Wednesday, November 21, 2012

What your great-grandmother recognized as de-frizzing serum UPDATED

-A Frenchwoman lectures an American audience on chic, which she humbly implies she was born with. A Frenchwoman in a track-suit. But she's French, so it's OK. And to the commenters who apparently agree with this lady's notions that buying Greenmarket produce cancels out smoking and evidently copious sunning (no French Paradox for wrinkles), let me say my piece on this: if she were to take a real live-and-let-live stance, to say, look, I'm a Fashion person, a professional Frenchwoman-in-NYC, this is how I choose to be, I'd say go for it. And those who tan are under no obligation to smoke, those who smoke under no obligation to eat junk food. What bothers me is that these nutty ideas work their way into popular notions of what's healthy, and "health" becomes conflated with "what thin people do," or "what rich people do." Or maybe what bothers me is the outfit, the woman, and what it means that the two are being celebrated together. If this woman weren't thin, white, (rich, French), and were otherwise dressed the same, gold chains, gold hoops and everything, I kind of think she wouldn't have this platform.

(Meanwhile, this post caught my eye because there are some Cerfs in my dissertation. Is she or is she not related to the great Cerf Berr, leader of the Alsatian Jews during the Revolution?)

-Why I'm evasive when people ask me where I'm from, and, deeming "New York" too vague, keep pressing. I will not name the neighborhood. That alone, if you know enough about the city to be digging, should be your answer.

-Complete and utter cheapness fail: I spent about $20 on a container of 100% tsubaki oil. Cheapness justifications: allegedly a little goes a long way, and my understanding is that with this product, I get the essential ingredient of the newly-discovered Shiseido hair products, but without paying extra for ingredients like water and whichever fragrances or unexciting chemicals that are in all shampoo-and-conditioner. And, I suppose, without whichever chemicals, but honestly, I don't know anything about either this oil or what's in regular shampoo, and don't buy into this notion that because something has a high-tech name, it's worse for you/your hair/your soul than whatever your great-grandmother would have recognized as de-frizzing serum.

UPDATE

Tsubaki hair oil proves everything I hoped it would be and more. If I could only relive my frizzy middle- and high school years knowing about this product.

2 comments:

PG said...

Why I'm evasive when people ask me where I'm from, and, deeming "New York" too vague, keep pressing. I will not name the neighborhood. That alone, if you know enough about the city to be digging, should be your answer.

"New York" really is kind of vague, though, in the same way that I'll press people when they say "DC" or "Houston" or "Dallas": too many people say they're from there when they're actually living in a suburb rather than the city proper. Plano is not Dallas. And it matters for all sorts of things like whether I think you probably went to public school (if you're middle class/UMC and live in Plano, sure -- it has some of the better public high schools in the country; if you live in Dallas, probably not). Surely there's some not-overly-specific equivalent for NY like "in the District" (DC) or "inside the Loop" (Houston), maybe "Manhattan"?

Phoebe Maltz Bovy said...

You're taking this too literally. I will say Manhattan, and then the question comes, where in Manhattan, and the answer is, I'd rather not talk about it.