Half a new face and a dozen shiny things

This is getting tricky, friends

Apr 17, 2024

So, dear TIDBTW readers, after I gave myself another week to arrive at home – letting textile artist Julia S. Riedel do the talking – it’s time to check back in. How are you? So little and so much has happened. When you don’t consume, but still see it all. It’s mid April and while flying through the first three months of this year, buying-wise, I now understand why that was relatively fun: it was indeed winter. Now, parallel to the sun, oh-all these possibilities are here. It’s getting tough. Let’s look into it!

Does a brooch count as jewelry?

It’s not like I have seen many people wearing them, but all of a sudden, brooches are constantly on my mind. It really hit me when I opened Carola Pojer’s newsletter THE INSPIRATION CLUB the other day, as you can tell by my immediate screenshot aka bookmark:

There is something so conservatively pleasing about two shiny buttons placed on a neat blazer. In my late teens I used to wear brooches, but more likely glittery dragonflies (I’m not even kidding) and now I wish my interest had been a little more refined. But all is not too late, for you at least, as I have found this piece. More of an investment than the silver & goldish COS duo for sure, but in many ways hopefully longer lasting:

SHANNON BOND is my new crush in things I can’t afford this week, and this brooch is as gorgeous as it is massive. Good price value if you ask me!

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If you like your silver in plate form all across your body, SHANNON BOND also offers the matching earrings. I love that they are siblings, not twins (this makes me think of my eyebrows and you will soon read why) and I honestly feel like they look great on anyone (unlike my eyebrows). And probably double as tiny mirrors for light morse code in case you need it:

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On a equally heavy but more sleek path are these dish earrings by PHOEBE PHILO. Counting the days until MANGO or ZARA will come up with a copy. Oh wait, they already kinda did.

PHOEBE PHILO Medaillon Dish Earrings in silver, yes please.

Apropos dish, I feel like silver plates are back back. In a small renaissance they keep popping up in my feed and at my friends’ houses. Suddenly I feel the urge to sew a little white cloth that goes under whichever treat I’d like to serve and all of this couldn’t be more nostalgic. Of course steel has been all around us and I want a kitchen like this more than ever. But in a way I feel like we are all looking for a clean way out, out of everything on our world’s plate, so to speak.

Anyway, I found this little one at the fleamarket in Salernes recently for 2 euros and it only started my new found love for shiny things in our household. Fingerprints are a nightmare though, so how do you even touch them.

I then finally learned this week that the best thing one can put on such silver plate is actually butter with lemon and orange zest (deliciously made by Studio beurre).

Don’t mind the used baby diaper bin bag underneath

Speaking of buttery looks, but actually soap – circling back to jewelry, I had a feeling that STUDIO ENA might have been ahead of Philo & Co. And rightly so, these tiny drops go perfectly in your ear solo or as a dozen, I also adore this more round version. Currently sold out, but maybe we can bring it back? (Made on request.)

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Can I buy a new face instead?

So now that we arrived at soap via butter, how am I going to clean up for spring? What is she doing if she can’t buy new clothes? Exactly, she goes right at her face. In France I tried to stay away from my phone and especially instagram for as much as I could. I can really see my self-esteem crumble every time I open the app. In the way that I suddenly feel like I need all these items or look a certain way, age a certain way. Funnily enough, I recently let go of mascara all together, apart from when I need to look – you guessed it – a certain way. Which is partly my effort to practice radical acceptance (my face is my face is my face), but thinking of it, it’s actually also a trend. The new luxury, and I might be late to notice, is looking like you don’t need to do anything, not even put on mascara to open up your tired eyes. Maybe just a very expensive lip balm. Everything seems effortless, less make-up, but more made up. It’s not enough to simply lay off the concealer. Your skin should still look really really good.

Soft Kylie or go home

So what do you do when you are an actual human being under your tinted balm? While Soft Kylie might be out of reach, we are supposed to at least try. Or rather try affording whatever she does! A very refreshing (and young) counterexample are Reese and Molly Blutstein in my opinion. They wear their acne cream as they do their bare face – out in the open. So regarding the status of beauty, you may be infuriated, feel the pressure, keep doing your thing, but then when you return to the big city, so does the self-consciousness about your own face. Do I need fillers to re-enter? Does your self worth, your emancipation, positively mirror in your beauty spendings? Are we slowly losing it or are we getting somewhere. I listened to this episode of the RETHINKING WELLNESS podcast a while ago, nothing but steady rain on my face, and I especially liked the reaffirmation that comparing yourself to celebrities (or fellow metropolitans) who have all these treatments at hand, could be kind of unfair:

So instead of the (inevitable) botox intervention, just when I felt kind of comfortable with my complexion – the second I was back in B I went as far as chemicals could take me: booked cut and color with my beloved Taiga (I’m insisting on being his most boring client, you’ll see why) and went full blonde again. Love it!!!! Not sure why I waited so long. And then I finally went for a lash and brow lift. Give me everything that doesn’t count as clothes! Thank god, I didn’t put cosmetics in my rules. The lash lift was a no brainer. I have long but very straight lashes and everything that gives the impression of a few hours + to my night sleep, is a welcome tool. It’s the plain truth, this does GOOD. But the brow thing, that’s something new in my 39 years history of having skin:

Adding SHANNON BOND Moon earrings here please. I can see it! Lip bruise powered by my sons tiny fingernails, apart from that I am wearing GLOSSIER futuredew, if you like a slightly wet face, this is for you.

And I’m still not sure whether this is for me. My initial feeling was panic. My brows barely survived the late 90s, now they have grown on me. Maybe I took my relaunch too far. But then again, as I walked into our flat after the appointment I took the above selfie, to ask my friend to review. And I was surprised. Me, who appreciates a mirror photo but is falling short on actual selfies circa since iPhone 5, I kind of like this. Maybe this is good on camera? Or to translate the selfie-currency into IRL feelings, maybe a little lift, a little help isn’t all that bad.

Half a new face and a dozen shiny things

This is getting tricky, friends

Does a brooch count as jewelry?

Can I buy a new face instead?

Soft Kylie or go home

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