I'm b-a-c-k

Today I went to the monthly general meeting of the International Women's Club. All I can think is... what was I thinking?

The club does work hard to get a guest speaker every month, to their credit. The only other meeting I've ever been to was really interesting because they had a Ukrainian lady who lived in India for five years, learning how to do traditional Indian dance. The dance was interesting but I was more interested in the fact that she picked up an Indian-English accent. She talked like she was fresh from Bombay, it was great. She even had the ubiquitous Indian head-wobble.

Today the guest was a cosmetics consultant from Dior. She was Ukrainian. She had heavily accented English which was not quite fluent, and she was trying to engage about 150 ladies in her sales pitch, with no microphone and no visuals except microscopic cosmetics bottles.

Now to give you a bit of background into my facial cosmetics routine, here are the four last occasions on which I deemed it necessary to paint my face:

- My wedding in October 2005
- The media launch of wizardwomen.com.au in March 2006
- My friends' G & L's wedding in April 2006
- A job interview when I first arrived in Kyiv in November 2006 (my only job interview. Obviously didn't look dyevushka enough for them)

About five minutes into today's presentation, I was lost. I had not idea what she was talking, what was going on. This is the downside of er... not wearing makeup very often, I guess.

When the lady started banging on about 'cleansing, toning, moisturising', my friend M leaned over and said, "Little Miss Moi, I can tell you're totally interested in this presentation". I had no option but to be rather rude and discuss what I did on the weekend.

This begs the question - why do all people, including women, suppose all other women are so interested in cosmetics? Sure, I probably look like an ugly hag, but I'd rather do it for free than spend $300 a month on the pleasure with the same result.

And even if I was a face cream fan, I wouldn't be able to afford Dior. And, to their anti-credit, the sales pitch was up there with the best Ukrainian service I've ever received. For example: the lady was touting a hand cream. Now, since I'd practically run to the meeting then downed about 20 cups of coffee as a desperate pep-up, my hands were a little swollen.

So when the reps giving out hand creme, I shamelessly shot my hand up - my hands were desperate for a bit of moisture. For my effort, I received a dollop of creme about a quarter the size of a one-kopiok/kopeck piece. When they gave me the toner, I didn't realise it was so runny and spilt it all over my skirt. I was a right mess.

To get back at them, I took two bags of samples. That's my big 'up-yours' at all cosmetics reps and women who expect all other women to be into spending their husband's hard-earned money on useless cosmetics.

And when they're 80 and I'm 50, I'm sure they'll have the upper, smooth-skinned hand. But you can only think you're a cool rebel once. So I'm happy to be a bare-skinned hippy for the moment. And those two bags of samples will last me the next two years.