Friday, June 26, 2020

Out with the Old

In general, girls like us don’t femulate 24/7. Once a week, twice a month, once a month, etc. is more like it. As a result, we do not consume cosmetics as quickly as girls who makeup their faces every day. So we tend to hold onto and use makeup that is past its expiration date.

“Besides the fact that old makeup doesn't hold up too well, if you're not careful, it can even be harmful to your skin and cause irritation.”

Here is a summary of when you should discard makeup after opening it. For further reading, I refer you to this Insider article.

Blush – 2 years

Eyeshadow – 2 years

Foundation and Primer (products for the face) – 2 years

Lipstick – 1 year

Liquid Eyeliner – 3 months

Mascara – 3 months

Pencil Eyeliner – 1 year

By the way, this symbol appears on makeup labels to indicate how long the product will last after you've opened it, in this case, 24 months.

Keep being pretty!





Source: Intermix
Wearing Gauge81




Luis Montalbert
Luis Montalbert femulates Gloria Trevi on Costa Rican television's Tu Cara Me Suena

Thursday, June 25, 2020

Chat Me Up


Paula wrote, “As one woman to another, and excuse me if this is a silly question, but why don't more girls write to you about being approached by men... and enjoying it. It has happened to me twice recently and I was absolutely flattered. I think it is the ultimate compliment.”

I don’t know why more girls don’t write to me about being approached by men.

I have had numerous men check me out and that in itself is a compliment. But I have never had a man take the next step and chat me up. Have you?

If you have been approached by a man, how did it go? How did you handle it? How did it end?

Inqueering minds want to know, so comment below about your close encounters with men. Or send me your stories via e-mail (click on the “send me e-mail” link below my photo in the sidebar.

I’m all ears.







Source: Bebe
Wearing Bebe




Femulating in the mid-20th Century
Femulating in the mid-20th Century

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Gulag Gurls

The image in the Femulator slot of Saturday’s post depicted “British prisoners of war femulating in a show at Stalag 383 during World War II.” That image resulted in comments and questions from you readers wondering about the soldiers femulating in that photo.

Years ago, I wondered about POW crossdressing and did some research on the matter. The results of that research appeared here almost two years ago to the day and I am repeating that post below to help clear things up. If you have further questions, I will try to answer them.    

Cassidy wrote, “Quick question. I, from time to time see on your blog and others WWI and WWII POWs dressed as women (femulating) and performing for other inmates. I always wondered where they got the clothing to do so. Could you offer an answer?”

I had the same question when I discovered all the photos of POW femulations.

I wondered if the Geneva Convention required every POW facility to be stocked with the latest in female clothing, wigs, makeup, etc., to permit the prisoners to dress en femme?

Did the POW camp commander ring up his favorite dress shop and order some frocks for the prisoners whenever they wanted to put on a show?

I asked those questions (with tongue in cheek), but I was curious because it seemed to me that these “girls” were not wearing homemade outfits put together from scraps of material that they scrounged up in camp. Rather they were dressed as fashionable women of the day would dress in outfits that came off the rack of women's clothier.

What's the real story?

With nothing but time on their hands, the POWs would make their costumes using whatever scraps of material they could find, repurpose or barter from the prison guards. They even made high heel shoes! If you ever saw the film The Great Escape, it shows the prisoners making civilian clothing and Nazi uniforms (for their escape) the same way.

(Reminds me of the time before I had the courage to shop for women's clothing in person that I made a red satin micro-miniskirt from a scrap of material that my mother had left over from a sewing project.)

As they say, “Where there's a will, there's a way.”

On the other hand, there were POWs who performed as female impersonators for the troops before imprisonment and brought their makeup and gowns along with them into captivity. Since wigs were a scarce commodity, some of the "girls" were permitted to grow their hair out!

Addendum: I am aware of two films that depict POW femulations: La Grande Illusion and The Bridge on the River Kwai. In the former, officers are the femulators, whereas in the latter, enlisted men do the femulating.

(Sources: The Barbed-Wire University: The Real Lives of Prisoners of War in the Second World War by Midge Gilles; Cultural Heritage and Prisoners of War: Creativity Behind Barbed Wire by Gilly Carr and Harold Mytum)





Source: Rue La La
Wearing London Times





When Bombardier Arthur Butler of the 122nd Field Regiment Royal Artillery transformed himself into Gloria D’Earie she became ‘exquisite’. She made all her own costumes and moved and spoke just like a woman. Butler was a professional female impersonator and widely regarded as the best in Changi. His act was so convincing that some men found it too painful: they would rather not be reminded of what a woman looked like as it made their separation from wives and sweethearts harder to bear. (Source: The Barbed-Wire University: The Real Lives of Prisoners of War in the Second World War by Midge Gillies)

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Monday, June 22, 2020

Better Red?

I have a box of wigs that I have purchased over the years that I no longer wear. I had some time to kill before my Zoom presentation last week, so I decided to try on every wig in the box.

A couple looked good on me and I will wear them again. A few that I recall looking good on me in the past did nothing for me now. And the majority did not look good at all; I wondered what possessed me to buy them in the first place. Maybe they looked better on a younger and/or fatter me – go figure.

One that I don’t recall purchasing nor wearing interested me. Did I buy it and never wear it? I don’t recall, but I thought with a little cleaning and grooming, it might look nice on me. It is a Paula Young wig called Chantel in copper red, a color that I often wore until I went blond 15 years ago.

That’s me wearing Chantel in the accompanying photo. Is it a keeper or a loser?





Source: Ollalaa
Wearing Ollalaa




Elijah Wood
Elijah Wood, Shania Twain’s former drummer (not the film actor)

Friday, June 19, 2020

Zoom Again?

Ready to Zoom
I really enjoyed doing my Zoom presentation on Tuesday (titled “Confidence: A Crossdresser’s Best Friend”). Once I got over my initial stage fright, you could not shut me up and I talked for nearly 40 minutes straight with only a few short breaks to sip water.

It was only my second time using Zoom, so I was still getting acquainted with its operation. As a result, I missed the questions that viewers were texting to me. I apologize for that.

Anyway, I so enjoyed doing the presentation that I am considering doing it as a regular feature in conjunction with this blog – maybe once per month on various topics.

What do you think? Would you be interested in viewing such presentations? If so, what would you like me to talk about?

Please let me know via a comment below or via an e-mail to stana-stana at-sign sbcglobal.net.




Source: Rue La La
Wearing Rue La La




Volker Spengler
Volker Spengler (right) in the 1978 West German film In a Year of 13 Moons
You can view the film’s trailer on YouTube.

Thursday, June 18, 2020

Father’s Day Plans Trumped

Outfit I planned to wear for Father’s Day
Usually, my wife, daughter, sister and I go to a restaurant to celebrate Father’s Day. This year, I wanted to do something different – I wanted to go to the restaurant en femme.

When I concocted that plan three weeks ago, it looked doable because restaurants (and most everything else) would be reopening in Connecticut on June 17, four days before Father’s Day. But July 17 has come and gone and my family is not ready to dine in a restaurant yet.

Their hesitance has nothing to do with how I planned to dress. Rather, they are worried about how safe it would be to dine in a restaurant under the dark cloud of coronavirus especially when three of the diners are well over 65 years in age.

I would love to dine en femme with my loved ones, but I understand their discomfort. So we will order Chinese take-out and just like so many other thwarted plans, wait ’til next year.




Source: Venus
Wearing Venus




Brian Jones
Rolling Stone Brian Jones

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

New Nails

My May 7th post discussed the press-on fingernails that are available these days.

I wrote, “They are very attractive and I decided to take a flyer on one of the less expensive brands (H&M). I will review them here when I have an opportunity to wear them.”

Due to the pandemic, the delivery of the nails was incredibly slow and over a month passed between ordering the nails and their delivery. Not a big deal because I was not going out anywhere to wear them. Anyway, they finally arrived last week.

What follows is not a full review because I have not had an opportunity to wear them out. But as with other fake nails, I was concerned about the width of the fake thumbnail, which is my and probably your widest fingernail.

The thumbnail of the Kiss pre-glued press-on nails that I have been using like forever is about 9/16ths of an inch wide, which matches my natural thumbnails perfectly. The width of the H&M thumbnail is about a 1/2-inch – 1/16th of an inch narrower than the Kiss thumbnail.

Not a big difference – they will probably work OK, but I will let you know when I actually wear them out. (I can’t wait!)

(The photo above are the H&M nails in the silver gray color I ordered.)




Source: Ollalaa
Wearing Ollalaa




Matt Bomer
Matt Bomer femulates in the 2017 film Anything.
You can view the film’s trailer on YouTube.

Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Stana: Live at Five

I will be live at 5 PM ET today presenting “Confidence: A Crossdresser’s Best Friend” via Zoom, hosted by the Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition. There are only 100 spots available, so reserve your spot early by clicking on the banner above. And I will see you at 5.

You’ll wonder where the yellow went

In past posts, I complained about photos of femulators not smiling. You are beautiful women and you should be happy about it, so smile, smile, smile.

I listen to my own advice and smile whenever I am photographed. The only bad part about smiling is that my teeth are yellow. I never smoked, so I assume they are yellow from the beverages I have been drinking the past 69 years, especially coffee, which I consume in at least two big doses everyday.

In March, my daughter birthday gifted me with Crest 3D White Whitestrips. I took the hint and used the strips as prescribed – 30 minutes per day for 5 days and 60 minutes for 1 day.

After 7 days, I was amazed! My teeth were no longer yellow; they were now as white as the new fallen snow.

Three months later, my teeth still look white. Maybe not as white as on Day 7, but a heck of lot whiter than they were on Day 0. (The accompanying photo was taken two months after the white strip application.)

Crest recommends repeating the treatment every six months and I will do so when the time comes.

Every little bit helps and snow white teeth are certainly a welcome addition to my feminine visage.





Source: Madeleine
Wearing Madeleine




Jaloo femulating in the 2018 Brazilian film Paradise Lost (Paraíso Perdido).
You can view the film’s trailer on YouTube.

Monday, June 15, 2020

Supremes decide it’s illegal to be fired for bring transgender

In a 6-3 decision just released this morning, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that it is illegal for an employer to fire anyone for being transgender. Details to follow as soon as I get them.

Click here for the story from CNN.

Click here for the story from HuffPost.

Click here for the story from Fox News.