Eboni K Williams’ White Coat

Real Housewives of New York Season 13 Episode 9 Fashion

On last night’s Real Housewives of New York Eboni K Williams looked absolutely stunning in an all white outfit—complete with the perfect white coat—as she and Sonja Morgan headed to Philly for some help finding their perfect match. And I might just have to look their match-maker up because based on the fact that Eboni’s coat is sold out I’m feeling very, very alone.

The Realest Housewife,

Big Blonde Hair

Click Here to See her Alice + Olivia Bain Coat

Click Here for Info on her White Sweater

Originally posted at: Eboni K Williams’ White Coat

Eboni K Williams’ White Turtleneck Sweater

Real Housewives of New York Season 13 Episode 9 Fashion

Today I’m spending time catching up on RHONY—I’m a few eps behind—and though I love Eboni K Williams even more, I really don’t envy her position this season. She’s doing a lot of much needed educating and she seems to be meeting it with way more resistance than she should (I mean COME ON ladies). And with how worked up Ramona Singer got during the final scene of last week’s episode, it looks like she also could have used Eboni to educate her on how to pick out a lightweight turtleneck sweater for next time she gets so heated.

The Realest Housewife,

Big Blonde Hair

Click Here to Shop her Alice + Olivia Lanie Sweater

Click Here For Additional Stock

Click Here to Shop Additional Stock in Black

Originally posted at: Eboni K Williams’ White Turtleneck Sweater

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” — Leonardo Da Vinci

Mental balance is a skill controlled by our minds.

I think living a ‘balanced’ lifestyle is an art because, like art, it is a skill. Like art we create our palate. What is considered balance for one is not considered balance for all. But one thing is true, our success as creators of a balanced lifestyle is based on mind over matter.

The person who can balance their lifestyle knows ‘peace of mind’ outweighs chaos. They have often adopted this new lifestyle out of personal frustration.

So many of us ride a daily teeter-totter – up and down, and out of balance.

There is no perfection, so please realize the people who are capable of ‘balancing their lifestyle’ also ‘slip in the mud.’ The question is: How can balance outweigh falls?

Mental balance is comparing the value of one situation over another.

You have heard the saying, ‘strike a happy balance’. In the world, stage politicians are concerned with the balance of power, the balance of trade, the balance of payments.

At home, front balance is all about time management. It is about coping with our several daily to-dos. Often, we become so overwhelmed we feel smothered.

I think mental balance is being mindful. If done effectively, we don’t have to down-size our life; we have to ‘right’ size our lifestyle.

De-clutter to Find Mental Balance

Empty your mind of all the things that prevent you from living a calm and stress-free lifestyle. This includes people, commitments and responsibilities that no longer interest you. I know this is very hard.

Remove Personal Clutter

Go from overwhelmed to organized. Eliminate books you have read, clothes you no longer wear even those with a price tag. Clean and freshen your make-up drawer, remembering less is more. File your important papers with labels, so you don’t waste time searching.

Organizing your resources and your time is not hard. Try cleaning up as your starter. This will be the beginning of your process of mental balance.

Prioritize!

Writing things down in order of importance clears and frees my mind from having to remember this, that and the other. I undertake each task in order of relevance, all visually organized on paper. This is huge for me. My mind is now clutter-free, which creates mental balance.

Put What’s First at the Top of Your Mind

Put your mind to work on the essentials. It often happens that while I am doing something important my mind suddenly loses focus, and my thoughts migrate to something that is not essential.

I have learned to force myself to stay focused on what I am doing. I push the stray thought out of my mind and say to myself, “stay focused on your intentions.” This is hard, but I am learning. For me, this is a skill.

Reduce the News in All Forms

Enjoy the silence of the day. Too much negativity has a negative effect on our minds. I think this disrupts all chance of living a lifestyle of mental balance. How can one balance their thoughts and be productive with arguing commentators and guests in the background?

Unplug

Disconnect from the tech world to a degree. You all know what I mean.

Learn to Delegate

Delegate tasks that burden you. You can hire an intern for college credit or hire a college helper and give her room and board. Where there is will, there is a way to find mental balance in your life.

Find the Power in Saying “No”

Learn to say “No.” Don’t be afraid. This is a powerful tool.

Family Comes First

Do not forget the most important people in your life – your family!

Take Care of Yourself

Don’t forget to acknowledge ‘YOU.’

Finding balance can be difficult, but it’s a challenge that is well worth the work. Focusing on the things that truly matter to you, and minimizing those that don’t, is a sure way to enjoy this great balancing act called life.

What is the biggest thing that prevents you from living a balanced life? How do you stay focused on what’s important? What is your best quality that allows you to lead a balanced lifestyle? Please join the conversation below!

Does aging enhance or diminish our
resilience?

The dictionary definition of
resilience goes something like this: the capacity to recover quickly from
difficulties; toughness; the ability of a substance or object to spring back
into shape; elasticity.

As we age, we need to develop our
resilience to meet the challenges we face. We do experience difficulties we
have not faced before. We experience more losses, diminished capacity, reduced
finances, and on and on.

Yet what we do know from our gained experience and wisdom is what the renown Buddhist Nun Pema Chodron says: “No feeling is permanent.” Now we know that this too shall pass.

The Resilience in Us

But how can we create a sense of
resilience when there are times when we just don’t feel we have the capacity to
recover quickly? It doesn’t just happen because we want it to.

Resilience is a practice just like
meditation or learning a new skill. We can’t just summon resilience whenever we
need it. It becomes part our inner voice that tells us we can come back
stronger.

In my life, I have faced many of the challenges
that we all share. I have lost loved ones – my parents, my best friend, my
sister. I have had financial problems. I have had things just not go my way for
a variety of reasons, and most likely so have you.

How long can we put it all on hold? Do
we sit, do nothing, mope, berate ourselves and immerse in self-pity? NO!

I think resilience is also found in
the process of getting from one set of circumstances to another. I love the
quote and podcast from entrepreneur Marie Forleo, “Everything is figureoutable.” So
let’s figure this out!

Here are my 7 keys to becoming
resilient:

Objective Analysis

Begin with a clear perception of the
situation. Ask yourself the tough questions and answer honestly. What role, if
any, did you play in the difficulty?

Self-Reliance

Become more self-reliant. Others can
help and support you, but the real work of resilience is counting on your own
strengths to bounce back.

Providing Assistance

Offer support to those who are in a
similar situation. The more others need your strength and support, the more you
will need to develop your own resilience.

Motivation

Find your motivation. You need to
develop the ability to take charge of any problem that arises. Stand up
and do whatever is necessary to get back on course.

Creativity

Resilience is creative. With
resilience, you can look at a situation and creatively determine the best way
out. You are enterprising in
your approach toward starting over.

A Sense of Humor

A resilient person has humor. You may
cry until you start laughing, but a sense of humor
is so important when turning your life around. You’ve got to take your
goals seriously, and you’ve got to take yourself seriously. But at times,
you’ve also got to be able to laugh at yourself and your situation.

Values

A resilient person has a strong sense of morality. Whatever you do to get back on your feet, make sure it’s consistent with your moral values. Make sure that your upcoming success is of service, and not at the expense of, others.

The more obstacles you face and
overcome, the more times you falter and get back on track, the more
difficulties you struggle with and conquer, the more resilience you will
naturally develop. If you are resilient, there is nothing that can hold
you back.

All About Resilience

“Adversity is a fact of life,” I read
on Psychology Today. “Resilience is that indescribable
trait that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back at least
as strong as before. Rather than letting difficulties or failure overcome them
and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes.” 

So, according to psychologists,
resilient people have common traits that keep them on their feet. These include
“a positive attitude, optimism, the
ability to regulate emotions, and the ability to see failure as a form of
helpful feedback.”

Optimism, though sometimes we
underestimate at the concept, softens the influence of stress on both our mind and body, allowing
us to rise above stressful situations. As a result, we can think more clearly
about our circumstances and consider the steps we need to take to turn the odds
in our favor.

Resilience may sound like a
supernatural quality, but there’s nothing magical about it. Simply put, resilience
involves hard mental work that helps people change a gloomy life situation
toward a more favorable one.

So, let’s all practice resilience and
learn to come back from our adversities.

“The wound is the place where the
Light enters you.” — Rumi

How often do you have to be resilient?
What was the last time the odds weren’t in your favor? How did you deal with
the situation? Was it easy or difficult to summon resilience and conquer your
circumstances? Please share your story with our community!

Marlene Dietrich, known as The Last Goddess by some, was a famous actress and singer from the 1930s through the 1980s. Her films include Morocco, for which she received an Oscar nod, and her personal favorite, The Devil is a Woman.

Her carefully curated look was masterfully crafted and realized by well known directors like Josef von Sternberg and Alfred Hitchcock. Suffice it to say, her gender-bending edgy appeal drew huge audiences and catapulted her into mega stardom.

As a classic great beauty, Marlene knew how to work everything from makeup, to set design, wardrobe, and lighting to highlight her chiseled features. To achieve her look, we will need to explore four areas: her eyebrows, eye makeup, contour and highlight, and those precise bow lips.

High Arched Eyebrows

Thin, drawn-in brows were huge in the 1930s-40s, and Marlene had them mastered. Because I have thick, barely filled in brows, my demo in the above video is, well, limited. Having said that, for those of you with thin brows, the method used by Dietrich is useful to pull your eye area up and out, allowing for a generous amount of real estate to play with.

If you take a pencil and hold it from the edge of your nose, straight up to your brows, you, technically, should have a straight line. To open up her eye area, though, Dietrich brought her brows slightly further outward, giving her a more open-eyed look. Then she drew that much-copied high-brow arch with the end point a bit higher than the beginning point, further raising her eyes.

Lastly, take that pencil again and place it along your nose and the edge of your outer eye, and you’ll see that she pulled her brows slightly further down than that distinctive line. Any of you can play with this style and use it to your own advantage. You can use an eyebrow pencil (like Jane Iredale Retractable Eyebrow Pencil), and/or eye shadow and a thin brush to obtain this.

Classic Dramatic Eye

Many of the acclaimed female movie stars of the era worked this classic look, including Marilyn Monroe, Greta Garbo, and Audrey Hepburn. To copy them, take a shade slightly lighter than your skin, and place it all over the lid area. (I use Jane Iredale Daytime Eyeshadow Palette.)

Then, using either a liquid or pencil liner, draw a narrower line that is narrower close to the nose and gradually becomes thicker toward the outer edge. (I use MAC Blacktrack gel liner.) In the video, I show how to most easily do this.

After that, take a shade one to two shades darker than your skin and, using a crease brush, place it in the outer crease of your eye, gently blending it toward the center. You can layer this outer shade with versions of light to darker colors for an even more glamorous appearance.

We must never forget that false lashes are ever present with this look! Cutting the lashes in half, Dietrich focused on the outer edge of her eye, further pulling her eye outward. The final trick Dietrich employed, was to use a white eye liner pencil in the lower water line of her eye, adding a bit of brightness to it. I use a creamier shade because I’m going to the store later and don’t want to look insane.

Contour and Highlight

No female film star was without well-defined cheekbones, jawline, and nose. Because the medium was black and white film, they could get away with techniques that simply look ridiculous on our modern 4-K, High-Definition cameras.

In any case, we can manage to use those same strategies to come up with a similar look. Using either cream or powder contour, blend the shade under your cheekbones, being sure to not bring it too far down your face. (I used Graftobian Contour Palette.)

Apply the same product both under your jaw, and around your hairline to add depth. Dietrich added shading on either side of her nose as well, something that I teach in the video, but do at your own risk. There’s nothing worse than looking like you rubbed dirt all along your nose.

Highlight is fantastic. I adore it and use it liberally on people I work with. Using a highlight stick or powder, add highlight to the bridge of your nose, brow bone, and top of your cheekbone. (I used YSL Touche Eclat Highlighter Pen.) You can even add cream highlight under your eyes to reflect light from your dark circles and pop your eyes – a favorite trick of mine.

Bow Lips

Dietrich’s renowned bow lips are a mainstay of her film persona. In today’s world, bow lips are not as in style, but a fun accessory if you decide to use it. Take a lip pencil that either matches or comes close to your lipstick color, and draw in the bow at the top of your lips. (I used Lipbar Valentine Lip Pencil.)

Then, carefully draw in the base of the bottom lip so that your lips are symmetrical. Moving to the sides of your mouth, fill in that area going slightly outside your lip line to create a fuller lip look. Then connect the sections as best you can. After that, apply your favorite shade of red lipstick (I used Jane Iredale Megan Lipstick) if you’re sticking to the Dietrich look. Otherwise, use whatever lip shade hits your fancy.

Give your hair some soft waves, put on a glamorous gown, and dance around the house singing your favorite cabaret song. Why around your house? So that people don’t think you’ve gone round the bend and lock you up. That’s how Marlene Dietrich lived, in a space the rest of us would look crazy in. Go big or go home, as they say. Long live Marlene Dietrich.

Is there a glamorous woman that you tried to copy in makeup and style? Are you a fan of Marlene Dietrich? What do you know/remember about her? Do you like her makeup style and do you think it can be used in today’s world? Please share your thoughts and observations!