Signature scent

My grandmother had a signature scent. It was Giorgio, by Giorgio Beverly Hills. Every Christmas, she would receive a new yellow-and-white striped box of it. Every time I'm missing her really bad, I go to the Macy's perfume counter and get a sample and I'm right back in her arms.

For that reason, I love the idea of a signature scent. I'm a perfume girl--for the past few years, my go-to has been Vanillary by Lush. But normal perfumes are too harsh for poor little Lulu's sensitive skin, and so I had to stop wearing perfume after everything I tried made her break out into a rash.

But I think I might have found a compromise.

L'Occitane's Mom & Baby Water has a gentle almond smell with a light floral note, sort of like if clean laundry and vanilla sugar cookies had a baby. It's so mild that it won't cling to baby's hair and skin and stink her up, but it's got staying power to last through the day. It's alcohol free, and enriched with glycerin, which means that it won't harm sensitive skin.

I love the memories that smells evoke and I love the fact that this scent (along with Burts Bees Baby Bee!) will always evoke for me the first months of motherhood.

What's your signature scent? Are there any kid-friendly perfumes that you just adore?

(Dried spit-up doesn't count. Because nobody adores that.)

Fighting the Frump: Coffee Shop Edition

Today, I get to go out and have coffee with a friend, sans children. After working crazy hours to get a project done last week, Carl's been able to be home all this week, so when my friend sent me a note on FB and said, hey, want to get together on Thursday, and oh, should we go out or stay in, I said GO OUT.

And then I immediately started thinking about what to wear.

Any winter outfit for me automatically starts with my boots, and I can't find any pictures that show them. I have two pair of tall boots, one black (that are awesome), and one brown (that are not quite awesome, but still pretty terrific. When I want to look good, and more important, feel like I look good, I wear the boots.

So if I'm going to wear boots, I am going to wear skinny jeans, so I can pull the boots over them and show them off better. And if I'm going to wear skinny jeans, I better wear something on top that comes down to or past my hips. Because hips, I haz them, and while they were very useful when it came time to give birth, they don't always look the loveliest in skinny jeans.

Which leads me to ...

The long open cardigan. My new BFF, next to my boots.

photo courtesy of banana republic

I have two LOCs, one in white and one in purple. I want one in black or grey, one in brown, and one in either red or yellow or orange - something bright and unexpected that I could wear with my neutral-colored t-shirts and not blend into the background (something I do all too well on my own, without my clothes helping).

I love that I can throw these on over any ordinary outfit and - voila! warmth and style. Or I can wear them with a dressy outfit to add a touch of flair. My mom's a big fan of boyfriend cardigans (and she looks good in them), but I like the flowiness of the LOC.

They are multi-seasonal, too - wear them over long sleeves, and they are great in fall and winter, over short sleeves and they are perfect for spring or even cool summer days.

In short, they are awesome.

So, the coffee shop outfit today? Brown boots, skinny jeans, teal shirt, white LOC, and my own weird eclectic mix of jewelry - brown tigers eye earrings my sister made, gold dove necklace I've had since I was about twelve, the ubiquitous copper cuff, and copper twisted bangle that I made back when my sister was first starting out in the silversmithing (and other metals) business and I thought it might be fun to try my hand at a piece of jewelry, too. The soldering job is terrible, but it's still a fun statement item.

Oh, and I even straightened my hair. It looks nice, but it's tickling my neck more than ever and reminding me rather urgently that I am far overdue for having it all chopped off.

photo courtesy of my husband. I was supposed to be smiling - not sure why it looks more like a sneer.

What's your go-to item(s) in your wardrobe that help you make any outfit a good one?

Accepting the Frump - Sometimes

"No pictures of me," I told Carl sternly as I handed the camera over to him. Normally the camera is mine, but Gracie was snuggling in my arms, and I would rather cuddle my baby then try to capture the moments of Joy's third birthday celebration in as many weeks. "I haven't showered today," I reminded him.

He grinned cheekily, and started snapping.

I considered deleting the pictures. After all, we had plenty more of Joy opening presents. And these are B-A-D of me - not only do you get the greasy hair, you get the stress breakout, a nice clear side shot of the receding chin, my rounded shoulders - pretty much highlighting everything I hate most about my appearance.

But then I decided to keep them. And not only to keep them, but to put them up on the public blog. Why?

Because sometimes, fighting the frump doesn't mean looking our best. Sometimes it means living in the moment, and looking part the imperfections to the fact that these are pictures of me lovin' on and snugglin' with my babies. These are the moments of mommyhood I really want to capture, not the moments when I actually have washed hair and makeup on, and I am conscious of my posture.

Well, ok, I wouldn't mind if I was conscious of my posture all the time. I really should be. 

But still. 

Sometimes fighting the frump means raising our chin (hey, it elongates our neck!) and stepping out bravely into the world, or in front of the camera, even knowing we are covered in baby spit, wearing yoga pants, with two-day unwashed hair scraped back into a ponytail, etc. Because that's all part of being mommy, and we shouldn't be ashamed of it. We ought to be able to celebrate every moment of mommyhood, even the unglamourous ones.

So I'm keeping the pictures, and I'm not even going to flinch when I look at them.

But I will double-check to see if my shoulders are back and my neck straight.

Dressing up yoga pants

Probably no article of clothing in the SAHM wardrobe is as reviled as the yoga pant. For some reason, people have complicated feelings about them. I don't really understand why. I am a longtime aficionado of the yoga pant. I work at home; I have worn yoga pants for years. I wore yoga pants on the regular, even before I ever dreamt of becoming a mom. And so I've picked up a tip or two for dressing up yoga pants, making them look less like pajamas and more like real, honest-to-goodness clothing. Today I am feeling generous, and so I will pass on these tips to you. Are you ready? OK then.

The first rule of dressing up yoga pants is that you don't dress up yoga pants.

If you do a google search for "dressing up yoga pants" you will find pages and pages of suggestions for adding things like blazers and high-heeled boots to complete the look. I caution you against doing this. You will not look hip, or chic, or like you are not wearing yoga pants. You will look like one of those kids' books, where you can flip the pages and make the doctor wear clown shoes. You will look like you are playing a game called "can anyone guess I am not wearing ACTUAL PANTS?" (HINT: we can, girl. WE ALWAYS CAN.)

The thing to do, instead, is to let the yoga pants be yoga pants, and build an outfit around them. It will not be an outfit you can wear interchangeably with other outfits. If you're going to a WOH job, or to dinner with friends, or church or a DAR meeting or a night out at a bar? FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, wear real pants. But if you are going to spend your day running after kids and crawling around on the floor and doing school drop offs? You can still look cute and chic.

Here are my strategies for making this work.

1. Pick a non-yoga yoga pant. By which I mean: don't get one with obvious athletic details. Unless you plan to use the pant for actual athletic activity. You want your fabric to breathe. You don't want seams in weird places or a sheeny butt. You want something cotton, with stretch. Something like the slim flare yoga pants from American Eagle:


2. Wear a shirt. (Duh). But I mean: a real shirt. Not an oversized tee you yanked from your husband's drawer. Nothing with the name of an athletic sportswear manufacturer; no gigantic Nike swoops. Not anything made of running material, unless you are trying to fake the "I've just been to the gym" thing. (Or you have actually been to the gym).

The key is to treat the yoga pants the way you would your favorite pair of old, worn in jeans, the ones you had in high school and that still fit, the ones that feel like velvet from the dryer. You wouldn't wear them out to dinner with friends with a silk-chiffon blouse. You'd toss on a cute cotton tee. Preferably with some sort of detailing to keep it from being too plain.

Right now, my go-to shirt to fulfill this requirement is the pintucked burnout tee from the Gap:


There are some really cute sweatshirts out there right now, but I'd save them to wear with jeans. Pair them with yoga pants and the whole things gets very sweatsuity, very fast.

2. Wear real shoes, too. By which I mean: not running shoes. Or Uggs. When in doubt, go for ballet flats, but be careful to choose a pair that's casual (No patent leather, no sequins, no calf's hair or Tory Burch logos). This doesn't have to mean boring, though:

Chains = not boring.

Pop of yellow = also not boring.

Do you have a pair of Chuck Taylors? If not, I highly suggest investing in a pair. They come in literally every color/shade/permutation under the sun and are probably the singlemost important item to keeping yoga pants looking cute and fun instead of sad and boring.


3. Add a bold accessory. Nothing dainty or flashy. Stay away from glittery or iridescent and focus on bright, bold, primary colors. Think about something like this:


A necklace like this is an outfit maker--throw it on with a plain white t-shirt and suddenly you look like you know what you're doing. A necklace like this and mascara can make a hospital gown look like it cost $178 at Anthropologie.

Helpful hint: I like to keep a necklace hanging on the front doorknob so that I can drop it over my head on my way out to the store, the library, or playgroup.

A scarf immediately adds depth and interest and texture to an otherwise drab outfit and draws the attention toward the face in the same way a bold necklace does. I like this circle scarf from American Apparel because it doesn't have loose ends that hang down in your soup (or the baby's blowout diaper, depending on how your day is going).



Bonus points: It also looks like it would be really great for breastfeeding. Score!


4. You're going to want a cute jacket. This rough tweedy number is mine.

The Ann Taylor catalog people have dressed it up here, but trust me: it works great with a more casual look, too.

5. Wear your yoga pants with confidence. Repeat after me: There is NO SHAME in yoga pants. You are a mom: you run around all day mashing bananas, gluing macaroni to cardboard, wiping up snot and poop and puke. Nurses do some of these things, and they're allowed to wear scrubs. And orthopedic shoes. In public. And nobody bats an eyelash.

You should hold you head high. If there's one thing I've learned in my nearly 30 years on the planet, it's that you can get away with a lot if you act like you're the shit. You've followed my rules, you're wearing cute shoes. So don't mind the haters. They're just jealous of your boob scarf.


How much do you love your yoga pants? What are your tips for making them work?

Hair-Raising Tales

This weekend, Joy and I had a special mother-daughter day at the salon. We both got our hair cut, she trimmed back up to her usual stacked bob, and me with a brand-new look (Carl and Grace, btw, were whoopin' it up at Panera Bread and the pet store, celebrating the fact that Grace never, ever poops in her underwear anymore, something her year-and-a-half older sister has yet to master).

Hair is hard, as a mom. Harder even than it was before kids, when I had time and no talent for it. Now I have no time and still no talent, but the last thing I want is to end up with the dread "Mom hair." So about every six months to a year, I get a new style, just to make sure I'm not falling into a hair slump.

This time, I took in a picture of Scarlett Johansson, and told my hairdresser: "Make it so."

Now, not even my wildly talented hairdresser could make me look like ScarJo. But she did an awesome job on my hair. Don't you think?





















My hair drags my face down if it gets too long, but the one pixie cut I had, even though I loved it, was not very flattering to my face. So something betwixt and between is perfect. And this one is great, because I can either scrunch some mousse in, blow-dry it, and leave it (like the above picture) for a casual everyday look, or I can straighten it, even pin it back, if I want to go more elegant. And it's long enough in the front that I can pull it back partway to keep it out of my face while cooking or playing with littles.

So, it meets all my criteria - easy to maintain, not too short but not too long, looks stylish, and totally works for my writer's image.

As for the littles - Joy's stacked bob is perfect for her pixie-ish personality and penchant for preppy style.

Grace's head is a mass of curls, and it's all I can do to keep them from a frizz-fest. I've started conditioning almost every day, and only shampooing twice a week, and that helps. Mostly, I'm looking forward to when they are long enough to pull back in a ponytail. Thank goodness, her hair is still fine enough that combing it isn't difficult. If that changes, it's back to the hairdresser with you, kid, for short hair!

Whew. Being stylish - keeping three of us neat and easy AND stylish - is a lot of work. Good thing Carl takes care of his own hair.

Fighting the Frump: September Style

 

September is one of my favorite months, when it comes to getting dressed. You get to do fun things like boots, and scarves, and sweaters, but you aren't in full-blown Winter Wear yet. Hurrah!

I really, really wanted to stay in my pajamas today, but I had promised to start this series on trying to keep some sense of style even with littles around, so I dutifully showered and got dressed, and even applied a little makeup. Clearly my self-photography skills need some work, but I think you can get the general idea here.

 I love me a skinny scarf for dressing up the most basic outfit. And these copper flats are my go-to shoe this time of year. The top is a basic Old Navy t-shirt that I altered at the shoulder seams so that it didn't hang down my front and get me in danger of being arrested for indecent exposure every time I picked up one of my kids. That's the trick with clothing, I've found - you don't necessarily have to buy the expensive stuff, but either have someone who sews alter it to fit properly, or do it yourself if you have the ability (and the time). It looks so much more polished! J'adore stripes, don't you? So very French, and very chic. I've had the skinny jeans for a while - I have to wear them with long-ish shirts, but I do love how they visually lengthen my legs. And they look awesome with flats or with boots, which is a definite plus in my book!

So this is my basic style every day (well, every day that I do get out of my pajamas): simple and neat, with a touch of flair somewhere, just to make it distinctive. As for makeup, I don't usually bother with much, but I do like to wear mascara and lipstick if I'm going out, just for a more finished look.

This copper cuff is my favorite piece of jewelry, ever. My sister is a silversmith, and I wear as much of her jewelry as I can pilfer from her stash, but there is something about copper that I love even more than silver. This cuff is one-of-a-kind; my sister picked it up for me at a jewelry show she was selling at years ago. This cuff goes with me on every trip, even if I don't think I'm going to wear it, because along with my wedding ring, it's the one piece of jewelry I would be devastated to lose if my house ever burned down. If I ever find a pair of earrings to complement it, I will be delirious with happiness.

Well, there you have it: nothing terribly fancy, just a mom trying to keep up a semblance of style. There are days when yoga pants are certainly a girl's best friend, but having kids doesn't mean we have to turn into frumps, right?

Right!

Whoops! How did this one get in here? My little ham.

Edited to add: By 5:00 today, the shoes were appropriated by the four-year-old; the scarf was long gone; and the hair was pulled back out of my face. Just to keep it real. But the cuff stayed on all day!