Head Gravy

There’s this whole idea about ‘dry shampoo’ that I don’t really get. If your hair is oily and you put this product (typically cornstarch) on it to absorb the oil, what happens when you use a flattening iron or hot rollers? You’re going to show up at work or on your date or wherever explaining, “I don’t know what happened! It stewed into some kind of sauce or something!” and I don’t think that is going to be particularly attractive compared with the other option of just washing your hair the way god intended.

It’s True What They Say: Bitches Be Crazy

The other day I opened a drawer in my vanity table and realized that the skin-care industry has me completely reeled in. Check this out:

Unreasonable.

 

That is eleven different products that either moisturize, protect, or improve the quality of my skin. That is, none of these products are used for cleaning. In fact, one of those products is even for skin AND hair. (It’s “treatment oil”. Whatever that means–I don’t know what it’s treating. Now, trying to understand this little niche of insanity, I began remembering how and why I decided to buy each of these. Sunblock is understandable. Wanting a sunblock that also moisturizes is also understandable. But I remember buying THIS, and this is a different story:

This I bought because I read somewhere that Mirande Kerr swears by it. On some level I must have been thinking that since Miranda Kerr is very beautiful and Miranda Kerr uses rosehip oil on her skin, if I use rosehip oil on my skin, I will become as beautiful as Miranda Kerr. Turns out 1) Nope. And 2) Nope.

Two other products I bought, this:

And this:

I bought out of mere confusion. What is “firming cream” for nighttime actually doing for my skin? What, exactly, is it firming? I wasn’t sure, so then I bought the “night recovery cream” before I realized that OMIGODTHISISNOTRATIONALBEHAVIOR.

When my husband got some badly dry skin around his eyes he asked me for “moisturizer”, which, as you can see, is not an easy thing to pin down. Does rosehip oil moisturize? Is that what it’s for? I wasn’t sure. When I devolved into a crazy lady juggling little pots and tubes and jars, he simply went to the drugstore and came back with this:

That’s not just lotion. It’s not just moisturizer. That is body AND face lotion IN ONE. It tackles dryness in 15 seconds. It makes your skin healthy and resilient, which is all I was ever after! And if I had known that a product like this existed, I would never have spent so much money on other dubious ointments and creams that I’m not even sure about what they actually do.

But this product does exist, they have just hidden it from us in the men’s grooming product aisle, rightly assuming that men are less crazy than the bitches who will buy just about anything if you advertise it next to a picture of Miranda Kerr.

The conclusion of all this superficial preponderance is this: bitches may be crazy, but we did not start out that way. You all did it TO us.

Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That……

With my daughter, I hesitate to tell her too often how pretty she is. I guess a part of me just doesn’t want her to ever think that’s all she is, or necessarily something she has to be.  I mentioned this to my mother, who laughed and said, “you’ll have to tell her she’s smart, too!” This is more in the vein of what I wanted, but didn’t quite fit the bill. Instead, I find myself (a truly guilty, self-critical person) telling her over and over all day that she is a good girl. If a person can just be good, everything else is a bonus.

Anyway, today my older son–who is dead set on becoming a chemist–was telling Fae how pretty she is. Which is fine; it’s not his job to do anything but show affection in his own way, except that he then looked up and said, “Hey! She could grow up and go to beauty school!”

Well, I wasn’t sure how to answer that without a) discouraging him from saying nice things to his sister b) having to make a long speech, the nature of which would have highly annoyed me and c) making it sound like anyone going to beauty school is a bad thing. After about three seconds I finally came up with, “Hey! You could, too!”

I hope I made my point with him without sounding didactic.

At any rate, whenever I think of beauty school I always think of this:

Top 10 List: Marketing & Me

Top 10 Things Marketing Departments Seem to Believe About Me:

10. I want to see a movie about a crippled dolphin. Really bad.

9. I think men are idiots, especially after they become husbands. And any time my husband calls me “honey,” he is about to prove that I am very smart while he is barely smart enough to figure out how to use toilet paper.

8. I only want to wear lipsticks with names involving foods. Cosmetics marketing departments believe I am so confused about the purpose of lipstick that sometimes I just chew on my lips when I need a snack. Here are the lipsticks I own right now: Pecan Pleasure, Real Raisin, Fabulous Fig, Really Raisin (because the Real Raisin want raisiny enough), Saucy Sangria aaaaaaaaaand.  .  . Unlimited Raisin. Because Really Raisin was holding me back.

7. The only places I encounter non-caucasian people is at trade schools and maybe Kaiser Permanente.

6. I’m searching for a more efficient way to get caffeine into my bloodstream. In fact, I’d appreciate caffeine coming in some sort of powder form that I could just snort.

5. I feel much safer in the world when I buy products with pink packaging.

4. I’m not happy with my mascara unless it comes blasting out of my face. For serious. It needs to “blast.” Or, like, “millionize.” No matter what, I will accept no less than extreme hyperbole where my eyelashes are concerned. I’m not sure when mascara was invented, but ever since that day mascara has been “tripling” coverage over any previous brands of mascara. They are lengthing. They are strengthening. They are emboldenizing and extenderating. Thanks to cosmetics manufacturers and Lady Gaga, falsh eyelashes have also blasted the records of previous, not-as-blasting eyelashes. Falsies have been furred and feathered. What’s left? Someone please tell me what the final frontier of eyelashes is going to be.

3. I still haven’t figured out how to work my period yet. I’m so confused and down about my period that I need little pep-talks from my tampon packaging. Literally, the brand of tampons I use have “Go for it!” and “Grrrl power!” and “Reach for the stars!” and “If you like it, say: ‘Go big red! Go! Big! Red!” printed on the wrapper. Well, okay. That last one was just from high school. But those other things ARE TRUE.

2. I am so easily pleased that everything from Milano cookies to disposable mops will send me into paroxysms of joy ranging from mere sexual excitement to stark raving lunacy. However, I suppose it’s a good thing that my sex drive is sated so easily because most nights my stupid, stupid husband hasn’t yet figured out how to unlock the bathroom door and come to bed before I fall blissfully asleep.

1. The number one mistake marketing departments are making is assuming that they can play to my hopes and dreams. Puh-leeze. I stopped having hopes and dreams years ago. At this point in my life, my number one hope is that my kid gets through one week without going to the principal’s office. And the recurring dream of my adulthood has been a dream that I am scrubbing the shower. NO, SERIOUSLY. That is the whole dream. Nothing happens in that shower except that it gets cleaner. Nobody comes in and kills me, or sexes me up. The dream is just me, scrubbing. And I don’t feel like that hope and that dream are anything a credit card company can help me with.

Now. Did I miss anything?