With Wings or Without, That is the Question

**

Supermarket. Monday morning. Minding my own business. Purchasing ingredients to make two times bacon and egg pies for a school trip, when something sticky and wet sloshed onto my be-jandal-ed foot. I looked down at my freshly moistened iridescent orange toenails. Urghh. Wassat? Instantaneously I wiped my foot on the back of my opposite jeaned leg (I’d spilt coffee on myself in the car earlier, they were already SOILED).

Something pale pink and insipid looking was dripping from my trolley. Like a gloved, but un-gloved forensic expert I took a closer look. The bag of Pam’s free-range butterflied chicken size 14 on special $13.97 had split.

‘Your trolleys leaking,’ offered a helpful female shopper.

‘You need to find someone,’ offered another.

I thought of the poisonous chicken juice blood mixture spoiling my vegetables and tried and failed to isolate its dripping-ness with an old dried tissue from the bottom of my handbag. All women carry them.

Around the corner, I summoned a helpful young man in a black V-neck jumper restocking an impulse purchase full-price display of salt and vinegar chips.

‘I have a leakage problem,’ I announced, quite loudly.

His hair was darkish, shoulder-length and limp. His face was with sheen.

A very helpful female shopper, pushing her snowy-haired son towards us burst out laughing and corrected me authoritatively. ‘Your TROLLEY has a LEAKAGE problem.’

Given my age I’m technically a peri-menopausal woman. This means I could be suffering forgetfulness and memory loss. I also became the proud owner of my first Mirena in 2007 and have not had a period since. Perhaps that is why I had no idea for at least 15 seconds what the young mother was actually referring to.

When I clicked. I did not apologise. Because I was not embarrassed or perplexed by my supposed fem faux pas. It was my chicken that was leaking. Right there in nasty soupy baby pink pools on the highly polished white linoleum. Not me.

More importantly, I do not look upon the female race as a bunch of LEAKERS.

The man in the black V-neck removed the offending bird in an enormous clear plastic bag. And replaced it at my behest.

This isn’t the first avian run-in I’ve had at the supermarché. Though I’m glad this wet one wasn’t with the stout girl at the deli counter. Once, I’d asked her over the expansive glass frontage of cold cuts, ‘What’s in the chicken roll?’ Its sign read, “Honey Chicken Roll”. It looked boned. It was oblong. Probably full of flavours, preservatives. But which ones? Deli-girl looked at me as though I was a bit dim, or from Gore, flicked her bulbous stainless steel tongue piercing a couple of times and replied, ‘Chucken.’

Anyway. Monday. Moving on, I hoped that my spillages were not going to come in threes. I walked, head down, quickly past the helpful shopper lady now chatting to another mum, while I busily consulted my list. Frozen pastry sheets. Two packets.

I thought about a line in a film I’d watched the night before. This awful male teacher, greeted a bunch of male music students, “Morning GIRLS”, by way of intense insult. That line still annoyed me. Girls are cool. And I’m flippin chuffed if I get called one. Just don’t call me mam. I’ll slap.

I guess some men may be equally incensed when their superior officer tells them to grow some balls, when faced with an arduous task like deactivating a large marsh full off landmines. Testicles are delicate unprotected objet. They are not strong. They hang about and get hurt easily. As Betty White, veteran US actress suggests, 'If you wanna be tough. Grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding.' Testicles - Vagina. Arm wrestle vs Centurion Crossfit. Sort of.

What a world full of clichéd nonsense children have to grow up in. Small boys told to man-up when they’re worried about something. And the necessity of campaigns like run-like-a-girl to let little girls know it’s okay to be a girl and run like one.

Perhaps it’s because I’m cruising on out of my reproductively viable years that I’m not fixated on, ahem, leakages, as perhaps a young girl embarking on a seemingly endless road-testing of sanitary products might. I recall my younger sister lamenting over endless Libra adverts in a magazine once. ‘Do you use these when you get fluffies on your bum?’ she asked. Fraid so babes. Once a month, for about 35 years.

Some readers may still be wondering what a Mirena is when it’s at home? A Mirena is a hormone-releasing IUD. It prevents pregnancy and stops monthly womb shedding. My local GP recommends them to any woman who has finished making babies and can no longer be bothered mucking about with PMT and plasma. If your iron levels are low these little darlings are partially funded by the NZ government.

On odd occasions, as I skip through the sanitary gismo aisle, I hope like hell us sheilas don’t get a new form of lady bits cancer ten years down the track, due to the slow release Levonorgestrel from our T-shaped intrauterine system, that last a freaky FIVE years. A piece. They are SO convenient. Admittedly, having them put in is a bit like having an extremely painful albeit, quick birth. In reverse.

On the upside I have not had a murderous spousal thought for at least eight years. I do have occasional bouts of crabbiness. Who doesn’t? Saint Whatshername.

Just think of the savings I’ve made avoiding all those artfully packaged, individually wrapped designer cotton products, that offices full of graphic designers have slaved over.

With wings. Or without. I’m on another journey. 

**(Artwork by Saskia Leek, photo taken my moi Dunedin Art Gallery)

Pube Peace, an essay

Just like good old teenage pash-rash the, pubes-on - pubes-off debate seems to be never-ending. A lot of column inches have been spent trying to explain the current necessity for the sexually active population to remove pubic hair. I’ve read them all and grilled many beauticians, yet I still feel like an ignor-ray-mons.

I have regular lower leg waxes but never in my life have I had a bikini wax, let alone a Brazilian or a Hollywood. 

I have however, endured hours of electrolysis of my bikini line back in the mid 80’s. Was it painful? YES. Unsightly post treatment? YES. Think plucked chicken, add blood. After each session raw follicles were swabbed with meths to help scabs form, then said scabs were dabbed with ointment to stop scabs falling off and scarring. The end result, after a year  was a clean bikini line. And possibly a compromised nervous system. 

Around about the same time my sister was trying to sell a boxful of Brazilian bikini bottoms she’d purchased in South America. Oddly these skimpy, ruched, elastic-less cheek revealing, crack riding thongs, albeit colourful, were not a hit with kiwi lasses. Looking back, it’s obvious why their native wearers chose to have a Brazilian. Wax.

When I was in the peer pressure zone, doing-exactly-what-my-teenage-school-friends-did, not much hair removal took place. Many a hairy lower leg poked out from our brown gingham shifts and the closest we got to treating our pubes was giving them a good dollop of conditioner in order to keep their seaweed lengths silky (thanks to fellow boarder Kate for that tip). If they stuck out the side of our speedos on sports day I don’t remember. 

Not that I haven’t been tempted to TRY wax. Down there. I know delectable matrons of a similar age who sport sporty strips and clear landing gear. So I tried A DIY box-job last Valentine’s day, a cheap treat for the H. However, in your own boudoir with your teenage daughters screeching, ‘OMG Mum!’ Bent over your own van-wah, wondering how to place a sticky wax strip, with your skin in a less than suitable state. Not taut. I worried the whole lot was going to come away in me hands. And as for my caesarian scar that’s one line I don’t want to cross. Or see. Neat though it is, it’s my Plimsoll line. So I wiped the wax off and admitted defeat. I only wanted to have a go at the top bit. Anyway.

I have dabbled in trimming over the years. In fact, I have a patent pending on titillating-tush-topiary. I’ve fashioned: The box, the zebra crossing, the landing strip, the gift bow, the ‘E’, the heart, the lightning strike. Even an origami pelican. Kidding. All with nail scissors. Effortless pube-scaping. Regrowth free. Fun Saturday DIY job. Always completed. 

I’m not the only one. Tom Ford, ran a controversial Gucci ad, in 2003, with a woman revealing pubic hair fashioned into a 'G'. Mons couture.  Nowadays, there are websites that help you create your own stencils. The Beaver. The peacock.  The peace sign.

BUT how did this totally hair-free lady garden fashion of the 2000s come about? Most say it’s because of the advent of ridiculously small underwear and low riding everything, further perpetuated by the porn industry. My interest in it goes as far as trying to curtail my own teenage daughters from ever buying into this zone of expensive never-ending depilatory torture. Most mums would understand it’s tragic enough when our daughters start shaving baby leg fuzz off at 10 - on a daily basis. Let alone being brainwashed into thinking they need to keep themselves in a pube-free pre-pubescent state. FOREVER. Yet it seems a generation of young women just feel cleaner hairless. It’s their normal.

Back in the 1400s women shaved their pubic hair to combat pubic lice. Then they donned a wig, by way of calico straps. A merkin. Sounds like a cute furry animal. I’ve wanted to sight a merkin since the age of 11 when my parents and their friends discussed them one Friday night while rolling about the floor laughing hysterically. Prostitutes wore merkins to cover up signs of disease such as syphilis. I recently saw a modern day adhesive merkin in lurid pink, it offered to make you look good when your re-growth wasn’t. Bad hair day of the cruelest kind. Eek.

Early art depicted women without rugs (which we know never match the curtains, but are FYI mostly the same colour as eyebrows). Take: La Naissance de Venus by Eugène Emmanuel Amaury Duval (1808–1885) for example. The goddess of love is a vision of womanliness yet has no pubic or armpit hair.

I don’t remember ever feeling dirty as I welcomed in every single pube I managed to procure. It was a reward, a badge of my much awaited ticket to women hood and all its worldliness. 

Most young women today shave their bits smooth simply because regular waxing is out of their price range, at up to $80 a six weekly visit. Some do it in the bath. Tip: wash and condition first. Do not go against the growth go with it, as if you were shaving your beard.

Then there are the AFTER AFFECTS no-one seems to want to fess up about. The realities of regrowth in your nether regions. Anyone who has waxed anything will know that a week post wax those pesky hair follicles are bursting with new growth. New growth urgent to pierce through that lovely smooth skin you’ve been given a week to enjoy. It hurts. A painful prickly pressure builds. God knows what that feels like tucked into your knickers, pressing into your tender bits. Chaffing. Raw. But no one says. You do hear the odd thing like, “I had an ingrown hair that got so infected I had to go on antibiotics. It left a huge scar.” Urgggh.  And what about stubble-downtime? Perhaps Brazilians are curtailing promiscuity? 

According to, Emily Gibson MD, "Pubic hair removal naturally irritates and inflames the hair follicles left behind, leaving microscopic open wounds…It is not at all unusual to find pustules and other hair follicle inflammation…”

Aside from feeling cleaner, another reason for de-fluffing the fur burger is consideration for partners. “… You know, so he doesn’t get a pube stuck between his teeth when he gives me oral”.  

However, this poses another question: why the full beards on a large percentage of muff diving males. Heavens to merkin-troyd. Those short and curlies have jumped ship. Merkin overboard.  Tickle torture.

Yet pressure is not only on girls. Spare a thought for the young men trying to grow beards to keep a pace with hipster fashion and in some cases make themselves look older.  My dad was a naval officer in the 60’s, as the story goes if the men in his charge could not grow a presentable beard within three weeks it was - off with your beard. Nowadays, men who can only manage a marmite-smear-of-a-beard or moustache are heading to New York facial hair transplant clinics and forking out up to $US8,000 to fill in the gaps. At least in the future if they decide to go beard free they can just shave.

At the same time some young women are heading to their IPL Consultant and having permanent Brazilians. This got me thinking about, **Dr Seuss and Sylvester McMonkey McBeen’s, Star-On Star-Off machine. Merkin-forebid. These women need to read the story of the Star Bellied Sneetches pretty dam quick. Otherwise sometime in the future they’ll be paying a plastic surgeon to get their furry-curtains restored. While the ad men, the marketers, the razor manufacturers and the hair-on hair-off brigade are running all the way to the bank.

Cameron Diaz spoke out about IPL in her latest book, "…Consider leaving your vagina fully dressed, ladies. Twenty years from now, you will still want to be presenting it to someone special, and it would be nice to let him or her unwrap it like the gift that it is." Diaz also got pretty verbal about lady gardens on a recent Graham Norton Show and spent quite a time shouting hello up her dress, which could have been a belt. ‘Why ARE you there? Why ARE you there?’ 

The answer to that question is: pubic hair provides cushioning and reduces friction (during all activities). Gigolo screen hairdresser, Borat can attest to that, having ze busiest bounciest bush in the business. 

Rebel retailer, American Apparel is doing its pro-pube-bit, displaying mannequins with pubes in sheer underwear. Pubes so wonky and well, just plain bushy they reminded me of what my sister and I termed brunhilders, while holidaying in Portugal in aforementioned Brazilian bikinis many moons ago. Pubes that ran up to the navel like rampant vagina creeper. 

Aside from Diaz, Gwyneth Paltrow happily claims to rock a 70’s vibe. And 80's doyen of the dance floor, Madonna, has been sporting full armpit hair (although to me it looks fake).  In keeping with, hairy = confidence, you can now get order up a, Full Bush Brazilian next time you’re lying prone on the wax table. Full garden out front, clean lips and butt crack, I quote, from the New York Mag. Like keeping the curtains drawn, but the venetians up. The retro wax. The foo-foo mullet. The why-bother. Just let it grow.

Even so, this may herald a new beginning. Banished will be the boys who grow up only seeing their mums with pubes. Son 11, shields his eyes if he sees me pant-less, like some UFO with a spot light is about to land – I’d hate to think how he’d react to the full monty mons. If pubes-on becomes the-new-sexy, he won’t have to.

And boys don’t be too worried if you can’t grow a beard. You could try a berkin. I’m sure Adam Sand was wearing one in the, ‘Secret Life of Walter Mitty’, it did look like he had a small animal glued on his chin pretending to be a beard. According to recently beard-free, Bee Gees Star Barry Gibb, ‘the beard pulls all your muscles down, so it’s not pretty if you shave. Every time I see Brad Pitt with that beard, I think. Better cut it before it’s too late.’

God gave you a triangle of hairs girls, cut the edges, trim them, make them into pretty shapes if you will. Just keep em. Let’s bring sexy back to pubes. At the end of the day no one wants pubes in their teeth, but is it really worth all that pain. Peace out.

Post script: I conducted a small survey, via facebook messenger last night, amongst a random international selection of early 20somethings. You might be surprised to hear what their spokeswoman had to report.

“... A lot of my friends have stopped waxing or at least are doing it less often, a lot of the guys we are friends with have no preference as to whether a girl waxes or not. So mostly the girls are just doing it for themselves, or out of habit. As for guys and beards, those of my friends that can grow them do and those who can't might wish they could but are happy enough either way. It seems it’s still a person to person preference that’s the deciding factor behind it although, some (both male and female) simply do it because their friends do, their partners want them to or most commonly because they think it’s ‘the norm’.”

**‘Belly stars are no long in style,’ said McBean.

‘What you need is a trip through my Star-Off machine.

This wondrous contraption will take off your stars

so you won’t look like Sneetches who have them on thars.”

…And that handy machine working very precisely

Removed all the stars from their tummies quite nicely…

Then, when every last cent of their money was spent,

The Fix-It-Up Chappie packed up. And he went.

And he laughed as he drove in his care up the beach,

‘They never will learn. No. You can’t Teach a Sneetch!’

(from: The Sneetches, by Dr Seuss)

To Bare or Not to Bare: The Midriff Meter

Oh the craziness of fashion. Being the creator of a teenage fashion fiction character, Lily Max, I like to keep up with the latest fads. But the 2013 season must-have look fresh out of New York, London, Paris and Milan Fashion weeks has got me baffled. 

The bare midriff

Thankfully this time round, unlike the 90’s, we’re supposed to be baring, below the breasts and above the belly button. Just a couple of pilates toned lower ribs on show will suffice. No whales tales, muffin tops or bulbous belly button dumbbells in sight. Phew.

So I started to wonder, is there an age cut off for this LOOK? Are only the very young allowed? Because if I may say so myself, my three lower ribs are in pretty good shape. Sun has not added age spots, gravity has not added sag and cellulite just won’t go there.

Taking up Pilates after the birth of my third child nine odd years ago has also probably helped. When my post baby tummy refused to budge, after weeks of mummy and baby toning classes I booked in with a physio.  As I lay prone on the examination bed, a loud woman in a monogramed sweatshirt practically had her hand around my kidneys. I had a hole as wide as the proverbial Grand Canyon, (okay I exaggerate it was fist width) running from my herniated belly button to just above my pubic bone. I had what is commonly known as:

Diastasis recti-Abdominal Separation. 

Disaster alright. My corset muscles, those used to hold internal organs in place, were completely stuffo. I had to start working on my Transverse Abdominis muscles quick smart, in order to protect my back and to wake up my pelvic floor muscles. The only way to fix it properly is to have a tummy tuck, shrieked the scary physio. 

My stomach, which was still getting over a caesarian and I departed. I started Pilates instead. It was relatively new back then; 12 million people in the world including Gwyneth Paltrow were not doing it. But no new mum wants to do pelvic floor exercises (Kegels if you’re in the US) home alone. They’re boring. Thankfully, every exercise in Pilates begins with you engaging your PFs, along with every stomach muscle below the belly button that you can muster.

Nine years on, I can boast three fabulous ribs and a one-pack. Hence my pondering whether these babies need to go on show like a new KFC dinner combo.

Part of me hopes that by the time spring arrives this crazy midriff baring will have died a natural death. Like the rebirth of Levis 501 (boyfriend jeans) with stilettoes (these I’d like to point out have only ever looked cool and flattering on chain-smoking women on the cobbled streets of Paris).  

Baring a huge amount of flesh, even in these fresh off the runway designs are probably best for the beach or our fearless youth. It takes courage to go to MacDonalds in a bandeau or bralette teamed with some high-waisted shorts. Yet crop tops (think long line bra) with flowing trousers and an enormous floppy hat could be a day at the races. And the ‘box’ crop with its high neckline, baggy cut worn loose across those ribs I can definitely see on edgier dames. Shut-up, my friend Ange would say at this point.

Winter is drawing in down here in the southern hemisphere.  Not quite permanent puffer coat weather but getting close. So I feel safer that I have months of roast pork, pumpkin soup with gruyere cheese toasties and self-saucing choccy pud and vanilla ice cream to munch through while I ponder my midriff baring dilemma. 

To double check I wasn’t totally off the track and off-trend I googled, ‘too old for bare midriff’.  And discovered it’s your body shape, not your wrinkles that should be the deciding factor. Good legs: yes you can still wear a mini skirt. Forty and own a six pack: you rock that midriff top girl. 

There was my answer, that lovely word forty. Come spring you might catch me in an outfit like this. I’m sure I could find something to work with in the vintage store. Either that or get out my sewing machine and my pile of furnishing fabric.

Just don’t ask me to take off my sunglasses!

(Natalie Joos, fashion consultant & casting agent NY 2013)

Oh and if you need some extra tips this video is very educational.

Laura Barton, How to wear a midriff top  Class dismissed.

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Sisters: Bringing Sexy Back to Frugality

A couple of years ago I read a book called, ‘To Die For, Is Fashion Wearing Out the World?’ by British author and eco journalist, Lucy Siegle. This book made my jaw drop, it made me feel guilty as hell and it really opened my eyes. (Published 2011 for a sneak peak of what Siegle investigated watch this youtube vid).).

I had no idea that the leftover residues and chemicals from dying fabric turned rivers blue and affected the fertility of workers. That, 1500 silkworms die to make one metre of fabric. I had no idea of the human cost of our self-gratifying (if only momentarily) impulse purchases had.

I had ignorantly bought into the ‘Fast Fashion’ Fad well and truly. I was regularly thrilled when friends commented on a new top. ‘Only $10.00 from Glassons,’ I’d boast. I bought three. My easily influenced daughters were hooked too. Movies like, ‘Twenty Seven Dresses’ and ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ had only fueled their desire for instant fashion.

Nary had I given a thought for the young women in south east Asia far from their country homes, living in shabby dorms at their place of employment: garment factories. These women worked hideously long hours, under stringent male supervision, were sometimes forced to take contraceptives, all for a wage that barely covered living costs. Nor had I considered the outworkers, sometimes children, hunched over summer tops sewing on sequins and beads in their slum-like homes, for doodly squat in return.

All those bargains I zapped up only lasted a year or less, then became stuffing in my homemade draft-stoppers or went to the Salvation Army. So had I really saved any money? Not at all. At least I’d recycled. But a heck of a lot of our throw away-did-I-actually-buy-this fashion ends up in the landfill.

According to Siegle, ‘80 billion tonnes of new garments are produced a year. Of that 1.5 million tonnes get thrown in the bin’. In her book she talks of following a woman down the high street. It was raining and the woman’s shopping bags had holes, through which her just purchased bras and knickers were falling onto the pavement. When made aware of her losses the woman just rushed on. They were so cheap she didn’t even bother to pick them up. The huge department store Primark was to blame.

Primark became famous for its fast turnaround of London Fashion week garments, all at rock bottom prices. This lead to an initiative between the UK government and 300 big retailers, called the Sustainable Clothing Roadmap in 2009, to fight against what became known as the ‘Primark Effect.’ Scary. It also included ways to educate consumers on how to wash clothes at lower temps and less often, to reduce the energy spent in a garments lifetime. Not silly.  Jeans last longer if you wash them less. It’s also a better option for our seas to mend them rather than hiffing them out and buying a new pair, if you think back to the dye factory. Why not support your local seamstress if you don’t sew.

On the subject of landfill, if you want to read the findings of another eco expert my lovely sister, Belinda Waymouth; journalist, turned actress, turned photographer, mommy and now UCLA student and Huffington Post Blogger, read her latest post: Sex, Lies and Garbage and weep. Belinda lives in the green village of Santa Monica and says, “Many of us are recycling our butts off. But consider the statistics: Americans are less than 5 percent of global population, yet create half of all e-waste, and 33 percent of solid waste…”

Thankfully, I’m been a recycler, composter, reducer and re-user since recycling bins hit the Auckland pavements over twenty years ago. But like all of us, I can do better. I felt I should deal with my fast fashion guilt first. And I have. I now avoid, like my middle child tidying her room, snapping up cheap bargains.  I’m trying to change my teenage daughters mindset also. In this self-gratification age this is not so easy to do nicely. Bad cop it is.

Sister Belinda talks about bringing sexy back to frugality. Rocking your grannies green pant suit. Op shopping or buying vintage is not new to us. Back in our poor Ponsonby student/journalist cadet days we shared a fine collection of brightly hued 50’s dresses. Combined with our heavily Elnetted surf-blonde hair, pointy toed recycled shoes and large earrings we definitely had a unique style. Dorries were us. Such a pity those dresses wore out, our little sister Poppy would love them.

Anyway as summer turns to autumn it gets cool down south, so I went to Nearly New Clothing in search of a winter coat. OMG I was like a kid in a candy store, rewind thirty years! I looked for labels naturally. Designer labels. If you’re going to buy vintage it’s the only way. Couture prides itself on using long lasting fabrics, cut well and impeccably finished. I rifled through racks, ignoring the smell of previous owners. I tried on a Zambesi coat and an Adrienne Winkelman jacket. The latter, black wool with contrasting black velvet detail was perfectly tailored and fully lined and it fitted like a glove.

I handed over my $75.00 cash, then skipped along the street with my brown paper bag. Proud to have changed from fast fashion drone to tag hag vintage bitch. I’m in my 50^th year and half way through my life (my great granny lived to 100), from now on until I kick the proverbial bucket I will make informed choices on ‘investment pieces’. Classical yet funky clothes made of long lasting, (hopefully ethically sourced and dyed fabric), with the aim of lasting me till I’m lying in my pine box.

That’s my body sorted. Shoes are a little trickier. I won’t be squeezing my feet into grannies kitten heels. I do own a pair of startling pink Terra Plana court shoes, made from old eiderdowns and vegetable leathers. Their motto is: ‘Think on your feet to survive on a changing planet’.

            I think that’s the only way to go.  
            (pic: Belinda)