Beauty Tips for Ministers

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

I want to show you something.

This was me at our General Assembly in Cleveland nine years ago:

This is me in 2008:

And again in the fall of 2009 (yea, remember that hideous hair color situation?):

I have not lost weight since the Cleveland photo was taken. In fact, I am a bit heavier now. God’s truth.

Would you agree with me that making an effort to find clothes that fit, colors that flatter, and the right hair and make-up create an improvement?

Me in 2002. I like this photo. I had figured out better make-up by that point, and I was getting my nails done. You can see that I’m making an effort to add some pizzazz factor to the conference outfit with the big necklace. Oh my god, those bangs!

Perhaps 2004 or 5?

You wouldn’t do everything in your ministry the same way you did ten years ago, would you? If you haven’t changed anything about your appearance for ten years, it’s time to take a new look.

Share This

Hide Sites

Eye Cream With SPF & Glowy Face

Hooray, hooray!! ROC, which makes a very affordable and effective eye cream with retinol, has released a new day cream with SPF!! Some of you may recall PeaceBang’s dismay when Kiehl’s discontinued their gel-based SPF eye cream and her subsequent difficulties in finding a replacement product. Well, this is it! At around $18 for 1 oz., it’s a major bargain compared to the fancy brands, and ROC has an excellent reputation for actually working to decrease fine lines. A 1 oz. tube can last you at least six months even if you use it daily. You only use the tiniest grain of rice dab for each eye and pat it on. I use Philosophy Hope In A Tube eye cream at night without retinol, and I would recommend that you limit retinol to either day or night eye cream, not both.

It’s called ROC Extra Magical PeaceBang Special Eye-Line Reducing Anti-Aging SPF Supercalafragalisticexpealidocious Cream Just For Clergy and I found it at Target. Ha ha! Just kidding! It’s just that, as time goes by, my brain cells get used up with actual information and I have less of an ability to remember these products’ ridiculously long names, especially when they spell perfectly ordinary words like “correction” as “correxion.” Is that British, or what?

Both men and women, if there’s one skin-care product, aside from SPF moisturizer, that you should be using EVERY day, it’s eye cream. Some people age beautifully and continue to look vibrant even as their skin wrinkles and dries out. Honestly, is that you? The people I know who do manage it exercise daily, are in fantastic shape, and/or just happen to have an internal radiant beauty or plain good genes. Looking around at clergy gatherings, I must say that they are a rarity, while most of us just look wan or even haggard. I continue to despair that clergy of all ages go forth in public leadership without any attention to their photographability or visual “stage” presence in the pulpit. Young ones with bare, too-casual faces and whispy fly-away hair and older ones with sagging bags around their eyes and blotchy, oily or dried-out skin (and no, a suntan does NOT count as “make-up” — in fact, it often makes matters worse by highlighting sun damage and further drying things out) when just some simple attention would help so much. Augh! It pains me, it really does. All that money and fuss about vestments and pretty clothes, when the face is drab, drab, drab. And believe me, a “done” face can help so much when you’re having a Bad Hair Day.

You communicate so much with your face. ESPECIALLY if you eschew cosmetic enhancement, you should at least devote yourself to some skin care regimen.

Benefit High Beam is a wonderful product that PeaceBang calls her “glowy-rested face in a bottle.” I sweep a line of it across each upper cheekbone, blend up into the hairline, dot a tiny amount on the upper eyelid and it catches the light and makes me look dewy and rested even if I’ve had three hours of sleep (which I do very infrequently, since I think that being a Sleep Martyr is a very bad idea for any clergyperson, but maybe that deserves its own column). It costs $24 but lasts and lasts – I’ve had my little bottle for over a year and it still has plenty left.

A LITTLE BLUSH WOULDN’T KILL YOU, EITHER.

Kiss of peace, PB

Share This

Hide Sites

Dragon Breath And Liquid Chlorophyll

Darlings, how to say this gently?

If we brush our teeth in the morning (and I hope you’re flossing, too — did you know that dental plaque can wind up going straight to your arteries? Flossing is actually a matter of good heart health as well as oral hygiene!), and then we spend the day talking, drinking coffee, eating food and never doing anything else to clean our mouths of bacteria (say, chewing gum), by evening we will have developed a coating on our tongue and mouth that creates the dreaded Dragon Breath.

Do the people you meet with of an evening a favor. Brush your tooth (as my late father used to say). Brush the tongue, spend a good minute or two at the job, and rinse well. If you can’t get home to brush, pack a toothbrush in your bag and at least brush with water.

Alternating coffee with water throughout the day will not only help keep you hydrated (and your entire body needs that — but as a professional speaker, your vocal chords cannot do without it!) will also help the nasty bitter breath from developing.

Chewing parsley is great, too. The chlorophyll is an added bonus. Speaking of which, I have been taking straight chlorophyll in liquid form (an alfalfa base) just to add a straight shot of plant-based nutrients to my winter diet, a product which also claims to act as an internal deodorizer. It makes me feel great in general, but if I get fresher breath from it, double bonus! Remember the “I’ll have a shot of wheat grass” craze of the 90’s? It’s like that, except for I’m allergic to wheat grass. Same sense of natural high, though.

Share This

Hide Sites

Dog Collars and Easter Bonnets

An interesting query from G., who writes,

I’m presently a lay person with a sizeable collection of church hats. Fabulous, delightful, mostly vintage church hats that I wear almost every Sunday and sometimes other times.

But there’s a good shot I won’t always be a lay person. So… I’m curious about your opinion. Can a church hat and a white dog collar be worn by the same woman at the same time?

In a word, G., no. But as the granddaughter of a highly-regarded 1940’s milliner, I celebrate your love of hats!

Share This

Hide Sites

Shoe Score!

Clark’s Harwich Middy Peep-Toe Cork Wedge. In this color:

Love the height, love the style, love the color that is IMPOSSIBLE to find, love the craftsmanship, love the of-the-moment cork heel. Love that the heel is substantial and doesn’t taper off in the back. Love the suede foot lining so your tootsies don’t slide around. Love the stitching.
Don’t love the slingback, which always slides off my heels, but I am hoping that wearing these with bare feet will alleviate the slippy issue.

Church-appropriate. Conference-friendly. Will look great with dresses and pants of all lengths. Solid enough for ministry, pretty and feminine enough for date night. Comfortable enough for a city trip. Not a sandal (which I do wear to church, but try not to wear for weddings). Classic.

Available at Zappos.com, but I just got the last pair in 6.5 in that color. These are two of the others:

Much cuter on than in photos…

Back to the sermon!

Share This

Hide Sites

Splitting Nails

Oh no! She hath raggedy paws!! And she writes to PB:

Dear PeaceBang,

I need your help! You can normally solve all beauty problems with such wit and wisdom and clarity of thought, so help me please!

All of a sudden my once lovely nails are all splitting, peeling and brittle. I’ve tried the usual things, wearing washing up gloves when doing the dishes, hand creams , keeping them short and using a buffer on them etc… Nothing seems to be working that well, but they are shinier than usual!

I’d read that nail varnish remover is not good for the long term health of the nail, so I’ve cut back on my nail colour matching my outfit!

Any ideas? I’m extra aware of the look of my nails and in ministry we use our hands a lot!

Any help you can give would be appreciated….thanks.

Shalom,
L.

Now, L., flattery will get you nowhere, darling, although you know I lap it up with great delight! But what is up with the nails, I wonder? Is this part of the whole Wonderful Menopause thing, perhaps? I would certainly say that avoiding all formaldehyde and acetone-based nail products is very important and for the time being, all products.

I’m just guessing here, but I wonder if your nails aren’t just rebelling against usual products inflicted upon them for year after year, just as happened to my lips a few summers ago when they cracked and peeled if I used any lipstick at all. Nail polish and remover are very toxic products, and you may want to seek out formulas by purveyors of natural cosmetics (a Google search should help, as will the comments and suggestions I feel certain will come from my wonderful readers).

Looks like Barielle makes such a line.

A daily supplement of Biotin (available at your local drugstore) may also help, and it will do nice things for your hair, too. Make sure to check with your doc before you start popping anything, though. And it wouldn’t hurt to ask if any drugs you’re currently taking might be causing the nail splitting.

Good luck, dear, and here’s hoping that your hands are looking as lovely as you want them to soon. The good thing about nails is that they do grow, and yours may just need a few months of growth to get stronger.

And remember, it could be worse. You could have THESE nails:

Share This

Hide Sites