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haltandcatchfiretothemax · 5 years

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FEMSLASH FEBRUARY 2020 #22: In which Cameron and Donna get dressed

[CN: gender non-conformity and related bodily discomfort with gendered clothing; non-graphic references to being harassed for gender non-conformity]

Ed’s note: @dealanexmachina sent me a prompt, and this is a follow up to the post it originally inspired!

(PREVIOUSLY)

Two nights before the gala, Cameron showed up to Donna’s house for their nightly work date carrying a garment bag. “Uh, is it cool if I leave this here? And like, maybe I could just show up early and get dressed here, before the party?” Donna eyed the garment bag with apparent interest. “I called Risa, and her partner, we went shopping, and I saw their tailor.”

Donna’s face lit up. “So it worked out then? That’s great! Let me put this in my closet….” Donna got up and started toward her room, and Cameron went with her. When they got there, Cameron handed the bag over, and Donna hung it from a hook on the back of the door. Then, she asked, “Hey, can I look? I’m curious about what you wound up picking out.”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Cameron had said, uncertain.

Donna unzipped the bag, and when she saw the gray blazer inside, she smiled.

Nervously, Cameron laughed, “What?”

“Nothing, it just reminds me of a blazer you used to wear when we first moved out here,” Donna said. “The one that fit you really well. You had some stuff back then that started to cross the line from ‘oversized’ to ‘it looks too big on her,’ but, you also had stuff that looked really nice on you.” Donna gently touched the blazer’s lapel, and without meaning to, imagined smoothing out the blazer while Cameron was actually wearing it, and Cameron smiling back at her as she did so. Face feeling warm, Donna zipped up the bag. “So how was it? Shopping, I mean? It wasn’t terrible, was it?”

“Eh,” Cameron sighed. “It wasn’t terrible, Risa actually came with me?”

“Aw!” Donna exclaimed. “I wish I could’ve been there!”

Looking very uncomfortable, Cameron had said, “It was a lot. It wasn’t just shopping, it was like…what I imagine therapy is like. And why I’m not interested in therapy.”

“Oh?” Donna frowned.

Cameron shook her head. “There was just, a lot of ‘why do you think wearing dresses and other women’s clothes causes you so much discomfort? Why do you think you’re feeling discomfort right now? What are you worried about, Cameron, why does this scare you?’ It was a long day.”

“Oh. Well, did it work?” Donna asked.

Tentatively, Cameron said, “I found something to wear, so, I guess?”

When Cameron showed up at Donna’s house, two days later, an entire hour before the gala was slated to begin, the only thing more shocking than her punctuality was how she looked: Donna, in a dressing gown herself, her hair already set in curlers, opened her front door expecting to find a delivery person or early guest, but there was Cameron, in a button down flannel shirt and her overalls, carrying her backpack as always, but with her hair clearly just washed, moussed, blow dried, and smoothed into place, and her (barely detectable) makeup already done.

“Okay, the shocked look on your face? Is not a compliment,” Cameron snapped.

“It’s not shock!” Donna had protested. “It’s just…you look great.”

“Well,” Cameron pushed past her, “when I get back to the salon, I’ll be sure to let everyone there know you approve of my makeover.”

Haley and Vanessa had just sat down at the dining room table with Vanessa’s tarot cards and guide book. They watched as Cameron came in, Donna following her. Vanessa whistled, and called out, “Foxy lady!”

Cameron blushed, but then she stopped and turned to Donna. “See? That felt like a compliment.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Not that I came here like this looking for compliments.”

Vanessa and Haley looked at each other, and then back at Cameron and Donna.

Unsure of what else to say, Donna defaulted to momsplaining mode. “So, Cameron is here, for the gala!”

“Gala tiiiime, excellennnnt!” Vanessa sang.

“Are those the same overalls you wore last year? When you fell into the pool?” Haley asked.

“A fashion statement that’s bold in its casual whimsy,” Vanessa said.

“She’s got a more formal outfit to wear,” Donna said. “She went shopping with Risa.”

Voice full of sudden yearning, Haley said, “I wanna go shopping with Risa,”

“Can I also get in on that?” Vanessa asked. “Because I’d like to see that.”

“Would you, though?” Cameron squinted. Clutching at the straps of her backpack, she warned them, “Risa doesn’t let you just pick things out and try them on. She makes you talk about your feelings.”

In unison, Vanessa and Haley both said, “That sounds like her.”

“Well prom is coming up, right sweetie?” Donna asked. Haley gave her a look, and then Donna said, “There’s also graduation. Maybe if Risa wouldn’t mind, we could all go?”

Flatly, Cameron said, “I love you all, but that still sounds like hell on earth.”

Vanessa and Haley laughed out loud, and Donna, struggling to suppress her own laughter, grimaced broadly. “Speaking of which!” she said. “It’s almost time. Wanna go get dressed?”

Haley and Vanessa looked at each other again.

Still feeling incredibly self-conscious and put out by the entire thing, Cameron said, “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Okay! You girls have fun, and, I guess we’ll see you later?” Donna said.

“We will definitely be here,” Vanessa said.

Donna started toward her bedroom, and Cameron went with her. Haley watched them, and under her breath, she said, “God I wish Joanie was here to see this.”

Vanessa smirked at her.

In her bedroom, Donna grinned, “You really do look very nice. I know it’s different and that we’re teasing you about it, but it’s not because it didn’t turn out right.” She quietly closed the door most of the way without shutting it entirely. She turned back to Cameron, and said, “We’re mostly teasing you because you seem like you kind of hate it.”

Cameron shrugged off her backpack. Face scrunched, she said, “I do kind of hate it. I hate how it always feels like I’m dressing up for someone else, or some secret universal beauty pageant, even though I’m not really.”

Donna sat down lightly at her vanity. “Well, in that case, next year, change of plans. Instead of a gala, I’ll have a hayride, so you can wear your overalls, and I can wear my cowboy boots that still haven’t seen the light of day in this state.”

Cameron smiled tentatively, arms crossed over her chest again. “I’ll invest in a new flannel shirt for the occasion.”

Picking up an eye shadow brush, Donna said, “Your clothes are still hanging in the same spot in the walk-in, if you wanna get dressed in there?”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Cameron said. She looked around the room uncertainly, as if looking for directions, or maybe an excuse to do something else, and then she turned and went into the closet.

Donna swept some slightly shimmery taupe eye shadow onto her right eyelid, and then blended it out through the crease. She did the same to the second eye, and then picking up a black pencil eye liner, she awkwardly said, “So this is fun, huh…? Just…gettin’ ready together…having’ fun….”

As she unbuttoned her shirt, Cameron said, “Yes, my high school dreams of being best friends with the pretty, popular girls is finally coming true.”

Donna used a stiffer brush to smudge the minimal amount of eye liner she’d just applied close to her right eye’s lash line. She pictured Cameron, struggling to put on clothes she didn’t love for a party that she didn’t want to go to. “You know, I’m glad you’re here?” she called out. “I really hope it won’t be completely miserable for you, though.”

Pulling on her brand new trousers, Cameron said, “Well, there’s gonna be food, and you’ll be there. It’ll be like every night that I’m here, just with like 50 other people. I’ll manage.”

Curling her eye lashes now, Donna gazed into the mirror, and again, without really meaning to, imagined Cameron, on the other side of her closet door, carefully getting dressed for her gala, and was overwhelmed by a surge of affection. She felt herself start to flush, and then looked in the mirror, and saw her cheeks glowing red. She took a deep breath, and said, “Well, I appreciate it. And who knows, maybe you’ll even have fun, and meet some new people?” She moved on to applying her mascara as calmly as she could.

Tucking her shirt into her trousers, Cameron grinned, “Stranger things have happened, right?”

Donna was tapping on some concealer when Cameron quietly stepped back into the bedroom a couple minutes later. She sat down on the bench in front of Donna’s bed, and pulled a pair of pointy black brogues out of her bag.

Donna glanced back over her shoulder. “Those look really nice.” When Cameron didn’t say anything, Donna asked her, “So, when Risa asked you what you’re ‘scared of,’ and what’s making you ‘uncomfortable.’ What did you say?”

Lacing the first of her shoes, Cameron said, “I told her that I’m scared of looking and feeling silly and like an alien, just like everyone else is. And then she was all, ‘No, be more specific. Dig deep for me, Cameron.’” It had been scary at the time, but Cameron grinned. She put on her other shoe, and said, “So I told her about how finding pants that fit me is really difficult, because they’re always too short, and usually, they’re either weird and baggy, or they’re too tight and show how skinny my legs are. To which Risa said, ‘Well my heart bleeds for you, every pair of paints making you look tall and slim must be a horrendous burden to bear.’”

Donna giggled so hard that she doubled over slightly, and had to put down the blush compact she’d just picked up.

Cameron sat up, and was quiet for a second, as she listened to Donna, and watched her shoulders shake with quiet laughter. When she finally snorted and then made herself stop, Cameron continued. “Uh, I also realized that I’m weird about fabrics? It’s not just how fancy, formal women’s clothes are cut, the fabrics are like, itchy and weird to me, and like, just thinking about it makes me weirdly anxious?”

Sympathetically, as she blended out her blush, Donna said, “Some fabrics really do feel horrendous, and they don’t breathe well enough.”

Donna had just barely finished her sentence when Cameron blurted out, “When I was a kid people used to make fun of me for looking like a boy. When I was in high school I realized that what they were really saying was that I looked like, you know. Like I didn’t like boys, and that I must like girls.”

Donna looked up from the three lipsticks she’d been trying to choose from, and half turned back toward Cameron. “What do you mean, what people were saying? Did people actually say things about that to you?”

“People mostly thought it, I think,” Cameron said, hunching over in her seat. “There was this one guy I went to high school with who used to bother me about it, like, a lot, like it felt like he lived to bug me about it. My guidance counselor said that maybe it was because he had a crush on me. Which, the feeling really wasn’t even remotely mutual.”

Donna, both lost for words and still struggling to pick a lip color, didn’t say anything. Haltingly, Cameron added, “It took me a really long time to admit this, part of why it bothered me so much is that I wasn’t really interested in boys. And it felt like something must be wrong with me. And pretending that I was didn’t help, it just made me seem weirder, and more awkward, and, fake.”

Rolling her eyes slightly, Donna said, “ I wasn’t interested in boys in high school, either.” She finally decided on the deep rosy nude lipstick and swiped it on.

Surprised, Cameron sat up. “Really?”

Donna scoffed into her vanity mirror as she started to pull the rollers out of her hair. “I mean, I dated some, in high school, and I fooled around with a couple of boys. But it wasn’t for them, it was for me, because I wanted to go out, and because I wanted to try things, and seeing what being that kind of girl was like. I didn’t really like anyone until college, I was on my own, I was studying what I was interested in, and I met Gordon, and….”

“Your astrophysicist?” Cameron finished for her.

“Yes,” Donna said quietly. She stood up quickly, raked her hair into place with her fingers, and said, “I’m gonna get dressed, though.” She disappeared into her closet, where she started to hyperventilate for a moment, before she made herself calm down and focus on putting on her dress, and stepping into her shoes, and going back out into her room.

“Hey,” she said, trying to sound relaxed. “Uh, I’m almost ready, I’m just gonna put on some jewelry, so....” She hurried back to her vanity, where she put on a watch.

“Okay,” Cameron stood up. She started to pull her blazer.

Donna turned back to her as she was putting in the second of a pair of small gold hoop earrings. Momentarily forgetting what she was doing, Donna said, “Wow.”

She was wearing the blazer over a plain black crew neck top, which was tucked into her high-waisted gray pleated silk tweed trousers, which were being held up by a pair of plain black suspenders. As if on cue, the color rose in Cameron’s cheeks. “What?”

“Nothing,” Donna shook her head. “You just do that so well.”

Cameron cackled as she smoothed out her clothes. “Do what well, exactly? Look confused about my gender and sexuality?”

Donna didn’t want to be overly serious, but she also couldn’t bring herself to laugh. “You look good, Cam,” she grinned. “Not every woman can carry that off.”

Cameron slid her hands into her pockets. “Thanks.”

Donna stepped tentatively toward her bedroom door, and then she stopped to look in the full-length mirror that was hung there. Having worn a long, flowing, sleeveless, bright red dress the previous year, Donna had chosen to go shorter, slimmer, and darker for this gala. A deep wine red sheath with a slightly looser bodice and sleeves, the hemline fell several inches above her knee, and the neckline was high. Donna wasn’t typically one to second guess these kinds of choices, but she looked in the mirror, and worried that the dress was too short. She smoothed out the bottom half of the dress, hoping it would look longer, and then started to compulsively smooth her hair down.

Exasperated, Cameron joined her in front of the mirror. Firmly, she said, “Donna. You look fine.” She looked into the mirror so she could catch Donna’s eye, but then saw the both of them, standing next to each other. We match, Cameron realized. They didn’t literally match, but they looked like they went together. Cameron had never felt that way standing next to anyone else.

Donna looked at her, saw that she was looking in the mirror, and then looked into the mirror with her. I do look fine, she thought. And we really look nice together. Donna smiled at the mirror.

“You look better than fine,” Cameron said, feeling mildly anxious. “You look really nice, as always.”

“Thank you,” Donna said. “Shall we?”

Cameron nodded, and Donna stepped forward and pulled open the door. She walked through it, and Cameron followed her.

#...so a lot of this was really just me wanting to reflect on cam's s3 wardrobe and her promo portrait especially #no ragerts!#even with how long this got!#and how much trouble i had picking their clothes!#femslash february #femslash february 2020 #fic #fan fiction #cameron howe #donna clark #donna emerson #haley clark #vanessa!

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bbcbreakingnews · 4 years

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‘Maskne’ and bold makeup: How masks are changing how we look

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption The 2020 look: Face masks are now mandatory in many situations

For many of us, face masks have become an essential part of everyday life thanks to the coronavirus. But regularly wearing one can have an unfortunate side-effect: mask-induced acne, aka “maskne”.

“Maskne is absolutely real. No questions asked,” Dr Mona Gohara, Associate Clinical Professor of Dermatology at the Yale School of Medicine, told the BBC.

“I wear two masks and sometimes a protective shield… [and] have myself experienced it and continue to experience it.”

It’s a frustrating scenario that anyone who’s had unwanted spots can probably sympathise with.

But what exactly causes maskne?

According to dermatologist Angeline Yong, the “constant rubbing of the masks against our skin causes micro-tears, allowing easier entry for bacteria and dirt to clog up our pores”.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption The friction from face masks creates “micro-tears” in our skin which can let bacteria in

And then there’s that moist, damp environment going on underneath your mask.

“Breathing into a mask also creates a hot and moist environment that leads to the build-up of sweat, oil and bacteria. Add on the fact that face masks are occlusive [designed to block things] by nature, and it’s a recipe for skin disaster,” says Dr Yong, whose practice is based in Singapore.

Dr Yong says she tells her clients one way to combat maskne is to “avoid thick, occlusive skincare creams”.

“I always tell my patients to opt for more lightweight water-based products underneath the mask… a lightweight moisturiser can also act as an additional protective barrier and prevent chafing,” she says.

“Ideally, you should [also] be using a mild and gentle exfoliator to … support the absorption of your moisturiser.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, skincare companies have been quick to recognise the rise of maskne.

Popular Korean skincare brand Dr Jart now has a special “Maskne Essentials” category on its site – with items like a “facial barrier mask” and an anti-blemish patch.

Image copyright Dr Jart

Image caption Even skincare cult favourite Dr Jart has jumped on the maskne bandwagon

According to beauty giant L’Oréal, the past few months have seen a “strong rise in deep-cleansing products”.

Jochen Zaumseil, L’Oréal’s executive-vice president in Asia-Pacific, said popular skincare brands like La Roche-Posay and CeraVe had seen a “huge boom” recently – with a rise in demand for products like cleansers and sheet masks.

In Asia-Pacific, this rise in deep-cleansing products was attributed to mask-related issues, including issues like oilier skin and acne, as well as an increase in hygiene habits due to Covid-19.

“Skincare has always been by far our number one [revenue driver], [but] of course that’s shifted even further [ahead] during the crisis,” said Mr Zaumseil.

Why some countries wear face masks and others don’t

But while skincare is booming, the makeup industry has taken a hit as more people work from home and avoid heading out.

Mr Zaumseil says demand for makeup is expected to rise again as life returns to normal, businesses begin to re-open, and more people start going into work.

According to L’Oréal, this is what it’s witnessed in China, which is several months ahead of most of the world in coping with the virus.

It found that some 34% of Chinese women wore makeup in February, during the peak of the lockdown – this figure has now increased to 68% in late June to early July.

However, L’Oréal says there’s been a consistent demand for products that show up above people’s face masks.

Image copyright Melina Basnight

Image caption YouTuber Melina Basnight recommends a strong eye makeup look for mask wearers

“The eyes are the most visible part of your face now, [so] mascara, eyeliner, these are doing very well,” said Mr Zaumseil.

Lightweight products are proving popular, as are long-lasting, non-smudge lipsticks that will not transfer onto masks.

‘Contouring is out, eyes are in!’

On YouTube, the trend has echoed across the beauty industry, and a growing number of vloggers are making mask-friendly makeup tutorial videos.

Heavy contoured looks are out, and bold eyes are in.

“You’re focusing more on eyebrows, eyeshadows – because you do have something that covers half your face. I like really bushy eyebrows and a really bold, colourful eye palette, just glamming up the eyes to help you stand out,” US YouTuber Melina Basnight told the BBC.

“I also put on some light makeup on the rest of my face because there are times you take off your mask when you go outside. I’ve kinda perfected what works.”

Melina’s top three makeup tips:

Image copyright Collage/Melina Basnight

A bold eye look to make you stand out from the crowd, playing with lots of colours

Bushy eyebrows, which she refers to as her “werewolf brows”

Making sure your “skincare game is on point” – she typically still puts makeup on the lower half of her face but keeps it light

Ms Basnight, who is a discharge assistant at a Texas hospital, is required to wear a mask every day at work.

“[Earlier this year] I had a few people asking me how [to put on makeup with a mask] and at that point I had already been wearing masks for a few weeks,” she said.

“A lot of people still want to wear makeup even with their masks. It just provides a sense of normalcy. At a time where nothing is normal, it’s just that tiny thing you can hold on to.”

So she decided to create a mask-friendly makeup tutorial on her MakeupMenaree channel.

Filipino YouTuber Nina Carpio said she was inspired to focus on the issue back in May – after experiencing first-hand the damage a full face of makeup dealt to her skin.

The combination of makeup and perspiration under a mask, she says, irritated her skin and caused her pores to clog. The makeup also transferred to the underside of her mask, dirtying it.

Image copyright Smile Like Nina/YouTube

Image caption YouTuber Nina Carpio has stripped her makeup back after finding foundation and masks don’t mix

“I tried putting on a full [face] of makeup with foundation, powder, contour… I found it will not work. [So for now] I skip everything. I put on the face and lips, and just put products like moisturisers and lip balm,” said the YouTuber, whose channel is Smile Like Nina.

And this trend, she says, is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

“As long as we are still living in the pandemic, face masks will become part of our everyday – and so [our] makeup looks will definitely revolve around it.”

The post ‘Maskne’ and bold makeup: How masks are changing how we look appeared first on BBC BREAKING NEWS.

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#ASIA

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