What's in K's skincare toolbox?

(The following exercise is procrastination of the first degree. I have packed exactly one box today, and evidently the ergonomics of a rice cooker and a cake pan were just altogether a heady business because I spent the afternoon funnin' and saying worshipful things to my wonderful baby daddy on Father's Day.) So, to satisfy the gnawing question of how I maintain this youthful glow, this natural vivaciousness, this easy breezy beautiful like I just stepped out of a salon sometimes I need a little finesse sometimes I don't general aura...here are a few products I use daily to prime my canvas:

1. Cleanser with light exfolliant: I'm a Mary Kay consultant, so I drink that kool-aid (even if I will never qualify for a pink Cadi because I reinvest all my profits in lip gloss inventory) but I do sincerely think their 3-in-1 cleanser is phenomenal.

2. White Tea extract: I have chronic eczema and the only non-prescription product I've found to help is this by Origins.

3. Eye cream: I use MK's. Because gravity is still turned on.

4. Something that boosts collagen. I know this sounds like one of those "let's simulate science!" commercials that uses lots of venn diagrams to show you what happens to your epidermis when free radicals attack it, that is totally not based on hard science and is completely watered down for laymen consumers, but I will attest that I have seen the importance of collagen in my life, particularly in my huge Cabbage Patch Doll cheeks. Again, I use MK's night solution and I'm happy.

5. Lip balm with SPF. I love this one by fresh so much I wanna marry it.

6. Daytime moisturizer with SPF. I find most moisturizers come with an SPF 15, but I am the At-Risk Skin Cancer Society poster child so I best be using one that comes with at least 25.

Stay tuned for: "What's in K's make-up bag?"

Review: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Dear Tiger Mama,

We're both academics, so let's cut each other a little slack here, no? You write like the litigious academic that you are, building your case, providing evidence, then throwing the 1-2 punch. I write like an instructor of the humanities, finding symbolism in everything, reaching for parallels that are probably too far of a stretch. It's fair to say you and I are different in a lot of ways (see also: religion, culture, competitive tendencies) but I think the fact that we both have half-Asian daughters and pursue work in the Ivory Tower offers us some common ground.

I assigned your book to my English Composition I class as a means of pushing through our spring semester. I usually lose my students after spring break (like, literally, I stop seeing them) and I knew your much-hyped book would capture their attention and maybe even help some of their grades. You did not disappoint me, Tiger Mama.

I had many Asian students in my class. A couple from South Korea, China. They piped up when we discussed your book. I was concerned that they would feel hushed given the rage that your book can inspire by those not raised by Tiger Mothers. But my Asian students did not demur. I was proud of them.

One line that our class discussion kept straddling was one that I, too, had trouble crossing. I found your book especially challenging in terms of separating the body of work put forth with the philosophies espoused. Was it a good book? Did I like it? These two questions are so intertwined in reading Tiger Mother. The religion of Chinese motherdom was so painful for me to read, but it was so richly presented that I couldn't help blitz through this. The voices of your daughters and husband seemed so marginalized until the end that I couldn't help but find this a "design flaw" in the writing. But maybe that's all just because I share your goal-orientedness when it comes to parenting. I have goals and fairly clear outcomes that I seek for my children. I wanted to know how this all "turned out" for you and given that your daughter Sophia has accepted her admission ticket to Harvard, I'll be interested to chart the journey that she's charting over on her blog.

I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be friends, Tiger Mother, since it would appear you haven't had much time for friend-making in between rehearsals and lectures, but I think you would be one awesome interview. Maybe our paths will cross at some kind of Raising Half-Asian Kids conference. I'll be the white lady standing by the cookies if you ever want to talk.

Yours, Shamrock Mother

Honesty

"In motherhood a woman exchanges her public significance for a range of private meanings, and like sounds outside a certain range they can be very difficult for other people to identify." ***

"A day spent at home caring for a child could not be more different from a day spent working in an office.  Whatever their relative merits, they are days spent on opposite sides of the world."

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"Birth is not merely that which divides women from men: it also divides women from themselves, so that a woman's understanding of what it is to exist is profoundly changed.  Another person has existed in her, and after their birth they live within the jurisdiction of her consciousness.  When she is with them she is not herself; when she is without them she is not herself; and so it is as difficult to leave your children as it is to stay with them. To discover this is to feel that your live has become irretrievably mired in conflict, or caught in some mythic snare in which you will perpetually, vainly struggle."

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"Looking after children is...isolating, frequently boring, relentlessly demanding and exhausting.  It erodes your self-esteem and your membership of the adult world...Even when you agree on a version of living that is acceptable to everybody, there are still longings that go unmet. It is my belief that in this enterprise generosity is more important than even than equality...."

- excerpted from the brilliant Rachel Cusk's A Life's Work

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