Like A Natural Woman

So what about lipstick and curling irons and fingernail polish??? I can give up shopping for all but the most necessary things, but for heaven's sakes I'm only female - What about the days when a girl feels like a dog and she just needs some beauty time? Since our February test trip to Albuquerque, I have been in a quandary about the environmental cost of beauty "enhancement." In good conscience I can no longer walk the 3 blocks from my apartment in Astoria to "PinkNails" and get a half-legwax and pedicure for $20. (Don't scoff unless you have tried it. Those women take pride in what they do and nothing can pull the stress of the city off you like a some other woman's steady hands washing your feet and massaging your newly waxed legs before filing, buffing and applying some delicious cherry color to your new toes, then rubbing your shoulders while your feet rest under the UV dryer and you peruse whatever issue of People was left there by the last girl. Heaven. I have to stop talking about it now or I am going to be really sad.) To the hirsute purists who wouldn't dream of shaving or plucking the wild and wonderful growth on every imaginable part of their curvaceous female bodies, I say, "Kudos to you!" and also, "Crap."

Not because I don't agree with the principle of going au naturel, because I do - in theory. But in every day practice it's just not practical - after all, I am a performer and an actor's life is all about scrutinizing your image! ...Or, who am I kidding, I might as well admit to some personal vanity. Though I can go quite awhile without shaved legs and I do not wear makeup as a general rule, stray eyebrow hairs do NOT escape me and I personally feel more beautiful when I have fixed my hair, put on mascara, eyeshadow, lipstick... I already hear the rebuttal and I understand that this is my own perception, filtered by our culture and consumerism blahblahblah, but I'm not trying to defend my need to be "girly" here. I mean, I know beauty comes from the inside and all that. I just want to discover solutions for today's green woman so that we can have our beauty FUN and feel good about it too!

From what i have discovered so far, makeup containers/wands/packaging are NOT recyclable, which sucks because we go through them pretty fast. However, on a positive note, MAC Cosmetics (www.maccosmetics.com) offers a recycling program where customers who return any 6 empty makeup containers receive a free lipstick! (WOOHOO! It's almost like getting paid to recycle! If only the makeup weren't quite so expensive...) Also, I have recently discovered organic bar soaps at Whole Foods that have whole ingredients and no packaging whatsoever!!! (see previous post: "no waste, man"). LOVE that. And for those serious about natural products, there does exist a website that lists recipes and ingredients for making much of your beauty products with ingredients already at home - www.makeyourowncosmetics.com - I appreciate this info as I truly have chopped avocado for facemasks and sliced cucumber to soothe puffy eyes, made beer shampoo, used mayonnaise for conditioner and butter as facial cream. One caveat: their "makeup" is made from crushed mica, which you would have to special order from one of their partner stores, and which would definitely entail packaging. Also there is no make-your-own mascara or eyeliner that I can find and I don't know that anyone has developed a nail polish (or polish remover) that is environmentally even a small thumbs up.

And I so badly wanted to paint my toenails tonight. And I already have 19 bottles of different colors of nail polish collected over the years, from purple to orange to blues to reds to cream, so why didn't I? Answer: guilt. I guilted myself right out of a good time...and cut myself bangs instead. a risky proposition with no pattern to follow...
They look alright.