Caroline Calloway
Jun 22, 2023 BY
@carolinecalloway⚰️
We like our fresh flowers the way we like our raw meat: butchered out of sight by faceless killers and then neatly wrapped in too much plastic at which point we are ready to make our purchases. Pets are family members and houseplants are like pets. HOWEVER! If you are strong enough to get past the psychological block most people have towards buying a potted plant just to kill it on purpose later that day, then you too can wear your hair like Princess Caroline of Monaco for the lowlow price of just 8 dollars. Otherwise you will be stuck paying $45 a stem from a florist like a fool. Let’s run the numbers! Grocery stores and even pharmacies sell potted orchids near the check-out aisle for about $16.99 a pop. Most potted orchids have two stalks of blooms. My favorite grocery store for buying hair-flowers is Trader Joe’s because of their incredible variety in orchidaceae subspecies, and my favorite type of flower to wear in my hair is the orchid because they take so long to wilt. Unlike many cold weather flowers, the tropical petals of the orchid can absorb water from the humidity in the air making them the perfect accessory for a long night out.
Jun 22, 2023
👟
These are the only two blushes you will ever need. One is pink. The other: coral. Both are Dior and appear in the pan to be two terrifying and off-putting shades of neon. Have faith! Both look absolutely fucking luminous on the skin. If I could only have one blush for the rest of my life, it would be the pink one, but get both if you can. Don’t bother with the other reddish, purply colors—they all end up looking like inferior versions of the pink. A make-up artist once taught me to do a light wash of blush with a thick powder brush over whatever eyeshadow you’re wearing to tie the face together and to add blush just above the ball of the nose where you put your contour for that super-cute, kawaii-looking button-nose. Highlighter on the tip of the nose always. Maybe you already know these tips, but learning them lowkey changed the way I did my make-up forever.
Jun 22, 2023
⚗️
When I finally got on antidepressants and stopped self-medicating my depression with an life-consuming addiction to amphetamines, I bought, like, 200 bottles of perfume. It wasn’t that before I got on proper medication, I couldn’t smell. It was just that when I was in the thick my depression, smelling something lovely just didn’t bring me any joy. It was too slight a pleasure—like listening to rain or baking cakes—to affect me. The only way I was able to afford 200 bottles of perfume was Dossier. They make dupes of iconic scents at price points of $29, $39 and $49. Their candles are great, too! My favorites are the Diptyque Do Son dupe, the Baccarat Rouge 540 dupe, the Love, Don’t Be Shy dupe (it’s Rihanna’s signature scent!) and, since I live in Florida now, I also love the Le Labo Santal 33 dupe because people chase me down the street to ask me what it is. It’s so sweet and heartwarming watching Floridians smell Santal 33 for the first time. But obviously I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that perfume back in New York. Being seen as an offbeat and eccentric weird is too essential my fragile sense of self.
Jun 22, 2023
🩵🦋🧚🏻♂️
I won’t fuck around. You should buy mine HERE. It’s a hand-signed, hand-numbered, limited edition lined with the most gorgeous, luscious hand-marbled paper from Italy!!! I’m gluing all the end papers in by hand. Mom’s helping. In fact, my next scandal will definitely be the incredibly poor working conditions over here at CC HQ. I’m not paying her anything, which is truly an unlivable wage. But if you’d like to buy a first edition with no human rights ethics violations on the back end, I’d suggest Chelsea Hodson’s very first title from Rose Books. It’s a double first! First edition of the first book from a new imprint! I can’t wait to gesticulate wildly to it as I swear to my great grandchildren that once upon a time I was cool girl with cool taste. I can’t wait for your own great grandchildren to one day sell the internet heirloom that is Scammer at auction for a tidy profit.
Jun 22, 2023
🦷
One of my most treasured possessions is my bear skull. Most fanged skulls will run you about $100, but you can find some pretty good replicas like this bear skull for $50. Or real skulls of less dangerous animals, like this bobcat for $27 or this badger for $45 or this coyote for $42. If you have fanged-skull-cash to set on fucking fire, definitely nab this insane python skull for $140. Nothing looks chicer on a dinner table (or the floor where you are eating dinner) than the dripping wax of tapered candles and the falling petals of fresh flowers and a spooky little collection of fanged skulls. Go off, witchy mommy! Take me to bed and then take my soul with your dark spells! And sure, whatever, yeah. Maybe some PETA girlies out there might try to cancel me for supporting taxidermy. But greater women than they have tried and failed to bring me down. Fanged skulls will not be how I go. Especially when my bear skull is only one of my horcruxes and I still have six other left out there.
Jun 22, 2023
🧶
Did you know that there is a vibrant tradition in the American Mid West of knitting tiny hats for pets? Primarily cats, but also guinea pigs and chickens. My cat, Matisse, has about 400 and, yes, I’m currently putting several children in the Great Lakes area through college by buying everything in their mothers’ Etsy shops.
Jun 22, 2023
⛪
I’m saving about $2,000 a year on buying my press-on nails from Etsy instead of getting them professionally done anymore. Let that number sink in. And I’m having so much more fun this way, too! Some women have knitting. Others scrapbook. The hobby that enriches my silly little life with arts and crafts is gluing the most beautifully painted bits of plastic onto my fingertips. I’d suggest you buy two sets in the same sizes so that if one nail falls off, you can replace it. Two sets of the same design will create a manicure that lasts just under a month—I shit you fucking not. And here’s the kicker! After you decide to take them off you can still use them again someday. To sand off the dried glue from previously worn nail sets, you’ll need this $10 electric nail file from Amazon. I also like to organize my nail sets in this clear, $8 bead organizer, also from Amazon, so get that, too. To find great nail sets just type into the search bar on Etsy “press on nails…” and then whatever else you’re looking for. “Press on nails y2k.” “Press on nails French tip.” “Press on nails floral…” Etc.
Jun 22, 2023
🥼
Listen to me. Your face needs four things. A chemical exfoliator—one. A Vitamin C serum—two. A retinoid—three. And a ceramide moisturizer—four. Do you know who can give you all four? It’s not Snake Oil Skin as much as I wish that were true. I’ve tried all the bougie bitch shit. Augustinus Bader and La Roche-Posey and Barbara Sturm and do you know who comes out on top if I really had to choose? Protocol. This shit works. The complete line with all four products is $262, which might sound like a lot at first, but when you break it down it’s really only $65 a bottle. $65 also happens to be what Snake Oil costs, which is what I use as my last step to slug everything in while I sleep. Proof of results is in my face. I’m turning 32 this year and I’ve never not been carded.
Jun 22, 2023