'Semi Groomers', 'Beauty Slobs' and why there are some shortcuts I won't try.....

So there’s been this article doing the rounds about women who are, at best, called ‘Semi Groomers’ and, at worst, ‘Beauty Slobs’.  Of course I've done most the things they’ve admitted to: painting over chipped nail varnish instead of starting again; using a permanent marker to fill in the white bits of scuffed heels (saves the cost of replacing them) and using double sided sticky tape or, in desperate circumstances even a stapler, to fix a falling hem instead of sitting down and spending 20 minutes I didn’t have sewing it back into place.....and more than once on all of the above.

I've also done the ironing shirt trick they mentioned too; where you only iron the bits that show.  So I was glad to read that I wasn’t as alone in these time saving/lazy shortcuts as I thought I was.  Besides 'semi-groomer' was such a nicer name than 'beauty slob', so I read on with glee.   Apparently there’s shortcuts I didn’t know about too; a dry shampoo (surely that’s an oxymoron I hear you say; but no, it really exists) that you spray on your hair, brush through and – voila, you’re good to go.  Febreze your clothes if you haven’t got time to wash them; indeed there was one woman who, allegedly, even Febrezed herself if she didn’t have time for a shower. A little extreme, but she seemed happy enough. Others mentioned they sprayed perfume in their hair to ‘freshen it up’ if they didn’t have time to even dry shampoo it.  Though perhaps, unless it’s a cheap perfume, that would be a very expensive way of shortcutting your way into the day.

Others just washed their fringes (okay if you have one, otherwise you might as well do the whole lot surely?)  Still others didn’t even bother getting dressed when they did the school run and merely drove to the school in the pyjamas, fluffy dressing gowns and bunny slippers – or, in one woman’s case, a slinky negligee and silk gown with kitten heeled fluffy mules – they apparently drop their kids at the kerb and return home to....whatever they do before they get dressed; a lover, a secret soak in the bath with none of the usual interruptions?  Or, more likely, a kitchen that resembles the ruined remains after a plague of locusts have gone through there. 

The other thing to remember here though is that this might be one shortcut too far.  You might argue, rightly, that these ladies don’t leave their vehicles and so no one really sees them.  But what happens if they have a car crunch either on the way there or on the way home, and then have to explain to a clearly bemused police officer that, no they’re not under the influence of alcohol they always drive their kids to school dressed like that.  Mortified children who are mentally scarred for life and will spend the next twenty years with a therapist explaining how their mother humiliated them when they were [insert age].  Let’s face it now, no one but a toddler would not be embarrassed should this happen.

So I’ve decided I will make note of all these shortcuts for future reference – but some, like the pyjamas for the school run and febrezing yourself – might just be a shortcut too far.... 

This is Simi; thanks for reading.