Consumption

Voluspa's Malayan Coco Roll-On Perfume Oil

I really, really love using oils rather than alcohol-based perfumes.  This affair began in 2003, when I bought a random bottle of perfume oil from a hippie at the Portland Market, and discovered that what I'd really purchased was a couple ounces of spanish fly.  I was like the reverse Pepé Le Pew - people would actually follow me down the street to ask what I was wearing.  Strangers on the subway sniffed my neck.  And it led to me drunkenly and disgustedly dismissing a date at the Hub when he couldn't stop telling me how good I smelled.

"I know," Whiskey Janie replied instead of a polite "Thank you."

I mean, I DID know.  I could smell me.

"You don't understand," he said, eyes wild, practically drooling. "You smell REALLY, REALLY good." 

"Yeah, I know."

"No, I mean, so, soooooo good. It's amazing. I've never smelled anything like you." 

Cue bored eye roll and stool swivel - when tipsy, I was completely unsympathetic to the power this oil stuff wielded over others.

In the sober light of day, however, imagine my disappointment to find that before I could place an order for a lifetime supply, the hippie stand was out of business.  I horded that oil for another year, using sparingly, but I couldn't sit on it.  The world needed to smell it, and then I was out.  It still makes me sad to think of all the stuff left unconquered by the strategic application of that glorious oil.  What might have been.

Anyway,having grown attached to how close the scent clings with oil, I now keep my eyes peeled for them. Last Saturday before Miami lost to FSU, I felt sure of my impending doom and decided to conquer the pain by numbing my entire being with a xanax and 90-minute deep tissue massage at a nearby spa.  To my delight, they carry a line of candles and smelly things called Voluspa, and Voluspa makes some very pretty little oil-based roll-ons just PERFECTLY sized for a clutch.  They packaging caught my eye, and from a practical standpoint the bottle's screw-top is made well enough not to pop off and coat the contents of your purse in an aromatic slime you will never get rid off (this is key).  And then I smelled the Malayan Coco scent, and fell in love for real. 

Coconut's tough.  There's a verrrry fine line between smelling like cheap sunscreen and smelling like the promise of summer and everything good and tropical and lovely and moon-kissed. This Malayan Coco was musky enough to pull off the former thanks to notes of sandalwood and lemony hinoki wood, and I was sold.  It's not my beloved hippie oil, but it's a very nice runner-up.

$24ish | Voluspa

Custom Vans Slip-Ons

I know what you're thinking. Well, yeah, technically, these are kinda hideous. But let's get this straight: college football season begins in three weeks, a girl needs to sport her colors, and just anyone can buy some college-specific Nike IDs (those are for banner ad-susceptible commoners; also, Nike offers a pink version of your college logo for girls which is just insulting and I refuse to support that as well as pink hammers and screwdrivers and toolboxes).  These Vans slip-ons are both old school and completely customizable, thereby allowing you such whimsy as adding a camo heel counter to remind everyone looking at your ass that you're a soldier reporting for duty here and not to be trifled with - unless it's half time and I'm in the beer line, in which case: [bats eyelashes].  Are they made for people born deformed and archless?  Yes.  Will you have to cut a slit in the elastic gore just to get them on?  Yes. Will you get a weird tan line because the vamp comes up high?  Yes, because your team plays in a stadium approximately 300 yards from the sun.  Are these minor obstacles you should ignore in favor of looking like a street-wise sexpot while cheering your boys this fall like a champ?  Absolutely, and you're just 3-5 weeks away.

Vans | $50

Icarus Lamp by Tord Boontje

The Dutch are killing it these days.  On the design front is Tord Boontje, who hit the scene with gorgeous laser-cut and brass clip-on pendant lights that looked like  gardens lit from within.  And then he came out with the Icarus light, inspired by the mythological Greek god whose homemade wings melted when, carried away by the euphoria of flight, he flew too close to the sun.  The lamp is both materially cheeky and visually romantic; made from very modern mylar, Icarus comes in a flat, laser-cut piece which one hooks into a circle to form a long, rustling wing to hang over a light bulb.  It's simple, but uncommonly beautiful when lit, with a dreamy quality that makes it a perfect for over a bed (ahem).  It's all the sexiness of a shirtless Greek dude in flight, but without all inconvenience of a terrifying death plunge into the sea and the hassle of getting all the melted wax off your floor.

Unica Home | $84

Fresh Cranberry Lemonade Lipstick

First, let me start by saying whatever stupid 70-pound bang-ed hipster it was that decided red lipstick should be de rigueur again should be shot.  Some of us have strawberry blonde hair and pinkish-white skin with freckles, and unless you've got Carine Roitfeld assisting in your bathroom every morning, scarlet lips can be tough to pull off.  In my accursed existence as a pastey, I have gone through more tubes than Terri Schiavo searching for a color that doesn't make me look like Krusty The Clown after bobbing for cherries in a bowl of spaghetti sauce, and the intense pigment of red lipsticks usually makes for a drier formulation and allows a lot less wiggle room for those of use who can't paint in a straight line. 

Enter Fresh's Cranberry Lemonade, which is the greatest thing involving avocado oil that isn't guacamole. It's a universally flattering color (see, cranberries are a blue-red, while lemons are yellow!  It's science!), and goes on light and glossy enough to stay moist all day yet the pigment is concentrated enough not to fade or streak.  If my mom was right when she informed me right before my first day of kindergarten, "Not all girls that wear red lipstick are bad, but all bad girls wear red lipstick," then this is the bad girl's best friend. 

(Plus, it comes in a very chic embossed silver tube.  I am nothing if not a sucker for packaging.)

Fresh | $22.