Scarlett Says

by Scarlett Moffatt

  Music

  I was talking to my sister about sharing headphones on a DC Discman player the other day and I may as well have been talking about gramophones. I was fourteen when I got an iPod. You look at it now and it looks massive, it was so chunky. Me dad was all about minidiscs. He thought they were the future. But nowadays your phone basically has every song ever on it, doesn’t it?

  I remember, at university, when everyone would be downloading music and videos. It’s stealing, obviously, but everyone did it.

  I also remember you used to be able to send music via Bluetooth on your phone and you’d have to put your phones really close together, and I remember when everyone had the same phone and played Snake. And I had this thing on my phone that you could design your own ringtone with and I thought I was a music producer with all these weird bleepy noises for a ringtone. I thought I was David Guetta. I remember running home from school so I could get on MSN before my mam would call my nanny. And if you timed it wrong, she’d be like, ‘Get off the internet, I’m on the phone.’ And it’d make that weird screeching noise when it was dialling up.

  You’d keep logging off and on MSN Messenger so you’d pop up on someone’s screen and they’d notice you. Or you’d put a song lyric as your name. It was dead embarrassing.

  I think it’s a massive problem because it’s good to be able to wait for things you want. Nowadays everything happens instantly and we’re all basically spoilt brats. You should see what people get like if the free Wi-Fi stops working in a cafe somewhere. People are genuinely like they’ve had something stolen from them. You can’t go back from that, can you?

  Hair extensions

  Even though I moan about doing my hair, I do like it, and in my opinion bigger is better.

  I first started wearing hair extensions when I was fifteen. Although calling them hair extensions is pushing it a bit. They were basically these long, straggly clip-ins that looked like I’d fashioned them from what I’d found on the floor of a hairdresser’s. In one of my school photos I’ve got really thick, shoulder-length hair and then just two long, thin clip-ins attached to the back so it looks like I’ve got a mullet.

  I started to get proper bonded extensions when I was about twenty, when I was halfway through uni. Obviously I made sure I spent my student loan on something worthwhile.

  I’ve pretty much always had long hair, and I do quite like the fake look. I don’t mean like Jodie Marsh fake, but I like everything to be a bit over the top. About half of my friends are really natural, and the other half have big extensions like me, so about 90 per cent of our selfies are hair. We all look like we’re standing next to Cousin Itt.

  I’ve had some really bad hairstyles in my time. If you want to see them, you can skip to the middle of the book. I once had traffic-light-red hair so I looked like a wrestler, and I also had really dark hair with a blonde quiff. Who does that? My hair was really dark and just my fringe had blonde highlights in it. I mean, how did I ever think that was OK? I’m disgusted at myself.

  When I was nineteen I decided I wanted to be mature and have a bob for a bit of a change, but as soon as I got my hair cut I cried my eyes out. It didn’t suit my big moon face in any way. You know how usually when you have quite a dramatic haircut everyone says it looks lovely? Not one person did. No one. Even me mam and dad didn’t comment, and when I pushed them all they said was, ‘Ooh, it’s different, isn’t it?’

  The final straw was when my boyfriend at the time came to pick me up and he took one look at me and said, ‘What the hell have you done to your hair?’ I went straight out that day and bought some expensive clip-in hair extensions. Me and short hair will never be friends.

  Me mam’s always had really, really long hair. But one day she got this crop and she looked like Action Man. She was that unhappy with it she said she was driving to the viaduct.

  Top ten hairdressers with puns for names

  1) Sheerlock Combs

  2) British Hairways

  3) Hairway to Heaven

  4) Crops and Bobbers

  5) Hair2Eternity

  6) Headonizm

  7) Hair Today Gone Tomorrow

  8) Curl Up and Dye

  9) The God Barber

  10) Do or Dye

  A brief interlude on body hair

  Body hair seems to be a massive feminist issue, and of course women should be able to grow it long and plait it if they want to. But personally I’ve got a bit of a phobia about it. I even wax my arms. I think it’s partly because having smooth skin is better when it comes to fake-tanning, so I whip it all off.

  Obviously it’s totally up to women what they want to do when it comes to their own body hair, but I always shave my armpit hair if I’m wearing something sleeveless. I don’t think it looks that nice when people grow their armpit hair and dye it like Miley Cyrus does. I’m all for growing my leg hair in winter because it keeps you warm, but I think your underarms are different. Sometimes my leg hair grows so long it looks like I’m wearing leggings when I’m not, but it’s cosy. That’s totally illogical, isn’t it? That’s the thing, it’s either all off, or all on. But I still feel like it’s different. I think.

  Vajazzles?

  In general, I think people can do what they want in their pants: if they like that vintage 70s look, then go for it; if they want a Bounty bar down there, then that’s fine too. People should do whatever they feel comfortable with. Let it all hang out. But I do think there’s something a bit weird about gluing jewels to your fanny. It’s like bribing someone to go near it. ‘I know it’s disgusting but I’m trying my best.’ It’s like on the TV where they advertise a special spray for freshening up ‘down there’. If you feel like that’s something you want to do, go for it. But the danger is that someone starts feeling like it makes them a dirty cow if they don’t do it. I guess there’s only a finite amount of armpits on the planet, but if you can convince half the world’s population they need to buy a whole extra deodorant, that’s a lot of money, isn’t it? It does feel like another one of these things where people have got together and decided how best to make women feel like shit. ‘Don’t worry, they’ll spend so long spraying and gluing jewels to their fannies they’ll never have time to take over the world.’

  One thing I don’t like is the way men shave all of their hair off these days. I don’t understand why a man will spend months and months growing a beard but then shave everything else off from his chin down. I like it when men have shirts on and you can see a bit of hair poking out, but these days a lot of men like to look smooth as an otter.

  I don’t mind men shaving their backs if they’ve got a pubey back, though. In fact, I’d encourage it. You can definitely see that we’ve descended from apes when you see a man with a really hairy back.

  Make-up

  So once hair is done, it’s time for make-up, which also takes so bloody long to do. And I’m not going to lie: I do wear a lot of make-up when I’m going out.

  Make-up always comes after I’ve done my hair (or during if I’m paying our Ava half my wages to dry it) and because of that I often end up with foundation in my hairline. I spend ages trying to get it out with a baby wipe and then end up applying a ton more anyway.

  When I get all of the products I put on my face out of my make-up bag and lay them on the floor ready, it really is ridiculous. I genuinely can’t believe my face can breathe underneath all of it. One day I’m going to die and it will be death by cosmetics. I’ll be like that woman in Goldfinger who suffocates because she’s covered in gold paint. The thing is, I do know it’s all bollocks. With my rational brain, I know that I don’t need more make-up. But then there’ll be an advert on the telly and they’ll be like, ‘Voted product of the year by readers of slapface magazine’ and I’ll be like, ‘Ooh, that sounds good.’ I think it’s the closest I get to understanding drugs. You just can’t control yourself. I don’t fall for all that science stuff with the skin creams, though, where they’re like, ‘Made with new fluoro nanocarbon f
ruit peptide anti-ageing technology’. It’s the same old bloop it always is, man.

  Contouring

  The Kardashians have got a lot to answer for. In the old days you could put a bit of lip gloss on, some bronzer and you were away. But now you basically have to draw a whole new face on.

  The other day I was sat in the living room doing my contouring because there’s better lighting in there, and when me dad walked in he said, ‘Are you going to a fancy dress party? You look like a tribal warrior.’ To be fair, he was spot on.

  I like the contouring trend but sometimes people take it a bit too far and they look like they’ve got a beard or sideburns. When I search #contour on Instagram some of it is so extreme people look like different human beings. Some people look great in photos and like they’ve got their application down to a fine art, and then you see them in person and they look like werewolves.

  I can do my make-up in an hour, if I don’t get distracted by the phone or TV, but by the time I’ve moisturized, prepped, primered, put on foundation, contoured with cream, added concealer, bronzer, more primer, contouring powder, primer and blusher – and that’s before I do my eyes, eyebrows and lipstick – I basically look like a totally different person.

  I think I unintentionally catfish people on Instagram. Me mam always tells me I look miles better in photos like it’s a compliment. It’s one thing saying someone is photogenic, but it’s another saying that the picture version of them is far better than the real thing. I’d much rather look shit in photos and better in real life so people are pleasantly surprised.

  I reckon if someone who didn’t know me looked at my photos and then met me they’d be like, ‘Who’s that person in the photos, because it isn’t you?’ I showed my little sister a picture of me on a night out a while back and she said, ‘Who’s that woman?’ When I said it was me she replied, ‘But you don’t look that nice in real life, Scarlett.’ Thanks Ava.

  I actually thought the photo that Kim Kardashian posted of her in the middle of contouring was a really good thing. If you didn’t see that type of thing, then you wouldn’t realize the amount of time that goes into making people look the way they do. I really liked that girl recently who came out and told everyone the amount of time she spent trying to look as good as she did in her photos. She spent the whole day taking one photo and pretending it was casual. She also told everyone how she hadn’t eaten all day beforehand and was sucking her stomach in to make herself look the way she did. There are people that pretend it’s so effortless and I think that’s wrong. It makes people feel like there must be something wrong with them if they don’t look like all those beautiful women in the magazines. Like the no-make-up selfie thing. All those models looking amazing, pretending they’d just woken up. It’s like the old trick of waking up early and brushing your teeth the first night you stay over at someone’s house, so they think you don’t get morning breath.

  Make-up fails

  I’ve had so many make-up fails in my life, so these days I don’t take any chances. If I need to stock up or I want to change my look slightly, I’ll go into a department store, ask them to make my face four times darker than it really is, and do the rest of my make-up. Then I buy everything they use. It’s so much easier than guess work. I trust them not to make me look like I’m having a massive make-up malfunction. I’ve definitely had a few of those over the years. I went through a phase of wearing jet-black eyeshadow with pink and orange eye shadow and pink lipstick. I looked like a drag queen Power Ranger. I’m surprised I didn’t get snapped as a ‘before’ picture for a makeover advert.

  Eyebrows

  I didn’t used to know about eyebrow pencils, so I would use eyeliner to draw me eyebrows in. I looked like one of those mad old ladies you see on the high street. One thing I am pleased about is that for the first time in my life I can say I know how to do my eyebrows properly. Over the years I’ve done everything from the upside down Nike tick to the giant slug and I feel like I’m finally happy with the shape of them.

  I always make sure I get my eyebrows threaded at least three days before I’m going out to give them time to calm down. I go to this salon near my house to get them done and every time I go in they ask me if I want my upper lip doing at the same time. I give them such a look. Surely I would ask if I wanted that done too? I’ve started to get paranoid I look like a moustached hipster without realizing it.

  Lips

  I know overly outlining your lips has become really popular and I have tried it, but whenever I take selfies I look like Pete Burns. People put up tutorials on YouTube and they always look really good, but I can’t do it at all. The thing is, everyone tries to look like Kylie Jenner but they go way over the top. I’m saying that as if Kylie Jenner hasn’t gone way over the top.

  Surgery

  I’m not against anyone having stuff done to themselves if it makes them happier, and I’ve dabbled, but I do think seventeen was way too young for Kylie to have had her lips plumped. I do worry that so much emphasis is put on what we look like now and there’s so much pressure to have Botox and everything. Back when it first started it was mainly older people who had the minor surgery stuff done, but now girls of my age and younger are getting Botox and collagen injections. It’s all gone a bit crazy.

  Like I said before, I think if surgery or procedures make people feel better about themselves, then fair enough. I get lip fillers because my top lip is non-existent, so I would be hypocritical if I judged anyone else. I started getting mine done when I was about twenty, so, long before Gogglebox, and I’ve had veneers on my teeth too, because it was always something I wanted to get done.

  I can stand here and say it’s my choice, but then am I only making that choice because of pressures from outside? Unfortunately we live in a very appearance-oriented society and being on telly has made me more conscious of how I look. Me mam is such a strong person and even she’s contemplating getting Botox because a few people have said nasty things on Twitter. But it’s nothing these days, is it? Everyone does it. I do sometimes wonder what they’ll think in the future, though. ‘You took some neurotoxin from bacteria, and injected it in your face?’ It’ll be like when we look back and people were painting their faces with lead to look pale. I reckon even if you went back to prehistoric times there would still have been people doing things to themselves to make themselves look different, so it must just be something in us.26

  I would be nervous about having Botox because I’ve had Bell’s palsy and there’s a danger one side of my face would droop, but I’d like to have my breasts lifted at some point. I’ve got big boobs and I’m only twenty-five and they’re already starting to clean my shoes so I really do think I’d do it.

  I believe it’s important to do it for yourself and no one else, though. I want to be able to look in the mirror and feel happy. If surgery makes you feel a bit more confident, then why not?

  But one thing I would say is make sure you research who you go to see because there are some really dodgy people out there who aren’t properly qualified. I had a bit of a disaster once where someone put too much lip filler in and I looked ridiculous. I couldn’t leave the house for about three days and I honestly thought I was going to spend the rest of my life looking like a camel.

  6

  . . . cheers!

  Scarlett’s Favourite Random Facts

  Each person uses an average of fifty-seven sheets of toilet paper per day.

  More Monopoly money than real money is printed in the world each year.

  Crocodiles can’t stick their tongues out.

  First(ish) drink of the night

  While I’m getting ready at home I’ll have my first drink of the evening. It’s usually a glass of red wine, but I never have a second one because I get drunk quite easily and I don’t want to be putting my make-up on badly and looking a state, do I? But by the time I get to pre-pre-drinks, I’m ready to go.

  This generally involves us sitting around someone’s kitchen or living room drin
king and talking crap. I like going to Kelly’s parents’ house because they’ve got an open-plan living room and kitchen so we’ve got loads of room. Her poor parents go and sit upstairs out of the way, bless them, and I do feel bad for them. If we go to Sarah’s house, we’ve got the run of the place because she lives on her own, so I like it there too. But as long as we’re all together, drinking anywhere is mint.

  Who I’d invite to my dream dinner party

  Jesus

  It would be a cheap night for booze because I could just bring loads of buckets of water to the table and he could turn them into wine. I wonder if you’d be able to put an order in for what you want? Like, ‘Can I have a glass of Sauvignon Blanc or a Zinfandel?’ Or would you just have to drink what you’re given?

  Houdini

  It would be funny because I think him and Jesus would try and outdo each other, like, ‘I can escape out of this.’ ‘I once healed a leper.’

  Mary Berry

  Who doesn’t love Mary Berry? She would be full of cookery innuendos and she could help me make the dessert.

  Boris Johnson

  The man is a hoot. I would ask him what his views on aliens are and what he really thinks of David Cameron.

  Prince Harry

  I’ll make sure he realizes it isn’t fancy dress. We don’t want any Nazi surprises. I’d get some cards in because I’ve heard he’s a dab hand at strip poker.