It is possible to look good and stay fabulous when you travel – even on 17 hour trips in seriously questionable conditions, I swear! If you don’t believe me, check out my Afghanistan videos here.
And now, it’s all in video format my duckies – thanks to Maybelline, which hired me to be in their Master Class series. And so, without further ado, here is how to stay fresh and fab on the road:
Ever been on the road and realized you forgot your make up bag and started mentally kicking yourself, because that shizz is expensive to replace? I’ve been there – but there is a super cheap, if perhaps not the most sanitary, answer: kohl.
When I was visiting with the bedouin in Jordan, my friend Suleiman took me to see his (female) neighbor who decided that I needed some… beautifying.
Related: Ladies Night in Jordan: Not as Tame as You’d Think
“Women wear kohl for weddings,” Suleiman explained.
“Um, I’m not getting married anytime soon,” I said, kind of laughing, while looking around for an exit. “Really. I’m NOT.”
“It is not just for that,” Suleiman quickly added.
This is what I thought I was going to look like…
According to Suleiman, kohl around the eyes can do pretty much everything but watch your goats, including: protect your eyes from the sun, cure styes, and grow your eyelashes. I also started envisioning myself as Elizabeth Taylor/Cleopatra, so, I figured “why not?”
Related: How to Go Full Local in Jordan
Suleiman’s neighbor then cooked up a batch of kohl by putting an iron pot over a burning fire, and scraping the blackened char off.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“That’s it,” Suleiman said as his neighbor came at me to apply it with a matchstick end.
“Oh well. I’ve come this far,” I thought. “I’ve had my tetanus shot and my health insurance is still active so… why not?”
The result:
Not exactly Elizabeth Taylor… but you get the idea.
I was just psyched that when she insisted on doing my eyebrows, the neighbor (who refused to be named or photographed due to her custom) didn’t give me a unibrow. I had enough of that in high school. Fun fact: Kohl doesn’t come off easily so you will have the Cleopatra look for about two days. Hot.
I later realized I looked familiar. Like I’d just been to a celebrity lookalike camp and drawn the short straw. I now present the evidence:
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Not sure but her older sister’s in the Jordanian desert!
For more on the Suleiman and the bedouin lifestyle, check out this video in which I name a goat (who will likely be eaten soon), and gulp down desert coffee like a caffeine addicted camel:
Several weeks ago, Miss Universe pageant officials, naively or not, asked me if I wanted to come down for a few days for a Miss Congeniality-esque experience while the 88 women who had qualified from their respective countries got ready for the big night.
Of course I did.
Now, I am not exactly a pageant-type girl. I am small, I am prone to muffin top, and I shun high heels. But, in the search for new experiences, why not?
So I packed a bag and flew down with the A Broad Abroad crew to Doral, Florida, and primed myself for the Miss Universe Experience.
Day 1 was all about the look.
I showed up at the ballroom of the Trump Doral ready to represent the Galaxy of Ohio, quadrant Cincinnati, with a red T-shirt that read, “Nobody Puts Cincy in the Corner.” The ballroom had been turned into a glam room, complete with rows of hair and makeup stands, racks of bedazzled dresses that would have made RuPaul’s eyes bleed with envy, and more Chinese Laundry shoes than a Payless in Topeka.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk19KRj_AA8
I went to Oaxaca for the Day of the Dead celebration this year because why the hell not, eh? And because it was super cool and rocked the house. And because I wanted to do it right, I went full Catarina Dead Lady… For those of you who have never seen a Tim Burton movie or have lived in a shoe box, the Day of the Dead is, according to Frances Ann Day in “Latina and Latino Voices in Literature”:
“On October 31, All Hallows Eve, the children make a children’s altar to invite the angelitos (spirits of dead children) to come back for a visit. November 1 is All Saints Day, and the adult spirits will come to visit. November 2 is All Souls Day, when families go to the cemetery to decorate the graves and tombs of their relatives.”
Aaaaand they dress up just like Halloween. PS: DO YOU KNOW HOW FRICKING HARD IT IS TO TAKE THAT SHELLACK OFF? REALLY HARD! After the jump Check out more pics Continue reading
Oh Heeeyyyyyyyyy….
Throughout history, women have always had things done to them to make them “beautiful.” Nowadays, we pluck, wax, shave, inject, and silicon bag ourselves all so we can be pretty. But the saddest part is, due to globalisation, everyone kind of looks the same.
When traveling and visiting historical sites or archaeological digs, you quickly start to realize that that chick to the left in the Santa suit would’ve been passed over by pretty much every guy on the planet a few hundred years ago. Back in the day, before airplanes and all that, beauty was pretty subjective and every region had it’s own idea of what was hot. Most of which we’d find pretty hideously fascinating today.
Take for example the Mayans. Now they used to think women with flat foreheads, crossed eyes and razor sharp, piranha like teeth were the shizznit. So, according to my guide in Chichicastenanga (Guatemala), when Mayan girls were very young, boards would be tied to their heads with a bead hanging from it (so the eyes would be trained to cross) and their teeth were filed to sharp points to look like Jaws. Don’t even get me started on what their talent would be… I have no clue. But the imagination boggles – biting through trees? Severing chicken heads? Pillaging neighboring Incan villages?
Hello, gorgeous…