Thursday, March 12, 2009

A Random Post About "Kohl"

Ooh, scary child! Scary child would be scary even without the kohl, but doesn't the kohl help?

What is kohl? It's a mixture of soot and other stuff that some South Asian and African people (and silent movie stars and young rock stars) wear to accentuate their eyes. It's been around since the Bronze Age. Egyptian queens wore it. It has been believed to have anti-bacterial properties, and, like the smears on football players' faces, it helps deflect the sun. The Prophet Muhammed supposedly applied it before going to bed. It's used even on infants. It protects against the evil eye. Some traditional recipes use heavy metals and can cause lead poisoning. Other ingredients might be lamp black, goose fat, frankincense, the soot of burned sunflower seeds and almond shells, and castor oil.

Tigers wear it.
And it's cool.

I've never worn it. I have no make-up bravery. I've been applying the same mascara, brown eye liner, and smudge of brown shadow for, er, I don't know, 15 years? Kohl eyes wouldn't really suit my pajama-esque housebound writer's apparel (not that pink hair does . . . actually, pink hair goes with everything)! But look how cool and exotic it is when worn by cool and exotic people, including men:



Incidentally, one of my characters is cool like this, which is why I am thinking about it at all.

It's good to be a writer. Your characters can be cooler than you.

10 comments:

tanita✿davis said...

Boo-yah!
That's exactly why it's good to be a writer!

...and that kohl is disturbingly hot on the dude with the black robe. Wow.

Shelli (srjohannes) said...

you're cool - funny how you can experiment with hair but stick to your same eyeliner. I do that - adventurous on one thing but not on another. have you tried lash blast - new mascara that I love!

Deirdre said...

It's not so good a look on freckled Irish skin either - not a bit of the exotic going on here.

Don't you love it when a character steps into one of your stories who's more of anything you'd like to be?

Katie Anderson said...

ooo I'm all over this Kohl stuff! Yummy. I love how smudgy it is.

But Pink hair is tres khol too :-) Oops! I meant tres COOL.

June Saville said...

'It's good to be a writer. Your characters can be cooler than you.'
What wise words. I'm going to enjoy visiting you, and Sunday Scribblings.

I have some cool characters on my literary blog Journeys in Creative Writing. The are way cooler than I am!

Stephanie Perkins said...

"It's good to be a writer. Your characters can be cooler than you."

Snort!! Yes. So true.

(And I've aaaallllways wanted to try kohl too, but I just don't wear much makeup. Me thinks I need to try it anyway. For research, perhaps? YES! And that's why you should try it! In the name of research!)

Unknown said...

Yay pink haired people!

Amber said...

I LOL when I read you say you had no make up bravery...because, um, hello. Pink hair? And, oh yeah STRIPPER SHOES?! I think you could pull it off. Ha! I am sure kohl would look super good with your hair, next time you do a night on the town.

When I do make it up sometime, I will give you a super cool make up job! (Remember I used to do this?)That would be fun.

:)

Amber Lough said...

Hmm... no kohl in my book, but our stories are starting to sound eerily alike. And yet, knowing us, they'll be complete opposites! Just seems like the setting is similar. Sorta. You're in Morocco and I'm in Yemen. So maybe I'm crazy. Yup. I am.

Anonymous said...

for i don't want to be eaten by the handsome lizard, i wrote. hugs from mexico