Sali Hughes #61 She simply cannot countenance a sequin

[TheOffice]

It looked like she was trying to move her "career as a journalist" into a career as a writer. Hence the elite level sucking up on twitter about 10 years ago to all and sundry female writers...Hemmo, Keynes, Moyes etc. Looks like her novel wasn't taken up and her book deal ended up with the wondrous Everything is Washable.... If her writing career had worked I don't think she would be doing the "expert content creator" thing. She'd be writing books with snarky plotlines about beauty influencers.

Oh man yes she would so have written those books.

I was accidentally on the very outer edges of that circle around that time (I mean very, very outer edges srsly). I met a few of them at a Do (hadn't previously met them IRL yet) and they were mainly very nice to me. I was speaking slightly awkwardly and looking round at their encouraging faces and then landed on Sali's narrowed eyes and hilariously Mean Girl expression, which was so terrifying that I actually lost track of my train of thought and stammered to a halt. She looked like she literally hated me. She seemed both on Twitter and in RL very invested in being in that group and basically willing to fight anyone who she thought might be in competition with her (which I very much wasn't.)

I met her again a couple of times through work and she fulfilled her initial promise gloriously.

 

[foxwarren]

‘I was aghast when I came to replace them and found they cost £309. When did hair straighteners – a staple for so many British women – become so ridiculously expensive?’ When people like you started getting them for free, peddling them to the general public and telling us this is the thing that can’t live without.

 

[Django]

She means it’s thick, like opaque tights
I think I dislike Sali’s opacity; I’d prefer more transparency.

I'd like more transparency about how a face can can change so much. (It was a pretty face in the first place)

 

[Aude]

I was looking to see where the podcast was in the podcast charts. Nowhere it seems (and the chart goes up to 250 I think). There are a couple of reviews - of which this is the most recent:

 

[SqualorVictoria]

That reminds me, I was going to post this at the time but forgot

 

[bracrumbs]

I know exactly what you mean, I work with someone like that. I’ve got a great life, I’m super happy with it but I am a size 18 and prefer a lay in bed than a 40 minute make up routine so obviously, she pities me. In a really passive aggressive mean way. Because she seeks happiness through her Botox and never eating therefore just can’t compute that my lardy arse is a-okay, thanks muchly. I’m even quite fit which isn’t something she’s ever considered when she tells me about how important it is to exercise. Wouldn’t enter her noggin that you can be tubs and go to the gym a lot. So I just listen to her waft on about endorphins wondering when these endorphins are going to let her face know she’s happy.

 

[Loolar]

Someone else pointed out on another thread that shopping is a valid addiction but it's not taken seriously as it's seen as a frivolous women's thing. I totally agree

I practice meditation and follow what various teachers share about understanding the mind. One insight recently thats been interesting me is about desire and simply how the mind functions to never be satisfied. I’ve noticed in myself since with for example, a little independent clothes shop here where I’m travelling. I got a couple of pieces (all reasonably priced but still feeling like a treat) for Xmas. Felt like my life complete, but then gradually thought about the other things and went back a few weeks later and got a couple more bits. Told myself that’s it now. I have plenty of clothes, love the pieces I have. Some more time passed and I saw a photo of someone wearing another top (they had in the shop), it looked so nice. My mind is now starting to try and convince me. If I try to buy it when I’m back home they’re marked up so much more by sellers there, so I realised I’m now considering buying more.
Sorry for the essay. What I’m trying to say is I’m mind aware enough that I know the mind behaves like this, I can see this desire and pattern there, but I still go along with it Sometimes. I can also not get things as it’s good practice to not follow the minds desires (if it’s not life and death etc). So I feel how much an influencer’s mind must be seeking more and more, in the beginning all the free stuff will be enough, then the vouchers, then they see a colleague get xyz and they want that. Then the home stuff, the vacations etc. It will train their mind, their thoughts, their desire etc to need even more. This isn’t even thinking about the dopamine that they’re getting used to from all these moments. Tbh I feel looking from the outside now it’s very much not a life that’s going to lead to true contentment or happiness. Which is their choice and not for me to criticise in that way, but I wouldn’t want it. It’s just stuff at the end of the day, and nothing we can take with us at the end.

 

[SqualorVictoria]

It's totally cringe but also fascinating. Forget a psychologist hanging out here in the 'sewer' and decreeing that we're all mentally ill, I'd be much more interested in a psychologist studying influencing and how it fools women into thinking they're friends with strangers on Instagram. Strangers who see them as dollar signs

 

[Jelly Bean]

You are all being very mean and judgemental.
Any changes to her face are entirely due to her braces. They notoriously change the entire shape of your face. Including eyebrows and chin.

 

[bottlewrapper]

Influencing is a career which cannibalises itself after a while. Starts with building knowledge (make up artist's assistant), then credibility (books, guardian column), then building a following (insta), then the freebies start, followed by the commercial partnerships rolling in, [optional: then buy mansion/renovate house]. But that's the peak! Because after a while, you have to undermine your knowledge by recommending products which aren't great, and then the constant recommendations begin to undermine your credibility, so your following falls away, onto the next 'expert'.

The sharper/luckier ones like Sam Chapman cash out when the going is good and walk away.

The less successful ones hang on by their thick plastic fingernails, desperately trying to stay relevant and increasingly just outright lying (botox? Moi?!) to keep going.

 

[LyraBalaqua]

Sali Hughes 62 # it’s good manners, payment pending of course .

 

[SqualorVictoria]

I don't want to sound like a snob at all but if I wanted to get botox I would definitely be avoiding botox from anyone who isn't a doctor. That being said, I can't believe JoJo actually told that anecdote. What if the person in question had heard? And also the sneering snobbery that is pretty much reducing someone to cleaning toilets

Sorry love but you're the one paying someone to keep your house in order as you can't seem to manage it yourself. So your snobbery is misplaced. It's like when people sneer about 'unskilled workers' while paying someone to make their coffee. If you're so good at it why not make your own coffee? It's almost like those 'unskilled' workers and the 'help' that you look down are actually valuable?

Anyway, what a pair of insufferable melts and you deserve a medal for enduring that @Jelly Bean

 

[yessenia_d]

When I had adult braces I didnt get free filler migration included

Yes, it's migrated very prettily and very tellingly all around her natural lipline and halfway up her philtrum.

It's all part of her 'I hate having all these conventionally attractive things that other people pay for' big boobs, pouty lips etc. I wonder what her excuse will be when they're out.

The Hell of Being Conventionally, yet Uniquely, Pretty: My Life In Search of the High Regard Afforded to Those Less Blessed, a memoir by the teeniest, tiniest, cutest, littlest manic-pixie-dreamgirl-turned-#QuietLuxury poppet that you ever did see.

 

[Aude]

Prompted by the people carrier reference, I wondered what the collective noun might be for a group of beauty influencers. A shill of influencers?

 

[yessenia_d]

Stupid patronising video. Why is speed such an obsession with beauty people, and why do they assume we need to be shown how to do speedy make up as if A. we all take hours normally, and B. they are showing us something groundbreaking?

"Let me show you what I do to get ready when I stopped working just 15 minutes before I had to go out!"

Answer: I apply make up on top of my exsting make up.

Oh my god. As if everyone hasn't been doing this since they were 13 anyway.

The most ridiculous thing is that you know she doesn't just quickly #girlboss it and swipe on some lipstick because she's a busy bee with a strenuous workload: she agonises for hours about what outfit and what makeup and what hair and whatever else.

Her job is one of being excessively and superfluously pampered and then brown-nosing the brands that lavish her with the aforementioned pampering. It's just bizarre that she would think that her audience would believe that here she is, with barely a handful of minutes in her stressful and busy busy day, getting ready to go out, when her entire day is, effectively, spent "getting ready."

It's all just performative nonsense with, i think, the aim of either being relatable (rushed, frazzled and harried working woman but still able to ☆put it on☆) or enviously effortless (a swipe of colour, a nonchalant tousle of the hair, and ready for her closeup at An Event).

 

[Jelly Bean]

Well that's a look. I guess

I think that makeup looks bloody awful. Wtf?

 

[crossword]

Sali‘s plot devices:
- I left xy, usually a really expensive appliance, in a hotel room or airbnb and had to buy a new one
- I thought I‘d hate it but I actually really like it
- I rushed out of the house in the morning without getting dressed / taking my make up bag so I had to buy a whole new outfit / contents of a make up bag
- Women find using skincare / makeup too complicated and are baffled by eye pencils, so I’ll explain their usage

 

[Stillwater]

Ring light on end of nose alert

 

[melfish]

I have nightmares where I'm out and realise I'm wearing my pyjamas. Why would you put yourself through that in waking life?

 

[melfish]

Maybe her life is just boring. Kids grown up, off to Uni. What else has she got on except hairdying and shopping?

How dare you! She is a FOUNDER, basically a chemist