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@scousebirdprobs
Liverpool
Scouse bird with a vodka dependency and an acute sense of social observation. Always self deprecating, always blunt. Follow me on twitter WARNING: Non-scousers may not understand language of this blog.
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Saturday 23 February 2013

The moment I wake up - my love affair with makeup



Some people are shoe people, some people are bag people. I like shoes and I like bags but my great love affair is with make up. It’s getting to the point where I really think I missed my calling in life as a MUA. Imagine just doing make up all day every day – heaven!

I have tons of the stuff, everything from Maybelline to Mac, Collection 2000 (doesn’t get used) to Chanel – it’s a luxury I don’t think twice about splurging on. Don’t get me wrong, I was recently almost reduced to tears at how beautiful my friends real Louboutin collection was but the average girl cannot just simply drop a grand on a pair of shoes at a whim – but £50 on a new foundation? No problem! It’s the designer gear we can all afford, at least every now and again. Every girl should feel the buzz that comes from strutting through town with an array of designer bags on her arm (in the crook of the elbow of course). Grey Goose lifestyle on a handbag vodka budget.

I’ve been to get my make up done professionally a couple of times and I know people I can rely on to do a fantastic job but truth be told I very rarely get my make up done by a ‘trained professional’ because I ENJOY doing it myself (I say trained professional, the amount of girls now who’ve been to a demo day at the MAC counter and now reckon they’re boss, setting up Facebook business pages with wonky eyes all over the gaff is ridiculous. They look like they take their inspiration from Picasso rather than Peaches). It’s like the adult version of ‘art class’. I get my palettes, my brushes and I can express myself on a blank canvas. Do I want natural (answer normally no), dramatic, gothic, 50’s, glamorous? Do I want it to be all about the eyes or the lips? Do I want glitter (always)? I can let my creative side loose.

As with most things, unless you’re some sort of child prodigy, doing make up well is a skill that needs to be learnt. I remember looking back at pictures of a night out after my first dalliance with black eyeshadow and I looked like Uncle Fester from the Addams family, smackhead eyes I called it. I was scared of black eyeshadow for a long time after that – I’d look at pictures of glamour models rocking the dramatic black look and start shaking and crying in the corner. I never wanted to look that much like a wool ever again.

Probably one of the hardest things to learn (other than sticking your eyelashes on straight and perfecting an even eyeliner flick – which is NOT like riding a bike, you can definitely get rusty unless you constantly practice your technique) is the smokey eye. A few years ago when Benefit released their smokey eye kit, including a handy step by step guide to creating the look, I felt like a mysterious new world had finally been unlocked for me. Their safe, neutral pinks and browns and plenty of practice gave me the confidence and skills required to pull off the smoke well. Now the make up world is my oyster and I’ve developed the 60 second smoke technique (patent pending ha) for having fab Scouse eyes every day - even when you’re late for work. NB Those who are still drawing their eyebrows on wonky need not apply, requires good hand to eye co-ordination.

When MAC first opened in town I was overjoyed, like a Scouse Bird at a footballers party, I was in my element. Everyone soon cottoned onto it though and now I dread going in because I know I’ll have to wait at least 15 minutes while the staff are either serving some wool who doesn’t know her pink from her coral and is gonna look a show no matter how much she buys (you can buy all the make up that MAC can make, but if you look inside you, see you’re a wool through and through, you can accept that you’ll never be a damn scouse fitty), or they’re talking about who’s copped off with who the weekend before “Oh Louise I was a proper sheeeooow yano, I slobbered on his shoulder!” – Listen Louise, never mind that, I want a lippy and I want it NOW! Thank god for Illamasqua opening opposite.

If you ever go to New York one of the things you absolutely MUST experience is make up shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue and Barney’s. I was served by two of the most overly dramatic camp guys I’ve ever met in my life (and I live in Liverpool, the city home to Pink & Garlands) and they had me wanting to buy the whole make up counter, which I very nearly did. “Oh hunny that colour looks FABULOUS on you!! I am sooo jealous! This colour was made for you!” Eyar here’s me credit card, just take it, it’s yours!
Scouse Bird 4 make up 4 eva IDST xx
Sunday 10 February 2013

Marilyn Monroe was NOT a size 16




~I’m all for people having a healthy body image, but there’s one phrase that gets wheeled out at every available opportunity and certified as fact (by people who quite possibly want to make themselves feel better and/or are ill informed) that Marilyn Monroe was a size 16. Let’s face it, she wasn’t. She has curves, I’ll give you that but can somebody please watch ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ or ‘Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend’ and tell me she’s anything but absolutely tiny? I mean she makes Jane Russell look big and you’re not telling me she was a size 20. Come off it.

I’ve seen several experts from the fashion industry say that at some point she may have been a size 16 but that’s much more like a modern day 10-12 and actually for the most ~part she was no more than a size 8. Don’t be holding the woman up as a shining beacon for a healthy bigger body image while you’re stuffing your face with crisps and chocolate and spilling out your Primark leggings. That’s NOT a healthy body at all. You’d have to be about 6’5” or something for a size 16 to be medically healthy – I used to be there and trust me it was not healthy. I’m not suggesting it’s wrong to be a size 16, if you’re there and you’re GENUINELY happy about it, then g’wed girl but that Marilyn would’ve shopped in Evans or Simply Be if she was about today is quite simply…bullshit.

Now don’t think I’m preaching to you from a pair of size 6 skinny jeans, I’m not! I’m pretty tall and normally range between a size 12 to 14 depending on how well I’m doing on the salad graft (and it IS a graft) – I don’t consider myself to be fat. Even when I was 2.5 stone lighter than I am now I was still a size 12, that’s just my frame. It’s taken me many years to accept that, but accept it I have. Don’t get me wrong there are some days when I feel bloated and think I look aesthetically inferior to a sack of spuds but every girl gets that bloated feeling. Norassed, it passes. What I strive to be is in the healthy weight range. I eat right with the occasional fall off the wagon, I used to exercise a lot but I’ve moved house away from the gym (badly need to get back there or join a new one) and it IS a struggle to maintain that balance when there’s scones and kettle crisps and lazy days on the couch calling my name – but I don’t want to get to my mid 40’s and be faced with a plethora of health issues just cos Domino’s keep texting me with their special offers (the bastards). So I graft to be healthy - Every. Single. Day

It seems to be more acceptable now to pick on images of the really skinny and say it’s unattractive but shock horror if someone says it about an overweight person. That's also not attractive because it’s just not how we were designed to look.
~
Size is all relative to height. If I was shorter and kept the same proportions I probably would be a size 8-10…..if someone is a size 16 and really short they ain’t gonna be looking anything like Marilyn Monroe so don’t use that as an excuse to fall down the cakey rabbit hole girlies. If you're not happy with your body then why not make it your goal to get healthy not to starve yourselves to get skeletal or give up and eat yourself into type 2 diabetes. Marilyn Monroe was gorgeous and a stunner, a 50’s version of Beyonce or Kelly Brook – she IS what we should aspire to be - womanly. I saw a twitter user say regarding skinny girls: “Only a dog wants a bone.” And I love that. I’m not saying that everyone MUST get fit and healthy, nor that it’s easy (it’s definitely not) just don’t be using ‘MM was a size 16’ as an excuse to trick yourself into feeling sexy when you’re actually miserable/unhealthy. 

~I think there is a definite, if sometimes imperceptible switch towards a better body image in recent years. We don’t want the unhealthy skinny, nor the unhealthy fat, we want the nice curvy, ‘something to grab’ in between body, and since the Olympics especially, the fit, athletic body. Well pretty much all of us that is, apart from Katie Price – My first thought was ‘You cheeeekkkkkyy bitch!” when she had the nerve to call Kelly Brook a heifer this week. Yes love you may have the hips of an 8 year old child but you’ve got a face like a smacked arse and Kelly is still considered to be one of the most beautiful women in the world. Get back in the kennel Jordan. Soz aba you.

Happy salad grafting girls xx