November icks…

Regular readers will now that I occasionally go on a little blog rants. I vent about all the trends that get my goat & today is one of those days.

Elf on the Shelf

I hate the little bugger. First of all the actual figure is so creepy. The idea of it wandering around while everyone sleeps would have scared the life out of wee me. Secondly, I really dislike the adoption of American trends/traditions. We have plenty of our own & they’re much nicer! Last up, I feel very sorry for parents having to come up with ever more creative ways to pose the wee creep each morning.

elf on the shelf doll climbing a window

Lumen

Sold as an easy way to ‘hack your metabolism’, lumen mistakenly believe I’m their target audience. I get non stop ads. It claims to monitor your metabolism and tell you if your burning fat, carbs you’ve eaten or both. It then suggests whether you should have a low, medium or high carb day. Obviously, I hate all this diet culture nonsense. In this case, though, I dislike the dishonesty even more. From the information I can find they can’t actually back their claims. The testing that would be done in lab to find this information is not designed to be done daily. Experts* say there is no way compare results from lumin to those derivived from clinically proven tests. Thus, they cannot verify accuracy. In other words, no one can tell if it works. Even if it did we all now that low carb is just another fad diet anyway.

Black lumen device with purple light

Horoscopes

They’re just everywhere & I am so sick of hearing about it. Saying I’m a ‘Gemini’ doesn’t mean anything. Things didn’t go wrong because Saturn was in retrograde. You weren’t a bitch because of your moon position. Ugh, my intense dislike for everything astrological is just one of those illogical unchangeable things. Your horoscope memes do me no harm, but still make me ugh.

Kermit the frog meme

The Huns

I don’t know how I ended up on their radar. I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m not about to buy into an MLM. Nevertheless, for the last month or so, I have received constant dms offering me exciting opportunities. It is annoying and sometimes the tactics they use are really despicable. It also makes me really sad that they’ve been sucked into the con.

Screen shot of dm trying to sell herbal life

If you enjoy my writing you can support me here or on Patreon.

Cruelty free quickie, the dupe edition…

I recently watched, with amusement, some beauty bloggers on Twitter get a tiny bit annoyed with Aldi for it’s penchant for blatantly ripping off big brands. I am bemused at folk who not only want to pay £40 for something that can be produced for a fiver, but also want to defend the rip off merchants. I am all for dupes, in fact, I find Aldi’s bold faced copies hilarious.

Their latest target is Benefit. A brand I used to love, but have zero good feelings for since they resumed torturing small creatures. I was delighted to discover that they were doing a They’re real dupe, but didn’t raise my hopes for two reasons. Firstly, it seemed too good to be true and also my local Aldi is pretty small, so it doesn’t get always get the cool beauty lines. Well, colour me happy because I was wrong on both fronts. Too Legit is both available & kind of great in my neighbourhood. Listen, if I can get a cruelty free & amazing mascara for £5.99 I honestly do not care what brand it is. In addition to that I just don’t understand anyone who doesn’t find this kind of outrageous copying hilarious.

Lacura too legitToo legit/They’re real

As is always the case in places like Aldi, I bought other things purely because they were right there. One of which was this Smashbox dupe. I have never purchased any smashbox products. However, I do frequent social media where folks are always raving about their photo finish primer. So, of course I bought the Aldi dupe. I have not tried the original nor do I know if Smashbox are despicable, but I do feel ‘Insta ready’ wearing just this primer & aforementioned mascara. Again, I cannot not help but be tickled by attention to rip off detail.

Lacura snapshot readySnapshot ready/photo finish

Here is my very own face both completely bare and covered in solely these products. I am genuinely impressed and disgruntled that it is clearly so easy to cheaply make these potions. Seriously, if Aldi can do this ethically, stop giving those designer brands your money.

ly h Kerr