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CLEOPATRA FOR A DAY: Fashion & beauty diary of former expat Anastasia Ashman

8 Comments Posted by ML Awanohara on March 19, 2012

Continuing our feature, “Cleopatra for a Day,” we turn to Anastasia Ashman, an American whose love of the exotic led her to Southeast Asia (Malaysia) and Istanbul, Turkey to live (she also found a Turkish husband en route!). Having just moved back home to California, Ashman opens her little black book and spills the fashion and beauty secrets she has collected over three decades of pursuing a nomadic life.

BEAUTY STAPLES

Like Cleopatra, I’m into medicinal unguents and aromatic oils. My staples are lavender and tea tree oil for the tropical face rot you can get in hot, humid places — and for all other kinds of skin complaints, stress, headaches, jet lag, you name it — and Argan oil for skin dryness. I take them everywhere. I also spray lavender and sandalwood on my sheets.

When living in Southeast Asia I liked nutmeg oil to ward off mosquitoes. (I know that’s not beauty per se but bug-bitten is not an attractive look, and it’s just so heavenly smelling too, I suppose you can slather it on your legs and arms for no reason at all.)

I didn’t even have to go to Africa to become dependent on shea butter for lips and hands, and I like a big block of cocoa butter from the Egyptian Bazaar in Istanbul for après sun and gym smoothing — less greasy than shea butter, which I usually use at night.

I’m not really into branded products. When you move around it’s hard to keep stocking your favorite products and I find companies are always discontinuing the things I like so I’ve become mostly brand agnostic.

I just moved from Istanbul to San Francisco, and I got rid of almost everything I owned so I’m seeing what basics I can live with. Because to me, basics that do a wonderful, multifaceted job are the definition of luxury. You’ve got to figure out what those basics are for you.

Oh, and when I am in Paris, I buy perfume. Loved this tiny place in Le Marais that created scents from the plants on the island of Sardinia. And wouldn’t you know it, the second time I went they’d gone out of business. Crushing.

My favorite perfume maker in Paris at the moment — very intriguing perspective, lots of peppery notes and almost nicotiney pungencies — is L’Artisan Parfumeur. I’ve got my eye on their Fou d’Absinthe.

In another life, past or present, I know I was involved with perfume…

BEAUTY TREATMENTS

Believe Cleopatra would drink them dissolved in vinegar? In Malaysia I used to get capsules of crushed pearls from a Chinese herbalist down the street from my house — apparently they’re good for a creamy-textured skin.

I’ll take a facial in any country. I like Balinese aromatic oil massages when I can get them, too, and will take a bath filled with flowers if I’ve got a view of the jungle. Haven’t yet had my chance to do a buttermilk bath. I also do mud baths and hot springs where ever they’re offered, in volcanic areas of the world.

Another indispensable: the Turkish hamam. It’s really great for detoxification, relaxation and exfoliation. When living in Istanbul, I’d go at least once a season, and more often in the summer. It’s great to do with a clutch of friends. You draw out the poaching experience by socializing in the steamy room on heated marble benches, and take turns having your kese (scrub down) with a rough goat-hair mitt. You hire a woman who specializes in these scrubs, and then she massages you with a soapy air-filled cotton bag, and rinses you off like a mother cat washes her kitten.

Soap gets in the eyes, yes.

I own all the implements now, including hand-crocheted washcloths made with silverized cotton, knitted mitts, oil and laurel oil soaps, copper hamam bowls (for rinsing), linen pestemal (wraps or towels), and round pumice stones. (For haman supplies, try Dervis.com.)

DENTAL CARE

I’ve had dental work done in Malaysia and Turkey and was very satisfied with the level of care and the quality and modernity of the equipment and techniques. I got used to state-of-the-science under-the-gum-line laser cleanings in Malaysia (where my Taiwanese dentist was also an acupuncturist) and worry now that I am back to regular old ineffective cleanings. I’ve had horrific experiences in New York, by the way, so don’t see the USA as a place with better oral care standards.

In general, I like overkill when it comes to my teeth. I’ll see oral surgeons rather than dentists, and have my cleanings from dentists rather than oral hygienists.

ENHANCEMENTS

Turkey apparently has a lot of plastic surgery, as well as Lasik eye surgery. One thing to consider about cosmetic procedures is the local aesthetic and if it’s right for you. I didn’t appreciate the robot-like style of eyebrow shaping in Istanbul (with a squared-off center edge) — so I’d be extra wary of anything permanent!

HAIR

I’ve dyed my hair many colors — from black cherry in Asia to red to blonde in Turkey — and had it styled into ringlets and piled up like a princess and blown straight like an Afghan hound. That last one doesn’t work with my fine hair, and doing this style before an event on the Bosphorus would make it spring into a cotton candy-like formation before I’d had my first hors d’oeuvre.

I’ve had my hair cut by people who don’t know at all how to handle curly hair. That’s pretty daring.

I looked like a fluff ball for most of my time in Asia, because I tried to solve the heat and humidity problem with short hair and got tired of loading it up with products meant for thick straight Asian hair.

Now that I’ve relocated to San Francisco (which, even though it’s close to my hometown of Berkeley where I haven’t lived in 30 years, I still consider “a foreign country”), I’m having my hair cut by a gardener, who trims it dry, like a hedge. Having my hair cut by an untrained person with whatever scissors he can find is also pretty daring!

FASHION

On the fashion front, I have an addiction to pashmina-like shawls from Koza Han, the silk market in Bursa, the old capital of the Ottoman empire and a Silk Road stop. I can keep wearing them for years.

I also have a small collection of custom-made silk kebayas from Malaysia, the long, fitted jacket over a long sarong skirt on brightly hand-drawn and printed batik, which I pull out when I have to go to a State dinner and the dress code is formal/national dress. (It’s only happened once, at Malacañan Palace, in Manila!)

I have one very tightly fitting kebaya jacket that is laser-cut velvet in a midnight blue which I do not wear enough. Thanks for reminding me. I may have to take out the too-stiff shoulder pads.

LINGERIE

I like state-of-the-art stuff that does more than one thing at once and find most places sell very backward underthings that are more about how they look than how they fit, feel, or perform. Nonsense padded bras, bumpy lace, and stuff that is low on performance and high on things I don’t care about.

I got an exercise racerback bra at a Turkish shop and had to throw it away it was so scratchy and poorly performing. No wicking of sweat, no staying put, no motion control. But it had silver glittery thread — and (unnecessary) padding!

JEWELRY

I like most of the jewelry I’ve acquired abroad and am grateful to receive it as gifts, too. All of my pieces have some kind of story — and some attitude, too.

From Turkey: Evil-eye nazar boncuğu pieces in glass and porcelain; silk-stuffed caftan pendants from the Istanbul designer Shibu; Ottoman-style enameled pieces; and an opalized Hand of Fatima on an impossibly fine gold chain. This last piece is what all the stylish women in Istanbul are wearing at the moment.

From China: White pearls from Beijing, pink from Shanghai and purple from Shenyang.

From Malaysia: I got an tiny tin ingot in the shape of a turtle in Malacca, which I was told once served as currency in the Chinese community. I had it mounted in a gold setting and wear it from a thick satin choker.

From Holland: A recent acquisition from Amsterdam are gold and silver leather Lapland bracelets with hand-twinned pewter and silver thread and reindeer horn closures. They’re exquisite and rugged at the same time.

WEARING RIGHT NOW

Today’s a rainy day of errands so I’m wearing a fluffy, black cowl-necked sweater with exaggerated sleeves, brown heathered slacks, and black ankle boots. They’re all from New York, which is where I’ve done the most shopping in recent years.

My earrings are diamond and platinum pendants from Chicago in the 1940s, a gift from my grandmother.

I’ve also got on my platinum wedding and engagement rings. They’re from Mimi So in New York.

DAILY FASHION FIXES

I liked FashionTV in Turkey, which was owned by Demet Sabanci Cetindogan, the businesswoman who sponsored my Expat Harem book tour across America in 2006.

The segment of Turkish society interested in fashion is very fashion forward. I enjoyed being able to watch the runway shows and catch interviews with the designers.

If I could draw and sew I’d make all my own clothes but I am weak in these areas. In another life, when I get a thicker skin for the fashion world’s unpleasantries, I’ll devote myself to learning these things and have a career in fashion design.

STREET STYLE

In Istanbul, Nişantaşi is somewhere you’d see some real fashion victims limping along in their heels on the cobblestones and Istiklal Caddesi, the pedestrian boulevard in Beyoğlu, would be a place to see a million different looks from grungy college kids to young men on the prowl, with their too-long, pointy-toed shoes.

TOP BEAUTY/STYLE LESSONS FROM TRAVELS

In fact, I’m still assimilating everything — and everywhere — I’ve experienced in terms of fashion and beauty, but here are a few thoughts:

1) Layering: I learned from Turkish women to layer your jewelry and wear a ton of things at the same time. Coco Chanel would have a heart attack! But the idea is not to wear earrings, necklace, bracelet and rings all at once, but lots of necklaces or lots of bracelets or lots of rings at the same time.

2) Jewelry as beach accessory: During the summer Turkish wear lots of ropy beaded things on their wrists during a day at the beach — nothing too valuable (it’s the beach!) but attractive nonetheless. Jewelry stands feeding this seasonal obsession crop up at all the fashionable beach spots. Dangly charms and evil eyes and little golden figures on leather and paper ropes.

3) A little bling never hurts: I’ve also been influenced by the flashiness of Turkish culture, and actually own a BCBG track suit with sequined logos on it. This is the kind of thing my Turkish family and I would all wear on a plane or road trip. Comfortable and sporty, but not entirely unaware of being in public (and not at the gym). Coming from dressed-down Northern California, it was difficult to get used to being surrounded by glitzy branded tennis shoes and people wearing watches as jewelry, but I hope I’ve been able to take some of the better innovations away with me. I know I’m more likely to wear a glittery eye shadow now that I’ve lived in the Near East.

4) The need for sun protection: It was a shock to go from bronzed Los Angeles to can’t-get-any-paler Asia and then to the bronzed Mediterranean. In Asia I arrived with sun damage and then had lots of people helping me to fix it — I even used a parasol there. Then in Turkey everyone thought I was inexplicably pale and I let my sun protection regimen slip a bit. I’m back on the daily sunblock.

5) What colors to wear: I also used to get whiplash from trips back and forth between California and Southeast Asia in terms of color in clothing. In Malaysia the colors were vivid jewel tones — for the Malays and the Tamils especially. The louder the print, the better. Around the same time I was living in that part of the world, I witnessed a scuffle between shoppers at C.P. Shades in my hometown Berkeley, fighting over velvet granny skirts in moss, and mildew and wet cement colors. That kind of disconnect wreaks havoc on your wardrobe, and your sense of what looks good. Right now I’m trying to incorporate bright colors into my neutral urges. I’m still working it out.

Anastasia Ashman is founder of GlobalNiche.net, a work-life initiative for cultural creatives and mobile progressives that she calls “creative self enterprise for the global soul.” (Global Niche recently held a Webinar “Dressing the Inner You,” featuring psychologist and author Jennifer Baumgartner talking about the cultural displacement that shows up in one’s dressing style.) A Californian with 14 years of expatriatism under her belt, Ashman was the director of the online neoculture discussion community expat+HAREM and coeditor of the critically- and popularly-acclaimed expat lit collection that inspired this community, Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey. Catch her tweeting on Pacific Standard Time at @AnastasiaAshman.

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s post, a contrarian perspective by Anthony Windram on this month’s fashion and beauty conversation.

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Images: (clockwise beginning with top left): Anastasia Ashman holding her own with the ever-glamorous Princess Michael of Kent, in Turkey; with her sister Monika, rocking the traditional Turkish Telkari silver jewelry, Anatolian shawl and requisite deep Bodrum tan; displaying her hamam collection — including traditional silver hamam bowl and hand-loomed linen pestemal towels; and sporting ringleted hair (along with some fashion flair!) at the Istanbul launch of Tales from the Expat Harem.

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Fashion Speak: The Idiot’s Guide to Fashionese

2 Comments Posted by Kate Allison on March 16, 2012

Although “Couture” and “Haute Couture” get bandied around to mean any new clothing items that don’t come from Walmart, technically these terms have a very exact definition:

To earn the right to call itself a couture house and to use the term haute couture in its advertising and any other way, members of the Chambre syndicale de la haute couture must follow these rules:

▪ Design made-to-order for private clients, with one or more fittings.
▪ Have a workshop (atelier) in Paris that employs at least fifteen people full-time.
▪ Must have 20 full time technical people in at least one atelier or workshop.
▪ Each season (i.e., twice a year), present a collection to the Paris press, comprising at least thirty-five runs/exits with outfits for both daytime wear and evening wear.

(Wikipedia)

In an industry that sets such a definition for what is essentially “Manufacturer of overpriced frocks for people with more money than sense” it is not surprising that this is only the tip of the iceberg — especially recently.
Fashion jargon, it seems, is out of control.

Couture or calculus?

In a statement last year, Ed Watson, a spokesman for UK department store Debenhams said:

“It’s now easier to understand complex calculus than some of the words commonly used by commentators within the fashion industry to describe garments.”

While I personally disagree with him, on the grounds that I would find the Dead Sea Scrolls easier to understand than complex calculus, he has a point.

Debenhams, apparently, had to introduce a lexicon of fashion terms so its personal stylists could translate modern Fashionese into plain English for their customers.

Sadly, I couldn’t find a copy of it online to assist TDN readers, so I’m having a go at recreating it myself.

Fashionese and How To Speak It

Parts of Speech:

When translating Fashionese, one needs to be aware that it has an extra part of speech — the Absensicoun.

That’s a contraction of three words: Absolutely, Nonsensical, and Noun.

Contracting words is how much of Fashionese is derived.

For example, the Skort (Skirt+Shorts) and Jeggings (Jeans + Leggings). While we all might be familiar with these two, some more obscure Absensicouns are:

• Jorts = Denim hot-pants (Jeans+Shorts)

• Mube = a long, tight dress (Maxi + Tube)

• Spants = Harem pants (Skirt+pants)

• Swacket = something that is not quite Sweater, not quite Jacket

• Coatigan = a cardigan that resembles a coat (presumably for people who don’t want to admit they’re wearing cardigans)

• Glittens = Gloves that roll up into mittens

• Shress = a dress that’s like a T-shirt. (They couldn’t call it a Tress because that’s already a word. “Dirt” wouldn’t work, either. See how complicated this is?)

And my favorite:

• Whorts, which are winter shorts worn with woolly tights.

Words purloined (“Worpurls”) by Fashionese

Just as the English language shamelessly pinches foreign words and gives them different meanings from the original, so do words purloined by Fashionese (“Worpurls”) take on a new dimension.
Directional —
English (adj): having a particular direction of motion, progression, or orientation.
Fashionese (adj): something that looks completely weird now but is so trendsetting that in a few months’ time everyone will be wearing it. It will look weird again in another few months, when people look through last year’s photos and say, “My God, can you believe we actually used to wear that?”

Faux pas —
French (n): Literally “wrong step”.
English usage (n): A social blunder or indiscretion.
Fashionese (n): Dressing in a way to cause minor embarrassment to oneself. Examples include shrimp cocktail toes (wearing open-toed sandals that are too small so the toes extend past the end of the shoe, like a shrimp cocktail dish), inadvertently leaving your flies undone, and all of the 1970s. (See Directional, Past Tense.)

Thrifting —
English: No direct translation, since Thrift is a noun, not a verb.
Fashionese: Hunting for vintage clothes (must be over a certain age to be considered vintage and not just last season’s cast-offs) which have taken on an aura of mystique due to the fact they were produced at the same time as, say, the Ford Edsel.

Arm party –
This should have been an Absensicoun, but it’s difficult to contract satisfactorily. (“Arty”? “Arparty”? “Parmarty”?)
English: Umm…Beats me. A variation on “Twister”?
Fashionese: An armful of bracelets, where less is less.

Covert couture
English (n): Not sure. Anything to do with James Bond’s suit?
Fashionese (n): Clothes that cost a fortune but don’t look as if they did. (See Joel, Billy; Still Rock & Roll To Me: “You can’t dress trashy till you spend a lot of money.”)

Play them at their own game.

Back to Mr Ed Watson, the Debenhams spokesman, who had this to add:

Ideally we would like to drop all these amalgamations, but our hands are tied due to the terms being used on search engines.

Indeed. So the only solution is “If you can’t beat them — join them.”
Which words would you like to see adopted by Fashionese?

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5 tips on how to look good when you backpack

Cleopatra for a day: Helena Halme

Dear Mary-Sue: Fashion tips for the hapless traveler

Displaced Q: What fashion souvenirs find their way into your rucksack?

Img: By mandiberg [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Pot Luck Cleopatra, Fashion, Pot Luck, UK, What a Displaced World

BOOK REVIEW: “Asian Beauty Secrets,” by Marie Jhin

1 Comment Posted by ML Awanohara on March 14, 2012

TITLE: Asian Beauty Secrets: Ancient and Modern Tips from the Far East
AUTHOR: Marie Jhin, M.D.
PUBLICATION DATE: July 2011
FORMAT: Paperback and Kindle e-book, available from Amazon
GENRE: Health, fitness & dieting, beauty
SOURCE: Paperback purchased from the Korea Society, New York City

Summary:

Drawing on her experience as a Cornell University-trained dermatologist, combined with a knowledge of Asian beauty remedies, both ancient and modern, Dr. Marie Jhin delivers an East-West guide to vibrant skin and beauty. Born in Seoul, South Korea, Jhin emigrated to Hawaii with her family when she was six (they settled eventually in New York City). She now lives in San Francisco, where she runs her own practice, Premier Dermatology. She has been rated as one of America’s top doctors for the past three years.

Review:

The first time I visited Seoul, my husband, who is Japanese, insisted that I try a spa treatment, as Koreans do this sort of thing better than other Asians, he said. Before I knew it, I was lying naked on a table with an older Korean lady scrubbing every inch of my body. Eventually, she took my hand and put it on my stomach. At first I thought I was touching a piece of terry cloth but no, it was my skin — it had come off in shreds!

I lay there thinking, “Can this be healthy?”

Having pondered these issues quite a lot — also during my years of living in Japan, where I could hardly fail to note how obsessed Japanese women are with skincare — I was intrigued to come across a new book on Asian beauty methods, by San Francisco-based dermatologist Marie Jhin.

Born in Seoul, Jhin is now settled in California. She is not an expat, which makes the title of this post a little misleading; but is she “displaced”? Yesterday she told me in an email exchange that while she doesn’t think of Korea as “home” any more, her birth country remains something of a lodestar. She specializes in Asian skincare, lived in Seoul for two years after college to teach ESL, and has been going to Korea on business of late.

But what really convinced me of Jhin’s “displacedness” is that like me, she was uncertain of the benefits of Korean skin scrubbing but unlike me, let it get under her skin, so to speak:

I grew up doing certain things beauty-wise that I wanted know the truth of. For example, … my mother used to take me to get my skin scrubbed at a Korean sauna. Back then I didn’t understand what the point was, but now, as a dermatologist, I realize that it was basically whole body microdermabrasion that they have been doing for centuries that is great for the skin.

(Good to know!)

Jhin called her book “Asian Beauty Secrets” because it covers the beauty habits of not only Korean but also Chinese and Japanese women. Her key finding is that while women in all three countries have been caught up in the quest to look more Western, they have plenty to be proud of in their native beauty traditions.

The influence of Western beauty ideals

The last time I visited Tokyo, I couldn’t always tell who was a foreigner and who wasn’t since so many Japanese youth had dyed their hair a reddish blonde (I no longer stood out in the crowd!).

Thus I was glad to see Jhin tackle the issue of Western beauty ideals. In addition to dying and streaking their hair, many Asians are getting plastic surgery in the quest to look more Western.

Jhin notes the popularity — especially in Korea, cosmetic surgery capital of Asia (and the world?) — of procedures such as blepharoplasty (double eyelid surgery), rhinoplasty (nose jobs) and surgery to correct what Japanese call daikon-ashi (radish-shaped calves).

And when Asian women do Botox, she says, it’s not to reduce wrinkles but to soften square jaw lines and/or to atrophy cheek muscles and thereby shrink a too-round face.

Jhin draws a line, however, between these procedures and the value traditionally placed by women in all three cultures — Chinese, Japanese and Korean — on having white skin. She cites Chinese Canadian consumer research professor Eric Li in stating that the preoccupation with whiteness predates colonialism and Western notions of beauty. In fact, the Japanese see their own version of whiteness as superior to the Western one!

What Asian women bring to the vanity table

We Westerners are notorious for mistaking one Asian culture for another. Jhin helps us negotiate this sometimes-fraught territory by listing some of their distinguishing elements when it comes to notions of beauty:

1) KOREA

Who’s the fairest of them all? In the Far East, it’s Korean women, by common consensus.
Korean women like to exfoliate the skin to keep it glowing and healthy.
Koreans have long revered the ginseng plant, a vital ingredient in health and beauty potions.

2) JAPAN

Going back at least to the Heian period, Japanese have celebrated long tresses — the record of that era being 23 feet! Their favorite conditioning treatment is camellia oil, thought to promote glossy hair growth without making it greasy.
Japan spa culture, which dates back thousands of years, favors the use of natural ingredients for cleansing the skin: eg, volcanic mud, wakame seaweed and even nightingale droppings(!).
Though Japanese are known for rushing around, they in fact have a tradition of enjoying “empty moments.” Such meditative practices contribute to well-being and bring out a woman’s natural beauty.

3) CHINA

In ancient China, pearls were a girl’s best friend: ground pearl powder was taken internally and applied topically. (Hmmm…did they get that habit from Cleopatra, or vice versa?)
Chinese have a saying that “a woman’s second face is in her hands” — to this day, Chinese women are meticulous about moisturizing their hands and feet.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) emphasizes certain foods for balancing yin and yang within the body. This inner harmony is thought to contribute to outer radiance.

There is also, of course, much overlap among the three cultures.. All subscribe to the belief that by eating healthy foods, releasing stress (e.g., by getting an accu-massage), and pursuing nature-based healing (TCM) on a regular basis, a woman can enhance her best assets.

The “skinny” on beauty tips and secrets

One of the reasons to pick up a book with the word “secrets” in the title is to find out what one is missing out on. On this score, Jhin’s book is a bit of a mixed beauty bag. Some of her suggestions struck me as being far fetched — and I have a reasonably high tolerance for Asian cultural quirks.

Bird’s nest soup or soup containing hasma (frog fallopian tubes), anyone? Both are ancient Chinese foods thought to nurture glowing skin (Jhin provides recipes). Um, thanks, but no thanks. I’d almost rather eat fugu (which likewise has stimulating properties).

Even more offputting is the Chinese custom of spreading sheep’s placenta on one’s face. (It’s a mercy they’ve moved on from ingesting human placenta, that’s all I can say…)

As for V-steaming one’s chai-york (Korean for vaginal tract) with medicinal herbs such as mugwort (common wormwood) — it will take more than a reassurance by a Beverly Hills doctor to convince me that such a practice doesn’t lead to other problems such as UTIs.

On the other hand, I might actually consider soothing my skin with a high-quality ginseng cream. That sounds nice. Or perhaps I’ll try facial acupuncture. It’s noninvasive and, according to Jhin, can have the effect of a mini-facelift.

Note: More secrets can be found on Jhin’s book site.

Verdict:

For me, the most interesting portion of Asian Beauty Secrets is when Jhin addresses her area of specialization: the conditions peculiar to Asian skin, such as eczema (they are more prone to it than we are) or sun damage that manifests itself not in wrinkles but in brown spots. I also found fascinating the chapter on the latest skin renewal techniques being pioneered by Korean doctors. Acupuncture meets nanotechnology with the “INTRAcel laser” treatment! (The laser reaches “deeper into the dermis for more lasting collagen production and overall skin rejuvenation,” Jhin explains.)

That said, I’d hesitate about recommending Jhin’s book to anyone who isn’t yet oriented (no pun intended!) to beauty practices in this part of the world. Instead you might try experimenting with some of the brands Jhin recommends — e.g., Sulwhasoo cosmetics (now being carried at Bergdorf Goodman here in New York) — by way of familiarizing yourself with Asian skincare methods. As it happens, I got some Sulwhasoo samples when I bought the book — and would be more than happy to report back on the effects, if anyone’s curious! 🙂

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s installment from our displaced fictional heroine, Libby. (What, not keeping up with Libby? Read the first three episodes of her expat adventures.).

5 tips on how to look good when you backpack

7 Comments Posted by tjslater on March 13, 2012

I don’t know about you, but I look terrible when I travel.

Not intentionally of course; jet lag notwithstanding, it’s impossible to look crisp and put together after an extended journey by public transport, no matter where in the world you are.

My problem has more to do with my style of travel — or lack thereof… There are two real options when you’re a backpacker: clothes that look good, or clothes that are comfy. Now, bearing in mind you’ll be spending quite a lot of time in them — alternating between the same two pairs of trousers every day until they drop off you and disintegrate — it’s not much of a choice.

Is that because I’m a guy? Maybe — see the note about my wife at the end of this post.

But I don’t care whether you’re male or female, there’s something about being a backpacker that makes keeping up one’s appearance a constant challenge. However fastidious you are about your personal appearance (and most backpackers I know are!), however much you shower before an 18-hour bus journey, you’re still going to look (and smell!) pretty bad afterwards.

So, bearing in mind the following advice from Mr Will Kommen:

If you look like your passport photo, you’re too ill to travel.

…here are five of my tips on how to look good as you bounce around the globe:

1) Haunt charity shops.

Many countries have these in some form or other, and the richer the country the more expensive and interesting gear you can pick up for next to nothing. They’re perfect for replacing an item of clothing that is giving up the will to live in your backpack; or something you’ve become so sick of wearing you daydream constantly about burning it. This shops are incredibly cheap, so you can go crazy — and then just give the stuff back when it’s time to move on.

I don’t travel with any technical clothing, so when my wife and I decided to do a two-month, 1,000 km hike, we had to equip ourselves from scratch — on next-to-no budget. Guess how we did it? Yup, “op shops” they call them in Australia — we visited every one. In a couple of weeks we had all the gear we needed for the hike — plus all the money had gone to charity! And when we were done, we gave most of it back as donations (except the t-shirts, which were too stained to be of use to anyone).

2) Adopt local dress.

Fisherman’s trousers in Thailand, those crazy-colored woolly trousers in South America — pseudo local fashions are cheap to buy, fun to wear and, if they don’t become a souvenir, easy to dispose of before onward travel. I say “pseudo local” because real locals wear the uniform of the world: jeans and a fake Nike T-shirt. Or a Manchester United strip (shirt and shorts).

3) Take any opportunity to wash.

It’s amazing how good it feels to be clean. Most people take it for granted, but then most people have never spent three consecutive nights on the same train, going backwards and forwards to avoid paying for a hotel room. Anyway, the point is there are opportunities everywhere: most major train stations have showers open to the public cheaply, almost all airports do too — and some places you wouldn’t expect, like shopping centres. Shopping centres are free to enter, with regularly cleaned public loos. A lot of them also have “mother-and-baby” rooms, with a table or fold-down shelf, a sink — in short, an open invitation for a full body wash and a change of clothes. Just be wary in Japan — a lot of the public toilets there are “smart.” They unlock and open if you’re in there for too long, which can be pretty embarrassing if you’re soaping yourself down when the door opens opposite Starbucks…

4) Take any opportunity to “dress up.”

Looking posh is a moral boost, and should be possible for most of us bedraggled travelers just by shaving and wearing all-clean clothes! I also travel with a shirt — just one — which transforms a pair of jeans into an outfit smart enough for a nice restaurant or swanky bar (well, as long as they don’t look at my feet, on which I have either flip-flops or hiking boots…).

5) Wear jeans!

The rest of the world will be. Seriously — for every sweat-wicking-fast-drying-wind-proof-mesh-venting-ThermaCELL-layering-system you own, there’s another person behind you who has none of it. And you know what? They look a lot better than you! This is why so much “technical” clothing ends up in charity shops (see above) just waiting for you to pick it up — people with lots of cash buy it, don’t use it for anything more strenuous than shopping, then realize that it looks pretty crummy when compared to clothes that were, you know, designed to look good whilst shopping. So they ditch it. You should too — or at the very least, stop paying outrageous prices for the stuff. Unless you’re headed to Everest Base Camp — in which case, buy it all from those people who’ve just realized that no matter how expensive it was, it doesn’t look right in Sainsbury’s.

* * *

Obviously, this is a bit of a male perspective on things. My wife swears by traveling with a small (for an elephant) bag of “essential” make-up. It’s the main reason she’s recently swapped her rucksack for a suitcase…but she assures me it helps her feel good about herself when otherwise she’d look as bad as I do. So I indulge her.

What do you do to look good while you travel?

Tell us in the comments section!

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s post, a review of a new book on Asian beauty.

Related posts:

Images: (clockwise beginning top left): Charity shop in West Street (© Copyright Basher Eyre and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence) baby changing room sign and South American wool pants for sale, by Tony James Slater; backpackers (Morgue photos).

Pot Luck Australia, Cleopatra, Crosscultural marriage, Fashion, Pot Luck, South America, Thailand, What a Displaced World

CLEOPATRA FOR A DAY: Fashion & beauty diary of expat Helena Halme

1 Comment Posted by ML Awanohara on March 12, 2012

Today we introduce a new feature: “Cleopatra for a Day.” Displaced citizens open their little black books and spill the fashion and beauty secrets they’ve collected on their travels. First up is Helena Halme. One of TDN’s Random Nomads, Halme is a Finnish expat in London and a self-professed fashion maven.

BEAUTY

When my husband (“The Englishman”) and I did a house-swap in Los Angeles in the nineties, I discovered Origins, then a skin care range that wasn’t universally available here in the UK. Anything close to nature was an upcoming trend, and the Origins shops in LA looked quite revolutionary — all wooden flooring and straw shopping baskets. I still use a lot of Origins products and couldn’t live without their foot cream, Reinventing the Heel.

Some time ago, an English friend recommended that I try Elizabeth Arden’s Eight Hour cream — I couldn’t live without it now. If I’d ever end up on a desert island, this would be the one luxury item I’d crave for.

HAIR

When I’d only lived in the UK for a matter of months, I cut my hair very, very short. The Englishman was away at sea and when he came back he was quite shocked to see my blonde locks all gone. But, gentleman that he is, he told me the new style suited me. (I’m not so sure it did!) Much more recently, I’ve discovered the the Brazilian blow dry, a luxurious treatment that makes my thick Nordic locks gleam. I feel like a film star!