Gothique

I’ve recently started a love affair with fancy hair pieces, veils, and f-lowers.  I know it shouldn’t come as a surprise with my f-lair for the, er, dramatic.  No matter how messy your hair looks pulled up, it looks STUNNING when you add a decorated comb or clip.  It looks like it’s supposed to be that way, and I’m all about the accidental deliberateness of beauty.

One of my favorite shops on Etsy lately has been Which Goose. Which Goose is owned and operated by Emily, who quit her job as a graphic designer to design and sell on Etsy full time.

My two newest purchases are Anne Boleyn (and if you’re paying attention, I bought that one on the name alone) and Waking Life, another of her recycled hankie combs which I adore so much.

I really appreciate the little touches of whimsy she works into her pieces.  Each of them are hand stitched carefully, delicately keeping things in place, whilst at the same time keeping the adornments strongly fastened to the combs.

Waking Life

Anne Boleyn

They tend to run from about 20$ to 35$ for combs,  30$ to 60$+ for crowns, depending on the piece and the materials.  She crafts a wide variety of products, from the combs you see here, to barrettes, little hair pins, boutonnieres, crowns, upcyled clothing and jewelry.

But as you can see from these shots as well as the one below of the backs, they are so well made the price is worth every penny and justifiable for the amount of creative work that goes into each piece.

Each piece arrived carefully wrapped in tissue and tied with a generous length of satiny ribbon fastened around the bundle.  She ships very quickly, both times I’ve ordered I’ve received my comb with in days, and at 5$ f-lat rate for shipping, it’s very reasonable.

Today she’s running a $9.99 sale with many of her gorgeous combs, clips, flowers, and barrettes.  I quickly purchased two long on my list of favorites, La Boheme and My Darling Clementine.  She’s adding new stuff to it all day, which I can already tell is going to cause me some trouble.

You can keep up with Which Goose on their blog as well as on Twitter.

I’m a pretty big Lush fan.  I’ve been using BIG shampoo for such a long time, it’s one of my HOH products.  I use it every couple of shampoos and I cannot even begin to tell you what an amazing difference it makes on my hair.  I go through a pot of it every few weeks.

But for the last few years, even though there is a store in the area, I’ve been ordering from Lush UK.  Want to know why?

This is an example of my usual order, I place this about once a month -

BIG Shampoo

US Price : 21.35$

UK Price : 8.35£

CoalFace Soap

US Price : 10.95$

UK Price : 3.51£

Flosty Gritter

US Price : 5.95$

UK Price : 2.78£

Shipping

US Price : 10.95$

UK Price : 5.95£

Total

US Price : 48.73$

UK Total : 20.59£ or about 32.80$ US

For the exact same product, exact same sizes, I paid almost 16$ less.  Actually you get a little more ordering from the UK.  The size of the US Big is 11.6 ounces, which is about 328 grams and the UK Big is 330 grams.  Not much, but it’s still more, and it’s like that with most products.

If I’d have just gotten them in the Lush store I’d still have been paying 37.95$ plus almost 10% tax here in CA, so it’s STILL cheaper to order them online.  On top of costing less, Lush UK often has great shopping incentives such as free products and samples.

Shipping from the UK takes about a week, tops.  I usually order on a Monday and have my goodies on Saturday.

I needed a little pick me up today, so I was so excited to get my box!!

I’m currently in the market for two things I’ve never used before…

1 – A green corrector.

I started a new supplement  that gives me rosy cheeks.  So while I know it’s helping with my circulation, I’m going to go mental if one more person asks me if I was just running.

What I’m looking for should be light and matte, preferably soft focus.  I don’t need it every day and it would be best to be a powder since I don’t get ‘rosy’ all the time and I’d like to be able to just dust it on when I need it.

2 – A GOOD hair conditioner.

After years of bleaching and coloring my hair, a little bit before New Years I had it colored my normal color and had all the ends cut off.  As a result my hair is now much shorter (although very sleek) and brown.  I actually love having my natural color back, but I’m going to have to condition the hell out of it to keep it happy with me until all the bleached and over dyed parts underneath grow out.

I use Lush’s BIG shampoo about every third shampoo, but I don’t have a conditioner from them I like, and I’m not crazy about dropping 20$ on a tube or bottle of something at a salon only to not like it.  My hair is thin and lots of stuff is too heavy and oily.

So I’m asking you all, my faithful and wise friends, what do you recommend?!

ETA:

Thanks so much for for recommendations, keep them coming, I’m expoloring all of them, you guys are amazing

I’m not going to lie.  I’m like a little girl, pretty colors and bright things make me happy.  Which is probably why I adore Vivka on Etsy.

First of all, she’s a Suicide Girl, who are a group of the raddest and baddest gals on the face of the earth.  Billed as alternative models they are pierced and tattoed and altered, just like me, and oh so beautiful to look at.

Vivka is also an artist.  Her prints and original pieces are amazing, but for me, it’s all about her hair.

She makes, by hand ya’ll, the most amazing custom clip in and extensions ever.  All BRIGHT perfect colors that are so well done, I’m always amazed to get a new piece.

She made my custom purple and black fringe get, which every time I wear I get MEGA compliments on my hair.  This time I ordered a set of 5 mini pieces.  Just bright little streaks of color to clip in randomly as your mood changes.  Since my hair is so much shorter now, I did have to trim mine, but I’m merrily wearing a BRIGHT orange streak and I love it.

She’s really sweet, and accepts custom pieces, like my fringe, and makes and ships the items LIGHTENING fast, which to me is always the bomb.  She also sends the oddest collection of goodies in her packages.  It’s delightful.

I’m seriously already planning on ordering another set of extensions.

Ok, so for the past Idunnohowlong, I’ve worn my hair basically the same way.  I have sort of an odd face shape, it’s like a squared heart with a high forehead.  So I’ve always worn a nice bob, of various length, but usually blunt, with pinup girl bangs.  Just in purple.

After a trip home to visit family not to long ago, I came home sort of agitated and cut a good deal of the length off, leaving it at just above shoulder length.  I actually like it shorter, but I can’t wear it the million and one different ways I used to pull it up.

So now I’m at the point I’d usually cut my bangs back blunt and short, they’ve grown out.  But I’m not sure I want to.  I almost want to grow them out a little longer so I can sweep them to the side, etc etc.  But that almost seems too ‘scene’ to me.  Which I’m not too sure I want to be.

What do I do?