7 Reasons

Tag: vanity fair

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons Men Prefer Women Without Make-up

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons Men Prefer Women Without Make-up

    January seems a long time ago now, but if you can remember that far back, you may recall Emily Clifford writing one of the very first guest posts for us. It was about men and women and why they shouldn’t converse with each other. It proved ridiculously popular. Especially with women. So, back on the 7 Reasons sofa by popular demand, is Emily. And she’s writing about men and women again. If you like what you’re about to read you may be interested to know that Emily is a fashion journalist  based in Sydney. She writes for a vast array of magazines and newspapers including Vanity Fair, Vogue, Glamour and Cosmopolitan. She also likes writing for us. Apparently. Right, less of me, more of Emily. Who, incidentally, you can follow on twitter.

    7 Reasons Men Prefer Women Without Make-Up

    Despite what you may have heard, a journalist’s job is never easy. Sadly for us literary types, it’s not just a case of writing an article and picking up the cheque. Unless you can call yourself ‘famous’ of course, which, let’s be honest most of us can’t. For the rest of us, magazines have to be targeted, editors need to be wooed and research has to be compiled before us writers can actually do what we want to do; write. Sometimes you do all the hardwork and present the final draft only for the editor to change their mind. It’s standard fare in this industry and you get used to it. Recently I wrote a piece on the male attitude towards women and their facial shield, make-up. Despite being pleased with it myself, the editor wasn’t and so the article was killed. When an article is killed you retain the copyright and so can sell it to others. Like 7 Reasons! Except they haven’t paid me and instead given me some false hope of one day receiving a badge. Yeah right! The article was ripped apart especially for 7 Reasons so the original catchy title The Foundation Of The Relationship has now been changed to 7 Reasons Men Prefer Women Without Make-up. Hope you enjoy it.

    1.  The Natural Look. Research for the article showed that a staggering 75% of men preferred women without make-up. I mean none at all. Not even a little eye shadow. I don’t know about you girls, but the thought of leaving the house looking like an old sock I’ve just found down the back of the sofa terrifies the life out of me. The problem is, men really wish it would terrify the mascara out of you. They just don’t like you covering yourself up. This comes down to the fact that men are far less likely to notice imperfections than women. Ever wondered how your man can put a DVD in the player and not even raise an eyebrow at the amount of dust adorning it? Firstly it’s because he’s a man and so doesn’t see it, but more importantly it’s because he is looking at the bigger picture. What’s the film going to be like? That’s the main attraction here. Not whether the player is covered in dust or not. Women on the other hand amplify it. By as much as ten-fold. They’d sit through the film worrying about whether you noticed all the dust and are now still interested in them. Does this guy think you’re untidy? It’s a strange comparison, but it’s how we think. You wear make-up to make your face look more beautiful, believe it or not, he won’t notice.

    2.  The Tick-Tock Effect . If you want to go out with me menfolk, you need to get something straight. If we are going out for the evening, I need at least an hour to get ready. And I’m not alone. The average length of time for a 30 year-old woman to get ready for an evening on the tiles is 73 minutes. That might not even seem that long to you. Unless you’re a man. In which case it sounds like an eternity. A typical 30 year-old man takes an average of just 25 minutes to get ready. And even then I think that is a high figure. I’ve known men to take 30 seconds. And, no, I’m not with them anymore. Of the 73 minutes a women takes to get ready, 22 are spent on the make-up. That’s 22 minutes he is pacing around the lounge, scratching, complaining and thinking about opening another beer.

    3.  The Question Time. Asking men questions about your appearance is a completely pointless exercise. And in many cases is actually divisive. Yet we all do it. I am forever asking my fiance if I look good. I don’t know why. I know his answer will be, ‘Yes, you look lovely’ or some equally unimaginative and predictable answer. I actually long for the day when he says, ‘Are you fucking serious? You look like you’ve just come back from the mad-hatters tea party!’ But he won’t, because he’s a man. And men are programmed to say what they think you want to hear. And the most frustrating thing for men is that they know you know that they are just saying it because it’s what they think it’s what you want to hear. That’s why they’d love it if you just forgot all about the make-up for night so he only has to answer the questions about your dress.

    4.  The Logic Lack. Men, to give them their dues, are quite logical. Us women though, are about as logical as a chocolate tea-pot. Men see chocolate tea-pots as things that would melt when boiled water applied to them, we see chocolate tea-pots as chocolate. When we ladies were younger we wore make-up to make us look older. Now we are wearing it to make us look younger. To us, that is logic. To men, that is illogical, ‘why try and be something you are not?’

    5.  The Shopping Trip. Wearing make-up means buying make-up. Buying make-up means shopping for make-up. Shopping for make-up means testing make-up. For a man who wouldn’t notice whether you had blusher on or not, this is a form of torture. No wonder 22% of all arguments between couples happen when they are shopping.

    6.  The Removal Effect. If a woman wears a lot of make-up, a lot of the time, the sight of her without can do strange things to a man. Sweating; screaming; running out of the house. The silly thing is, you probably don’t even look unattractive. Just very different. And change scares men. It’s why they won’t let you change your hair or get a breast enlargement or sleep with Johnny Depp.

    7.  The Affection Factor. Even the most ardent of feminists wouldn’t deny that they like a bit of affection from their man. I, and I wouldn’t describe myself using the aforementioned term, love a kiss on the forehead, cheek and, of course, lips and when I’m not getting any I complain to my man. He is very keen to remind me that this morning he kissed me goodbye and I complained that he could have smudged my make-up. And he’s right, I did. That’s why men prefer you without make-up, because they know where they stand.

  • Russian Roulette Sunday: 7 Other Magazines We’re Not In This Month

    Russian Roulette Sunday: 7 Other Magazines We’re Not In This Month

    Happy Sunday to you. Now, regular readers will no doubt be aware that we were hoping to make our debut in Esquire Magazine this month. Sadly, we haven’t. However, we are optimistic that we will make our bow in November. The delay got us thinking though. Which other magazines have we failed to make an appearance in this month? As it goes, all of them. Thankfully, in what will come as both a relief to you and our keyboards, we aren’t going to explain why we are not in every single magazine out there. That would take years. And quite frankly none of us have that much time to waste. Instead, we are just going to pick seven. Because seven is the correct number. So, here are seven other magazines we didn’t get in this month. And why. If you’ve spotted a magazine we’re not in, please do let us know in the comments section. And if you find a magazine we are in, we’d appreciate you let us know that too.

    1.  Beano. The 7 Reasons comic-strip promised so much. Two humorists, two cats* and a psychedelic penguin invade France. Who wouldn’t want to read that? Apart from Beano readers obviously. And the French.

    2.  Vanity Fair. Well, half the 7 Reasons team brought the vanity, sadly the other half forgot the dodgems. We’ll let you decide whom is who.

    3.  Wisden Cricketer. Despite Jon scoring a solid fifteen during his parent’s anniversary cricket match last Saturday, he still failed to make the current issue. Which is probably just as well considering it was his girlfriend that finally dismissed him.

    4.  Men’s Fudge. Notwithstanding the fact that at least 50% of the 7 Reasons team are strong advocates of fudge, this Japanese magazine still overlooked us. Probably because 100% of the 7 Reasons team are 100% interested in women. Two women. One each. No more. None. Let’s move on.

    5. White Dwarf. For the uninitiated, this magazine solely deals with anything you might find in Games Workshop, i.e.: models of the wargaming genre. If you do happen to find a white dwarf in Games Workshop, well that’s just…erm…coincidence. He/she still won’t be featured. Or at least I assume they wouldn’t. That’s really the editors choice. And I’m not the editor. Anyway, I digress. We’re not in White Dwarf this week because we prefer making things out of paper.

    6.  Forbes. It’s their Celebrity 100 issue. The richest 100 celebrities. Given that 7 Reasons brings in approximately $2 in advertising revenue per day, we should be in this issue in circa July 43,676. Unless we have a spike, in which case we might make it into the January issue. That’s the aim anyway.

    7.  Motor Home. Marc and Jon in a campervan. I know what you’re thinking. And that’s why we’re not in this magazine either.

    *One owned. The other, random.

  • 7 Reasons You Shouldn’t go to the Doctor’s

    7 Reasons You Shouldn’t go to the Doctor’s

    1.  Hand-wash.  Little plastic dispensers of antiseptic hand-wash: They’re inside the main entrance, they’re in the reception area, they’re in the waiting room, they’re in the doctor’s office, they’re everywhere!  They outnumber patients by about 40-1; they outnumber patients’ hands by about 20.5-1 (there was a one-armed man).  Why could they possibly need so many?  It will bother you.

    2.  Sick people.  There are sick people at the doctor’s surgery, it’s full of them:  Coughing, retching, groaning, wailing, with blotches, pustules, buboes and weeping sores; it’s more like Hell’s waiting room than Dr Butterworth’s.  If I ever write a historical novel about the Black Death in medieval Europe I’ll visit the doctor’s for inspiration – and just hope I live long enough to complete it.

    3.  Light.  The soulless, ceaseless hum of the fluorescent strip-lights is the soundtrack to your stay in the waiting room.  Worse still, their glow bathes everything and everyone in an unnatural light, giving the room’s occupants a grey, bleached-out pallor that makes them appear unwell, even if they’re not.

     

    4.  Magazines.  Due to the Swine Flu scare they no longer have magazines in my local surgery; no Country Life, no Woman’s Weekly – in fact, nothing to read at all.  Presumably they think our hands would be too slick from the hand-wash to leaf through the pages.  Fortunately, on my last visit to the doctor, I had a copy of Vanity Fair with me, so I pulled that out of my bag and began to read.  My fellow patients – envious, I assume – saw my magazine and started moving toward it.  They rose slowly from their seats and shuffled gradually forward, eventually forming a groaning, coughing semi-circle around me.  With their fluorescent strip-light pallor, obvious wounds and missing limb they resembled the un-dead.  Fortunately, the doctor called me in before they started to feast on my brains.*

    5.  Manliness.  Convention has it that real men don’t visit the doctor.  This is nonsense.  If he has misplaced a limb, his elbow has unaccountably turned purple, or his urine is pure Bovril, a man should visit the doctor.  In all other cases, he should soldier on.

    6.  Discouragement.  They don’t want you to see you.  Why would they?  They might catch something dreadful or you might try to show them your hemorrhoids.  If they really wanted to see you they would open outside of office hours and they’d give you an appointment less than a week into the future.  They might also consent to visit you at home on occasions other than your imminent death.  They do these things to discourage you from seeking medical advice.  If you don’t go to see the doctor, their whole system runs more smoothly.  And that’s the way they like it.

    7.  Feelings.  Doctor’s surgeries aren’t just places to treat your physical ailments, they’re places that are concerned with your general wellbeing too.  These days, they seem just as concerned with your emotional wellbeing as they are with your physical health.  This isn’t necessarily a good thing:

    Bond strode into the uncluttered, homely office.  After some light conversation, the G.P. asked how he felt about his condition.

    “Do you expect me to talk, Dr Blofeld?”

    “No Mr Bond, I expect you to cry”

    break

    No one wants that, who knows where it may lead?

    break

    *Did I mention that I had a bit of a temperature?

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons Men And Women Shouldn’t Converse (With Each Other)

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons Men And Women Shouldn’t Converse (With Each Other)

    Sitting between us on the 7 Reasons sofa today (and complaining about the crumbs) is Fashion Journalist, Emily Clifford. Emily lives in Sydney and writes for a variety of publications ranging from Glamour and She to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Durban Mercury. Her hobbies include rock-climbing and reading this website. She says G’Day!

    1.  Humour. When women say they like a man who can make them laugh, this is true. When men say they like a woman who can make them laugh, this is false. They just want a woman who will laugh at their jokes.

    2.  Moods. When women say they are fine, this is false. They’re not. And would actually quite like to talk about it. Just not to you. When men say they are fine, this is also false. But it was true until you interrupted them while they were reading Jeremy Clarkson’s column.

    3.  No. When women say no, this is true. They have hundreds of better things to do. Like sleep. When men say no, this is false. Unless the football’s on.

    4.  Travel. When women say they know where they are going, this is true. They have been up all night planning the route. When men say they know where they are going, this is false. They are just going to wing it. Or switch on the sat-nav.

    5.  Decisions. When women say it’s your decision, this is false. The correct suggestion was suggested by her five minutes ago and it should be perfectly obvious. When men say it’s your decision, this is true. They know it can’t come back to haunt them that way.

    6.  Lateness. When women say they have been waiting twenty minutes, this is false. They spent so long doing their make-up and deciding what shoes to wear that they have only been waiting five minutes. When men say they have been waiting five minutes, this is false. They have actually been waiting twenty minutes, but see this as a great opportunity to do something they have read about and be the ‘better man’.

    7.  Dating. When women say they would love to see you again, this is true. When men say they would love to see you again, this is false. They just don’t know how to articulate the words, “This was great, but no thanks”. Bastards.