One would think that since this is my first post, I would elaborate on the blog title. One would be wrong. That discourse shall come in due course. For now, there is the following:
I’ve always been a bit of an oddball when it comes to the girly stuff. Not that I look down upon it. Nope. Nada. But I do find cosmetic products churned out of corporate greed exploiting our insecurities and fears as women hilarious. It’s hard to believe that my dull face will cause me to lose good friends, or that the dark colour of my skin will cause me to be forever alone and make me less likely to get a good job, and of course, without that amazing anti-ageing cream that I ought to start using at the age of two, I will look like a wrinkly monkey by eighteen. Call me a special case of rhino hide, but I cannot bring myself to use these products. Not that I don’t have my fear points. Hell, I wear kohl just to avoid interrogations: ‘are you sleepy?’ ‘are you sick?’ ‘are you sad?’ ‘are you sleepy, sick and sad?’ ‘No…that’s just my face.’ And then, there is awkwardness.
Recently a bunch of girlfriends at work were exchanging some heavy duty information on the products they use, the brands, what product works, what sucks ass, yada, yada, yada.
Now, paint me regular and slap on the sticker of conventional, but I’m still stuck in the age where at max. you have different creams for your face and body. I had no idea that there were several other sub and sub sub and sub sub sub divisions that had cropped up. And that is why the above mentioned information exchange was an exercise in eye-popping, mouth-opening wonderment for me.
Below is the list of products that have floated out of the shiny, glossy, photoshopped catacombs of cosmetico land, that I cannot understand for my dear life:
1. Hand cream – Because your hands are different from your feet and arms and face. You use hands for so many different things, and your face for a whole, separate world of different things. For instance, would you shake your face with someone else’s face? No. You would use hands. Would you slap another hand with your face? You could, but no. You would rather use your hand on another face, that’s just good sense. So obviously, like duh-ly, you need a separate cream for your hands. I wonder what happens if you use hand creams on your face? Does a little hyper R and D guy at L’Orbellinacome drop dead due to anxiety?
2. Face mist – Because well who doesn’t want a fog just for their face? I can’t count the number of times I’ve wanted a mist to exclusively hover on my face just as I see someone I’m allergic to! Imagine your ex sauntering over to you looking all beefed up from that vacation in Cancun with his new honey bun (you’ve stalked him on Facebook and that bitch put all his pictures on public display because he knows you will stalk him). All you have to do is pull out your little bottle of mist and spray it over your face and all of a sudden, there is zero visibility. You are safe. Thank you, make up innovation.
3. Cuticle cleaner – Because your cuticles deserve the best. Who came up with the word cuticles anyway? It sounds like cute testicles…what were they doing at the time really? Anyway etymology aside, clean cuticles I thought would be a function of bathing. And unless you work through the day dipping your hands in sewers, chances are your cuticles are not going to get that filthy from one bath to the next. But hey, this product might actually work better for cute testicles.
4. Sheet Masks – Who doesn’t want to channel their inner phantom of the opera spirit from time to time? What ever happened to good old fashioned face masks? Ever feel anti-social on a day where people want you going woot-woot? Call them to your house, turn off the lights and then scare them wearing this mask. Not only will they leave you alone, you will have great skin after. Win-win.
4. Body mist – now this one doesn’t really shock me, it’s been around for a while to seem normal enough. But I do remember thinking to myself, what the heck is the difference between a body mist, a deodorant, a roll on and a perfume. And also if you use a face mist and body mist together is it called a person mist? Because then you ought to be a fuzzy cloud moving through life. Anything less is a naming exercise in over-promising.
5. Lip oil – They should be careful about using oil in the name of anything. USA might decide to give them freedom. But seriously what is lip oil? What happened to lip balms and chapsticks? More importantly if you make out with oil on your lips, are you spreading the love, or the oil? Maybe we need a new song titled, “That oily feeling called love.” And get Bush to sing it!
6. Nail Concealer – Because nowadays people don’t look at your face. They come upto you, grab your hand and look long and hard at your nails. Much like a morning assembly at a Convent school. A nail concealer is for those who want to hide the imperfections on their nails. Because when you use a microscope to look at your nails, you see mountains and valleys and ridges and tiny aliens living there. So you have to conceal all that shit. Hence, nail concealer.
Now these are the things that I know of, I’m sure there is a host of other stuff that defies imagination and logic. But I’m pretty sure the next things to come into the market, if they already don’t exist, are: upper neck cream, middle neck cream, lower neck cream, navel mist, arm sheet masks, hoo-haa perfumes, big toe oil, waist lipstick and eyelash dew. Coming soon to a store near you!
The Girl Who Hates Shopping 