I do silly things so you don't have to!

Silly thing the First:
For many years I have been studiously hiding the dark secret that I am actually blond.  After layers of dye and integrating root touch-ups as part of my life I can almost forget this shameful fact.....  Except those moments when I don't have any makeup and want to just put on pants and run the store for ice cream at 10 at night and realize that my eyebrows are several shades lighter than my hair and look decidedly weird.  I could either take two minutes to apply brow gel or decide I don't care if the Giant Eagle stock boy knows my terrible secret.  Not anymore!
I spent a few hours like that yesterday to dye my eyebrows with henna.  Normal dye is both more runny and toxic so, you know, you can go blind (even I am not so lazy at 10 at night to think it is worth it).  The chance of going blind doing this seemed pretty low, but I am not a doctor, so you probably shouldn't try this at home.  I ordered samples of Twilight henna and indigo from mehandi.com, mixed them up together into a fairly thick paste and left them sit while I was at work, then applied petroleum jelly around my eyebrows, applies the henna/indigo paste on the brows, and covered with saran wrap for a few hours.  Apparently I killed the indigo by mixing it up to far before applying it, so they came out lighter than they should have.
before on left and after on right

  
I don't think any objective assessment would allow me to conclude that it was worth the trouble, but I will probably still do it again, because I am stubborn and want to get the indigo thing right


Silly thing the second:
I made a dress with no pattern and a sort of vague notion of how I should go about it.  I think it turned out fine, but I had to remake several parts and keep adjusting the fit.  Honestly, a really simple maxi dress really shouldn't have been this much trouble, and wouldn't have been had I spent ten minutes on google looking up maxi dress tutorials.  Still, Gorey print maxi-dress:

and with a sweater!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now I want a Gorey-print dress. Awesome.

Jamie said...

That dress looks lovely! Wherever did you find Gorey-print fabric? I would totally buy some, it's awesome!

Tenebris In Lux said...

Cute dress. And also, I would agree that dying your eyebrows is not a good idea. I dyed my eyebrows with regular hair dye, not henna, and I almost spilled some into my eye! Lesson learned. At least I had some cotton swabs with me at the time (whew). But I'm too lazy to buy or whip out some eyebrow pencil, and I like the look, but next time I'll swear that I will be 10x more cautious!

Sarahbelle said...

The fabric was purchased @ Creations in Kerrville, TX (http://creations-online.com/) If they still have some, I'd know they would be happy to ship it anywhere. Lovely bunch people in that shop, and they have a shop cat that brings them faxes -- so cute!!

I LOVE the eyebrow color!! Very alluring!! But, I agree with Tenebris that this is a risky endeavor. Still, they turned out great!

I like the dress. It's very you, and it turned out wonderful!

VictorianKitty (Sophistique Noir) said...

lol! Well, the eyebrows do look awesome! As does your dress. I'm obsessed with maxi dresses, and must get in gear to make some!

Vulcan_Butterfly said...

I had a good laugh at the title of this post! I think henna WOULD be safer than any other type of dye in regards to the whole going blind thing. Cute dress!

Varina said...

Ah! Blogger stop sending me e-mails when I get comments. Sorry for taking so long to respond, as I appreciate all the comments.
Siouxsie - Alexander Henry actually made a whole series of fabrics based on Gorey prints and they are all pretty awesome.

Jamie - As she mentioned, my mom bought it for me, but I have seen it for sale on Etsy and Ebay. The print is called "The Ghastlies".

Tenebris - yikes! the henna mixture was thick enough that there really wasn't any danger of it running in my eye. I don't know of any way to thicken up conventional dyes, but the thick layer of petroleum jelly around also seemed to really keep it from running.

Sarahbelle: I was really going for "matching my hair color" more than alluring, but I'll take what I can get.

VictorianKitty: Thanks! I never really got the maxi-dress obsession before buying one earlier this year and discovering how convenient and somewhat effortlessly elegant they can be.

Vulcan_Butterfly: I try to entertain with my feeble jokes. Henna was definitely fairly safe for my eyes, but it may have re-kindled my love of dyeing my hair in only the most complicated science-experiment type ways. More henna was purchased.

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