petal pushers.

it's no secret i love wearing flowers in my hair.
but sometimes you have to switch it up!


lately i've been wearing a giant pink bow from ban.do and alternating with a sequin heart headband from ban.do.

but i think i want to transition something bigger, more dramatic. think diadems, halos and crowns!

for instance:
something like the juliet halo…
or the maenad ram headdress…
except maybe too hippie chick? maybe i'd have to fight ke¢ha for them?

how about this one? timeless, neutral, goes with everything…




(ladies above, from top: Rita Hayworth, Josephine Baker, Billie Holiday, Dorothy Dandridge, Dorothy Lamour, Shirley Temple.)

a change will do you good.

this is a story about fear of change.




this is my favorite gel. my hair is curly. bouncy when it's at its best, fuzzy, frizzy and limp when at its worst. sometimes when i sleep on my curls they go - i kid you not - square. i rely on my beloved gel and buy it often, use it every day. i have been using it almost every day for the last - seven years? maybe more? recently i noticed that it had disappeared from shelves all over the city. duane reade downtown, duane reade uptown. rite aid. the ghetto weave place down the block. my heart pounded, my hair suffered. i started to panic.





this is what i found where lasting curls used to be. tightly wound? is that a joke? i am in no mood for puns. i need my hair back.

i bought it. i tried it. it worked. and it's maybe even better than lasting curls. i've got more bounce, less weight, more softness. i'm still not completely convinced; we've had some good weather this week. but i'm willing to try. and i think change can be good.

blow me, baby, it's cold outside

{image via nymag.com}

when i get my hair done in my neighborhood, i go to mi salon where a super sweet dominican woman named jauna tugs and pulls and scorches my curls until they're super shiny and super straight with just the tiniest flip at the bottom. but mi salon closes at like 6:30 or something and i'm never home before 7pm.

so i'm always on the lookout for a late blow out. (sounds so so filthy!)

anyway. last year i tried red market, where a frenchy frenchman spun pin straight locks in record time, for about $60. that's more than double the price of mi salon, but i had a glass of wine and practiced my français in a loft with eurotechno playing.

last night i went to blow. it's all pink and cute inside, and my stylist took her time, was very gentle, used a low setting, didn't tug, also used a flat iron, and got my hair to be stick straight in under an hour. while she was working i was thinking this is never going to work, where's the pulling, the pain? but my hair is mad straight, yo. and again, $60 price tag. but i'm going to a party tonight and that is how i roll.

so around this time of the year it's possible to OD on christmas songs and fall to the ground in a seizure-like state. but there's one winter song i never get sick of, and that's "baby it's cold outside".

i'm probably one of the few people my age who has actually seen neptune's daughter, in which esther williams and ricardo montalban sing it to each other. (that's because i love musicals, swimming and AMC.)

anyhoo, over at falalalala.com they're got 14 different versions, and i downloaded them all.

my faves:

ella fitzgerald - baby it's cold outside

doris day & bing crosby - baby it's cold outside

louis armstrong - baby it's cold outside