A six year old harlot or a victim of PC insanity, you decide...

I've seen a lot of scary things when I've been out shopping ... those mounted fish that sings "Take Me To The River" comes to mind ... but I always get an extra special case of the shivers when I see those god awful clothes they're trying to sell little girls these days.

Seriously, what sort of an eight year old needs a padded bra?  Or a lace teddy?  Or a g-string with "Naughty" on the front?

The sexualisation of kids has definitely gotten worse over the last few years.  Kids are encouraged to want to wear these things that no one would have dreamed of dressing a child in when I was little.  It's really no wonder we're all erring a little on the conservative side when it comes to children's clothing.

But I have to say, I think the school officials who called this six year old girl's parents to complain about her clothing being too "revealing" might have gone a tad overboard.

Apparently the school thought that her Hello Kitty outfit was too revealing, claiming that the length of the shorts were in breach of the school's dress code.  Her parents were, understandable I think, confused.  The girl was wearing leggings underneath them, and had actually worn the same outfit to school before without any complaint.

If their problem was with the length of the shorts, well I can say that I wore them just as short when I was her age, but I would never have said there was anything questionable about the clothes my mother dressed me in.  


Take, for example, this picture of me when I was about five (with my brother).  That skirt is just as short as the little girl's in the article.  Would you consider what I'm wearing to be inappropriate? Is there really that much of a difference between her outfit and mine?

There's a big difference between kids clothes that are short and kids clothes that are inappropriate.  There wasn't anything provocative or sexual about that little girl's outfit.  Nothing that screamed 6 going on 30.

So go take a look for yourselves.  Do you think her outfit is too risque for a six year old?  Do you think the school was overreacting?  Do you think Hello Kitty shorts will soon be joining Big Mouth Billy Bass as an inappropriate and tasteless thing to display in public?

But most importantly ... didn't I look awesome in that little blue dress?  Damn, I was a cute kid!

Thigh high boots are never a good look...

I've never really understood the whole footwear fetish thing that so many women obsess about.  I'd be just as happy to go barefoot for the rest of my life, perhaps unbending enough for a nice pair of Ugg Boots in Winter.

But even I can admit a fondness for a nice pair of knee high boots.  Sure, a few years ago if you went out in public wearing a pair of them everyone assumed you were a streetwalker, but now they're commonplace.  Every girl and her granny owns a pair.

Thigh high (or maybe I should say crotch high) boots, however, aren't so readily accepted.

So I have to wonder what on earth possessed the woman I saw today to wear a pair of thigh high black leather boots to work?  Did she honestly wake up that morning, look in her shoe closet and say to herself  "Hmm, I think I'll wear these whopping great boots that go all the way up my legs so I might as well be wearing a pair of leather pants. Good idea!"

The scary thing was the rest of her outfit looked relatively normal. Sure, her skirt was maybe a tad shorter than most would choose, but I suppose it was all the better to show off her horrendous boots. If she'd been wearing any other footwear I probably wouldn't have even noticed her.

I suppose that's the problem. She wanted people to look at her. Obviously starved for attention. Maybe she's a middle child, grew up without parental approval or acknowledgement. She's obviously projecting her inner child and it's search for attention in her clothing.

 Or maybe she just likes dressing like that.  Meh, what do I know, I only did one semester of psych, and I managed to fail it.

I'm not normally critical of what people wear. As far as I'm concerned, you can go out wearing a sugar sack and I probably wont even notice. But I must say, I really don't think anyone should wear boots like that.

Well, unless they're a Dominatrix ... or possibly going trout fishing.

How girlie can you get...

I've never really considered myself a girlie girl.

I mean, I'm definitely feminine about most things, I hardly ever wear pants and I rarely go out without make up on, but I'm not really interested in a lot of things that other women are.

I don't shop, I don't like shoes, and women's fashion magazines give me the heebie jeebies, so I'm sure you can see why I've never considered myself to be overly girlie. I'm just a down to earth, honest to goodness, no holds barred, woman.

Then the contents of my bathroom came to slap me on the butt.

I was in there this afternoon looking for something when I realised the awful truth.  As I was rummaging through the medicine cabinet it struck me ... I've got enough beauty products in there to poison a small elephant.

I have no less than seven, count them, seven different types of gel, mousse, and spray, just for styling my hair.  There's one gel to get rid of the frizzies, another to add texture, and another to add body. There's a spray to condition and another to detangle and a third to hold. Finally there's a mousse that miraculously claims to cure split ends. I'm not sure if it actually does, but it sure sounded convincing on the ad.

Needless to say, I should probably avoid open flames.

It scared me a little, I do have to admit. I've never considered myself to be overly obsessive about my looks, but it's hard not to wonder when you realise you have five different types of moisturiser in your bathroom, and you actually use them all.

I added up the total cost of all the stuff in the cabinet, and it came to well over five hundred dollars. That's a lot of money, especially when you consider that none of these items are what you'd call essentials.  But I'm only human!  They all promised to do all sorts of black magic and jigerypokery and make me look pretty and young!

Yeah, I know.  Marketer's dream, standing right here.

Maybe I should just accept it, I'm thirty mumble years old and looking the dreaded 40's in the face.  I guess for the rest of my life I'm going to be buying beauty products that promise to make me look younger, prettier, more alive and energetic.

Then again, maybe I'm approaching this all wrong.  If I just saved all the money from the creams and lotions and sunk it into a long term deposit ... I could probably afford all the plastic surgery I want when I turn 60.

And this, my friends, is why my blog will never be fashion/beauty tip themed...

So today when I looked in the mirror I noticed my face was looking a little blotchier than normal.  Nothing too extreme, I mean I didn't suddenly feel the need to call Disease Control and warn them about an outbreak of flesh eating bacteria, but given that it was a Sunday and I had no plans to go anywhere, I thought it might be a good excuse for a little self-pampering.

My pampering of choice?  To try an aspirin and lemon juice face mask that Dr Oz had waxed poetical about online.  I had the ingredients and the time, what could it hurt?

Yeah, I probably should have just stuck to grabbing a Cornetto from the freezer if I wanted to treat myself so badly.

Rather than try to explain how it went, I think a step by step is in order.  So here you go!  Feel free to follow along if you have the ingredients ... although I wouldn't recommend it.

1. Grab six uncoated aspirins and one lemon.
2. Mash up the aspirins with a mortar and pestle ... or if you're me, with the handle of a screwdriver you find lying next to the TV unit.
3. Mix the powdered aspirin with the lemon juice until it creates a paste, then smear it all over your face.  
4. Try not to panic, it's supposed to look like that.
5. Restrain yourself from swearing as the lemon juice works its way into all the tiny cuts and blemishes you never even realised were on your face.
6. Give up trying not to swear and let loose with a string of blasphemy that has your neighbours covering their kid's ears and sailors blushing.  
7. Try to distract yourself from the constant stinging with something more pleasant ... like a colonoscopy.
8. Give up waiting for it to dry completely and rush to the bathroom, submerging your face in the sink and scrubbing away.
9. Scream as you accidentally let the lemon juice run into your eyes.  Didn't think about that, did you, genius!
10. Heave a sigh of relief as the stinging finally abates ... but be reminded ever few minutes as you keep detecting the faint taste of lemon on your lips.
11. Look in the mirror and realise that, even after all your suffering, there doesn't seem to be a damned bit of difference in your skin tone.
12. Go to the freezer and grab a Cornetto to console yourself with.  

And this, kids, is why this blog will never become fashion/beauty tips themed.  I really should know better by now.

And shame on you, Dr Oz!  Shame!

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.