Queen for a day

Photo by Flickr user anyjazz65.

I grew up in the mountains, on a ranch, with horses. But somehow I never got bit by the cowgirl bug, er, horsefly.

Maybe it was because I was allergic to every single thing in a barn. Especially dirt. Maybe it was my Barbie "tent bed" that kept me locked in my purple bedroom with a castle of books.

From my purple tower, I watched many childhood friends grow into cowgirls. Beautiful, huge-haired, glittery statues of elegance perched a top those dusty creatures whose manure I was supposed to shovel every Sunday, if it weren't for my (achoo) allergies, sorry Mom.

One friend, Tiffany (of course that was her name), competed for rodeo queen. She got fake nails, her teeth bleached and hair extensions, and every other inch of hair from her body removed. She even waxed her face.

I remember the horror when she was riding around the arena in the blistering heat, and her cake of makeup began to droop down her cheeks on a Slip 'n Slide of sweat, no longer supported by the tiny folicules of hair. Her blush was on her shoulders by the time she finished. But she won.

It ain't easy being queen.

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Some beauty comes naturally. Some is forced.

This is one of those stories it will be hard to explain to the grandchitterlings, as well as Saint Peter at the golden gates of heaven.

I believe that all humans are innately good, including me and my little brother on the night that we duct-taped our babysitter to the kitchen chair.

We just wanted to do her hair and make-up. And the girl needed it.

She was our neighbor in a mountain dust-hole of, oh, a dozen houses. Our nearest "big city" was Masonville, whose current population -- about 700 people -- has more than quadrupled since I was a kidnapping kid. And little miss Babysitter's Club didn't even have electricity. In the '80s.

Think about that.

Right.

Luckily/unluckily for her, we did.

She thought we were playing a game, until the third roll of duct tape and the realization that she couldn't, in fact, get out of the chair. It was easier to reach her bangs after she rocked the chair onto the floor. We broke her throne and cut her hair, and from her lips we drew a "I'm gonna tell your mom!"

As a talented and, ahem, highly motivated 7-year-old, assisted by my 4-year-old brother, we transformed Laura Ingalls Wilder to Cyndi Awesome Lauper.

Needless to say, the babysitter swore she'd never return, and my parents had to leave her a major tip. That is, after my mom casually remarked, "Your hair looks great. The elephant ears were a risky but good choice," followed by, "Only duct-tape, eh? You got off easy."

Photo by Flickr user Hanna-.

Daylight is putting a cramp in my style

It’s hopeless to look fashionable when you hate mornings as much as I do.

I’ve never woken up feeling rejuvenated or even remotely joyful. My mom used to joke that I have no internal alarm clock. Like some twisted Newton’s Law of Sleep: If I am at rest, I will stay at rest unless acted upon by some outside force. I know you won’t believe me, but I promise after New Year’s 2000, I slept until late Jan. 3.

I am a night-showerer. Back in the day of poufy bangs, I used to do my hair before bed and sleep in a night cap. Everything I do is to maximize the amount of time I can hit snooze in the morning.
And even then, while lying there despising every ounce of sunlight dripping through my blinds, I come up with brilliant ways to compress my morning routine: I can do my mascara in the car (even though most eye injuries are wand-related). Who needs breakfast? Ponytails are cute. My dog can hold it nine more hours while I’m at work; he already held it through the night. Heck, I can hold it, too.

As a little girl, I used to sleep in the clothes I wanted to wear the next day. And by “little girl,” I mean intermittently throughout college. And maybe on Tuesday.

My mom did uncover one magic way to crack my eyelids without receiving my fist to her jaw. She would peek through my bedroom door and remind me of my new jelly shoes or banana clip (we’re back in the day, here, folks), and I would feel a flicker of excitement.

Almost enough to drag me out of bed. Almost.

Photo by Flickr user ParanoidMonk.

Rat’s nests, bad dye jobs and other hair tragedies

I heard on the radio this morning that the average woman spends 40 minutes every day doing her hair. Over a lifetime, that’s two years of combing, blow drying, gelling, curling and ratting — usually with the goal to look effortless.

I’d like to think I am helping lower that number. For the first 10 years of my life, I refused to
comb my hair.

I was born trapped under a heavy mountain of what feels like horsehair. A mutation of self-growing wire. And my thick mane wasn’t satisfied with just boiling my scalp to 159 degrees on a hot summer day. It is coarse and curly, so it also tangles easily.

I wasn’t the only person who hated wrestling my head mutant. After eight years of violent combing (thereby removing all sensory capability from my follicles), my mom — who has whisper-thin, straight locks — resigned. She threatened: I didn’t start combing my own hair at least once a week, she would just cut the “rat’s nests” out.

I spent several years of my childhood with an upside-down mullet: short on the underside, long on the top. This was a good five years before it became cool for girls to shave the underside of their hair, cut zigzags into the sides and pull it into a ponytail. Ironically, my mom wouldn’t let me do that.

My mom and I (God bless her on Mother’s Day) have always had a rocky hair relationship. She is a natural brunette who dyes her hair blonde. I’m a natural blonde who dyes my hair brunette. She hates that. Yet she is the person who got me hooked on hair dye — at the tender age of 9.
We constantly lament how expensive it is to keep up our hairy addictions, yet neither of us could imagine being our natural color. Gross. Shudder, shudder.

The economy (oh, the “e” word) doesn’t help. In fact, area hair salons report that beauty is one of the areas taking a big hit, as increasingly more people make cuts (zing!) to race away from the red.

Specifically, more people are opting for store-bought color, which promises you’ll get the same results as if you went to the salon.

But be careful, says Robert DiTacchio, creative director of Jon Ric International Salon and Day Spa in Denver (http://www.jonricdenver.com/). More often than not, he says, people end up spending eight times what they would have if they’d just asked the pros. Eight. Times.
Boxed color costs between $15 and $30. Color correction services to fix your hair after it turns out leopard-spotty begin at $150. Salons across the area have reported a “drastic increase” in these color mess-ups — nearly double during the past year.

Unfortunately, this is a number I am contributing to. In March, I had to seek professional intervention from Fringe Hair Studio in Louisville to abolish a fire-truck red spot that I ignited near my bangs. It took three layers of bleach to conquer.

If only I had consulted someone like DiTacchio beforehand. He recommends calling in the pros when you are dealing with resisting gray, vibrant colors (perhaps fire-truck red?) and blonde. Blonde can turn green or orange. Reds can morph into dull pink.

If you do color at home and you’re not striving for a jungle pattern, get a friend to do it for you, DiTacchio says. It’s hard to see what you’re doing on your own head. The best at-home brand is L’Oreal Professional.

DiTacchio also recommends:
Even if your hair is not as thick and coarse as a cattle rope, hydrate it. Look for products with a low pH balance to seal your cuticles.

Wash color-treated hair in cold water to help close the cuticle and sustain the color longer. I have been doing this for several years, and it is completely miserable, but it works. To counteract the hair icicles, I put my towel in the dryer while I’m showering so it’s nice and toasty when I get out.

Wash your hair less to maintain the natural oils.

Use moisture-rich products, such as Aquage, Pureology and Kenra. If you can only afford drugstore brands, once again opt for L’Oreal.

And finally: Brush your hair — a lot. This is one of the best natural conditioners. Brushing your hair brings the oils from your scalp into the ends.

“I tell all of my clients to brush their hair while they’re watching TV,” DiTacchio says. “The old myth of brushing your hair 100 times before bed is true.”

Hmm.

DiTacchio, my mom totally told you to say that, didn’t she?

Oh, dad. Could there be something to dad’s funny quirks?

By Aimee Heckel, Vanessa Miller, Brittany Anas

AIMEE: I’ll be gone for Father’s Day this year. Not that we call it Father’s Day in my house. I’ve never called my dad “father” or even “dad.”

To outsiders, it is weird that I call my dad “Frog.”

My family has tried to trace the nickname back, sifting through ancient hieroglyphics (the comic strips he drew during boring piano recitals).

We’ve conducted linguistic dissections (Frog rhymes with smog, and he went to college in Chicago – nope, that`s not it).

We’ve also pondered literary techniques, such as the onomatopoeia. (He has big eyes. Could I have thought he looked like a frog when I was a child?)

But when it comes down to it, I don’t know why my dad is Frog. No one does. It just is and always has been.

And that very inexplicable silliness, oddness and uniqueness makes the name that utterly fitting.
Dads, Frog-like or not, are funny creatures. Especially to their daughters.

VANESSA: And dads are always right. Of course they know who won the game. They just can’t remember the exact score; “Remind me again. Oh right, right.” Or, “This Merlot is excellent. …What’s that? No, I mean if it were a Merlot it would be superb. As a Pinot Noir, it’s so-so.”

BRITTANY: Dads are also experts at everything.

I decided 9 p.m. the night before high-school volleyball tryouts one year that I wanted to be on the team. I barely knew the difference between volleyball and pingpong.

Neither did my dad. Yet I was convinced he was once a professional volleyball player. He confidently set up a spotlight in our back yard and taught me how to bump, serve, block and whatever else they do on volleyball courts.

The next day, my techniques were far different from those of the other girls. I may have even tried to head-butt the ball like they do in soccer and hurl it like a dodgeball. Somehow I made the team.

But it was that day I learned you can convince people to give you a chance if you glow with confidence.

AIMEE: My dad’s signature quirk was his white Illinois sweatshirt, which in and of itself was not problematic. Except the whole “white” thing. Because Frog wasn’t a big fan of the “washing machine.” He was, however, a big fan of wearing that sweatshirt every day when he got home from work for, oh, three years.

After a while, it was a rainbow – no, that sounds too pretty, more like a cesspool – of ink, barbecue sauce, car grease, soil, grass stains and mysterious other forms of man grime.

One night, I stole the shirt from him to wash it. But he intercepted. Another time, I hid it from him. When he recovered it, he paid me back by chuckling as he scribbled across the front of it with a fat black marker.

Frog now only gets dark-colored shirts for Christmas.

And despite, or maybe because of, this tragic experience, I`m now obsessed with clothes so much that I make a living writing a fashion column.

BRITTANY: My dad’s laundering skills are actually amazing. He taught me how to iron, and he’s one of those people who neatly sets out his clothes the night before he wears them.

I think it comes with driving a mini-van. My dad swapped his manly Blazer for a stereotypical mom-mobile when I entered middle school.

As a sixth-grade girl, my clique of friends became like a secret society. We tied up our parents’ phone lines to update one another about every second of our days, which was also chronicled in the dozens of notes we folded like origami and delivered through the slots of lockers.

Never did my dad eavesdrop on our conversations or read the notes that I accidentally let slip into the laundry.

He didn’t need to. He had his van.

Dad shuttled me and my group of gabby girlfriends to and from every basketball practice and game.

Have you ever heard a van full of middle school girls quiet? There we spilled all of our juicy secrets that were too good to write in notes and we revealed our crushes, which changed faster than the Baskin Robbins flavor of the day.

And at the front of the van, my dad was our deejay playing MC Hammer and Paula Abdul cassette tapes at a negotiable volume, loud enough that my friends thought he was cool but soft enough that he could hear if the secret society of sixth-grade girls needed any fatherly advice.

VANESSA: The great thing about my dad is there’s pretty much no disguising his errors. Which is why we laugh a lot. “We, ” meaning my mom and I.

Take our weekend trip to the mountains. Heading up to the hills bright and early one winter day, we decided to swing past McDonald`s for some delicious McMuffins or whatever.

Dad pulls up to the ordering box thing and is like, “Hi. We want three McMuffins, a coffee and two Diet Cokes. Hello? Hello? Excuse me. Is anyone there? What’s the matter with you people? It`s your job to take orders, idiots.”

I was lying in the back and decided it was time to step in and calm the old man down. But as I looked out the window at the object of my dad’s ire, I noticed something peculiar. Right. It was a trash can. He had stopped one tan box too early and was cursing out the paper cups and straws that had been innocently discarded.

When we got to the right speaker, my dad tried make himself look less erroneous by continuing his rant with the woman. But she was sweet as could be, and gave us the egg sandwiches pronto.
Escapades like that are almost daily for the dude in the socks and sandals who adds, “things of that nature” to the end of every sentence. “What’s for dinner? What time are we eating? Things of that nature.”

But that’s why he’s perfect. For me. I love to laugh.

AIMEE: Indeed, dads are funny creatures. But intentionally or not, it’s their quirks – the nasty sweatshirt, the McTrashcan, the mini-van – that made all the difference. Those are the experiences that shaped us into who we are today.

Rat's nests, bad dye jobs and other hair tragedies

I heard on the radio this morning that the average woman spends 40 minutes every day doing her hair. Over a lifetime, that's two years of combing, blow drying, gelling, curling and ratting -- usually with the goal to look effortless.

I'd like to think I am helping lower that number. For the first 10 years of my life, I refused to comb my hair.

I was born trapped under a heavy mountain of what feels like horsehair. A mutation of self-growing wire. And my thick mane wasn't satisfied with just boiling my scalp to 159 degrees on a hot summer day. It is coarse and curly, so it also tangles easily.

I wasn't the only person who hated wrestling my head mutant. After eight years of violent combing (thereby removing all sensory capability from my follicles), my mom -- who has whisper-thin, straight locks -- resigned. She threatened: I didn't start combing my own hair at least once a week, she would just cut the "rat's nests" out.

I spent several years of my childhood with an upside-down mullet: short on the underside, long on the top. This was a good five years before it became cool for girls to shave the underside of their hair, cut zigzags into the sides and pull it into a ponytail. Ironically, my mom wouldn't let me do that.

My mom and I (God bless her on Mother's Day) have always had a rocky hair relationship. She is a natural brunette who dyes her hair blonde. I'm a natural blonde who dyes my hair brunette. She hates that. Yet she is the

person who got me hooked on hair dye -- at the tender age of 9.

We constantly lament how expensive it is to keep up our hairy addictions, yet neither of us could imagine being ournatural color. Gross. Shudder, shudder.

The economy (oh, the "e" word) doesn't help. In fact, area hair salons report that beauty is one of the areas taking a big hit, as increasingly more people make cuts (zing!) to race away from the red.

Specifically, more people are opting for store-bought color, which promises you'll get the same results as if you went to the salon.

But be careful, says Robert DiTacchio, creative director of Jon Ric International Salon and Day Spa in Denver (www.jonricdenver.com). More often than not, he says, people end up spending eight times what they would have if they'd just asked the pros. Eight. Times.

Boxed color costs between $15 and $30. Color correction services to fix your hair after it turns out leopard-spotty begin at $150. Salons across the area have reported a "drastic increase" in these color mess-ups -- nearly double during the past year.

Unfortunately, this is a number I am contributing to. In March, I had to seek professional intervention from Fringe Hair Studio in Louisville to abolish a fire-truck red spot that I ignited near my bangs. It took three layers of bleach to conquer.

If only I had consulted someone like DiTacchio beforehand. He recommends calling in the pros when you are dealing with resisting gray, vibrant colors (perhaps fire-truck red?) and blonde. Blonde can turn green or orange. Reds can morph into dull pink.

If you do color at home and you're not striving for a jungle pattern, get a friend to do it for you, DiTacchio says. It's hard to see what you're doing on your own head. The best at-home brand is L'Oreal Professional.

Photo by Flickr user Mark Wheadon.

Thrift store heaven

Me, a child raised only on thrifted clothes.

I remember the first time I shopped in a mall. The store that took my new-clothes virginity was Mervyns.
I will never forget the confusion I felt when I saw my first rack of never-worn clothes. Why were there so many of the same shirt? And what kind of weirdo would buy something knowing that 20 other people would be wearing the exact same thing?

Ah yes. I was a bit of a fashion Encino Girl.

You see, I was raised in a consignment store, the Sweetheart Shop, at the foothills where Loveland met Estes Park. For 11 years, I helped my mom sort, price and organize the clothes people dropped off -- which also meant I had dibs on everything, and no need to visit the mall.

In sixth grade, I made a goal: not to wear the same outfit twice. Sound uppity? Not if you're sneaking clothes in your backpack, wearing them one day and returning them to the rack the next day. Indeed, I was the best-dressed, cheapest-dressed pre-teen at Walt Clark Middle School.

Andy's Girl boots

Years after the Sweetheart Shop closed -- and changed into a hookah bar -- I still haven't changed. In fact, today I made a goal: to put together the cheapest outfit possible. Bright blue jersey dress from a church garage sale: free. Vintage red thick belt with a butterfly clasp: 50 cents from Savers. Red chandelier earrings from a thrift store: $1. Even my red boots were the floor-sample boots that I bought after Boulder designer Andy's Girl closed down, for approximately 5,000 percent off.

My thrifty nature is part of the reason October is one of my favorite months. Sure, there's the pumpkin lattes, the world's biggest dress-up party (aka Halloween) and the chilly, sharp air -- the smell of change.

But October is also Thrift Store Heaven, when all thrift/consignment stores roll out their besties in hopes of reeling in shoppers in need of a wicked costume. For folks who dress up on a daily basis (ahem, ahem), this also translates into the closest equivalent to Vintage Fashion Month.

Which is how I ended up in a basement in Louisville, surrounded by leopard-print dresses, teal cowboy boots, short shirts and long (red) jackets sexy enough for Cake to write a song about.

I'd heard rumblings about the store, Found Underground, but had put off visiting it because, well, honestly, I had no reason to swing by downtown Louisville.

Now I have a reason.

Photo by Jonathan Castner.

It's called floor-length black velour opera coat, $23.

And that's just the beginning. As a self-proclaimed (but difficult to dispute) used-clothing expert, I say Found Underground is one of Boulder County's greatest. Nancy Cooley, of Louisville, says she opened the shop three years ago because she loves funky clothes. As proof: She worked at the Ritz clothing and costume store in Boulder for 12 years, where, in her words, "I raised my kids. Yes, I raised my kids in a store."
(My eyebrows perk up.)

Daily Camera photo

Found Underground, at 901 Main St., is entirely recycled, from the racks to hangers. It carries all kinds of goodies, from Betsey Johnson to labelless retro to belly-dancer costumes to prom dresses, which Cooley sells on a sliding scale for lower-income high-schoolers.

The store carries quality consignment clothes at thrift-store prices. And after four to six weeks, everything that hasn't yet sold moves into a half-off room, which rivals even Salvation Army prices, but with the style and brands of Boulder's upscale consignment stores, such as Rags.

I'm talking $12 for a black formal gown from Macy's, with tags; $28 for a red vintage skirt and suit jacket; $12 for never-worn brown and pink round-toe Steve Madden heels -- the same heels I brought at the Steve Madden store for, um, add a zero.

It was the teal Justin mid-calf boots that got me. I have the twin pair of these boots, but in bright purple. I bought mine in worse condition at Urban Outfitters, as part of the Urban Renewal line, for $80. At Found Underground, the nearly immaculate teal sisters are $20.

They're not my size, but I almost bought them anyway. There are some deals that surpass reason.

Read more at Dailycamera.com. 

Study up

When I was in fifth grade, I played "school" with my poodle. I dressed up like a teacher (in glasses, of course. Duh, all teachers wear glasses) - and taught him what little math I knew.

Master Rude Dude, the poodle, didn't learn anything. But I did: that teaching is not my thang.

That's the disclaimer.

Against better judgment, I've decided to steal this moment to teach some new fashion-related terminology. Some is original Heckel vernacular, likely conjured after a few (eight) glasses of Riesling. Other expressions have seeped out of fellow fashionistas.

Let the lesson begin:

Prippie - My friend, who looks identical to Reese Witherspoon, calls herself a "Prippie." That is, a preppy hippie. As she describes it, "I'm an Anne Taylor Loft-wearing, yoga-doing, toe-ring-wearing, hair-dying Boulderite."

Her celly ring tone: "Love Train," by the O'Jays. What is more hippie than urging people around the world to join hands and start a love train, a love train? Yet the simple act of having a personalized ring tone thrusts said person into the preppy circle.

The Prippie character is epitomized by my friend's necklace: a heart chakra charm necklace. Sterling silver and trendy, while evoking the center of one's being from which feelings of love emanate.

Yippie - This species, the confounding cross between a yuppie and hippie, is prevalent in Boulder. Rich, upwardly mobile - and socially and environmentally conscious? It can't be. But, alas, it is. You will recognize the Yippie by the mode of transportation: a Saab with Grateful Dead stickers.

Yippies tend to be older than Prippies. They live in zillion-dollar houses, but wear clothes from consignment stores. Flowy, rayon pant suits and carved wooden jewelry bought during their recent African safari - to support the native handiwork, of course. Even though that sparkling Pellegrino they chug after spinning class costs more than those natives make in four months.

Gippie - I refute this term, but mostly because it pegs me: the gangster hippie. Generally a younger breed, college-age or quarter-life-crisis types who listen to hip-hop, recycle everything and confusingly pair massive J-Lo-style hoop earrings with coconut-wood bracelets from the consignment store.

These creatures feast at independent coffee shops, cry about the injustice in the world and deal with their plaguing woes by downing a few glasses of Hennessey and shaking their money makers on the bar counter in LoDo. They spend their free time volunteering with Habitat for Humanity and posting rumors about their so-called friends on MySpace.com, where their profile song is by Diddy.

Beturning - Buy + return = beturn. Not that I have ever done this, and I certainly don't condone it, but hypothetically speaking, if one were to, say, buy an object with the sole intention of using it one time and returning it, one would be practicing the act of beturning.

Hanger appeal - When an object looks fantastic on the hanger, although not necessarily on the body. A nicely designed window - reeking of hanger appeal - at the mall might cause someone to look twice. Unlike the windows at American Apparel on Pearl Street, where headless mannequins have been seen dressed like aliens wearing metallic gold underwear, T-shirts and leg warmers. This is an example of hanger repellent.

The following are courtesy of www.urbandictionary.com, where I do most of my studying:

Mullet ratio - In the words of Urban Dictionary: "A mathematical term used to describe how extreme a mullet hairstyle is. It is found by comparing how long the hair on top of the head is compared with how long the hair hangs at the back of the neck." The larger the metric discrepancy, the more awesome the mullet ratio.

Thrifting - Comparable to bar-hopping, but with shopping. One hits up various thrift shops in search of the cheapest and most interesting clothing.

Tag hag - I had a roommate who intentionally hung her clothes in the closet with the tags sticking out so I could see how much she paid for her camis and cardigans. A tag hag is a person who asserts her (or his) self-worth by donning - and flaunting - overpriced clothes.

A Tag Hag would never partake in thrifting, but is a frequent offender in the beturning realm.

Originally published 11/16/06 at dailycamera.com. 

I'm touchy

I wish this were me, but it is not. Photo from Flickr user dovima_is_devine_II.

1/5/2006

I am a fabric freak.

I own multiple shirts that are hideous, but soft. I recently dumped an entire day`s salary on an Urban Outfitters blazer because the velvet was so luscious, it felt like it was making out with my fingers when I touched it.

My bed is a nest of satin, fur, suede, goose down, fleece and crisp cotton; I couldn`t pick just one. Or even three.

I once brought a handbag into said bed and slept with it on my cheek because the leather felt like butta. I later caught myself walking down the street fondling the purse and murmuring sweet nothings to it. I caressed it until it fell apart, and then I mourned.

Some people are crazy over colors or scents or eras. My style revolves largely around touch.
This has been a life-long thing. I still go to the same family doctor in Loveland that I went to as a kid. When I walk in the door, the nurses and receptionist start laughing.

It`s always the same: “Hey, aren`t you the girl who used to wear slips and petticoats on the outside of her clothes?”

Yes. That is me. Don`t make fun. Slips are silky.