Foul plague has struck my household, hence a lack of posting! (Plus, usual ill-at-home outfit of pyjama pants and ancient black t-shirts, accessorized with puffy eyes and a red nose, is not my best look.)
Future posts shall include: MOAR Muppets nail polish, 101 things to do with an adorable black-and-berry dress, and What I Wore On Election Day.
But now, it’s back to bed with me, and a thankful nod to whatever powers may be for stocked-up episodes of Mad Men and Finding Bigfoot.
After seeing one too many OBESITY EPIDEMIC OMG articles focused on that most wonderfully pseudoscientific measurements of “health”, the Body Mass Index, the awesome Kate Harding, in her former haunt at Shapely Prose, created the BMI Project to illustrate (a) how ridiculous the whole BMI concept is and (b) how little you can tell, even about a person’s BMI (which is meant to be the holy of holy measures of Disgusting Fatness, right?), from looking at them.
I highly recommend the full Flickr photoset, for both blowing your mind on the topic of BMI and injecting some much-needed images of the diversity and hotness of all different kinds of human forms into my life.
Big props go to those who have submitted their photos and vital statistics, and many, many thanks to Ms Harding for leaving SP as a fantastic repository of fat acceptance work.
(My own BMI is quite solidly in the “obese” category. Guess how many fucks I do not give?)
Curse Avon, and curse its fantastic deals. The above was (I think, it was a few months back) a SuperSaver deal with some kind of “complete party set” name for $40 with any $15 purchase. Or it was just $40.
Either way: Forty. Dollars.
For an eyeshadow duo in “Stardust”, a black “diamonds” eyeliners, a SuperShock mascara and a lipstick in my new favourite matte red, Red Kiss. Red? And monochrome eyeshadow? And forty dollars?
SOLD.
And since it was marketed as a party set, I of course wore it to a party.
Besides some foundation and the faaaaaantastic Napoleon Perdis Autopilot eye primer which (touch wood) never seems to run out, that’s just the four products in the set on my pretty face.
(The frock and belt are City Chic, the cleavage is all me.)
I was totally thrilled by the way the eyes turned out, since I still consider myself a student in the art of eyeshadow.
On the other hand, wearing nice thick-purple-framed glasses means I feel okay experimenting with heavy amounts of colour – and on the third hand which agrees with the second hand, always remember: you’re always looking at yourself a lot more closely than anyone else probably will.
And if anyone else is looking that closely, they should be the kind of person who doesn’t give a crap your eyeliner’s slightly wonky. Or, the kind of person who will in full friendship tell you it’s wonky because you really do want to know. Or something.
Enough yabbering. CLOSEUP!
The mascara is fairly basic but … somewhat intimidatingly big. I’m really resisting the urge to make a Freudian joke here, but seriously, it’s a substantial mascara wand.
The eyeliner is your basic Avon Glimmersticks nice-smudgy-wind-up-crayon with a sliiiight shimmer. But a spare black eyeliner is always nice, especially if you’re me and you constantly lose things. No one tell my partner I admitted that.
If I have one criticism of the eyeshadow, it’s that the white/pale pale grey shade is very hard. As in, scrape-off-the-top-layer-with-your-fingernail-and-then-dab-with-brush hard. The dark dark grey, much less so. Weird, but manageable for forty dollars.
One more look! This was for work on a day when bright-red-lippie-management was too much effort so I attempted a bit more of a smoky-eye look, with the dark grey further down on the lid and lots of mascara.
The lippie is another part of my surprisingly-epic Avon collection (I know I order it, and it arrives, but then a month later I’m all “where the hell did this all come from?”), in a shade called Champagne Glow. Goes on quite pink on my lips because they’re pretty dark compared to my pasty whiteness. If you can’t afford/find MAC’s Marquise D’, from the Wonder Woman collection, buy this one instead.
(You may recognise the top of that outfit from a previous post.)
My red Jacqui E dress is a bit of a standby with me. It’s one of the few garments I’ve bothered to sit down with needle and thread and repair, multiple times, because it’s so damn neat. Fits me well, looks amazing (and highly work-friendly), warm, bright. It doesn’t dress down particularly well, but that’s not much of a negative!
I was clearly feeling in a weird “look really well put together but with maximum quirkiness” mood when I put this ensemble together. Bright red dress with gorgeous asymmetrical neckline, silver-leopard print cropped jacket, big studdy belt, awesomely geometric patterned tights, and my number 1 wardrobe essential, air-hostess black high heels, so-called for their very pretty height plus very amazing comfortability.
A commenter on Flickr said “Your legs are so long!” I must confess, it’s a convenient coincidence of a high belt, a well-struck pose, probably the geometric pattern on the stockings and the angle of my feet in the heels vs flat-shoed pics. To indulge in some self-analysis, as I am very wont to do, I had a small struggle about taking the compliment and did feel the need to explain that aforementioned coincidence. There’s such an issue with what our society considers “flattering” that an hourglassy inbetweenie like myself can feel a conflict between the principle of liking how I look because I like it and damn the man, and feeling pleased to even accidentally tick one of those conventional-beauty boxes.
End of the day, to condense a complex thought into a trite moral, one can only try to be as happy as one can be, knowing that whatever happens someone somewhere will find some way to find you wanting.
Anyway.
As a side note, the stockings are a minor source of annoyance, being from Lyric, and purchased in a size M/L. As in, Lyric whose more opaque/solid stockings literally will not fit past my knees in a size XL. I can get that stockings are a tricky piece of clothing, different fabrics will do different things especially when you’re comparing a tight weave to a loose net, but come on. That kind of size unpredictability is always going to be annoying.
Red dress, metallic belt – Jacqui E
Leopard print cropped jacket – City Chic
Stockings – Lyric at Farmers
Shoes – Molly N
So, when I applied my first go at Excuse Moi! on a fine Sunday afternoon in front of the telly, I decided to pay attention to how well it lasted, on the gut assumption that a glitter would chip more quickly or more easily that a smooth-consistency polish.
Here are the results! Photos taken on a Thursday, after a hard week’s typing, nervous picking at things, desperately resisting the urge to see if my nail polish was peeling yet, and tending to two guinea pigs.
The big benefit of the glitter’s busy-ness, when it starts to chip, is that you don’t notice the little marks and irregularities, the way you do when it’s a smooth, precise coat of a single colour or a crisp French manicure line.
But by the end of the week the chips were getting plenty bigger and definitely noticeable – if only to me! But really, the gap around the base of my ridiculously-fast-growing nails was probably the most obvious issue.
Biggest issue: my Gods it was a pain in the butt to remove. I had to resort to pouring out some nail polish remover into a bowl and soaking each hand in turn, which my skin did not appreciate, and then scraping off the remaining bits of glitter on Saturday morning after a hot shower.
Possibly an acetone remover would do a better job, but given I’ve just bought a fresh bottle of acetone-free I’ll probably go for the easy option and save the glitter for special occasions.
I’m an utter sceptic when it comes to 3d. I don’t think it makes a cliche-ridden Smurfs Dance With Wolves In Fern Gully In Space movie any more appealing, I’m certainly not going to fork out ridiculous sums of money for a new TV on the basis that in 10 years’ time all the fillums are going to be in it, and, well … last weekend we watched Jaws III.
‘Nuff said.
HOWEVER. There’s definitely one time I can get behind the 3d gimmick, and that’s when it’s Shoes of Prey’s new shoe designer.
It’s the only thing that was missing from all that time you’ve sunk into Shoe of Prey’s amazing range of options and fabrics and styles but just not been entirely sure of that heel is the exact silhouette you want, or just felt like watching your dream heels go round and round and round and round.
PLUS ALSO they’ve introduced drop-down menus for all the shoe options so there’s no more endless clicking through trying to find the perfect bow-and-heel combination.
Sigh. I really, really Wednesday-wanty some Shoes of Prey. Damn my restraint (and savings plan for a massive Boxing Day sale spree …)
So after months of sniping at the Designer Brands ads on TV (“Can you tell which of us is wearing the cheap makeup?” “NO BECAUSE IT WAS APPLIED BY PROFESSIONAL MAKEUP ARTISTS AND YOU’RE UNDER TV LIGHTING” etc) I was in need of a pick-me-up one lunchtime and gave in to the power of $9 eyeliner.
I mean, if it was crap, it was only $9 of crap, and that’s cheaper than most pairs of stockings /bitter.
And you can’t really screw up a good colourless lipgloss, right?
To really amp up the frivolity, I went with a bright green. It goes on very watery, and on a back-of-the-hand test it looks really unpromising, but once it dries it seriously lives up to the smudge-proof label. I applied the above at 7.30am and the pic above was taken at around 3pm, and I am an incorrigible eye-rubber.
The gloss is less surprisingly awesome, but utterly serves its purpose. High shine, not too sticky, lasts a decent amount of time.
I’m wearing it over Avon Ultra Color Rich lipstick in Red Kiss which is loooooove but pretty matte on its own. Add some clear gloss, and pop, boom, bam etc.
The other excellent thing about a cheap lipgloss is that you just don’t care when the brush gets dark red lippie on it.
Final verdict: on frivolous eyeliner and throwaway gloss, Designer Brands delivers on providing pretty-good quality for a-lot-less-than-everything-else-of-similar-quality.
I’m not quite ready to give up on the OPI and MAC when budget allows, but it’s nice to have choice!
If your lives have not been blessed with Joy Nash’s fat rants … get blessed!
I’ve long practised in my head the perfect, nonchalant “Nope, just fat” response to that classic put-down of sitcom cliche, “Are you pregnant?” But happily I seem to walk through life just looking too damn confident (scary?) for anyone to try it (though I do get asked for directions a lot, which may stem from the same thing …)
Lush’s Christmas range is out, and somehow they have tapped into my subconscious and delivered me something I didn’t even know I wanted:
I’m a bit of a Lush fanatic, as any of my friends can tell you, and they are my go-to shop for a delicious indulgent shopping experience (me being one of the 50% of the population who love the smell of Lush stores, versus the 50% who get headaches and/or sneezing fits).
To get a tad personal, being able to have luxurious pampering sessions every now and then is a reminder to myself that I am, to borrow the L’Oreal logo, totally worth it.
Lush does get slight demerits on its Candy Mountain bubble bar, for which they couldn’t resist a cliche “calorie-free alternative” jibe. Don’t harsh my seasonal squee with your cheap, unoriginal food policing!
Having landed myself some Muppets OPI it was probably a bit predictable that at least one of the colours would be adorning my nails within 24 hours.
And here it is, a basic two layers of Excuse Moi!
It goes on pretty easily and dries veeeeeery quickly – I went back to touch up one nail about a minute after application and ended up doing the whole second coat right then since it was dry enough.
It’s a much lighter pink than it looks on the bottle – I actually bought it on the basis of the sample in the store which showed off the bright baby pink very well as the shade in the bottle didn’t grab me so much.
I was also a bit surprised at the other glitters – they go on a lot more like glitter-in-a-clear-base and would work much better over a bright top coat (the women in the store were trying to sell me on the Christmas-theme possibilities of a red undercoat with Fresh Frog of Bel Aira green undercoat with Gettin’ Miss Piggy With It – now that’s clever marketing!) whereas Excuse Moi would drown anything under it.
Now the test of how well it’ll last – I’ll let you know at the end of the week (and hopefully not too soon!)
On the future purchases front, I was surprisingly tempted by Warm & Fozzie, which is a lovely warm brown- I’ve always had a bit of a hate-on for brown, but somehow this didn’t set it off. And Meep Meep Meep is definitely on the cards, if only because the partner finds the name hilarious and instictively makes a Beaker face whenever I say it.
