World’s Worst Press Releases

Some things make me irrationally angry. Like press releases. I often write this rage off though, because at the time of scanning them I am usually hungry/stupidly busy/plain arsey.

I got the below press release on Monday (it was sent to me at work, not via Some Like It Fashion). On reading it I was incensed. But I attributed that to the fact that it was 1:30pm, the rain was hammering down and I’d just spent the last 30 minutes on the phone to a woman who couldn’t grasp that I was not Mary Portas, nor was I in anyway connected with her.

***********************

Paris Hilton drops 5 pounds with the help of Pomegranate Power!

Paris Hilton recently caused controversy with her recent weight gain due to smoking pot and eating too much -they say that “Paris gets stoned all the time” and eats like crazy. She supposedly started noticing that her clothes were tight and decided that she needed to give up the herb if she didn’t want to buy a new wardrobe. Paris became concerned recently because her clothes have been growing tight and she knew she was gaining weight.…when Paris couldn’t get into certain dresses she loved recently, she decided to give up smoking pot. She has taken to giving up pot and training back at the gym & taking the wonder supplement Pomegranate Power (from LA) to detox & get herself back in shape!

***********************

Holy Shoite, I think that may be the crappiest press release I have EVER had the misfortune to read. Even if I weren’t hungry/stupidly busy/plain arsey I would still sentence the author to be put up against a wall and shot with shit. The pomegranate link is tenuous, the repeated mention of pot tacky and on top of that it’s beyond badly written.

Well, another day another poor PR pitch. I’m off to get a chocolate croissant from Pret before today’s onslaught on my in-box begins…

Edith

The image shown did not accompany the press release. I used it for illustrative purposes.

The Modern Eyebrow

Before I get onto the subject of eyebrows, I’d like to start by saying I am really stupid. You see the London College of Fashion Magazine launch I posted about a few weeks ago was nothing of the sort. It was a complete con! A fabulous con complete with canapés and cocktails but a con non-the-less. It turns out that ‘magazine’ was actually code for ‘prospectus’ and I was the only person at the party that didn’t psychically interpret that from the invite. Hurumpf. Anyway, the reason I’m embarrassing myself by telling you this, is that while at this event I had a defining moment in my search for the perfect eyebrow.

For some time now I have been in pursuit of the perfect ‘modern’ eyebrow. An eyebrow that is straight and thick and full. The journey originally begun last summer when I accepted a new job, I still had the harsh words of a make-up artist I was on a shoot with echoing round my head ‘you have very old fashioned eyebrows’. Gawd dammit! I don’t have old fashioned anything if I can help it! So, I let my eyebrows grow for 3 weeks whilst on holiday and had them threaded two days before I started the position. “New job, new shape” was my rationale. The look satisfied me for some time, they were a marked improvement on the dramatic brows that predated them (for which I blame Cosmo and my mam by the way. Both encouraged me to pluck far too young. I lacked experience, style and enough sense to know what I was doing was going to affect my looks for years to come. What resulted was a very Gothic architectural inspired shape that made me look permanently surprised). Eventually though the novelty of my reshaped eyebrows wore off, they were nice enough but they were still no Natalia.

Fast forward a little to the ‘magazine’ launch. I’m having fun, guzzling the free cocktails and sneering at the hoxtonites. No one would guess that I was in the middle of my very own browgate. I was over 6 weeks in. I was growing out my ‘old-fashioned’ shape to make way for the ‘modern’ eyebrow. If you were to sweep my fringe aside you would see the full horror of my situation. I looked (and still look) like I fell asleep in a play-school and was attacked by several million children armed with marker pens and an unusual affinity with Frida Kahlo.

Anyway, it was here while stroking the very in elusive and very long hair on my chin that I had a series of awful thoughts that went something like this – why won’t my eyebrows grow as strong and as quickly as the hair that insists on inhabiting my face? What if they never grow in properly? My eyebrows STILL have baldy patches 6 weeks in! It’s so unfair! I have alopecia of the eyebrow! As I get older I have less hair in the places I want and much, much more everywhere else. Does it simply serve to amuse Jebus that I have now have hairs in random places like my big toes? (Did I just grim you out there? I grimed myself out a little).

The panic settled in. I tried to disguise it by eating mini toad in the holes but that didn’t work because some fucking genius decided to put horseradish on them. HORSERADISH ON PORK? Heathens. Panic was swiftly replaced by nausea and I was forced to put my thinking cap on just to distract myself. What should I do? What should I do to remedy this pickle I had found myself in?

And so I came up with a plan of action complete with contingencies if the unspeakable should happen and my eyebrows *gulp* remain sparse. Firstly, I set a deadline. I would give my eyebrows until just before my birthday to right themselves and if nothing had changed then I would have them threaded to as thick a shape as possible and move onto plan B. Eyebrow thickening products. If they won’t grow, I’ll just buy the hairy beasts!

My birthday is now less than three weeks away. And in case I need to resort to emergency action I’ve been trying as many products as possible i.e. as many as my job will allow me to call in without being fired. They range from the very cheap to the inordinately expensive. And being a kind, generous, helpful person I am sharing the best 3 with you:

Lancôme high precision eyebrow pencil: The colour lasts all day and is surprisingly natural. Many eyebrow pencils (Chantecaille’s included!) can give your eyebrow an orange tinge and Lancôme manage to avoid that landmine.

Shavata heart shaped tweezers: Tweezing your eyebrows into a strong shape can make them look thicker. These tweezers are part of a mini kit that includes a mirror with 5 x magnification. Perfect for plucking! What I really love is the compact size and the kitsch design. The squeals my friends make when I pull this out of my handbag are unreal. My only gripe is that trying to get the tweezers out of the compact can be a bit fiddly.

Talika eyebrow extender: This is my favourite product by far. You sweep the head along your brow, it leaves fibres that mimic your eyebrow and create the illusion of thickness. Aye carumba! It’s quite addictive, that’s the only problem. Like pringles. Once you pop you can’t stop. And if you apply too much your eyebrows become hard and glossy. A great product if you can show restraint!

So there you go. I have shared my knowledge. If I can save just one person from going through what I have experienced, my pain will all be worth it. *Wipes tear from eye*

Edith

Sarah Jessica Parker! Do as I say, not as I do!

Being a female A-Lister is hard. Much harder than if you were male. We the public (with the help of the media) speculate, judge and criticise celebrities like Nicole Kidman, Meg Ryan, and Victoria Beckham for going under the knife. Allegedly, they are contributing factors to the unattainable ideal of modern beauty.

And yet in spite of this, when a famous woman bucks against this trend and ages as mother nature intended it, she is subject to the most venomous abuse.

Hadley Freeman brought this to my attention in yesterday’s Guardian where she wrote:

‘In yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, a film critic decreed that Parker “looks like a skeletal transvestite”. Maxim in the US recently named her “the unsexiest woman in the world”, while Piers Morgan, that great arbiter of beauty, called her “ghastly … I’ve seen better looking winos underneath the arches at Charing Cross”.’

Sarah Jessica Parker aka Carrie Bradshaw is 43. And yes, she probably looks her age. But what is wrong with that? George Clooney is 47 and he also looks his age, but he is not villainized for it. In fact it’s CELEBRATED, people commonly acknowledge that ‘he just keep getting better’.

And I can’t help but wonder, why the double standard?

I don’t have the answer, but I would like you to chew on this thought. Cast your mind back to school. Then, not bowing to peer pressure was considered a good thing, it demonstrated strength of character. Saying ‘NO’ to smoking, drinking, drugs, sex was the right thing to do. Flash-forward to the present and its equivalent peer pressure: looking slim, youthful and pert. Sarah Jessica Parker has dared to be that individual at school who says ‘NO’. She has ignored this ridiculous ‘eternal youth’ demand that society has created for women. And what do we do? Do we congratulate her on her bravery? Admire her confidence and praise the example she has set? No. In true schoolyard style, we attack her for it like a pack of adolescent bullies. And quite frankly, it makes me sick.

Edith

A summer holiday beauty essential

I can’t believe I’m alone in packing two cosmetic bags of make-up when I go on holiday…? How can you possibly tell what look you will be channelling when away? Will it be brights? A natural look? Smokey and sultry? A combination of all three?

If you find yourself in s similar predicament, you will be very excited to hear that Lancôme have created a solution to our problem in the form of a limited edition eye shadow set. The colour design palette has 9 different shades that will easily allow you to create a variety of looks (depending on what you are ‘feelin’ that day). And the really great thing is, it’s tiny and the perfect size to travel with (or stick in your handbag). It’s available from June 1st. Let me hear a ‘whoop whoop!’

Edith

GHD: You should be done (Because now I hate my hair)

I’d like you to cast your mind back to around 5 years ago, and think about what your hair used to be like… Remember those good times? The fun times? When hair was free, to do as it wanted, any ole time?

That was until the launch of the GHD: New religion in hair care (Thy will be done). And now, what are we? A nation of obsessed, split-ended, heat protection spraying, straightened clones! Even my mother has some GHDs, and I ask you all, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHY?It is very apt that GHD use the association of religion to market their product, because both these things are steeped in fear and conformity. (To be clear this is not a ‘DOWN WITH GHD’ campaign, because lord knows, I need em and I won’t pretend otherwise. It is just ‘Shit, what happened, man? I used to love my hair’. Because I did love it. I loved the random curls inter-mixed with straight bits and kinky bits. I loved that it had natural root lift and was unruly and messy. I even managed to embrace the fact that it was never sleek and chic like the girls on the adverts). Now almost everyone is obsessed with straight hair, and being scared of what our bouffant will look like keeps us reaching for the ceramics everyday.

For the past five years I (and most of Britain) have straightened my hair almost daily. Not always the whole head you understand, but at least the front section. Recently, I decided that my hair was starting to suffer a little (OK, it was my hairdresser’s shrieks that made me conclude this) and thought maybe I should lay off of a while.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, yeah right. Have you tried to go a day without using them? My hair now looks utterly ridiculous! I don’t think that this is down to my hair having changed either, but the fact that my perception of what it should do has changed. I am now programmed to think that hair should lie perfectly at 90 degrees. To make matters worse, I recently had my hair cut to resemble the wigs in the YSL AW 08/9 show. And well, while it looks fab when poker like, in au naturalle mode I literally look like I have a mushroom shaped head. Now, while the fact I now have two muffin tops may amuse my boyfriend in no end of ways, it doesn’t help me in the real world, simply because I have no intention of going to work looking like a vegetable.

So, I have a plan to ween myself off this beastly crack I call GHD. Starting with once a week, I will leave my hair to do as it pleases (this will of course coincide with being at home or the wearing of a rather fabulous hat) and progress from there to twice a week and so on. Obviously, this will all be utterly dependent on my hair growing into a more suitable vegetable shape though, something resembling celery perhaps? In the mean time, I am just going to keep praying to the gods that my hair won’t be done.

Edith