Jenn Culp's 24-Hour Product Diary: Orange Hair and Attacks of Introversion
In DepthI think of my daily beauty routine sort of like I’m a mage in a tower doing these weird little esoteric rituals regularly in between my other duties, mixing up and applying potions and powders and performing these odd—but graceful!—little rituals to cast spells and influence events. The things I do in service of beauty change my mood and affect my bearing; they influence the way others view me and make my skin feel nice. It feels magical and desperately important and also deeply silly. Obviously, I love it.
The first step of my daily beauty practice (on days when it applies) takes place immediately before I go to bed at night (on every third or fourth day). I am really good about keeping it up, because I know what will happen if I don’t. I would call myself a nail biter, but that seems to conjure an image of someone persistently, daintily nibbling a nail held up to her mouth. What I do is more like, pick at the edge of one of my fingernails until I pry up a corner, which I seize between my teeth and use as purchase to rip off the tip of the nail in one swift motion. Then I grind the torn off piece of nail to powder between my front teeth, feeling horribly satisfied and immediately compelled to do it again.
It’s disgusting—you don’t have to tell me, I am horrified by myself whenever I think about it—BUT, if I leave my fingernails naked, I know I will do it. And I will enjoy it, and then I will hate myself, because I bite my nails when I’m stressed or anxious and it feels deceptively cathartic for like, an instant, but then you’re left sitting there with a sharp, jagged stub of a fingernail and the knowledge that you literally just tore off and consumed a piece of your own body, and fuck, you already did it once, so why don’t you just start picking at the next one… It just doesn’t do anything positive for my mental state. Wear on my polish can bring my entire mental fortress crashing down around my ears, so I make a point to keep my stubby little talons continuously armored in a bright shiny coat of lacquer. Chipped polish spells doom.
These?
These are the nails of a woman who is going to have a shit-ass day tomorrow, unless she takes action now. (That polish was pretty sweet-looking before I chipped it off, though! It’s OPI’s Suzi and the 7 Dusseldorfs with a coat of Blackheart Beauty “BH Violet w/ Blu Gltr” from Hot Topic on top.) I use 100% acetone polish remover to remove polish, because when I’m ready to strip it I want that glitter gone fast.
I paint my nails before bed rather than any other time of day because that’s just what works best for me. I am significantly less likely to damage my fresh manicure if I apply it immediately before bed, and then when I wake up in the morning it is securely set AND it is easy to pick off any polish inadvertently applied to my cuticles in the shower (which is almost as satisfying as tearing off a piece of fingernail in the first place!). I’ve been perfecting my pre-bed nail polish routine for a long time; it’s very refined.
Currently I’m using Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Smooth & Strong base coat. (It’s all right, but not my favorite I’ve ever tried. Any recommendations for the Holy Grail of base coats?) On this particular evening I went with this awesome iridescent Sprite-bottle-green-to-Coca-Cola-caramel shade I got in the gift shop of the Atlanta Coke Museum, OPI Green On the Runway, topped with Revlon Transforming Effects glitter polish in Golden Confetti. (I adore all of the Transforming Effects polishes I’ve tried, especially Golden Confetti and Holographic Pearl. Cosmic Flakies is GORGEOUS but kind of trickier to apply and less lasting in comparison.) Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat in the red bottle is the key component here, the element that makes the whole endeavor possible. In the time it takes to read a 22-page comic downloaded to my phone (god bless Comixology!) it sets securely enough to let me fall asleep without scuffing my paint job on the sheets, and by morning it hardens into ROCK HARD IMPENETRABLE ARMOR.
I am attached at the heart to cherry-flavored Chapstick and Smith’s Rosebud Salve because they remind me of my now-deceased maternal grandmother, who let me use both as “lipstick” when I was way too wee for makeup but wanted desperately to try it. Also, she used to take me to Dollywood twice every year with her Gold Season Pass, and that’s where I bought those giant galaxy glass marbles on a return pilgrimage to the Land of Dolly as an adult! I love those things. I didn’t purposefully lay them out for this pic either, I swear! I spent twenty minutes artfully arranging and rephotographing my hand grip on the nail polish bottles, obviously, but the other stuff’s just what happens to be sitting on my bedside table and now I am sitting here with a big goofy smile on my face having unexpectedly time traveled back to an afternoon spent admiring the sequins on Dolly Parton’s 80s-era gowns with my grandmother, all because I just saw a picture of the Chapstick I like to use. BEAUTY IS MAGIC FOR REAL, dudes, I’m telling you!
Lately I’ve been using Clinique Rinse-Off Foaming Cleanser to wash my face. I like the texture of it, I like that it doesn’t really smell like anything, and my skin likes it a lot. It’s what I always used when I was in high school, and sometimes my mom gifts me a bottle of it. (♥ you, Mom!) I really like Skinfood Egg White Pore Foam when I can get my hands on it; my South Korea-born sister-in-law hooks me up when she restocks her own Skinfood supply. (♥ you, Hannah!) I’m now on my second bottle of Fresh Lotus Youth Preserve Radiance Lotion moisturizer. It’s too expensive, but I tried it and LIKED it and that’s how they get you, freakin’ fancy skin products. I use Arm & Hammer PeroxiCare toothpaste, so now you know what to stock next time I visit and stay over at your place. I photographed the products in the mirror wearing this uncharacteristically chipper morning face so I could show off this badass “Get Bent, Bro” t-shirt I bought from Patricia Z on Store Envy.