Manolo for the Big Girl

Oh, to be a Canadian!

If you live in or near Toronto, you will be happy to hear that the first-ever “Fuller Woman Expo” will take place at the Mississauga Living Arts Centre on September 13-14.

The theme of the event is “Curvy Girls Unite - Unleash Your Plus-Size Diva.”

Get Excited At Long Last!!!!!! This is a historic event that can not be missed; the ultimate celebration of real women with real bodies. There is something for everyone at this long awaited girl’s two day weekend event. In order to guarantee a memorable and pleasurable shopping experience there are four show zones: Fashion & Beauty, Fitness Health & Wellness, Food & Nutrition and Travel & Lifestyle.

Fashion & Beauty
Discover the latest in plus size fashions from classic suits, swimwear, luxurious lingerie and undergarments to elegant gowns, jewelry, and sensual beauty products to pamper your body and take you to the next level of living.

Fitness Health & Wellness,
Our focus is not on weight loss but weight management; getting and staying healthy is key to a long life; you don’t have to be a size 8 to be happy and health. Be exposed to the latest in new fun exercises, vitamin supplements, relaxation methods, everything from health options, massage therapy, yoga to spa retreats

Food & Nutrition
Be exposed to new food and beverage products, great delicious low calorie and wholesome recipes or get help with planning your Christmas holiday dinner that will have you looking like a pro.

Oh, how Francesca is salivating right at this very moment.

If any of you dear internet friends will be there, please take photos and tell us all about it!

Also, please note the (as yet incomplete) exhibitor and sponsor lists. Support those who support the Big Girls!

My little brother, who is nearly perfect in every way (except for that time he showed up to our Grandparent’s 60th Wedding Anniversary wearing a bifurcated goatee and –brace yourselves– rented vinyl  mock-spats)  has the most hatefully beautiful eyelashes in the history of the whole damn world and it makes me want to kick him until my toes cave in.

Anyway, since apparently it’s ” illegal” and “creepy” to harvest other people’s eyelashes I’ve searched high and low for a natural-looking mascara that won’t clump or make me look over done.

Enter Ardell LashMagic Blending Mascara available for $4.99 at Walgreens.com. Originally designed to make false lashes make more natural (and it does, but I use it sans falsies) it’s the first mascara I’ve ever used that absolutely refuses to clump or turn all spidery on my face. It’s brilliant, cheap and incredibly good at its job.

Frankly it’s like looking in a mirror.

I think we’ve established by now that I’m a good and virtuous woman (shut up) chock full of moral fortitude and a demeanor that is alternately described as beatific or cherubic, depending on how much I’m sweating. I am, according to all the bartenders and sales assistants I know, a treat and a delight and when it comes right down to it you would be hard-pressed to find someone more full of good and noble nature than I.

That being said, I would happily –nay, joyously– plow down a flock of nuns in my Cadillac (well, using my Cadillac, if they were in my Cadillac it would be much more difficult as blood is notoriously tricky to get out of ivory leather and green shag upholstery, or so I’ve heard) where was I? Right. I would plow down a flock of nuns using my Cadillac for one, JUST ONE, vial of the cruelly discontinued Sally Hansen kohl powder with magic applicator stick-thingy. Yes, I know Guerlain makes one and I’m sure it’s very lovely but it’s not the same. I want my Sally back.

For today’s big question I want to know:

What product did you love and, thanks to discontinuation, lose? If you find something do you stockpile and what are your feelings on buying makeup in the secondary market?

Internet friend Jennifer wrote:

I was wondering if any of your readers had any experience with using Mystic Tan as a big girl.  Regular tanning beds work fine, but for those of us that want a little color without the damaging UV rays I was wondering if there was any advice.

Francesca had never heard of Mystic Tan before receiving this letter, and she is of two minds about it.

As the ultra-fair girl in a high risk category for the unsuperfantastic skin cancer, Francesca is quite intrigued by the possibility of an even, non-UV tan.

On the other hand, Francesca thinks it is somewhat ridiculous that tans are considered, somehow, more attractive than the clean, soft, untanned skin.  Why should those of us whose skin burns like sweet-potato french fries be pressured to have anything other than the creamy, porcelain skin we were born with?

On the third hand, if you want a tan, who is Francesca to stop you?

So, if you have any experience with this Mystic Tan establishment, please share your thoughts.

And, Francesca wants to know: Is a girl with a tummy roll meant to lift it for the spray? Or does she tan on the outside and have a white line under the tummy? Inquiring minds want to know.

I’m not going to say I live a good life, at least not the way the Greeks would have it (oh what? You think just because I write about shoes for a living I can’t go all pre-Socratic on you? I have depth y’all. Don’t call it a comeback, Anaximander’s been here for years.) Anyway, I haven’t lived absolutely the most respectable life but for some reason the powers that be have seen fit to give me a gift from Heaven.

…and by Heaven I mean Paris.

Some years back they cancelled my beloved Chanel “Passion” which was my perfect red lip color. It was deep and true and I loved it with a love that was more than a love. Sure it would pop up on eBay from time to time, but I never felt quite right about buying non-hermetically sealed make-up because you can never be completely sure that the seller didn’t try it and thereby turn my beloved glossimer into Coldsore Central. I am willing to suffer a lot for beauty, but I draw the line somewhere distinctly before The Face Herp.

Anyhoodle, I’ve been on the hunt for a red to replace my long lost Passion and although I’ve run into plenty that are “a’ight” and even a few that were “good” I’ve never really found another that twirled my tassels in quite the same way.

Until now.

Meet Ruby Lite, a bright, deep, true red with a hint of glimmer (no giant sparklies though. We are not in junior high any more.) I don’t know how Chanel gets that much depth of color into their products, but they do and it makes other lesser brands pale in comparison.

She’s been around for a while as part of Chanel’s Double Intensity line of long wearing lip color (an example is posted for your viewing pleasure, but I don’t believe that it’s Ruby Lite in the tube.) The application is your basic one-two punch of color and polish although with my go-to neutral, Rose Garnet (also from that line) I often skip the gloss and just use my trusty Burts Bees over it.

If you’re hunting for a real knock-out red (and every girl should have one) take Ruby out for a spin and be sure to report back!

Francesca is amused when Plumcake refers to her as being “the always fragrant Francesca.”

Indeed Francesca has not left the house without first dabbing on a teeny bit of Chanel No. 5 for the last 7 years.

However! Francesca is nothing if not adventurous, and after being inspired by two recent posts by the ever powerful (if sometimes preposterous!) Plumcake, she went out and tested different perfumes to see if anything felt like home.

Francesca is now the proud owner of a beautiful bottle of the luscious Euphoria by Calvin Klein.

Euphoria perfume by Calvin Klein is about sexiness, fantasy, and being captivating. Sexy and sensual, Euphoria perfume speaks to the woman who has the urge to break free from everyday life - to provocatively be part of an exciting world filled with pleasure, surprise, and temptation. Her fragrance is a contrast between exotic fruits and seductive florals, for a rich, creamy, seductive signature. Notes include Pomegranate, Persimmon, Green Notes, Black Orchid, Lotus Blossom, Champacca Flower, Liquid Amber, Mahogany Wood, Black Violet, Cream Accord.

It is so true. Francesca sprayed, and sniffed, and felt so sexy and, well, immediately horny that she spent the rest of the day thinking “I am the best-smelling and most confident, sensual lover in the entire universe. If I were a man, I would do anything to have me.” Clearly, this would be an important feeling to spritz on, well, pretty much every day.

And it is available at Perfume Emporium for a very forgiving price.

Francesca and Plumcake want to know:

What is your signature scent?  Do you change it with the seasons? Have you ever had a perfume “turn” on you?

Style Spy who has just returned from London and Paris, has a part-time job of systematically turning me on to Expensive Things I Didn’t Know I Needed like niche perfume or, oh, Hermés scarves. Have I always sort of just back-of-the-mind-y wanted an Hermés scarf? Mais bien sur (that’s French for “boy howdy”) but did I know until she returned with two of the sexy beasts that I could not possibly live another red hot second without 35 square inches of incredibly expensive silk wrapped around the place my neck would be if genetics had seen fit to endow me with something other than 2 inches of alabaster tree stump to separate my head from my torso? No friends, I did not.

I asked if, upon her return, she would be kind enough to help me find a new perfume and she –a self-identified “frag hag”– graciously obliged. Saturday night found us on the floor of her apartment drinking sparkling pinot, talking about boys and spraying scents on blotter of at least thirty hand-labeled tiny vials of perfume.

For those of you new to the world of decants –I’m a recent convert myself– it’s a way to inexpensively test pricey or hard-to-find fragrances without shelling out for a whole bottle. A decant is a small glass vial containing between 1/2 and 5 ml of “juice” that has been measured out from a larger bottle using medical-grade equipment. You cannot buy decanted perfume on eBay, but never you fear. The Perfumed Court sells decants of just about every fragrance you can imagine, including many discontinued scents and a special section of perfumes that are not available in the United States, usually for somewhere around $4 a pop.

The Perfumed Court even offers sampler packs, including various introductions to perfume houses like Lutens or Caron, noses (perfume designers) or scent families, so you can decide which flavor works best with your skin.

Oh and they are a positive wealth of scrabble-winning words. Example: “sillage” n., The scent trail a woman leaves as she walks by. Forty seven points on a double word score!

If I die and by some celestial clerical error actually make it to Heaven, I know two things will be true. One, I’ll probably be slightly disappointed –living in Texas can spoil a girl for such things– and two, there will be a great big Saks Fifth Avenue right inside those pearly gates.

I am an unapologetic Saks booster, and I think outside of major cities, Saks often gets a bad rap. It’s not scary or snobby and most of the shoppers don’t have hospital wings named after them. It’s just a department store. A very nice department store, but a department store all the same.

And here’s a secret: they give better swag. For example, my don’t-leave-home-without-it lipcolor is Chanel’s Rouge Double Intensite in Rose Garnet. It costs the same no matter where I buy it, but if I buy it at Saks, I get all sorts of high quality sample goodies thrown in, PLUS a handwritten thank-you note in the mail three days later.

They also have, hands down, THE most gorgeous adult cocktail dresses and formal gowns for plus size women. Not grown-up prom gear, but real dresses –often surprisingly affordable– that are worthy of a woman who is past her acne and algebra days.

Here are a few of my favorite things:

could you DIE? I could die. This Tadashi ruched metallic dress is pure eff-you drama, you have to be a WOMAN to carry off this dress. Look at that detailing on the torso. It reminds me so much of Alexander McQueen’s incredible fall collection but infinitely more wearable –and affordable for a plus-size gal. Also? Sleeves.

Here’s the cocktail version, which is easier to carry off –you don’t need to be as tall as a goddess for that one– and still gives you buckets of waist slimming glamour. I’ve seen this one in person, it doesn’t look as “wet” as it does in the image. This, for the people who said they hated ruching, is how it’s done. Also, a similar look in capri blue.

Finally a sweet but unsentimental party dress in silk chiffon. Silk chiffon –unlike it’s tragic polyester cousin– floats beautifully, drapes like heaven and is flattering to almost every body. This confection is available in black, plus a host of ever so slightly unusual hues. Now here’s a tough question: do I like it better in strawberry or forest green?

I’m glad we had this little talk.

Here at Manolo for the Big Girl, we believe in the basics. Are you wearing the correct size bra? Are you moisturizing and cleansing your skin properly? Are you wearing sunscreen? Are you taking care of your feetsies? Do you have a superfantastic fattitude?

Only when the basics are covered do the clothes become important.

Today we ask you to check: Is your hair truly a good color for you?

Perhaps you are answering “Of course it is. It is the natural color which God gave me in His wisdom.” To which Francesca replies: Yes, and perhaps the Good Lord wishes you to Work With Him to perfect your hair. If you truly love your hair color, if it makes you feel confident and pretty and knowing that everyone around you can only dream of such a beautiful hair color, then stick with it! But if you are thinking “I wish I wasn’t starting to go grey” or “It is feeling a little mousy to me” or “I’d feel more vavoom if I had highlights,” why not take care of those issues?

Francesca is not ashamed to admit that her haircolor comes from a bottle. She does it herself at home, and chose a color which is almost her own shade, just a leetle beet more pizzazzy. It is so close to Francesca’s own hair, that if Francesca goes a few weeks without updating, the roots showing is not a catastrophe. The color is “Francesca Plus.” And it makes Francesca feel wonderful.

This is a good way to go because, just as with clothes, there is no point in denying the obvious. If the clothes that fit best on you are a size 24W, there is no point trying to squeeze into a 16W. If God blessed you with brown hair, there is usually little point in pretending that blonde will be better, unless you can afford an excellent colorist and the time and money to update the roots often. Francesca suggests that you go with “You Plus,” just a shade or two away from your real hair, perhaps with highlights, or just a little more blonde, or a little deeper brown, or a little more red.

Please . . . walk away from the henna.

(Is this someone’s child, or Bozo the Clown?)

Francesca is perfectly OK with ladies coloring their hair at home. It saves money from doing it professionally, and if you choose the correct color it will be fine. The trick is choosing a color that does not make it look like you color your hair.

Francesca uses this product,

and no one ever guesses that it is from a bottle. Many times, people say “Francesca, if only I had hair like yours” and when I tell them the secret, they cannot believe it.

The reason is: Natural hair is not all one color. Naturally, hair has highlights and lowlights. Strands on top will be a little bit lighter, and the hair next to your neck a little bit darker, and all over you might have strands that have some more red, or more blonde, than the others.

So, by adding teeny, tiny highlights, Francesca is making the new color look more natural.

Another way to go is to do the base color at home, and splurge on professional highlights. It is still cheaper than having the professional do the entire color job.

Happy makeovers!

xoxo, Francesca