Vintage Orange Arden B. Blouse

I've actually had this blog post in my draft list since spring of last year. I kept getting sick, and I wasn't sure whether to post this in Spring, Fall, or Winter. I believe I shot these in winter of 2012, maybe around January or Feb.

I'm wearing 1 pairs of feather earrings. The first pair with the rooster tail feathers was a gift from my baby brother, whom is now a father of 3 little children. The other pair is long chains with yellow and brown feathers from Charlotte Russe, which I probably bought sometimes from 2010-2011 around Christmas time.

The Arden B. blouse is vintage from 2002 which I purchased in the South Shore Plaza in Braintree Mass (South Shore Greater Boston) back when my spouse was very wealthy running his business there, after we married that Spring/Summer, before I was pregnant with my daughter whom is now 12 years old.


Around the time when I shot these I was still studying Tribal Fusion Bellydance, and I was learning about makeup, stage makeup, studying/practicing more things with photography, and I might've been playing with different lighting, like ring lights, but doesn't look like it in these frames.

I spent an an entire afternoon, and shot into the evening with various other earrings, clothing changes, and probably changing up my makeup slightly. I think this was probably in Feb. because I can see the orange blush, which was a gift from my spouse for Valentine's Day, and a crazy ordeal just to get because I had to drive all the way to Abbington Mass. to the only Walmart in the area that still carried products by "Hard Candy", and he was kind of a jerk about it due to the financial recession/depression.

At the time I'd shot this, I'd been kind of obsessed with orange lipsticks since it was a trend in a number of magazines in the USA and also in China, of a light orange. This was strange to me, but I really wanted to wear orange lipstick since I'd LOVED orange eyeshadow in the 1990s. So, when I lost my makeup after a photography/videography wedding job and had to start buying all new stuff, I started looking for ORANGE because I was so curious!


But, I didn't know ANYTHING about how to wear orange makeup, nor nude makeups, and my first few oranges ended up being nudes or peachy nudes. I knew NOTHING about those either. So, I went to YouTube and was on an indecent search for tips about HOW to wear orange lipsticks, which brands had them, etc.

What happened was that almost ALL of the videos up at the time about ORANGE lipsticks, were by black women, or women with "olive complexion". What came along with that was this idea that ONLY black women should wear this color, and even the olive women had heard the same thing but said they loved how it looked on them... so, then WHY was there a trend of orange lipsticks in magazines???

I thought that was STUPID!

What? Just because I'm pale skinned I can't wear orange? Screw that!


Well, a few months later, I came across a girl whom not only got an orange lipstick, but made it her mission to get THE most intense orange lipsticks, and even got an EXPENSIVE MAC lipstick called Morange, which was SO ORANGE that she said while she was shopping for it, she thought that since she had orange lips, she should also get orange blush, since she already had orange eyeshadows.

And then it dawned on me: OMG! That's it! I need orange BLUSH!

Then, I realized I could wear pretty much ANYTHING with orange blush or orange lipstick if I wore it with warm colors. At the time, I was the only person i knew in my whole circle that would wear orange lipsticks, and I have so many I lost count. I also have 2 orange blushes, 1 of them is by MAC.

Whenever I wore them in warm a color scheme instead of anyone even noticing I was wearing ornage they would just say: "I really like your makeup", and I would say: Oh, thank you! It's my new orange lipsticks and blushes! they actually hadn't even realized i was wearing orange because I was in a warm color scheme. But, before, people had thought wearing orange was for black women only, and that I was some weirdo.

Ironically, most of my color scheme techniques CAME FROM BLACK WOMEN on youtube whom explains differences in their own sphere of influences whom varied in skin tones of warm or cool. So, I took this information and applied it to myself using color theory.

So, many of my female friends whom asked me about makeup, since I'd previously been mostly clueless, I told them what I did, and how.

Also, you need to wear orange blushes differently than red or pink ones. You don't put it on your cheeks, especially if you are fair skinned. You need to put it on closer to your eyes and side of the face.


Also, a lovely black woman suggested that to make orange appear "wearable" you should use a plum based colored lip liner. and, it WORKS!

I also do what's called layering with lipsticks, which used o be a stage makeup thing. Many people my parents' age thought it was some sort of fauxpas to do that. But, I've found it works really well.

But, now that it's 2016, orange is SO COMMON for blush and lipstick that you can find it everywhere, all the time. And, I feel like ALL young fair skinned women wear orange lipsticks and blush.

If you thought that was funny, wait until I tell you about my PURPLE lipstick stories. Purple lipstick was pretty much the same deal, considered ONLY for black women, or scary Goths, or as lip contour shading. But, same thing happened, olive toned women started using it and raving, then, people started experimenting with layering, and even with purple toned blushes, and now I see purple lipstick a lot on fair skinned women.