10 Things My Mother's Never Told Me, or, racinchikki needs some girlie-help!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

  1. How do you put eyeliner on your lower lid? Where on your lid do you put it - under the base of the eyelashes, or on the edge of the eyelid where it’s pink?

  2. What’s up with lipliners? Should I be using it?

  3. Hi Opal.

  4. How can I make my hair do that flippy '40s style thing like the chicks in Pearl Harbor?

  5. Please explain bobby pins. I just don’t get it.

  6. How do you know how long to cook meat? Is it written down somewhere in the secret meat-cooker’s bible, or are women supposed to have a psychic meat-sense that I’m lacking?

  7. How the hell am I supposed to walk in high heels?

  8. The concept of pantyhose eludes me. When wearing a long dress, the legs are covered, no need for hose. In a short dress, it’s probably warm, why wear hose? So how do you know when to wear them, and what kind to wear?

  9. Fingernail care is hard! I keep mine short to play guitar, but I guess I should shape them? How? What are all these tools in my manicure set? How do I put nail polish on without getting it on my cuticles - especially on my right hand? How do you get the tips a different color so neatly without making a huge mess? Argh!

  10. There’s hair gel in 3 or 4 styles; pomade; hairspray; mousse; and hair wax, solid and liquid. When do you use what and how?

Please help me! My mom won’t and my sister can’t!

2

  1. Don’t, you’ll be happier at night when you have to wash off all that goop. (Oh and depends on the current style but in the rare occasion I use a very little bit under the lashes…on the “shelf” of your eye should only be used when a real fancy dinner comes up ((glamorous black-tie event)) or when you are going for glamour photos.)

  2. Lipliners? Only if you wear lipstick and only if you choose to look (after a tasty meal) like Bozo the Clown. Nothing is worse looking than a woman that has used lip liner and her lipstick is completely off. Hence the desire to become a “natural woman.” for some of us.

  3. Waving

  4. Not sure what you mean flippy style, when you say flippy style I automatically think of Marlo Thomas in the show That Girl.

  5. Bobby Pins, generally used with thick hair or teased hair when an updo is in order. But try to explain that on your wedding night when you have to take out 50 bobby pins and your man is patiently waiting for you to come out in your brand-new, white teddy and you look like the bride of Frankenstien. Omit them all together. If you can’t use em, go for sleek and close to the head/face.

  6. Cooking meat, depends on the type and cut of meat. Experiment. You can always throw the beast back on the grill, stove or pan…Chicken needs to be cooked thoroughly as does all fowl. I recommend a cook book m’dear. Either than or summons up Zenster or Chef Troy, they are the true cooks on the board. I usually guess with beef, follow a recipe’s instructions for fowl and for fish…I don’t eat it.

  7. You don’t walk in heels. They are bad for your back, feet and although they make a woman’s legs look sexy, they are a modern torture device invented by men so women can’t run…think about it.

  8. Panty hose – for when your legs are pasty white. They do aid a wee bit in the summer so your thighs don’t stick and do warm you in the winter – every so slightly. In either case I recommend long dresses in the in the winter with a nice pair of boots and in the summer some tan-in-a-bottle. Well, they do have control tops too so if your belly is feeling extra flabby that can come in handy.

  9. If you do anything with your hands, chances are all attempts to put on fingernail polish will be ruined in about an hour. As a computer chick, I keep em short. Only file from the outside in (so they say, I don’t.) As for the cuticle thing, forgo the pretty nails unless it’s a special occasion and have them done professionally. Nothing like a frustrated woman before a hip to-do worrying about her damn finger nails. If you want nice and pretty ones, keep them moisturized, well shaped (from the center out) in a flat oval pattern with a clear polish on them.

  10. Mousse, for lift before you dry, hairspray to freeze style, pomade, no idea and hair wax, no friggin clue. The only think I can come up with when it comes to hair and wax in the same sentence is for hair removal…that’s another question entirely.

Well, coming from a woman that believes there’s more to beauty than polished nails, hair teased out 15 inches and lips that look scary I think you should do what you feel most comfortable in…and always, as they keep saying less is more.

3

#8—I worked for Leggs Hanes Bali Platex, was an A#1 bra- fitter and pantyhose princess.
When to wear pantyhose: when one wants to look professional, special or formal occasions, or when your legs aren’t their best, skin-wise. Bad tan, no tan, that type of thing.
What kind of hosiery to wear all depends on what’s up. On a dressup date, sheer nylon is very pretty. Something with a little spandex in the mix will wear longer and fit better. Sandle-foot or all sheer hose with open-toed shoes, please, I beg of you.
There’s a lot of product to choose from. Give specifics when asking for help choosing hose (what kind of dress, shoes, control-top?)when you go and buy your pantyhose, and keep in mind that nice hose are NOT cheap; 7 or 8 bucks for a pair of nice pantyhose. You can prolong the life of your hosiery by using stockings and garters, which I feel are cooler, more comfortable and more economical–if you get a run, you only lose one stocking!

4

  1. Under the base of the lashes.

  2. Yes, whenever you wear lipstick. Make sure the colour matches.

  3. I’m not Opal. :slight_smile:

  4. I don’t do hair, just make-up and nails.

  5. See #4.

  6. Betty Crocker has all the answers. I own a basic Betty Crocker cookbook, and refer to it as needed. It has a complete list of all meat types, and how long to cook it per pound or kilogram.

  7. Practice. I can run in heels.

  8. Wear it if your legs are pasty white, if it’s too cold out for bare legs, and never with open-toed shoes.

  9. I’d have to see your manicure set to tell you what each thing is for. You should use cuticle conditioner, and gently push the cuticles back (with cotton on the end of the cuticle pusher, which is probably one of the mysterious things in your manicure set) so getting polish on them shouldn’t be a problem. Practice will help you keep the polish application neat. And for different coloured fingertips, you need a french manicure set, which comes with little stickies to put on your nails as your apply the polish.

  10. Depends on your hairstyle. When you get your hair cut/styled, ask for recommendations on how to keep the look.

5

  1. How do you put eyeliner on your lower lid? Where on your lid do you put it - under the base of the eyelashes, or on the edge of the eyelid where it’s pink?

    Under the lower lashes as close as you can. Open your eyes real wide, tilt your head down a bit and look up towards the mirror. NEVER on the pink part because it will bleed into your eye.

  2. What’s up with lipliners? Should I be using it?

    Lipliner is to give your lips that finished look and to keep your lipstick from “bleeding” into the tiny lines around your lips.

  3. Hi Opal.

    Me too.

  4. How can I make my hair do that flippy '40s style thing like the chicks in Pearl Harbor?

    Hair gel, curlers, and hairspray.

  5. Please explain bobby pins. I just don’t get it.

Heh. They’re handy for picking locks :slight_smile: No, they aren’t used as much as they used to be because hairstyles aren’t as elaborate. But they keep curls in place and hair out of your eyes without being obvious like a barette or comb might be.

  1. How do you know how long to cook meat? Is it written down somewhere in the secret meat-cooker’s bible, or are women supposed to have a psychic meat-sense that I’m lacking?

Any good cookbook will have that information. It depends on the way you want it. Rare or what? And it’s not so much how long as to what the internal temperature is. Get a good meat thermometer.

  1. How the hell am I supposed to walk in high heels?

Practice. Do stuff around the house in them. They mess up your center of balance and it takes getting used to.

  1. The concept of pantyhose eludes me. When wearing a long dress, the legs are covered, no need for hose. In a short dress, it’s probably warm, why wear hose? So how do you know when to wear them, and what kind to wear?

    In long dresses, I wear knee highs because they make my feet look better in strappy dress shoes. In short dresses, they make feet and legs look better and have a uniform color. They make different weights and colors for different seasons of the year.

  2. Fingernail care is hard! I keep mine short to play guitar, but I guess I should shape them? How? What are all these tools in my manicure set? How do I put nail polish on without getting it on my cuticles - especially on my right hand? How do you get the tips a different color so neatly without making a huge mess? Argh!

Spend the money to go have a manicure and watch her and ask questions about doing it yourself. I use q-tips dipped in polish remover to clean up any messes on my right hand when I polish my nails. You’ll have to ask someone else about French Manicures. I just use acrylic nails when I want that look.

  1. There’s hair gel in 3 or 4 styles; pomade; hairspray; mousse; and hair wax, solid and liquid. When do you use what and how?

Depends on the hairstyle you’re after and the type of hair you already have. When you get your manicure, talk to a stylist at a salon that carries the products for sale. They’re usually very helpful since they use the products in shop

6

I’m not the girliest chick on the block, but I’ll help you where I can:

I personally don’t use a lipliner because I don’t think it’s necessary. I never cared for the contrasting liner/lipcolor look, and I’ve yet to see anyone who looks really good with it. You can use lipliner that’s close to your lipcolor color, but that always struck me as being a lot of work.

Lots of styling time, lots of styling products, lots of worrying that it’s falling or going limp. I think it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

Depends on the meat, depends how you like it. I had to cook and experiment to learn.

Carefully. Walk around with 'em on in your house first to get a feel for them. Stay off uneven, soft, and sloping areas.

I wore black pantyhose with my long black dress for our high school orchestra performances. If you wear a non-skintone hose color, you’ll see it. It made me feel a bit more feminine, like i was really dressed up. With a short dress, well, I just think it looks more polished and professional, even if you have nice legs and an even skin tone.

I keep my nails very short. When I cut them, I cut as close as I can, and that gives me a fairly nice, slightly rounded-over shape. I follow that up with an emery board to smooth any sharp edges.

Not getting polish on the cuticles takes a steady hand and practice. I gave up years ago. :slight_smile:

And the style where the tips are a different color is called a french manicure. Sally Hansen sells kits for them. They come with little curved pieces of tape that you stick along the white part of your nail. You then paint over that, and when it’s almost dry you take the tape off, leaving a nicely-painted tip.

7

Please never put eyeliner on the pink part of your eye-it is a breeding ground for infections. Besides, it makes your eyes look smaller; if you line just under the lashline it makes lashes look thicker and eyes look bigger.

Pantyhose offer a more professional look than bare legs. Here is an easy rule of thumb: If the men have their legs bared (ie are wearing shorts) you can get away with bare legs but if they have to cover their legs with long pants, so should you (although you can go as sheer as you want).

8

“Left, right, left, right, left, right.”

-Judith Martin, Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

9

Unless you don’t have eyes (they just kind of blend into your face) or it’s night - don’t bother. Otherwise, it unfortunately depends on your eyes. (A few years ago, everyone said that above the lower lashes was dangerous and you’d go blind. A few years more recently, they started saying that it wasn’t that dangerous after all.) Buy some eyeliner (the cheap 99cent stuff works) and play with it.

If used wrong (see Christina Aguilera) it’s scary. If approximately the same shade as your lipstick, you can cover your lips in lipliner under the lipstick and it’ll make the lipstick last longer. It’s also good for a subtle change in lipstick tint. Styles go back and forth as to whether lipstick should have a precisely defined edge or not. Lipliner gives that edge - but how it looks depends on your lips. Buy some (again, the cheap 99 cent stuff works) and play with it.

If it’s the flippy thing I think you mean, and you don’t have a lot of hair you need rats. They can kind of be faked with nylon approximately the same color as your hair stuffed with cotton. You then have a cylindical object & you wrap your hair around them and then use bobby pins to secure them. And then lots & lots of spray. You don’t touch this hair. No one touches this hair.

They secure hair. If you’ve got a lot of hair (or need it up or out of the way) you use bobby pins.

I have no idea. I follow cookbooks to the letter & things tend to burn in my apartment.

As has been said, practice. I can jump rope in heels.

They even out the color of your legs - they give a smoother cleaner effect, etc. etc. What kind depends entirely on the event.

Get a manicure and pay attention. But as far as what my mother taught me… file them into shape from the outside to the center (never file back and forth). Soak them, gently push the cuticles back (if there’s cuticle remover in the kit, use that.) Pat them dry. Buff them. Put on base coat, two layers of color and then top coat. To do the two color thing, use a kit.

It depends on what your hair is like naturally and what you want to do with it. Ask a specialist.

10

  1. Under your eyelashes, makes your eye’s look bigger which after all is the point of eyeliner. Actually, I wear it on my upper lid, just above my eyelashes.

  2. Nah waste of money as far as I’m concerned, unless your really wrinkly and want to stop the lipstick “bleeding”.

  3. :slight_smile:

  4. mmmm use a hotbrush?

  5. as clueless as you I’m afraid.

  6. Well chicken is 20 minutes per pound plus 20 minutes, but I dont cook very often, so umm you’ll have to ask my SO.

  7. God, don’t its not worth the torture!

  8. only wear them if my shoes will hurt without them, <shrug>

  9. If you keep them short I woulden’t bother filing them. Nailvarnish, now if you get nail varnish on parts of your finger you dont want, dip a cotton bud in varnish remover and wipe it off.

  10. Can’t help you there, never use it, prefer my hair to look “natural” (hate all that “this hair ain’t never gonna move even in a hurricane” look, IMHO of course no offence to anyone who uses it :smiley:

Oh well, that’s the sum of my 32 years of experience in ten easy steps :smiley:

11

So tell me again why you girls put yourselves through all of this??

12

Well, the pat answer is for men to notice us, but that’s not right. That leaves “we do it to make ourselves feel good about the way we look” which I’m not sure is correct, and “For other women because women are competitive about who looks better” which I think has more truth in it.

13

Says racinchikki

Yes. I demand a mental blow job right here and now!

14

  1. Hey, a question that my experience as an Avon lady can possibly answer! Don’t put it on the pink part. You will make your eyes look smaller, not the point at all. This method works for most eyes. Apply it to only the outer third of the lower lid (below the lashes as close the lashes as you can get). Open your eyes very wide and trace the outer edge and onto the upper lid. What we’re trying to do her is make it look like a circle, like your eyes are very “open”. Apply it thinner as you go across the upper lid until it reaches the corner and is barely noticable there. Experiment with colors that suit your skin & eye color. Black/brown doesn’t look well on everyone. (Don’t worry about matching what you are wearing.) You might even need a pinkish color. You want to show off your eyes, not your new colors of make-up.

  2. Lip liners keep the lipstick/gloss from bleeding so easily into the surrounding area around the mouth. Make sure that the lip liner is the same color or slightly darker in the same shade as the lip stick you are going to wear.

  3. Hi Opal.

  4. Not a hair person, really.

  5. My sister used to use them to hold those great big huge curlers in her hair in the late sixties. Do they have another use? No truly if you need your hair held into place for some style, they’re great. Get ones that match your hair color.

  6. Beef depends on whether you want it well, medium, or rare. Chicken the juices should run clear. Actually, if I was learning to cook all over, I’d get one of those meat thermometers. It’s supposed to be safer. Go get one.

  7. It’s better for your feet if you don’t.

  8. You are not supposed to show bare legs. If your leg is showing, it should be covered by hose. (Well, that’s the way it’s supposed to be.)

  9. Sorry. I’m not a fingernail person either. But I do recommend getting a few manicures done so that you can see what they do to them.

  10. I quit using all of these and appreciate that God gave me my own hair and I wear it in styles that my hair can do without all that stuff now. Leave-in conditioner is a neat product though. So glad they came up with that stuff.

15

Ok, eyeliner

Comming from an ex-goth, on the pink, below the lashes, above the lashes, on the lashes, above the eye, below the eye, and on the eye, then extend from outside egde over the side of your head sloping upwards to almost meet the hairline, ending in a fine point, then create equally fine points at your inner eye, not quite touching the nose, finally shave off your eyebrows and draw them back in Morticia style with your trusty eyeliner.
(And it should be done all in one breath :))

I find Rimmel Khol is the best (black and gold striped pencil)… oh, and get yourself a good pencil sharpener!
High Heels… as has already been said, Practice.
I used to go clubbing in mine - KMFDM rocks. Also meens scarey blokes leave you alone as they have no desire to get their feet pierced - unless they’re REALLY scarey!!

Have fun! :slight_smile:

16

**

I agree with most everyone else. It should go under the lashes of the lower lid. I think eyeliner that’s right on the lid or on the upper lid looks too racoonish and makes the eyes look smaller.

**
I don’t like lipliners so I don’t know anything about this.

**
::waving::

**

Hot rollers, a round brush, and lots of hairspray/gel!

**

A meat thermometer is a must for cooking meat. You want your poultry to be 160 degrees to prevent salmanella and your pork should be 180 degrees. With red meat it’s a little different depending on how rare you like your meat. I believe rare is 140 degrees and well done is 180 degrees. I have a Betty Crocker cookbook that has a great chart in it telling you the temperatures for different kinds of meat so that’s what I go by.

**
Practice, practice, practice. High heels makes almost any pair of legs look long, sleek, and sexy. If you’re over 6 feet tall though I would recommend flats. There’s such a thing as being too tall.

**
Luckily I don’t have to wear pantyhose to work due to our casual dress policy. When going to a special occassion, such as a wedding, I will wear them though. Even with a long dress I would recommend full length pantyhose and would only wear knee highs with slacks/pants. It looks silly when a long skirt is blowing in the breeze and a pair of knee highs is worn underneath it.

**
Soak your fingers in warm soapy water and use the wooden stick in your manicure set to gently push the cuticles back. Always file from the outside of the nail towards the center, never back and forth. I also recommend the quick drying nail polish (Revlon[sub]tm[/sub] is wonderful!) Also, when shaping your nails, follow the shape of your cuticle. You don’t want oval nails with square cuticles! Even if your cuticles are different shapes you want to do this. As for different colored tips, you can buy a kit for that. They’re not too difficult to work with, it just takes practice or else you can have someone else do it for you.

**
I don’t use gel, mousse, or hairspray on my hair so I have no experience with this.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with women putting on make up or teasing their hair. We do it because it makes us feel better about ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with being a “natural beauty” but there’s also nothing wrong with wearing makeup to make yourself look like a natural beauty!

17

Since most everyone else is punting this one…

Pomade and wax are for extremely curly/frizzy hair - judging by your photo in the People Pages, you don’t need it. Gel is generally for a sleek, “wet” look, although there are light spray gels that don’t make you look like you’ve just stepped out of the shower. Smooth it through wet or dry hair, comb into place, and blow dry if necessary. If you wear your hair “down,” spraying around your part with one of the light gels after you finish drying it will help keep your hair looking neat all day.

Mousse is essential if you’re trying to get big hair. Work a glob (golf ball size for short hair, about twice as much for shoulder length) through wet hair from scalp to ends, then blow dry while holding the hair away from your scalp (or upside down).

Hairspray sets the surface of hair in shape. It should be the last hair product you use. If you’re doing the “big hair” thing, don’t depend on hairspray to hold it up - you need bobby pins for that. However, hairspray does a fine job of making the surface hairs lie down instead of sticking out in all directions. If you need your hair to be absolutely glued into place, AquaNet superultra hold (gold bottle) is the only way to go. (See my photo for an example - I’m the one on the left. :wink: My bangs are being held in place by one bobby pin and a lot of hairspray).

18

  1. if you’ve gone this long without wearing it, don’t bother. By the time you master it you’ll hae gone a year looking like a racoon. But if you must … cobalt blue kohl on the pink part from the middle out will make the whites of your eyes look brighter.

  2. prevents lipstick bleed. But if you’re a chick that doesn’t carry a pocketbook with a mirror n lipstick you’ll end up running around town with your lips outlined n nothing more. (a glamour don’t).

  3. well, there are some pretty cool ones that you can just pin back some hair by your temples. not all are utilitary. :slight_smile:

  4. Buy a meat thermometer. You stick this in the fattest part of the meat away from the bone. Generally on the thermometer it will have guide marks for different types of meat. Or cut a small slit into the meat. Redmeat, well you know your preference of pinkness, chicken should be white and the juices running clear. Fish should be opaque and slightly flakey.

  5. Shoulders back hips squared head high. practice practice practice. If you’re leaning forward, the fashion police will cite you. :slight_smile:

  6. assuming some amount of leg or foot shows at one time or another. UltraSheer hose make your legs irrestible to the male touch. :smiley:

  7. think of this as a traveling torture kit. :wink: There’s probably something in your kit to file the nails (always in one direction only), to push the cuticles back (and tapered stick looking thingey), perhaps a cuticle trimmer (ouch it’s sharp), a buffer (looks like it does absolutely nothing).

If you get polish on your cuticles, after the polish is dry you can dip a q-tip in nailpolish remover and clean up your goofs.

As someone else already mentioned, the guides for french manicures are sold in stores and pretty darn easy to use.

  1. hairspray holds in place or can help cobat frizzies on a humid day, mousse gives volume, pomades & waxes (I think) age generally used on sculpted do’s or braids. Gel to me is just icky and gives you a helmet head. :stuck_out_tongue:
19

Thanks everybody!

What I’ve Learned:

  1. I think I’ll skip putting eyeliner on my lower lid, and if I do it’ll be under the lashes adn only on special occasions. (Since my general use of eyeliner on a daily basis is to wear bright cobalt blue liner and hot pink shadow…)

  2. I’ll skip lipliner too.

  3. I’ll try to do the '40s thing with a hotbrush, and if that doesn’t work screw it. :stuck_out_tongue:

  4. I don’t do updos, so I guess I can live without bobby pins!

  5. My next mission in the bookstore will be to find a quality cookbook (probably Betty Crocker’s) that actually has a meat cooking chart in it. I have three and all of them assume that I already know how to cook meat, prompting this question. ChiefScott, I’d give you a psychic blowjob but Gunslinger’d get jealous; he only wants me to use my psychic meat-sense on him, you see. :wink:

  6. I’ll practice, and/or stay with my trusty wedge heels.

  7. Ok, pantyhose are cleared up now! As I enter the workforce I’ll keep in mind that I do need to wear 'em with short skirts.

  8. I get paid tomorrow… if I get up to city, I’ll get myself a manicure and pay attention.

  9. Much clearer now - looks like I don’t need hair wax, but I’ll invest in some lightweight gel and maybe some hairspray. There’s a bottle of mousse under the sink somewhere.

Thanks!

20
  1. The others have answered your question, so I’ll give you some extra info.

For a basic look, draw the eyeliner from between the iris and the tear duct, to just barely at the outer point of the eye. For a more exotic look, extend it to the tear duct and just past the outer point and blend it into your eyeshadow; note however, that this is a very stage-y look, so you only want to use it when you want to look a little weird.
I knew one woman who applied eyeliner the same color as her eye only by the iris- it made her iris look larger and intensified the color.

There are three types of eyeliner (that I can remember) wooden pencil type, mechanical pencil type and paintbrush type. Get one of each and see which one works best for you.

[sub]Wavy lines are good!-rjk[/sub]

Don’t blame me for that one, rjk tied me up.
[sub]And she loved it!-rjk[/sub]

Work on getting the thinnest line possible - I use the mechanical pencil type, stretching the skin with one hand while applying the liner, then rubbing my finger under the liner.

I’ve put very light cream shadow on the inside of my lid at the corner - the health police hate it, but I thought it made my eyes sparkle.