wendy house

I’m a visionary  and I’m not refering to my outstanding collection of eyewear.   Apparantly, according to this visionary philosophy, espoused in Sephora, wearing make-up is optional.    An amazing revalation.   I’ve been a visionary for decades and I didn’t even realise it.   Thanks Sephora for pointing this out.  

No wait!   read the small print.    

Optional make-up  is only legitimate if you have  a skin problem that needs intense treatment.   Darn.   Maybe I’ll have to develop a skin problem to qualify as a visionary… …or a legitimate US female.    

buy

SMART WATER!  

SMART WATER perks up your grey matter and can end random bouts of ignorance and absentmindedness with just one gulp.   SMART WATER.    You know it makes sense.  If you don’t know it makes sense,   you must be stupid so buy SMART WATER now and solve your stupidity.   Give it to your children,   your pets,   your granny…   …we all need a little more smarts every now and then,   you can rely on SMART WATER to solve all your ignorance challenges.  

why purchase only 1 Valentine’s card when you can save by buying and sending  8?

bottles of food supplements, pills, with strange scientific sounding names,  to replace what?   Eating food with silly names like ‘potatoes’, ‘carrots’ and ‘oranges’ of course!    It’s much too complicated for me to work out what I am supposed to buy.  

I think I’ll stick to the ‘produce’.

For a man who’s too ‘macho‘ to wear perfume.    Has someone questioned his masculinity?   He needs to reassert he is not a namby-pamby faggot.   “Daytona 500″ scent of the race-track:  oil; exhaust fumes; gasoline. Daytona 500 for men who like to go round in circles,  getting no-where,  fast:

Alternatively,   if you’ve got twice the cash to splash on drowning his natural scent, simply make him hum.    

Looks like the patriarchy is stepping up to sell masculinity using the same tactics that have been tried and tested selling femininity to females…  

The Star magazine produces a poorly contrived story-line. The before photographs are paparazzi style unposed for shots and the after shots are obviously posed for.   Hardly comparable on the basis of make-up alone.  Is it a wry joke?   Am I really supposed to believe the line or laugh heartily at is shere ridiculousness?        

The headline really needed that excalmation mark,   because the storyline that ‘make-up matters’ is an outrageously shocking, novel, storyline.   So few women have realised that their societal value pivots upon their ability to master the skills of purchasing and applying make-up.   I can’t read this because my failure as a woman both to purchase and master the application of make-up  would be too disturbing to deal with without  expensive therapy sessions.   Adding failure to failure I don’t even have a husband to pay for the necessary treatment.    It’s a virtuous cycle,   no husband, no make-up,   no make-up, no husband.

It would be equally easy for a magazine to construct a story with photographs to prove a point that illustrated the many cases where make-up has virtually no impact or  is even detrimental.   They could even run an uncontroversial  article on the role of make-up in various valuable societal roles,   irrespective of genders,   e.g. Make-up matters for people performing in front of TV cameras or on stages where the audience is more than 10 feet  way.    An article of this nature might at least be worthy of reading.   An extreme stance in the opposite direction would be fun,  for balance, make-up really doesn’t  matter.   An article with this storyline would,   in my opinion, warrant and exclamation mark for providing an alternative valuable viewpoint!   I’d love to see popularist magazines target both male and female audiences questioning their discourses and presenting thought provoking articles that counterbalance dominant views.   Especially questioning the sickeningly dominant view  that female beauty requires maintaining a consumer industry  with a value scheme based on manipulating physical appearance, breast implants, nose sculpting, liposuction and of course piles of make-up for everyone princess.   Challenging the relative value of males and females wearing make-up is just one potentially interesting  article …     .maybe its already been written…

but DON’T PANIC,

With this product I can actually rediscover the skin that I was  born with, that should clear up the red sticky mess nicely.

Now I just need to  get the required  ‘natural sun kissed look’.   Maybe I could try going  outside.  

What do you think?  

Moving south to sunnier climes is too expensive and dramatic as a solution.    The idea of  finding someone called sunny to kiss me is an appealing challenge.     Choosing to be my natural, pasty-white,  skin colour as oppose to artificially constructing an unnatural,  natural, look is also an option.   The default  option.   Too many decisions!

Help

sixth  in a  tea-tonic-tastic Thursday series about taking tiffin with (black) tea  in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #6:  get what you need

The “Republic of Tea” has taken breadth of  tea selection marketing and packaging to new frontiers.   Here’s one of their stands in my local Fridge,   advertising teas to fulfill your health needs:

Fulfulling health needs is a high profile marketing line, discourse,  in the US.   These Teas are advertised for helping you get clear skin, ‘regularity’, sleep, energy and more.   Tea,   the ultimate tonic,   cures everything and comes in a pretty box with a catchy tag line.   Woo…     …how did I resist this?   am I getting what I need without this?  I think so….

Remember that purchasing Tea in NW USA is a complex process where the actual (black) teas can be obfuscated by the fancy marketing ploys.

because

1. they are pretty.
2. they will aid sleep.
3. they relieve allergies.
4. I might get pregnant.
5. they prevent psoriasis.
6. stress is ruining my life.
7. diet failure is not my fault
8. they  lower my blood pressure.
9. they prevent drowsiness at work.
10. my cholesterol level needs controlling.
11. bowel movements  should  be regularized.
12. Primrose oil is more accessible in pill form.
13. they can help me avoid heartburn (acid reflux).
14. my susceptibility to a heart attack will be reduced.
15. everyone else is taking them,  I don’t want to be different.
16. getting  my vitamin requirements from eating food is difficult.
17. my daily milk drink has insufficient calcium to  prevent osteoporosis.
18. I can ‘be myself again’.

Warning:   side effects can include nausea, vomitting, headache, diahrea, muscle ache, reduction in vision, liver problems, skin rash,  water retention, depression and  in rare cases; fatality.  Do not  consume alcohol, drive or operate heavy machinery when taking these pills.    Please consult a doctor before taking these pills.      

I wonder

• whether  ’scientific’ studies adequately  predict  pill cocktail impact?
• what ‘health’ meant before extremely wealthy  drug companies?
• when I will find time to eat between popping pills?

Sanitary protection (UK) isle

Both euphemisms  refer to the social value of ‘cleanliness’ something that traditionally groups with lower social standing own – the cleaning.   The US euphemisim clearly cites this as a female issue.   Women,   cleaning,   clearly acceptable terms to put together.   The name Jenn overheard a female using refers to females in a respectful way  without raising  cleaniliness or anything  that might disturb people who don’t bleed (blood?):   Lady pants.   I suspect lady pants will never catch on as a euphamism because it has too few syllables per word to be sufficiently pretentious for a modern euphamism (e.g. used = previously owned).   Lets  play with  the experience to find a new euphemism.  

This isn’t a hygeine issue because  the blood is fresh.   I don’t like the inference that I have a hygiene problem because I’m  a girl.  Bad marketting.   We could  ’balance’ the names by also having a ‘male hygeine’  isle.   The male  hygiene isle would  contain products for cleaning  spatter from around the toilet (rest room), removing  sperm ejaculated while asleep (wet dreams) with quick sheet drying abilities,   and other  messy stuff  that is male-body-function-specific.    Some wonderful product-euphamisms possible here,   for example,  dry dream wipes.   Rather than add another  set of gender specific hygeine problems to be solved,   lets cut the word hygeine.

This is  a blood-flow management issue.   Management is a much better word more taking control and sorting things out.   To avoid the monosyllabic word blood lets pair management with the technical term – Menstruation.   Ideal.    Lots of syllables,   unintelligible, unpronouncable to the uninitiated (children),   and it start’s with an M.

Menstruation Management isle

They could stock this supermarket isle with pain killers,   stress relief products,  chocolate,  action/violence  DVDs  and bandages for anyone who said the wrong thing to the Menstruator.   With a name like feminine hygeine  the products  do not  sit naturally with the other products that a menstruator might impulse purchase at the same time.   In the US feminine hygeine products are often placed by nappies.   How whacky is that?   It says to me,   this is your place:   clean the messes, have babies and clean their messes.    Not an embodiment of the progressive attitude I’d expect to encounter in North America.   I’m not going to impulse buy some baby pants when I’m suffering from pre-menstrual tension/syndrome.   Shops are missing out on a key marketting opportunity by implying  menstruating women have a  hygiene problem,   not mechandising to leverage female financial independence,  and  offending people like me by forcing me to walk by  baby pants.      

something for the stinker in your life:

hum = verb,   to smell bad.   A ‘hummer’ is something that  emits a bad smell.       How appropriate

solving one of my shopping cunundrums.    How did I resist it’s sparkliness?   Impenetrable packaging helped…

Cummings, the  fragrance  official site. The photographic pun’s on traditional perfume marketing images are worth a look.  The whole site is both professional and gently tongue in cheek.   These qualities have  left me wanting  to try this smell.

Excerpts from Cummings, the fragrance site

“With a name like mine it was made to be sprayed all over people’s body’s, what do you think?” A Cummings

“an assertively masculine combination of bergamot, whiskey, cigar, leather, highland mud, and… condom.”    (Allure)

“Mild. Nice. Not obtrusive” (Martha Stewart)