At the all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue, the TV above the bar shows a bevy of girls in mini skirts and Santa hats with that glow on their faces called glass skin. They romp and sing on loop, wink, toss their hair, and never seem to break a sweat. Their cheeks have the sheen of peach or pearl from a whole routine for glass skin: daily hydration and Vitamin C; nightly foam cleanser, exfoliator, toner, serum, moisturizer. Every now and then, a mask. The goal: skin like the surface of glass— reflective, unblemished, dewy. Nothing that cakes to a thickness like plaster. Imagine the smooth and iridescent inside of a mollusk shell, its glass skin veined with petroleum-blue rainbows. Imagine pearls lifted from the nacre-lined wombs of oysters, then strung into necklaces competing for shine with glass skin. Cleopatra bathed in milk scented with saffron and honey. Empress Cixi ruled China in the 19th century. She banned foot-binding and ground pearls to powder her own glass skin.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
