feelies: Greetings! From Quarantine

At the age of thirteen I taught myself how to write clear, topic oriented, features. At the age of twenty, I taught myself how to abandon all of it. 

weirdly beautiful architecture at a rest stop in St Augustine, FL whilst on a 21 hr road trip

As said on "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me!" this week, the last thing literary agents, and the general public for that matter, want are tales from quarantine. Throughout this pandemic, I've lived in three different places. For two months, I was in my apartment in Brooklyn, painting the walls from one shade of white to another and watching rom coms with my roommate. For three weeks, I was at my parent's in New Jersey. I'm currently in Florida with the family I babysit for, swimming in backyard pools and watching fifteen minute torrential rain storms with awe.

Chi, basking 

Ironically, this could've been the best time for me to write. Before the entire world shifted, I was working two jobs and a full time student. Yet, I can't bring myself to do anything. I figured if the retail stores and schools and public parks were on pause, I should be also.

I guess this could be looked at as a "throw away" post. If you ever were there for my first endeavor, How Fitting, you'd know I quite like writing paragraphs upon paragraphs of nothing. I guess I felt the need to document my own postcard from quarantine. I promise I won't write further about it. Or try to sell you a book on it. Or continuously speak on it. I'd hope to keep my blog, and everything I write in general, rooted in reality but my mind is all escapism.

xx

-annie 

Trying Prose's Customized Hair Care

This post was alternately titled "I Hate My Hair More Than Anything Else About Me So I Tried Prose" but I figured it didn't have the same SEO potential. Oh to be young and search engine optimizational.

Anyways, as often as my hair style and length and color changes (and that is by average, at least twice a year) one thing that is consistent is my absolute undying hatred for it. I know it's harsh and arguably a jewish girl rite of passage, but as much as I would hope to say I've grown into myself and become more confident in my outward appearance, and I have, my hair just hasn't followed through with that vision. It's all very "chicken before the egg"; what came first? My insecurity towards my hair or the constant desire to cut it all off?

*also just a side note about customized subscription services, I just want to bring up how utterly comical it is that Curology told me that my skin problems were incurable. Easily one of the funniest things to happen to me and my self esteem.

Onto Prose... 
Prose is a hair care service based in SoHo (ironically the same street I worked on for a year... "I don't have to go to Spring Street 'cause it's spring everywhere"-Dar Williams) that specializes in products tailored towards the individual's hair texture, goals, and needs. At first I was skeptical, as I'm quite used to "miracle" products being pushed towards my hair, only for them to either require far too much upkeep or lack of results. However, full disclosure: I was halfway through a frozen margarita at the bar and I had just gotten paid that night so here I was waiting on custom shampoo.

The questionnaire went deep, asking further than the simple "texture/length/damage and instead inquiring further about climate factors, existing routine, and how much effort I wished to put in (as much as I like to play "cool girl", I divulged to a hair service that I essentially will beg, steal, and borrow to achieve the locks of my dreams).

The Haul 
I decided go big or go home and went for both the shampoo and conditioner along with the curl cream and pre shampoo mask. I, however, skipped out on the dry shampoo and conditioner as I'm quite loyal to/over the moon with Amika's assortment.

feelin like Bettie Paige with my shiny hair n me 

For starters, everything smells stupid good. I chose the "botanical" scent and I have to say part of it is completely worth it just to get my hair to smell like eucalyptus (unlike most products, this stuff actual lingers...).  After nearly two months, I can officially report I'm hooked ("Sven Golly you did it!). I will say, though the conditioner, shampoo, and pre-shampoo mask (who knew this even existed! Much less was the fix towards my hair drying up whenever I try to wash it!) shall forever be in my arsenal, I wasn't as impressed with the curl cream, preferring the Shea Moisture Curl Enhancing Smoothie  I've been using since the dawn of time.

Overall, though I believe I will never truly be me if I don't absolutely hate my hair, Prose has made my life a hell of a lot easier. Who knew the solution to my tragic failing is customized shampoo? (god that sounds so ridiculous I love saying it). Don't worry I already sent my love letter to Prose's customer service team.

(ps: another great thing about the brand is that you can either skip ordering pumps for your products all together or just order them once and save them for new products, skipping out on at least a little plastic waste).

check out Prose here 

-Annie