Wig Research

Wig - Zara by Jon Renau

Apparently I have my serious face on in the picture above.  I am evaluating whether or not this wig is for me. You know who wears this wig very well?  Katie, from Katie In The Hall.  She always looks so good, it inspired me to try on the same wig.  And now that I have tried it on, I am still not sure if this is the right wig for me.  One thing that I think is great about it is that when I tried it on, Jules said, 'wow, what is up with your hairline, how is it that it looks like the hair is actually growing out of your head?'  That is pretty cool, huh?

What is it that I don't like about it?  I don't like that it is synthetic hair.  Don't get me wrong, the fiber that they used is super luxurious and mimics real hair super well, and maybe it would only be me that knows, but unfortunately I do know, it is not real hair.

What's the hangup with real hair?  I don't know.  Especially when you consider the look of Zara above and the Adelle II C HT by Wig Pro below.  At least in these pictures I think I look better in the Zara.

Adelle II C HT - by Wig Pro

I know, great picture huh?  Nope, not by a long shot, but I do kind of have a look of joy on my face.  What do I like about this wig?  I love, love, love that it is human hair.  Oh and like the Zara above, it is in a large sized cap, which just makes it feel luscious.  What don't I like about it?  I don't like the styling.

But really that brings about possibly the best thing I learned about this trying on session, whichever wig I purchase I am going to take it, and myself, and go have the darn thing styled for me.  Which is something I am intimidated to do, but I am going to do it.  Jules asked me what my hesitation was and I said trust.  If you get a bad haircut, it will grow back.  Pay $600 for a wig, get a poorly styled $40 cut, and guess what?  You are stuck.  I suppose the key to a successful style is like anything else, research and experimentation.  I just hope it will not cost an arm and a leg as I don't have many limbs to spare.

The two wigs I have pictured are just the latest two I have tried on.  I purposely drove to Wilshire Wigs with the intention of not purchasing a wig.  In my head I made an agreement where I decided that I would not purchase anything, this would be a research only trip.  I had a list of wigs I wanted to try, which I did and I also asked the very helpful sales associates for their advice and opinions.  I tried on maybe five or six wigs at least.  I tried to keep an open mind and really pay attention to fit and less attention to style.

I figure that with first and foremost, a wig that actually fits my giant head, I could then have it styled in a way that actually complements me.  I really like my current wig, which I discovered does not actually fit my head, but I just basically got it off the rack and have had no professional styling done to it.  I think I got lucky.  My current wig looks better, even with not fitting, than anything I tried off the rack on this trip.

Maybe it was because of my inner resolution to not purchase anything, but I did not fall in love with anything straight away.  I liked the two I pictured on this page the most.  Even though I have my concerns (fears) about trusting a stylist, I now, more than ever, understand that it is a necessity.

I am also quite sure with who I am going to trust with the delicate job of styling my future purchase.  Probably Wilshire Wigs.  Their professionalism, services and products continue to impress me.

I will continue to keep you updated on my ongoing wig journey.

Love Ya!

Outfit for 6/17/13

White Top - Guess

Purple Tank - Merona

Shorts - Celebrity Pink

Shoes - New York Transit

Bracelets - One from Japan, one thrifted

Today we had a morning meeting with a friend that does not know about Nadine.  I brought everything I would need with me for a quick change when our business was done.  Jules drove and I changed in the passenger seat.  I was pretty impressed.  With minimal effort and time I was changed from boy to girl.

So I specifically brought this outfit with the knowledge that I would need to get into it while in the car.  I thought that it ended up looking pretty cute.  The shorts are totally new and I really like them.  They are super short, possibly the shortest that I own.  Which I have noted lately, they have been growing shorter over the last few years, at least mine keep getting shorter and shorter.  Now I have this pair, where the pockets stick out they are so short!

Well if you don't personally own a pair of shorts like this, they may not actually be the shortest shorts I own, but they look like it right?  The pockets sticking out are a large part of that.  These pockets are oversized.

Quite unlike the shorts I wore the other night to Vivian and Edwards.  It was a super fun night, partly because I allowed myself to be more comfortable around them and I went dressed rather half boy, half girl.  On the bottom, it was all girl, and the top was all guy.  It was funny, and fun, and really me.  Anyways, I commented to Vivian that the shorts I had on could never carry a cell phone.

But the shorts I have in the picture above, I could totally put a cell phone into the pockets they are so big.  Funny huh?  It is amusing to me as the difference in pocket size from male jeans and shorts to female jeans and shorts is really pronounced.  With most of my male clothes I can shove practically everything in my pockets, while with my female ones I generally shove nothing in my pockets, of course that is what a purse is for.  Then what follows naturally is the question, would pockets in male clothes shrink in size if men started carrying purses?

Deep stuff here tonight!

Love ya!

Camping & What Am I?

Jules and I recently went camping and while we were out relaxing I was pondering what exactly am I.  I don't really need to label myself.  I know what I am, I am me.  And me likes to wear male clothes sometimes and female clothes sometimes and sometimes I like to wear both.  I also like to dress up and look like a man and sometimes I like to dress up and look like a woman.  The vast majority of the time, I am doing something in between.

Like for example while camping.  Here I am pictured below while fishing.

Notice anything?  Yeah, my shorts are a little short for typical guy shorts.  That would be because they are not guy shorts.  They are one of my smallest pairs of female shorts.  They are a super cute pair of cut off Guess shorts.  Also, my fingernails are painted a deep sparkly blue, in a gel polish by the way.  Also, most of the time that I wore something on my feet, I wore a pair of Guess flip-flops.

I suppose this is no big deal while I am out fishing on the river, in a place that I might as well be naked, which I often times was.  But we often ran out of supplies, like ice, and had to go to the nearby town and replenish.  While there I generally wore, these short Guess shorts, my Guess flip flops, and some regular dude T-shirt.  Nobody said anything, but I can only assume that people looked at me oddly, though I have tried to give up trying to figure out if people are actually looking at me or not.  I just go about my business and get whatever I need and if people need to look at me, then that is their choice.

I don't care about what others think of me, but I am somewhat concerned with what I think of myself.  I am fine with what I choose to do and wear, but I am still somewhat concerned with what to call myself.

I generally refer to myself as a transvestite, the word I learned while growing up for what I do, a male that dresses like a girl.  I also frequently refer to myself as a cross dresser, meaning the same as the former.
I don't have a problem with these labels, but I don't like how disparaging some people are with those that self identify this way.  I especially don't like how those that identify as transgender, or the old school word of transsexual, somehow think that cross dressers are somehow not worthy of the trans prefix.  That somehow, if we don't all want to entirely change our gender we are somehow not a real "trans" person.

I have pondered this question for quite some time.  What am I?  I know that this question has concerned my wife, especially since I told her that I wanted to go out in public dressed as a woman.  This started her off on some research, most of which told her that eventually I would want to be a woman full time.  This scared the crap out of her and really frightened her from being willing to be supportive of any of my gender ponderings.

So again, what am I?

Here is my definition -
1 - I like being a man.  I enjoy being in shape, in having a muscular, well toned, sexy male body.  I enjoy having the plumbing I have and I enjoy using it.
2 - I like being a woman.  I like wearing clothes that make me appear more feminine.  I enjoy having sex in ways that may not be traditionally considered to be masculine.
3 - I like presenting as a mix of genders.  I frequently have my nails painted and wear obviously female rings as well as wearing a variety of female and male clothes together.
4 - I see myself as existing somewhere in between the extremes of male and female.

What I don't have is a word that accurately describes me.  Tell people I am a cross dresser or transvestite and people look down on me, because I am not really trans because I will remain physically a male forever.  Tell people I am transgender and people think that I will eventually become a woman.

Here is my assertion, people that want to change from one gender to another, are not really trans anything.  What are they?  They are the opposite gender from what they are born as.  Once they transition, their gender limbo is done.  They were born one way, they knew it was wrong, so they fixed their problem.  This is evidenced by the vast number of sex change people who want support from the trans community in their transition and then once they transition, they then abandon those that offered support.  They no longer want to be part of the trans community because they are not actually trans.

I think that those of us that are like what I described in the previous paragraph, you are not technically trans anything, you are either one gender or the other.  What is a trans person?  They are someone like me, someone who lives in between the gender extremes.  We are the ones that span the gap between male and female.  Our gender flux will never be solved.

Why does my wife never need to worry about me becoming a woman full time?  While I would love to experience life as a head to toe, genetic woman, for me to medically modify myself would be a waste of time, as I would still be a cross dresser.  Only then I would be dressing as a male, while my genitals identify me as a female.  Instead of strapping on breasts, I would be wearing ace bandages across my breasts to flatten them in an attempt to appear more masculine.

I am a cross dresser, I am a transvestite, I am transgender.  Stop trivializing me by saying that all I am is a man in a dress.  Stop sexualizing me by saying that I only do this to get a hard on.  Stop insisting that one day I will trade in my penis for a vagina.

I am what I am. I am me. And I like me.

Oh btw, during our camping trip, I was so impressed with Jules.  Out of the blue, she decided to capture crayfish and then cook them for us.  Wow!  What an impressive woman.  Why you ask, her willingness to explore the world before her and trust that I will come along for the ride!

Oh, for my first time ever in eating crayfish, they were pretty tasty.  I was impressed, they were just like mini lobsters.

Love ya!

Outfit for 6-10-13

Dress - ICE

Shoes - Fitzwell

Necklace - Target

Bracelet - Bought in Japan

I really like this dress.  It is one of only a few that was a very planned purchase.  I spotted this dress in a paper insert ad for JCPenny.  I have enjoyed looking at women's ads for clothes since I was a young child.  I loved the fact that my sister always got cool magazines like Vogue or Elle.  I rarely ever find anything in the ads that I think would look good on me, but one particular day I saw this dress and knew that I had to go buy it.

That particular day I was so excited about the possibility of me owning this dress that when I went to work I looked it up online.  I love modern conveniences regarding shopping.  It makes things so nice and easy.  Anyway, I was able to locate a store nearby that said they had it in stock.  After work, Jules and I went and were amazingly able to find it, and amazingly, they had several different sizes, and even more amazingly, it fit!

Can you tell, I still revel in the conquered mission of purchasing this dress?  Well come on, look at how cute it is!  I think it works so well, for a few reasons.  One - it is short, but not too short.  It is right on the edge of being nice and naughty.  Two - it has long arms, but not tight arms.  Notice the flare of the cuff?  It makes my forearms appear smaller, love it!  Three - The fabric pattern.  I love all the little holes, and kind of being crochet like, but clearly not, (I have no idea what this type of fabric treatment is really called.)  The fabric itself is super light and airy and cool.  Four - the neckline.  It has a few buttons coming down the middle and I can unbutton the top, widening the neckline to give it more of a V shape and the way the fabric comes together it give a light hint look at my cleavage, again on the edge of nice and naughty.

Oh and of course, I paired it with my newest shoes, which I seem to want to wear ALL the time now.  I also have on a necklace from Target with sensitive skin safe metal, yay! And I am wearing a bracelet made from pearls Jules and I got while in Japan; it was originally a phone dangly that I remade into the bracelet.

Okay gotta run, love ya!

Pointy vs Round Toe Pumps

When I first bought pumps, all of them had pointy toes.  I want to say that I did that because all that was around was pointy toed shoes, but I really think that what happened was that I deliberately bought pointy toe shoes because I thought they were the quintessential female shoe.

And I still think that they are super cute.  I love seeing them, I even think in the above picture they are cute.  Pointy toe shoes really help to elongate the leg, especially if they are in a nude shade.

The problem with pointy toe shoes is that for me, wearing a size 9.5, many pointy toe shoes make my foot look super long.  The pair that I am wearing above and below are ridiculously long.  I look down at them and laugh.  You can kind of see what I am talking about in the picture below.

I have actually decided to get rid of the above shoe.  It really does not do much for me.  The pictures actually look pretty good, compared to how they look in real life.  I call them my witch shoes.

After trying on and deciding that I needed to get rid of the above shoes, I bought the pair pictured below.

I received a very generous gift from my lovely wifey, a $50 gift certificate for Zappos.  My criteria was a round toe pump in black leather, or suede.  I was a little unsure of the maryjane style that I got, because the strap across the ankle can cause a leg to look short, as well as the round toe also making a leg look shorter.  But I think they actually make my legs look better.

We all have different tastes, mine happen to include small feet.  I think the round toe pump makes my feet look small and at 5'9" I don't think I need to worry about my legs looking short.

I have heard somewhere that one should avoid pointy toe shoes if you wear a size 9 or larger.  I definitely have many pairs of shoes that have a pointy toe, but truth be told, my personal opinion has changed and I don't know if pointy toes will ever hold the same appeal for me again.

What do you think?  Do you go for pointy toes or not?  Do you think there is a limit for foot size for pointy toes?

Love Ya!