Today in Racism: "It's Not Blackface, It's Art, You Cynics!"

Trigger warning for racism, and also utter headdesking stupidity.

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHH.

So, this happened. This is make up company Illamasqua's Christmas holiday campaign, and everything about it is horrible. After they released the right image by itself on their Australian Facebook page, complaints began to mount up, since it quite clearly references blackface and minstrel shows. Eventually the image was pulled. AND THEN RELEASED AGAIN ON THEIR MAIN, UK PAGE, with this stunningly tone deaf statement:

All I Want For Christmas Is MORE STUFF

1. This adorable set of flavoured vodka minis from Sainsbury's. I will be the queen of cocktails! (Read: I will mix them all with cranberry juice and I will like it..)


2. This beautiful Frida Kahlo t-shirt. She is my totally-not-caring-about-conventional-norms-of-femininity hero, and this shirt is all kinds of cool.

3. Benefit Lemon-Aid Eyelid Primer. I'm always trying to get rid of my undereye bags, and the yellow colour of this primer looks like it'd be good for covering up dark circles. Plus, it's called Lemon Aid! I want to be aided by lemons!

It Was A Red Dress Kinda Day, or, How To Cure Winter Blues

Ugh, winter is taking its toll on me. I am sick of being cold and tired and lethargic all the time. And I'm living in a north-facing ground floor room in Manchester in November. I miss daylight.

Best cure for winter blues? Dress all in red! Match your dress and earrings and lipstick! Go wild!

My umbrella is greeny-blue and fuschia pink. I was so happy it didn't rain today. I don't think I could have brought myself to carry it wearing red. I'd have had to just be rained on.

Jacket from Miss Selfridge, dress from Closet at Dorothy Perkins. Earrings from Dorothy Perkins. Pearl & gold necklace belonged to my grandmother. Lancome Le Crayon Kohl Noir eyeliner. GOSH Velvet Touch lipstick in 60 Lambada.

TV Recap: The Hour, S2E1.

All style and no substance and actually not very much style at that.

The Hour is desperately shooting for Mad Men and painfully failing. I’d hoped that after the limp mess that concluded the first series they’d have turned it around, but it really doesn’t look like it. This episode was flat and wet and kind of dull and all over the place. I want to like this show really badly but it’s just letting me down.

You can look mad all you want, it's still true.

Heartbreaking: A Betty Draper if ever I saw one. These
silent scenes were ones the show actually did well.

At the beginning of this episode, The Hour (the in-show show) is in trouble. It is made extremely obvious that this is because it doesn’t have Freddie in it (“There’s a certain something… lacking. Edge. Bite.” Yes yes yes just bring him back already.) Hector has morphed utterly into a second-rate Don Draper. He’s turning up late for work every day and going out drinking in nightclubs every night, sleeping with chorus girls and leaving his poor Betty of a wife at home alone in her sad lavender apartment. Fine. Boring but believable. Bel is quivering under the sharp eye of the new Head of News, Mr Brown (and can I just say how happy I am to see Peter Capaldi again, now that The Thick of It is SOB finished forever), and trying to keep Hector happy, despite him being utterly crap and apparently ruining her show.  Lix is still 100% amazing. They should just make the whole show about her.

Beautifully shot.

Stealing Keira Knightley's Face: From Zero to Keira in 5 Steps

Let's talk about Keira Knightley.

Yep, she likes that idea.

I find her suuuupah annoying as an actress, but standing still, she's one of the most beautiful, elegant women I can think of.  She was stunning in Anna Karenina, born to wear gowns and dramatic jewellery, and her press tour is going bangingly. This Erdem gown is so pretty it hurts my eyes. And her make up is always flawless. So I stole it.

All I Want For Christmas Is...

It's November 15th, that means Christmas is coming! It's not too early to make a list, right? Right? ...Right?

1. A fancy diary like a fancy lady

I like pretty notebooks, I like organising things, I like writing notes. Fancy diaries are a match made in heaven. Right now I'm using a £2.99 one from Rymans, but Paperblanks are sooo lovely that it hurts to look at them in shops. And because they're diaries they last a year! Price per use comparison? £12.99/365 = TOTALLY WORTH IT. Plus, you can find them a little bit cheaper on Amazon.

Going At It: Lip Crayons

Trend alert! It looks like make up companies have finally cottoned on to the old trick of colouring your mouth in with lip pencil, because lip crayons have started popping up all over the place since last spring, and happily it's got to the stage where there are a bunch of budget versions coming out. Because I have been known to be a desperate trend bunny, I bought, uh... four. Let's try them!

1. Barry M Lip Lacquer Crayon No 6 Candyfloss, £4.99

2. Topshop Lip Stick in Powder Room, £7

3. Soap & Glory Sexy Motherpucker Gloss Stick in Nudist, £8

4. F&F Lip Crayon in Tickled Pink, £5

Literally Studies: I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS

One of my pet peeves is people using 'literally' wrong. People so often use it as an amplifier and accidentally end up using it to mean its exact opposite, 'figuratively', which drives me crazy. BUT I cannot work this one out at all. 

It's an advert for 4G, which as far as I can work out is exactly the same as 3G. It says "The waiting is over. Literally."

Um... okay. That is technically correct. The waiting IS literally over. BUT, as a snappy punchline on an advert, I can't make it make any sense, because there's no way that this sentence could be not literal. It shouldn't say LITERALLY because "The waiting is over" can't be... figurative. 'Literally' is meaningless in this sentence. It serves no function except to sound impressive. "The waiting is over. METAPHORICALLY." "The waiting is over. ALLEGORICALLY." Those are nonsense.

Am I missing something here? WHAT IS UP WITH THIS ADVERT? WHO THOUGHT THIS MADE A GOOD SLOGAN? WHY DON'T PEOPLE UNDERSTAND WORDS?

Erk. My brain hurts.


#GOBAMA