Questions That Aren't Worth Asking

Through some strange glitch in the wide world of magazine subscription, my house has been receiving US Weekly magazine for several months now. It wouldn't be my first choice in rag-mags, but as long as it is inexplicably appearing in my mailbox, I do enjoy reading it. And one of my favorite parts is the few pages at the beginning called "Who Wore it Best?" They find two (or sometimes more) pictures of two different celebrities wearing the same outfit or piece of clothing (usually a dress, though I've seen blazers or shirts) and poll 100 people in Rockefeller Center to ask "Who Wore it Best?" The difference is in how they accessorize, or whose body type the dress looks better on, or who the color looks better on based on their own coloring. Sometimes the results are overwhelming, with one star winning a landslide victory over the other, and sometimes it's a pretty even split. But the issue of US Weekly that came in the mail today made me wonder if sometimes it doesn't even matter who wore it "best" when neither of them look good in it. How can you conduct a fashion poll on things that aren't fashion?

First the lesser of two evils. These two celebs were both photographed wearing this Victoria's Secret Yankees tee. Which would be fine, if either of them were actually going to a Yankees game. But I don't think they are. (It doesn't say one way or the other, but I don't see any dirt and grass in the background.) Why wear a t-shirt when there are so many better options out there? Especially when, as someone (moderately) famous, you know people are going to be looking at you, probably photographing you? If I were famous, I would never leave the house with a hair out of place, just in case. (And it rarely happens as it is.)



Then we have this monstrosity. How, how, could not one, but TWO celebrities own, and be seen in public, wearing this awful denim jumpsuit? It's like overalls, or the Texas tuxedo, but worse. They both look like mechanics, and not in a sexy sitting-on-the-hood-of-a-muscle-car-strategically-holding-a-wrench-over-the-important-parts way. Like I expect them to be on the set of a movie where they play girl mechanics. Although if that were the case, the accessories are a little overdone. Who needs a designer bag and aviators under the hood of a car? And I think Kourtney is wearing some sort of heel; surely that's a hazard in a garage? They would have done better covered in grease. At least then they could pass this look off as something other than a look. Maybe then they could claim they'd been working on a car and just stepped out for a coffee. Who wears this trying to look good?! In any case, they've failed. These two gorgeous girls are doing themselves absolutely no justice in this unflattering jumpsuit. So who wore it best? What difference does it make? Best is definitely a relative term in these cases.


On a completely unrelated note, I was just watching Better With You on ABC (first time I'd seen it, not bad), and I have to express my love for the silver and black sequined blazer Joanna Garcia's character was just wearing. Looked fantastic with her LBD for a night out with the fiance. (I just Google-image searched it, but nothing came up; hopefully there will be a picture of it soon that I can share.) Now there's a garment I'd like to see more than one celebrity wearing!

The Long Awaited Beach Pictures

Just a few quick pics from my Destin vacation...

the fun sunglasses, purchased new for the occasion

my beloved sequin lobster beach bag

swimsuit & shorts for an afternoon boat ride

rocking the jeans, cardigans, and flat sandals at night (told you it would get chilly!)...gotta wear something you can play putt-putt in!

Rules Were Made to be Broken? Not the Laundry Ones...

It's been weeks, but today I decided I was finally going to get the pile of laundry that's taking up half of my queen size bed under control and put away in my closet. (Yeah, clean laundry. I don't mind the washing and drying, it's the putting away that gets me every time.) I was putting everything on hangers to go in my closet when I got to the purple dress I just bought. Okay, I bought it a year ago, but I just wore it for the first time a couple of weeks ago, which means I still categorize it as new.

Anyway, when I pulled this dress out of the dryer last week--or whenever it was that I did my laundry, now I can't even remember, isn't that terrible?--I thought it looked a little bit short, like it had shrunk in the wash. But I haven't had anything shrink in the wash since I was about 14 and took control of my own laundry from my mother. She liked to dry everything on the highest setting, which shrunk a lot of my clothing. Although when I was 14, shirts that clung to me like a second skin and barely covered my belly button were all I wore, so maybe I should have looked at it as a blessing in disguise. But there was my school dress code to be (at least a little bit) mindful of, so the shrinking of shirts that I was barely getting away with as it was was something of a problem.

Anyway...

I thought it must just be my imagination, or I was remembering the dress longer than it was...because no way did it shrink in the wash. I dry everything on the lowest setting possible (I think it's actually the one labeled "delicates" on the dryer knob) to avoid such catastrophes. So to put my mind at ease, I decided to try the dress on. You know, prove to myself that my laundry skills were intact. But you know what? They weren't. The dress was definitely shorter than when I bought it, and when I wore it two weeks ago. I know this because if it had been that short in the store, I wouldn't have bought it. (14-year-old me might have, but not present-day knee-length-skirt-wearing me.) How could this have happened??

I don't pay much mind to washing instructions. None at all, really. Well, I try not to buy things that say dry clean only, because I know if they make it into my closet, they will go in the washer, just like everything else I own. Hand wash, wash only with like colors, lay flat to dry...it may as well be written in martian for all the attention I pay to those instructions. It all goes in the washer (cold water, with a Color Catcher. No, I don't even separate my lights from my darks.), and then into the dryer. All of it. And I've never seen this as a problem, because I've never had a problem washing my clothes this way. (I once bought a silk shirt at Old Navy that was barely more than a tank top, and who dry cleans tank tops? When it came out of the washer/dryer just fine, I was completely sold on the idea of washing instructions as nothing more than a way for dry cleaners to drum up business.)

So I took the dress off and looked at the tag. Hand wash in cold water. Nothing out of the ordinary. I at least feel a little guilty about the dry clean only stuff, but I don't even bat an eyelash at stuff you're supposed to hand wash. So what was so special about this dress that would make it shrink so much? The fabric content says it's 100% rayon. Still, I'm baffled. Isn't cotton supposed to be the incredible shrinking fabric? I love rayon; it's even softer than cotton. And I never thought of it as a shrinking hazard before. Surely I own other rayon items? I can't remember it ever being an issue.

I put the dress on its hanger and laid it on my bed with all the other stuff waiting to be hung up, and when I reached into the laundry pile again, I pulled out this shirt I bought from Express a couple of years ago, and suddenly remembered that it shrank a little bit the first time I washed it too. So I looked at the tag, and what do you know? It's 100% rayon too.

Thus, I have learned a valuable lesson tonight. Rayon shrinks. A lot. Consistently. On the plus side, that shirt hasn't further shrunk in all the other times it's been through my wash, so the odds of me changing my laundry habits are slim to none. But maybe I'll think twice the next time I look at an item's fabric content and see that it's made entirely of rayon. Then again, whether or not I buy it will probably depend on nothing more than how cute it is...and whether it will still look cute with a bit of shrinkage.

Adventures in Haircutting

I once read this magazine article that was all about tips for being fabulous on a budget--which, of course, I am all about. Anyway, one of their tips was that instead of going to a salon to get your hair cut, you go to a local beauty school. I never thought much of it, because I don't cut my hair that often, and what's one $50 haircut a year? But lately, my curls have abandoned me, leaving me with the uncontrollable frizz that plagued me through the end of my elementary and all of my middle school years and forcing me to give my flat iron the kind of workload it hasn't seen since high school. Which, in turn, means I need more frequent haircuts, because my straight hair doesn't hide flaws the way my curls did, and because all that straightening damage is creating more flaws. And $50 every eight weeks (like you're supposed to get your hair cut) adds up fast.

So I figured now, when I'm in need of nothing more serious than a trim, would be the perfect time to give that whole beauty school thing a try. I didn't even know there was one near me until last summer, when the office I worked in shared a parking lot with one. So yesterday I called them up, and they scheduled me for this morning, and I went in and got my hair cut by a beauty school student. Sounds risky, right? Maybe it is; I'm sure Google could lead me to all kinds of horror stories about having a "future professional" (that's what they call their students) cutting hair. But I am happy to report I have no such story to add to the archives.

They say all of their students are supervised by someone who has their hair cutting certification (or whatever you get when you graduate beauty school), which is sort of true. I was expecting someone standing behind my stylist, watching every tiny snip she made, but this wasn't the case. The girl who did my hair and I talked about what I wanted done, how much length I wanted off, all the things you talk about with a licensed stylist. Then her supervisor came over to verify that she was clear on what she was doing to my hair, and went off to check on other students.

When we went to the shampooing area, I got a close-up look at the real training area: girls doing all kinds of things to fake mannequin heads of hair. (At the office, we used to see them carrying them inside. Let me tell you, it is really freaky the first time you see someone pull a human head out of their trunk!) So apparently, you don't get to cut real hair until you've been properly trained on the fake stuff, which totally makes sense, but still made me feel a little better.

When we got back to the girl's styling area, she went about cutting my hair just like anyone would do, no supervision. She was very meticulous in what she was doing; I don't know if that was just her, or if that's the way they all are when they're just starting out, but either way, I figure it's a good thing. And when she was done, she brought her supervisor back over to check on my hair. Her supervisor actually did give her a few pointers, and made a couple of small snips herself, but then cleared her as having done a good job. And she did do a very good job. (Especially considering I don't have the world's easiest hair to deal with.) You'd never even know a "student" cut my hair. At least, that is, until you get to the front desk and they ring up your haircut as costing $15. Can you believe that!? They can't charge nearly as much as a salon, because you're not having your hair cut by a professional, and yet, the quality is just as good, because one day these girls will be working in salons. It's like a TreSemme commercial: Professional. Affordable. How fabulous!

Even with a tip, my total was under $20. Which means I can afford to get my hair cut a lot more often than if I was worried about having to spend $50 every time. Two and a half times more often, actually. So now that I have experienced this money-saving adventure for myself, I will certainly recommend it, and odds are, I'll go back. I'm forever bargain-hunting, and I just can't make myself pay more for things I don't have to. So why spend $50 on a haircut I can get for $20? The place I went to is a Paul Mitchell school (Xcell Academy on Montgomery Highway in Hoover, if you're in the area), and they have locations all over the country (here's a list: http://paulmitchell.edu/search/locations). Find one near you and check it out! Who says Fabulous has to cost a fortune? :)


p.s. by request, a picture of my $19 haircut :)