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Refurbished!

July 19, 2009 – 8:55 PM

A couple of weeks ago I walked into my friend Carol’s house — she has kids roughly the same age as mine — and was struck by how grown-up her house looked. It was spotless. Her sofas looked normal, as if no one had ever puked on / spilled milk on / mashed food into / used them as a trampoline. The overall effect of walking into a clean, puke-free house was magical…and serene. When I walked back into my own house, the saggy, stained sofas that sit in our family room made me glum.

Though I entertained fantasies of a new beige-colored microfiber sectional with leather trim, that was out of the question. I asked the kids if they would continue to jump on / step over, build forts with / color near / sneak food on said hypothetical sofa and they answered yes. So, I set out to refurbish! A cursory call to reupholsterers, who would re-stuff my formerly down-filled cushions, yielded a quote of roughly a thousand dollars for the sofa. That included a wait time of a couple of weeks while the special feathers were ordered, and a period of time during which I’d have no cushions upon which to sit. Not good enough for my need for immediate gratification.
So I ended up shoving old, flat pillows of yore into my cushions. See the picture above — the cushion closest to us has been restored using my free-but-effective pillow stuffing method (I stuffed them into the bottom-facing part of the cushion so the unusual lumps wouldn’t show as much); the depressed cushion further away is the “before” sample. I happened to have a lot of old flat pillows, which included a variety of out-of-commission-bed pillows and accent pillows, all shoved breast-implant-style into any space I could find in the cushions (which were zippered, making things a lot easier than they might have been). I then set about removing stains by using a spray bottle filled with water and blottting with a cloth; grease stains I was able to get out by sprinkling corn starch over stains and letting sit for a couple of hours before vacuuming up. The result? To the right. Puke-free puffy sofa! (Well, mostly. I wasn’t able to get out the residue from a particular incident involving pink silly putty. Silly putty is the enemy. Don’t let it into your house.)
This transformation inspired me to look for other low-cost ways to reduce the offensiveness of my family room. Here’s what the wall opposite my sofa used to look like — it was basically a mishmash of cheap furniture that somehow migrated down from the playroom.
A visit to IKEA and investment in Expedit bookshelves, filled in with baskets I’d gotten from Target for the play room a couple of years ago, plus a coffee table spruced up the room in a remarkably low-risk fashion. While I’d like to be able to say that my house looks like this all the time, and not just every other Tuesday when a certain cleaning crew rolls in to save the day, I can’t. But it does look less bad.

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Beauty

Fragrance fix

June 6, 2009 – 1:49 PM

I’m not good with fragrance. Having worked in the beauty industry, I’m fully aware that they’re selling an aspiration, but I really want to believe what they’re trying to sell. Problem is, even if I read “sophisticated and sexy” in the copy I still smell “flowers and lemons”. And if I were a celebrity my branded fragrances would be called “Garlic Sauteeing in Olive Oil”or “Retail” which would be the smell of clothes when I first get them home from Nordstrom.

Anyway, I’m still trying. I regularly spritz myself with testers when I see a pretty bottle, and maybe there’s an issue with the way my brain is mapped, but the smell for me never matches the bottle. For instance, I feel like perfumes in purple bottles should smell purple. But they don’t. Sometimes they smell like apples.

I do have a small collection of perfumes, from impulse purchases and gifts. Last time I was at an airport overseas I spritzed myself with Chanel Chance Eau Fraiche, which I liked. Trouble is, I tire of fragrances pretty quickly. Which is where eBay comes in: I discovered that you can actually buy samples of perfumes on eBay. Often they’re bundled with 2 or 3 samples. The beauty of this is that for ten bucks you can wear an expensive perfume, but not feel so bad once you tire of it. About 7 years ago I fell in love with the Kate Spade perfume, which is now mentally linked for me with the basic black bags of the ’90s, and as a result I can’t bring myself to wear it anymore. I still have 3/4 of a bottle left. Shoulda gone to eBay.

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Beauty Hair Shopping

Back to the Basics

May 30, 2009 – 10:17 PM

My latest haircare discovery costs $1.29. Pictured to the right is the upscale version of it. Yep, you got it — corn starch. If you want to trace back the blame for this idea (and you should always assign blame), I’d say it goes back circa 1995 when some Allure editor started to slip in advice from haircare gurus that washing your hair daily strips it of its natural oils and to keep it healthy, you should wait a few days between shampoos. Over the seven years following that I made at least ten failed attempts to convert from daily hair-washing, all thwarted by the fact that I could smell my hair. I really didn’t want to smell like hair.

It wasn’t til I had kids that I successfully made the transition — driven mostly by fatigue and a general loss of will (this was also around the time I started driving a mini-van and favoring elastic waistbands). Still, I was really turned off by the hair smell — I just feel like we’re beyond the evolutionary stage where it’s necessary to smell distinctly human. So I experimented with multitudes of dry shampoos, all of which were either too medicinal (some actually had copy that read “For hospital patients who can’t get out of bed”), too disgusting or had faulty packaging (the Oscar Blandi spray shampoo was the best of the bunch, but the nozzle never failed to get stuck and let all the aerosol out). I eventually moved over to baby powder, which worked just as well, but left me smelling a little too babyish and, at worst, like a baby that smelled like hair (plus, isn’t talc a carcinogen when inhaled?). I’m thinking fragrances + hair smell just don’t cancel each other out.

So a few weeks ago I tried the corn starch. And yes, the stuff right off the grocery store shelf, and the same stuff I use to thicken up gravy in the kitchen. It was good. It didn’t result in a sickening medieval-era effect of covering a bad smell with a perfume; it just neutralized the smell. It can be a bit tricky to get onto the scalp without also getting all over my clothes, but I’m sure I’ll master that at some point. Perhaps Eddie, who just moved to Oregon, might have time now to experiment in that regard and advise me on the best dispensing method?

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Beauty Shopping Uncategorized

MOP

May 3, 2009 – 9:49 AM

Alexander the Great wanted to conquer the world. Barack Obama wants to save the world. I have always wanted to have hair with volume.

If you’ve seen my hair, you know that I have stick-straight Asian hair with a predisposition to kick out at the bottom in the exact opposite direction from what is desired (it’s like it knows…and then does whatever I don’t want it to do just to tick me off). It is also really heavy, and I’m pretty sure that at least 20% of my brain power is dedicated to instructing my head to remain upright despite the gravitational pull from the hanks of hair. If I wanted really serious volume, I’d have to get a cut where my hair was no more than 1.5 inches all around — but it’d be the wrong kind of volume (think porcupine after electric shock). I also sleep on my hair, which doesn’t help, and I’m growing out my bangs, which, though not relevant to the volume issue, really doesn’t help in general.

Part of having good volume (and the right kind of volume) is of course having the right cut. But my hair can’t have decent volume without additional intervention. For this I have two products in the arsenal. I really like these MOP products because I’m a fan of the fresh lemongrass scent, and the products hold.

  • MOP Form Foaming Gel with Light Hold. I usually put this on near the scalp where I want volume and then blowdry my hair upside down. Pro: this has given me more volume than any other product I’ve ever tried, and I’ve tried a lot of products. Con: I should probably put in for a Prozac prescription right now, because I just found out that it’s been discontinued! Why do they forsake me?!?
  • MOP Glisten Organic Volumizing Spray. If I want major volume, I’ll put this on over the Forming Gel before blowdrying. In between washes, I spritz it at the roots and then blowdry upside down — it neutralizes grease and gives a (heat-activated) lift. And I love the lemongrass-y freshness.

Try these recommendations if you have hair like mine. Send me yours. The quest continues.

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Fashion Shopping

Eugenia Kim

February 28, 2009 – 10:07 AM

 

Since my hairdresser’s been on maternity leave, and I’ve had two traumatic cuts that I’ve had to fix up by myself afterwards (my haircutting skills are pretty much on par with my knitting skills — ok from afar, but a little scary up close), I’ve been a little obsessed with hats. I’ve noticed that even in winter here, I seem to be the only person wearing knit hats. Ok, nevermind the fact that it’s 65 degrees and sunny on a cold day, or that I’ve been getting headaches from overheating my head, but hats are cute! And they look a lot better than my hair does nowadays.
I’ve always been an admirer of Eugenia Kim, the hat designer. I love the fact that her business started from an attempt to hide a bad haircut (yes, that in particular resonates with me), and that she’s very accident-prone (see the Design Philosophy section). I have a particular affinity for knit hats, and of those in her collection, I’m a fan of the Heather cable knit hat. Being knitty myself, I love the chunkiness of it and the way she’s able to put a little edge into cables, which can often come off as being a little too precious. I am also impressed with the fact that she can charge $190 for the hat, which is about as much as I would have to pay someone to wear one of mine. Here’s more on Eugenia if you’re interested. It’s a good thing for us that she didn’t become a doctor (nevermind the accident-prone thing).

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Beauty Shopping

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat

February 14, 2009 – 1:42 PM

What is it about a sunset that looks so ’70s? They’re beautiful, of course, but once you snap a picture you can’t help but want to feather your hair with your portable butane curling iron. And then you start to think you need to print cursive writing Deep-Thoughts-style over it. Whatever. I just wanted to show you what we do in the winter in San Diego. This picture was from earlier this month. The alien-like figure on the right is my daughter.

So I’ve been sick now since December. Most recently, my doctor prescribed me a nasal spray called FloNase, which is just as sexy as it sounds. At first I didn’t read the instructions that you were supposed to squirt and inhale at the same time and then breathe out of your mouth, so basically everything came right back out when I exhaled. I had seen the instructions but kind of thought, what kind of idiot needs instructions to use a nasal spray? And maybe it was not such a good idea to get in the ocean in the middle of winter.

On to more important things. I haven’t done my fingernails in a long time, but living in an open-toed culture year-round, I do mostly make sure my toenails are painted. For the past 10 years I’ve been a Seche Vite type of top-coat girl, but it was always kind of a pain to get. Easier here in SoCal than in other places (we have a ton of beauty supply stores that stock them, but for me, that involves putting two kids into the car, doing four sets of buckles, driving them there, undoing four sets of buckles, dragging them out of the car and across the street, making sure they don’t eat/break/pilfer the hair nets/wig glue/bobby pins at the beauty supply store, finding the Seche Vite, paying for it, dragging them back across the street to the car…you get it), but regardless I still have to go out of my way to get it. And it is wonderful — long-lasting, salon-looking finish that’s super duper shiny. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover that at a fraction of the price, and available at your local [insert retail location where you go to buy food, toilet paper, contact lens solution], the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat is a winner. Not as gloppy as Seche Vite, it dries in 30 seconds and keeps a solid, shiny finish for a long, long time. I’ve converted.

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Shopping Uncategorized

Etsy

January 16, 2009 – 9:30 AM

Every once in a while you stumble upon something that makes you inexplicably happy. For me, it was the discovery of Etsy, “your place to buy and sell everything handmade” (note it is not “the place where people buy the things from me that are handmade”, because nobody seems to like the things I make). The product to the right is from a seller named yooboro who seems to specialize in plush not-scary-monsters. While I don’t have anything against mass-production (see what happens when I get into an H&M; store), I do have an appreciation for things that are handmade, and are less ugly than the things handmade by me.

Etsy has a lot more than colorful plush monsters. I’m amazed at the things people make — from unraveling and re-knitting vintage sweaters to quilting enormous wall hangings. You can get cute handmade skirts for $15. My kids got a pair of the most exquisite Japanese-anime-sort of wool dolls from an Etsy seller for Christmas, and I just marvel at the maker’s command of proportion and the magic elements of achieving ultimate cuteness.

Inspired (as I am, just once a year) to pick up my knitting needles again, I discovered this amazing craft blog called futuregirl.com (here, I was interested in how to sew a lining for the knit bag I will probably finish circa 2021: http://www.futuregirl.com/craft_blog/2008/1/tutorial-sew-lining-for-crocheted-bag.aspx . I did make my first hat, though. Which is really useful when it’s 75 degrees and sunny year-round.

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Shopping

I Heart Guts

December 31, 2008 – 1:13 PM

I got through Christmas with a continuous cocktail of Day-Quil / Ny-Quil (I know, you can’t make a cocktail with pills, but leave me alone, I’m sick!). I’ve been sick now for three weeks, and keep having to clear my throat, so during meetings at work everyone keeps looking at me expecting me to make some kind of announcement. I’ve also been feeling dizzy and generally stressed. Anyway, Happy New Year!

For Christmas my brother and his fiancee got me the T-shirt to the right. It’s made by a label called I Heart Guts, and since I’ve been sick I have a greater appreciation for my guts. This one says “womb service”. All the designs are based on cartoon organs. Here is one that says “I’m a liver, not a fighter.” I like their descriptions too; here is one for a brain t-shirt:
Hey, smartypants, you’ve lived long enough without a happy shoutout to your neural network. Celebrate your fabulous brain (yes, yes, we know it’s technically not a gut) with this tee silkscreened on a heather gray 90% cotton/10% poly American Apparel tee.

If, unlike me, you live in a city that has culture, you might find them at Bazaar Bizarre as well. I Heart Guts offer plush toys as well, though I’m not really sure what you do with plush internal organs, and my kids don’t really like to role play “kidney” and “lung”.

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Fashion Shopping

I Got the Boot

November 1, 2008 – 9:38 PM

Whoa, I didn’t mean to make the image that big. But I also can’t seem to figure out what I did wrong, so let’s move on.

I haven’t posted in a while, so you (I do have a realistic perception of my readership, so yes, that would be “you” in the singular) may be wondering what I’ve been up to. The truth is, I can’t really remember. I blame my children. I have this theory that while you’re pregnant, the child, in addition to sucking all the nutrients out of your body, also drains away the ability to ever wear dresses made of knitwear and your short-term memory. The worst question anyone can ask me on Monday morning is, “What did you do this weekend?”

The good news is that I have been taking pictures, so those usually help me with recollection. And I do remember that two days ago, I got into work, reached into my bag to pull out my laptop, and promptly got a deep wide paper cut from a manila folder that I had also shoved into my bag. It was on my fourth finger on my right hand. Before I went on my trip to Colombia I went through the exercise of carefully selecting a fingertip to have lopped off if my kidnappers were to do so in order to prove that I was in their custody (this also assumed that they would have taken requests, but I would think that most kidnappers would). I’m pretty sure that at the time I went with the fourth finger — probably on my left hand. Having cut the fourth on my right hand, however, I’m sort of reconsidering. The fourth contributes more than you think — it really helps to balance your hand when doing a variety of tasks, ranging from slicing vegetables to styling your hair. So I’m really not sure what I’d pick. The pinky? That one’s pretty important too — especially for capitalization on a QWERTY keyboard. Tough call. Maybe best to leave it to the kidnappers.

Speaking of business trips, I have another one in about a week. I’m going to Connecticut and New York. After I booked the trip I realized that I had no closed-toe shoes. See the photo above to find out why. So I embarked on a mission to find ankle boots that met the following criteria:

  • I can comfortably spend 12 hours on a plane in them.
  • They are not totally boring and devoid of style.
  • They are no more than $300, since the majority of their useful life will happen on this trip.
  • I can walk around NYC in them while lugging a laptop, luggage, and a handbag that I would have rubbed with Apple leather cleaner prior to departure.

Since the local selection is pretty limited, I ordered a total of 8 pairs of boots from the following retailers:

As my forecast expected, only one of them really worked out. To my surprise, it was the cheapest of them all — they were so cheap, in fact, that I almost didn’t order them. So the winner is: Audrey Brooke’s Jimmie Leather Ankle Boots — at $69.94!!! They’re cute, incredibly comfortable, and practically free! A close runner up was the Boutique 9 Coda ankle boot from Bloomingdales — going for $195, it had superior materials and craftsmanship, and surprising comfort level given the height of the heel — but I think the boots run a little big, so the pair I got was way too loose. If my trip weren’t next week I’d consider exchanging, but the Jimmies are so comfortable that I’m not looking back.

And kudos to DSW, from whom I’ve never purchased: they shipped everything quickly and packaged it beautifully. When it came time to return one of the pairs of boots that didn’t work out for me, they made it really simple: there was a DHL label enclosed, and best of all, you can schedule a pick-up from your home free of charge. That’s so lazy — I love it!

But to answer your question, I have sometimes been taking the kids to the beach (see above). I think part of the reason I don’t remember much is that nothing really happens to me anymore. Does going to the grocery store happen to you? Does being tired all the time count as happening? Anyway, I’ve also gone to Legoland recently, but I’ll write about that another time.

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Fashion Money-Saving Tips

$700B Bailout Fashion

October 4, 2008 – 9:50 PM

One thing a bad economy can do for you is to make you more industrious. When it comes to fashion, I like to think that I’m a survialist. That is, rather than revert completely to classics (I’m just not sure I understand classics. The idea behind classics is that they never go out of style, right? Which means that they’re either non-descript enough to go undetected, or you never have to buy new clothes — neither of which interest me.), I rise to the laid-off-spouse-induced challenge and force myself to innovate! So here are a couple of things that I did recently to make lemons into lemonade. Um, they didn’t all end up being lemonade; some turned out more like pee. But anyway, maybe it will trigger some ideas for you:

  • Restructured my jeans collection. I have about six pairs of jeans in rotation, two of which I wear pretty regularly. That doesn’t seem right; I should want to wear all of them. My analysis told me that the two pairs I wore were hemmed for wear with heels. Which means that half the time I’m forced to wear heels just because I want to wear those nice jeans. But I also want some pairs to wear with flats. My flats jeans were all faded and on their last threads. So I took a few of the other pairs that I wasn’t wearing, mostly because I didn’t like the fit or leg width quite as much, and brought them to the tailor to have them re-made into jeans for flats. Voila! Three new pairs of jeans at a fraction of the cost of new ones. My current favorites are Joe’s Jeans, so I made sure that I had one high heeled pair and one flats pair. And I just love dark washes — they make you look so skinny!
  • Lopped off my capris. I had several pairs of capris that I bought about three years ago that just didn’t look right anymore, and a pair of Burberry-print slacks that had just too wide a flare. One boring evening (out of many) I took a pair of scissors to the slacks and hand-hemmed them to be knee-length shorts. Suddenly my tired looking slacks became a set of cute shorts! Except for the questionable workmanship. So the capris are getting the same fate. Perfect for wearing with my cream-colored nubuck cowboy boots that I got on super sale at a boutique last month.
  • Belted it out. Being on spending moratorium wasn’t much fun, but in my book, spending money on belts doesn’t count! I acquired three new belts: 1) a patent leather wide belt in a royal purple, 2) an amazing and cheap reversible (!) studded leather belt from Steve Madden — black on one side and brown on the other, and 3) a thin, stamped python belt from Betsey Johnson. Sticking a belt on all my tops suddenly transformed my clothes — and I like belted tops over skirts. I’ve been wearing loose-fitting, billowy tops for the past year or two, both capitalizing on the trend and taking the opportunity to let my gut hang loose, so belting these tops was a nice change. As a bonus, I took the Steve Madden belt to my local cobbler, and he pounded a new buckle hole into it for me at no charge.
  • Accessorized. I’m a big fan of long necklaces — 32 inch and 34 inch ones — layered. I just think they look so great over the longer tops that are around now (and that I hope will stay around til I die. Fashion gods, please do not allow the cropped tops of the late ’90s to come back unless I get a personal trainer!). I have a few in my regular rotation that I got from Target, which has a surprisingly fresh and trendy accessories section — and J. Crew is currently having a final sale online where you can get pretty decent deals on gold plated jewelry for layering. I also bought a giant flower pin made of feathers that I am sure is going to look right any day now.

So good news: my husband got a job! It’s a 3-minute commute from our house and his office will have lavish facilities like windows, in-office closets, a beautiful gym and a really nice cafeteria. I am jealous. He starts in two weeks. Just in time to save me from the classics.

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