The Range: A Primer and a Primer

Recently, I was thinking about how to return to this blog after some time away, preceded by a year of unreliable content. Do I just reappear like an ex sliding into your DMs with little more than a “Hey.”? Do I make a big announcement with florid promises of new content? Or do I just take a moment to reintroduce myself to the women who have supported me, laughed with me, and argued with me for going on 18 years?

Definitely that last one.

When I started this blog, I was a single, 26-year-old Capitol Hill staffer living in a studio apartment, working weekends at a tanning salon, living off cereal, just desperately trying to find a pair of shoes that didn’t massacre my feet while commuting. Now, I’m a 42-year-old attorney, living in a America’s most boring city, in a house where something is always being remodeled or repaired, with two dogs, a husband, and a toddler who thinks ketchup is a food group, looking for pants that don’t pinch my Mom-bod if I have to sit for 12 hours straight.

What can I say? Things change. And while this blog is still here, it is changed as well.

In some ways, CHS never recovered from the pandemic. Suddenly, no one needed work attire, everyone was depressed, and we were all just trying to survive in fiery hellscape of unknowns. Career wear no longer meant the same thing to the 25,000+ women who visited this blog every month, and it’s just tough to write a fashion guide when one reader needs trompe-l’oeil sweatpant-jeans and another needs a full business suit and high heels. Add in the fact that I am increasingly disinterest in living my life extremely online in order to sell “MUST HAVE!” Amazon finds to women via Instagram, and I’m not sure whether this blog is a throwback or a relic.

Faced with what felt like an unsolvable problem, I started to lose interest in blogging. Tack on the emotional upheaval of doing IVF, having a baby, almost bleeding to death in an Emergency Room hallway, walking away from the political career I’ve had since I was old enough to vote, and just trying to survive the vagaries of raising a child and worrying about aging parents . . . and here we f**kin’ are.

But in a quiet moment this weekend, I realized something: When it started, this blog was as much about my life as it was about fashion. And even today, when CHS is at its best, it’s because I found something that I love and want to talk about. So I made a plan for how to get back to that, let’s get started.

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Do you feel tired and worn out?  Haven’t drank eight glasses of water in a single day since your first child was born?  What if I told you that your skin could look well-rested, hydrated, and dare I say, glowy, with just one miracle product?  

Behold, Dior Forever Glow Star Filter.  It’s Zoom’s “Touch Up My Appearance” feature, but for real life.

The first time I used this product was at a conference in Montana.  After my presentation on the finer points of legislative drafting, no fewer than six women told me how great my skin looked.  The next day during lunch, two more women who I’ve worked with for years, asked me what cosmetic procedures I had recently paid for to “fix my skin.”  Thank, I think…

While this Before-and-After certainly benefits from the photo shoot lighting, I would still call it an accurate representation of the Star Filter’s results.  My own personal results are less shiny, but no less brightening.  It really is that good.  I apply the product prior to my Merit foundation and I rise from the dead like Lazarus.  

Now, cards on the table, this bottle will set you back $55.  But I bought mine in November, and with regular use, I’m still going strong with about-half the supply.  Also, if you’re spending <$75 on skincare products and <$30 on foundation, I consider the Star Filter makeup insurance, it’s here to ensure you get the most out of the money you already spent.  

Still need a dupe?  My TikTok-loving teens tell me that this $8 e.l.f primer is as close as you’ll find in the drugstore aisle.

Ladies, you know I don’t sing praises lightly, but Star Filer is the only makeup product that, when Sloane grabs it out of my bag, I snatch it back like it’s a grenade.  Some things are just not for playing with.

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