Sali Hughes #24 She's gone totally QVC.

[SqualorVictoria]

Exclusive! This moving piece about doing the weekly shop will be in the Observer lifestyle section. Read on for a preview

As I was about to hit submit on my Ocado order, something gave me pause for thought. I fingered my Missoma glasses chain in quiet contemplation. Indeed I am extremely fortunate to have access to all that I do and I have come a long way from Co-op shopping in the Welsh Valleys with Nan- accompanied, naturally, by a spritz of Diorella, to be ready for an adventure as Nan always advocated.

But still, something struck me. In these times, not everyone is filling up their Ocado basket with gay abandon and selecting the finest parmigiana. That I could freely do this while others budgeted felt as distasteful to me as weak builders tea with a splash of milk.

I emphatically shut my Macbook air and did what I do best- I put out a Twitter call to arms where my followers always gobble up my tweets with the fervour of the middle classes demolishing sourdough in lockdown

How do people budget for the weekly shop? What do they do when only value parmesan is available? The results were as eye opening as a high performing budget mascara and just as satisfying. I've written about them in great detail over a 7 page special. Enjoy

 

[BostonFernGreen]

This video made me sad. Overreaction I know. The forced nature of it around the timing being ‘So WEIRD’ feels overwrought and cringe. It wouldn’t be very weird at all to meet up with someone in the same year they had another work project completing.

I guess it’s weird that all in the bathroom guests happen to complete a protect but that’s a completely different thing.

The beauty industry is one of the worst because it hits in several ways: fosters insecurity in mostly women, then gives answers which costs a lot of money and may even be harmful in some cases. Then it’s taking up time which could be spent on other pursuits. I do all of this too so I’ve no place to be judgemental about it. But if you can have SH and JG on in the background or a novel or biography and every time you choose the ‘beauty experts’ who are actually presenting a one hour video but declining to call it that, it’s like taxing yourself.

Women already get paid less and are expected (generally) to swallow the extra time for grooming. It’s beyond depressing that in our world and all it has to offer we also spend our leisure time seeking out and watching adverts and then commenting to say thank you.

Again, I include myself in this. I’m down about it though. It seems wrong.

Is it the most mercenary people who actively encourage it all as their main occupation?

 

[SqualorVictoria]

"Very few people are born beautiful". Fuck that, many are and it's a combination of everything about them, from their personality and so on. The absolute state of saying that beauty is down to injectables. Is this really the same woman who used to say who she hated how everyone wanted to look the same and how different types of beauty should be celebrated?

 

[TriviaNewtonJohn]

Sali Hughes #25: Gifted. I try very hard to pay but she will not have it.

 

[The Dowager]

Yes it is a wierd one isn't it. Share intimate details of your mundane life and if someone comments in a fawning fashion anonymously that is fine - but anything even slightly less than complimentary is trolling. It is all commentary on the details you have chosen to share. I just always associate this IG behaviour with much younger influencers.
I see she has given up milking the Tattle cash cow for a bit. Maybe her hard hitting documentary didn't quite have the impact she thought it would. Or maybe she is busy writing another insightful think piece like the last invaluable 'buy cheap coffins' one.

I can sort of understand now why it takes her so long to write so little. Firstly, she’s constantly doing a Joey and using a thesaurus to replace every third word. Secondly, she’s trying to get a column out of a brain that thinks money should be spent on a £45 tomato-scented candle emblazoned with the name of a paedophile, but not on wooden coffins or Earl Grey tea.

It must be like trying to milk a turnip.

 

[GTL Old-Timer]

How does it feel, @GTL Old-Timer? I’ve never not been one (except for the greys, I mean).

Strange because I am so used to seeing bright, blonde hair in the mirror. But in a way it feels like coming home. I don’t know if you all remember my writing last year that I dyed my mousey brown hair blonde after recovering from what was essentially a years-long breakdown? I was embarrassed by how far I’d let myself go when depressed and wanted to change my appearance so I wouldn’t be recognised by the people who so frequently saw me in that state.

My hair isn’t yet my natural colour, but I definitely feel more like myself. It felt like a weight had been removed from my shoulders yesterday. So much so that I actually wept a little on the way home.

Good, happy tears though.

 

[AnotherBloodyUsername]

Hello dear fellow beefy-faced incels,

I have been reading through the Sali thread for ages now and oh my! it is EXCEPTIONALLY enlightening. You really brought those receipts. (This is my first proper post but I've liked loads of your comments under a different account. Reason being, I didn't want to be threatened with a pweirdo that's been convicted of assault being sent round to my house.)

So just yesterday, I read about how Sali had been moaning on about the beauty industry infantilising women for ages now, then I wandered off to read her beauty column - that 300 words of in-depth research must have taken her AGES. Only a talented journalist of many years' standing could have written that, there's definitely no way an intern could have come up with a piece like that. Anyway,I'm sure you can imagine how absolutely SHOCKED I was then to see that she recommended the rather creepily-monikered Maybelline Baby Lips as one of her favourite tinted lip balms. Silly me though, of course all grown women want to have lips like babies. Bonus: if your partner is a pweirdo, he'll love it too!

The twitter exchange re Jameela was hysterical - because she was born beautiful, she can't have an opinion and can't speak for women? You'd think a bunch of middle-aged women would have come to terms with the fact that some people are born beautiful and some aren't by now. Telling a woman to shut up because of what she looks like is nothing new. (Meanwhile, we're all uggos who are jealous of Sali because she's so pretty... by their non-logic shouldn't she shut up because she doesn't know what it's like for the rest of us?!)

Anyway, keep up the good work Tattlers , although I have to say, SqualorVictoria's spoof pieces are scarily on-the-nose. I'm a bit suspicious...!

 

[Missypissy]

Guess what...just been on twitter and that article about the infantalising of beauty products is not news to super journo Sal. It was defo on her radar already. She probably could have written it herself except she was already working on an important commission flat shoes being more comfortable than expensive crisps or something.

 

[SqualorVictoria]

Just had a thought. Do you think if Estee Lauder released a Gua Sha tool with their brand emblazoned on it that Sali would say "have long since loved them, used them for ages"

 

[melfish]

She deffo needs counselling if she thinks a bunch of people who are talking about her on the internet are coming after her on the fucking Eurostar.

What are we going to do? Jump out at her and scream "Hey, your last column had too much alliteration and your eyebrows don't suit you."

 

[Shineyshine]

I know I’m late to the party but honestly, who was going to sit through two tortuous videos of Sali simpering and doing her weird half closed eye thing to find out what brand offers were available for Black Friday??? If she really wanted to be helpful why didn’t she just publish a list ffs? At least then people could just look it up. She was acting like she was doing a public service broadcast . Black Friday was probably over by the time she finished doing her performances.

 

[Jade Mitzi]

I have to hold my hand up and say I don’t honestly think she looks good now. She has morphed into a look straight off the IG conveyor belt of looks. Hard shaped eyebrows, shiny forehead, awkward smiling ability due to botox. It’s such a ubiquitous look they are all interchangeable now, they sell the same crap, pat each other on the back, wear the same. I actually hate it - give me individuality any day of the week.

 

[CocoCottesmore]

That response by Sali on Twitter about the Mail article made me really cross. She's been moaning about it for ages? So write a bloody article about it then, you're a journalist. But of course she can only write crap stuff on the benefits of cheap crisps because she knows that if she did write that kind of probing, thoughtful article, she would be biting the hand that feeds. Why doesn't she just accept she's an Instagrammer who shills and give up the pretence.

 

[Tesla's Ghost]

Seems to be mega long. 1hr 15mins. Is anyone going to take one for the team and give an overview?

I'm going to need some lube for that.

 

[melfish]

Aw, same, @SqualorVictoria!

 

[SqualorVictoria]

"Expertly threaded brows work better than Botox. A good pair frames your face, lifting the entire eye area, albeit in the illusory sense. I don't let anyone but Daxita near mine, because she's incredibly fast, painless and has an excellent eye for what suits different face shapes (like many Indian women, she's been threading since her mother taught her as a child). But you can find great practitioners all over the country. Price is no guide to quality, so seek a personal recommendation."

I'm guessing the "I don't do anything with them" is part of the cool effortless vibe she's trying to go with

 

[The Dowager]

Sali claims that her nationality is erased by typos, but she’s erased my humanity in her opening paragraph. ‘the world is divided in two: the sophisticates and the toddlers. The former favour fine botanical oils, natural milks and complex aromatherapeutic fragrances. The latter crave sweet, fat bubbles, dense enough to make a carefully laid foam beard last the duration of Carols From King’s.’

I don’t belong to either camp, what ever will I do? Am I no longer of this world? Am I a cyborg (in which case do my electricals render me unsuitable for bathing?)

Come to think of it, she’s omitted The Bath Salts Brigade, a number of whom reside in this thread

 

[The Dowager]

I listened to the first 15 minutes. Basicalls she says she was scared the trolls might stop her in the street and she's glad we have to wear face masks now because they give her more privacy.

What does she think’s going to happen, someone will stop her in the street and say ‘Oi, Sali, your writing style is condescending and overdone, and you should wear cooler tones’?

Bit rich coming from Little Miss Catflap.

 

[SqualorVictoria]

Just musing out loud but this thread is so supportive and loads of lovely people sharing information. Far from the rat infested sewer some people make it out to be

 

[MakkaPakka]

She deffo needs counselling if she thinks a bunch of people who are talking about her on the internet are coming after her on the fucking Eurostar.