Avast-Ye, Blimey Swabs

I once visited the Maritime Museum on Ocracoke Island in North Carolina. Actually it was not so much a museum as it was a giant gift shop with a disproportionately tiny annex in the back with a few small dioramas. My favorite was a small glass case entitled "What Pirates Ate" or something of that nature, which contained only the following:
-A rubber rat (Does this mean they ate rats? It was unclear)
-One rubber wedge of Swiss cheese (the handwritten marker beneath it read simply "Cheese", which my companion and I found endlessly hilarious for some reason)
-One possibly real hunk of some sort of petrified meat jerky

There was another glass case which housed a life-size mannequin of Blackbeard, the legendary pirate. His real name is believed to have been Edward Teach, and he was a prototype for modern self-spin. This guy clearly understood the power of altering one's physicality, which ultimately amounts to understanding something about human nature. Blackbeard loved the ladies, and was instrumental in creating the mystique of pirates as the rock stars of their time.

Image, NC Maritime Museum
When Blackbeard (a moniker he coined himself, by the way-how much do I love this guy?) started making a name for himself in the pirate game, he realized he liked the money-getting, not-working part of piratry, but not so much the killing and fighting and what have you.

So, he surmised that the scarier he looked, the less he would actually have to fight. So he grew his thick black hair and beard long and tangled, and tied red ribbons to the ends. He smudged kohl around his eyes, and strapped lots of scary-looking knives and ammunition to his chest. Blackbeard even pioneered what would become pyrotechnics at concerts; when approaching a ship to overpower, he burned bundles of hemp to create a sort of smoke machine around his feet, making it look like he was surrounded by a mysterious veil of fire and mist. What a showman!

 I rarely wear eye makeup, but there are days when eyeliner is armor, mascara is power and a mysteriously smoky veil of shadow are the extra ammo I need. I am, after all, a lover, not a fighter. I am also lazy, which makes DuWop Smoke perfect for me; each duo includes an inky cream liner and coordinating powder for the perfect smoky eye.

Photo, DuWop.com

 The shades are deep and subtly shimmery, and the little compact comes equipped with two teensy but decent-quality brushes, so you can throw it in your doublet or waistcoat or whatever and spontaneously create sultry eyes that would make a pirate proud.
Topics: blackbeard , pirate , kohl , eyeliner , duwop