Tag Archives: beauty

Practical Beauty Tips

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If you want to look like a million bucks, get real! And by that, I don’t mean using all-natural charcoal slug placenta serum on your extremities. No, I’m talking about budget reality. You don’t have expendable income that would cover a single day of Angelina Jolie’s beauty regimen. What you need are practical tips like these.

How to exfoliate. Before you bathe, rub your face vigorously with a dry, rough towel. Take a hot shower. After you do, rub your face vigorously with a dry, rough towel. Your epidermis will disappear in a trice. You’ll have a luminescent pink glow just like someone who has lived through ionizing radiation, without the expense of costly fissionable materials.

How to use bath bombs. If you have a bathtub, the directions on the package will work pretty well, as long as you don’t mix up your bath bomb with the similar kind of bombs that you drop into pots of soup for seasoning. The curry and chili varieties may prove painful or leave your skin an interesting new color. But a bath with your bouillon bomb will leave you with an appealing fragrance that attracts hungry men and dogs.

If you have a shower rather than a bath, wrap the bomb in a piece of cheesecloth like a bouquet garni and hang it from the shower head. (Be careful. The bouquet garni technique may confuse you and make it more likely that you will douse yourself with a miso or onion soup bomb. But I digress.)

How to select a fragrance. Go to the perfume counter these days and you’ll think you’re in the produce section of the grocery store. Natural, vegetal scents are the current trend. Think of lemon wedges, herbs, and any vegetable that can be carved into the shape of a rose. Throw them in your blender and garnish your pulse points with them. If you want, take the leftovers from your lunch salad and whiz them up. Don’t forget to put a sprig of parsley behind one ear. Think of it as a leafy, green fascinator.

How to accessorize. Coco Chanel famously advised that when you’re ready to leave the house, remove one accessory before you go. Lose the brooch. (No one ever pronounces it properly anyway. It rhymes with “roach,” not “cooch.” But I digress again.) Or ditch the parsley fascinator. If you’re wearing earrings, the greenery will be un peu de trop.

How to get an eye-catching tattoo. Text tattoos are always popular. You can convey an important message like “No Regrets,” “Slippery When Wet,” or “FTW.” The important thing to remember is to consult a proofreader before the tattoo machine revs up. Otherwise, you might end up with a permanent message that says, “No Regerts.” (Actually, “FTW” might end up as “WTF,” which could be what you say when you see it. But I digress some more.)

(If you want a Chinese symbol, which is a perennial classic, as a tattoo, it’s even more important to hire a knowledgeable proofreader. Most tattoo artists aren’t bilingual and will happily decorate you with characters that mean “oyster sauce” or “I’m ready for the first man I meet.” Assuming that’s not what you asked for. But I continue to digress.)

Next Week! Follow me for more Practical Beauty How-Tos: Tame Your Unibrow With a Birthday Candle; Get Your Weight-Loss Game on With Turnips; and Use Spackle to Freshen Your Look!

Arts and Crafts: What’s the Difference?

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Creative things you make with your hands generally get divided into two categories: arts and crafts. But what makes one category different from the other? It’s not always easy to tell, especially if you’re talking definitions. The lines begin to blur and in regard to most kinds of productions, the definition is in the eye of the beholder.

Some separate arts and crafts by type. Paintings and sculpture are art. Crochet and creating chainsaw sculptures are crafts. Baking, which is creative and done with the hands, doesn’t fall into either category unless you’re talking about the cakes you see on Food Network competitions. But food is ephemeral, so let’s focus on the kinds of work that last.

And arts and crafts are work. Make no mistake about that. They can be one’s hobbies, part-time occupations, or livelihood, but both arts and crafts require skill, practice, mindfulness, sensibility, and attention. That’s reflected in the phrase “a work of art.”

But to what efforts do we apply the term “art”? And what is “merely” a craft?

Kits and Patterns. First, the kinds of work that come in kits and with patterns are considered crafts. This includes everything from paint-by-numbers kits to bedazzlers to sewing. But wait a moment. Don’t clothing designers elevate their work from craft to art? In the main, those who design haute couture don’t use patterns. They invent, using only their own imaginations. Knitting and crocheting usually require patterns and are not considered art by most. Most home-made clothing likewise involves patterns. So perhaps one of the criteria for art is that it comes only from the artist’s imagination.

Beauty. This is a tough one since, as we all know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But famous paintings that are unquestionably art aren’t always beautiful. Sometimes they’re disturbing or make us uncomfortable. Picasso’s Guernica is an artistic masterpiece. It is also a depiction of the horrors of war. Whatever it is, it’s not classically beautiful.

Nor does beauty by itself make a work of art. The paintings that people hang over their sofas depict beautiful scenes, but professional artists and art critics scorn them. Paintings of sad clowns or large-eyed puppies are classed as kitsch or dreck. They may be technically well done or pleasing to the eye, but they are not Art with a capital A.

Age. Art, perhaps, is something that stands the test of time. But if we limit art to the Old Masters, we deny that young artists create meaningful works. It’s a bit like poetry – no one values it unless you’re dead, preferably by suicide, or best-selling like Helen Steiner Rice.

Age, however, can elevate crafts from the mundane into art. A sampler stitched today is virtually worthless, but one made before, say, 1774 is a precious artifact. With most art, the older the better. The decorations on Egyptian tomb goods or the beading on native clothing are museum-worthy if only because they are old enough.

Location. And while we’re talking about museums, let’s talk about location, location, location. To many the distinction goes like this: Art is what you see in a museum. Crafts are what you find at a local outdoor festival or hanging on the walls of a restaurant. They are created by someone you know or at least could get to know. Distance in both time and location seem to make a difference in whether a piece of work is art or not.

There are gray areas, of course, and these are generally called “artisanal.” If a potter has a shop and sells hand-made vases and dinnerware, if a person who makes jewelry from semi-precious stones instead of diamonds has a shop, the general feeling is that they are more than crafters but less than artists, however lovely their creations.

Price. This is a no-brainer. If it sells for thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars it is art. If you buy it online or spend less than $250 on it, it’s not. There are gorgeous quilts hand-sewn every day that look like works of art, but they do not sell for the same prices as for a Van Gogh. We pay for perceived value.

Rarity/Collectibility. And this is how the perceived value is calculated. If there is only a limited number of an item, like Imperial Fabergé eggs (50 were made), their worth and claim to the title of art skyrocket. Of course, this distinction does not hold true for everything. There are models of Hot Wheels cars, Beanie Babies, and Star Wars figures that are quite rare, but no one considers these art.

Personally, I love art, but in many ways I prefer crafts. Blown glass, stained glass, needlework, carvings, calligraphy, and framed prints decorate our home. When I wear jewelry, it’s going to be amber or malachite or amethyst. I think of them as little pieces of art that anyone can own.