The Classic Beauty!
I personally really favour the type of classic beauty that my Grandma raised me on, it was a type of beauty purely based on convenience and working with what you already had going on. Everyone in this world has beautiful features and has the ability to have a beautiful personality, I can't name a single person who I've ever seen who doesn't have something beautiful about their face or something unique, everyone has the ability to beautify their features but not everyone has or wants the ability to change the features that they already have. I've found that some of the happiest people I've met are the people who are content with their looks and who have done what they want instead of obsessing over tiny imperfections and impossible standards of beauty. It's much easier to love yourself than try to love an idealised image of who you think you should be and who you probably wouldn't love if you were.
My Grandma was, with all respect, a Hapsburg reject. She had terribly red sunken in eyes, heavy brows, lips that were overly puffy and a mouth filled with crooked teeth that were also much too large, she had a nose that was like a harpy's beak, she was far too tall, she was built like one of those spindly old painted lady Victorian houses in San Fransisco, and she was really really odd looking, she was not the conventional picture of beauty at all but she was beautiful anyway. She made herself beautiful to the point where people are still able to remember her for her beauty and class and frequently mention her to me when we cross paths. She was known for being beautiful without actually having a Helen of Troy face and I'm quite sure that men would have gone to war for her and launched ships if she had asked them to. She had a lot of secrets but here's how she did it all.
She focused on her skin!
One of her best features was her clear as glass porcelain white skin. She had a sunscreen routine that she followed daily without every missing a single day or a single step and she was extremely careful to always drink water. She drank a huge amount of water every day and was extremely careful to have over 3 litres daily so that her skin would glow. She didn't drink alcohol unless she was in a very large social setting and she really had a preference for clear water with additives. She'd have a glass of iced water with liquid chlorophyll and lemon wedges every morning, then she'd have iced water with a touch of unsweetened cranberry juice, she'd have spa water lemon with cucumber and pear slices, she'd have chilled water that she'd allowed watermelon to soak in overnight, she'd make spa water with lime wedges and blackberries, spa water with muddled mint and pineapple, and then she'd have all of the other types of hyaluronic acid amd collagen water infusions that she'd make throughout the day. She was very careful about staying hydrated because her skin looked best when she was overly hydrated. She often had treats of Botox and she loved it dearly but she otherwise had no wrinkles, spots of age, or serious imperfections with her skin.
She took care of her hair!
She had long thick hair that went to her waist. I remember this the most about her, it was thick, heavy, healthy, and glossy with no split ends or dry parts. It was as smooth as glass and it was one uniform colour with no discolouration or tainted strands. She tried to avoid the hair salon because she thought that she was the best at taking care of her hair and she'd buy her favourite hair products and add all sorts of nice natural additives and soak her hair in fermented rice water and essential oils so that it would gleam with health. In the warm months, she'd buy these thick Aloe Vera leaves and chill them before smashing them up to coat every strand of her hair and in the winter months, she'd use a hair mask of egg whites, crushed violet leaves, and turmeric to brighten and strengthen her hair. She wore her hair in this thick plait tied at her crown with three satin ribbons which she weaved through her braid to tie at the end so she didn't have to use elastic ties or wear a headband to keep it from blowing in her face or flying away from her to get trapped in little crevices.
She wore what suited her!
She had this very particular fitted white wrap top but it was collared and made from dressy material and had short sleeves. I know she had it made by a tailor and she had so many of that same top with that tiny pearl button to keep it wrapped tightly and to expose just the proper amount of her chest, she had a few long sleeve versions of that same top for the more formal days when she'd follow my Grandpa to work but that top was her top. She had all of her clothes in her casual and work wardrobes tailored to perfection and people knew her for that. I recently met an old colleague of my Grandpa's and he was 97 and still able to perfectly recall seeing her step off an elevator in her stockinged feet wearing the top, the perfectly tailored jet black Tom Ford pencil skirt she adored, and a pair of the louboutins she hated in her hand. This old colleague was adamant that he'd never met a woman who could do it like she could, they simply didn't exist and he didn't want to believe that they were out there, it didn't seem possible to him. She also had a full casual wardrobe filled with light colours but I'll avoid going into that, she was truly able to do it like no other woman and she never just bought from the rack, she would have her clothes tailored and she would sew her own clothes and she put so much care into the way she looked every day.
She took care of her eyes!
She had an entire eye routine. She took supplements and ate foods that would support eye health, she used eye drops and often went to see her ophthalmologist and optometrist, she had special glasses, sunglasses, and contact lenses, she used a variety of sunscreens around her eyes to protect them, and she was extremely conscious about her eye health and she always looked for the best ways to support her eyes. She was careful to avoid eye strain and so she often let them rest and she never did anything in low light, she believed that her eyes were her windows to her soul and so she used the best products available on the market to adorn them and beautify them and she had these strikingly white straight brows to shock you into remembering her and she succeeded, people remembered her eyes. She was gifted a set of gorgeous paintings of Mars and Neptune swirled together and separate in watercolour from a friend of my Grandpa's back in the 70s entitled "A Series of Photos from the Red Planet for the Red Woman" and she loved them. People remembered her that vividly and still do.
She collected various perfumes and scents!
Whenever we would travel, she would always go looking for local perfumeries and perfume makers. She didn't really like to buy from Saks or go to Nordstrom, she liked to smell like she was a foreign creature from a forbidden land. She would always layer the different scents that she'd buy and make this intoxicating fragrance that would follow her and wait to sneak up on the noses of unsuspecting admirers. She would never wear too much perfume and her trick was wearing just enough to entice people to lean in and try to catch a hint and watch her pulse flutter in her neck just under where she'd applied it. She loved scents that were descriptive. When we were in Morocco one year, I remember walking through the bazaars with her in the absolute scorching heat with ice melting down her dress and her wafting various ceramic pots under my nose and telling me that one scent would make her smell like the first sip of cool water flowing down a Bedouin's throat after a long trip in the flaming desert but another scent layered on top of that would make her smell like the golden firebird that stood watch and waited to sing its welcome at the Gates of Paradise.
There was a certain way in which she always spoke!
Her accent was stilted and affected by poverty and so she adopted this way of speaking that was sexy. She'd breathe out words and speak softly, she'd sound words out and make them sound exotic and exciting, and every word she spoke promised a fantastic adventure. She would never only speak English, she mixed in German, Spanish, Sinti, Italian, and French and she was fond of using words she'd read in old books that people weren't used to and she loved speaking about events and other things. Everything had to be descriptive with her, nothing could ever be bland and boring, life to her was this colourful adventure and so she spoke like she was this crown jewel and people loved it. She spoke like she was a silver screen siren and she was able to tell a story like no one else, I think it came from growing up poor and then having to create a life of her own and go on her own adventures but it worked for her, she was a songbird and she spoke like one. What she didn't do, was take all of the oxygen from the room, her listening skills and her understanding were unparalleled and she was able to hear people without them having to ask to be heard. She was always sure to let people speak and then take time to listen and carefully comprehend their words because it was polite and respectful and she was classy, that one trait made people love her, she spoke and was heard and she listened when the time came and understood every word. She was attentive and understood that people would always admire and appreciate positive attention and pride from her.
She kept her memory fresh, fast, and sharp!
She would collect information about people and remember it like there was no tomorrow. When someone introduced themselves to her after having met her before, there was no need for her to pretend that she remembered them, she did. She would always go into detail about them and write down the things about the people she'd met so she could say things like "Oh, you're Mrs. Lemon from the gala at the club in New York City with the daughter marrying the banker and the son living in Berlin, you wore that gorgeous chiffon Dolce and Gabbana dress the night we met!". She didn't only do this with important people, she did this with everyone because she considered everyone to be of importance to her. From the workers at the stations where she'd stop in to catch her trains in the mornings to the workers at the opera and ballet houses she went to, she remembered and made sure to recognise the biggest of the big fish and the littlest of the little fish. There was no one who she could not communicate with, she would find a way. Her nail lady of 20 years spoke only Bosnian and so my Grandma had no issue with making trips to the Balkan market near us for all of her translation needs so she could help her friend get her English and her citizenship in order. She recognised that people appreciate effort above all and so she always put the most effort she could into all of her conversations and daily interactions to show people how much she cared about her fellow inhabitants of the planet and make them feel like they were seen. She prided herself on being a good friend, a good mother, a good wife+partner, a good sister in law, and a good neighbour to all she met.
Her equation for classic beauty was working with what she had and then using her personality to influence people into believing that she was physically beautiful. Everyone she met always called her gorgeous and proclaimed that she was the most beautiful woman in the room but she was always happy to admit that the true the fact of the matter is that she was not. She just perfected what she had been born with and beautified herself with what she could, she treated everyone like they were worth ten million dollars in unmarked bills, a chartered flight on a private plane, and a successful escape plan, and she was able to look at people and make them feel seen and listen to people and make them feel heard. That was her secret to being a forever classic beauty.
She never thought anything was a DIY, she always considered every situation to be a IDW, an I'll do it with you and she treated every situation like they were matters of importance, nothing was ever silly.
Lots of Love,
Linsi.
<3
