First: I have a yellowish cast to my skin as well, and have found the same. My theory is it has to do with the type of light indoors, and how it shades skin tones. A blue-cast to the skin looks less washed-out (and is warmed up somewhat) by incandescent lighting, while the same light makes a yellowish or olivish cast look... even more yellow. You do have to use peach-based to offset that. A'course, if you're talking florescent lights, it's even worse. Then again, if you have a cool cast to your skin-tone and you're under those natural-light halogens, you'll look like you just lost about ten pints of blood. It makes the blue-cast so much more intense.
On the other hand, if you know ahead of time the lighting compared to your coloring, and there's a meeting you really want to get out of, wear a dark shade of the color that's opposite your coloring: navy-blue if you have a yellow/red facet to your skin, orange-red if you have a blue-ish facet... it'll make you look like death warmed over and any manager with an ounce of empathy will immediately let you off. *whistles*
The problem with complimenting (or even envying) any skin-tone is that doing so is fraught with racial undertones, at least in the US. Do you remember the Hoffman movie, Tootsie? A little before my time, but I remember seeing it while still a little too young to catch the gender-tensions -- especially the scene where the heroine tells Tootsie, "what I'd really like is a man to just come up and say, I think you're attractive, and you think I'm attractive, how about we skip the nonsense and get right to it." (Something like that.) Naturally, when Hoffman's back in male-facade, he tries it on her, word-for-word, and gets slapped in the face. Obviously not a true analogy to what you mean, but I think in some ways similar: that what sounds good on paper is, when said out loud, suddenly imbued with all sorts of additional meanings. In the case of that movie, it's who's saying it, that what in theory sounded fine is suddenly no longer innocent or straightforward.
At least, that's what pops into my head when I think about the differences between "what I would like to say and/or to hear" versus considering it actually happening, y'know? The element of power/privilege/etc that hides behind our every interaction. Which is also tied into what I've been thinking about communication on the 'net (versus what we can or can't say face-to-face), but that's for another day.
As for Rumi: I adore his poetry, but I can't recall ever seeing that one. thank you -- I'm saving it!
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Date: 8 Dec 2010 05:49 am (UTC)On the other hand, if you know ahead of time the lighting compared to your coloring, and there's a meeting you really want to get out of, wear a dark shade of the color that's opposite your coloring: navy-blue if you have a yellow/red facet to your skin, orange-red if you have a blue-ish facet... it'll make you look like death warmed over and any manager with an ounce of empathy will immediately let you off. *whistles*
The problem with complimenting (or even envying) any skin-tone is that doing so is fraught with racial undertones, at least in the US. Do you remember the Hoffman movie, Tootsie? A little before my time, but I remember seeing it while still a little too young to catch the gender-tensions -- especially the scene where the heroine tells Tootsie, "what I'd really like is a man to just come up and say, I think you're attractive, and you think I'm attractive, how about we skip the nonsense and get right to it." (Something like that.) Naturally, when Hoffman's back in male-facade, he tries it on her, word-for-word, and gets slapped in the face. Obviously not a true analogy to what you mean, but I think in some ways similar: that what sounds good on paper is, when said out loud, suddenly imbued with all sorts of additional meanings. In the case of that movie, it's who's saying it, that what in theory sounded fine is suddenly no longer innocent or straightforward.
At least, that's what pops into my head when I think about the differences between "what I would like to say and/or to hear" versus considering it actually happening, y'know? The element of power/privilege/etc that hides behind our every interaction. Which is also tied into what I've been thinking about communication on the 'net (versus what we can or can't say face-to-face), but that's for another day.
As for Rumi: I adore his poetry, but I can't recall ever seeing that one. thank you -- I'm saving it!