The Ahh Bra is good for sleep, but not recommended for everyday

At the more sensitive parts of my cycle, I like to wear a bra to sleep.  I'd always used old sports bras for this purpose, but they've gotten stretched out enough that they're useless even as sleep bras.  So I was once again in the market for something wireless and not too confining, but also not too expensive.  I saw the Ahh Bra advertised on TV and thought it was basically the right idea, and I was able to find one on eBay for under $5, so I decided to give it a try.

It is extremely comfortable and holds everything reasonably in place without being too confining, so it's ideal for sleep.  It fulfilled the need for which I purchased it and I certainly feel I got my money's worth given the very low price I paid for it.

However, I do not recommend it for everyday wear.  I didn't feel sufficiently supported in it for daytime wear (my first instinct was to fold my arms under my breasts), even though my breasts didn't end up moving as much as I felt like they were going to.  It also does nothing for my figure.  I don't know if it compresses the breasts or if it's just the shape they land in, but my bustline certainly looks smaller than it does in a regular bra or even without a bra.  I also found that the material of the cups is too thin to disguise the nipples in a white shirt, which is the whole reason why I started wearing bras back when I was 11 in the first place.

I should add, as context, that I like wearing a bra.  Based on the advertising, the target audience of the Ahh Bra seems to be people who find it irritating to wear a bra.  It might still be a useful product for the target audience because it is, quite literally, better than nothing.  It provides some support, and it has none of the characteristics that, the commercials claim, make bras annoying.  It would be comfortable enough for my 11-year-old self, who absolutely hated having a band around her ribs, although it doesn't obscure the nipples enough to meet her needs.

If you want lift, shape, support, or modesty for everyday wear, this is not for you.  If you want a sleep bra without regard for appearance, or otherwise want to limit your breasts' range of motion without wire or tight elastics, this may be for you.

Excellent customer service from Reitmans

I've been shopping at Reitmans for over a decade, and in all that time their size small shirts have always fit me perfectly. (Q: Small? WTF? A: I have narrow shoulders, and the shirts tend to be stretchy enough to accommodate the rest of me.) So I did something perhaps a wee bit irresponsible: I bought a lovely new blouse without trying it on. Then I did something even more irresponsible: I removed the tags before I put it on. My only excuse is that I had 10 years of empirical evidence that it would fit perfectly, and I was fully expecting that I'd put it on and wear it to work that day. But I got my comeuppance: it didn't fit as well as it should have. It was roomier than usual, and I find a slimmer fit more flattering.

I went back on to the store and tried on an extra-small, which fit me perfectly (which is seriously WTF - I am not extra-small by any possible human standard). So I asked to exchange the one I'd bought for the extra-small.

Reitmans doesn't normally do exchanges if you'd taken the tags off, but, fortunately, the saleslady made an exception for me. This made me very happy. I've had other stores be assholic to me when I'd made an honest mistake, so it made me feel good and safe and welcome that they understood that I'd made an honest mistake. The fact that Reitmans permits its sales staff to use their judgement in these kinds of cases creates a much more positive environment for customers, and is an excellent way to get repeat business.

Meanwhile, the moral of the story for customers is try on shirts at Reitmans this season, especially if you prefer a slimmer fit.

Why do they make panties in so many different prints?

I have, unfortunately, been shopping for underwear lately. One thing that surprises me is, especially at stores like La Senza and Victoria's Secret, how many different prints they make panties in. I'm seeing well over a dozen prints available, often with three or more colours in the print, and sometimes a different set of prints for each different style of panties! And sometimes, despite the many many prints available, these panties are available in very few if any solid colours, and quite often not even in the expected prints like leopard print or zebra stripes or plaid or hearts. They're random splotches of multiple colours, or multicoloured variations on the brand's logo.

I wonder why they do this?

Some people, including me, care about the colour of their panties. We want them to achieve a particular look, ranging from blending discreetly under clothes to looking sexy without clothes. If you have a particular colour in mind, a print may or may not work. If you're going for discreet blending or an exact match of your bra, a print is useless. If you want something that looks good with your red bra, the red and white print of the brand's logo with bizarre blue accents might work, but certainly isn't the first choice that comes to mind.

The market for prints is people who don't have specific criteria for what they want their panties to look like, but also care enough about what their panties look like that they don't want plain panties like you buy in a multipack. They must also think prints are significantly superior to solids, for reasons I can't begin to speculate on. And these people must significantly outnumber those who have specific criteria combined with those who don't care at all and are willing to buy multipacks.

Apart from the prevalence of prints over solids, I'm also surprised at the sheer number of different prints available. If a store had maybe half a dozen prints (in addition to a reasonable range of colours), no one would be thinking "Why are there so few prints?" But instead they have dozens and dozens. Each new print needs to be designed by someone, which adds to production costs (albeit marginally).

So why do they do it? Why is it worthwhile to them? And why does it come at the expense of solids?

Apparently more women are using contraception in the US than in Canada

I was surprised to see on this chart on the situation of women in different countries that 72% of women in Canada are using modern contraception, and 73% of women in the US are.

This surprises me a bit, because, at least based on the news that makes it up here, the US seems to have more policies intended to make it difficult to get contraception and seems to lack some policies that we have that make it easier to get contraception. I would have assumed that, because of this, a slightly smaller percentage would be using contraception in the US.

The article doesn't define the concept of "women using modern contraception", so it's possible it might include male condoms being used by the woman's male partner. I haven't heard anything about making condoms difficult to access in the States, what I've been hearing is more about cost of and access to medical care, which would affect access to thinks like birth control pills, IUDs, diaphragms, etc.

It would be really interesting to see numbers on a) percentage of the population who wants to use more contraception than they're currently able to, b) proportion of unwanted pregnancies, and c) percentage of the population deliberately not using contraception (either because they're "trying" or because the particulars of their private life are not going to result in a pregnancy).

I do not recommend O.P.I. Nail Envy Sensitive & Peeling

A while back, I was given some O.P.I. Nail Envy Original nail strengthener. It totally worked and my nails got stronger and longer, but it didn't do anything about my peeling nails (which is not uncommon for products whose primary mandate is growth.) However, I discovered that they had another formula for Sensitive and Peeling nails, so I decided to give that a try.

Unfortunately, it didn't work for me. It didn't help them at all, and might even have made it worse. Most nail products, when I paint them on my nails, "glue" the peels down so they don't snag and get worse. This one didn't do that, and it also didn't strengthen my nails as well as the original Nail Envy.

Therefore, I do not recommend O.P.I. Nail Envy Sensitive & Peeling. Sally Hansen Miracle Cure continues to be the most effective product for my peeling nails, although it isn't a miracle. However, if you don't have peeling nails and just want strength and growth, I do recommend the original O.P.I. Nail Envy.

Victoria's Secret has changed my underwear for the worse!

It was time for fresh new underwear, so, like I've been doing for the past 5 years or so, I ordered a few pairs of the Victoria's Secret high-leg cotton brief. I first learned about it on a Tomato Nation thread, and I was able to get some good discount codes so I decided to give it a try. It was the perfect underwear! Comfortable, breathable, the elastics stayed where they're supposed to without making me look like a sausage, the cut was modest enough that I felt attractive but not so full as to make me feel frumpy, with the waistband below my belly-button but above the sticky-outiest part of my belly. My preferred plain black looked sexy and classy and together, and got rave reviews from those who are entitled to express an opinion on my underwear.

Unfortunately, they've changed the design somewhat. The fabric is of lower quality (thinner and seems more likely to rip than my old five-year-old pairs with the seams resewn), the elastics don't stay in place and keep trying to give me a wedgie, the seams on the hips are itchy (whereas the previous design didn't even have seams on the hips!), and, rather than being plain black, they have a pink Victoria's Secret logo on the left hip, which isn't even reflected in the photo of the product on their website.

In short, they've taken a product that made me feel comfortable and sexy and confident, and, with a few subtle design changes, made it into a product that makes me feel uncomfortable and tacky and gross.

And, to add insult in injury, now I have to shop for new basic underwear, which is particularly annoying because you can't even return it! This is a completely unnecessary chore and expense and irritant! All they had to do was nothing. Just keep manufacturing and selling as usual, I'll just keep buying as usual, and everyone's happy. Now I'm pissed off and returning my purchases, so both I and Victoria's Secret are out some time and money and effort, plus I'm uncomfortable and pissed off. What does this achieve?

Dear Victoria's Secret: please return your cotton high-leg brief to the previous design, from before the plain black one had a pink logo on the left hip. If you do this, I'll stop complaining and keep mindlessly buying them forever.

Meanwhile, can anyone recommend a plain black cotton panty that isn't too skimpy, has a waistband that falls below the belly-button but above the sticky-outiest part of the belly, and has elastics that stay put without causing wedgies?

Thoughts from old pictures on Retronaut

1. Pictures of the New York City subway from 1946. What surprised me most here is how many women are standing up while men are sitting. I think in every picture where there are people standing and people sitting, there are more women than men standing and more men than women sitting. This surprises me, because everything I've ever heard from my elders suggests that back in the "good old days" when everyone wore suits and hats, gentlemen would always always always give up their seats for a lady.

2. Pictures of middle-aged women from the 1960s. What surprised me here is how frumpy the people look (my own mother is in her 60s, and looks younger than everyone in these pictures), but how nice their clothes are. There's probably half a dozen outfits in there that I'd actually wear myself and feel well-dressed doing so, and if you told me that the pink shoes on the lady in the third picture were next season's Fluevogs I'd totally believe you. And yet, overall, they still look frumpy to me.

I'm wondering if the overall aesthetic has changed, either culturally or because of improved technology. I think the aesthetic in which these ladies were dressing themselves focuses on going through all the right steps. These ladies have their hair set, they have nice dresses and nice shoes and stockings and pearls, they have their red lipstick. Check, check, check, everything on the checklist.

In comparison, I think today's aesthetic focuses more on creating an appearance of naturally-occurring flawlessness but doesn't care as much about which checklist items you'd use. It doesn't matter whether your hair is set nicely or artfully tousled, as long as it looks healthy and plentiful and probably not grey. It doesn't matter if you have red lipstick or look like you've done anything with your lips at all, but you'd better get your lines and blemishes and dark circles convincingly covered. It doesn't matter how nice your clothes are or aren't, but you'd better give an overall impression clothed that you're not unpleasant to look at naked.

My grandmother things what she needs to do to make her feet sandal-ready is paint her toenails. I think what I need to do to make my feet sandal-ready is pumice and moisturize until there is no visible sign of coarse skin anywhere other than the soles (I'd remove it from the soles too, but it turns out the purpose of those calluses is they make it not hurt to walk), pull every hair out with tweezers, apply a light layer of self-tanner to hide any evidence that I ever had a sock tan, and paint my toenails. (And all the aesthetic shortcomings of my feet were inherited from my grandmother.) Could our respective pedicure standards be indicative of a broader cultural shift?

Buying happiness: summer skirts and dresses

I always feel frumpy and gross in shorts, so every hot day for my entire adult life I've been wearing skirts and dresses exclusively. They have many advantages:

- They're cooler. The breeze can blow up in between my thighs (right up to my ribs if I'm wearing an empire-waisted dress). I can be fully covered with less of the material actually touching my body. This is the best-possible balance of all of the advantage of being naked and all of the advantages of being clothed.

- They're attractive and femme. When I was a kid, and our summer vacations had us playing tourist in cities, I always felt particularly awkward and out of place in my suburban tourist shorts and t-shirts and running shoes. But I always feel like a proper grown-up city lady in my summer skirts and dresses.

- They make it very easy to look pulled together. In almost any of my summer outfits (with the exception of my long cotton hippy skirts), all I have to do is put my hair up (default for the summer anyway), choose a pair of shoes with heels (which I almost always wear anyway), put on big sunglasses (which I always wear outdoors in the sun anyway) and I look very close to glam. My "It's hot out and I feel fat" dress would fit right in at a wedding with the right hair/makeup/accessories, but it also wouldn't look out of place walking down the beach. I even wore it the second time we saw Eddie Izzard, after discovering at the last minute that I was too bloated to comfortably wear the outfit I'd originally planned, and I felt confident that I looked Eddie-worthy. None of my cool-weather outfits are that versatile!

- They're FUN! Skirts twirl and blow around in the breeze, and I can comfortably carry off flower prints in skirts and dresses that I'd feel frumpy wearing on a blouse with pants.

I've learned that I don't get tired of skirts and dresses (I'm still regularly wearing the skirts I bought when I first started my current job nine years ago), so whenever I see one I like, I try it on, and if it's reasonably flattering I buy it. My skirts pair nicely with plain fitted t-shirts and camis in solid colours, and the look is classic enough that I don't need to worry about any one piece going out of style. I still hate hot weather, but I never feel ugly and gross any more thanks to my summer skirts and dresses.

My child-self's problem with princesses

Some people think the presence of princess characters in children's media are problematic, thinking that they might lead kids to value being pretty and waiting around to be rescued by Prince Charming.  For me they were problematic for other reasons, but I couldn't articulate it until I read a blogger's experience interviewing Julie Andrews about princesses in children's media.

And so I asked Julie Andrews (JULIE ANDREWS!), and Emma, who happened to be there with her own young daughter, how we raise strong, confident independent girls in a culture that’s so saturated with princesses.
I asked really nicely, I promise.
And their answers were terrific.
Because they didn’t talk about tiaras. Or even princes. They talked about values.
-Princesses are involved in charitable causes
-Princesses are kind
-Princesses are patrons of the arts
-Princesses make their friends feel good about themselves.

This was problematic for me when I was a kid. When I was very young, I didn't perceive the key characteristics of the Disney princesses and other similar fictional characters to be that they were pretty or that they were rescued by their prince.  I perceived it to be that they were Very Very Good.  The general moral that I got from the stories is that girls who are Very Very Good - they were patient, they were cheerful, animals loved them, they were proactively helpful, they never lost their temper - got to live Happily Ever After.

And this made me feel bad about myself because I'm not Very Very Good.  I'm not terribly cheerful - usually the best I can do is copacetic. I try hard to be good, but sometimes I lose my temper.  I don't know how to make people feel good about themselves.  I'm not good at seeing ways to be proactively helpful.  I'm not bad and I'm not mean, but the best I can do is just quietly stay out of everyone's way and not hurt anything.  I'll never have what it takes to be Very Very Good.  So I'll never get to live Happily Ever After.

On top of that, it wasn't just the princesses who were Very Very Good. Most, if not all, of the female protagonists I encountered at a young age were Very Very Good.  Since I'm not Very Very Good, that made me feel insecure in my femininity.  As I've blogged about before, I take after my father, I'm not very feminine-looking and was even less so without the benefit of puberty and makeup, and before I grew my hair long I was constantly mistaken for a boy.  My parents discouraged me from wearing skirts and (in a way that's rather similar to today's parents hand-wringing about princesses) tried to encourage me towards less girly pastimes and media consumption.  This led me into this weird cycle of self-loathing where I thought my parents didn't want me to do girly stuff not just because I'm not pretty enough but because I'm not Very Very Good, and I also thought I was going to turn into a boy because I'm not pretty enough and because of other misunderstandings of how human anatomy works, and I though that my inability to be Very Very Good was a sign that I must really be a boy.  But I didn't want to be a boy, I want to be a girl!  (And for those of you just tuning in, I'm female-born and cisgendered.)

Unfortunately, I don't think this trend of Very Very Good protagonists is going to go away.  Adults want kids to be good, so it makes sense that they'd keep producing children's media where Very Very Good = Happily Ever After.

But children's media could help produce more children who are closer to Very Very Good by teaching kids how to be Very Very Good, perhaps by showing characters who are working on it.  How do you make your friends feel good about themselves?  How do you be patient and never lose your temper?  How do you be proactively helpful? The stories I read as a kid portrayed these characteristics as innate, but they're actually things people can learn and work on.

There's recent research (I'm pretty sure I read it in Malcolm Gladwell, but the specific source escapes me) that kids who think good grades are the result of hard work get better outcomes than kids who think good grades are the result of innate intelligence. I think something similar could happen if virtue were presented as the result of work rather than as innate, as something you have to think about rather than something that comes automatically.

The Queen's hats

When I was younger, I thought the Queen looked disproportionately frumpy, by which I mean that, even taking into account her age and the styles of the day and her need to dress conservatively, she looked frumpier than she should given all these factors.  But in the past decade or so, I stopped thinking this.

Looking at this retrospective of her hats, I realize why.  Brimmed hats are much more flattering on the Queen than brimless hats, but it seems she's only started wearing brimmed hats in the past decade or so.

Based on what I've read of the Queen's fashion strategy, this is probably for utilitarian purposes. She wants people to be able to see her, and a brimless hat shows her face much better.  Unfortunately, it also adds a dozen years and makes her look mean.

However, in the past decade or so, the royal milliners seem to have solved the engineering problem of designing a brimmed hat that still shows enough of the Queen's face so she can be photographed.  Well done, but I'm kind of surprised that it took 50 years to achieve that.

Wherein I receive an astounding act of social generousity

Something funny happened to me the other day.

It was warm and sunny out, and I was walking down Yonge Street wearing a simple black outfit and these shoes.

A lady standing with a group of people nearby left her group, headed over in my direction, walked up to me, and said:

"Where did you get such UGLY shoes?"

This was hilarious for a few reasons.

First, she left her group to come tell me my shoes are ugly. Rather than just pointing and laughing with her group or taking a stealth photo to share on facebook, she interrupted her day and sought me out to tell me my shoes are ugly. If the sight of someone walking down the main street of a major city in mildly unconventional footwear so vexes you that you have to stop what you're doing and intervene, I don't think you're going to make it in the city.

Second, her dress and appearance had no particular redeeming qualities. She was a poster girl for the concept of "she's let herself go". She was probably a poster girl for this concept ten years ago. Her clothes were ill-fitting and poorly made walmart-wear of the sort that you can't tell if they're from last summer or last decade, her shorts were riding up between her legs exposing her cellulite, and her hair was cropped short and plastered flat against her head with no hint of having been washed or combed in the past 24 hours. Normally when I see someone who takes so little care with their appearance I think nothing of it, simply assuming they have better things to worry about. But this lady had proven that she clearly doesn't.

Third, these shoes have gotten me the more compliments than anything else in my life, and by "anything" I mean not just fashion choices but actual achievements as well. Even if you do think they're ugly (and that's entirely your prerogative), they are a clear fashion win, moreso than anything else I've ever worn.

Between my bullies and my judgmental family members I've received more than my fair share of disses in my life, but I've never received one that was so off-target from someone who was so very clearly less cool than me. That made the whole thing utterly hilarious and not at all hurtful, and I left the interaction with a smile on my face.

I didn't blog about this when it first happened because I've been getting great mileage out of it. I've told it to all different people, and it gets a laugh every time and we all leave the conversation with smiles on our faces. But this morning in the shower I realized that this random shoe-hating lady has actually given me a very generous gift: a hilarious story!

The story works fantastically because it makes me look good ("My shoes are so awesome they offended some frumpy judgey lady, and I handled the situation with complete sangfroid!") and it makes whomever I tell the story to feel good about themselves ("At least I'm nowhere near that awful!"). If I were the kind of person who liked to brag about my personal possessions, this would give me the perfect opportunity to show off my awesome red shoes.

In fact, every decision that lady made pertaining to our interaction improved the story. By opting not to make any effort with her appearance that day, she made certain that I wouldn't feel any insult and added humour to the story, bolstering my audience's feeling good about themselves upon hearing the story. (It wouldn't be nearly so effective a story if she had been more conventionally attractive.) And by cleverly phrasing her question as "Where did you get such ugly shoes?" she gave me the perfect set-up for a good reply (a big smile and the name and location of the store). If she'd chosen to phrase it "Your shoes are ugly," I probably wouldn't have been able to immediately come up with an appropriate reply (something along the lines of "Thanks, you too!") She was generous enough to sacrifice her appearance, face (in the sociological sense), and dignity so that we may live in a world that contains amusing anecdotes.

So thank you, shoe-hating lady, for your noble sacrifice. It has brought amusement to dozens of people.

Buying happiness: attractive exercise clothes

Since I only ever exercise at home where no one can see me, I've always worn truly awful clothes. The sports bras were nearly 10 years old, the clothes themselves were somewhere between 15 and 20 years old, and they had no redeeming qualities except that they're cotton and light and comfortable. They were horrible enough that if, while exercising, I had ever found myself in a situation where a fire alarm rang or I had to call an ambulance, I would have changed clothes into something that at least acknowledged that the 1980s had turned into the 1990s before saving my life. After reading about some emergency or another where people had to flee their apartment building with nothing but the clothes on their backs, I had actually worried about how humiliating it would be if I were stuck in my exercise clothes.

Just recently, on top of all those aesthetic problems, elastics started dying. I was crossing my arms under my breasts and tugging my pants up. So I finally decided to splurge on new exercise clothes.

I got Secrets From Your Sister to fit me with an exercise bra which doesn't let anything move (while still giving me a decent line) and is a very fun shade of purple. And I got a simple black and charcoal yoga outfit with lines that flatter my figure. Even though I shopped well and got everything at significant discounts, that's still about $100 spent on clothes for something I hate.

What I didn't expect is how good these clothes make me feel. I look like I'm aware that the 21st century has started! I look like I have a waist! And a figure! If I were interrupted without a chance to change clothes, I'd look like a perfectly competent, fashion-aware person who happens to have been interrupted while exercising. And, underneath it all, a fun purple bra!

Attractive exercise clothes don't help the tedium or sheer hatefulness of exercise, but they do help mitigate the indignity of it all. My morning feeling of "Blah, ugh, I have to go exercise!" is now accompanied by a tiny little glimmer of "But I get to wear my purple bra!" While it doesn't make the process pleasant, it does make it less unpleasant.

If, like me, you feel utterly disgusting and hideous while exercise, I do recommend getting something attractive and flattering to wear. It does help, more than I would have expected.

Gillette Fusion ProGlide

I recently received a sample of the Gillette Fusion ProGlide razor. This razor is intended for men to use on their faces, but I'm a woman and I used it on my legs and armpits.

I discovered that, just like it says on the tin, you can sort of glide it lightly over your skin. I can use a lighter touch than my usual Schick Quattro. However, the first couple of uses I got a bit of razor burn on my legs, which hasn't happened to me in ages. Note that I use body wash for lather when shaving my legs. The manufacturer would probably suggest using their own proprietary shaving cream or gel, but I look at products in terms of how they fit into my existing routine, not what kind of new routine they ask me to create.

I find the size and shape of the handle less ergonomically suitable to leg shaving than my Schick Quattro (which makes sense, because the ProGlide isn't intended for leg shaving and the Quattro is).

The razor has a little extra blade on the back, which they call a "precision trimmer". I find it useful for that little bit between the Achilles tendon and the sticky-outy ankle bone, which I always miss when shaving.

In my winter routine of shaving every other day, I notice that I have less stubble 24 hours after shaving compared with my usual razor, but about the same amount 48 hours after. So it doesn't make me need to shave less frequently, but it keeps me presentable a bit longer.

I also noticed, after less than a month's use, the green moisturizer strip seems to be flaking off. I don't usually have that happen with women's razors, and I've never had it happen so quickly.

Overall, it's not for me. (Which I knew going in - it's for men's faces, not women's legs.) It does glide like they say it does, but it doesn't have the comfort and longevity of my existing razor. It's good enough that I'll use it until it doesn't shave me well enough any more, but I won't be buying more blades for it.

Always Infinity

This post is a review of a feminine hygiene product. As such, it contains descriptions of menstruation. If you don't want to read that sort of thing, skip this post.

I recently received a sample of Always Infinity, with instructions to use it on a heavy flow day. Today was my first heavy flow day since I got the sample, so I gave it a try.

The first thing I noticed is how much less noticeable it is when I'm wearing it. It's more flexible and conforms more naturally to the curve of my underwear. I'd never consider my usual Always Ultra Thin as particularly noticeable when I wear it or as not conforming to the curve of my underwear, but Infinity does it better enough that a couple of times I found myself checking to make sure I did in fact put a pad in.

I also noticed that the blood in the pad looks browner and dryer than the same blood would in an Always Ultra Thin. I can't tell why this is happening, but it might be an issue for people who need to monitor the quality of their menstruation for health reasons.

I don't have enough data to comment on absorbency. Based on the one pad I've been wearing today, it appears to be about the same, maybe slightly greater. But I don't have an especially heavy flow when I'm on the pill - a heavy flow day for me is preferably 2 pads but I can get away with one. I'd have to try it over several cycles to get a better sense of its absorbency, and really it would be more informative to get that information from someone with a 12 pad a day flow.

The verdict: more comfortable, no drawbacks unless you need to monitor the quality of your menstruation. The difference between Ultra Thin and Infinity isn't enough to make me put aside my remaining jumbo pack of Ultra Thin and switch right over to Infinity, but it's enough to make me consider going straight for the Infinity next time I need to buy a new pack.

The mystery of Reitmans Comfort Fit pants

This year, Reitmans Comfort Fit pants have a tag on them suggesting that you try wearing a size smaller than your regular size, "for a smoother fit that will hug your waist".

But the pants are already smaller than last year!

I know it's the pants and not my weight because I still have the ones I bought last year. Last year's size 13 currently gives me a generous, and perhaps even roomy, fit in the thighs and seat, in more of a 90s aesthetic. This year's size 13 is fashionably snug in the thighs and seat. This year's size 11 makes my hips and thighs look like sausages, even fatter than I look naked.

I can understand making the pants narrower in keeping with this year's aesthetic. And I can understand encouraging people to maybe try on a size smaller to get a look that's more in keeping with this year's aesthetic. But why on earth would you do both? What could that possibly achieve except make your customers feel fat?

Historical portrayal of beauty and insecurity

Conventional wisdom is that people have more body insecurity today because such high standards of beauty are depicted in the media. But I find myself wondering whether this happened even more in the past.

I've blogged before about what it felt like to be a hairy preteen in a world where no other girl or woman around me was hairy. During one of those hairy preteen years, my family went to England. We went to a lot of museums and art galleries there, and I saw a lot of nude paintings (nothing sexual - renaissance/classical era Serious Art). I had never seen nudity before. I had seen women nursing, and I knew from knowing where babies come from that men have penises and that I would get pubic hair when I got older, but I went from never having seen full nudity before to seeing dozens of depictions a day.

And it made me feel ugly, because none of the women in the paintings were hairy like me. Some of them had pubic hair, although many didn't, but there were absolutely no depictions of the armpit hair that was currently troubling me. From this, I concluded that it was unnatural for a woman to have armpit hair, and I must be some kind of freak of nature.

This all came to mind with Elizabeth Taylor's recent passing, when the news was full of gorgeous old black and white pictures of her. She looked flawless in these pictures, because people tend to look more flawless in low-definition black and white. My most recent driver's licence photo was black and white, and my skin looks perfect in it! If I'd ever been in a position where I was comparing myself to a black-and-white Elizabeth Taylor, I would have felt hideous because my own real-life skin has flaws that I and everyone else can see.

But with current high-definition photography, you can see more of the actor's or model's flaws. Off the top of my head, in Ocean's Twelve you can tell that Catherine Zeta-Jones has acne scars under her makeup. She still looks gorgeous, of course, but the fact that her skin isn't 100% flawless is visible in the high-definition photography where it wouldn't be in Elizabeth Taylor's black and white days. I'm seeing flaws that I can identify with in portrayals of beauty on screen, which I wouldn't have seen in the 1950s watching Elizabeth Taylor, or in the renaissance period looking at Botticelli's Venus.

On top of this, there's the fact that we have access to more beauty and cosmetic products and technology today. In the renaissance era, I wouldn't even have been able to bathe regularly, to say nothing of removing my body hair with any degree of long-term effectiveness. But in the 21st century, I can be clean and shiny, and shave or wax or tweeze or bleach or epilate anything I want on a daily basis - plus there are dozens of businesses in my neighbourhood alone where they'd be happy to do a more professional job for an amount of money that I probably have in my bank account right now. I have a tube of touche eclat in my purse right now, they sell medical-grade foundation in my local drugstore, and I'm fully aware of the wonders of photoshop. The gap between beauty portrayed in the media and what I can achieve with the resources available to me is narrower than it has ever been.

So did people in the past have insecurity about their physical appearance because of media depictions? If not, why not? And why would it be happening today?

How long a tube of Touche Eclat lasts

When used 5 or 6 times a week to cover undereye circles and the occasional zit, a tube of Touche Eclat lasts six months.

Just in case anyone was googling for that :)

Wanted: shave minimizing lotion

I used to use a product called Jergen's Naturally Smooth on my legs, to slow down the regrowth of my (shaved) leg hair. It was discontinued, so I started using another similar product called Aveeno Positively Smooth. Now the Aveeno has been discontinued and I can't find another similar product.

Can anyone recommend anything?

I already know about Kalo, but I'm looking for something more at a drugstore price point, that I can afford to slather liberally on my legs nearly every day for most of the summer. It doesn't need a miracle, it just needs to keep me from growing a five o'clock shadow on my ankles. Trust me, it's for the greater good of society if I don't have a five o'clock shadow on my ankles.

I'm not looking just for moisturizers that you like using on your legs, I'm looking specifically for something that will mitigate stubble regrowth.

I, and everyone who has to see me on the commute home in hot weather, would appreciate any recommendations anyone might have.

Today's inspiration

In honour of what is apparently an impending 90s revival (and can I just say: yes please!), Style Notebook is asking people about their favourite 90s fashion film.

Emily Blake says:

Clueless. Oh, I know. I am not cool. My pick is not in line with the ’90s as they are being referenced on runways and in closets today. [...]

However Clueless was [...] where I first saw unadulterated fashion joy being portrayed. These girls were not afraid of looking ridiculous (Dionne’s incredible hat collection is a notable example), not afraid to wear colour, or pattern. They were having fun.

Yes! That's what it is: joy! That's going to be my guideline for taking fashion risks. Yes, flares have been out of style for years, but they make me feel fierce and bootylicious. Yes, it might be a bit much to match my bra straps to my shoes to my earrings to that one stripe on my dress, but it makes me feel like I fricking WON!

I'm never going to be a fashion plate objectively, so I may as well stop worrying about it and go for the joy. I'm cheering for a 90s revival because in the real 90s I couldn't explore as much as I wanted to, because I always had an eye on making safe fashion choices that wouldn't get me bullied. But if I wanted to live like that, I'd go back to high school. The new rule for adulthood: go for the joy!

Things They Should Invent: hair removal methods that change the colour of regrown hair

As we all know, methods that remove hair from the root may reduce hair regrowth, but results may vary. However, as we also know, existing hair removal methods can only remove hairs that are currently sticking out of the skin. Hairs that are dormant are not removed. So you go through your favourite hair removal method, and then a few days later there are hairs growing back in that area. Are they the same hairs regrowing, or are they previously dormant hairs waking up? We have no way of knowing, so it's hard to tell how well the hair removal method is actually working.

What I want is a system that causes any hair that was once removed to absolutely, infallibly grow back looking noticeably different. For example, where my body hair is black, the regrown hair would all be blonde. Then I could tell if it's actually working.