Teeth

All right I admit it, this might be a bit of a strange topic to talk about on a Burlesque Blog. Tips for red-lipstick yes, but teeth??
Kind of weird.....unless you're me.

You see when I was younger I'm pretty sure I was supposed to have braces but we couldn't afford them, the result being that I have fairly crooked teeth and five canine teeth instead of four. Now I'm not saying that I have the worst teeth ever, I mean, I don't look like an English woman from the 13th century or anything but they are far from perfect.
And for years, but especially during highschool, I HATED my teeth, I thought they were hideous and made me look like a troll and I would do anything not to caught doing a wide toothed smile in photos or in public.

I tried everything; from adopting a sarcastic side smile to ducking out of photos and claiming that 'I didn't like my photo being taken' which was utter bullshit as I've always been a camera whore. For the most part though I was pretty successful at hiding my 'hideous teeth' with the exception of some family photos and photobooth ones of me and my sister, but that was okay because then it was just the two of us.
All except one.
It was taken by my friend Darla who was quite a good photographer even then and in it I was sunburned, fully freckled and laughing like a loon.

I hated that photo.

I mean really hated it. I thought it was the ugliest photo anyone had ever taken of me because all I could see was my teeth. My horrible ugly teeth, all gnarled and crooked and no matter how many people told me that it was a cute photo and not a bad one I didn't believe them. Of course more than ten years later I realize they were right and I wish I actually had that photo, because out of all the ones that were taken of me during that era I think that one actually showed me for me. No make-up, no disguises, just a sweet faced freckled girl with red hair who was having fun.

It's taken me a long time to accept my crooked teeth, and I'm not saying that I'm not envious of people who seem to have flawless white smiles because I am, but I realize now that my smile is my own and it's a good one.

Crooked teeth and all.


(photo by Greg McKinnon)

Be gentle, it's my first time.

So I don't know about the rest of you but it's always a little daunting to do your first entry on a new blog, not that I'm new to this whole thing mind you, I've been posting about my life online since I was in high-school.
Ugh god, the shame.
Anyways, there is still that bit of anticipation and wonder about what that first post should be. An introduction? A bio? A routine? After a lot of thought, well okay a morning bus rides worth of thought, I decided to say screw it and just post something. If you sit and think too long about what your first post should be you never wind up posting right?
Right.

So let's talk about hair.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love almost anything to do with hairstyling, I can't even claim that I just love vintage hair because it goes much further than that, although since getting into burlesque it is one of the high points for me.

Now, usually in my day to day life I prefer to wear vintage up-dos, if simply for the fact that it keeps it out of my face and keeps me from playing with it and fucking it up. However, sometimes for shows I will plan ahead and set my hair. I have quite fine hair, that is neither curly or totally straight and I've found that doing a set with hot rollers never really works for me since about half an hour after I style it the curls fall out and it looks like shit.
Therefore I have become quite good at doing wet set patterns.

This is the one I used last Friday: (yes I like to have tea before shows, it's calming and gives me a little caffeine kick) The pattern I used was sort of a basic pin-curl one that had everything but the left side of my hair curled clockwise, the rest done counter clockwise.


Yes, marvel at the horrible bags under my eyes and my blotchy skin! Anyways, after I brushed it all out and put on some make-up the end result was this:

I was quite happy with how it came out, not to mention how puffy it went considering I slept with the curls in as well as hung out all day with them in a scarf. Sometimes when I do that the crown goes rather flat, but not this time.
Okay that's all for now, now get outta her before I slap you with my slipper!