Summer crimes of vanity

Summer is always tagged as the carefree and easygoing time of the year. A time where troubles are thrown out the window and one’s only care is how to while the hours away. Well carefree my stairmastered ass!

The less the fabric and lighter color that summer fashion commands unfortunately calls for a sylphlike form that can only be achieved through forms of torture designed to remind you that vanity is indeed a sin.

Summer season is a boot camp for the vainglorious many. After a season of stuffing ham and all sorts of cheeses in one’s mouth during Christmas and melting chocolates in one’s mouth during Valentine’s, it’s easy to see where the armpit vagina was conceived.

I envy those who can pass 365 days without much thought of inches and pounds. I grew up reading magazines with gaunt and coked-up models that swore they had at least a burger a day and fries in between and that they were ugly ducklings in school. I care, in fact I care a lot. Do I believe that their slender frames are natural? Like I believe Jane Fonda never had her face done I do! Effortless is a myth. Nonchalance is only an act of careful exertion. Want to look good? You have to work at it.

It is said that you can never be too rich or too thin. But is it possible to keep slim while sustaining a healthy bank account? Dieting is no easy task or a thrifty feat. A good salad with a decent vinaigrette dressing can cost as much as three Quarter Pounder sandwiches and leave you as hungry as a UNICEF orphan. It sucks that tofu costs more than a chicken lollipop. And when you diet you find yourself depressed. Deprived of the cheap thrills in life like clover chips and dirty ice cream, so in order to compensate you switch to fancy diet-friendly meals. You can’t exactly go into a mini-mart and find some steamed tofu balls or soymilk. Clean living really is dirty business. Munching on fruit is fun but it gets sad when you remind yourself that you are subbing it for valrohnas.

It’s also a social deterrent in many ways such as talking about it non-stop being the most annoying bore in the table. It even gets worse when you have a mini-diet cult going on as you and your group drone on and on about carbohydrate content and which are the evil fruits, leaving your other friends who actually have lives in the dark eating their pizza. I mean being on a fad diet really turns you into a fanatic!

Another summer vanity vice is, of course, product addiction. Somehow as this time of the year rolls by I cannot have my L’Occitane oil, my babaria (the opuim of tanning gels due to its scarcity), my hair sunscreen, La Mer serum for sunburns and my Clarins après soliel lotion with shimmer. Without it I’m like a junkie with no hope. A Gia Carrangi hanging on by a thread (or in her case her last dirty needle). It’s also the time for scrubs and I mean the really mean gritty sandblaster-like ones and those seaweed wraps that dubiously promise to tone and slim the body. Desperation makes us want to believe all of these things, in fact in France the fad is to power hose you with salt water in the belief that it will trim any unwanted bulges. This is the time I will believe in anything. Can it be the intense summer sun melting my sensibilities away?

Then you have that waxing bit to worry about. I will not expound as it truly is a crime of vanity. However, the true crime is not to wax at all! My friend from New York once visited Boracay and was surprised to see more bushes than bikinis. Gross, I mean screw it! It matters not if your bikini is Eres if you have hairs sticking out all over the place.

However, if you pretty much have everything in place then fret not! You’ll be fab and fine as you can finally enjoy summer and capture its magic in a snapshot where you know you look mighty fight!