A nation bows its head in shame. British shampoo sales are said to have plummeted on account of various factors — the rise in dry shampoos, fewer people smoking — but in the main because more women work from home. For “home workers” one can clearly read “soap dodgers”.
As one such domestic slogger, I get this, obviously. We all lead hectic existences. For those who imagine home working to be all lie-ins and face masks, it actually means transforming what should be one’s refuge into a permanent crisis zone, forever one multitask away from calamity. Only this week I found myself thinking I was “too busy” to peel a satsuma at 10.20pm, deadline pending. Eating violet creams on a chaise longue it ain’t.
And even I have relaxed matters a little since I went freelance almost ten years ago. At 45, I no longer wash my hair every morning, as I had since the age of 11. These days it can slip to every two, following the realisation that my flat will not burn down without my daily immersion and sometimes — heaven forfend — my mane may even look better.
Nevertheless, however busy I am, I remain an advocate of washing, dressing, combing my hair, painting my face and inserting contact lenses. OK, so the clothing part is sometimes abandoned in favour of a dressing gown, but the principle remains. I will, at the most shoving sort of push, leave the house without make-up, but never quit it sans scent. It’s not only that I would find this disrespectful to others, I would consider it disrespectful to myself.
I once read an interview in which some Eastern guru explained that he spent 20 minutes massaging cream into his body every morning to “express gratitude” and acknowledge it was still there. “Lordee,” I thought, I can at least find 20 seconds. Joan Collins once informed me that she finds applying her face to be a meditative buffer zone between her and the world, which is precisely how I think of it. While Victoria Beckham recently opined that she will always have recourse to lip balm and “a bit of a brow”.
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There are some who will see this as time uselessly wasted, a burden inflicted upon women, while men are free to think Great Thoughts. I bow to no one in the ardency of my feminism, but I cannot find oppression in it. This isn’t enslavement, it’s the assertion of selfdom and playful creativity and I pity men its lack.
Grooming rituals have been a form of socialisation since we first picked fleas off each other, and ornamentation rituals are the mark of a civilised society. Depressive that I am, I consider both to be morale-inducing to the point of saving my sanity. Critics may argue that these gestures can only ever have a placebo effect; however, a placebo effect is still an effect.
During the war, Churchill ensured that supplies of lipstick were maintained, so crucial did he consider it to Blitz spirit. When Hitler’s death camps were liberated, observers noticed that the mood became more optimistic not with the arrival of food but with that of lipstick and sanitary towels (the latter deployed as shoulder pads). Through an element of self-adornment a sense of humanity was restored.
I was never a Nora Ephron fan, but a phrase of hers that did resonate was: “Use the good bath oil.” We are living our lives, not occupying them. Slap, frocks and rocks are civilising forces, anchors in an uncertain world, and necessary carrots at times when there is only stick.
A bad year but not the worst
Talking of stick, could everyone please stop whingeing about 2016 being the “Worst Year Ever”? We have memes declaring “Me in January 2016” (bright-eyed and bushy-tailed) versus “Me in December 2016” (collapsed heap).
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We have articles on the enormity of it all. We have every shop assistant on the planet complaining that they will be “glad to see it over”.
Enough already with the enough already. Some of us have endured personal shitstorms. I won’t go into my own, but suffice it to say that the word to describe it is “baroque”.
David Bowie was terrific, and I’m sure Victoria Wood was an extremely nice woman, but people will die, and I’m kind of over it.
As for the Brexit/Trump aspect, yes, it’s terrifying, but we’ve seen worse: the Blitz, say, or the plague. Besides, next year we have to start living with the consequences.
We should cherish Christmas
Betts Christmases contained many a wheeze. There was the time when George put a promisingly vast present under the tree for his brother that turned out to be adult nappies, or the occasion when I was so hungover I had to lie next to the table on a litter like a medieval king, sipping one of my grandfather’s chemotherapy rehydration drinks.
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But none is so cherished as the year my late mother — exhausted from wrapping for five offspring — managed to present me with her giant, well-worn bra, which she’d inadvertently gift-wrapped.
I claim to be festive phobic. However, I know that I escape it to avoid the loss. Part of me found something to love in the awfulness of it all, a series of now-missing someones. Bear this in mind should you find yourself lamenting “having” to spend Christmas with your family: one minute you have to, the next you can’t. This year, I’d give anything to be unwrapping an enormous dirty bra.
Carol Midgley is away