OPI, Revlon, Rimmel Review - The Dissapointing Date Manicure

After the last post, I felt like it was time for something a little more lighthearted. And so, I bring you my own creation, the Disappointing Date Manicure!

Da-DAH!

This manicure is made up of three different polishes - Revlon Top Speed Nail Enamel in Ocean, OPI Austin-tatious Turquoise, and Rimmel I Love Lasting Finish in Azure.

So why is this called the Disappointing Date Manicure? The thing about these polishes, is that only one of them really comes out on the nail the way the bottle promises. The others are....well, I'll show you pictures.

This is the Revlon Top Speed. You'll have to forgive the slight blurriness of the photos - I'm still getting the hand of taking pictures of my hands. Revlon was the first company to sell modern nail polish, and they have the whole thing down pat at this point. They're not amazing, but they're good, reliable (as in every colour, of every range, goes on exactly the same), and you can get them anywhere for a reasonable amount of money. Plus, what you get when you use it is actually what you expect from how the bottle looks - a rarity with nail polish, as I am sadly learning.

This is the Rimmel I "heart" Long Lasting blah blah good LORD is that a bad name for a product. I specifically bought this one to go with the Revlon, because I wanted to be able to make it a bit bluer without covering the shiny. From my terrible experiences with Rimmel eyeshadows (that had so little pigment in them I had to virtually grind them into my eyesockets to get any colour to show up) I figured this would probably be pretty short on actual colour pigment, but that would work just fine for my purposes. It's actually a little more colourful than I expected, but you can still see through it at two coats. It's also CRAZY runny, so you have to put it on really carefully if you want the colour to come out in any way even, and not like you've taken a marker to your nails.
BUT it's stupid cheap, and available at virtually any chemist. So there's that.

This one was the real let-down of the trio - I picked up this bad boy because it looked SO damn pretty on the shelf, but once it got on my nail...bleh. It's totally see through, it's not nearly as shiny as I thought it would be, and there is none of the tantalising blue-purple sheen you see in the bottle. In summary, it brought very little to the table.

Let me describe for you how I came up with the idea for this layering by telling you a story.

Let's imagine, that the Revlon polish a girl. A girl who's not too flashy, but gets things done, and what you see is what you get. (Plus, it's cheap and easy to get - har har). Feel free to go ahead and imagine me dancing the bottles around like a kid with action figures, because that is totally what I am doing in my head.
Let's imagine Revlon goes out to a bar one night, and across the crowd she sees OPI. She wanders over and starts talking to him, because DAMN he is pretty. He's dressed nicely, and his friends are eager to tell her what a great guy he is. Revlon isn't really sure there's anything inside that shiny exterior, but he's so pretty, and he's right there, and the cab would be like, ten bucks, so she takes him home.
Once she gets him home though, she opens his lid and looks down and...has to shut her mouth very, very quickly lest she let the thought, "But you're so tall!" slip out and ruin everything. It's not...bad. It's just not exactly what she was expecting. I mean, it'll do. But she was hoping for...more.

So what does Revlon do? Does she kick OPI out? But she's already spent all this time talking to him, not to mention the ten bucks on the cab. Revlon is clever - Revlon knows how to make the best of this situation.
"I have a friend, Rimmel" she says. "A cab here would only cost maybe five bucks, and he's always available. I think he would really help make this a night to remember. Do you mind if I call him over to join us?"
"Of course!" says OPI, because he's an adventurous, open minded guy.
You see, there are some nail polishes that you wouldn't want to put with others - it would just ruin the whole experience. Some are totally satisfying all on their own. But sometimes you can get one good polish, and two polishes that are only okay together, and suddenly BAM!!

Awwwwww yeah. That's the stuff. There's variety, there's depth, there's sparks, and if you take it outside it's even better.

Just remember, when playing with new nail polishes always use protection - a good base coat will make sure you can have your fun without any nasty surprises hanging around once you're done.

What's wrong with wrinkles?

I decided to do this as a follow up post to the previous review rather than tack it on the end, to make it more likely someone might actually make it through the seemingly endless wall of words.
If you missed it, my most recent review was for Missha Signature Wrinkle Filling BB Cream . Wait, what was that, I hear you say. Is that a wrinkle filling cream I paid money for? Why did feminist, outspoken, ballsy me who has so much to say about the unrealistic standards of beauty for women, get a wrinkle cream?
I had to have a good long think about this, because while people who know me in real life might be shocked, this isn't the first time I've picked up anti aging products. Every now and then, I find my reason and conviction slips, and then there is an anti wrinkle eye cream that does nothing but bring me out in a rash taking up space in my bathroom drawer. Why do I do it? What on earth am I thinking?

Firstly, I've realised it's actually not because I think wrinkles look aesthetically bad. Susan Sarandon and the other one have plenty of wrinkles, and I would roll over and beg either of them to take me home. Or both of them... And maybe Lucy Lawless could come too, and kind of direct proceedings and...

And I am getting well sidetracked. The point is I don't think wrinkles look bad on other women. So maybe I just think they look bad on me? I imagine most women are familiar with this kind of doublethink - your friend is gorgeous at a size 16, but if you can't fit into size 12 jeans you're a monster. It's a plausible theory. Only problem is that I know no one but me can see my wrinkles. I sometimes have trouble pinpointing them. Hell, they're not even what could properly be called wrinkles. It would be more accurate to call them crinkles at best.

 

What do you mean you can't see them?

They're right here....

...and here...

...and I had to smile to make these ones actually show up at all.

With photographic proof right there in front of me, it would be ridiculous to try and claim these little folds of skin are anything like wrinkles yet.
Yet.
And there it is, the word that frightens me enough to overwhelm all common sense and cause me to clutter my drawer with stuff I know perfectly well will not do ANY of the things claimed on the jar.
Yet.
They're not wrinkles yet. But they will be. There's nothing I can do about it; the aging of this meat sack that carries around my brain is totally inevitable. It doesn't matter if I still feel seventeen inside - my body knows how old it, and it's just going to keep ticking off those renewal cycles until I run out, and I die.
See, dying is something that happens to other people. Not me - I'm the center of my world, how could I cease to exist? I know intellectually this is nonsense. I will die eventually. Maybe sooner. But trying to wrap my head around the total inexorable inevitably of that dead end that is just waiting tends to bring on panic attacks, so I self soothe with the delusion that it'll be okay, there is some way out it. I don't know what that is yet but there is a way. There will be some medical miracle, some technological breakthrough, SOMETHING. Somehow, I will be saved.
Seeing wrinkles forming, and knowing there is nothing I can do about it brings on the same sort of panic attacks as contemplating my death, because it reminds me that no matter how clever and well read and motivated I am, I am totally powerless against the time bomb embedded in my cells.
So sometimes, I panic and buy placebos. The same sort of delusional self soothing that lets me believe, if only for a moment, that there will be some breakthrough that will mean I don't have to die is the same delusion that leads me to throw away common sense and think that maybe I can make it look like my body is not aging.
I have discovered, however, that not only do these creams not do anything about my crinkles, they also don't do anything to stem the panic.

The same terror is brought on by the fact I have grey hairs now. I remember really vividly when I noticed the first one. I was at work, and so unfortunately had to lock myself in the bathroom until I could stop hyperventilating. I was totally unprepared for how hard the discovery would hit me. I'm a strong, strident feminist with a terrible weakness for older ladies. There was no reason on earth it should have bothered me. But it did. The panic attack brought on by realising I was now a person with grey hairs, and that I could NEVER GO BACK hit me like a blow to the chest. In some ways grey hairs are actually more frightening to me than wrinkles - there are grey areas as to what does and doesn't count as a "wrinkle", but hair is either grey or it isn't. And in some places, now my hair is grey.

I was trying to come up with some sort of conclusion to this mid-life crisis thing, and not having much luck, until I came across a marvelous post over on LoveBrownSugar by a marvellously clever (and stylish) woman. She posits the idea that being happy in your skin involves not finding the specific things  that suit you and sticking with them, but finding the things that remain the same, no matter what else changes.
She writes;

"Feeling beautiful is a process that involves self-evaluation, honesty, and a vulnerability that’s not always easy to achieve. I admit that I don’t love everything about my body, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I believe that I was beautifully and wonderfully made, and no amount of fancy perfume or red-bottom platforms will change that...
I’ve found that trying out new looks makes me appreciate myself in a new way. If I can love myself equally as a brunette or a blonde, with curls or with straight hair, with or without makeup, I’ve learned to embrace beauty that remains the same regardless of other things that change."

I used to really hate having my photo taken, and now that I realise just how much my body changes from month to month, let alone year to year, I really regret that. I'm sorry I don't have a better record of what I used to look like, but not entirely because I think I looked better when I was younger. It's because now I'm older, I wish I had a better pool of resources to call on to find those things about me that remain the same, the physical aspects that define me. I can look back on pictures of when I was five, and ten, and twelve, and see the consistent indicators that really make up me. Not my weight, or a hair cut - but a certain look into my eyes, a certain smile, this weirdly round squishy nose totally at odds with my razor cheekbones; things that I could use to recognise myself anywhere. This is what I have found quells the panic in the end, so much better than creams or surgery ever could. The simple fact that I can look at my face now, and no matter how many wrinkles or grey hairs I get, I still see that tiny girl smiling back at me. She'll die eventually - but we're not dead yet. 

Missha Signature Wrinkle Filler BB Cream Fills Your Wrinkles wWth Bullshit

One of the things that dragged me back into femme and makeup and all this stuff is the emergence of BB Creams in the western marketplace. Apparently this stuff has been floating around Korea for years, but it eventually started trickling through to the western markets, where it's popularity promptly exploded once a certain critical mass of adulation among the "right" people occurred. To be honest, I find the excitement over it being a "foreign", "exotic" product kind of tacky. The way some people talk about them, it comes across like our neighbors in the mysterious East have been hiding beauty secrets in the sleeves of their kimonos, away from prying Western eyes, which makes me uncomfortable to say the least.
So why am I dabbling with this stuff at all? Most of the reports of it being a "miracle" product base this claim on the idea that it will replace your toner, primer, foundation, concealer blah blah etc to infinity, which of COURSE you are already using. And now you can just use one thing!! As someone who has virtually no interest in using any of these things on a regular basis, this hardly seems like a miracle. However, it is an appealing option between "proper" makeup (which takes way too long to do every day) and just eyeshadow and mascara (which looks adequate, but takes two seconds).
The factor that really convinced me to dip a toe into the confusing, seething, morass of choice that is BB cream was just one simple ingredient - sunscreen.
Australia is a bright fucking country, and I am extremely pale. I also have a ton of moles, and a history of cancer in the family - I really REALLY should wear sunscreen. But, at the risk of sounding pathetic, I don't because it feels ooky on my skin. It's all greasy and/or sticky, and it makes my hands greasy and/or sticky and it makes me all shiny and gives me pimples. Well, maybe. It might. I know, I know, I'm a sook. So this is why I started looking into BB Creams - because I am a total sook about sunscreen, I really should wear it, and these apparently have SPF as well as looking pretty. So you know, why not?

Well, for starters, because there are approximately a BILLION different brands, and that's just if you're restricting yourself to the Korean formulas. I chose to do this because my skin is actually pale enough to match the Korean idea of "pale", and from hanging around forums of serious makeup people I got the impression the Korean formulas offer more in the way of actually making your skin look better. If I'm going to spend five minutes of my precious morning wakefulness putting goop on my skin, I want to at least make a visible difference.
If your skin is anything warmer than Goth White, you're going to want to investigate the Western BB creams, because despite the claims that the Korean brands "match" your skin, I think this is an enormous lie.
I ordered a bunch of samples from Ebay, which seems to be the most cost-efficient way to go about this sort of experimenting. No matter how many reviews you read, you can never tell how something is going to actually sit on your skin, and there is way more variety of formula between different brands than I would have ever guessed. Some are like water colour paints, some are thick and dense like expensive hand cream, and there are others that are every gradient in between. The only thing to keep in mind when messing around with these is that they're not meant to be a proper foundation - none of them will cover every little tiny pore and speck and look "properly" made up - it's not what they're designed for. They're designed to make you look like you've had a little bit more sleep than you have actually had, and that your skin is actually a teeny bit more "perfect" than it is.
I have come across some that I actually really liked, that look almost as good as doing the whole primer-concealer-foundation-powder dance - but today I want to talk about one I hated. Missha make some great stuff, but their Missha Signature Wrinkle Filler BB Cream is going straight into my Bullshit Bin.

The sample packet looks like the full size bottle! How sickeningly cute!!

You can get this stuff quite easily on Ebay, and Sing-Sing-Girl not only has a huge range of samples for very small prices, but her shipping is quite fast (for an international order). Plus she wrote a little thank you note and put it in my order, and I am SUCH a sucker for that kind of personal touch. 

I'm not going to do photos of what it looks like coming out of the packet because, well, I am going to go ahead and assume you can all imagine what a blob of pale pink goo looks like. Instead, here are some pictures of my face with it on.

As I said above, I don't expect this stuff to cover my under eye bags entirely, just make it look like I've gotten a little more sleep than I have. And it more or less did. If I squinted or stood right back, I looked a teensy bit less blotchy. Maybe a little bit moister, what ads would probably call luminous. That's it. Not exactly a life changing experience, and certainly not enough visible difference to encourage me to spend five precious morning minutes putting it on when I could be packing my lunch instead. To be honest, I actually had a little trouble telling the before and after shots apart when resizing them.

The real down side is what happened to it once it had been sitting on my skin for more than ten minutes. Suddenly my face felt all greasy, like when you've been eating hot chips and gotten your hands all smeary and then rubbed your hair out of your eyes. So I get a tissue to get the icky oil off, carefully blotting, not wiping, like the internet told me to. Hurrah, I thought! Oil gone, problem solved.
Then the itching started. Not full on "I am being eaten alive by mosquitoes"  just a niggling, slightly burning itch that came up in the corners of my nose and behind my glasses, where I imagine there was small amounts of sweat mixing with the cream. I figured a tingling itch when damp was probably a bad sign, and pottered off to the bathroom to have a poke around my face.
Imagine my annoyance to discover that not only was the cream now not covering shit, it had actually separated into waves of greasy chip oil, leaving gritty little sandy bits in their wake. GROSS, GROSS, GROSS, GEDDITOFF!

Calm down, I thought. It's just worn off. You just need to reapply. You remember reading about reapplying. That's a thing that you sometimes have to do with gunk on your face. It's all good. No need to declare this a complete failure yet.
So I patted my face until I had gotten off all the gritty bits I could, and dutifully reapplied. And you know what?

AN HOUR LATER IT WAS EXACTLY THE SAME.

As soon as I got home I scrubbed my face furiously to GEDDITOFF, and later that evening was STILL finding little gritty bits in the corners of my nose.  So I won't be getting any more of that. Not only did it not do anything I wanted it to do, it gave me all the unpleasant side effects of a trip to the beach without the joy of playing in the waves.

INTO THE BIN!!

Can Makeup be Feminist? - In My Head

I came across this fascinating post, that expresses quite a lot of my own sentiments quite eloquently.
I was particularly impressed by this part;

"Now, don't get me wrong. I am not trying to argue that no women should ever wear makeup. I realize that a big part of navigating our way through a patriarchal world involves choosing our battles. It's not the makeup itself I have a problem with. There's nothing inherently oppressive about cosmetics. It's the fact that makeup (along with thinness, hairless bodies, smooth skin, styled hair, fitted clothing, shorter clothing, low-cut clothing, accessories, purses, uncomfortable shoes, etc.) are considered a requirement for women. These are all components of an entrenched system of compulsory femininity for those members of our society who are born without penises."

As I said in my opening rant, feminist=choice for me, always and forever. If you want to wear makeup, wear makeup. If you don't want to, don't. In my idea of an ideal world, it wouldn't make any difference to the way you are perceived. As this blogger points out, there is nothing inherently oppressive about makeup - it's just powders and liquids and chemicals. They are inert. But I do think it's important to be aware of the context in which we use these things, and the contribution that makes to the experience of women as a whole.

There are certain things I do in terms of personal grooming that are very deliberate choices in order to not only contribute to my own comfort, but the comfort of other women.

I shave my legs sometimes, mostly for work, because your average office is not part of my ideal feminist utopia. People will judge me on whether or not I conform to societal ideas of good grooming, and while I wish this wasn't so, I don't feel like I would be proving anything by being unemployed.
But all winter, I don't touch the damn things. I'm lazy, and I hate doing it, and the fur keeps my legs warm, and I live in pants or long socks all winter anyway. Plus, is it just me or are other people capable of shaving the backs of them without cutting yourself? Because I'm really not. I always end up running out the door with a super classy little trickle of blood slowly trailing into my shoes...okay, maybe that part IS just me. So anwyay, by allowing my leg hair it's freedom, I'm contributing to my own comfort.
But I also feel, in some small way, by exposing my boyfriend and my friend and all the people who see my furry legs to the idea that it's not so horrific for a woman to have hair on her legs that I am making a space for other women to make that choice if they want to. I feel like I'm contributing in my own little way to normalising a range of choices for women, by presenting an alternative.

The same thing applies to my pubic hair - sometimes I get it into my head to go and get it all off, because it feels nice and it's an interesting change. But if anyone was to ever try and tell me I didn't have the choice to grow it back again, they would get a faceful of rage. A lot of the time, I refuse to acknowledge the ridiculous notion that pubic hair is gross and somehow "dirty", and I leave it how it's more comfortable for me - totally untouched. Not only is it obviously less work to maintain, and you don't get any nasty little ingrown hairs (which, unlike natural pubes ARE genuinely gross) but I actually really dig playing with the tufts. There's something deeply comforting about wrapping it around your fingers - something like how I imagine holding your balls is for guys. But I also feel that by exposing the people I sleep with to a natural bush, I am little by little exposing people to the idea that's actually okay, and thereby creating a space where other women have the same choice.

HOWEVER.

I also don't think the women who DO choose to subscribe to these habits for whatever reasons of their own are directly contributing to the ongoing patriarchal oppression. If they do it because it makes them happy, and comfortable, then whatever, it's none of my fucking business. If they're doing it because they feel like they're not attractive unless they do, I feel sad that they don't like themselves more. But making them feel bad about "giving in to oppression" and shaving their legs isn't going to make them feel any better, to my mind. 
At the end of the post I referenced here, there was an anon comment that I thought was quite sad.

"Ugh! I am so sick of these internet articles that discuss feminism but never give a conclusion! It's like 'Here's our patriarchal problem, but sorry, we don't have an answer for you. Just keep being miserable and confused. Cool.' I need answers! Insight! Something!"

As usual,someone more eloquent than me has gone and expressed my answer to this plea for insight for me.

"The point of feminism isn’t to proclaim how women should be. In fact, that’s the opposite of feminism. Feminism is about people choosing for themselves, without societal, familial or any other pressures getting in the way."
 
This is my conclusion - do what makes you happy. If you want to wear makeup, wear it. If you don't, don't. Shave your legs, shave your pubes, shave your hair. It's your body, and you have every right to wear it however you want.
If we all make an effort to unpack our motivations, and then stand by what truly makes us happy, then we open up choices for everyone. Which sounds pretty feminist to me.

OPI Review - I'm Not Really A Waitress, I'm A Whore

"I'm Not Really A Waitress" is apparently the best selling OPI colour ever, and I have some thoughts as to why that might be later. First, review time!

OPI is a relatively "premium" nail polish brand - I've seen it sold in brick and mortar stores here in Sydney for between 25 and 30 dollars, which I consider wildly exorbitant. If you scout around online, you can find plenty of places selling them for a little under 20, but that's still too much for me to spend on a little bottle of paint for my nails. I came across the charmingly named My Beauty Halls who are selling them for 10 per bottle, which is much closer to what I would consider reasonable. If it makes any difference to you the owner of the store assures me these are all absolutely genuine OPI - but if you're reading this blog, you probably care as little as I do.
While 10 is a heck of a lot better than 30, it's still a bit more than I would usually spend, so I was interested to see if it actually was any different to the 3-5 dollar bottles I have previously invested in.

Here it is, in artificial light and natural light. I tried to get how perfectly Red it is, but that kind of shade detail can be pretty hard to capture. I used a base coat, three layers of polish, and a quick dry top coat - I'll be putting more details about what top and base coat I use in another post.

My overall verdict is a reservedly positive one. This does indeed go on noticeably more evenly, and smoother than cheaper polish. The colour has a lot of depth to it, which I really appreciate over the cheaper ones I used to use. One of the reasons I stopped bothering with nail polish is that a lot of the cheap ones end up looking like you've slathered acrylic paint on your nails - just flat, shallow colour. This one looks deep and shiny, kind of like a very thin layer of red molten glass on your nails. If you look carefully at the top picture you can see how the light refracts out of the polish like glass. It's quite fascinating, and really bloody distracting when you're trying to type. My workload is going to go to shit when my holographic polishes arrive.
However, it's still a little thinner than I would like. It needed three coats to make the colour really come out, and to get that look of depth, and I don't know that I would always be bothered with that many coats. I'd much prefer something that only takes one or two.
Is it worth 30 dollars? Lord no. This is in no way so much superior to the polishes you can get for under 10 that I think anyone should pay that much for it. Is it worth 10? I say, a little begrudgingly, yes. As much as I would like to say there is no difference, it IS nicer. It goes on easier, it sits more smoothly once you've put it on, and the colour is richer and, well, prettier. Don't spend your last 10 dollars on it or anything, but if you have 10 dollars, and would like something pretty, I don't think you will feel ripped off by this.

IN MY HEAD
Now back to the particular colour. For those of you who haven't heard of OPI before, they have a long standing schtick of naming their polishes with godawful puns. From Austin-tatious to Don't Talk Bach To Me, they have a pun for every possible shade of the rainbow. When I had been running the name of this one through my head, it sounded like the start of a sentence. "I'm Not Really A Waitress....I'm a STAR!" As silly as it might seem, this is kind of how wearing this polish makes me feel - like a star. It's fabulous, and needlessly flashy, and that's exactly why I dig it. But when I told one of my co-workers the name of it, she had an alternative ending to the sentence. "Do they have one called "I'm Not Really A Slutty Housewife?" she laughingly asked. I looked down at my nails and suddenly saw them as she saw them - what I had seen as superstar red, she saw as slut red. Whore red.
"Coooooool", I thought, because I am the kind of person I am. It's not exactly surprising that my co-worker saw this colour as so suggestive - red has been associated with sex for centuries, and more recently,  has been claimed by sex workers and sex worker activism quite specifically - just take a look at the coverage of Red Umbrella Day, a day of protests against violence against sex workers here. Personally I think it's a neat way of reclaiming "whore red" for themselves, as they have reclaimed the word and use it as a term of pride rather than shame.

ANYWAY, I digress. To be perfectly honest, my co-worker probably had no idea of the recent co-opting of red into sex worker rights activism. She was most likely just thinking it looked like the kind of nail polish worn by a lady who has a lot of sex, or would at least like a lot of sex.
This particular shade of red...well, it's Standard Sexy Red. As my boy put it, when a straight guy reads "She was a blonde bombshell with red nails that matched her tight dress", this is the red they imagine. And honestly, I don't think it's that different for women. When I think of Sexy Red, this is what I imagine. And while I might not be able to squeeze into Marylin's dresses, I can at least have her nails.

There are certain accessories and items of clothing that have sociological meaning entrenched - so deeply entrenched most people probably aren't consciously aware of the symbolism, of the train of thought that is set off when you see them. I know, I know, it sounds like I'm over thinking this, but just hang in there and let me explain.

Here is an example of culturally entrenched symbolism - what we can and can't wear to work. There are certain things that are considered inappropriate for a workplace, despite not being particularly revealing, or impractical, but purely because of their inherent cultural symbolism. For men, things like cargo pants and camo print shirts are considered inappropriate in your average office, because they signal that you are not here for business, you're here to wrestle some alligators or something equally physical and butch. For women, the discouraged items not only include clothes that are too casual, like tshirts, but also things that are too sexual. Overly dark eyeshadow, for example, red stilettos, or fishnet stockings. (I previously would have included knee high boots in this list, but I've noticed over the last couple of seasons business women seem to be taking these back - the lace up kind are still out, but straight knee high leather boots seem to be more acceptable than previously)
These things signal to the viewer that you are a woman who would like some sex now please, and this is considered a distracting signal at best when at work. Red nail polish is, in my opinion, one of these culturally loaded things.
(If you're interested in knowing more about how far back this cultural connotation goes, have a look over here at Beautifully Invisible for a fascinating look at the history of red nail polish and it's associations with sex)
Even the particular shade of red has connotations - Standard Sexy Red, like I'm Not Really A Waitress, says that you are sexually available, but that to partake of this sex, you will have to follow the Standard Wooing Practice. Despite my co workers association of this colour with slutty behavior, I think it would more often be read as an expression of sexuality somewhere between a Madonna and a Whore. To me this shade says,  "You can have me, but you will have to work for it because I'm a lady". A darker shade says that not only are you available, but it's probably going to get a bit weird. (Hence why I have almost always gone for darker shades of red. I don't like selling myself as normal when I'm not)
I think that the way this colour sits perfectly in between signalling a Madonna and a Whore is exactly why it's so popular. While there are a certain section of the female population who revel in self identifying as easy (myself included) I get the impression that "Available, with some effort" is a perception many more women are comfortable with.
I don't actually think many people who have bought this polish have gone through this thought process before laying down the cash - I know I analyse things way more than most people. But I bet if you asked people who have bought this why they like it, they will answer because it makes them feel sexy, pretty, attractive. And why does it make them feel prettier than the billion other red polishes? Because the shade is perfect Standard Sexy Red, and it when we look at it, a train of thought is set off that we can't resist, because it's buried deep in our cultural subconscious.

The question of why so many women are interested in expressing their sexuality in such an obvious way is also an interesting one. I wonder if perhaps women are so used to being sexualised that expressing their sexuality has become the same as expressing their sense of self? I know if I am in a situation, particularly at work, that I don't feel like I can express my sexuality I begin to feel quite stifled.
I've noticed now the weather is warming up here that I miss being able to wear low cut tops to work like I could at the brothels. It's partially a question of practicality - I loathe being overheated, and as Jessica Simpson's dad so famously said about boobs like mine, "You can't cover those suckers up." But it's not just that. I miss being able to catch a glimpse of my cleavage in the mirror and say, "Heh," to myself. I miss how sexy it made me feel to be able to show off one of parts of myself I'm completely happy with. And so now I wonder if wearing red nail polish is to other women what excessive cleavage is for me - just a little touch that says, "I am a sexual being". It not even necessarily about attracting specific attention. It's just a way of expressing that you have a sexual side. 

And this is where it gets uncomfortable for me as a feminist. Should I buy into this deliberate signalling? Is that not simply supporting a patriarchy that says I have no value but to be sexually attractive, by wearing such a "standard" trapping of traditional straight female sexuality? Is wearing this colour, knowing that it is loaded with sociological implications not implicitly saying, "I agree with all the connotations that come along with this?"
I can certainly see this argument  - it's one that part of my brain uses on me quite often.

But isn't not doing something I like because of the patriarchal interpretation of it just another way of letting them limit my choices? I'd love to be able to say that I reject these signals entirely, and only like this polish because I'm fond of this particular shade of red for purely aesthetic reasons. There are shades of polish I have where this is completely true - but this is not one of them. I would be lying if I tried to tell you that the inherent implications weren't part of why I like it so much. I like wearing something that signals "Sexy". It makes me more confident, and feel more powerful. Which, honestly, probably makes me a bad feminist. I know I shouldn't place any of my self esteem in such a ridiculous system of cultural implications that is based in traditional morality that has no bearing on my life whatsoever, being as I am poly and queer. But here we are. Sometimes, I like to feel pretty.

I'd love to get feedback from anyone who has read this far, particularly on what you would like to see in upcoming posts. Because otherwise I'm just going to keep ranting :)

Let's begin...

This is going to be quite long and thinky, so if that's not your bag you can keep scrolling. I promise pictures of pretty things are next up. But first, some explaination as to what I am doing here, and what I hope to achieve.

So I have been conducting what I call my Experiments in Femme. Someone less pretentious and self absorbed would probably call it "messing around with makeup and nail polish and stuff", but I'm just not that person. I'm incapable of trying something new without analysing the shit out of it, especially when it intersects with feminism and my perception of myself as a feminist.

While in a perfect world, what goop I choose to put on my face would have nothing to do with feminism, the fact is that's not the world we live in. So much of the beauty industry is geared around making women feel there is a narrow, approved set of looks that are considered "beautiful", with no room for fat, pimples, wrinkles, or heaven forbid, visible pores. As the sort of feminist who has always been very into the idea that feminism=choice, this naturally pissed me off, and gave me a pretty poor opinion of all the trappings of mainstream beauty. Why should I spend an hour fucking with my hair? I'm an interesting, intelligent, capable person, why should it matter if you can see my pores? To hell with that, I'm going to go read a book.

At least, that was part of it. Another part was that I was hella poor for a long time, and girly stuff is expensive.

But here is the part I have only just unpacked that might piss some people off. To preface, I would never presume to speak for any woman but myself - my reasons are almost certainly not your reasons. But I want to share this all the same.

I felt like being pretty, being girly, being into "all that stuff" wasn't for me. I don't mean it wasn't for me in the sense that it wasn't something I was interested in - I saw it more as something I was not allowed. Like vinyl hotpants, and that super hot guy/girl at the bar, looking pretty wasn't for me. It was for those other girls. The pretty ones. The skinny ones. The normal ones. The ones who can put nail polish on without getting it all over their fingers.* The ones who can walk in heels without falling over. It wasn't for me.
I felt like you have to make a choice between being smart and interesting, and messing with all that makeup stuff, and the results I have drawn in the genetic lottery seemed to have made that decision for me. The most expensive concealer in the world wasn't going to make my teeth straight, and a perfect manicure wouldn't make me any less fat. There didn't seem to be any point trying to push my way in to something that wasn't for me. Better to stick to the things I knew I was good at - being opinionated, reading, talking too much.

By the time I got up the nerve to actually try makeup beyond the heavy eyeliner every Goth can do in her sleep, I was old enough that I felt stupid asking questions about how to use this stuff. I had also surrounded myself with people who weren't interested in being particularly femme, so I didn't even have anyone to ask - not to mention the amount of times I had ranted about stupid, self absorbed girly girls who were into "that stuff". In my efforts to push away this femme thing that made me feel so lacking, and so other, I had inadvertently backed myself into a corner.

So I told myself I didn’t care anyway, and gave up on "girly stuff" for a long time. I would occasionally try some nice purple nail polish, but it would always go everywhere and chip like crazy. I'd try a lipstick every now and then, and get sick of reapplying it within twenty minutes. Every time I tried it just reinforced the idea that it wasn't for me anyway.

Then I started doing reception in the sex industry. Suddenly girly stuff was everywhere. All the girls wore makeup, and I was expected to do the same. From this series of jobs, I learned two things. One, that what you have on your face and how nice your nails are have much less bearing on what's inside the skin than I thought. I met intelligent, well read, feminist women who also had amazing manicures and gorgeous underwear. I began to consider that perhaps naive, judgemental 18 year old me might have been wrong about femmes, or "girly girls" as I would always refer to them. Some of the women I met did "girly stuff" for themselves, to feel pretty. Most of them, considering where we were all working, used it as a tool, and I found that fascinating. Doing their eyeshadow well and having a killer lipstick made them so powerful, and I found that intoxicating. So I asked them to teach me, and that's the second thing I learned - how to do makeup that suits me well, quickly, and have it last all night. The sex workers I met had a very practical approach to make up that I hadn’t encountered before, and it rocked my perception of femme. I had thought wearing makeup naturally involved endless fussing with it, and changing all the colours to match the seasons, and honestly, it sounded like way too much fucking effort. (Of course, this kind of fussing makes some women really happy, and more power to them. I am just inherently too damn lazy) But there is no point wearing fluorescent eyeshadow that doesn't suit you in a brothel just because it's fashionable. The guys don't give a damn if it's on trend or not - if it suits you, if it works for you, then go with that. To hell with fashion. Now that was an approach to makeup I could get behind. They also taught me how to apply foundation etc so it lasts for hours, and when you are as lazy as me, that makes the whole thing way more attractive.
But still, on the whole, while I dabbled and enjoyed dressing up for work, once I left the industry I went back to feeling like it wasn't for me. I convinced myself I'd never really been interested, it was just something I did for work, just a tool to fit in. The women I had worked with could pull off being perfectly made up and intelligent, but I still felt like my imitation wasn't fooling anyone. I felt like a butch in a bad femme costume, and so I gave up again. I still had the nice high end foundation I'd bought, and one or two nail polishes, but I couldn't bring myself to investigate makeup further unless it was for work. I still felt like I wasn't allowed to be interested in makeup because I wanted to look pretty. I was still carrying with me the adolescent idea that putting on lipstick was betraying feminism somehow, and without my inspiring role models around anymore, the idea just got stuck in my brain and festered.
So what's changed?

Honestly, this is what I am still trying to figure out. I was so embarrassed about getting back into femme stuff that I didn’t even mention it to my boyfriend until I'd been researching for a couple of weeks. Then a couple of weeks after that, I tentatively mentioned it to my friends. So far the feedback has been largely accepting, which is nice. No one has pointed and screamed "Fraud!" at me yet, which certain unhelpful sections of my brain did actually think might happen.
But I think my biggest encouragement to embrace my femme side has been the internet. Through blogs and communities, I've realised makeup isn't just for pretty people. It's not just for shallow people. It's for whoever damn well wants it. I've seen a glorious parade of women taking things that I would have considered "not for" them. The fat activism community naturally has been a big part of this. I love seeing fat women wearing bikini's leggings, three quarter length cargo pants - I love seeing them taking back things I long ago dismissed as "not for me". But I was surprised to find a huge amount of inspiration in the nail community. The proportion of prominent bloggers and opinionistas with physical disabilities in the nail community is intriguingly high, and I love the idea of women who can't get out of bed on a regular basis being able to do their nails and feel pretty, all for themselves. If they can't leave the house regularly, you would think that makeup, and nail polish would be not for them - I mean, what's the point if the public in general doesn't see it?  But these bloggers have said to hell with that, and taken it anyway. And I think that's fantastic.

So that's my justification for starting a beauty blog, while still being a mouthy feminist. I don't think that makeup will change the world, and there is nothing ever that will hide your pores. But some things do make me feel like a look little but better, and that makes me a little bit happier, and I want to see if I can share that feeling around. I'm not going to encourage you to buy a million products, because as well as being a mouthy feminist I am also enormously lazy, and a total tightarse when it comes to money. No mascara could ever, EVER be worth fifty dollars, to my mind. Not ever. Not even if it magically added extra eyelashes and changed the colour of your eyes with a snap of your fingers...okay, MAYBE then. The point is that I want to give practical, honest advice. Some things are worth a couple of dollars extra, most are not.

This blog will be broken up into the following "streams", if you will.
IN MY HEAD - Posts which are largely my pseudo philosophical ramblings.Unlikely to contain any actual reviews, but plenty of opinions on intangible things like feminism, self esteem, fatshion, women in the media, etc etc. 
ON MY HANDS - Review time! I'm currently falling deeply in love with all sorts of glorious nail polishes, and would like to share the wonders I have discovered. I'll also be attempting to do as many Absolute Beginner Guides as possible, aimed at people who have never touched nail polish in their lives, rather than the usual tutorials that assume you at least know SOMETHING about it.
ON MY FACE - More reviews, of things which go on my face.As with On My Hands, I will also be trying to focus on real Absolute Beginner stuff - what kind of skin do you have and how do you find that out? How few products can I possibly use before going to a job interview and still look presentable? Stuff like that.
SHOW YOUR WORKING - Posts in which I investigate various aspects of the beauty industry - how are wrinkles formed, is DPB in your nail polish really a big deal, can a furiously expensive appliance REALLY make your skin younger...things like that. Basically my attempt to apply some common sense to an area that is frequently overrun with hysteria.

I want to encourage anyone who doesn't know who to ask, or what to ask about makeup, to ask me. I want to support the idea that anything you want can be for you - just because your favorite pants are cargo jeans two sizes too big doesn't mean you can't fall in love with a glittery polish and wear it proudly. In fact, I think that would look badass.
In other words, there is very little I will tell you that you MUST do when it comes to makeup, nail polish, all this stuff. But I am an obsessive researching nerd, and I have all this knowledge in my head, and if sharing it helps someone feel prettier, then I am happy to share. 



* Secret I have discovered by the way - NO ONE can put nail polish on without getting it everywhere. Just FYI.