Glut Your Soul on My Accursed Ugliness

Guys! I’m doing the rag curler treatment today. I’m going to try to follow these instructions to the letter, but secretly, I’m sort of hoping I end up with the woolly lamb look rather than the lovely tumbling curls illustrated here, if only to surprise the hell out of my boyfriend when he gets home.

Anyway, before I get started (and I will be posting a result photo), I just wanted to let you know that because I was lazy and didn’t go straight to Tumblr for the instructions — I Googled “glut your soul rag curls” instead — I discovered, to my delight, that the sixth search result for this combination of words actually leads you to Book 10 of the Aeneid.

Auspicious, right?

Pro-tip:

If you get a bad hair cut, keep your hair in a French braid until it grows out.
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Seriously though: why do hairdressers always want to cut your hair as short as they can? And why can’t you try on a hairdresser like you can try on clothes? And if you’re spending more than $20 on a cut, why does the hairdresser just cut straight across? My mom can do that free.
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Ok. I’m venting. But. If you do get a careless haircut, I DO recommend the French braid. But! Before you put it up, here are some things you can do to shape it a little over the comfort of your bathroom sink:

Edge the sides: take a barbers scissor in one hand and the front of your hair in the other (one side at a time). At about cheekbone level, graze the front of the hair and move the scissors down as you cut. Hold the hair very taught. Now your hair will frame your face! Since my hair is parted on the left, I like to make the right side a little shorter than the left.

Cut chunks: this is a thing! I learned it from some punks in Minneapolis, but it’s brilliant and easy. Just grab a hold of some top pieces and cut. Try to hold the scissors up as you do it so you don’t look like a layer cake. Also, just grab the TOP PIECES. Otherwise, you’ll end up with uneven hair (unless that’s your thing, which is great).

Cut up: again, hold the scissors up and cut the bottom layer. You don’t want to make it uneven, which is the hard part… It’s easier to have a friend do this, but possible to do alone, too. Grab the bottom of the hair and make the cuts vertically, like the way your hair goes. This will give your hair some body and lift and gets rid of that ugly “I just had someone cut my hair BADLY and straight across” look.

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Ok. I would have done, like, a YouTube tutorial, but I have no Internet and also, I was snotty and sobbing from the terribleness of the haircut. Trauma. I feel for Sampson. Poor Sampson.

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If someone finds me a good hairdresser, I will be the most grateful.

A color I’m newly obsessed with: deep raspberry, or what the part of my brain that still believes it’s going to grow up to be a paint chip name generator likes to think of as late-summer raspberry bush. (Try again, brain.) Anyway, this is a shade for when bright red is too Snow White and hot pink carries too much early-June optimism. It’s the perfect balance between “goes well with a tan” and “by the way? Soon it will be fall.” Done right, it’s … sort of obscene? So obviously you want your lips to be this color.

This is Revlon’s Lip Butter in Raspberry Pie (the picture makes it look brighter pink than it is: it’s more jewel-toned in real life). This isn’t the kind of lipstick that’s going to pass the clean-mug test — part of the appeal is its glossy finish — but it’s cheap, easy, and stressless (except when you’re eating corn on the cob, which: do not attempt; learn from my embarrassing failure). I actually carry it in my purse. Given the production I otherwise make out of wearing lipstick, I think that speaks to its versatility.

But why stop with your mouth! Dior Vernis Nail Lacquer in Graphic Berry is the pinnacle of the late-summer raspberry shade. It’s expensive, but the bottle is gorgeous and the color is sinful, so: