Luna

Sharing my Constants

My life has always had two constants: words and pictures. From the moment I could hold a pencil, I drew pictures and I wrote stories. It’s a bit of a chicken/egg situation because the stories and the pictures were always intertwined, one filling gaps in the other. I can still find old pieces of computer paper cut and stapled into illustrated books created at recess in grade school or earlier.

2007

Years before I registered a domain of any kind and hosted my words on LiveJournal instead of WordPress, I wrote a lot of fiction. The art always complimented the project of the time: portraits of characters, important scenes, dream sequences that might never have happened on paper. Sometimes, the words spilled onto the art as well, crowding into sketches and crushing characters with a weight of their own. This blog actually started as a sort of overflow parking for those words–a place to write about things that didn’t have a place of their own in my work, but ended up taking on a life of their own. That fact is probably why I burned out doing the swatches and look posts I did for a while–the words had no place.

I struggled for a long time with professionalism and personality. It felt like one voided out the other, and always wary of the Internet Oversharers, I kept myself out of this blog for a long time. I would show you what I was wearing, what products I was using, but not a lot more. You might see my cat, my lizard, my dining room table, but rarely anything that didn’t directly pertain to cosmetics or style. But style is more than what you’re wearing or how your makeup is done. Style surrounds everything we do. I often say that life is an art of its own–the way we live can reflect our tastes and aesthetics as much as our clothing or our lipstick. We are our own greatest work. This is how I can reconcile the new direction I’ve been taking here and the personal details I’ve begun to share.

2008

In the effort of sharing more of the Girl Behind the Blog, I’m going to be taking part once again in May Monster Madness, a blog hop for horror lovers. Last year, I struggled with my participation–what place does a beauty blog really have in the horror world? I’ve always found beauty in the strange, but readers looking for product reviews or makeup tips probably wouldn’t appreciate the sudden shift in content. Now that I’m allowing myself some freedom, I want to share love affair with the bizarre and the monstrous: my goal is to make a post each day during the week of May 11th to share some of my favourite strange and beautiful things along with a whole list of others around the ‘Net. Want to join in? I’ve included the link signup below–you can add the banner graphic to your sidebar and invite your readers to do the same!
MMM2013



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Evolution

I’m a firm believer in the power of newness. While I also believe that I am the sum of my experiences and that everything happens for a reason, I believe in the self-invention and a fresh, clean slate is the most inspiring thing I could possibly imagine. This is why I start each year with Resolutions.

Most people laugh when asked about New Year’s Resolutions. They’ll say things like, “I’m going to lose weight,” or “I’m going to go the gym,” or “I’m going to start cooking more,” each and every year. “New Year’s Resolutions are silly,” I’ve been told. “They never stick.” January 1st of 2010, I resolved to start a blog. January 1st of 2011, I resolved to become a vegan after about fifteen years of vegetarianism. January 1st of 2012, I resolved not to let my illnesses and weaknesses define me. I have followed through and stuck with each and every one of these resolutions, and this is only a small handful of the resolutions I’ve made over the years.

For a large part of 2012 I felt stagnant. I was stuck in one place, going no where that I could see, and while my life was moving around me I felt too bogged-down mentally to move with it. Worse yet I sometimes felt as if I was regressing, moving backwards to places I’ve all ready been and struggled to remove myself from. I was fighting battles I’ve all ready fought. Some of these battles have been victories, others are in stalemate, but I refuse to lose any of them. Perhaps that is why the “newness” of 2013 has felt so important in the weeks leading up to the New Year. In the last months of 2012, I wove myself something of a cocoon, tucking in to examine myself and calculate the vastness of the changes taking place. I’m ready for the next phase, not something completely different but the next cycle of who I am and how I live. An evolved and higher state of me.

Some of these changes will be superficial: I plan to pare down in 2013, streamlining my style and cultivating signatures. This obviously applies to my wardrobe, but to other areas of my life as well. I’ve been talking about working out a concrete budget, balancing my accounts by hand to avoid the trap of digital overspending. By focussing my attention on developing signatures, I’ll save money on impulse buys and failed experiments and be able to apply those funds to things I genuinely need or want to work towards.

Other changes will be invisible, running too deep to really see at a glance. These will be the changes that allow me to be the person that I really am, the person I see inside and want to share with everyone else. These are the changes that involve being more courageous, accepting and actually feeling my emotions even when they aren’t 100% rational, reducing my anxiety and developing healthy coping mechanisms. While they may not be evident to anyone but the people I interact closely with, these are the changes that will take the most work and have the biggest effect on my life.

Up until this point, Readers, I’ve kept you all at arm’s length under the guise of professionalism. Having labels and tags to strictly adhere to felt more proper, so if it wasn’t about lipstick or shoes I really had nothing to say here. But I have a lot to say. I’d like to let you in on other things that interest me, the things I do that might not involve powder brushes or outfit snaps. So here’s what I’ve decided: Metamorphosis was begun to document my self-discovery and transformation and I feel like that’s very relevant again. From here on, Metamorphosis will be something of a landing-pad for me. Every post I make will appear here, on this site. If you’d prefer to simply follow my beauty and fashion posts, I’ll be cross-posting them and only them on Bella Cantarella. If you simply want updates on my artistic endeavors, I’ll be cross posting them (hopefully with more frequency) over at Crypt Orchids. I’d like to update this page at least twice a week, and the topics I cover will dictate the posting schedule everywhere else.

I want to thank you all for bearing with me for the last few years. It’s been a thrilling, maddening, hair-pulling, utterly inspiring journey so far and I hope you’ll stay with me as it continues.

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Chrysalis

It’s been a hard year. Everyone I’ve spoken to has expressed that 2012 was a difficult year. I live in an area that was greatly affected by Superstorm Sandy, much of which is still struggling to rebuild, both physically and emotionally. While my home was not greatly damaged, I feel like I lost a large portion of my strength in that storm and every day I pick up a few more pieces. Prior to Sandy, though, I battled illness, lost a dear friend, and found myself facing some of my deepest fears. I feel like every last defense I had was broken down, leaving me completely exposed and vulnerable. And I know I’m not the only one who felt this way.

bobtriptych

Dear readers, 2012 has been a hard year. It’s okay to admit it, and it’s okay to stop fighting. Your energy is better used to transform the negative emotions, the pain, the feelings of weakness and uselessness into lessons learned–lessons about yourself, your coping mechanisms, your behavioral patterns, your surroundings. Reflect on those lessons and turn them into something useful, something you can apply to future situations and personal growth. You’ve made it this far: despite what you feel, you are very strong, and this will only make you stronger.

khepri

2013 is hours away. With each passing moment, I’m more and more excited to welcome it. Things are all ready looking up: I write this under the supervision of a scaly new friend who reminds me every day of simple pleasures and the rewards of caring for another living creature. Khepri reminds me to cherish every moment spent with loved ones, because that opportunity is not always certain. Even the simplest moments–car rides, dinners, lounging, shopping–can become beautiful memories.

khep&me

Expect changes in this space. Changes to content, graphics, titles, everything. It’s been on my mind for a while, but I felt it too big an undertaking to start on while I was so emotionally unequipped to handle anything. But 2013 is rising, and it feels soothing. Hang in there. I will be.

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Metamorphosis 127.0 – Early Resolutions and a NotD

If there’s one thing I’ve learned this season, it’s that no one is exempt from the stresses of the holiday rush. It doesn’t matter if you work in retail, in an office, or in any sort of technical position, everyone feels the weight of the season crushing them at some point. That said, I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season.

One my New Year’s Resolutions is to be a better blogger–to stay on top of my posting schedule and post more quality articles. I would love to hear from you, my readers, about what you’d like to see written. Want more swatches? More nail posts? More outfits? More event coverage? Something completely different? Please, let me know! My contact information is clearly posted on my contact page, and there’s always Facebook and Formspring.

I’m really hoping that this will be a year of transformations. For all my new experiences and complete and total “up” moments, I fell into a slump towards the end of this year. I can blame my health, my dress code at work and school, my lack of income, any of it, but at the end of of the day they’re just excuses. This year, I vow to become 100% comfortable with myself, my body, my features, and my identity. Readers who actually know me will realize what a giant statement that is. If I’m not 100% comfortable with myself by the end of next year, at least I’ll be well on my way.

Since I’m a slave to school until May, I only have this week off as a winter break. In accordance with my first resolution up there, I’m going to try to put up a post every day between now and the date I return to the classroom.

Today, I have last week’s nails. Julep’s December colour was Helena, described as an “ultra-saturated fuchsia.” The colour itself is sort of a chameleon: in some lights, it looks like a deep purpled magenta, in others it’s a neon violet, in others still it’s a bright, true pink. I honestly did not expect to like this colour as pinks don’t usually play nice on my hands–but since this isn’t your typical pink, I didn’t really have a problem.

Below, Helena is shown in two coats over butterLONDON’s Nail Foundation with one coat of Essie’s A Cut Above on the ring finger.

These photos really downplay the blue tones this shade can have in certain lights. Under the fluorescent lighting of my classroom, this looked downright purple, while natural sunlight made it look like the bright pink it appears above.

Pink lovers in general would love this shade, but if you’re picky about your purples, this might not be your ideal. This would not have been a shade I’d order on my own, but I’m glad it was send in the December Maven package. There’s definitely nothing like it in my collection so far!

Love you to the Moon and Back,

Luna Valentine

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Metamorphosis 81.0 – the Four Layers of my Purse, or What’s In My Bag?

Most people will never see the inside of your purse, unless they’re a security official, a child with no sense of personal boundaries, or a drunken party-goer. However, I don’t think that means that one should not pay careful consideration to what goes inside. I’d like to think that if my purse and I were ever separated, the contents would allow it to be instantly matched back up to me.

At any given point in time, this is what lives in my purse. The contents may change from week to week, but this is generally what you’ll find inside my faithful Betsey Johnson Skull Garden Satchel.

Layer No. 1: This is all that most people see of my bag: the outside. I fell in love with the print when I first saw it on the Betsey Johnson site–giant pink skulls over cherry blossoms and long-tailed pink birds. Of course, the oversized gunmetal studs sealed the deal–it also came with a longer handle, black patent on a chunky gunmetal chain, but I’m kind of anal about a bag having too many handles.

Layer No. 2: These are some of the more noticeable items inside, and most likely to make it out to the public eye. I always, always, always carry a book. Usually, it’s in the form of my beloved Nook, but since this particular novel did not yet come in eBook form, I caved and bought the hard copy. The Whale Wallet was a Christmas gift from my sister. I’m fairly certain he was supposed to be a coin purse but ended up eating all my cards and ID too. It’s very convincing when I whip him out in bars to prove I’m not 12. Additionally, a small folding mirror I got as a GWP from Ulta and a pack of blotting papers for when powder is just a little too much.

Layer No. 3: These items are like the Reserves, called out only when truly necessary. My Bobbi Brown Pressed Powder Compact probably sees more action than most of these, especially now that the weather has been consistently hotter and more humid. My card wallet used to be attached to my car keys, but I got annoyed with it constantly hitting my knees. Inside, my business cards–the wallet itself USED to match my card, but not so much anymore. As a chef, my card was yellow and bird-themed: bugs are apparently not appetizing. Two pairs of contacts because I have horrible luck keeping one pair in all day, and re-wetting drops so I might get a full 5 hours from them. And my family probably bought out every last EOS lip balm in the area, so I often find one to toss in my purse. They’re convenient, if not a little too waxy for my tastes.

Layer No. 4: These are the things that sink to the bottom that I need to fight out of the abysmal depths of my bag for daily use. The Metrocard usually floats around some pocket or another because I refuse to fumble with my wallet in the subways, and ginger candy for easing motion sickness without putting me to sleep. The emery board is for nail emergencies, but usually just serves to scuff up my manicure while digging around for something else. Yes, I know how bad these are for my nails: I have a few glass files on the way. And finally, we have about a week’s worth of lipstick. I try to swap out my lip products daily, but sometimes it just doesn’t happen. The BITE lip shine in Prosecco actually lives in my purse as it’s the perfect go-to, super-shiny, translucent-nude gloss. I also wore the OCC Lip Tar in Vintage layered with MAC lipstick in Hang-Up three days last week, and the OCC Lip Tar in Anime and Inglot AMC Lipgloss in 546 are left over from Saturday’s FotD. Additionally, my purse is home to the only lipliner I own, Mary Kay Lip Liner in Chocolate. Despite the name, it’s a deep reddened brown, a perfect companion to my deeper reds like Vintage and Hang-Up.

And there you have it. Of course, there are plenty of receipts, bank deposit acknowledgments, coupons, spare change, but I do try to filter those out when I get the chance. Is your bag a calculated chaos? Or is it a warzone of paper scraps and lipstick? Do you carry cosmetics with you, or leave them home touch-ups be damned?

Love you to the Moon and Back,

Luna Valentine

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Metamorphosis 17.0 – Blue Moon, a FotD, +more

Hello, Interwebs! It’s officially the end of November, and I have WON NaNoWriMo! I say win, but basically I finished the first draft of my novel in 27 days. It needs a lot of work to be what I had originally intended, but it’s as good a start as any draft can really be.

While I now have much more time to devote to this blog (and fully intend to go back to the thrice-weekly updates), I will be away for a week beginning tomorrow. Updates will be sparse, if at all, because I will not be bringing my laptop. That said, there will be plenty of update-fodder when I get back because I fully intend to photo-document everything on my trip!

Now, I give you my FotD:

I was itching to do a blue, blue, blue eye look, I’m not entirely sure why. I would have preferred it a little more turquoise, but considering I was only going shopping for some last-minute travel items, it was fine.

Full list of items used:

MAC Pro Longwear Foundation in NW20
Makeup Forever HD mattifying powder
Mary Kay mineral cheek color in Cherry Blossom
Sugarpill pressed shadow in Afterparty and Tako
Lime Crime magic dusts in Pompadour and Troubadour
Maybelline Line Stiletto eyeliner in Very Black
MAC Zoomlash mascara in Zoomblack
MAC Digidazzle lipstick in Hellraiser

The main reason I photographed this look, however, is to show off my new jewelry from Tilly Bloom!

I found this brooch on Etsy and knew I needed to own one of these whimsical little creatures. The black panther is one of my power animals and I thought one of these “pantherfly” pins would be an excellent piece to add to my wardrobe! I believe she still has some available, though they are available in limited quantities in gold and black.

When I untied the black raffia and opened the box, I was pleasantly surprised to find these adorable fox earrings as well! They are too cute, perfect for a quick winter accessory! –If you have the time, browse through her website: she makes so many fabulous accessories, it’s hard not to fall in love with everything at once!

And finally, I cut my hair. Again. I have a sort of hair-ADD, and really have no ability to stick with anything for too long. It also just keeps getting shorter and shorter: the last time I cut it, it went from shoulder-length (the longest it’s been in almost three years), to a chin-length bob on one side and pixie-short on the other, to just-plain pixie-short all over. My bangs are still rather long, if only because after seven or so years, I don’t know what I’d do if I could actually see the world out without a frame of hair to put it in context. It looks a little longer in these photos than it actually is, mainly because my hair-doing regimen involves smearing my hands with gel and running them straight up my head. Maybe I should just stick my finger in an electrical socket and save myself the gel-money. …or I could just shave it all off.

So there you have it: several points in the same update. I’ll be away until the 7th, but will still be as addicted as ever to Twitter (@queencicada) and possibly texting things to Tumblr, if it decides to let me do anything ever.

Love you to the Moon and Back,

Luna Valentine

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Metamorphosis 10.0 – You Bet I Did! How Luna wore blue lipstick

Here’s the post I’ve been promising now for a while. I’m afraid it won’t live up to expectations, since I didn’t really get any good pictures–the only one I have is a fairly crappy cell phone shot taken before I left the house. (Tell you a secret: I did take more, at the show we went to, but I forgot to pencil in my brows and I look like a zombie! Not a proud moment…)

When Lime Crime Makeup first came out with their lipstick line, I bought a slew. They were mostly the unusual colours–Cosmopop, D’Lilac, Great Pink Planet, and No She Didn’t were the first on my list. I’ve since purchased nearly the entire line, but I hadn’t worn them all until recently. While I still can’t get Cosmopop to work for me (washes me out like WOAH), I’ve found all the others to be completely wearable.

Back in Spring, I was in my local Space.NK Apothecary looking at the Lime Crime lipstick display and pointing out to the salesgirl which ones I had. When I came to D’Lilac and No She Didn’t, she looked me over in a strangely analytical manner and announced, “I could see you wearing the purple, but I have no idea how anyone would wear that blue.” …It was like a challenge. I needed to figure out how to wear blue lipstick.

Months later, here I am. While I wouldn’t wear it to work, I can paint my lips blue and comfortably head out to a show or event. Hell, if I went to clubs, I would totally rock my blue lipstick there. Here’s how I did it:

First off, my hair is lavender right now, and it doesn’t come much cooler than that. When I was a redhead, this simply did not work on me (yet Doe Deere, Lime Crime founder, wears it well in her photos). When I dye it again, I will update with a dark hair/blue lip pairing for reference.

Secondly, blue lips are a bold statement, make no mistake. –and while I’ve never been afraid to pair a bold red lip with a dark smokey eye, or purple lipstick with colourful shadows, I think blue is enough in itself. For this reason, I used a pale, shimmery pink all over my lid, emphasizing my crease and contouring the eye with shades of cotton-candy blue. The shadows were very subtle, very soft, and considerably neutral considering the colours used. I topped the whole thing off with sapphire blue liquid liner with a subtle wing, and my ever-present MAC Zoomlash mascara.

This done, I contoured my cheeks with my standard pale pink blush and highlighted with a shimmery white powder. After my face was finished, I exfoliated my lips, applied a primer, and then on went the blue lipstick. If you haven’t seen Lime Crime’s No She Didn’t, it’s a vibrant sky-blue, deeper than the cotton candy you get at carnivals but more pigmented than a lot of skies I’ve seen. Maybe I just live in a sad, polluted area. Regardless, it’s definitely a lipstick to wear when you want to get looks–not that you’ll love all the look you’ll receive, but you’ll receive them anyway! I personally have to wonder if anyone else wearing this shade would get the same kind of attention: I walked into the show with purple hair, blue lipstick, and standing tall at 6’2″ in my heels. Some kids probably thought I was a zombie giant. But some people seemed genuinely impressed by the look, like they admired the courage it took to pull off. Very few people said anything to me, but you can tell a lot by the expression on people’s faces, and I was getting a mixed bag of those.

In all, I would wear this look again. I probably will, when I dye my hair, in order to report back on how it goes without purple hair. In the meantime, here’s the one surviving picture of the night. A full list of products used can be found below.
Yes I did!
Love you to the Moon and Back,

Luna Valentine

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Metamorphosis 9.0 – Carefully Assembled Chaos: my fashion icons and influences

Frilled shirts, torn fishnets, corsets, waist-cinchers, fishtail skirts, platform shoes, combat boots, skinny jeans, cloaks, feather fascinators, and giant spider hairpins. This is just a list of some of the items reoccurring in my closet–and I can never have too many of them. When I came into the age where every girl starts examining her wardrobe and what reflection it is on her, a lot of people would ask me where I would have ever thought to pair such things. Trying to seem original, I would shrug, curl my painted lips into a smile, and reply that I had thought of it all myself. At this point in my life, when I’ve explored quite a few options and developed more of a signature style, I’m proud of my influences and exactly where they’ve brought me.

Today, I’d like to share with you some of my personal icons and exactly how they’ve influenced my style.

Stevie Nicks It all started with Stevie Nicks. I was in seventh grade when Trouble in Shangri-La came out, and I picked it up at the record store because I thought the cover art was stunning. No, I’d never heard of her before–neither of my parents were Fleetwood Mac fans, and I didn’t know she had any previous work out. I loved the album, but what struck me more were the inserts, the pictures of Stevie in a peach-coloured chiffon dress, wearing camel leather boots and her hair flying everywhere. As I started to explore her music and career, I found such amazing photos of her that I knew she was going to be a big influence for me. To this day, there’s nothing I love more than a billowing chiffon dress, or lace skirt miles long, or layers and layers of flowing fabrics.

Louise Brooks I discovered Louise Brooks when an internet friend of mine bobbed her hair. She posed for her picture in black clothing, against a dark wall, with a long string of pearls in her hand, and someone remarked that she strongly resembled the silent movie starlet. Off I hopped to google, and what I found astonished me: I wanted to be Louise Brooks. Her look was signature, yet versatile. Hair was always fashionably bobbed, but she could portray the exotic Nile Queen, covered in gilded lotuses and beaded headdresses, the showgirl, head to toe in feathers, or the innocent, riding the rails to seek refuge from a life of abuse. The 20′s became a fascination for me–granted, I still don’t feel as if I can pull off a drop-waist well. But I love the era for its fashion, its music, its lively spirit, its glamour.

Mana, of Malice Mizer There are several men on my list of influences, and Mana is one of the biggest. Influences, not men. I think he’s my height. Regardless…I don’t remember how I stumbled upon Malice Mizer, but it was undoubtedly on the internet, and it launched several of my biggest teenage obsessions. I don’t follow the Japanese Rock scene anymore, but when I did, Malice Mizer was my favourite. I still love their music, and their style still influences my own. They disbanded about a decade ago, Mana, their guitarist, now leads Moi dix Mois, due to release a new album in December. Although his looks from one band to the other have shifted a little, his Malice Mizer style featured frothy frocks and layers of lace, tailored jackets and bustle skirts. He was considered the father of the Japanese street fashion craze, EGL (or “elegant gothic lolita”), and it’s sister-trend, EGA (or “elegant gothic aristocrat”). While I was younger, I tried to play up the Lolita aspect, opting for microscopically short skirts, layers and layers of petticoats, and flounced blouses and headbands. I had an endless assortment of platform shoes, skyscraper maryjanes, high-heeled patent-leather boots. But as I grew older, I saw much more appeal in the Aristocrat fashions. Today, I still swoon over the perfectly tailored velvet blouse, bustles, and fishtail skirts.

Gwen Stefani In middle school, one of my friends was obsessed with No Doubt. I liked their music, but I didn’t really understand their look. I thought it was super neat that Gwen Stefani had pink hair, but aside from that, I wasn’t entirely sure. Considering I never really listened to the radio, I didn’t follow their career, but when they disbanded and Gwen went solo, my attention was piqued. I heard her single “What You Waiting For?” I was completely taken. Her look had evolved into something I familiar with, drawing influences from story books and Japanese street fashion to develop something like a Fairy-Tale American Lolita. I still have a soft-spot for her Harajuku Lovers line, but I’ve come to love her classic glamour and pin-up appeal.

Siouxsie Sioux What gothling hasn’t been influenced by Siouxsie Sioux? –I think I evolved backwards. Although I loved Siouxsie & the Banshees for years, I really never considered her a fashion icon until I was older. I was wearing Victorian Mourning and EGA when I was sixteen, but I was twenty before I put together the carefully assembled chaos that was Siouxsie’s goth/punk style. I teased my newly-cut hair and wore Doc Martens. I had explored punk when I was younger, but it was a strange mess of brightly coloured tights and mini-skirts, lace-up boots and ripped vintage jumpers. This was somehow more classic, more polished–but perhaps, anything appears more polished when topped off with red lipstick.

David Bowie I listened to a lot of glam rock as a child. Considering, I’m surprised I wasn’t more influenced by the style at a younger age. I do think David Bowie shaped my thoughts on “acceptable” and “unacceptable” in men, movies, music, and morals as a young thing, growing up on movies like Labyrinth and listening to albums like the Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust. But I was in my late teens/early twenties by the time I considered dressing in tight pants and platform shoes, crazy blouses and sequined jackets. I’m still looking for the perfect sequined jacket, by the way.

Betsey Johnson and Vivian Westwood Long have I admired the work of many designers, among them Vivian Westwood and Betsey Johnson. Not only do I love their collections and designs, but I admire them as strong women with wonderful influence. Vivian Westwood’s early work with the punk scene is simply amazing, and her more recent efforts to raise awareness and protect the environment is great. Betsey Johnson’s battle with and overcoming of breast cancer was simply inspirational, and she has always encouraged girls and women to be themselves and express their individuality.

Brian Slade, Amy Pond, and the Torchwood Cast –Since they aren’t really people, but still influential to my personal style, I’d like to address the movie and television characters that have inspired me. Velvet Goldmine‘s Brian Slade, as played by the amazing Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, rekindled my love of glam rock and androgyny (even if I could never really pull that one off). Eve Myle’s character Gwen Cooper on Torchwood wears a stunning assortment of leather jackets and boots, paired with sleek jeans and simple shirts, proving that tough chicks can be feminine and sexy. Her co-star John Barrowman, who plays Captain Jack Harkness (originally from Doctor Who) dresses in fabulous wartime coats–if I was a man, I would so rock the 1940′s shirt-and-suspenders look. More recently on the time-travel scene, Doctor Who‘s Karen Gillan, as new companion Amy Pond, dons a spectacular array of shorts-over-tights, dolman-sleeve sweaters, western and slouch boots, and girlie swing coats. I wonder where she gets it all from, considering she jumped into the TARDIS wearing only a pair of striped pajamas…that thing must have an amazing closet!

Though I could go on forever about my style evolution and influences, there is simply not enough time or space. This list doesn’t even include the artists, paintings, illustrations, and songs that have contributed in some way, shape, or form to my closet.

Who has influenced your style? How has it changed over the years? Discuss!

Love you to the Moon and Back,

Luna Valentine

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Metamorphosis 7.0 – Grape Soda Wildflower

Grape Soda Wildflower

Some time around the last week of August, while desperately clinging to those last traces of summer, I decided my hair should be lavender. I’m not sure exactly what provoked the thought, but it became an obsession. The plan was to strip the deep garnet red out of my hair, then bleach it white, and allow it to stay platinum on top and graduate to shades of lavender and violet towards the bottom. I knew it would take work, but I also knew it was worth it.

I am no stranger to unconventional colour. In my life, I have had my mane dyed peppermint red, indigo blue, grape-soda purple, neon pink, rose-petal pink, tiger-lily orange, and magenta (not at all once, of course). No one could say my parents have been pleased, but their theory was, if my hair was the worst of their problems, then they were in good shape. As I’ve gotten older, though, my line of work has prevented me from doing what I want with my hair, leading me to spend the better part of the last few years in shades of natural-looking red. Announcing that I would soon have lavender hair, I was told that I was “not a mermaid, or a fairy,” and purple hair was a little unacceptable at my age.

mermaids come in a variety of colors

picture from Mermaid Melody Pichi-Pichi-Pitch

Well, dammit, I have dreamed of being a mermaid all my life. While Barnum almost burst that bubble for me, I think it’s important to live your fantasies and my dream of being a mermaid will live yet!

wildflower hair

My plan went into action: the red came out, leaving me shades of yellow, orange, and pink for weeks. The sherbet-coloured ‘do was rather novel at first, but it clashed with a lot of my makeup and in all made me look a little ill. So on went the bleach–but as I’m sure anyone who has had to strip out colour will tell you, the colour is stubborn, and things only lightened by shades. The pink faded to pale orange and everything else was a lighter yellow. I was getting frustrated.

rainy day wistfulness

About a week ago, I used another dye remover to lift out the last remaining bits of colour. It left me platinum, which I was able to tone to white, leaving my hair the perfect canvas for the lavender dyes. But when I went to apply them, I decided leaving the top white would look a little sloppy, and coloured over the whole thing.
I mixed two different lavender dyes, Manic Panic‘s Mystic Heather and Lie-Locks. Mystic Heather is more pink, which I applied to my entire head with a tint brush and rubber gloves, and Lie-Locks is distinctly more blue, which I tipped, streaked, and painted in over the other dye. When I rinsed, my hair was the exact colour of kudzu blossoms and my mermaid-hair dreams came true!

Unfortunately, it will only be staying until the end of the month. I know I need to give my hair a rest from the frequent bleaching and I probably need to cut a good deal of length off it to prevent further damage. But we’ll worry about that in November–maybe I’ll actually find out what my natural colour is again?

Used in these photos:

Have you ever dyed your hair an unnatural colour? What was it? How did it look? If you haven’t, would you? Discuss!

Love you to the Moon and Back,

Luna Valentine

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Metamorphosis 1.0 – In Which Luna Reveals her Cosmetic Past

No Makeup Week

September 20-27 is No Make Up Week on the Internet. Its home base is over at Rabbit Write, and Ms. White is doing an amazing job of keeping the vibe alive with post after post of thought-provoking material. I thoroughly enjoyed every update she’s made so far, and I would heartily recommend it.

The purpose of No Make Up Week is to encourage women to explore their relationship with makeup on all levels. I know that I am among those numbers who plaster my face within minutes of waking and would never think of leaving my house without it. But why? When did this obsession begin and does it ever end? Is it healthy for my skin, or for my psyche? Learning to be comfortable bare-faced is something a lot of women need to learn, natural as it may seem. And while many people are taking this week as an exercise in self-love, leaving their faces bare for the week, I am not. I cannot.

I can, however, try to figure out why. Obviously, I was born with a bare face. I can take off my makeup at the end of the night without erasing my features entirely, revealing myself to be an Invisible Woman. But leaving my face bare for an entire day and still being a productive human being is beyond me. The closest I have come in recent years to leaving my house au-natural are the mornings I find myself walking out at an ungodly hour and quickly hurrying through my 5-Minute-Face. Even then, I find myself returning later for my full cosmetic regalia.

I really did drag the camera into my bathroom one morning, thinking I’d snap a peek at my face before makeup. I washed and dried and toned and moisturized and then thought, “well maybe I’ll just put on my primer.” So I primed. I love the way the pearlescence of the primer makes my skin seem to glow after I brush it on, and I thought maybe the camera would catch the rainbow sparkle on my cheeks. But then I thought, “no one will probably know the difference if I put on a light coat of foundation.” So I brushed and stippled and buffed and before I knew it, I had a full face of makeup, and no picture to prove that I had a face underneath.

Where did my dependency on makeup stem from? When did it start? –and stranger yet, why do I love it so much? With these questions in mind, I thought back on my long, sordid history with makeup and our relationship together.

Thinking about my first encounters with makeup is like thinking back on a childhood crush. The fact that it was somewhat forbidden made it even more attractive, and just like that boy in elementary school, I had no idea what to do once I got my hands on it. The compacts of perfumed powder and mirrored tubes of lipstick would catch my magpie eye–I would often try to pilfer them from relatives’ bathroom drawers and cabinets, but to no avail. I had too guilty a conscience. When I was about nine, I went to a friend’s birthday party and received a small bag of cosmetics as a party favor. Among the things inside was a tube of Wet ‘n’ Wild lipstick in a sheer, pearly white that her mother had deemed subtle enough for a gaggle of little girls–it was the first lipstick I ever owned. I remember holing myself up in my room, getting dressed in a “nice” pair of jeans and a “nice” fleece sweatshirt and digging out that lipstick thinking I could wearing it that day like a pair of lace panties: no one would know I had it on. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. I had never worn anything on my lips before, and I couldn’t get used to the texture of it. It was chalkier than lip balm, and I felt kind of dried up and flaky all day. It took my mother maybe five minutes to realize I was walking through the world with my lips pushed out like a duck. To her, this story is still very funny and I’m sure it comes up in conversation every time I apply lipstick publicly.

Still, it was my first real encounter with makeup. At twelve, I convinced my mother to buy me an eyeshadow quad from the drugstore. It wasn’t just any quad, either: it contained a stark white, a pitch black, and two varied greys, which must have appealed to the gothling in me even then. I waited for a “special occasion,” which came one Sunday when we went to visit my grandparents. I was easily excited. That morning, I emerged from the bathroom with my eyes caked in grey shadow, heavily lined with black, with white smears in the corner of my eyes. The concept of blending was foreign to me. Needless to say, I was told to wash it off before we could leave the house.

My makeup face at 15

My Makeup Face at 15

It would be another two years before I really started to explore makeup. I had the same L’Oreal quad from the years before when I decided I simply couldn’t go to high school without learning how to properly wear makeup. When I was a freshman, I was being aggressively treated for a chronic illness, so I was tutored at home for the majority of my subjects and only needed to appear in school for the last two classes of the day. This gave me plenty of time to get dressed and apply my makeup before leaving the house, and I managed a very simple smokey eye, lightly lined with a black pencil, though I don’t think I ventured into lipstuffs for years down the line.

Years wore on, I became home schooled, and I had more time to devote to my appearance. It may sound vain, but sick as I was it became a relief to at least feel like I looked good. At sixteen, a boyfriend’s mother took me shopping for discounted designer makeup at a flea market. In retrospect, I wonder if it wasn’t all knockoff stuff, but I fell in love with liquid liner at that time. My daily Baby Bat face consisted of full foundation, tons of powder (sometimes even just talc), dark eyes lined in liquid, and penciled-in brows.

My makeup face at 17

My Makeup Face at 17

At seventeen, the most girl-time I had was when I managed to club Z over the head and drag her to my lair for school vacations, so on New Year’s Eve, I went to the mall. They had just put in a Sephora, and I had never even ventured in. I bought my makeup at the CVS, so why did I need to spend 10x as much for products that did the same thing? Z beelined for the Sugar display, and there I fell in love with glitter. Maybe it was the popular compulsion to decorate one’s self like a disco ball for the New Year, but I knew I couldn’t leave the store without the sweet-smelling, gooey-creamy glitter gel palette in front of me. Somehow, I was also convinced to buy a DuWop Venom Gloss in the brightest red I had never thought of putting on my lips. It was probably the name, “Venom,” that got me. I was utterly obsessed with poison as a teenager. …Some things never change. But that was my first foray into Sephora. In the years following, I swapped all of my CVS makeup for higher-end versions, realizing that I could now blend the colours, and even better, use much brighter shades, and basically not look like a street urchin that had fallen out of someone’s chimeny while wearing makeup. I began to explore my cosmetic influences, spending hours hunched over my mirror trying to replicate the famous faces of silent movie stars, glam rockers, and goth icons. I often left my house looking like a Siouxsie-Clara lesbian lovechild.

When I was eighteen, I went to to school for cosmetology. I loved doing other people’s makeup as well as my own, but my skin had begun to suffer from moderate-to-severe cystic acne. One of my teachers told me, “Some people are addicted to makeup the way a drug addicted to substances. You are a makeup addict. Just quit cold-turkey, or things will never get better.” She was referring of course to my skin, but in the context of No Make Up Week, it really is an interesting statement. Since I hated touching old people’s naked backs and juicing people’s faces, I soon dropped out. I don’t have any pictures from those days, because I fell into a spiral of self-hatred centering on my appearance, and when one of those pops up, the last thing you want to do is shake a camera at it.

my makeup face at 21

My Makeup Face at 21

In my young-adulthood, I began to love color again. Facebook and Myspace profiles show electric blue liner and glitter lashes, neon pink and yellow eyeshadows, giant red-and-black eyes akin to old-school tattooed gypsies and saloon girls. I began to go to the events I had longed for as a teenager, Dances of Vice, Dracula’s Ball, Chiller Theatre… Blush is a new acquisition. Where I used to prefer pale, washed-out looks that often did nothing to hide how sick I was, despite what I might have thought, I started contouring my cheeks and adding color to the vast white wasteland it once was. I still only have about three shades of blush in my cosmetic arsenal, but do I need more than that? …Wait, don’t give me the excuse to spend more money. While today I might tone-down my everyday looks for work, I still take the time on weekends to create what I like to think of as cosmetic works of art on my face. I need every new MAC collection or Urban Decay palette, and I love to support more independent brands on the internet. I probably own every shade of purple lipstick (my favourite), and close to every other lipstick in the world. It’s one of the few things in life I grow visibly animated over in conversation, and am happy to discuss with strangers on trains or acquaintances over drinks.

Yesterday's Makeup Face

My Makeup Face from yesterday

So why is it bad that I can’t leave my house without it? I have fun doing my makeup every morning, but there are certainly days I have to wonder whether its a waste of product. Do I need a full face to go to the flea market at 6AM? Do I need even just a coat of foundation before I enter the gym? The answer should really be no. It’s not even that I’m not comfortable without it. The answer is really that I’m afraid to face other people without it. If someone I knew was at that flea market at 6AM, what would they think if I wasn’t wearing makeup? “How lazy is she that she couldn’t get up five minutes earlier to do her makeup,” or “She isn’t nearly as pretty as I thought she was without her makeup…” I am the first person to proclaim a triumphant “fuck ‘em!” when it comes to people’s negative opinions, but for some reason these are the fears that keep me making up my face.

I look at my teenage sister and her friends and watch them frantically slathering themselves with makeup before an occasion and think, “wow. They seem way too young to be starting with this shit.” But are they really? I was their age or younger when I joined the Cosmetic Circus. Maybe I thought my illness and subsequent horrible complexion gave me an excuse to begin dabbling in face-paint at a younger age, but it really seems as if our society begins grooming girls into tiny, made-up women at ages younger still.

And there you have it, internet. The tl;dr of it all: I love makeup, even though I am a slave to it. Also, I miss my DuWop Venom Gloss. Don’t wear makeup this week, or just think about why you wear it: No Make Up Week doesn’t end until Monday, so you still have time to join the conversation.

Feel free to share your personal stories, whether in the comments or on your own space. I love to hear people’s histories, especially when it involves makeup. Tell me how you feel about makeup: do you need it? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Comment!

Happy Friday, Interwebs! Have a fabulous weekend, and enjoy the first of fall weather (unless you live in the NYC area, in which case enjoy the last of summer)!

Love you to the Moon and Back,

Luna Valentine

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