A Post-Sino Glo Up

I got back from China yesterday!!!!! [Update: this was written like two weeks ago.] Honestly, I've been anticipating it for so long, it didn't even feel real. For the longest time, in my dreams I've been in my house, I've been at Bronte Beach drinking a smoothie, I've been reuniting with Lachie after 5 months, I've been trapped in a room with K again --- so actually coming home feels weirdly overdue. I was sure, after so much anticipation, that I would never actually make it to Australia: I'd get into a bad biking accident right before I was due to leave, I'd be arrested at the airport, I'd miss my flight... when we were due to descend, I watched eagerly, hungrily. I saw our plane go past the harbour bridge, and then past the airport, and then way out to sea - and low too. I was fairly sure the pilot had hijacked the plane and decided to crash into the ocean, the ocean of my own neighbourhood beach. But eventually we U-turned and landed very smoothly at the airport. I was home, and the sound of an Australian traffic light near the taxi stand made me cry.

ANYWAY, I look like trash. I think it's a combination of the air pollution and water pollution in China, but I have disgusting infected areas of skin, hair that's not as easy as it usually is (I'm very lucky to have very good hair), and I just look gross in general. So I, anticipating my return to good health, have embarked upon several (very simple) missions to, you know, not look like trash.

Skin

I'll let this speak for itself:

Ok, it doesn't even look that bad there, but you can't see the texture. It's bumpy and scarred and infected and only getting worse. I'd put tea tree oil on it every night in China, to sort of disinfect and clear it, but it really only slowed down the inevitable invasion of my face.

The first thing that's been helping is the clean water and air here. My god, my first shower back in Australia was I think the best I've ever had. I felt so clean and warm and I fell into a comatose sleep for two hours. Now that I can drink from the tap, it's also easier to listen to those ~ drink more water uwu ~ tweets and, well, drink more water. In fact, I'm going to get some water right now.

water acquired.

I also decided that a lot of the redness / scarring could probably be helped by exfoliating; that would get some of that bad skin off. (Is that how that works? Who knows.) So I went to Lush, because that's where people with good skin always say to get that sort of shit. And it's cute and made of food and shit. I was kind of scared to go in, because I've heard about how over-friendly Lush employees are contracted to be.

And the memes were in fact prophecy: as soon as I walked in three separate employees said:

"HI THERE!"

"Hey friend, can I help you?

"Good afternoon babes!"

And then, as I ventured further into the store, one of those employees rushed up to me and said, "oh my god, we were all just obsessing over your bag! blue velvet, agh!" He gushed. The other employee he had been talking came along to join the party. "I want a suit made of that material!" she enthused. I abashedly went about the store, looking for some sort of exfoliant. I got this one because it's an exfoliant and a mask, and mmmmmm coffee. Also, far less expensive than I had been expecting - it was $15.

As I attempted to purchase it (I'm still not used to having to revert the the ancient practise of paying with card ), the lady behind the counter literally made me try their "charity pot". I wish this had been a strain of weed, but it was just a pot of lotion that's for charity. I have never used and have never understood the use of body and/or hand lotion, but she literally did not give me an option, so I meekly put it on my hands, and, of course, as I attempted to take back my card it slipped out of my lube-hands. I walked around the rest of the day feeling slimy.

Nevertheless, I obtained my exfoliant thing. That problem area of my skin is still really tender because there are some new pimples, so I'll wait till those have gone down to use it. I'm still using tea tree oil in the meantime, and I bought a ~soothing~ face mask from target while I was there picking up shit like shampoo, conditioner, lip tint, deodorant etc that I couldn't really get / which I used up in China. It's target brand, so I'm not expecting much, but it's fun to do anyway.

Oh, and I also expect I'm going to be eating more fresh, less heavy/oily food here, just based on cuisine, and more fruits and vegetables, so hopefully that will help my skin too!

[Update: it's gotten a lil better!!

Hair

My hair's gotten reallyyy long; longer than it's ever been before. It's at about my waist now! I'm actually really liking it; I feel like some sort of queen; all I need now is the jewelled crown. But it's gotten a bit dead at the ends, probably both because it's so old now, and because of the water I've been washing it with in China. So, again, the nice water here will probably solve that, and I've been leaving my conditioner in for like five minutes before rinsing it out. (This involves me standing wet and cold and bored in the shower for extended periods of time.)

But I also want to get a hair cut. I don't want to cut it really short (above shoulders) just yet; I might wait till summer to do that; but I do want to get it trimmed. The idea makes me uncomfortable, probably because of some ingrained misogyny "I'm not like other girls, I haven't been to a hairdresser in two years" bullshit. Which naturally means I have to challenge this discomfort. I really do need to get it trimmed though - for the first time in my life, I have split ends. They're weirdly morbid - they remind me of double-headed snakes.

Anyway, here's my goddamn haircut; I'm starting to realise how lame this post is.

Nails

I've had my nails unpainted for a while, after self-removing (ie obsessively chipping) the shellac I accidentally got in china.

It was beautiful, but something about shellac freaks me out. Again, probably ingrained misogyny. But I have a list of nail colours I want to try, and honour of being back in winter, I want to get white sparkly nails. Ironically, when I went and booked it today, they said it would have to be shellac or SNS, so I agreed to get SNS. Oh well, at least they'll last.

[Update: got the SNS with Loz, and because we had to wait so long, it was really cheap - $28!

I propose this colour / style be called "coke nails".]

Miscellaneous

I also did/bought a bunch of miscellaneous things today to look better in general. At target, I re-bought that lip stain I talked about in my February favourites, and also got it in a bright red colour,

which is more wintery to me - stained red lips will look nice with my long hair draped over my obnoxious groupie-esque winter coat, or thick jumpers and skinny jeans.

Buying beauty supplies at Target made me feel like some sort of LA vlogger-girl. It was a fun role to play for a little while, and Target has cool scanner guns now!

I also got my eyelashes tinted today! I've done it once before, and I really liked the darker sulkier look of darker eyelashes. Basically, the ends of my eyelashes are blonde (lmao the only place where I don't want light hair is where it turns up, classic), which makes them look shorter than they are. So I got them tinted, which dyes them a really dark black, and thus also makes them look a little bit thicker. It's probably only noticeable to me, but I like it and it makes me more confident hehe. I don't like the idea of eyelash extensions, because those sound difficult to sustain, too intense-looking, and of course, our good friend internalised misogyny rears its ugly head again. So this is a nice, chiller alternative.

Before:

After:

OK, you really can't tell lmao, but I swear it's noticeable in person!!!!

I'm also going to switch out my nose ring to gold, like it used to be. That way, with a gold nose ring and a silver/diamond nose stud, it won't look weird to wear gold jewellery, and will make mixing metals easier in general.

Anyway, I probably don't look ANY different to anyone else, but I feel way more confident and more 100% That Bitch, so it was worth it!