Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Goodbye, Dolly Edition

I am rarely, if ever, affected by celebrity deaths. Usually I am surprised, as I frequently think the celebrity in question was already deceased, although sometimes I feel great shock and sadness at the cause of death, such as that of Rob Reiner or Phil Hartman. I was greatly affected by the death of Princess Diana and then later of Queen Elizabeth II, and I was sad to hear of the passing of Alice Munro. Generally, though, I feel fairly detached when I hear of the passing of someone famous, but I was deeply saddened to hear about Dolly Parton.

Dolly Parton brought so much joy and goodness into the world; not only did she have the voice of an angel, but she had the demeanour of one as well. She did so much for so many, particularly with regards to improving children’s literacy and education. By all accounts she was a woman full of love for all; she was quoted as saying The Holy Ghost is that part of God that lives in everybody, and the way you sin against it is by not loving everybody with all your heart, for exactly who they are. Isn’t that beautiful?

I’ve always liked the saying that a woman at twenty has the face she was born with, and at forty she has the one she deserves. I think women, as they age, become more beautiful when they have a beautiful soul; their aura shines through. Their beauty comes from the inside out! But sometimes, I like to think of beauty going from the outside in.

What I mean is that I always feel like I’m my best self when I put effort into my outward appearance. I grew up in a house in which vanity was a flaw to be overcome, and I really do think that song is about me, so I have a little bit of low-level shame about my fixation on my appearance. As I have gotten older, I have become more and more comfortable with my own vanity and the importance my appearance plays in my life. I don’t care about looking nice for other people, I want to look nice for ME, and I don’t feel like my best self when I don’t look my best.

I think this is one of the reasons I love Dolly so much. She had a rich inner life AND she leaned in to her looks. She worked hard and donated massively to charity and meant so much to people, and she looked fabulous while doing it. Another quote: My joke of, ‘It costs a lot of money to look this cheap’ ‒ that’s so true because I like to look a certain way. I can’t just put on a little bit of makeup and think I look good because I don’t look good with a little bit of makeup. I like to wear a lot of makeup. It fits my personality. Even if somebody says, ‘Oh God, she was so over-made.’ Well, if it fits me then I’m going to make everybody around me happy because I’m going to feel good myself. Never have I related to something so much. One can be a serious person and also enjoy frivolities at the same time. Being sparkly doesn’t mean being stupid. Working on one’s outer beauty does not preclude working on one’s inner beauty.

This month’s Favourite Things is dedicated to glorious, glamourous Dolly.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Goodbye, Dolly Edition

Maybe She’s Born With It, Maybe It’s Maybelline

Like Dolly, I don’t like to wear a little makeup, I like to wear a lot of makeup, every day. This is especially true of mascara.

There are areas in my life where I like to splurge, but mascara isn’t one of them. I go through a tube a month and so I prefer a less-expensive drugstore brand. My favourite – and it’s been my favourite for YEARS – is Maybelline’s Surreal Falsies. It builds nicely, doesn’t clump, and I don’t feel bad if I go through it quickly.

I also love Maybelline’s Express Brow, which is essentially a mascara, but for eyebrows. It covers up the wiry white eyebrow hairs and patchiness that are part of my life now.

Love The Skin You’re In

I honestly think that laugh lines are very beautiful, and I also have deep forehead wrinkles and marionette lines from a lifetime of smiling, laughing, and raising my eyebrows. No regrets! What can I say, I’m a “facey” person with a lot of expression, and my visage really did freeze that way. Nevertheless, I do like to use night creams, not to erase those lines – that’s too tall an order for a mere lotion – but to soften, smooth, and hydrate.

I was standing in line at the Costco pharmacy, waiting to pick up my husband’s medications. I am trying not to look at my phone while waiting for things, and so I glanced around at the people around me, peeking into their carts and wondering about their lives. What are they doing with all that cheese? I’ll wonder. To my left was a long aisle of beauty products. Here’s the thing about buying beauty products at Costco: it’s a gamble, and a very tempting one. Everything is so economical and also so GIANT. I have found myself saddled with massive amounts of product that was wrong for me, which is wasteful and makes me regret my life choices. But there I was, in a very slow-moving line filled with elderly people filling prescriptions, beside all sorts of untried and promising products. I kept glancing at them. Minutes ticked by. I AM NOT MADE OF STONE.

I ended up with a two-pack of Cerave Skin Renewing Eye Cream and a THREE-pack of ROC Correxion Cream. It was a gamble, but one that paid off. I love both of these products, and, as a bonus, Wirecutter chose the Cerave as its recent number one pick for eye creams! Now, let’s hope they are back at Costco by the time I run out of them, which will be many months from now.

Nailed It

Until I was about 23 years old, I was a terrible nail-biter. Now that I’m not, I like to keep polish on them at all times to keep from reverting to bad habits. I have had three professional manicures in my life, and one of those was a gel manicure. That lasted several weeks without chips, but the downside is that it kind of wrecked my nails. I always get gel pedicures, so I don’t know what the difference was, but my fingernails were so weak and prone to splitting post-gel-manicure that I never got one again. Instead, I use Sally Hansen Miracle Gel polish, which lasts about a week before chipping, can be removed with regular polish remover, and doesn’t destroy my nails.

I love the look of dark nail polish – my toenails are always, always red – but I find that a light, natural colour is more forgiving in the chip department. I don’t know how one gets a job naming nail polish, but I wish it was mine. The colour I like is All Chiffon The World.

A Hair Affair

Recently my gorgeous friend Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) asked if my hair was naturally curly, and the answer to that is: not really. But it’s not straight, either. It’s more like weirdly inconsistent beach waves. Here is what it looks like wet:

And then this is with blow-drying:

Suffice it to say that it needs a little help, and so I love my curling iron. About a year ago I splurged on a fancy, expensive one, and I have never looked back.

It takes 5-10 minutes to curl my entire head of hair, depending on my precision and mood.

Then I gently comb it out, using a wide-tooth comb or my fingers.

I suppose I could blow-dry it straight, the way every hair stylist always does for me, but the truth is I don’t like the way it looks. My hair is so fine that it looks kind of flat and flyaway, and so I prefer the curls. I only wash my hair every three days, so it generally just needs a touchup or a bun on non-wash days.

It doesn’t take an eagle-eyed reader to notice the white roots! I don’t know when, if ever, I am going to allow my hair to go natural, because wow, does that feel like a process. At this rate, I’ll be the little orange haired lady in The Home. I started colouring my own hair during the pandemic and I never looked back, except to be low-level horrified by the amount of money I spent at salons for two decades. My current favourite is L’Oreal, and I am toying with the idea of going back to the chocolate brown of my youth. We’ll see!

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

As you may recall, I have had a lifelong goal to look like Mr T, when it comes to jewelry. More is more, I say! Just like I don’t feel like myself without makeup, I feel naked without jewelry. I like to wear bracelets, rings, earrings, and a necklace every day. I also wear my Garmin watch, but I’m not sure if that counts as jewelry.

Outfit of the Month

Nothing makes me want to shop my closet more than current pant styles. Everything is so wide-legged now, and I don’t love that style on me. Well, as Dolly herself said, Here you come again, and so slim-fit pants will eventually be back, but for now, I’m pulling out my old City Sleek Lululemons. I love these pants and I have several in different colours; I wore the charcoal ones with an old Gap tee and my Skecher sandals to a friend’s birthday lunch.

I am getting a lot of mileage out of that silk scarf I painted with my friend Sandi (HI SANDI) last summer. It’s the perfect lightweight scarf for a warmish fall day!

Face, hair, nails, clothes, accessories…I think I covered all my favourite frivolities, all of which Dolly made look so good. Goodbye, Dolly. You were an angel on this earth and now you are a literal angel. You were a gift to all of us. I will always love you. xo