The Visa Diaries

Hello hello! sorry for the silence. have been busy – ahem – spring breaking. I escaped the interminable east coast winter for the slightly sooner terminating London winter. Plus, as I am graduating soon – eek! – have had to do some groveling to potential employers. And, amidst the groveling, amidst the portfolio schlepping, I did manage to do some shopping. It was necessary, in fact, to pick up my spirits after said schlep/grovel routine. There really is little as demoralizing and tiring as trying to convince people that you are utterly, charmingly employable.

One afternoon my meetings happened to be just next to Selfridges – how convenient. In addition to just about everything fabulous, Selfridges has one of the greatest make-up halls ever, big concessions of all the top brands in this grand atrium space. And, what a coinky-dink, I just happened to need some new foundation. Now, I have long been of the “treat the root cause, not the surface symptoms” school of things, which puts me, of course, at loggerheads with the guiding ethos of contemporary american society. never-the-less, I’d much rather go to the gym than take a diet pill, and much rather eat well and use good skin-care products than smather my face with make-up. However, a good foundation is always good to have about, and I’d lost my old one, so into the make-up melee I trotted with glee.

First stop: NARS. NARS is probably my favorite cosmetics brand, simply from a branding point of view. Their packaging is both classy and hip, with its rubberized black compacts and ultra-thin Helvetica wordmark. I love the white on white thing they’ve done with their new skin-care line – all in all very sleek without being brittle.

When you do not want to buy anything, there is nothing scarier than a cosmetics salesperson – they are a special breed of catty pushiness. But when you are already resigned to parting with some cash, there is no conflict of interest, and it can really be a joy to see what colored goo they put all over your face. (Last Halloween when my friend Rebecca dressed up as Nicole Richie, she spent over an hour at the Lancome counter!). So I asked to try their foundation, and happily settled in as she proceeded to fuss, test color, prep, and apply a full face of make-up.

Now, NARS has brilliant packaging, as we’ve said, great make-up colors in general, and I love their “Custard” concealer. But I was not feeling this foundation. I almost bought it out of guilt and obligation – that’s what happens when they’ve done all this fussing over you. But fortunately the lady had also showed me a powder and some eyeshadow colors that I did like, so at the last minute I skipped the foundation, and did the Nico power and Misfit eyeshadow duo. With a “push-brush” to apply the eyeshadow of course… god this job-hunting must really have gotten to me!

However, that still left me foundation-less. I was going to leave it that way… but then decided to quickly nip over to MAC on my way out. And am I glad I did! I must now give MAC the title of undisputed foundation champions. They have like 5 or 6 different formulations, in colors that match my skin tone perfectly. Of course I sat through a whole new session of make-up application (isn’t school vacation great?), and at the end walked away with something I never thought I would buy – a compact of creme foundation! craziness, I know! Creme make-up recalls all that old goopy pan-cakey stuff, but I swear this stuff makes me look like a china doll – it simultaneously covers up unevenness and blemishes, while giving a truly natural, dewey finish.

Amazing… for all my puritanism about treating root causes, give me a good surface cure, and I’m converted. I feel conflicted – half ashamed but yet sooooo pleased with my new complexion cheat…

Lover of aphorisms and inspirational doo-dads that I am, I used to have a greeting card that said, “Hope is the bird that sings to the dawn while it is still dark.” Something like that anyway – I think it was by Rumi. A very beautiful sentiment. Sometimes I feel that shopping is like that bird, this time of year, especially. After being unseasonably warm all through January, we finally got winter just when the stores were getting spring. I felt kind of sorry for them, mannequins standing in the windows with frilly little dresses and shorts when it was snowing and sleeting outside. For once, the stuff that was on sale – the winter stuff – was what was actually appropriate to buy.

At first, the spring merchandise looked totally misguided and forlorn, like a migratory bird who has arrived back up north too late, only to find the lakes still frozen and nowhere to eat or rest. But gradually, as the summer gear gathered mass and cavorted there in the shop windows, flaunting bright patterns in light fabrics, seemingly bathing in a sun that shone only on it, it started to look as if the joke was on us outside, still standing in the cold.

So the other day, even though it was still nippy temperature-wise, I had a little peak into Claire Jones, a newly opened and very charming boutique near my school. What was meant to be only a peak turned into a little buy: two tee-shirts by Alternative Apparel Vintagesoft (sooo comfy, and long enough, thank god. I had never heard of them before, but apparently they are a thing, as well as being cute and cheap). And a lovely melon-colored multi-functional tube-thingy, that can be either billowy tube-top (do those have a name?) or bubble skirt.

I haven’t worn the melon top yet, but it is sitting in my drawer, its bright optimism singing to warm summer nights to come. And what do you know, it actually seems to be getting warmer. See, shopping works!