Celebrity Inspirations

 Hello There,

    While I draw most of the inspiration for my fashion styles from people I've known from various points in my personal life, I can't help but also draw inspiration from famous celebrities. One of the reasons I find celebrity looks unobtainable is because they have an army of makeup and hair stylists, to always ensure they look as glamourous as possible. Additionally they can afford the most beautiful and luxurious clothes on the planet. To try and look like them is just an impossible feat. All that being said, that doesn't mean I can't still draw plenty of inspiration from their feminine energy. Today I wanted to highlight some of my biggest inspirations, and show off exactly why they inspire me to feel feminine!

Dua Lipa

    What can I say about Dua Lipa, she is by far my biggest celebrity crush and inspiration! In all honesty I only recently discovered Dua Lipa when I started listening to her music at work in 2021, and I fell right in love. She's the queen of modern Dance Pop and by far the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I hope to emulate just a fraction of beauty because DAMN, she is gorgeous. Dua has several endorsements from stylists, most notably from Versace, and therefore always has plenty of incredible clothes to wear on the red carpet or at concerts. I've seen her in concert twice and she is just as gorgeous and incredible in real life as she seems. 

    Instead of talking all about her, I figure I'll let her answer all your questions. Dua did a fantastic interview with Vogue during her Future Nostalgia tour, answering 73 different questions. I was so incredibly lucky to have seen her in concert during this tour so it was fun watching this video and getting to see Dua behind the scenes.

    Lastly how could I not leave you without some of her music?! The video below is a fantastic mini-concert featuring 4 of her songs. Unlike her typical musical performances, in this performance Dua and her band take a more acoustic approach to her music, highlighting just how fantastic she is without the use of lots of editing. I also encourage you to go out and listen to her full library of music, she is amazing!

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Kristen Bell

    Who Doesn't love Kristen Bell? She amazing at everything she does: Singing, Acting, Comedy, and just being a downright delight. She is such a charming person, and is very open and honest about her life which is a refreshing breath of fresh air. What is also fantastic about Kristen Bell is that unlike other members of this list, is that she doesn't always dress like she's a millionaire. She's got a cute suburban mom thing going on which is awesome! She sets a realistic and obtainable standard of beauty, and I believe more women should be looking to her for inspiration!

    Now just because Kristen often can be found rocking casual looks doesn't mean that she can't be an absolute bombshell on the red carpet! Her blonde hair always manages to look fantastic and the dresses she chooses compliment her beautifully.

    The last reason I love Kristen Bell is actually the reason I fell in love with her as a person. She is very publicly vocal about her love of butt pads, and other shapewear that extenuate your favorite features. According to Kristen, she loves good looking butts and so she wears butt pads to make her butt look good, it's that simple! I love how honest she is and how vocal her support of shapewear is. She also typically makes a point of saying that shapewear is for everyone, and it's all about just making you feel good about the way you look!

    I also can't help but mention the she is also a real life Disney Princess, and we all know how I feel about those! She plays Anna in the Frozen films, and in my opinion is by far the most charming part of those films. She also has a fantastic singing voice check out the video to see her sing one of the songs from the film!

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Elizabeth Olsen

    The last of my celebrity inspirations that I'm going to highlight today is Elizabeth Olsen! She definitely has an old school Hollywood starlet vibe going on which I love! She always brings an incredibly unique outfit to every red carpet event, it's like she's always in a fun competition with herself. As someone who loves to always be trying new fun styles, I appreciate her diversity and glamour. Additionally she seems just as comfortable either dressing conservatively or being un-afraid to show off her assets (and boy does she have some assets!). She's one of the most glamourous women in Hollywood and she's never afraid to show it!

    One fun little story I want to highlight is a Wardrobe Malfunction Elizabeth Olsen suffered. During Paris Fashion week in 2015 she was doing some modeling to celebrate the launch of a new fragrance she was sponsoring and a gust of wind blew up her dress in a real life Marilyn Monroe moment. You can tell it caught her off guard but she handled it with grace, even though just about everyone caught a glimpse of her nude panties.

    One last thing I wanted to highlight about Elizabeth Olsen is how masterfully she plays the character Wanda Maximoff A.K.A The Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Film Series. A little bit about the boy half of my life, I've been reading comic books since 2006 and The Scarlet Witch has been my favorite comic character for quite a while now. Needless to say I was very excited to hear that Scarlet Witch would be appearing in 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron. Thankfully Elizabeth Olsen did fantastic in the role and has continued to be fantastic as the character to this day. She is always a joy to watch on screen and I'm grateful for her perfect depiction of one of my favorite characters!

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    Well there you have it, a pop star, a princess, and a witch: three of my biggest feminine inspirations! Of course there are so many more amazing and inspiring women out there but I had to narrow it down to just three for now. Getting to highlight another 3 amazing women seems like a fun idea, so expect a part 2 eventually!

-Carly

Womanless Beauty Pageants?

 Hello There,

    I wanted to touch on a fun subject today that has a strange contradiction surrounding its cultural acceptance: Womanless Beauty Pageants. Seeing as you're reading a blog that touches on several LGBTQ+ issues, it is probably safe to assume that you are somewhat up to date on the issues facing the LGBTQ+ community in this country. A hot button issue right now are drag queens, and according to their conservative critics the threat they may pose to children (which is obviously ridiculous nonsense). But what I find most intriguing about this topic is that many of these same states implementing bans on drag queens to protect children, are the same states that are actively dressing boys in drag for womanless beauty pageants! Womanless beauty pageants, are not exclusive to states that have a largely Conservative population, however the majority are held and have long been held in schools in Conservative States. This is such a strange and intriguing contradiction, to me! But by no means am I here to bash the existence of womanless beauty pageants, just as I support Drag Queens, I too support womanless beauty pageants! Before talking a little bit more about them I just wanted to point out that strange dichotomy and how hypocritical LGBTQ+ critics can be.

    Now that I'm off my soap box, lets talk womanless beauty pageants! They are exactly what they sound like, Beauty pageants without any woman contestants. Instead they feature males dressing fully as females in a beauty competition. They are also commonly held in high schools and middle schools, which would put the boys at around the same age as the girls that typically compete in beauty pageants. Usually these pageants are played off as a joke, like "ha ha look at all those boys all dolled up, they must hate it". While for many of competitors it is undoubtedly a joke, you can certainly see it in the faces of some that they are enjoying themselves. Whether they are secretly transgender or genderfluid, or just gay, womanless beauty pageants are a great opportunity for boys to experience they joys of femininity for the first time. I wanted to share some photos of some amazing womanless beauty pageants competitors who are both beautiful and also obviously enjoying themselves, so that you might share in a little of their joy. 

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    The last individual competitor I wanted to highlight is a fun one, "she" competed in her school's beauty pageant one year and lost but then competed again the next year and won! You can totally see they joy in "her" face!

First Year Loss:

Second Year Victory:

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    Before I wrap this post up I just wanted to reiterate how great an opportunity I believe Womanless Beauty Pageants are. Sure for the manly men they're a great laugh, but for those of us who feel the urge to be feminine they're a great opportunity to get to express yourself. I can't imagine how many boys felt utter euphoria getting to compete in a womanless beauty pageant. Looking at pictures online made me so jealous when I was a kid, they were all so lucky to be able to get dolled up and wear gorgeous dresses, and to have it be socially acceptable even if it was only for one night. Given the times we live in now I wouldn't be surprised if womanless beauty pageants began to fade away, but I hope that's not so. I hope boys all across this country will continue to have the opportunity to feel the joys of femininity even if it's for only briefly and under the guise of a joke. I will leave you with some more pictures below, so even if you're someone like me who was unlucky enough to not compete in a pageant at least you can enjoy the sight of others who did.

-Carly

Trying New Things

Hello There,

    One of the things I struggle with is that when it comes to presenting as feminine I tend to follow the same trends, and stick to my old familiars. But that's no way to live life, trying new things can yield fantastic rewards! So I've been trying to broadened my horizons and try new things. Today I wanted to tell you about a couple new things I've tried recently to help expand my role in this feminine world.

Puff Dress:

    A really popular style of dress right now are puff dresses. Puff dresses typically feature pastel colors, puff sleeves, and a short puffy skirt. These dresses are super adorable, and show off legs fantastically. However because they're so short, I've always had a fear of wearing them. I was afraid that if I wore one, the bottom of the dress might sit above my crotch, which unless you're trying to look like a baby, isn't a very good look. But like I said earlier I'm trying to force myself to try new things, so I figured I'd give a puff dress a try. I found one on amazon at a reasonable price so I ordered it, as well as a short fluffy petticoat to try wearing underneath. The dress was a little late in getting delivered, but when it finally came I excitedly tried it on. It was definitely VERY short, but it did sit below my crotch which was nice. Additionally, the fluffy petticoat also helped to hide things. The only problem with the dress is that, while yes it is just long enough, there's really not much wiggle room length-wise. A gust of wind or brushing up against something might raise the dress enough for people to get a view of my undercarriage. Furthermore, any person sitting, or a small child may also be able to see my undercarriage. So it's an interesting problem, the dress is technically long enough, unless you find a way to get underneath it. Now of course I would wear shapewear and pantyhose under the dress so it's not like anyone would be seeing my panties or anything like that, but I'd just prefer people not get a glimpse under the hood. I think this style of dress is totally doable, I'll just need to experiment a little more. Overall satisfied that I tried this style, it means that I might be comfortable trying more new short dress styles in the future!

Lace Bralette: 

    When it comes to Bras I am definitely guilty of always going for the same styles, smooth, plain, with a back clasp lol. But I actually took the advice of my friend and tried a Lace Bralette. She sung their praises, and also said that they would probably be easy to hide under men's clothing. Before I went out and bought like a 5 pack on amazon I wanted to try a cheap one to see if I even liked wearing them. Well I stopped at Walmart and found their rack of bralettes. Unfortunately for me they were divided by generic size rather than bra size. This made it a little difficult for me to choose because my typical bra size is a 36a which is pretty uncommon, and converting that size into a generic size wasn't going to work well. Based on the size chart tag on the bralettes I went with a medium in light pink. When I got home I tried it on, and just as I was afraid of it was a little tight. This mostly was annoying when I was putting it on but it still felt a little tight on the chest while I was wearing it. That being said I really did enjoy the way that unlike a traditional bra it felt like a second skin. I could definitely see wearing one of these for long periods of time. Also my friend was totally right, they hide really well under men's clothing, so I absolutely could just wear one all day if I wanted to. Before I go all in on bralettes, I'd like to try on a larger size to see if I can achieve a more comfortable fit, and be able to wear one all day. 

New Mascara:

    Perhaps the biggest thing I'm guilty of when it comes to not trying new things is not trying new makeup. Honestly it's probably the area I need the most improvement with and trying new things is certainly a way to help do that. A makeup item that I've wanted to try for awhile now is a non-waterproof mascara. The mascara that I usually use works fantastically, but it's waterproof, which makes removing it extremely difficult. I've wanted to try a non-waterproof, to see if it makes my makeup removal process any easier. Well I was out shopping with my friend and she recommended the mascara she commonly used. She liked it precisely because it was non-waterproof, and was easy to remove. So I went ahead and gave it a try. Well it's certainly a lot easier to remove, but it didn't quite give me as full a lash as I was hoping. But I actually quite liked it just for everyday wear, so if I'm doing a more casual makeup look it's a great option. 

    So at the end of the day none of what I tried worked out absolutely perfectly, but I learned something new from all of them. If I hadn't of tried these things I'd still be living in ignorance. All three items make me want to keep experimenting and trying new things because I'd love to make these a regular part of my life!

-Carly

Underdressing in College Classes

 Hello There,

    Just wanted to quickly talk about the few times I underdressed in College during my classes. During my sophomore year of college I was still living in a dorm on campus, but I had a private bedroom all to myself, which meant I was finally able to own women's clothing for myself, I talk a little bit about this in my caught by an R. A. post. Toward the end of the school year I was feeling a little more bold with my desire to wear women's clothing. So I started underdressing in public to satisfy my need to feel feminine more. I'd read online about men wearing women's lingerie under their clothes to work and school without any problem so I thought I'd try the same. Step one was panties, and I started with quick tasks like taking out the trash or walking to my car. Eventually I started adding Bras and pantyhose (only wore pantyhose under long pants), and started getting braver and braver with when I wore things. 

    The time eventually came for a big step. I wanted to underdress during class, I'd read about people online doing it and now it was my turn! While I'd done other public excursions before like going to the movies while underdressed, going to class while underdressed was so much more nerve wracking because I had to see these people 3 times a week. Despite the stress of possibly being outed to my peers, I was going to take the risk. I started by by going all out, a full set of bra, panties, and pantyhose, underneath sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a hoodie. I picked calculus as my first class because it would be easy to sit in the back, and everyone would be paying attention to the professor and not me. Needless to say it was extremely scary walking across campus in the middle of the day with all the fellow students out, and me wearing women's underwear under my guy clothes. Once I got to the lecture hall and sat down I was extremely careful to pull up my pants high enough so that my panties wouldn't be visible from the back, but not so high up that you could see my pantyhose at my ankles. I was nervous all class and was glad when it was finally over so I could head back to my dorm. After another scary trip walking across campus I made it back to my dorm room. Once I was safe within the privacy of my room I let out a big sigh of relief. While the whole ordeal was certainly scary, it was also exhilarating! I managed to be out in public among my peers in women's clothes! I felt amazing, so I knew this would not be the last time. 

    On and off over the next few months I underdressed in class and never had any problems other than my own silly nerves. As the school year was coming to an end I wanted to be more bold with my underdressing, and as a grand finale I decided to underdress to my chemistry lab final exam. Since I had to wear long scrubs and a lab coat I knew that it would be a great opportunity to underdress. What made this far more problematic than my regular underdressing in class is how much bending over and moving around I would be doing. The chances I would show panty lines, or that the outline of my bra straps would become visible would be drastically increased. But it was my last day of the class and I was feeling bold, what did it matter if some people figured out what I was wearing, I was never going to see any of them again. Well the day of truth came, I slipped on my favorite women's bra and panties to underdress in (similar to what is pictured below) and headed off to class.

    Now I was already stressed about doing my final lab exam, so that distracted me from the stress of underdressing. But about half way through the exam, after I'd done a lot of walking around and bending over to grab ingredients and beakers, I noticed my lab partner who I shared a desk with was starting to give me strange looks. We were not aloud to talk to each other during the exam, but I could tell she was definitely looking up and down at me strange. When the exam is finally over I handed in my paperwork and quickly exited. I briskly walked back to my dorm room and found relief in my bedroom. I was frantically wondering if she had figured me out, so I replicated some of the motions I remembered doing during the exam in my mirror, and sure enough to a very keen eye the outline of my bra was visible on my back. Oh well, one person figured me out, but I never saw her again so no big deal. 

    After my potential slip up at my chemistry lab exam I was a lot more cautious about underdressing in class. I did it off and on over the next couple years, but I was more selective about when I did it. I still got to have lots of fun but I made sure I would never out myself again. 

-Carly