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Summer Ministry Garb And Fake Tans

C. writes asking what to wear when leading worship in un-air-conditioned sanctuary over the summer. She votes “nay” on a robe, saying that her heavy black polyester Harvard robe would smother her.

I agree.
That’s where you have to get creative. A white cotton alb is one idea (if that’s not too Catholic for you), or having a simple white cotton robe made is another smart option. All those summer wedding fees you’ll be getting will easily pay for it.

When preaching in hot box churches last summer, I wore a lined, light silk/poly skirt of knee length in a muted brown and aqua blue pattern (expensive and worth every penny) and a sleeveless white blouse under a beautiful aqua blue blazer with 3/4 length sleeves. A triple strand of pearls dressed it all up. Was I cool and comfortable? No. But I went bare-legged and wore creamy brown pointy Bandolino pumps and tanned my legs with Coppertone foam, and the bare legs helped with temperature management. I know it’s not really appropriate to preach in bare legs, but neither is looking like a half-drowned puppy by the time you pronounce the benediction.
I did obsess about it a bit, wondering if God loves modesty more than He loves my well-toned calves. They’re the only well-toned part of my body, so I did a novena for vanity and went out bare-legged anyway.

PeaceBang ALWAYS has a freshly laundered and pressed small white cotton hankie in her pocket, which she uses to delicately dab away any moisture. Remember, ladies don’t sweat; they glisten.
Only in congregations where you are well known and loved can you say, “Oy, am I schvitzing up here!”

Secret fact: PeaceBang keeps a hair dryer in her office so she can blow dry before coffee hour.
This is highly secret. Please do not reveal this highly secret secret to anyone. I do not expect to be teased for this highly secret secret when I see you, nor do I expect those of you who attend my church to make finger guns and point them at your heads on Sunday morning while laughing and making blow-dryer noises. I know you will never insult my inherent worth and dignity like that.

I preached at an ordination last summer for which a robe was an absolute necessity, so I wore a dressy cotton ankle length skirt, a shell, and a very light gauzy garment I bought from Lord & Taylor that looks just like a preaching robe. I wore a stole over it and no one was the wiser. I was soaked by the end of the service but at least the skirt hid the rivulets going down my legs (in addition to the sanctuary being hellishly hot — my own fault, since I had been unable to find any other available date to preach this ordination and committed to an August evening — they had SPOTLIGHTS on the dais!).

Be creative. Find the lightest, flowiest fabrics you can find, but make sure things fit. Light and flowy does not mean that we can’t find you under yards of fabric. Avoid floral designs, unless it’s a tie. Keep the lines simple. Gentlemen, a t-shirt under a nicely ironed cotton dress shirt will help soak up some of the sweat. Powder down beforehand.

And darlings, if you fake tan your legs, DO IT THE DAY BEFORE. The instructions on my favorite Coppertone product advise not to bathe within three hours of applying the product. Well, it never occurred to PeaceBang that preaching in June in an un-air-conditioned New England church would generate the equivalent moisture factor of a shower, but she learned her lesson the hard way when she appeared at coffee hour with striped brown and white legs.

Someone used to make a marvelous product called Summer Sheer, which was a very lightweight pantyhose. WHY did they stop making them? They were great!

PeaceBang recommends:

Summer Sheer hose, if you can find them.
Creative robing options in white cotton.
A crisp white cotton hankie on your person at all times.
Johnson & Johnson’s Corn Starch Baby Powder.
Clean lines, lightweight fabrics and bare, tanned and toned legs if you’re wearing anything less than calf-length skirts.
Closed-toed shoes in the pulpit or at weddings, because just because Jesus did his ministry in sandals doesn’t mean that you can.

P.S. While searching for Summer Sheer pantyhose, I found this web site. It didn’t give me what I was looking for but if you have a leg fetish it will certainly give you what you’re looking for. For the love of God, don’t peruse this at church, people:
http://www.stockingstore.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=27

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How I See You

Darling PeaceBangers,

This has got to stop.

I ran into another reader of this blog yesterday at a church in town and he confessed to me that he was feeling less than his stellar fashioning best in a polo shirt and chinos.
Now stop that!
Haven’t I told you that PeaceBang herself looks like a horizontal stack of meatballs pressed gamely into some outfit that she hopes communicates creative, with-it religous leader (or perhaps, “fun, cute dateable 40 year old babe”)? And that without the help of Max Factor, Origins, Shu Uemura and TIGI, she would just be a washed-out old broad?

You must understand that when PeaceBang sees you, she does not judge.
She scrutinizes you because in you, she sees a potential superstar and she considers herself your agent and stylist, wanting you to shine every time you walk down the red carpet of your life. PeaceBang is totally on your team, people. She thinks you’re adorable and beautiful as a child of God. She’s just a little bit of a Jewish mother, noodging you to get your hair out of your eyes already, stand up straight and smile big, why? Because, dahlink, you’re fabulous!

So get out there and be fabulous and when you run into PeaceBang, remember that she is 100% LOVING you!

(P.S. If you pull that polo out of the dryer faster it won’t get even one wrinkle in it. Kisses!!)

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Dressing For Conferences

PeaceBang has had two fashion inquiries today:

1. What should UU lay people wear to GA?
2. How do we pack for a collegial conference when we would not like to be numbered among the Frumpy Servants of the Lord?

1. ChaliceChick asked me this off-line, saying that her typical weekend wear is
t-shirts, jeans and boots. Apparently a minister friend of hers recommended business casual.

CC, dear, I have two thoughts. The first is that since you’re not a minister or a workshop presenter and therefore not making a professional appearance, you probably don’t need to go as far as business casual. That said, there’s nothing quite so depressing than watching the Jumbotron at the Service of the Living Tradition and seeing one fashion disaster after the next, or arriving at GA to throngs of ill-clad fellow UUs.

My personal heart’s desire?
1. no environmentally or politically themed T-shirts
2. nothing batik
3. death to Birkenstocks!
4. no ungroomed facial hair or scraggly ponytails on the men
5. everyone limited to ONE chalice item

When we gather together as Unitarian Universalists in one city, we do make a group impression. My advice? Dress in such a way as to help us make a good group impression. If that means taking a step up from jeans and a t-shirt (and you know it does), pack accordingly.

And people, hotel rooms do have irons in them. And hair dryers.

2. Conferences are easy if you have a sense of your own style and don’t feel that it’s necessary to pack only practical items (i.e., polyester garments that go sproing when you pull on them). I love practical items. It’s just hard to make an entire outfit, let alone five or six, from that terrific swingy jacket you got from Chico’s. (We all have one of those, right? You couldn’t wrinkle it even if you scrinched it into a tiny ball and sat on it through the entire flight, right?)

PeaceBang is all about planning in advance. Around this time of year she starts to think about packing for GA and carefully strategizing the maximum number of outfits out of the minimum number of garments. She combs through all her accessories and begins to consider which ones to take. She mulls over shoe choices. She does all this while working out or driving. You can do it, too. You can’t always be thinking about your sermons. C’mon.

What persona are you trying to communicate? Sober religious leader? Then pack all solid colors with a few crisp blouses and get out the Barbara Bush pearls. Creative, fun religious leader? Pack one camel suit and wear it with red cowboy boots and huge gold hoops and red lipstick. Change your blouse every day and just wear the hell out of that suit.

My point is, find your look and make a statement in some way. No one expects a fabulous new outfit every day — for heaven’s sake, we’re all traveling — so feel free to repeat. Don’t WORRY what the so-called A-listers are wearing. YOU are on God’s A+ list! The key to confident self-presentation is to find your own look and never, ever feel like you have to compete with anyone else. Be your own fabulous self. I find that if there’s a question of over-dressing or under-dressing, I opt for over-dressing.
In the Black church, the ladies say that they like to dress up for the Lord. I couldn’t agree more. Dressing up shows respect. If I arrive at an event in a skirt and heels and everyone else is in Izods and capris, I figure I’m just showing some propers. Nothing wrong with that.

Hotels and conference centers are over air-conditioned. There are lots of lovely silk/cotton blend cardigans on the shelves right now. They look nice with a shell underneath. PeaceBang understands that it’s hot in the summertime but she is never, ever seen in sleeveless garb unless it’s in the privacy of her own hammock. Despite her deep loyalty to working out with weights, PeaceBang’s upper arms still resemble her great-Baba Billo’s, which is to say that the most appropriate word for them would be Slovak for “jiggly hamhocks.”

The secret to successful conference dressing, my doves, is ALL IN THE DETAILS.

Get thee to a hairdresser and colorist two weeks in advance of the gathering so you have time to learn how to do your hair, and pack your hair products.
PeaceBang usually packs minimal clothing but lots of make-up and products because she finds them comforting to have around. Also necessary, as her hotel roommate can attest.

Visit your manicurist for hands and feet two days before departure. Pack a tiny bottle of Febreze so you can freshen your clothes when needed. Use that iron.
Pack Emergen-C packets for those mornings you feel less than your best, and because hotel rooms are notoriously dry, don’t forget your richest moisturizer!

Lipstick! Mascara! Light make-up if you need it to look polished.

And your mother wasn’t lying when she said that a big smile was the most important accessory you could ever own.

PeaceBang recommends:

Emergenc-C vitamin C packets
Travel size Febreze and Shout stain remover packets
A clothespin to hang up hand-washed dainties
Travel size Aveda hair and skin care products (expensive but worth it)

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Shine On, Stars

I’ve been writing for a short while now and realizing with every new post that I really don’t think this blog is silly or frivolous.

Here’s my exchange with Anonymous, who is 40-something and edging toward frumpiness by her own admittance:

http://www.blogger.com/publish-comment.do?blogID=26108851&postID=114650523129948728&r=ok

You know what it is, my dear and reverend friends?
It’s that men and women of the cloth should be anything but invisible. But for women especially, there’s the temptation to present as the non-threatening, comfy nurturing lady rather than the with-it, spirit-filled, camera-ready religious leader you need to be.

The world needs us. We should be immediately identifiable in a crowd as the people most fully inhabiting our bodies, spiritually realized, passionately present.
I know you can do that without a stitch of make-up and with orthopedic shoes on, but I know you can do it EVEN BETTER if you pencil in your eyebrows and are sporting some really kicking bit of apparel that makes you feel like a put together superstar.

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Make-Up Tips, Part I

[This post appeared in March, 2006 on my regular PeaceBang blog. It was the inspiration for Sister of PeaceBang to begin nagging me to start a Beauty Tips blog. Okay, sis, this is for you! – P.B.]

Oh wow!
PeaceBang is ecstatic!

I’ve had several e-mails off line asking for make-up tips for those women who never ever wear the stuff. I clap my hands with glee! I’m still waiting for the hate mail from women who will accuse me of being in league with the patriarchy, or at worst, with the ghost of Estee Lauder. But really, you have to understand that on rainy days when I was little, Mother of PeaceBang put out big shoeboxes of her old make-up (I shudder to think of the bacterial festival contained therein) and set up a little Hollywood-lit make-up table for my sister and me. We carefully made up our wee little faces and the glamour was thrilling! How could we go back to fresh-scrubbedness? (Although Sister of PeaceBang can get by to this day with a tiny brushing of bronzer, a light lick of black eyeliner and her favorite Clinique lipstick in something like Ballerina Pink. She is ageless, and although we argue about over-plucking eyebrows, she hasn’t cut her own bangs since third grade and has looked smashing ever since. Even during the Perm Era). But I digress. You asked about make-up.

1. Start with the cheap stuff, but take your time choosing shades. Shop at a store with a good return policy, like Rite-Aid or CVS.

2. Listen up. These products are wonderful:

> Maybelline Express Make-up 3 In 1. It’s less than $5, and it’s a handy, blendable make-up stick that you can use to blend away ruddy spots and other blotchy skins sections, or use it lightly all over your face. Blend, blend, blend. It’s very lightweight so you won’t feel like you’re wearing make-up at all.

> Covergirl Remarkable Washable Waterproof Mascara. In black. It washes off but it’s waterproof! How genius is that? Safe for contact wearers. Also under $5. Best with an eyelash curler, which I have been using for 25 years with no mishaps, but I don’t want to push you too far. Let me just say this: they totally open up the eye.

> Revlon Skinlights Face Illuminator. This is a light powder that is gorgeous and shimmery. You don’t want to use it all over your face: get a basic pressed powder compact to blot away shine (for heaven’s sake, you at LEAST have a powder compact, don’t you?) and use this on your cheekbones and eyelids to create a dewy look. Good for those who don’t want to graduate into eye shadow just yet. Makes you look rested and radiant, especially if you haven’t exfoliated recently (which you should have, with something gentle. Throw away that nasty apricot scrub by St. Ives immediately, girlfriend, it’s just like using sandpaper!).
Use a light touch with this product. You don’t want to look like Reverend Disco Fever.

> I cannot LIVE without CoverGirl Outlast All-Day Lipcolor in Blush Pearl. It’s a neutral color that I think would look great on any skin tone no matter how light or dark (but you’ll have to write and tell me). You paint your lips with it, let it dry, and you’re gorgeous for hours and hours and hours. It comes with a moisturizing topcoat that keeps things shiny and comfortable. It doesn’t come off on your coffee cup, it doesn’t come off on your lover, it doesn’t come off through a morning of preaching and meetings although if you’re like me, you have seventeen or eighteen lip glosses on your person and in your car that you layer over anyway. And speaking of which, Rimmel makes a FABULOUS $4 gloss that actually has a bit of lasting power (by which I mean maybe an hour, which is a long time for lip gloss). But the CoverGirl is a lip color that doesn’t make you look like you’re wearing lipstick. If you want to look like you’re wearing lipstick, there are thousands of choices. But keep in mind that anything too purply will age you and bring attention to jowliness, and too waxy is very out of fashion. Sheer is a good bet, and save the bright bright red for either a very tailored suit look, or keep it away from church altogether unless you’re a fairly dramatic type (and even then, you don’t want anything too drippy and vampy).
Men should have a lip balm, too. Chapped kissers don’t look nice on anyone.

3. When it comes to applying make-up, blend, blend, blend. Do invest in a nice powder brush, again available at the drugstore. When you buy blush, don’t imagine that the cheap little brush in the package will be appropriate. And you should buy blush. Consider a creme blush that you dab on with your fingers, and blend, blend, blend. All of which does not mean that you should use so little that we can’t even tell the difference. Play at home! Find your look!

4. You asked about eyebrow pencil. I admit that I spend $25 for a Lancome item called poudre something, which just means that it’s powdery. It lasts for about five months, so at $5 a month or 16 cents a day, I’m willing to pay. The color matches my natural eyebrows perfectly, and to me it’s worth it. The trick to eyebrow pencil is to get a good grip on the pencil, and with a LIGHT TOUCH, fill in your brows with feathery strokes. No drawing big, strong lines unless you want to look like an ancient eccentric drama teacher. You’re just filling in, you’re not trying to look like Nelson Eddy in one of those operettas with Jeanette McDonald.

5. Skin care is for everyone, boys and girls. Use SPF, for God’s sake, or you’ll look like my colleague with the bright pink honker and cheeks whose sunburnt skin comes off in big patches during the summer and makes you want to choke into your gin and tonic. Dandruff care is part of skin care: your scalp is skin. Take care of it.
Exfoliate, gently. Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize. Kiehl’s makes a fabulous undereye gel with SPF. Pat it on gently and it will give you a dewy glow after it dries (but it will smear your eyeliner if you’re wearing it on your lower lid, which I mostly don’t). Don’t be afraid of bronzer, white people, which can warm up your whole face in the dead of winter and spare you from overdoing it with the blush. Bronzer is the new lipstick, and they make it even for the fairest of skin. I had my doubts but I now own a beautiful bronzer by Trish McEvoy and it’s wonderful stuff; you can hardly tell it’s there but I don’t look pasty anymore. Dust lightly over the cheeks, forehead and nose – everywhere the sun hits. And if you’re a chubby and have two chins, I’ll teach you a little shading trick I learned from Pam.

6. And this is very important: Have a Booger Patrol. When I was installed, I gathered my Search Committee around me and said, “Your job is over, but I have a sacred trust to extend to you now. You were the Search Committee that got me here to this church, and from now on, I need you to be my Booger Patrol. If I have sand in my eyes or toilet paper sticking on my shoe or my skirt tucked into my pantyhose or my perfume is too strong or I have something crusty in my nose or spinach on my tooth, you’ve got to tell me.”
They solemnly agreed. Everyone in public leadership needs a Booger Patrol. Mine has told me more than once that my slip is showing or I have a glob of hair product in the back of my head that didn’t get worked in enough. They are the ones who will tell me honestly if I have garlic breath.

Don’t read this and groan, “how much time does she think I HAVE in the morning?” Once you get the hang of it, this is a five minute operation. I, of course, take about 25 minutes to do it all (including hair) on Sundays because it’s a form of meditation and preparation for me. On other days, it’s a quick brush and curl and paint and I’m done.

Embrace the possibilities! Go forth and make-up!

PeaceBang recommends:

Maybelline Express Make-Up 3-In-1
CoverGirl Remarkable Washable Waterproof Mascara
CoverGirl Outlast All Day Lipcolor in Blush Pearl
Revlon Skinlights Face Illuminator
Decent make-up brushes
Trish McEvoy powder bronzer (available in finer stores and salons)