Jack & Hill: A Beauty Blog - make-up, cosmetics, perfume, and the substance of style

Quote of the day

Gok Wan (at right), host of How to Look Good Naked, in an interview with the Observer Woman magazine:

The UK perception of beauty is totally out of whack. We're incredibly confused about what we think is attractive: women who are a size 10, but who hate their bodies; women who admire someone who is a 14, but who don't want to be a 14 themselves. We haven't a clue! We're told certain things, and we believe them. You're probably wearing that dress because you think someone else will like it.

[A UK 10 is a US 8, and a UK 14 is a US 12.]

Girl fight

Female Sumo wrestlers from the world championships in Japan.  Via the SF Chronicle's photo website.  The photo got me curious. According to this Russian website, women Sumo wrestlers have existed since the early 1700's:

Matches were organized between women and also between women and blind men. Some of female sumoists were actually skilled wrestlers. By 1744, onna-zumo's popularity had reached Edo (Tokyo). Tournaments were held at Asakusa Temple until authorities closed them down on the basis that it was immoral. However, due to popular demand, the matches continued at different locations in northern Japan. A few exhibitions even took place in Hawaii. But by 1926 this form of activity was completely banned for women.

Fascinating.  Apparently, the relaxation on the prohibition on women Sumo wrestlers may have something to do with getting the sport admitted to the Olympics, where one criteria is that the sport be open to both genders.

The Hacker's Diet

I'm getting tired of looking at my own ass (there is, after all, a reason it's behind one most of the time), so thought I'd put up another post about something--anything!

What I came up with, in part as a result of having just made such an--ahem!--large ass of myself, is a novel diet plan, designed by a multi-millionaire software engineer, John Walker, who describes the origins of The Hacker's Diet thus:

The absurdity of my situation finally struck home in 1987.  ``Look,'' I said to myself, ``you founded one of the five biggest software companies in the world, Autodesk.  You wrote large pieces of AutoCAD, the world standard for computer aided design.  You've made in excess of fifty million dollars without dropping dead, going crazy, or winding up in jail.  You've succeeded at some pretty difficult things, and you can't control your flippin' weight?''

Six months after this aha moment, Walker was down from 215 pounds to 145, and stayed there.  His diet book is a free download. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I like the idea of diet as an engineering problem. Though I still have my doubts. There seem to be plenty of nerds who treat sex as an engineering problem, and look where that's gotten them....

Does my ass look fat in these pants?

Actually, I think my ass looks better than usual in these.  When I heard that the Gap had come out with a new line of "curvy" cut jeans, I actually made a trip to the mall to check them out.  Even before I turned 40 and got fat I was curvy, and had a hard time finding good jeans.  The Gap makes curvy jeans in a size 0, which sounds oxymoronic, but isn't (my ass has been in the double digits since high school, however).  I would not be ashamed to wear these jeans out in public. I didn't buy them, though, because I'm pathological when it comes to paying full price for anything clothing-related. I will wait for them to go on sale, by which time I may yet be a size smaller, who knows?  I say with a handful of leftover halloween candy by my keyboard....Aw, what the hell, Nike and Gloria Steinem have declared the world safe for big butts.  I think we could use a few more of them to balance out the giant breasts that seem to be everywhere.  The key to it all is having a waist somewhere in the middle.....