Imogen Heap’s style is a lot like her music: otherworldly, cute, fairylicious, and definitely experimental. I really can’t help but smile when I see some of Immi’s getups.. smile, and think, “Ahh, I get it, Immi, I get it.”

The woman loves corsets. Hip, hip, hurray! More people need to show corset love. Beautiful corsets, big flouncy skirts, makeup worthy of the cover of a Sephora catalogue, and Marie Antoinette hair: big, tall, full of flowers and sparkles and feathers and woodland creatures.

I was lucky enough to meet Imogen after her January 2007 concert at the Tabernacle in Atlanta. The woman is tall, and she wears very high heels, plus the three foot tall hair to boot. Pictures do not do her tallness justice. She passed by me like a big, tall, pink cloud, and I was a bit alarmed until I realized, oh, it’s Imogen Heap. Holy crap you are tall. Close up, I realized that her outfit was much more intricate than I could have ever imagined. I silently admired her pink corsety wonderness, her faux fir trimmed skirt and stole, and wondered about what else might be hiding in her hair that wasn’t visible, while my friend verbally complimented her on her playing and her beautiful clear furry electric piano. “It’s so pretty,” I quickly piped up. “I just want to take a nap in it.”

She smiled politely and said, “Oh.. well. Oh. Yes.”

I get it, Immi. I get it.

When you think of Tori Amos, the image that most likely comes to mind is a giant question mark as you ponder, “Who the hell is Tori Amos?” … but! If you are in the minority and you actually know who she is and you have seen her at some point, the image that most likely comes to mind, then, is a red-haired woman who suggestively straddles piano benches and makes heavy love to the microphone while performing.

For her latest album, American Doll Posse, Tori created a (gasp!) concept album that featured her in character as five different “dolls” — Isabel, Clyde, Pip, Santa, and Tori (yes, she did a charactature of her self). Each doll has a set of songs on the album, each with her own sound, theme, vibe, and look. For shows during the 2007 American Doll Posse tour, Tori kicked off each show as first coming out fully dressed, wigged, and in character as one of the dolls. She would do a mini-set with “their” songs, and then she would disappear for a short interlude, and come back out as herself/Tori-doll and do “her” songs.

It sounds gimmicky, but I’m sorry, I buy into it. For me, it works. If you’ve stared at the woman for eight years and studied her transition of various shades of red locks, from scarlet red to orange red to muted red to bright red to brown red to firecracker red, it’s actually really refreshing to see the transformation from Tori to Doll.

Plus I have a not-so-secret thing for wigs. Love wigs. Need wigs.

Of the five dolls, I enjoy Pip’s style the most. Pip is the angry rock chick of the bunch. Pip is the one who comes out in black vinyl pants and goes on a cursing tirade in the middle of the song she’s singing. Pip is the one who plays the piano by reaching up from a squatting position on the floor. Not to mention, Pip was the one who came out on stage and sang Me and a Gun, the rock version, complete with knife and gun props. (And if you’re not an avid Tori fan, that doesn’t mean much to you. But trust me. It’s pretty special.)

Though I hoped and prayed for Pip to open the show I attended at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta on November 14, it was Santa who came out instead. (Santa still rocked, it was fine.) I can get my Pip fix on the internets, and so can you.

Black vinyl pants: check.
Bright pink dress: check.
Ginourmous belt: check.
Wig: check.

Niecy Nash is best known for her role as Raineesha on Reno 911. She is the host of the show Clean House on the Style network, where she and her team invade people’s disgusting and cluttered homes, sell all their useless stuff at a yard sale, and then use the money to make their homes look fabulous instead of foolish.

Though she may be the queen of foolishness and mayhem, there’s nothing foolish about Niecy’s style. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Niecy in something unflattering. (This picture of her in character as Raineesha at the premiere of Reno 911: Miami just doesn’t count, okay? it was in character.) Her signature beauty mark is wearing a very large, very brightly colored flower in her hair, which is always color coordinated to her outfit — and it works.

Flower = perfectly color coordinated.
At the Simpsons movie premiere.
(I love that she wore orange to the Simpsons movie.)

In The Search For The Perfect Lipbalm, I stumbled across my savior quite by accident.  Having left my tube of balm in the hotel room on a dry October day in Orlando, Florida, I found myself running around like a chicken with my head cut off (or a chicken with a dry, chapping-by-the-minute beak) I searched and begged at every little corner shop inside of EPCOT.

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Well, world wide web, welcome to slice of beauty, a beauty blog that focuses on the author’s .. erm, shall we say, “unique” sense of style.

Product reviews?  Got ‘em.  Pictures of stylish celebrities in interesting getups?  Slice of Style, got it.   … oh, and you’d like to be alerted to big dolla savings on your favorite big dolla brands?  Well, okay.  It can be done.  It will be done.

Just remember, I never claimed to have a conventional sense of style.  I think the early 80’s Madonna black jelly bracelet fingerless lace gloves eighty crucifix necklaces at one time look needs to make a comeback in a big way.  Sometimes I feel a bit glamgoth, and sometimes my earrings don’t match.  Sometimes I get in a mood, throw all caution to the wind, and go bare-faced and lounge-panted out into the real world.  And sometimes it takes me two hours to put my makeup on before work.

Maybe I’m stylistically bipolar.  Yeah.. yeah, that’s it.