A passion for fashion...

I've never been what you would call fashion forward.  Honestly, as long as my clothes aren't full of holes or too wrinkled when I leave in the morning, I call that a win.  I have no idea what colours go with what, whether stripes and checks really clash, or which tops look best with which skirts.  As long as I'm decent, everyone else will just have to put up with my lack of style.

I understand the female obsession with shoes even less.  Given a choice I would probably opt to go barefoot all the time.

So this new craze for having foot surgery just so you can wear those exquisitely uncomfortable, albeit cute looking, shoes?  Yeah, I don't get it at all.

I mean seriously, who decides that they'll get their little toe removed because it's messing with their ability to wear a pair of stilettos?  I've seen some cute shoes before, but I don't think I've ever seen a pair I'd be willing to permanently disfigure my feet over.

Still, I suppose it's not the first time we've done something batshit crazy in the name of beauty.  Here are some of some of the weird, terrifying or just plain insane beauty practices the human race has used at one time or another in their attempt to pretty themselves up.

• In order to get their teeth whiter and their breath fresher, the ancient Romans would gargle with urine.  Gross, I know, but apparently the ammonia in it was a good way to kill any dental bacteria.  They imported the urine from Portugal, which has got to be the world's most disgusting trade agreement.  I'm not sure why they didn't save themselves the expense and use their own ... I'm guessing that they thought it'd be weird to gargle with their own urine.
• The ancient Greeks got in on the action too.  Their chosen insanity was to bathe in crocodile dung, which they believed had beautifying powers.  Putting the gross factor aside, you have to feel sorry for the poor guy who got stuck with the job of collecting it.
• In Japan, geisha used to use a paint made of rice flour and bird faeces to whiten their faces.  Personally, I have a hard enough time working up the nerve to clean out my cockatiel's cage, let alone smearing the contents of the tray liner over my face and wearing it around for hours on end.  Jeez, didn't it smell?
• The medieval European's were also into the whole skin-whitening shenanigans but rather than just using something gross they opted to go with stupidly dangerous.  They'd coat their faces with white lead and arsenic powder.  Sure it made them pale, but maybe that had more to do with the fact they were poisoning themselves slowly to death.

It kind of makes you wonder how we managed to survive as a species, doesn't it.