It seems Jenna has deleted her wonderful blog, and all my makeup and I are in mourning. She shall indeed be missed, along with her unbeatable tutorials.

Also, I laughed more than a little at the first paragraph of this fashion rant, courtesy of the ever-faithful Ms. Jessica Fug.

It's Friday, and in celebration of my having finished assignments I have decided to make the most of this morning. I have had breakfast and a huge cup of green tea with apple and cinnamon, and I have taken time to get dressed 'on purpose' - make a bit of a look out of it.

Ever since Eva gave me a beautifully girly ring as a surprise present the day we left for Italy, I have sort of rediscovered green. More specifically, I have rediscovered exactly how good it can make me look. My outfit today consists of:
- My knee-length, bell-shaped black tweed skirt from H&M, which I've had for years now.
- A dark green tank top from Mexx, perfect in shape, size and colour.
- My dark purple Aubade lace set with the lilac straps, the one I got half-off a couple of years ago but is still one of the most beautiful sets I own.
- My much-loved black Sanne cardigan from Risøe.
- Fishnets.
- Black, high-heeled office shoes from Unisa, the cutest, most comfy work shoes in the world.

Sounds a bit dull, doesn't it? However, when I add my green cheapo necklace from Prague, my new ring, super-shiny straight hair and short plum-coloured nails, we're getting somewhere. Only thing that's lacking now is make-up to match:
- Perfect, matte skin with a tiny bit of the subtlest blusher around.
- Matte white eyeshadow, black liquid eyeliner, mascara and a bit of white eyeliner pencil inside the lower lashes.
- Very strong berry-coloured Rouge Dior lipstick with a dab of shimmering plum-coloured Diorific in the middle of the lower lip.

Et voilà! I feel pretty, oh so pretty!

I have to run now (in my very ladylike way, of course), but I wish you all a fabulous, worry-free Friday and a lovely weekend, containing at least one walk in the autumn sun.

So, everyone, how do you like my new look? You likey? Me likey.

Now. I'm a little in over my head these days, but all in all, things are good. I have assignments, the choir competition is in a week and I've just taken on the responsibility for the choir's new website. God knows how that will work out, but I'm going to give it a shot, anyway. Step 1 is to learn a whole new set of abbreviations, so that's what I'll be doing today. Well, that and my Ex.fac. assignment.

It's been such a lazy week, I tell you. No classes, because we're supposedly too busy  catching up and working on assignments, so basically it's been almost like a holiday: a bit o' reading, a bit o' writing, a lot o' coffee (I'm already missing La Sosta, may she rest in peace). Also, I'm officially a board member of my father's company (I'm very important, I am - he couldn't have started up without my savings), so I've been to a 'board meeting' (which is basically a family dinner, but it sounds heaps cooler) and got all the ad brochures that have been sent the company for 'Board member E. Neuhaus'. It's been a very grown-up week - I'm voluntarily taking on responsibility now. I  don't do responsibility. Something strange is happening to me, and I demand to know what it is and what I can do to stop it.

To compensate, I'm having Julie and Heidi over tonight for apple crumble, pedicures and Sex and the City. We all want to look pretty for aj_stalin and Julie's big 10 year anniversary bash tomorrow, and I can think of no better cure for adulthood than pink nail varnish, ice-cream and hours of ooh-ing and aah-ing over Kristin Davis' hair.

Finally, happy 21st Annabel!

I've been having a fat couple of fat weeks. Probably because I've been eating badly and I'm actually getting fat, but that's beside the point (also, Julie? Shut up). That happens occasionally.

By 'occasionally', I mean 'every time I have some big important party to go to and really really really need to look good'.

So I took this quiz, 'What's your magic number for weight loss?' Why not, right? La-di-da. How is my metabolism? How much do I want to lose? How much do I crave starchy foods? I have no idea, I just ticked boxes more or less at random to see what would happen, and if there was any useful information waiting at the end of the line, uh, quiz.

Well, firstly, no. If I eat 1200 calories per day I will at some point lose weight. No shit, Sherlock. But what surprised me the most was what happened in the 'waiting room', you know, 'please hold on for five seconds while the results are being processed and we sneak in an advertisement, because we are Americans, and that's what we do'. The advertisement was for Twix Caramel Cookie Bars.

I wonder how many of those will fit into my 1200-calorie day.

I love makeup. I have always loved makeup, ever since I was a little girl. I know makeup. And I’m not ashamed to admit it.

I blame it on my aunt. One of my oldest memories of her must be from around 1990. She had long, red nails and was just back from Cuba. She is a trained beautician, and for most of my childhood she worked in a shoe shop - her handwriting is still on some of my mum’s shoe boxes: 'For Eli! Do not sell!' To me, she always seemed like the most glamourous creature alive; tall, skinny as a rail, blonde, tanned and beautiful, and always, always with some fun makeup in her purse. That’s how it started, you see: She would buy something she wasn’t completely happy with - an eyeshadow that was too shimmery, a lipstick that was too red - and so she would give it to me. It was our little secret, and it has continued to this day. We are talking about a picky woman searching for the perfect brown - I get a lot of freebies.

I instantly loved my new playthings. The colour and shape of my eyes seemed to change completely, just because of some forest green eyeshadow. There was particularly this one lipstick - an almost gloss-like red Shiseido - that would make me feel so pretty. I can still taste it. And I needed that. I didn’t have a very good time in school, in fact I felt like the fattest, ugliest little cow that ever lived (mostly because I was told that that was what I was), but the makeup sort of gave me a feeling of being ahead of them. It felt like I knew something they didn’t. In fact, I think I must have, because you know that pastel phase that all girls who grew up in the nineties went through at some point? Baby pinks and blues, cheap shimmery lipgloss and Maybelline Great Lash? Never had that. To this day, the thought makes me smile contently.

It’s been a very long, very exhausting week, and my head has been hogging all the work it was instructed to share. In other words: Too much thinking. Not much done. Again.

What I can do is cross a blog post off my to-do list. I’m very into lists these days; they help me convince myself that, if nothing else, then at least I’m organised. At any given time I will not only not be doing anything, but also be completely aware of exactly what it is I’m not doing that I should. I excel in hypocricy. Unfortunately, that talent is a sad, lonely orphan.

On behalf of my own useless self, then, I proudly present My Favourite Things In The Whole Wide World. Well, not in the whole world, but MFTitWWW of skincare ’n’ stuff. That world is big enough for me at the moment (says the girl who has officially had ’wash up’ on her to-do list for a whole week tomorrow - I need deadlines, I need assignments and school-related pressure, because then somehow, like magic, my house tends to become squeaky clean).

To give you a short introduction to my main burden: I have annoying skin. It’s dry and eczema-ridden, yet at the same time I get pimples, my pores are anything but delicate, my forehead is shiny, and to make things even better I have just learned that they don’t say ’freckles’ any more, oh no, they say ’pigment spots’. You name it, my face has had it.

That didn’t quite come out how I intended. Moving swiftly on…

I have just done something naughty; I have stolen the sub-heading of another girl's blog. Bad Sjokoladepiken!

But it's so good! I'll give it back soon, I promise.

This might shock you, but I actually have to go study now. 'Sjokoladepiken's favourite things' and 'Because I care, part 2: Pulled together' coming soon to an LJ near you.



Edit: Hooray! I'm getting my money back for the gorgeous black peep-toe stilettos that died after two evenings' wear! I'm so relieved to finally have something that can justify the purchase of my new babies; a pair of red 40s-inspired patent peep-toe pumps with suede detailing and a chrome buckle.

I love being me.

It is becoming blatantly obvious to me how only posting ’pieces of substance’ totally kills my funny (and my will to write at all). Instead of succumbing to the evil perfectionist in me, I’m bringing out the fairy floss.

Ask me on Monday what I’ve been doing this weekend, and I’ll probably say ”oh, you know, nothing much”. I’m telling you now: I’ll be lying. This weekend I have turned to the dark side.

Well actually, I’d rather say I’ve turned to the bright side, but anyway, you know ’the other one’. This weekend I have spent about eighty percent of my waking hours - the eighty percent not being spent rummaging through the fridge, watching Six Feet Under, shopping or pampering - becoming acquainted with a particular breed of blogs, namely, beauty blogs.

I am known to many as ’that girl with all the shoes’, ’the girly one’ or more disconcertingly, ’the one with all the expensive lingerie’, and it is true, I am a very girly girl. What can I say? It’s fun. And although it can be time-consuming to a degree that no outsider will ever comprehend, it is also rewarding in ways that only the true GG (Girly Girl - I felt an abbreviation was in order) is able to appreciate. Of course it’s a waste of time; we know that two coats of mascara and religious moisturising will never help cure cancer, but in our defense: neither will football.

For the past two days I have got to know a woman who takes a picture of her outfit every day, because, and I quote, ’It takes so long to figure out what to wear most days, I might as well journal it!’ There’s Princess Poochie, who spends all her money on supporting a rather expensive shoe habit, stating her defense in her sub-heading: ’When you can't do something truly useful, you tend to redirect that pent up energy into something useless but available, like snappy dressing.’ I have got to know a girl from Bristol whose makeup blog has inspired me and made me laugh throughout most of the weekend (and, to be quite honest, it’s thanks to her that I’m brave enough to ’grow down’ a bit). There are hundreds of girls like these who keep journals about one of the most politically incorrect subjects known to (wo-)man, and you know what? I think it’s wonderful.

Because there is something thoroughly satisfying about a good makeup day. And what’s more, it’s nice to not feel guilty about that.


About three years ago, I had an experience of the kind I thought was reserved for those enigmatic creatures who make up ’the A crowd’: A friend of mine told me that, when she went shopping, she sometimes caught herself thinking ’What would Sjokoladepiken do?’ I was stunned. Shocked, in fact; she must have been drunk, or ironic, or confusing me with someone else. I was never one of 'the popular girls' (I was fresh out of high school at the time, so the I’d say the term was still applicable). On the contrary, I barely knew how to have a conversation before I was about seventeen; I was short, chubby, had flat hair and less-than-fashionable clothing, and then out of the blue, ’What would Sjokoladepiken do?’

Thing is, I was so caught up in the surprise that I never actually got around to answering it. Even now it feels so weirdly self-indulgent that I think I’ll have to do so in third person.

You see, Sjokoladepiken doesn’t do fashionista. She hardly ever goes shopping. She doesn’t care much about changing her hairstyle three times a year; she can’t even bring herself to dye it, for all the money and upkeep it would take. She doesn’t own clothes that scream ’sex kitten’ or ’job interview’, in fact none of her clothes scream anything at all. Sjokoladepiken nails one single look, known as ’pulled together’.
I'll tell you how.


To be continued.

Now that I've got that out of the way, I can get on with the more important things. Like lingerie.

Because on Saturday I fell in love.





This is decidedly the most beautiful item of clothing I have ever tried on, with the possible exception of this. I'll have to eat a lot of oatmeal this coming month if I want to spend a month's rent on it and its matching french knickers. I lose sleep over this bra. I think about it day and night. I lose my apetite, but then think that if I don't eat I might not fit into it any more, so I have a piece of fruit. I want it so badly. But it's so fucking expensive. I'm sorry, my darling: I can't. It's not you, it's me. I mean, if you're up for a little changing-room fling now and then I think that's great, but I just can't commit right now. I'm sorry.

Apart from this, though, the weekend has been thoroughly delightful. I can easily sum it up and make it sound like something out of a dream. Listen to this:

I have learned new skills. I have fallen in love. I have woken up with a beautiful man by my side. I have been to a party with good music, wine and thrice as many men as women. I have watched the sunrise. I have made a new friend. I have visited new places. I have taken a long walk in the sunshine, and also spent a day indoors with my computer, hot coffee and plenty of fresh fruit. I have been out on the town without spending a crown. I've also made up ridiculous spontaneous rhymes for my blog. I have had fantastic hair and nails constantly. I have experienced some amazingly soft, sweet kisses. I have watched Breakfast at Tiffany's while drinking wine and eating expensive chocolates. I have made someone happy. I have listened to new music. I have had fun reading newspaper debates about topics I am passionate about. I have bought three new skirts that are all lovely and cost me next to nothing. I have felt beautiful.

Impressive, huh? I think so, anyway. And I have come to the surprisingly painless point of realising that that is, in fact, all that matters. Well, and proper footwear, but you can't seriously have thought I would abandon my principles just because of one teeny weeny life-altering epiphany, could you? Oh, silly person.

There are a few small things I miss about not living with three guys. One of them is fun cleaning: Just having to clean up after oneself, and doing so in one's underwear to loud, poppy music.

I know, I'm such a cliché...