Listen to your inner child, or my outer child

I used to think one of the main responsibilities of being a mom was to teach your children how to survive and thrive in this world. Now that my daughter is 1, I realize it is her main job to teach me.

Being a mom has taught me a lot, such as how to decipher the fine line between OxiClean and Dumpster; between overturned milk and upchucked milk; and between "ba-ba," "bay-bay," "buh-buh" and "beh-beh" (respectively, that would be bottle, baby, bye-bye and encyclopedia).

But even beyond improved stain-removal, Bettie Anne has also taught me a lot about fashion.

Here are six of her Rules of Excellent Style:

1. Be adventurous with hair products.

Why limit yourself to Burt's Bees shampoo and spray-on conditioner? (In fact, any kind of soap should be avoided by employing such high-pitched, hysterical screaming that the dogs start whining. More on bath time below.)

Don't be limited by societal norms. Apple sauce makes a great mousse. Vanilla yogurt can craft a strong Mohawk. Tip: Be careful not to get any of these styling products in your ear canal, or it will completely destroy your mood and thereby your parents' day.

2. Shoes are the most important thing in the world.

The absolute first thing you should do when you wake up every morning is look for all of the shoes in your bedroom and point them out. Then, before you get out of your pajamas or eat or do anything, make sure at least one pair of shoes is on your feet. Even better if you can succeed in putting two pairs of shoes on each foot. Tip: The way to put shoes on is to simply lie them on top of the foot and clap proudly.

The remainder of the morning should be spent taking all of your shoes out of their cubbyholes and then replacing them in a different order. This inventory-stocking and reorganizing method will help keep your shoe supply at the forefront of your mind.

At the end of the day, make sure you bring all of your shoes and at least three pairs of socks into the bathtub with you to make sure the water does not eat you alive. Which brings us to point three.

3. Enjoy your beauty regimen; avoid that which doesn't delight.

In my case, that means bathe sparingly. Water is liquid Satan and will probably melt your face off if it touches it. Plus, it removes the pureed pears from your hair and will destroy your updo (and any yam-mush mascara you may have applied earlier). If you hear the evil hiss of bath water, hide under your purple unicorn pillow and look cute.

Tip for surviving bath time: Make sure your tub is filled with enough shoes to ward off the bubbles, which actually erase your feet, which means you have nothing to put shoes on, which is why you need to fill the tub with shoes and socks. It's obvious and very logical.

4. Twirl until you fall down.

Self-explanatory.

5. It's OK to indulge.

When you think you're wearing enough jewelry, put on three more necklaces. Wear bracelets from wrist to shoulder. There are never "too many bows." Bettie Anne's favorite outfit involves 17 different ruffles. Tip for boosting your ruffle ratio: Beautiful socks can pack at least three more layers.

6. Remember: Your clothes are only as versatile as your imagination.

Drape your leggings around your neck like a scarf. Sit on your hat. Put your pants on your head.
In fact, almost everything looks wonderful on top of the head: underwear, wash clothes, books, cups. Warning: Sometimes cups are filled with (shudder) water. This is why it's always good to have at least four pairs of shoes within screaming distance. For protection.

Highly advanced tip: Look for cups filled with applesauce. Then you can style your hair with your hat. It's like hat hair. Only sticky. And totally food-based and organic, in honor of Earth Day.

Photo by Iman Woods.

Every thorn has its rose

There are so many ways to describe the crowd at the Bret Michaels concert, and all of them start with "you might be a redneck if."

Of course, this noun can be swapped out for any of its synonyms, including but not limited to: Grizzly Rose regular, "Rock of Love" contestant reject, non-ironic mullet-sporter, Peopleofwalmart.com star and candidate for "What Not to Wear."

Now, I'm not excluding myself from this scene. I recently cut my hair into a concoction that looks like if Joan Jett's hair invited David Bowie's wig in "Labyrinth" out for a drunken night at the strip club. And I'll be gosh darned to heck if I don't want nothing but a good time. Which is exactly what I got at this brief concert -- yes, double-negative and all.

This experience also taught me how tragically many folks out there need a few style tips.
Like for reals.

Read more here: http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_18074374

Photo of Bret Michaels? by Flickr user camknows.

Treat your meat

In college, I used to write horoscopes. The catch: I'm not psychic. At all.

Now that I'm geriatric and wiser, and also not even remotely trained in the medical field, I do medical prognostications. For example, my recent self-diagnosis.

Symptom: Busted and bloody knuckles.

Diagnosis is one of the following:

1. I was in a cage fight with Hellboy's giant red fist of destruction.
2. I have been playing Quarters, a game I haven't played since seventh-grade lunch, whereby your opponent flicks a quarter across the table at your knuckles. The point: to bleed and not weep, to show the pre-pube world how tough, careless and stupid you are.
3. I am a self-punishing zombie cannibal. live in Colorado, and it is the dry season, which is every season.
4. live in Colorado, and it is the dry season, which is every season.

You don't need a psychic to tell you that obviously the answer is number three.

I also live in a parched and crackled prairie field in east Boulder County, and when I'm not gnawing on my hands for lunch, I spend my spare time picking at my hangnails and trying different hand lotions. In fact, the entire top three shelves of my pantry is a reject pile of lotions that worked great for 20 minutes, before my thirsty scales sucked out all of their moisture and turned them into pathetic bottles of dust.

I think my scales have found their match: Weleda Skin Food, discovered at Boulder's Pharmaca (or usa.weleda.com, $18 for 2.5 ounces). Besides magic, this German-brand hand lotion also contains essential fatty acids and vitamin E in organic sunflower seed oil; organic and antiseptic pansy (what'd you call my mama?); and other ingredients -- with no synthetic preservatives, fragrances, chemicals or anythings.

It's been two hours since I put on Skin Food and my hands still haven't returned to feeling like they got caught in the garbage disposal.

Photo by Molly Plann.

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-.

Miss Kitty: Rough ruffles

Karen Mandery is the mad scientist of fashion. The Lady Gaga of Boulder County.

Except better. Mandery is like the mysterious creative genius who crafts Lady Gaga`s outfits, thereby transforming her from a forgettable bubble in pop-star soup to a headline-coloring legend.

Mandery is also known (and henceforth be referred to) as Miss Kitty, because the dresses she creates out of mixed media and found (and sometimes stolen from her unwitting husband) objects are so eccentric that they resemble circus costumes.

Hence the Lady Gaga parallel. Although let it be known that Miss Kitty created her dress out of abandoned stuffed animals at the thrift store before she knew that Lady Gaga also had one. (Don`t you hate it when you show up to a party and someone has the same Care Bear gown as you? Hate that.)

Miss Kitty has, however, designed dresses adorned with black and white photos, old jewelry, lights, a vintage light fixture, gravel -- you name it. She made one dress, called "Sometimes it`s hard to be a woman," bedecked with 65 vintage dolls wearing various Girl Scout-style sashes. Miss Responsibility. Miss Courteous.

"All of the things that we`re taught to be," Miss Kitty says.

Ah yes, all of Miss Kitty`s dress art contains a provoking message.

She created one dress, called "21st Century Mantra," after she was evacuated from her house during the Four-Mile Fire. She had to quickly decide what handful of objects to take with her. She left with her passport, bikini, dog, bike and computer.

Inspired, she hand-stitched the words "I have everything I need" onto a basic slip. She designed several clear pockets, placing in them objects symbolizing shelter, food, love. She put a TV in there, too.

"I was honest," she says.

Around Easter, Miss Kitty walked into Savers and was shocked to see aisles upon aisles of "unwanted, unloved, forsaken" stuffed animals."

So she bought them all up and gave them a second life: in fashion. The dress, called "Love is Who I Am," is designed partially as a statement about loving the unlovable, and making choices from a place of love instead of judgment and reaction.

Miss Kitty originally started designing artistic dresses after her degree in fashion design left her feeling unfulfilled. Another artist suggested she use dresses as canvasses, and Miss Kitty says a light bulb went off in her head.

Soon, she affixed the literal physical manifestation of that light bulb to a dress to hang on the wall. Using her husband`s belt.

Miss Kitty`s glorious gowns will be on display at the Dairy Center for the Arts, along with four other area artists` dress designs, through July 8. The exhibit, called Rough Ruffles.

Which, as Miss Kitty sees it, is "anything goes." And explains why one of her dresses is actually a pair of jeans.

Let`s see Lady Gaga try to pull off something that crazy. Jeans. She wouldn`t last a minute in denim.

A little more vestite: High-contract, high-fashion but not high on cocaine like Courtney Love

Before I launch this tornado of insults, let me disclaim that no one -- not even my gay cousins who are semi-famous for their exquisite interior design knack -- loves Cher more than I do.

In fact, one of my go-to karaoke songs is "Believe." (The other: "Time After Time," with dramatic pantomime and improvisational jazz-dance leaps.) I adore Cher's frog voice and her pointy face and, above all, her excess.

I love how they suggested she was a transvestite in "Burlesque." (They did suggest that, right?) In fact, Cher and I are both Tauruses, ordained by the stars to be the ultimate female, the "vestite" (sans trans) that expresses its femininity as an over-the-top caricature. Beauty, for the Taurus, is part of a tribal ritual, deeply spiritual and the outward expression of her lifelong pursuit of understanding the feminine dimensions of the world.

Or so says this one book I flipped through but didn't buy.

I imagine that Cher wears feather headdresses and black leotards around the house, toted on a Greek chariot pulled by a herd of oily men.

Obviously this is my ultimate goal in life, too. However (gulp), I don't exactly aspire to look like her when I turn 129 like she currently is. She is just -- well, too much. Too poked and pulled and stretched, heading in the same direction as Joan Rivers or an inflatable doll, and away from glamorous over-40 stars like Sharon Stone and Madonna.

As I get older (now having celebrated my 21st birthday 11 times), my old makeup techniques and colors are beginning to look scroungy and rotting. Eye shadow sticks in skin creases and I have this weird red patch on my right nostril crevasse. My black hair looks harsh. Something is just off.

I can't go au naturel. It is unsatisfying and not true to my spirit. Red lipstick is my crack.
So how do you do high-contract and edgy without looking like Kat Von D after a night of binge tattooing, or like Courtney Love, in general? There is a dangerous line between being the uber-Venus dramatic goddess that I want to be, and looking like a washed up cougar raccoon.

I submitted this impossible request to Jessica Licata, a Boulder hairstylist at Salon Salon and makeup artist who does faces on TV ("Food Network Challenge," "Last Cake Standing," and the DIY Network's "Renovation Rescue"). She also does makeup for boudoir photo shoots and special occasions, like weddings.

Licata (jahalabeauty.com) is a makeup prodigy, feisty redhead and single mom who instantly won my vote for one of Boulder's best makeup artists the moment I witnessed her draw a single eyeliner line. Nary a line hath appeared so clean, sexy and precise.

Her anti-Cher antidote: Keep your edgy style (whether it's smoky eyes, cat eyes or Gwen Stefani lips), except with:

More neutral colors. Instead of black liner, try dark brown. Instead of cherry red, switch to brick. Instead of black shadow, try a deep purple. The right neutral shadows are like the little black dress of makeup: You can do almost anything with them as the base.

Use sparkle as an accent, not main attraction. Almost all of my shadows, lipsticks and blush contains some kind of shine, which can look cheap and childish and reflect the light in unflattering ways on older faces. Instead, switch to matte, which can create more depth and focus. Add sparkle in the inner edge of the lid or shiny gloss instead.

Quality makeup brushes are the best investment you can make.

Cheap products make you look cheap, with the exception of Maybelline Great Lash, which continues to be the king mascara and always will be.

Going tribal: Putting the ‘ugg’ in Uganda

6/30/2006

It was like a potentially explosive science experiment: Send a fashion columnist to a refugee camp in Uganda for 10 days.

I traveled to east Africa with a local, student-run group, Educate (www.educateafrica.org), that grants scholarships to orphans and refugee students.

Truth be told, I’m more wildery than I give myself credit for. Colorado native, raised on a farm.

Mastered the art of climbing Russian olive trees in a petticoat and wrestling the tulle off of the thorns without tumbling to my demise. Age 9, I ate dog food on a dare and found it surprisingly tasty.

Good thing for that training. I coasted past the cholera-infested water without even a bellyache, much less death, and even ate soupy beans with my fingers. I scaled a mango tree and didn’t flinch at the thought of cobras and vipers sharing my wobbly branch.

But for heaven’s sake, I wasn’t prepared for my hair.

Ten days without washing my thick ‘fro is bad news. Africa is dusty. I’m talking red dust that coats your locks like another crust of the planet. At first, I went ponytail. Then pigtails. Then braids. Then sweatband. Then bandanna. Then baseball cap. Then all three at once, plus braids, no kidding.

On the flight home, I took my hair out and realized it had formed mini dreads. They were kind of cute (in the same way that dog food was kind of yum). But the woman sitting next to me didn’t think so. She changed seats.

“It’s not you, I swear,” she said.

But the desperate look she sent me indicated otherwise.

I waged war against that red dust. My futile artillery: wet wipes. Tan lines turned out to actually be grime lines. Blue jeans became red jeans. It mysteriously stained my bra. It formed a mustachey line around my lips, glued on to my lip gloss, which, yes, I packed – and used regularly. Until it fell out of my backpack and rolled into the dark abyss of the latrine. I briefly considered fishing it out, but instead murmured a small eulogy and walked away.

The biggest mystery of Uganda to me was the clothes. It was humbling; I was the nastiest looking person there.

The locals do not have running water. They live in mud huts with dirt floors and make 20 cents a day digging in the field. Yet they all looked immaculate. Their whites were from a Tide with bleach commercial. Many wore Air Jordans. Sean Jean and G-Unit T-shirts. I saw a guy wearing a Dolce & Gabbana button-down.

Either P-Diddy has a big heart for refugees, there was a mass explosion of an urban clothing production facility hidden in western Uganda or some rich and very hip nonprofit had recently stopped by.

I was too baffled – and busy with my wet wipes battle – to ask.

An example of the opposite of beauty followed me days after I’d left the country.

While heading to the airport, the driver tossed my backpack under the bus, where it had a bad encounter with a pool of rotting milk. The pack was soaked in dairy sludge, which further fermented in the back of a hot taxi and then two additional days of airplane travel.

Got it home, threw that stinky thang on the floor and left it to die.

Came back in the room later and found my dog gnawing on the straps, trying to pull the pack across the room to the rug where he likes to chew his bones.

And no, I didn’t try this doggie delight. Not even on a dare.

Photo by Iman Woods.