#7: Beauty Escapism
You’re reading Try Stuff Energy, a weekly-ish newsletter on how it feels like to put yourself out into the word and well, try stuff, like publishing this newsletter. Written by Caitlin Sowers.
I crawl into bed with my phone in hand, pulling the sheets over me with a wiggle into my familiar spot. I open a new browser and type Tom Ford cocoa mirage vs mink mirage into the Google search bar for the fourth time this week.
As the results populate I feel my body relax into a welcomed virtual reality, beauty escapism.
I compare swatches of each shade. Buttery beiges, chocolate dunked caramel browns, burnt burgundies. Their colours are so rich and their texture so soft I’m unsure whether to paint the walls of Gatsby’s library with them or eat them as a decadent dessert. Each palette has exactly four neat rectangles of eyeshadow nestled into a chestnut burgundy compact. Cocoa mirage has been discontinued, with mink mirage sent as its replacement. I decide it’s important to understand their differences despite the former ceasing to exist. One just needs to know these things. The constraints of reality are not important nor welcome in times like this.
I imagine my next vacation, which the mirror housed within the compact will be perfect for. I’ll apply my makeup in the bathroom of our hotel, one hand holding the palette. With the other, I’ll press my finger into the warmest brown and swirl, the buttery shade adhering generously. Melding the richness of colour onto my eyelid, I’ll watch myself from the small mirror, aware of both applying the shadow, and the person applying it.
Because you see, there is a different version of me who owns this palette. She vacations effortlessly and often, and I am glad to imagine her. She fits her belongings into a small carry on, never checking a bag. She wakes up leisurely, and always in a matching pyjama set. She finishes getting ready with time to spare and never has to say “I am SOSOSORRY, constriction was terrible” to her friend after arriving 17 minutes late. No, absolutely not. Instead, she glides in like an exhale and sits down with a smile. “Oh, just an old palette”, she’ll answers the question of what beautiful thing is on her eyelids. She’s use to being admired. Having time to apply an eyeshadow is a luxury she allows herself, and she allows herself many luxuries. She forgives herself graciously and quickly when she does misstep, never falling victim to traps painful self criticism. She lingers in long hot baths, and never decides against her DoorDash order after it amounts to $35 for one, because she deserves it!
Imagining her is as much fun as being her, so I stay here. My phone screen glows, offering up an endless vault of virtual realities. While pressing buy could make her real, it could also dissolve her. The eyeshadow palette may arrive to find me unchanged, which would all be rather sad after all. No, we couldn’t have that...
Because now I’ve spotted Tom Ford lipsticks, and of course... every girl knows a lipstick can change everything.
Sparks of Try Stuff Energy ✨
Filming my longest YouTube video to date and watching myself back, giving speaking notes. Not sure how I feel about that! Beyoncé does it, but Alison Roman doesn’t read the comments section of anything she makes so what exactly is the truth?
Listening to Sasha Plavsic’s story in building Ilia Beauty on Second Life podcast by Hilary Kerr. While my feelings on “clean” beauty are nuanced, I admire her grit and loved hearing how sensible her start of Ilia was. Highly recommend!
Hosting a dinner party where my gorgeous friend brought dessert, which was a box of cookies we turned into a taste test. To do at home: cut the cookies into four and move the party into the living room with a dimly lit candle for the same joy de vivre!
A new wardrobe essential, a heat tech scoop neck top from Uniqlo that is a minimalist’s capsule wardrobe dream. It even had a subscriber leave me THIS comment, enough said!
Charlotte tilbury lip liner in iconic nude that is my exact lip colour. Long lasting, shade perfect. Fab!
Gifting Alison Roman’s cookbook “Dining In”. I took a sneaky peak through it and it is highly cookable with deliciously simple recipes. Which is a hint at the next “How she did it” episode… 😉
Hi 👋, I’m Caitlin Sowers. I started sharing my life online via youtube videos in 2017. I love the art of story telling and am deeply curious about what I can learn by listening to others’ stories as well as sharing my own. As a proud multi-hyphenate I have more interests than I know what to do with.
If you found your way here but aren’t yet subscribed, you should fix that!