Sunday 17 July 2011

"If you don't wear lipstick, I can't talk to you." - Isabella Blow

Hello readers!  It is peeing it down outside, and I'm supposed to be working (No, not school on a Sunday - this is my other job.  I moonlight as an audio typist.  I take dictation, isn't that charmingly retro?)

This is obviously what I look like when I'm typing focus groups.
The end of term draws near, and I have been stretching the definition of 'workwear' to extreme lengths.  Denim skirt, with tights deemed by Simon to be "ridiculous", but what does he know, eh readers?

Top - charity shop, Skirt - Oasis, Tights - Primark, Shoes - Primark, Corsage - hair flower from Accessorize

That evening was our staff party, and I fancied curly hair, so I tried to do a Cheat One hot set, by setting-lotion-ing and then straightening each section of hair and then quickly rolling the warm hair up into a fat pincurl and leaving it to set for a couple of hours.  I put some curlers in to make myself a nice big fat rockabilly fringe, too.


I forgot that my hair is crap and will only take a curl from a full-on, dried-in-for-a-billion-years, don't-even-think-about-going-out-in-the-wind wet set, so what I actually ended up with was a sort of pageboy, which I actually really liked.  Well, I liked this view of it.  I'm not showing you the other side, where I had to resort to sculptural curls and a massive flower to hide the crap bits.

Face:  Posietint cheeks, Highbeam highlights, Cherries in the Snow lips and Eyelure lashes.

My frock is from Primark, and I promise my bra wasn't that visible all the time!  I didn't take a Boring Outfit snap because I had changed said outfit thirty times and then fannied on with my stupid fail fringe for a hundred years.  Nonetheless, I had a totally marvellous evening.  Here is a crappy phone photo.

As you can see, my fringe fell apart!
Recipe for an Ashabeth cocktail (devised by Ashleigh and Elizabeth at the Christmas staff party):
1. Decide upon ordering a pitcher of 'Jerry's Iced Tea' (gin, vodka, Sailor Jerry's, Cointreau, coke)
2. Think "Hmm, this looks a bit strong, maybe we'll ask to have it without the vodka."
3. When asked "Would you like extra gin to replace the vodka?", answer with a resounding yes.
4. Bottoms up!

Ashleigh and I suffered for our creativity the morning after we invented Ashabeths, and decided we weren't going to be so clever at this party, but obviously we did, AND we fell for the old "Do you want extra gin?" line again.  Strangely, this batch of Ashabeth didn't seem as potent, so we lived to tell the tale!

Anyway, back onto faces, after having peeled off the false eyelashes, wiped off several layers of foundation and roughly scrubbed off the Lipcote, on Saturday I didn't feel like wearing much make-up.  


As an experiment, because sometimes I forget what I look like beneath the paint, I decided to give myself a 'natural' look.  Concealer, Dandelion powder, Posietint lips, just a tidgy bit of eyeliner with no wings, mascara and (gasp) a very light hand with my eyebrow pencil, without exaggerating the arch or extending the line.

S'alright, I suppose.  I prefer my painted floozy face, though!

Monsoon season started on Saturday, so for my quick run to Morrisons to buy eggs and butter to make biscuits (no you can't have any, they're for teachers only), I wore this:

I look skinny!  Bosh!
Coat - Primark, Top - Oasis, Jeans - Peacocks, Wellies - Amazon, of all places, Beret - present from Matt and Ruth one time when they got fed up of me whingeing about losing my first white beret!

Back to typing, I suppose.  Can't beeeee bovvered!

8 comments:

  1. Hmm, I too work in a school, & I could also do with a second job - audio typist sounds right up my street!

    I wish I could get away with denim for work.. But no chance I'm afraid. It was the only one definite rule they told me when I started - no denim. I have been known to wear black jeans though on a couple of occasions, just when I'm feeling rebellious, just to see if I could get away with it.. which I did.. hmm, maybe I will have to push it a bit further!

    I really like your natural look :)

    Love the last pic - wouldn't think it was bloody July would you!? The coat is gorgeous - I wasn't expecting you to say it was from Primark.. looks more expensive. And loving the wellies - they're ace!

    www.heart-shaped-bruise.blogspot.com

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  2. I've got that green Primark dress!

    I love it and nearly bought it in black as well.

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  3. Loving the retro curled fringe! I too have hair that just decides to hang poker straight, if I dare curl it, it rebels back to straight in about 10mins.Turquiose tights are good too, my fave colour! xx

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  4. Do you mind me asking, how you came to moonlight as an audio typist? I audio type for a living (not so charmingly retro) and would love to be able to do it from the comfort of my own home!

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  5. @ heartshapedbruise - I always think I'm lucky to have a primary school as a workplace - it's the perfect setting to indulge my slightly ridiculous clothing tastes! The kiddies love it when I wear silly bright tights or dresses, and as for the staff, well they've just got used to me! I think my brightly-coloured outfits look more smart and put-together than the standard 'black trousers and blouse' boring workwear option anyway!

    @ Up Toon Girl - Doesn't surprise me that you have the same dress! It's a lovely '50s shape, but shorter, which I prefer, because I'm a short-arse and proper vintage midi-lengths tend to swamp me.

    @ Frantic About Frances - I was so annoyed by my fringe not working out that night! I've done much better rolled fringes in the past, grr! I sympathise with the poker straightness - mine has to be long to hold a curl because it's too thick while it's short. So annoying!

    @ Lucy - Of course you can ask! It all began when I needed a temp job over a summer, between graduating from my first degree and starting my MA. I just applied to a bunch of temp agencies and was lucky to get a job as a typist for the Asylum and Immigrations Tribunal. That was office-based, and I did that for 8 weeks or so, and then when I went back to uni, I happened to see an advert in the student job shop for an audio typist for a market research company. It's a tiny office, so the typists work from home and we have the audio files emailed to us. (The company conducts a lot of their research via phone interviews, so I type them up into readable word-document transcripty things.) Now that I've got a full-time job, I only type when the company are particularly busy and need me to lend a hand. I think they mostly employ students, so I tend to get called upon during exam periods and uni holidays. You could try investigating local market research companies and see if they do their typing the same way...? I think I preferred working in the office to doing it at home, but that's just me! Typing at home's much more flexible, because they don't care whether I type during normal business hours or in the middle of the night, so long as I email it back to them by the deadline!

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  6. We'd probably be friends in real life, your "tea" sounds pretty good!!! Like something I'd be interested in ;)

    -Mabel
    Mabel Time

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  7. You look goregous without the makeup, but lovely with it too! Plus I really like how you hair turned out and I laughed quite hard at the pin-curl-itis that you seem to suffer from, like me. (Pin-curl-itis: to have hair that refuses to hold a curl unless plastered and dried from a thousand years in uncomfrotable tight pin curls). Also, "bosh"? I've never heard that word before... but it sounds cool! (and yay for benefit! Love their packaging and products)
    (Also, the fact that you are a moonlighting typist means your retro cool factor just multiplied, I love it)
    (and sorry teh grammer and spelling is so horrible in this comment, my fingers are freezing an I'm too jolted up on coffee to correctly identify words or sentence structure!) xoxo

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  8. Thanks Bette, I'll give that a go! xx

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