^{Bare Escentuals lipstick, which caused all the fuss.}


I’m in Sephora, stricken with yearning for Bare Escentuals lipstick in Rose Crepe,
when my cousin, who's 17, snorts over. She came shopping with me, which used to be a blast.  In that past she's had an impeccable eye and relished the "hunt."
    But she’s in a humorless phase. She has discovered her sense of global responsibility and she says it's making her nuts. She doesn't know what to do first. She plans to go to Africa, to South Asia, to Appalachia. Then Bangladesh and Bosnia. Save the world one letter at a time.
This year, she made her mother return most of her birthday presents and sponsor a goat from Heifer International
instead. But she kept the black turtleneck. She is trying to fashion herself a younger Angelina: a global-activist-sophisticate: spare basics in black and gray, revving it up with khaki cargos or a belt-tied safari jacket. And eating like Angelina, or at least her impression of Angelina – as she puts it, “like a Vietnamese. Just a little. We’re all so fat. She’s more connected with the third world by not eating so much.”
I certainly have no truck with Heifer's mission: I sponsor a sheep, actually. Of course I am amazed by my cousin's logic by which a star’s probable neuroses and career-driven practicality equals many millions of hungry people, but say nothing. In becoming globally responsible my cousin seems to have lost not only 13 pounds, but her sense of three dimensions. Maybe she's just hungry. So as we pass a display of makeup pots that look like little dishes of ice cream,  I get my chance to tell her to lighten up.
    How can you think about makeup when there are miners trapped underground in Utah? she says. We shouldn't even be mining anymore.
    Not all the news is bad, I offer. What about Caroline Guiliani for Obama?
    Facebook is so old, she says, rolling her eyes. 
    Want to go to H&M? At least it’s not all-American.
    How can you think about going to H&M with what's going on in the Middle East? she says.
    There’s an H&M in Dubai, I counter. Don’t you think those girls are looking forward to Roberto Cavalli?
I know it’s not a good answer, but I’m trying to keep it retail.
     Sweatshops, she grits through her teeth. And fashion is a distraction for energy better spent trying to fix this planet.
    They’re going to be doing more organic cotton, I offer.
    And put all the unsold polyester into a landfill? Disgusting. She fumbles through her adorable vegan hobo bag for some cash.

Soon we truced over a pretzel and she bought a pair of copper hoop earrings from a street vendor who makes her own jewelry. I threw in sets of bangles made out of recycled soda bottles for both of us. This made my cousin happy, and down the street we went, click-clacking our sustainable bangles up and down our arms. Thus empowered, she audibly hissed Corporate hoes at the suburban girls marching into the J. Crew flagship store. But I saw her give that mustard-colored corduroy miniskirt in the window a second glance.
    I patted her on the back without telling her why. She's no slouch, my cousin. That's a great skirt. It would look great with that turtleneck.

At City Bakery over lemonade (her) and iced coffee (me), my cousin announced her critera for what’s “real” as opposed to what’s “fake”:
    Cruelty-free
    Sustainable and recycleable
    Not old lady-looking and not overly hippie
    No trace or hint whatsoever of a boardroom.
    Not gimmick eco, real eco.
    Not sold in plastic bags.

I’ll be accepting all tips on great sites and sources over the year. By the time she’s ready for college (if she is willing to conform to that social framework, like a sheep, she thinks), I’ll have a thousand sources of unfake style for her. And then she can have her fun and wear it too.