“A woman should wear fragrance wherever she expects to be kissed”-Coco Chanel
Laura Reynolds looks at some of the cheapest beauty products available
Today, your Lifesaver column has been sponsored by the letter V, for Vegetarianism. I guess if this is going to be my first article for the Yorker, I should just mention the fact that I actually am a vegetarian. I don’t want you guys to feel deceived, thinking that your new Lifesaver only did this for the week, and then went back to being a normal person.
This is, incidentally, the phrase my dad uses on the phone to ask when I’ll start eating meat again. It worries me that he still appears to be labouring under the misguided impression that I was ever a normal person, in order to go back to being one.
My housemates, on the other hand, have resorted to the most underhanded tactics imaginable to attempt to get me to convert back to 'normality'. Two days ago, one of them put a plastic bag under my nose and loudly proclaimed, "Mm, chicken juice on your face."
By the way, if you too have vegetarian flatmates and are trying to make them back into meat eaters, then the method I just described is not the miracle you’re looking for. Please take note. To be honest, it’s a little bit like telling people that eating ear-wax gives you miraculous powers of flight: it’s both gross and not at all persuasive.
While we’re on the subject, here’s something else all vegetarians have more than likely come across before: the immortal phrase, ‘I would be a vegetarian, but I like meat.’ You’d be surprised by how often this comes up, and it’s never yet made sense to me once.
Everyone says it at least once in their life, I think – myself included – and it seems to be something along the same logical lines as ‘I would avidly watch BBC Parliament, drop everything at the sign of any election anywhere, and become a hermit whose only friend is the Economist-bringing postman - but I’m not interested in politics.’
We all know you wouldn’t do it at all, and that’s fine with most of us. You don’t need to pretend that you would to make us feel better. Except maybe the militant veggies who scream ‘dead fish, dead fish, dead fish’ when placed within a mile radius of a tuna sandwich. If you come across one of them I'd recommend placating them in any way possible. I suggest some form of meat-free cookies. Or alternatively, you should just give me the cookies and forget about the crazies. Do it now.
Anyway, if you’re one of those people who aren’t vegetarian yet, and you’re still waiting to be convinced that this is the way to go, then frankly, I’m probably not the girl you’re looking for. My track record of vegetarian conversion is hardly commendable: members of my family have been known to utter such gems as ‘Can you still eat beef?’, and one of my best school friends resorted, in her own inimitably subtle way, to sending me a steak as a Facebook gift with the simple yet heart-felt message, ‘Eat it.’
My friends and relations continue to think that I’m one lettuce leaf short of a salad, and also maintain that said salad should always, always come as a support act to some kind of meat. Actually, there are a few gigs I’ve been to where a finely diced pepper would have had more musical ability than the actual support acts. This is probably not so much an advert for vegetarianism as it is a criticism of Jose Gonzalez’s support choices, but nevertheless, a good salad gets far less attention than it deserves.
My persuasive capacities aside, vegetarianism does have some
advantages as a lifestyle choice. You can find out more from vegsoc or happycow but here are just a few perks of the job: as a group, research suggests that vegetarians tend to live longer, are less likely to get heart disease or type II diabetes, have lower cholesterol, are less prone to some forms of cancer, and by night, they fight crime.
It’s possible that I made up one of those, but I’m not going to tell you which one. I will say only this: I have a cape, and my secret alias may or may not be Supercarrot. In fact, it is almost certainly not that, because no self-respecting superhero would give herself that as an alias. Then again, I’m neither a superhero nor self-respecting, so no worries.
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