Silly Thoughts, volume 8

Before I dive into November's best things, an update from the modern hellscape we find ourselves in:

I actually feel a bit uncomfortable posting this image. But I think it's important to illustrate my point. There's something unintentionally haunting about this. There's a heaviness to her stare. She's not just wrapping her face in a layer of plastic. She's putting on the weight of the expectation to be beautiful. She is too young to be thinking about her skin as anything other than just another part of her body.

To give it more context: Rini is Shay Mitchell's (of Pretty Little Liars fame) skincare line for children. Ages four and over. My initial reaction is one of disgust. I am a 37-year-old woman who has only just, over the past year or so, begun to really unpick how the expectation to look acceptable to men has fucked me up and skewed my priorities. I hate that we're telling children as young as four to be aware of themselves in this way. Have you ever observed a four-year-old at play? They might enjoy dressing up and wearing fancy clothes for a party, but they're not feeling the need to improve who they are, fundamentally, underneath it all. They're not thinking about the clearness of their skin or the way their belly rolls when they sit on the carpet at school. They're free from that. Let them be free from that. As long as humanly possible. They have the entire rest of their lives to think about this shit.

The counterargument is that kids like doing what their parents do, and providing them safe, gentle alternatives is a good idea. I think this largely bullshit. I still remember sneaking into my parents' bedroom and marvelling at my mother's make-up palette. I loved the shimmer of the eyeshadows, the contrast of the silvers and blues. I would, very occasionally, dip a tiny finger in the powder and swipe it across my face. It felt like a portal to another world, the gateway to grown-up life. But it was dressing up; to be an adult woman was as alien to me as being a princess or a witch or a cat. It was like face paint, a chance to temporarily become something else.

Rini, meanwhile, promotes skincare as self-care. According to their website, their mission is 'to nurture healthy habits, spark confidence, and make thoughtfully crafted daily care essentials and play products accessible to every family.'

(Several things to unpack here. Their cheapest face mask is £5, which, to me, is akin to whipping out a lighter and setting fire to a fiver. It is literally throwing money in the bin. Or rather, giving it to people who are already so wealthy that they've completely lost touch with what the word 'accessible' means.)

But the main concern I have is the idea that using Rini is 'nurturing healthy habits' using their 'daily care essentials'. This is not the same as a little kid swiping a bit of their mum's lipstick on the sly. This is something that children are, under the ethos of Rini, supposed to build into their lives as a good habit. The question is, then: why? What is the point? Why, beyond sunscreen, do we think children need to have the burden of skincare when they haven't even reached puberty yet?

It scares me that children of this generation will never have the chance to grow up without constantly thinking about their image. I was lucky enough to grow up without that intense self-awareness. Children now grow up with the concept of having an online persona. So many girls are moving through their teen years already thinking of themselves as a brand, a commodity to package and present to the masses. And I can't help but think about this when I look at Rini. We're encouraging kids to start thinking about the way they present themselves earlier than ever, and we're doing it under the insidious pretence that spending money on expensive skincare is 'self-care'.

Back to this in a minute, I need to break up this wall of text with something else.

November contained a drop in temperature, a special birthday, and nosing around new places.

A few things I've enjoyed:

• The Seance at Blake Manor - excellent, fantastic, omg. It is overwhelming for the first hour or so. There are a lot of characters to keep track of. But there's also a creepy old manor house to explore, Irish mythology to learn, and mini-mysteries to piece together. Absolutely loving this game.
• Supermarket Simulator continues to dominate most of my free time. I've put a load of stuff on sale. My supermarket is BUZZING.
• Been reading Mythos by Stephen Fry and really enjoying it. As a person whose knowledge of ancient Greek myths stopped at the release of Disney's Hercules, it's enlightening to learn about these strange stories. It's also very easy to read, which I need right now.
• Gabrielle Aplin's EP from earlier this year, Northern Star, is calming and beautiful. We're seeing her live next May, and I'm slowly building hype by playing my favourite songs and forcing Chris to listen to them with me.
• And of course, Stranger Things is back. Only a couple of episodes in. Feels monumental to be at the end, and a lot of this is probably down to the huge gap between seasons. How will the writers handle the intense expectations of the fans? I'm intrigued to find out.

As for Rini. It's utter bollocks. Protect your children. When they get to secondary school they'll grow up quicker than you could ever imagine (trust me); let them be little while they're little, let their skin get covered in mud and sand and paint and bogeys and all the shit they're supposed to be rolling around in. Self-care for little kids is eating well, nourishing their bodies, running and jumping and wrestling, being creatively expressive, and building healthy relationships. Not washing their face and dotting moisturiser onto their skin before they've even learned their times tables.

End rant! I'll see you next week. It will be CHRISTMAS TIME, and I will be eating mince pies and feeling jolly. 🎅

A reminder that I'm on Ko-Fi. I post little videos and flash fiction, and I plan to post much more in December. It's free, but you can throw me a couple of quid if you fancy it!