Who's a lazy cow?

I figured I needed to address the "no new entries in forever" situation for all 3 of my loyal readers. I can't decide if I haven't been inspired or if there's nothing around to inspire me. I think we all know the answer to this one, but I'll thank you to just nod your heads sympathetically while I continue to construct elaborate chicken/egg theories in order to justify my innate laziness.

Anyhoo, I'm off to California soon and I imagine I'll indulge in a spot of shopping while I'm there. It will be nothing but summer clothes on the racks, which I hate, so look for me to come home with lots of cosmetics and shoes.

I have a new idea for this space that I'm chewing on at the moment...stay tuned. Otherwise it will just be another endless rant about how much we in Australia get wallet-raped in regards to clothing and cosmetics.

How to oppress your vagina yet remain fashionable

I was surprised by something today. Not shocked. Just surprised. Maybe a little bit weirded out, too. I mean, how far would you to to avoid panty lines? A thong? A g-string? How about the Strapless G-String by Shibue Couture? I understand that this is a very crucial time for undergarments. Starlets are being photographed sans panties on a daily basis, much to the dismay of the lingerie industry and the delight of celebrity bloggers. I can understand why some enterprising soul would attempt to overthrow this commando revolution by inventing an undergarment even less substantial than the traditional butt-floss.
This product seems to adhere to the skin in much the same way as the adhesive bra cups that have been on the market for ages. I would assume that a Brazilian wax is highly recommended - one shudders at the mental image served up by a mons au naturel.
The main selling point of the Strapless G-String seems to be a lack of elastic waistband:

The SHIBUE couture-Strapless G String gives the wearer coverage and offers clean lines across the hips while wearing form fitting clothing.

They even offer helpful before and after photos:

Now, call me a fat-ist, but if you are worried about the roll of pudge above the waistband of your underwear, maybe you are better off wearing one of Nancy Ganz's slimming undergarments than you are hermetically sealing your vagina with a bit of satin and some spirit gum. I'm just wondering how you end up after a few drinks...I can easily picture myself drunkenly peeling my panty-merkin off, doing my business, then forgetting that I stuck it to the toilet cubicle wall.

Baby, it's cold outside (soon...)

The great thing about living here in opposite-season-land is that while we are being burnt up by the scorching sun, those of you in the Northern half are looking forward to summer. Retailers in Europe and the US are filling the shop windows with the ubiquitous floaty summer dresses and all the lovely winter clothes are on sale. I adore dressing for winter. My personal style is never going to set the world on fire. I enjoy basics and classics. I have to put a fair amount of effort into my shopping and dressing, so as not to fall into a rut. Some ruts are good, though. As I mentioned in a previous S&S entry, I am quite fond of the idea of uniform dressing - keeping your personal style pared down to the basics. Kate Hudson epitomizes that look for me here, minus the toilet-seat cover hat:

"Look, Mom! There's Dad! Never mind, it's just some homeless dude."

I have spent the past few weeks perusing and bookmarking lots of winter fashions from US clothing websites. At the top of my wishlist are:

* J Brand Love Story jeans - I am really loving the wide leg on these. With some super-high round toe pumps and a slim fitting cashmere cardi (with a skinny belt - keep reading), there's no way your legs won't look a mile long, and it will be a welcome addition to my uniform of skinny jeans tucked into boots. Kate Moss wearing J Brand:

"Where's the loo, darling? My septum wants destroying."

* A classic trench in an unlikely color/fabric, like this one by Elie Tahari.

* The deep denim blue of the coat above reminds me of the it color for nails this fall/winter - see Chanel's Blue Satin (sure to be sold out) or Christina Fitzgerald's Stephanie.

* I'm going to be sad to hang up the ballet flats I've been living in since the weather warmed up, but I'll be happy to be back in my beloved boots. I'm leaning towards a lower heel this time, more like a classic riding boot. These Prada ones are pretty awesome. Of course, I'll need another pair with a nice high heel to wear under the J Brand jeans. Again, I'm lusting for Prada. What can I say, you can't go wrong with Italian shoes.

*I'm usually the first one to indulge in a spot of 90's nostalgia, and the pashmina was officially the star of the fashion world - well into Y2K and beyond. I adore the pashmina. In my book, it falls into the same category as the poncho: The Acceptable Way to Wear a Blanket in Public. The pashmina has never really gone away. It has lurked on the perimeters of fashion's inner circle, usually cleverly disguised as a scarf. These scarves by Love Quotes are pashmina-soft, big enough to wrap up in, and affordable enough to buy a few colors at a time.

"Hi, my arms are freezing"

* I am LOVING the cardigan + belt look. It's extremely versatile and I think it looks very modern. When shopping, I am going to be on the prowl for chunky knits to wear with wide leather belts, slim cashmere cardigans paired with skinny patent belts, and if I am brave enough, I will mix and match all of them. I'm so excited right now I want to throw the duvet over my shoulders and belt it with a USB cable.

Cute, minus the puffy shirt

Hot, minus the Joan Crawford lipstick

Awesome, love the Butterfield 8 negligee; am ignoring the weird hat

Now for the hate. These trends seem to have some staying power and every time I see them in a shop window I am filled with rage:

*Leggings. Oh, you think you can fool me by calling them "footless tights", but I'm on to you, fashion retailers. I was alive and dressing myself in the 80's, so I refuse to pick up what you are putting down. It's YOUR fault every fat chick thinks she can wear a little smock dress now. "Oh, I'll pair it with leggings, it will look so cute!" No it doesn't. You just need some ropes hanging off you and you'd look like an escaped balloon from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. While I'm ranting, an aside for our rotund sisterhood: smock dresses, leggings, skinny jeans, cropped blazers - NOT FLATTERING ON YOU. Go put on a nice jersey wrap dress or some boot-cut jeans. Have some dignity. Just because a certain look is in style, doesn't mean you are. Know your limitations. That goes for everyone. So, leggings = bad. Commit to the extra few inches of fabric and wear tights if you must.

Please throw rotten eggs at these offenders

*The smock dress has become ubiquitous recently. At first it was all, "Oh, it's so freeing! So Mia Farrow in 'Rosemary's Baby' minus the whole 'being raped by Satan while your neighbors watch thing'. Let's go out for a huge meal! No more sucking it in!" Well, guess what, ladies? You all look like you've been pregnant with Satan's spawn for the last 3 seasons. Knock it off. I admit to having a few of these little numbers in my closet. I call them my "Peking duck dresses". I wear them to a certain restaurant where we gorge ourselves on duck prepared three ways, then waddle home clutching my belly and groaning. "Hello, my midsection is grossly misshapen but you can't tell because of my dress, haha!"

*Oh, and the corporate pinafore-style dresses. So wrong on so many levels. Nothing says "I'm about to bust through that glass ceiling" like a Peter Pan collared shirt, a tweed pinafore, opaque tights and high heels. Bravo. I would put up a photo of this look but my head might explode with rage. Instead, here is what came up when I did a Google image search for "explode with rage":

Monsters that live in your mouth hate pinafore dresses, too

*Ankle boots. If you are fat, your legs look huge. If you are skinny, you look like a ponygirl. If you don't know what a ponygirl is, I apologize in advance if you choose to google it. Mom, don't google it.

Cankles not included

Happy Almost Winter!

Hot Child in the City

It's my second summer in Melbourne and the past weekend was quite warm. However, the weather gods have failed to deliver the goods on a consistent basis this season. Sure, we've had the odd day or three in the high 30s or low 40s (90s to 100s for you fahrenheit followers) and you poor saps who were stuck in the city over New Year got your bums scorched (I was frolicking on the beach in Robe, South Australia, ha-ha!), but it's been consistenly cool and mild this summer. I feel like I'm back home in San Diego. Which makes me feel like a bit of a traitor. While everyone here is bemoaning the lack of a proper summer, I am secretly enjoying it. I despise hot weather. Unless I am in my bikini, splashing about in the ocean, I see no point for the mercury to ever rise above 25c/77f. I know, I know - spoken like a true Southern Californian. The thing is, I hate dressing for summer. I've always had issues with it. If I wear floaty little dresses, I feel like I'm having one of those recurrent nightmares that involve a crowd, no panties and a strong breeze (NSFW image if butt-crack offends you).

On the rare occasion I do go out in a cute summer dress, you better believe I am rocking the industrial strength Bridget Jones pants underneath.
I practically need a can-opener to take them off at night. All those upskirt photos floating around on the internet? Those are the cautionary tales I live by. SJP is a smart woman who obviously thinks along the same lines:
Anyhow, yeah. Summer clothes. They just don't do it for me. Summer should be a destination where you only need to pack a handful of bikinis, a sarong that doubles as an evening dress, a pair of Havianas and some high heels - for your Hotel du Cap bikini and heels moment. Mine will be accomplished in this one-piece from Agent Provocateur :
and my Steve Madden wedge espadrilles:
When your holiday is finished, you bid summer a fond farewell and come back to the city, where everything is a tolerable temperature, suitable for corporate dressing and enabling you to wear a series of lovely wraps during your evening al fresco dinners. I don't want the same fantasy for winter, though. I love a proper* winter. As a child, I suffered intense jealousy when one of the characters in my Babysitter's Club books went shopping for a new winter coat (probably Stacy, that spoilt New York bitch). San Diego winters never necesitated a winter coat. You just threw on a hoodie if it was a chilly morning.

*does not include snow. Snow is a destination. I am more than happy to leave the white nuisance behind once I am finished skiing on it. I am dreaming of winter already...but not of dressing like Mariah Carey in Aspen, ugh.

Well, hello! ...and welcome to my blog!

I know, I know. I'm late to the game. I don't care. I love this. I love her. I grew up watching Y&R (I wanted to be Cricket when I grew up) and I vaguely remember the Jill Abbott character being something of a see-you-next-Tuesday. Doesn't matter. I would have lapped up the fashion advice from this vanity puff piece and begged for more. I'm such a typical Virgo. I love rules, charts, graphs, Venn diagrams....oh, I'm getting a little warm here. I may have to take off an article of clothing and fold it neatly. Anyway, I have to watch this again. I may start the first chapter of the Church of Brenda Dickson.

Oh, and make sure you catch Deven Green's hilarious parodies.

The Nostalgia Kit, Complete with "Hooker Blue"

Well, Christmas is over and if you're as lucky as I am, you have a stack of giftcards in front of you.
The Sephora giftcard my mom sent me is really burning a hole in my pocket at the moment. Sephora has become a bit of an obsession with me since my relocation to the land Down Under. There is no Sephora in Australia (and probably never will be; thanks a lot, Mecca Cosmetica and your exclusivity deals with the major cosmetics companies) and, to add insult to injury, they won't ship here or let you shop online with a non-US credit card. Women here talk about shopping trips abroad at Sephora with the kind of reverence you generally encounter in elderly third world nuns discussing their first trip to Lourdes.
So here I sit, perusing sephora.com, trying to make a wise purchase since it has a long way to get to me (my item must be shipped to my willing accomplice in the US who will then ship it to me). Then I see it. The Holy Grail of make-up. The deluxe make-up palette. The memories come rushing at me. 64 eyeshadows. 32 lipcolors. Blushes, bronzers, powders. All in a multi-tiered palette complete with those crappy blush brushes you never use unless you are going to a costume party as Debbie Harry circa 1978 (yeah, she was HOT, but what were those blusher stripes all about?).
Sorry, I'm getting a little overheated here. I know I can't be the only one to have such a visceral response to THE PALETTE. It was the next step after you retired your big box of 64 Crayolas and before puberty fully took over. Wasn't it fitting that you coveted a makeup kit that contained the same pigments as the ones you stayed in the lines with? But those beautiful colors had so much more meaning than your trusty crayons. Didn't you sit there contemplating the sunshine yellow eyeshadow, wondering just what the appropriate event for that hue could possibly be? Or did you religiously match each shade of shadow to your daily outfit, just one more accessory to color coordinate along with your hair scrunchy and slouchy socks?
I used to smear the baby blue shadow on the back of my hand, wondering who would ever wear that color, a cosmetic scarlet "A", known by the common name of "hooker-blue". Did you glance with trepidation at the inky black square of eyeshadow, afraid to use it and end up looking like the stoner girls in the junior high bathroom who melted their black eyeliner with a lighter before applying it (or, if you had a cheap-o JCPenney kit like me, you tried the black eyeshadow in secret and were simultaneously relieved and annoyed that it came out a soft grey due to the lack of pigment).
The makeup kit was your passport to adulthood, lugged along to slumber parties where someone's mom was always willing to "do your colors" and unwittingly set the tone for future teenage cattiness - "Oh my god, did you see what Heather is wearing today? Hasn't anyone ever told her she's a Winter, she shouldn't wear pale pink!" And then you slowly outgrew the palette, buying (or shoplifting) Covergirl eyeshadow quads in muted sands and beiges as Bobbi Brown came along in the 90's and converted us all to the church of the nude look.
As cheesy and 80's as the makeup palette was, I remember it being a great way to discover cosmetics. I still don't wear hooker blue or sunshine yellow on my lids, but I do go out on a limb a bit more than I did in the austere, beige 90's. And for $48, that Sephora palette is looking pretty good. Maybe I'll take it to my next slumber party.

What's the point of having a blog if you can't indulge in a good rant?

I've been doing nails off and on for around 14 years. I've seen and done it all. Long nails and short nails. Acrylics, gels, fiberglass, silk, linen and even paper wraps. I've seen missing digits and extra digits. Webbed toes and clubfeet. Nothing fazes me. I've polished nails every color imaginable. I've even done nail art. Give me a break, it was Central California in the mid 90's (which translates to the late 80's, fashion-wise). I've painted nails with polka dots, stars, stripes, stars and stripes - Old Glory was always a popular request in early July. I've done seascapes complete with a palm tree blowing in the breeze, multi-hued flowers, and I distinctly remember a green and gold parrot I painted on one lady's ring finger. I'm still amazed I managed to produce these miniature masterpieces on fingernails while still unable to draw a convincing stick figure. I'm now convinced I was the David Helfgott of manicurists.

For the last 8 years or so, I've only done natural nails when my talents are requested. Just manicures and pedicures. No fake nails, no nail art. I refuse to be the enabler in such tacky endeavors. Unfortunately, I still have to face my nemesis on a daily basis. The reason? French manicures. The utterly tedious, precious look of pink nail beds and white tips. I hate them. They make me cringe. Long nails, short nails, round, oval or square. I think it is a tired trend that looks suburban, cliched and twee. It conjures images of Carmela Soprano, Juicy Couture tracksuits, and MILFs driving their Cadillac Escalades two blocks to Starbucks. I'm not even going to get started on French pedicures (click at your own risk).

The thing about the French manicure is the insidious allure. It's like we were programmed from birth to always consider it! "Hmm, I don't know what color I'm in the mood for...maybe just a french...it will look natural...it will match whatever I wear...it will just look like my nails - only better!" I myself have fallen prey to the siren song of the French manicure, only to come to my senses hours later - "Hey! I forgot I hate this look, what the hell?"
But here lies the rub, folks - I do an awesome French mani on the job. I use a subtle off-white for the tip and a sheer pink (Essie's Mademoiselle) for the nail bed. If you have a darker skin tone, I'll use a sheer beige-y nude instead of pink. The effect is soft, subtle and natural. I feel a certain contrary pleasure in doing a French mani and doing it well.

I think there are more modern options for a nude nail look, but a French manicure client is a client who knows exactly what they want. The French mani will never go away. It's a beauty basic for many. I simply suspend my judgment and make sure my clients are wearing the best version of it possible and not the hideous "Liquid Paper" nails you get from the nail sweatshop at the mall.