How To Wear Makeup In Your 30s, From Our Beautiful (Even / Especially When Bare-Faced) Pal Katherine

(Ed. Note: Katherine [KG] is my Ariel of Amazon, the pal I was lucky enough to meet at MyHabit and slog through the ol’ 9 – 5 with for a couple o’ glorious years. We’ve bummed ciggies from randos outside a Dallas hotel at 1am, we’ve polished off an unnecessary extra bottle of red in bathrobes whilst in Seattle, and we’ve put actual advertising spend behind the syndication of this ridiculous (-ly awesome) video documenting a few of our other, very serious work endeavors. I really miss seeing her every day, especially now that she and her husband moved back to Milwaukee so she could take a new, kick-ass job. ANYWAY. I digress. I reached out to KG to BEG her for some beauty and makeup tips, since the girl always looks gorgeous and luminous and my skin looks like a piece of roadkill since birthing Bailey, no matter what I put on it. She humored me, in a big way, below. Tried the routine with the products I do have so far this am and THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!)

“First and foremost, I believe nothing is more important than finding the right face wash for your skin. I’ve tried loads, and when it’s wrong, it entirely affects how my makeup looks. I need something that is sensitive yet cleans the (actual) crap out of my skin since I’m prone to dryness/flaking in some places, and oil slicks in others. I’ve been using Neutrogena Oil-Free Acne Wash for years, and it has triumphed through birth control changes, moves, job changes, NYC smog, and other acne-inducing life-ness that has been tossed my way. The little bit of salicylic acid goes a long way to keep my pores clean. Again, trial and error, this step.

How Are You Feeling?

While we’re all working out how to feel about the election results, we figured we’d take a break from typing, deleting and occasionally posting angry Facebook comments to share this quote from Maya Angelou:

“I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.”

We don’t have to accept this. It wasn’t just politics. This isn’t the difference between left or right, its the difference between good and evil.

For starters, we’re planning on showing up with our fellow feminists at the Women’s March On Washington on January 21, 2016. Who is coming with us?

To (Re)Read, Guys: A Moveable Feast

I’ve always loved to read. (COOL STORY, right? Bear with me.) My mother used to drop me off at the library when I was 8 or 9 with an actual brown-bagged lunch, and I’d spend the day alone, tearing through book after plastic-covered book, like the wildly popular kid I so clearly was. (Have actually thought about this a lot lately and often wonder if that was appropriate? Leaving a youngish child unattended for a five-hour stretch in a public place? Eh, it was New Hampshire, I guess.*) Nowadays my time at the library is spent taking advantage of the free WiFi, and my time reading is limited to the five or so minutes I can keep my eyes open after crawling into bed—but, oh Lordy, what a glorious five minutes those are.

But What Does It Mean…

…that the only image that, on its own, stirred anything within me from the legit PLETHORA of fashion month content taking over my social media feed is this D&G logo t-shirt and shiny mini skirt combo? (And by ‘stirred anything within me’, I mean enticed me to take a lazy snapshot of The Cut’s Instagram image of such and DM it to myself at 3 in the morning whilst breastfeeding.) Can I no longer fully appreciate or discern the serious art and skill behind truly designed fashion? Or am I just, now and always, a sucker for a tee tucked into a mini skirt? Is it the FLOWERS because they look tropical which makes me think of going to, like, Cuba or Guatemala? Or the bare legs, and summer?

Important questions, people, important questions.

Fall Mom Bag

With two deep exterior pockets and a hidden zippered one, drawstring AND buckle closures, adjustable straps and a bangin’ leopard design in washable canvas, this $38 Baggu backpack*** is my Fall #mombag wet dream. And I brought it home a day before Fall officially starts, so don’t say I’m not on top of it.

***FOR SOME GD REASON GOOGLE IS BREAKING THE DIRECT LINK TO THE BACKPACK. So anyone who wants this backpack (and who WOULDN’T) should MANUALLY head over to the Urban Outfitters site to get it. Thank you and goodbye.

A #NYFW Photo Diary

It’s never more apparent that you’re NOT at Fashion Week than when you’re scrolling through Instagram in a leaky nursing bra and men’s underwear, sitting on a maxi pad bleeding like it’s your middle school period. Having a new baby while other Fashion People are at Fashion Week is a great way to feel like a shell of your former self, and I know this because I’ve had a new baby during two Fashion Weeks and felt compelled to write about it in the Notes section of two iPhones. (Excerpt from when Kai was straight from the womb, in February 2014: I’m laying perfectly still in a small apartment that rattles because of its proximity to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and I’m wearing a milk-soaked plus-size top by Jessica Simpson and elastic waist leopard-print pants that are bunched up around my knees. Twelve years ago I interned at Vogue with sparkly, interesting people, some of whom have become television celebrities, internationally known editors, wardrobe department icons and acclaimed novelists. And so on, you get the gist.)