, there were still plenty of longer hems on the racks and in the catalogs.

Now, I'm tall. Very tall. So those skirts that were meant to be ankle length were, on me, already mid-calf, which is just about where I like my skirts and dresses to hit.

All that's over now. And before some well-meaning person says "Damn fashion! Wear what's comfortable for you!", well, yes, I agree, except when something is not in fashion, it ceases to exist in stores, and yo, I do not sew and never have and never will.

And while something too long can be shortened, something too short cannot be lengthened, because in this day and age even the most expensive clothes come with only a tiny little bit of a hem, presumably to save money in fabric costs, so I can't even have the hem taken down more than, say, half an inch. And frankly, even if we were talking THREE inches of hem, it wouldn't be enough. Because I'm very tall.

Woe.

And speaking of black, the new black is also chocolate brown and sometimes charcoal gray. Now, I like gray and brown but only in small doses, and I like black. I like it a lot. That will never change. And yet, more and more often, I go to buy something in a catalog -- a sweatshirt or sweatpants, a hoodie, a t-shirt, some kind of dog-walking basic like that -- and it comes in gray or brown or, you know, magenta... but not in black.

I'm aware there are things more important than this in the world, but I refuse to give in to the "sky is falling" crap about the crazy creationist whack job the Republicans just chose as their veep nominee... I shall leave that to every other cable news commentator and leftist blogger, because really, they have it covered.

I shall simply do what I always do when everyone is running around wailing and tearing out their hair, and donate to Barack Obama. Why don't you do it too?

I come not to praise Hillary Clinton but to call a pig a pig

I'm a lesbian, a feminist, and I was a women's studies major at UC Berkeley in the 80s, and I really can't stand Hillary Clinton.

This has nothing to do with Barack Obama; before I supported him, I supported John Edwards and oh yeah, I couldn't stand Hillary Clinton.

And I'm getting fed up with two things:

• The constant refrain that everyone who can't stand Hillary Clinton is a sexist and/or dislikes her because she's a woman;
• The constant use of sexist, even misogynistic, language to denigrate Hillary Clinton.

Don't get me wrong. I really really dislike her. This isn't an attack disguised as tepid praise. There is no praise. This has nothing to do with her.

It's you guys. The testosterone-poisoned ones on the boy blogs. Yeah, you. I knew there was a reason I yanked your blogs off my blogroll after the 2004 election, and it's because you can really be fucking pigs.

The thing is, you were fucking pigs before Hillary Clinton ran for president, and you'll probably continue to be fucking pigs when her campaign is over. So I'll call you on it now, and I'll call you on it then. Knock it off. It's unprogressive, it's offensive, and it's juvenile.

As for the other side of the equation, if you don't respect the fact that I have legitimate reasons to dislike someone unrelated to her gender -- a gender that actually would normally predispose me to like someone more, not less, see "lesbian, feminist, former women's studies major," kthnx -- then you have no respect for me, my judgment, my ethical center, or my mind.

Hillary Clinton has earned my enmity fair and square. She earned it with her sense of entitlement, with her W-esque defensiveness when challenged or contradicted, and with her badly-run campaign. On a political level, she's the product of the DLC-driven, Republican-lite, pro-corporate, "I'll beat you at your own game" arm of the Democratic Party, which is the whole  reason  I spent most of my adult years checking "decline to state" on my voter registration. The Democrats have mostly been too conservative, too beholden to big business, for me.

But the boys who call her "Hillary" while always, always calling Obama "Obama"? The ones who get all wide-eyed and defend calling her "bitch" and insisting it's not a sexist use of the word? The endless, pervasive confounding of her with former President Clinton, as though they're joined not at the hip but at the cerebral cortex, because heaven knows a little wife can't have a thought of her own? And at the even uglier crap I try to forget because it just makes me too angry to even write coherently?

Stop. Just stop.

Can you really not find enough reasons to oppose her candidacy without dipping into the seething vat of misogyny? That's really, truly pathetic.

BREAKING: hair update

For the first time since the pet food recall was announced in March, Christie Keith, girl reporter, is taking a few hours away from her computer and going to get her hair cut.

This action, scheduled for Tuesday, July 3, at 11 AM Pacific Time,  is the direct result of seeing this otherwise quite lovely photo of herself and a "good friend," taken on Castro St. on Pride Sunday, ruined by the fact that her hair pretty much completely covered her face.

That is all.

Goodbye, Ann Richards

I really liked her.

She rode a motorcycle.

She said what she thought.

She gave a speech that no one will ever forget.

She died of cancer last night.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Richards said she never missed being in public office. She grinned when asked what she might have done differently had she known she would be a one-term governor.

"Oh," she said, "I would probably have raised more hell."

She made up for it after.

The Power of Two

I blogged a while ago about my pre-interview nervousness, and mentioned I'd interviewed Fox News' Ellen Ratner and her partner Cholene Espinoza, author of an excellent new book on Hurricane Katrina, Through the Eye of the Storm.

They were terrific to interview, and afterellen.com just published it this morning:

Ratner advises anyone with a cause to promote in the media to always be prepared for tough questions. What tough question would Ratner like to ask, and of whom?                
She answers: “I'd like to ask Bush and, really, all elected officials, the question I asked Tom DeLay, right in front of dozens of reporters: Did he have any gay family members or staffers? Did he know any gay people at all?”

The Power of Two

Also, I reviewed the film Saint of 9/11 for AfterElton.com.