Beauty Armor

Shiloh Barnes, 28, Beauty GuruManager at Nature WorksLet's not play twenty questions, okay?

[shilohbarnes]

clementinegueye:

Clementine smiled politely at her story, watching her face carefully. There was something about the woman - Clementine felt as though she were intruding on her. She noticed her gazing at the orchids, and said nothing on it. “They’ve all got meanings,” Clementine confirmed. What kind of I miss you was it? An ex lover? An ex friend? Someone taken by death? She couldn’t bring herself to ask, and instead decided to just answer the question. “White Carnations for remembrance - or striped Carnations, which says you’re sorry you can’t be with them and wish to be, pink Camellias for longing for the receiver, purple Hyacinths express sorrow. Tea roses say I’ll remember always, and maybe a few mixed zinnias - they mean you’re thinking of them.” Clementine looked back to the orchids, and added, gently, “we can always do something with the orchids, if you’d like.”

Thierry had given her orchids when he’d proposed. Shiloh’s fingers longed to reach out and brush against the soft petals, but she kept them firm against her side. She turned to listen to the woman, who obviously knew her craft very well. Who knew there were so many flowers that could mean variations of the same things? “Oh,” she murmured, casting a glance over her shoulder. No the orchids would be too personal, she needed her mother not to expect. Skylar was dead after all...she was Shiloh now. “But a bouquet with the other things...the um...the striped carnations, the hyacinths...the camellias and tea roses and zinnias. Could I have something with all of those?”

[shilohbarnes]

clementinegueye:

A quiet, pretty little voice was the only response given, and Clementine, determined to not lose a customer, crawled underneath the front desk in order to actually see them. “Oh, wow,” she breathed, tucking a tuft of curls back from her face as she stood. “That was pretty humiliating, sorry about it.” Clementine watched as the woman observed the flowers, and found herself, for a moment, taken aback - people usually weren’t so quiet, didn’t actually look at the flowers the way they deserved. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”

The corners of Shiloh’s lips curled as the other woman appeared. “That wasn’t so bad,” she answered with a shrug and a tilt of her head. “My first day of work...a customer walked in and I had to go great her with half a face of makeup on...like literally just the left side of my face.” She was stopped by a display of orchids, her old favorites, Skylar’s favorite flowers. What sort of bouquet would her mother want? God...she was losing things, memories, little pieces of the people who had once been her world. “Um...I’m not sure. Flowers have meanings right? Different ones and colors say different things? What says...I miss you?”

[shilohbarnes]

gabexchapman:

“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it’s a bad idea.” Gabriel frowned lightly, looking at the person in front of him. “But it’s alright, I’m always down for a little thrill. Want a shot?” He pointed at the row of jäggerbombs in front of him, his lips curled into a smile.

“Do I want a shot. Like I was gonna trek out to a bar and say no to liquor,” Shiloh scoffed, rolling her eyes and grabbing one of the glasses. “I bet you fourty bucks that I can handle more of these than you can.”

[shilohbarnes]

thejonghyunsong:

The Boston Public Library was one of Jong Hyun Song’s favorite places in the city. It was calm and quiet, but always full of people working and learning. In Jong Hyun’s mind, it was the perfect place to both decompress and work. It wasn’t as conveniently located as the library right on campus, but he preferred it nonetheless since he had spent countless hours perusing the stacks. On this particularly warm afternoon, he was holding in his arms a rather tall stack of old chemistry textbooks, over which he could just barely see over. Right as he turned a corner, he collided with someone else who had, like Jong Hyun, probably not being paying as much attention as they should to where they were walking. The Jenga tower of fragile books came crashing down. “Shit!”

Shiloh didn’t read a lot, but she loved the smell of books. It was a strange quality, perhaps reminiscent of Skylar’s love of literature. The letting go of reading had not been intentional, she merely no longer got the release from following a character’s journey that she once did. It almost felt mocking now, because in a way Shiloh lived a story every day of her life. Sometimes though, she’d find her way to the library, and sit with a handful of books, not really going through them, but letting her fingers touch the pages. She was attempting to return those items to the shelf when she crashed into someone. Her books mingled with his, falling in various states of half opened disarray to the floor. “God I’m so sorry,” she murmured, immediately stooping down to save a book that had fallen open onto its pages, some of them attempting to fold over. 

[shilohbarnes]

clementinegueye:

It had been a long, loud, busy day at Mushnik’s Flower Emporium. A bride decided - three days before her wedding - to change her colour scheme, they were hired for three funerals, and had to put the finishing touches on an order for a weekend event. Her coworkers had left an hour or so before, and Clementine had been tasked with closing the store for the evening. Unfortunately, though there were still a couple of hours left, she’d already grown bored. Walk-in customers were few and far between, so she had to amuse herself somehow - arranging a flower girl’s bouquet, blasting her playlist through the store’s speakers, and singing a little lullaby to Audrey, her coworker’s venus fly trap she was plant-sitting for the week. When the front bell rung, she was embarrassingly excited. Unable to see over the plants they’d just had shipped in, Clementine still tried to greet the customer. “Hey - welcome to Mushnik’s. I’ll - be around in a second.”

She would have meandered into the flower shop silently, like a ghost, had it not been for the bell in front that announced her presence. Shiloh almost jumped at the sound, like she’d been caught doing something terrible. And what she was planning was technically against the rules. No contact with family, no contact with the old life. But if she sent flowers anonymously was it really actually contact? A disembodied voice filtered out to her, and Shiloh considered backing out and leaving. Instead she let out a soft “Okay,” moving through the displays, eyes taking in all the flowers.

[shilohbarnes]

zacharyxlee:

“I’m not trying to make it sound better or worse. I’m just telling you what you have to do if you want to keep away from trouble.” Zachary didn’t know why he was bothering explaining everything to the woman considering that wasn’t exactly his job. He had given up the gentleman act a long time ago so why was he still standing here, trying to tell her the best way to approach the whole issue to avoid any issues. Why did he still care? Maybe the fact that he had seen what these people were capable of, maybe it was the fact that he had lost Lucas. Or maybe he just hadn’t been able to harden his heart as much he would have wanted, so he was still trying to do whatever he could to give the woman some sort of advice even if it wasn’t as straightforward as it could have been. Even if he wasn’t making it apparent that he was trying to help.

Zachary couldn’t help the laugh that escaped his lips at her words, and his fingers went up to scratch above his brow as he contemplated her words. “You just say that I only seemed nice and now I look honorable?” It was humorous in someway how she went from freaking out and breaking down, to suddenly accepting her fate. What had ended up changing her mind, Zachary didn’t know, but whatever it was had come suddenly. And the fact that she hadn’t been a fan of Jay was no surprise, considering he was one of the few that had absolutely no background in business. He was a thug, through and through, so her assessment was pretty spot on. There was no saying that he would be honorable but there was loyalty. Knowing what was expected usually, thinking of what Ryder wanted from Alaiya, how their interactions seemed to go, Zachary suspected the same would happen here. “I’m just an investment banker. I don’t participate in this side of the business.” It was a lie, but he didn’t handle this area. At least not yet. He really didn’t know what to tell her that would make it so that Jay would stay away, even if he really wished he could figure something out. “Jay tends to just do his business and leave, so as long as you don’t make conversation or appear scared, he’ll leave you alone. He likes to play with people who are shaking, but if you hold your own, then he won’t see it as fun and won’t bother you.”

Shiloh didn’t want to have to think about this, but her mind clung to the words, words she couldn’t fully process now, but knew she would revisit later. “This is so fucked up,” she murmured, shaking fingers running through her hair. An almost hysterical bubble of laughter caught in her throat. The irony of this...that her life seemed to be circling back to the same place over and over. “And if I try to leave...” It wasn’t really a question, Shiloh could guess what would happen if she tried to run away from this. Then again...they made the mistake of thinking she was just a normal citizen...they didn’t realize how easily she could be ghosted away if she opened her mouth to the right people. “Will most of this be conducted after hours?”she queried, voice morose and heavy. “I won’t have to see you people...traipsing about when I’m trying to work with customers all day will I?”

[jamiechungsource]

[shilohbarnes]

alexcaron:

How many parents have you met who want that sort of thing? It sounds like a rare phenomenon.

Fall and Winter it’s a little rare, once every couple of months, you can tell the kids are in dance recitals and such. But during pageant season...I usually get a lot of them, sometimes multiple in one day.

[shilohbarnes]

lily-vance:

Lily wasn’t sure of how to reply. Of course she thought kids shouldn’t wear make up, but who was she to judge or say something? She didn’t want to offend anyone and she wasn’t sure if her words would be well received, always too scared of speaking her mind in case she would bother someone around her. “Uhm” She started, but wasn’t sure of what to add. “I… I like this mascara” She said, knowing that she wasn’t adding anything to the conversation but hoping she would carry the weight of it and that maybe she could just add a few nods in between words.

There were lots of gray spaces in the world, and sometimes Shiloh would attempt to respect that. But when she was very passionate about something, she was a bulldozer of intention, of furious commitment to the idea that some things are universally right and wrong. The blonde spoke, a little hiccup of syllables, and part of the brunette understood that she was uncomfortable, though why she couldn’t understand. What was the worst thing that happened if someone didn’t like your opinion? Eyeing the mascara in question, she gave the woman a quick once over. “Oh honey you don’t need this one. This is for people who don’t have much natural eyelash and really need help with extending. You want this one.” She reached out and handed a bottle to the other female. “This one give you nice curl, you’ll look like a black and white movie screen ingenue and people will fall over when you bat those pretty lashes at them.”

[dailyactress]

[shilohbarnes]

dailyactress:

Jamie Chung - Dîner en Blanc in LA 08/27/2015

[shilohbarnes]

austinxwhite:

“I promise, I just have a very good skin” He joked, taking another sip of the wine that was actually really good. “But you enjoy it? And I mean, it’s also helpful, that way you can tell when someone is being real or fake, and I guess that helps a lot, you can avoid yourself the trouble of being around people who are only faking interest” And even when Austin didn’t have that problem, he imagined that for a woman was a very good trait to have, to recognize when someone wasn’t real around them. “Or maybe I’ll be the good influence that will save you, uh?”

“I guess I enjoy it,” Shiloh murmured with a shrug. She didn’t really like to admit to enjoying anything. Life was best when she came at it with cautious indifference. And to be frank she didn’t utilize the skill as often as she made it sound. It suddenly occurred to Shiloh that this was the longest interaction she’d ever had with a male that didn’t involve suggestive flirtation. “Oh I think I’m long past saving, but you’re welcome to try.” It was supposed to be a joking statement, but there was the tiniest bit of wistful sorrow in it.

[shilohbarnes]

Three Scoop Blues || Shiloh and Vera

[shilohbarnes]

veralawson:

“Oh it’s a normal thing, it happens to me too, except that then I don’t feel like just talking about men and I make bad and poor decisions” She sighed, knowing that if she got drunk soon she would be texting her ex boyfriend, finding excuses to talk with him about… well, anything. “I don’t know, do you like that song? Because we can find something else, I’m feeling Maroon 5 could work for us too”

“Hmm, Maroon 5 I actually like,” Shiloh answered with an approving nod of her head. Which was an outright lie, but one that fit her cover persona perfectly. “Bad and poor decisions, huh. We’ll stick to the ice cream then, keep you safe and sound.”

[shilohbarnes]

erikanazaripeters:

“Oh – totally!” Erika’s head snapped towards the woman speaking, apparently, to her. She had no idea what she had just agreed on or who the woman was, but she was great like that. Head full of, well, everything but her surroundings. “So yeah, we agree… what exactly do we agree on? Sorry, I was having a minor existential life crisis.” That was a terrible lie.

“Just a minor existential life crisis? I thought those things came hardcore or not at all,” Shiloh replied with the tiniest tilt of her mouth upwards. “Parents putting makeup on their two year olds...messed up,” she clarified with soft gestures towards her face.

[shilohbarnes]

zacharyxlee:

“Do you actually put makeup on them?”

“Unfortunately I have to. It’s not hurting the kids and I can’t say no to a paying customer. The customer is always right, you know.”

[shilohbarnes]

austinxwhite:

“Okay I totally understand what you mean by that, but just in case someone is listening to this conversation, I’d like to point out I’m not wearing any make up” Because you never knew when someone was eavesdropping right? So a fair warning didn’t hurt anyone. “So you can know what people want just by looking at them? That’s a very dangerous superpower, use it with responsibility” He teased with a smile. “See? You’ve been made for evil”

“Are you sure...your cheeks look awfully rosey,” Shiloh mused, leaning towards Austin as if to inspect the area in question. “Ugh it is a dangerous superpower honestly. Sometimes you want to let people lie to you, reading the truth in the way they movie is not the desired outcome but you just can’t help it.” Truth be told it was more than just her job, Brody taught her basic cues, taught her how to watch people. “Born and bred for evil...I think I need that on a t-shirt. You probably shouldn’t hang out with me...don’t wanna tarnish your halo.”

[shilohbarnes]

Three Scoop Blues || Shiloh and Vera

[shilohbarnes]

veralawson:

Vera couldn’t help but sigh when she mentioned those eyes that made you weak because she knew exactly whose eyes did that to her and how easy it was for her pulse to start beating faster just by thinking of him “I suddenly really want to make a call, this is not fair” She complained, eating ice cream because it was the only thing that could help. “Okay maybe this subject should be changed before I do a stupid thing” She warned her “You’re my new soul sister, I’m going to keep you”

Thierry had eyes like that...when Shiloh had met him she hadn’t been looking for a relationship. But god those eyes had pulled her in. Clearing her throat she gave a smile she hoped spoke of chagrin.”My bad...once you get me started on guys I lose all my self control.” With a laugh and another lick of her ice cream she eyed Vera. “Like the Train song? Do we have a song now? Gosh this is too much bonding for me.”

[shilohbarnes]

“It freaks me out when parents come in wanting me to put a full face of makeup on their toddlers. Your three year old should not be able to keep her eyes open and get mascara applied like a pro. That is just not natural.”