Rule Breaker | OOTD

You know when you wake up feeling like a rebel? Yesterday was that day for me. Everything I have been told I shouldn't wear made an appearance as I roamed the city. Leggings as pants? Check. Sheer top with bra showing? Check. A lot of eye makeup during the day? Check. And you know what? Nobody cared, or if they did- they didn't hand over $200 for the electric bill this month- so their opinion doesn't really count.

My cousin/best friend Shelby and I went out for a girls day of eating, shopping, drinking at one of our favorite bars and then semi-drunkenly eating elote at midnight. Elote is a Mexican dish that is essentially corn that took a bath in delicious spicy sauce, in case you didnt know. I couldnt think of a more comfortable outfit to do these things in.

Girl Power | A Woman Positive Post

 
I've stepped outside my usual fashion and/or body positive posts today and just settled on a woman positive post today. 

Today is Women's Equality Day- well, Wednesday was, but I'm writing it then for now- confused? Great. Now we are all together. On this day in 1920 (Wednesday) women were given the right to vote in the United States. My sister wrote about it and mentioned "Kim K's butt pics and twerking" setting us back. (I'm sorry Kate, I know I disagree with you on literally everything but it hurts to keep it in! Its not you, its me.)

I've said before that even though I don't agree with everything every other woman does these days, it doesn't mean they are failing our gender. I'm also guilty of twerking. I'm the OG of twerking, really. I was in trouble for twerking in 6th grade (early, early 2000s) at the school dance and shamed my entire family. So maybe I'm a little biased.

Fall Wide Width Picks

Fall is my favorite season. Like Spring, it only lasts about three weeks here in Texas, but it is a glorious three weeks. After sitting outside the other night at the bar in 104 degree heat and sweating in places I'd like to never sweat again, I'm more ready for Fall than ever.

Here are some of my favorite Fall wide width shoe picks for this season. I tried to stick with brands that I have used before and know the glorious wideness offered. SimplyBe is the holy grail of wide shoes. I was so impressed with how wide their shoes are, that I plan on buying a pair of wide calf boots from them this year. I have the problem of size 8 feet with calves that only fit in boots made for a size 10. I'm hoping  I've found my solution! If you have that same problem, I've found that booties are a great alternative. You still get the business of the boot, but there is definitely more party... so maybe a mullet boot? Not a flattering comparison.  
Links after the jump.

Blo Review| Update

I'm going to go ahead and say this is a bit of a lazy blog post since I've done one before on it- BUT its been so long and we've grown so much since I did the original, that I wanted to give you guys the deets...again.

Blo was one of my very first reviews when I started the blog. I read about it opening in my local "alternative newspaper" The Observer... which is really where I go to get all the Dallas gossip, I just got lucky and found this blow dry bar that was coming to town. Can we pause for a second and laugh about how shady Dallas politics is my very favorite pass time? I read it every day on my lunch.  Anyway, I went during the soft opening to check it out and loved it- I'm really kind of sad it took me months to get back!

Wear What You Love

 I can hear you already, "Oh Elle, this again!?" Yeah. This again. You know why? Because there are always people reminding me that they simply don't get it yet. (Watch out, I'm sassy and fired up!)  So we went to brunch in uptown a while ago and a woman (probably a size 16/18) walked in in jeans, a cute open back top and heels. In my head I was like, daaannng girl! I love it! then the thinner girl next to me made a negative comment. I cant remember exactly what it was now, but something about her back fat (that I never noticed) making her uncomfortable. It was my birthday and I was about 3 shots and 2 glasses of sangria in by this point (it was my birthday, okay!?) and I felt a little brave so I was like, "...but that's your problem, not hers" and after being a little taken aback, she agreed. Thankfully she didn't match my sass because I cant be getting into fist fights in Nick and Sam's... I really like their sangria.

Trendy Under Twenty: Fall Transition

 These are probably one of my favorite posts to do aside from outfit or unboxing posts. If I could have a new outfit for three posts a week, I would but I just dont have it like that. I'm ballin' on a one outfit a week budget max. After that, bills arent getting paid and I'm going into crippling debt. Thank goodness I work with a bankruptcy attorney, amirite!?

Links after the jump.

Inside the Dressing Room| Target Fall 2015

I've been in a bit of a funk lately, which is crazy because I have so much great stuff going on! It happens occasionally when I start to work myself to death. Dramatic. But really, I'll just go and go and go until I wear myself out and then I need a few weeks to recharge. In order to stop this early, I stayed in Friday and cleaned my house (a clean space relaxes me) and then before my beautiful friends' wedding on Saturday I ran around and did some shopping. Ain't no therapy like retail therapy!! 

I stopped in at my favorite discount store that Mouthy Girl got me started on a year or two ago. It is the extra cheap version of TJMaxx called DDs discounts. If there is one near you, it's worth checking out. Remember that it's extra cheap so it will likely be in a neighborhood that needs that kind of store. I've seen some crazy things happen there, but just go and if a fight breaks out between a customer and a cashier, keep your mouth shut. I've found baby clothes from Carter's there for a fraction of the price and I've found my $50+ silverware set there for $12. Its worth almost taking a hit to the face. (it's not that bad, but it is slightly rough). 

Moving on...

After that, I wanted to see if the new AVA&VIV Fall line was out at Target. GarnerStyle and Gabifresh and I want to say Nicolette Mason have teamed up with Target on the A&V line and have each done lookbooks for it. They kept talking about how much better it was then last season so I was intrigued. 

Fall Trends

As I was standing in front of the fan in the 100 degree club the other night contemplating all the life choices that got me to that point, I was thinking about Fall and how nice its going to be when I can walk outside without having to immediately reapply deodorant. I was hating on camo last week, so here is what I do like about the fall trends this year. Its a lot- because I am in love with everything Fall.

Troll Museum

Pictures from Tess Holliday's Instagram were used because she gets the epitome of hate and trolls. If you dont follow her- you can find her @tessholiday.

I remember my very last day of 5th grade. The boys that had made it their mission to pick on me that year had taken my lunch box from me and were playing keep away. Even the boy that I used to lovingly call Bumble Bee (he always wore black and yellow stripes) and run office errands with  got involved and eventually the lunch box broke right along with my ability to hold back tears. As if on cue, my mom was walking down the sidewalk to come pick me up for the Summer. I remember seeing her and just running into her arms and crying. Those boys had to write sentences for the rest of the day- we laughed about it in high school after apologies had been said.

My online presence is not quite big enough yet to bring a lot of "haters" but I have always been prepared for the day when it would come. I didn't know how I was going to react, but I knew eventually something would be said. It is the internet after all. It happened a couple weeks ago on Instagram when I posted the picture of me in my bathing suit. I believe the comment was, "supporter of morbid obesity." I remember reading it at a stop light as I was leaving downtown from work.

I laughed.

Ipsy Final Review

 Lets talk about Ipsy. Actually, lets talk about why I cancelled my subscription to Ipsy. I'd had a subscription about a year- a few more bags than what's pictured above- and I just started to get overloaded with sample products. If you dont know how it works, essentially you sign up, take a quiz with what your likes are and they withdraw $10 every month from your card on file and then send you a bag with 5 items. Thats it.

I love makeup, I love trying new things and I can justify $10 a month on something fun for me. (I can "justify" a lot more than that, so it made this choice easy.) Lets talk about what they got right first.

New Fall Trend: Cam-ooooh! or Cam-No?

Lane Bryant

Plus size trends and straight size trends are not always the same. The cultures of the demographics are just different. Plus size trends are driven now a lot by what we've always been told not to wear previously. We are proving points and creating trends at the same time- straight size generally doesn't have that element. Some of the big name plus size retailers are really trying to make camo happen this year. They have tried in years past- LB and Torrid have had a few items here and there and it just never caught on. This year it has gained a little more traction for some reason but I dont think thats what the designers had in mind when they had military elements on the runway for Fall 15. Think structured and buttoned... not camo.

Surely I've mentioned growing up in East Texas. Out of about 2K people in the whole town, if there werent 1500 of them in camo, I just didnt know what was happening in my life. Maybe a slight exaggeration, but there is literally camo everything. Camo clothes, camo trucks, camo guns and camo glasses, if you can put a print on it, there is a camo version somewhere. Out there, a lot of it is used for its actual intended use- hunting. I dont hunt therefore I dont wear camo. (How many times can I say camo?)

Perfection

There. I said it.

I feel like I say it all the time, so much so that I feel like you guys are like, OKAY! We get it already! But I still get messages and I still hear comments all the time about lack of confidence. Guys... side note: confidence is not me putting myself on the internet in my bathing suit. That is a "side effect" of confidence, if you will. Its a very thin line. Putting fat thighs out there for the world just takes someone willing to take the abuse. Confidence comes from being able to look at yourself after having the bad day the abuse causes and getting back on that self-love horse. That's probably the absolutely worst way I could have worded it, but I feel like we all know where I was going with that.

With the changing projection of what a woman is in this world, everyone is feeling the pain. As fat girls, or plus sized women, with the new acceptance has come hate. On the other side of that, suddenly we have people that are no longer afraid to speak out about their preferences and sometimes the thin women are the victims of their own kind of hate. For example, one of my friends is an area manager at a local breastaurant (you know, the kind that really capitalize on looks), and shes just always been thin. She was talking about how it isnt uncommon to be told that she needs to eat a sandwich or for someone to walk up and just tell her how skinny she is. She feels pressure to be something different even though 100 other women would look at her as perfection. The same goes for you.

Rebdolls Review Update

One of my most popular posts is the Rebdolls Review and if you've read that, you know that my view was less than favorable at the time. I caught them pretty early in their development, they had just changed from Custom Plus to Rebdolls and were still only selling t-shirts, crops and sweatshirts. Since so many of you have been reading that post, I wanted to give them another chance with a different style option. After trying it again, I am exactly where I was on them the first time. I dont love it. I dont dislike it completely, definitely more of a "Meh" and a shrug from me. I am Randy Jackson on this. You know man, it just didnt really do it for me.