Girls thread cont.

So further to the discussion we were having recently about body image and anxiety I just did something I never thought I'd do which is take a pic of my stomach and submit it to some online "real stomachs" thing. It feels awesome. I am half tempted to post it here not to solicit comments or reassurances or whatever but just as another FUCK YOU this is real, I am real and here I am. Anyway - that is all. Taking a picture of my stomach wasn't nearly as anxiety inducing as I expected and this is coming from someone who pretended to be ticklish there so that her first two boyfriends wouldn't touch her stomach.

Also I have one of those lip stains you guys all like in "Gothic" that i'm just never gonna be able to wear. Who wants it? I'll send it to you along with a holiday card!

what color is it?

i am starting to get into lip stains

It's a red that can get pretty dark depending on how much you layer it. There's a balm on the other end. I tried it once and otherwise it's new.

ooh! me! me!

i bought my first nars lipstick, i'm starting to wear lipstick for the first time in my life (and earrings) and people keep telling me i look "so grownup"

x-post

:) OK - msg me your address on FB and I'll send it off this weekend! I think it would look good with your hair/complexion tbh.

<3 earrings and short hair

thanks and sent!

I have that color lipstain and I love it! I avoided rocking red lipstick for a long time due to thinking my teeth were really yellow, but I decided it's better than having yellow teeth and almost no lip color at all (how I look w/out lipstick).

Blue based red lipsticks are supposed to make teeth look whiter! Also, crest white strips are amazing.

I would be so into crest white strips if they didn't activate my gag reflex something fierce. I am weird about having dental glop in my mouth, even in the small quantities present in the white strips.

awww

My yellow, crumbling teeth could use a little whitening, except that my front teeth are capped. Are there any over-the-counter treatments that will work on capped teeth?

that "3 ways to wear lipstick" youtube someone posted made me realise i CAN wear red lippy!!! i have a small mouth/thinnish lips, so i always felt red was out bc it only made my mouth looker smaller and pinched. BUT applying it with a finger and working it in to produce more of a stained look is AMAZING.

hello girls of girl thread!

:-)

Maybe this should go on the cosmetics/style thread but there's a new Urban Decay Naked palette coming out!

Ooo really? Because I need another eyeshadow palette. NO REALLY I DO.

Christine, my front teeth are bonded, not capped, but everything I've read said that the OTC whitening products only work on actual teeth. Also, Abbot, I tried white strips anyway and I found them disgusting.

I went to say hello to a coworker yesterday and she was just hanging out at work with BLUE teeth whitening strips in her mouth. Actually, the other attorney in my office was an avid white strip user at work in the months leading up to her wedding. I've got a strong aversion to salivary mouth noises and I found it hard to be around both of them because there is a lot of slurping involved in talking while pretending you don't have teeth whitening strips in your mouth.

I'm still loving the one I recently got.

Why anyone would wear the strips in public is beyond me. You wear them for a 1/2 hour a day - can't they find 30 mins at home?

Maybe this should go on the cosmetics/style thread but there's a new Urban Decay Naked palette coming out!

p sure they know they have a license to print money on their hands with that

E, btw, that's awesome about the stomach picture. I've thought about doing that or even outfit pics but then I chicken out.

Awww, thanks J. If it gets put up on the site with all the other ones then maybe I'll link it. Maybe.

ohgod my stomach is turning at just the thought of having to talk to someone slurping on white strips in the workplace

in other news, i want to buy some fancy lipstick while in nyc this week. like Dior.

rrrobyn, when do you get here?? I have something basically every single day until I leave on the 17th but I'd rather see you than do half of it.

yes see me see me! or i can come with you to yr things you have to do, haha :)
i get in on sunday night, staying at V's in little italy
i want to drink drinks and eat foods and talk talks

Mother of pearl, the UD naked palette is $48 and I have a Sephora VIB offer of $20 off a $50 purchase. It's ON.

"UD" are the initials of my undergrad alma mater and I just had a strange moment of disorientation rereading my post.

i really want that naked palette. how did you get that $20 off offer?

Signing up for a Sephora rewards card and spending way too much money there afaik.

It came in the email.

I had no idea this thread was here! the new ud palette is out already but it also sold out already.
and I can totally relate to whomever said that they've been wearing lipstick more & people are noticing how grown up they are. I started wearing makeup regularly for a similar reason and last night I bought my first pair of heels. I feel like my 16 year old self would shudder at my 34 year old self.

Jenny! My offer was for $15 off of $50. WTF?

Sephora loves me the most, I guess.

Clearly.

I feel like this is the year I've discovered girly things. Or the year I shed my "I don't give a fuck" persona that I've had since the 90s. Maybe that's not entirely true. I gave somewhat of a fuck but now I'm actually making an effort.

In the Eighties, teenage girls didn't wear lipstick. Except for me.

I have a Sephora rewards card and I never ever get emails. :(

Wait I thought it was meant that they came out with like a second version of the Naked palette, I think I am confuse.

With 12 ***NEW SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT*** colors. I would buy it!

I have the sephora $15 off of $50 code if anyone wants it -- I'm not going to use it.

Are you guys talking about the UD 15 Year Anniversary Eyeshadow Collection? Half of those colors I like and half are Gothics Miss Piggy.

I remember asking you all a long time ago about how old teenage girls had to be nowadays before they were allowed to wear makeup, and you all were like, "Huh? I didn't start wearing it until my mother/my employer/my best friend told me I should be wearing it." I was playing around with my mother's makeup from the time I could stand up, and wearing it all of the time starting from when I was 12. Am I the odd woman out here (I've pretty much spent all of my life around people much older than I am), or are you all?

Nevermind I figured this out
Naked2
Can't wait until 2013 to get one.
xp

I think there is one repeat color from the first Naked, but the rest are new in Naked 2.

Ha, I like some of the gothic Miss Piggys.

Oh I like some of them too but now when I try to rock super bright colors I feel like one of my eighth graders.

I was allowed to wear makeup on "special occasions" starting at 13 and then whenever I wanted shortly thereafter because try and stop 13yo me from wearing makeup, Mom, I dare you. Before that I was allowed to "play with" makeup but not wear it out in public.

I had spots at 13 so wanted to use concealer and face powder to cover them up. I was woefully ignorant of so much about make up though. I also used mascara and some kind of eyeshadow when I was about 14. my mum didn't mind and bought me a few eyeshadows but I kind of wish she'd sat me down and taught me how to do stuff. She did let me raid her make-up bag though so I wore some interesting frosted lipsticks. I only ever wanted to wear 'natural' colours until I was about 16 when I met my BFF at that time and went a bit makeup crazy with blue glitter or red eyeshadow and the like.

my aunty was an avon rep, and one time she gave me a huuuuuge bag of all her old samples - it was the happiest day of my life. i think i was about 7 at the time? anyway, my mum told me i had to keep it put away, but i wanted to have it spread out on my dresser, like a beauty salon. so i did. and then my mum saw it about 5 mins later and said "that's it! you can't have it anymore!" and took it all away from me.

aw!
I actually went all day today in public with no make-up (except eye make-up) because I went to the dermatologist. and it wasn't so bad! (except at the dermatologist he decided to check me all over for moles so I thank God that I put on nice undies even though I badly have to do laundry). However I am making up (...) for it now as I am using PRIMER for the first time and have on lipstick for the first time in about 3 years. It's because I have to go out later and I'm bored. The primer is making a difference right now wrt how my make-up is going on, but it could all go horribly wrong. I could end up not being able to write...

Hmm, what else happens at a US gyno appt? I go for smear tests every time the GP's computer summons me (and always with the female practice nurse, luckily) but I've never had any other kind of gynaecological checkup.

I don't know if this is good or bad because on the one hand I uh don't really like having strangers see my body, never mind poke around its more intimate crevices, but on the other I do from time to time convince myself that something may be wrong, in that way where you start to think you may die horribly at any moment, but still don't go to the doctor because it "sounds a bit silly"

also, xp, best wishes FT, I went back on the pill after mystery "mittelschmerz" (good word for bad thing) and tried many different brands with many different side-effects from migraines to hair loss (ugh!) and I have definitely had the "oh god why do I have to make these choices" thoughts many times - I realise your choice sounds more horrible than mine, too

(current solution: found brand of pills where the unpleasant side-effects are milder and come on the week off and not the days on, running packs together to avoid weeks off, though my GP says I shouldn't do that so generally I still take my week off every other pack, by which time I've forgotten how much I complained last time)

Extremely jokey straw feminist post: srsly if men got periods medical SCIENCE would have SOLVED this nonsense by now. ;-)

Kidding, kidding etc.

It's the all time "dammned if you do, damned if you don't"

(oops, shh)

Jesus WTF is wrong with ppl lately? This is not OK, knock it off.

Spacecadet I had to look up mittelschmerz - sounds awful. Commiserations.

Hmm, what else happens at a US gyno appt?

It's been awhile since I've gone anywhere by Ye Olde Feminist Health Collective, but you come into the exam room, the nurse takes your blood pressure and asks to weigh you (I decline, mostly out of principle but also because it's kind of fun to defy people who are not used to defiance). Then you take off your clothes and put on a gown and get on the exam table. Once the doc comes you, put your feet in the stirrups and the doc will, in some order, insert the speculum (if you've got a good one, they warm these up), take a peek at your cervix, and take the cell sample (sometimes just around the cervix, sometimes inside (I hate that part)). Then they remove the speculum and do a pelvic exam which involves putting two fingers in you and then pushing on your lower abdomen (called a bimanual exam).* Then the doc does a breast exam. If the doc is good there will be some amount of discussion before or after the exam (not during).

*Earlier this year I think there were some studies published saying this isn't really necessary or useful so maybe this will go away.

Here it is: http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/jwh.2010.2349

Oh also if there is to be any STD testing, that will either happen during the speculum exam or you'll have blood drawn before or after.

*Earlier this year I think there were some studies published saying this isn't really necessary or useful so maybe this will go away.

I certainly hope so -- this is always the worst part for me, it is very painful. I don't know if I have a sensitive abdomen or what, but the rest of the day I hurt. And it's not because of one particular doctor, this has happened with three different doctors.

last time i went to the GUM clinic for a checkup (i'm not going to lie, a large part of the reason for going was that i'd recently been reading a bunch of US feminist blog posts about gyno appts and thought 'hm, i have never done this', and discovered that was cos we don't really do regular gyno checkups on the NHS unless there's a specific problem/question) i managed to convince the doctor to do the smear test at the same time. which was good as now i don't have to put my feet in stirrups again for, ooh, a good couple of years.

Do you get regular Pap smears under the NHS?

I certainly do! I get regular reminder letters from my GP! (But I think I may be substantially older than Cis. They only kicked in at A Certain Age. though I can't remember what that age was, LOL senility.)

Yeah, you do from 20 onwards iirc. I avoided mine for a few years after the first letter but started getting more and more stern letters about it and finally went in my mid-20s.

I think they get more frequent when you are "a certain age", though; in 20s and early 30s it is every 3 years (or is it 2?) unless you have a suspicious/inconclusive reading, in which case it's yearly or 6 monthly instead.

No breast checks until post-menopause, though. Would sort of appreciate an exam because when I do a self-check I always feel like I have no idea what I'm looking for.

ACOG came out with guidelines recently saying every two years when you're under 30, and every three years if you're over 30 and haven't had any abnormal paps - http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/pap-smear/MY00090/DSECTION=why-its-done

(Are you getting the toilet paper Imodium ad on that page? That is horrible and LOL.)

I always assume that w/ breast self-checks I'll know it if I feel it? Otherwise, I would probably be freaking out about everything all the time, since not only do I not really know what I'm looking for, they also always give the disclaimer about normal changes due to hormonal fluctuations, etc.

aforementioned gyno convo that happened in original ilx inspired me to get my first gyno checkup in eons. thanks, girls thread!

jenny set me up with Ye Olde Feminist Health Collective and it was rly nice to get some answers to some little nagging questions i'd had for yrs.

I'll know it if I feel it
i assume the same--i've found a lump which was difft than my usual lumpy breast tissue. it's small but definitely a lump. (i forgot to mention it to my doc but then gyno found it--benign cyst, no big deal)

So I got my Bass Rachel Antonoff heeled saddle shoes for X-Mas - THEY ARE AMAZING. SO comfy and adorbs!!

pics or gtfo

I have to buy shoes now and this gives me TEH PH34R. How the hell do you make shoe shopping enjoyable or even bearable?

And I've already had to *go* shoe shopping once already this month bcuz Cornwall destroyed my hiking boots so I bought wellies in Penzance but wellies work in places where everything is made of mud or sand, but do not work on the hard concrete of London ;_;

No more shitty cheap vegan shoes made of hemp and cardboard that fall apart after 3 months of use, I need to get shoes that are made of IRON and BOOTSTRAPS and will last for at least a year so I don't have to do this again. HALP ME GIRLS. #ShoeCrisis

I'm dreadful with shoes. I buy a pair of Docs, a pair of Kumfs maryjanes (orthopedic sandals basically, my feet are effed), a pair of sneakers and a pair of knee high boots for winter and thats it.

All flat - cant wear/walk in any kind of heel. Makes being girly in shoes... impossible basically :/

I don't know if my feet are just really wide, but I p much just can't wear girly shoes. Like, literally, I just cannot get my feet into them.

I'd buy shoes mail order to dispense with all the hassle, but the last time I did that, the shoes were just not wide enough (even after stretching) and I could hardly send them back after being stretched.

Maybe I should just give up and get a pair of Docs. They're supposed to be p much indestructible - are they? I need a pair of boots that will stand up to a year or so of hard London walking. A friend told me to get these Spanish goth boots - called New Rock or something like that? But again, that mail order problem.

I should get off the internet and go up to Camden but just... ugh.

Docs are pretty rad. An indispensable part of my youth - I think my massive steel toe-capped ones lasted me for three years or so as a teen, and probably only not longer as I started wearing trainers instead.

I feel the shoe woes. I think I've complained about my stupid feet plenty so I won't go into it again but I'm basically like Trayce. All I want is a brogan, a work shoe (plus a pair of interview shoes), sneakers, and snow boots and I'll call it a day.

Actually, lately all I want is for it to be climatically and socially acceptable for me to wear Crocs (the big, ugly kind) every day since for the past few months, those have been the only shoes that are actually comfortable.

I did make a feeble stab at buying rain boots yesterday but I got overwhelmed and frustrated and gave up.

And of course it's raining today and, probably for the same reason only Crocs are comfortable now (I'm guessing some mystery toe joint ailment, probably exacerbated by the cold, rainy weather and the fact that my orthotics are wearing out), my beloved rainy weather shoes* feel just miserable to wear so I'm really wishing I had bought the pair of rain boots I was thinking about buying but didn't because they were really stupid looking.

Which isn't to say they wouldn't hurt my feet eventually, but they would at least hurt slightly differently.

*Well-waterproof Fluevogs, like so:

http://www.fluevog.com/code/images/colour_image/0000000019/composite.jpg

This is very silly but I want to post a picture of shoes and can't work out how to do it using Dropbox. When I copy the link to my pic from the Dropbox site, it doesn't end in .jpeg. (I have posted in WDYLL but can't remember how I did it).

Jenny, I really sympathize. It's not like feet are something you can avoid bashing around. I feel lucky not to have this problem. Instead I am just crap about what shoes look good with what.

Thanks for the sympathy.

I'm going to complain a little bit more and then drop it, I promise: I got ready early today because I am leaving work early, basically as soon as I finish a few things, so my plan was to get in early, get done, and GTFO BUT since I have to wear the Pain Shoes, I'm really reluctant to walk to the train (about a half mile) so I'm waiting for a bus, but the bus isn't coming for like 15 minutes, all of which pretty much negates my whole "getting to work early plan."

I simply cannot cope with my feet hurting. Any shoe that hurts my feet if I wear it more than twice goes straight to the charity shop to hurt someone else's feet. I walk far too much to ever put up with uncomfortable shoes.

This is why, once I find a pair of comfortable shoes, I tend to wear them until they literally fall apart. My hiking boots, it turned out, were only held together with mud, and split when the sea got at them. ;_;

I am also having the same massive desire to cut off ALL OF MY HAIR that I was experiencing last year on Girl Thread on Proper ILX.

Except this year, I don't want a bob or an Eton Crop, I want a French Resistance hairstyle like at the bottom of this page

http://www.joeri.net/retro/fashion/gentstop.htm

I'm a massive hippie and I want to keep my hair long and flowing for ever and ever but I'm starting to recede at my temples (!!!!!!! - I know, but it happened to my mum, too) and I am trying to face facts that I should really do something about it, but really, who wants to have to get a proper hairstyle trimmed every three months or whatever when I can just throw it in a ponytail and forget it exists?

Also I would probably look like a potato.

Something like this should be do-able but leave you enough hair to have something going on when you don't pomade it back?

http://www.joeri.net/retro/fashion/menhair2.jpg

But other than the haircut, you can start by wearing that hat like 3" lower over your forehead! Yes, it sucks for visibility. I don't know why people put up with it for so long. But almost no hat looks good when it's barely perched on yr crown and about to fall off.

Yeah, that was exactly the photo I was liking, because his hair is quite wavy and mine is quite wavy so it would probably work. And I originally had the hat pulled much lower on my brow (which is how I wear it when I'm trying to keep out the coldy freezes and rain, because really it's about head protection and it totally works) but it looked kinda dumb like that in photos, also I was mainly wearing it to try and keep my voluminous quantity of hair from flopping out and ruining the effect.

have you considered just getting men's shoes?

I usually do. But shopping for them is still a pain in the arse.

is it that what you want doesn't exist or that what you like doesn't fit?

i don't like shoe-shopping either

I love it. I go to Nordstrom Rack sometimes just to try on shoes... with no intention to buy.

What I want exists, it's just that I hate having to go into town because London sucks and I'm annoyed before I even get to the shop because, tourists, and then be given the side-eye by shop assistants because I'm shopping in the wrong section, and then try on at least 3 or 4 pairs because translating sizing between men's and women's shoes is unreliable and it might be a 6 1/2 or a 7 or an 8, and get given the side-eye again for wasting their time and I feel like a cow if they don't fit my calves because mens calves are skinnier, then looking in all those mirrors I start to feel fat and unattractive and hate myself which is not something that I really like to feel and just ... ugh. I will wrap plastic bags around my feet and carry on wearing the shoes with holes in them.

i guess the one positive thing about shoes - for me - is that i am at peace with my feet: they are wide and flat and look like flesh-covered rectangular robot feet, but finding shoes is mainly a functional issue as opposed to an aesthetic/self-esteem one. Sometimes i feel that way about clothes, makeup, the other adornments -- but not as consistently as i do about feet/shoes.

I was looking round the sale section of a shoe website earlier, and had specified some other search term which took away the choice of men's vs women's, and everything I liked enough to click on turned out to be a man's shoe, and therefore only start at size 6, whereas I'm a size 5. Hmf.

(and because of my wide feet I am actually a size 3 lengthways but a 5 width-wise or something, so going up another size = bad fit. and also the skinny man-calves thing, my fat ankles often don't even fit into women's boots. and argh etc.)

i have similar boot issues -- i look for boots that lace up.

I have exactly one pair of boots that I can actually lace up over my fat calves. It's so frustrating. But at least I have big feet, it must be so annoying that they're all just one size too big.

Which is why I'm so annoyed that my original pair of motorcycle boots died - they were German manboots for fat old man bikers which actually fit my calves! And then the heel on one of them got all squishy and weird after breaking on some sharp Cornish rocks. I have tried cutting the other heel in the same way to get it to collapse down so at least they're at the same height, but no dice.

German biker boots sound awesome. Actually I'm reminded that the army surplus shop has sturdy-looking boots in a wide range of sizes. I think I even tried some on before and found that they fitted. Must go back.

yeah, try there! - i got mine at military surplus stores

Actually I should go to the FORUM MAN SHOP, which sounds like it should be a gay baths, but it's not, even thought it's right next to a gay baths, it's a shop selling steel toed boots and high visibility gear for ppl who work on actual trains and construction crews and the like. THEY probably have boots that will be indestructible, though I do get odd looks / completely ignored by sales people if I go in there.

that also sounds like a good bet! i had good luck in a similar type of place in finding sturdy work pants for doing construction that fit me.

Oh god I hate shoe shopping. I went in the posh shoe shop and they had ~beautiful~ brown engineering type boots, but they were £135 which is too steep for my blood. But then I went to the FORUM MENS PROTECTIVE FOOTGEAR shop which was brilliant, loads of amazing shoes in the more reasonable £30 - £60 range and I was just trying to figure out which kind of steel toed boot to buy when the little man at the desk announced he was closing for lunch and I should come back in an hour. Sigh. Which I might not do, I might just lie here and look at that bottle of whisky until I give in and start drinking it.

Problem is, what I really really want is an "engineers boot" or "motorcycle boot" with buckles or steel hoops and straps for pulling up by. And I saw the PERFECT pair in Penzance for only fifty pounds!!!!! but I didn't buy them because I didn't want to have to lug them home on the train.

But these are all either lace-ups or chelsea boot style with the elasticated web on the sides - now I love me some chelsea boots, but I know those elasticated webs get holes in them and give way after about a year.

re: SHOES/boots, i just need to say that i bought Blundstones in the fall and they make me wish i'd been wearing them my whole life. i wore docs very often from age 14-26 (plus more girlie shoes occasionally) and docs are far less comfortable than blundstones (apparently there is some even 'better' similar shoe that can only be go in australia but i don't know what that is). anyway, what i'm saying is that if you want a black boot and walk a lot and have wide feet you should get these boots because they are awesome.

the elastic webs on the sides of blundstones take forever to fall apart - i know people who have had their boots for 10+ years

and they are unisex.
that is my sales pitch! lol

Well, I ended up getting a pair of very chunky charcoal brown suede lace-up steel-toed work boots of some brand I have now forgotten. I had to try on about 3 different brands to get one that was the right length for my foot without being *too* wide (which is a problem I'd much rather have than too narrow.) But the funny thing is, it has been so long since I bought a pair of proper boots (i.e. not rubber boots or stupid flimsy vegan boots made of hemp and cardboard) that I forgot, with steel toed boots, you don't break them in, so much as they break you in, and my ankles got ripped to shreds before I taped them up. I know this will pass. So I'm pretty happy.

Might still go to Camden and see if I can find motorcycle/engineers boots, or I might persist with trying to break the heel of the left boot of the pair I have.