Cure all (AM)

When you're feeling like a frump

And your clothes look really dumb

What do you do?

Red lipstick

When you're hair is really frizzy

And you're looking kind of shitty

What do you do?

Red lipstick

After the immediate high of discovering the comfort of 'boyfriend' jeans wore off, my blinkers came down and I realised that they actually look quite shit. Still, I can't resist wearing those comfortable little bastards. This coupled with my awful haircut, which with this stupid effing weather is always frizzy as fuck has led to more than a few...how do you say?...days of looking shit. 

One day last week when I was wearing my unflattering baggy jeans and nature had turned my hair into a stupid hunk of frizz on my head I could barely believe I had to leave the house in that state, but then I figured out a way to fool myself and the world into thinking all the ugliness going on was a legitimate fashion choice - red lipstick. Who wears red lipstick? Fashionable women, confident women, women who are making totally legitimate fashion choices. A woman that bothers to wear bright red lipstick must care about what she looks like, right? Pairing ugly hair and jeans with super stylish lipstick must be some  kind of super stylish ironic fashion statement right? Yep? Yep!

Haiku Thursday (AM)

The grooming journey continues

I

Hey, yo, concealer

Where have you been all my life

Got me lookin' good

II

Perhaps your special

Age defying qualities

Make the timing right

What the eff is BB cream? (PM)

Seriously what the eff is BB cream?

I read this article by Zoe Foster a few months ago about BB cream and after reading it I still had no idea what eff they were. In fact before I saw that article I'd never even heard of it, so after the article I felt even more ignorant than before. Sure, I get that it is are a belbish balm. But what the eff? Why is BB cream so special? If ZoFo sings the praises of a product I usally own that product within about 45 minutes. But I guess she is not that into BB cream so I didn't pay that much attention. But a cream that makes you look better in one go is a cream for me. Even though I don't wear foundation and would actually probably hate BB cream.Man, belbish balm cream is confusing!

I guess I would like to try BB cream for free. And so if K could just remember which magazine that free sample was in well, that would be great?

What the eff is BB cream? (AM)

On Saturday morning, I took myself off to get a pedicure. I was terribly hungover and needed to feel better - fast. Readers, if I am ever out drinking with you and I suggest we end the night with a whisky, know this: I am already drunk and absolutely do not need that whisky. That's not to say I won't enjoy it, but I definitely will not need it. Though, to be fair, what is 'needing' whiskey? I'm not sure I want that either. 

Anyway, there I was on Saturday morning: my feet in a warm bath, my person in a warm massage chair, my face in a magazine,  and friends, it was totally working. But then I turned the page and saw this:

Loreal Nude Magique.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA I thought to myself. Nude Magique! What a stupid name!  I sat there chuckling away.  

But the I read the ad properly.  "BB Magic. The 1st self-adjusting  BB Cream" it said.  

Um, what the eff is BB cream?  

Since when did it become a thing? Do people wear it? What is it all about?

I turned to the internet for answers. According to Wikipedia "BB Cream stands for blemish balm, blemish base, or beblesh balm (apparently because of a copyright in Korea on the word "blemish")". 
HAHAHA. Beblesh Balm. 
Wikipedia goes on to say "BB cream is promoted as an all-in-one facial cosmetic product to replace serum, moisturizer, primer, foundation, and sunblock."
Well well well. Doesn't that sounds like a lazy girl's wet cream?
Sounds a little too good to be true if you ask me. What is it, a Thermomix?

I thought about nicking the sample from the magazine at the pedicure place so I could see for myself, but I felt guilty just thinking about it so I didn't. Instead I bought my own copy of that magazine last night so I could try this Nude Magique. Turns out I bought the wrong magazine and instead of a sample of Nude Magique, it just had this picture of Megan Gale trying to sell me a different BB cream from the Loreal stable.

Megan is quoted as saying "We all talk about it....skin that looks perfect today and younger tomorrow."
Clearly, we move in different circles, Megan.

Anyway, I guess my suspicion and my laziness means I still don't really know what the eff BB cream is.

Get your hand off it! (AM)

"Get your hand off it!" is something MSC says a lot.

Not so much on Miss Soft Crab, but in real life, we say it all the time. The world is full of wank you see, and when we witness it, we find it hard to stand by and ignore it. They say that for evil to flourish, all that's necessary is for good people to stand by and do nothing. Well that goes for wanking too. We all need to point the finger at wankerlyness because if we don't, where will it end? Miss Soft Crab likes to lead by example in this respect. We even have a little pantomime that goes with it. If you're ever hanging out with us in real life, you should ask us to do it. It's funny. (For us). 

With all of this in mind, I just want to bring everyone's attention to something I saw yesterday on the Kiehl's website. I should have known that I was entering a wank danger-zone when I logged on, but I guess I was preoccupied with all the stuff I want. 

Anyway, as I was searching for things, this error page came up:

Having trouble reading that? Let's zoom in, shall we?

You've got to be effing kidding me, Kiehl's. Due to its success? The hell it is! You've just got a shitty website Kiehl's, something that could probably be fixed quite easily if you could get your hand off it for five seconds! Stop being tools and fix your website so I can buy the things.

Knobshiners. 

What's in my bag? (PM)

This seemed like a good idea at the time, right?

It may not surprise y'all that I pretty much have the same stuff in my back that K does.

1. My wallet. Der. 

2. A bag of chocolate someone at work gave me in the name of Christmas. There were more chocolates in it when she gave it to me.

3. Emery boards because I effing hate having broken nails and nothing to file them with. Ugh, just the thought of it makes my skin crawl!

4. Miss Soft Crab notebook. Seriously, I only write down ideas for this very blog in it. It's a god damn goldmine!

5. My phone. I love that guy.

6. My iPod. Cause I am too lazy to put music on my iPhone

7. The headphones LB bought me for my birthday (Beats by Dr. Dre). Well, technically K purchased them but but they were from LB. 

8. My glasses which I rarely wear now that I don't sit in front of a computer for 40 hours a week and don't have the subsequent blurred vision when I leave the office.

9. The Travel Almanac. In case I want to read something on the train. Truth is though that I am pretty much always too busy listening to podcasts to read but after reading this morning that K reads the book in her bag (too many 'reads'?) I read an interview with Bernard Sumner. It was not that interesting and this magazine is pretty annoying.

10. Band-aids. 'Cause I keep making the mistake of thinking a particular pair of shoes are broken in. But they are totally not broken in. 

11. Make-up case to keep all my make-up/toiletries together.

12. Make-up and toiletries I am too lazy to put back in the case.

13. Tape measure.

14. Free comb from Just Cuts that I took from a share house bathroom 8 years ago and never put back.

15. More stuff to make sure I look pretty all the time.

16. A pretty fresh nappy. Usually if they have been in my bag too long they are all weirdly shaped and covered in bag crud.

17. My sunglasses. I bought them on the last day of my NYC holiday, in that time you wander around before having to go to the airport. And I love them.

What's in my bag? (AM)

Do you guys read The Hairpin? I hope you do, because it's very enjoyable. Recently they have been doing this amusing thing where they get their contributors to do a spread on what's in their handbags, like those lady mags do with celebrities, only instead of having $500 face creams like the celebrities do, they have things like band aids and bobby pins. Anyway, blah blah blah blah blah, do you guys want to know what's in my handbag right now? Ok, ok, I'll tell you.


All the things in my handbag!

 Lets go through them one by one, shall we?
1. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. Obviously this is the book I'm reading it at the moment, not a book a keep in my bag at all times. I'm enjoying it. Who read Love Etc.? I really liked that book.
2. My iPhone. I need to get a new cover for it. It looks like it has a skin condition.
3. Nars lip gloss in the shade Turkish Delight. I basically bought this because I love rose flavoured turkish delight and all things that are rose flavoured. This gloss is not rose flavoured, and buying it was a mistake.
4. My wallet. It's breaking and I have asked santa to bring me a new one.
5. My keys. Just like yours, probably.
6. My 2012 diary, the one I was waiting for the other day. I love it very much and I like how it has a jumper.
7. My Beats by Dr Dre headphones which I bought as a present to myself when I paid off my HECS. I love those guys so much. I am wearing them right now as a matter of fact.
8. The key to my filing cabinet.
9. A mirror J bought for me ages ago.
10. A handful of pistachio shells. What can I say guys. I guess I ate some pistachios and shoved the shells in my bag one time.
11. My umbrella. No getting caught in the rain for me, readers.
12. My sunglasses.
13. Some tissues I took from a hotel room in Beechworth.
14. Musk lifesavers. I effing love these little bad boys and am in a phase of my life where I want to have the taste of musk in my mouth all the time. If you haven't had one in a while I urge you to try one.
15. Work phone.
16. Reading glasses.
17. Assorted lispticks, specifically: Heat Wave (Nars); Jungle Red (Nars); Lovelorn (MAC); Amplified Girl (MAC); See Sheer (MAC); Insolente (Chanel). For those of you who are wondering, Heat Wave is my favourite, but today I am wearing a blend of See Sheer and Insolente. 
18. Bag change. I like to keep a little change in my bag. It's very useful for those times when you don't quite have enough money in your wallet to buy a coffee. Or when you need to feed a parking meter, or buy yourself some musk lifesavers. Bag change!
19. That's my security pass to get in to work, but you can't really see it and plus, who gives a shit.

Now that I see all the things in my bag, I realise that this is actually quite boring. Sorry guys. Hopefully J has some better stuff in her bag.

The Learning Atelier

J: So I think it is fair to say that we pretty much loved the shit out of our Shu Uemura Learning Atelier, right? Pretty hard not to love a thing conducted by someone as adorable as Yumi and after which we look super pretty right?

Say hello, Yumi!

K: Perhaps we should describe what the Shu Uemura Learning Atelier is. Basically it is a two hour make-up lesson from a skilled professional make-up artist who is also a really nice lady - Yumi.

Yumi really had her work cut out for her, because neither of us really know what we are doing when it comes to wearing the make up. Of course we've worn make up before. But just because we've done it, doesn't mean we know what we are doing. I mean, I've swum breast stroke a bunch of times, doesn't mean I have the first clue about technique. Anyway, we took the lesson because we wanted to learn some things. The kinds of things that could support the groom quest. We started at the very beginning, because its a very good place to start. Yumi cleaned our faces with nice smelling stuff. Then she put the equivalent of a base coat on us. This product is really just meant to even out your skin tone a little bit, and sit underneath foundation.

She pretty much could have stopped there, because with just the base coat we looked kind of awesome.

J: I know! Already so evenly toned and beautiful! I actually think, though, that once the foundation was on, even though we looked so pretty, I felt like my face was too even. I know, it sounds crazy, but I guess I felt a bit weird about going from normal face to one-tone face. I wonder if I hadn't had the base on I would have been more inclined to buy foundation afterwards. Well I guess I will just have to try your foundation and see.

So once we had those beautiful faces we went to the eyes, right? I really liked how Yumi started with the subtle daytime eye and graduated to night time eye. So we could see every type of eye.

Remember how Yumi was all, "oh, some girls want to have a sexy smoky eye, you know. They are like sexy, party girls, but that's not you guys." Um, maybe that is us!

Liquid eyeliner. Don't be afraid.

K: I've been noticing everyone's make-up since we got our lesson, particularly 'sexy party girls'. I think Yumi totally had us pegged as non 'sexy party girls'. However, whether we became non-sexy party girls by choice, or whether we had non-sexy party girl thrust upon us is a different matter.

Anyway. You know, one of the other things I learnt from the Shu Uemura Learning Atelier? The importance of applying stuff to my face in an upwards direction. Apparently if you slap stuff on your face with a downward sweeping motion, gravity will appreciate your help and you will look like a shar pei in no time at all. Undesirable. If you sweep upwards, gravity will get no leg up from you.

The Shu Uemura Learning Atelier also taught me how to use liquid eyeliner. That stuff has always seemed like more trouble than it is worth. But the Shu Uemura liquid eyeliner is super easy to use and looks so neat on the eyelid.

So neat.

J: YES! Upwards direction. Every time I apply moisturiser or anything else to my face with that upwards direction I feel like it is lifting and prettyfying my face. I am starting to think that this grooming caper is at least 60% placebo effect. But I don't even care. Whatever works.
The liquid eyeliner makes you look beautiful. I also like how I learnt that just because I am attracted to a thing that doesn't mean I should wear it. Like, there was this sparkly red eyeshadow that I could not take my eyes off. And I asked Yumi if she thought I could wear it but she told me my red skin tone would not be enhanced (I'd look fug) by the red eyeshadow. Sadly, I know she was right. But it was good having her tell me because otherwise I probably would have tried it even though I knew it wouldn't suit me. It's yet another grooming issue I have.

Let's all just stick to what suits us, shall we?

Oh, and I also loved how Yumi drew those pictures for us to help us remember what the hell we are doing!

Real life demonstration of learning

Yumi's drawings

K: I know, I loved that too! I also took notes during the lesson, because sometimes I don't remember things that I have just been told. Here are some of the very helpful notes I took.

Sure, it seems simple, but its already proved quite helpful.

Feel free to use my notes, guys.

All in all, the Shu Uemera Learning Atelier was completely awesome.
Thanks J and Yumi!

J: Yeah! Thanks Yumi, I am so much prettier now! And thanks K.

Oh, and GO CATS!