Please Find Me A Stylist
Source: www.three2seven.com

Fashion is definitely more complicated for some than fashion editors think. I try to compare it to cooking - god only knows why because I'm a failure in the kitchen - where you have a specific recipe or a formula for success.

I know fashion has formulas all over the place - fashion magazines are always talking about body types and the clothes that work best. But it's not like you walk into a store and there is a label on the shirt that says "for women with a flat chest, long torso and matches with pants x or pants y". Okay, so that's where sales assistants come in. But more often than not if you get a shirt from one store you need to find a skirt or pants from another. That isn't even the bad part. It's the accessories. I can't think of anything worse: bangles with different colors and various shapes/edges, necklaces long or short with one thing dangling or with several, beads or no beads - big or little, belts with sparkles, wide belts, narrow belts, woven and unwoven, curved belts or straight, silk scarves long and short, pink scarves alone come in twenty different shades and that doesn't even include the patterns.

Maybe some girls just get it, while I find shopping near impossible without my fashion friends right by my side. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love fashion. I love to see people looking great: funky, classic, glamorized, the works, but to do it myself is another story.

Having said that, there's one place where all those formulas are thrown out the window. New York City. The place drips with fashion and I love it. I can't help but want to be funky and fashionable when I'm lucky enough to be there. Anything goes so you would think that I feel liberated. On one hand I do. I feel quite safe purchasing bright green pumas, a white handbag and super tall wedges part blue and pink. What the heck, it's NYC.

But at the same time not having any rules is a complete nightmare for my brain. I see a woman walking down the street with a big beaded necklace, a tank top and sweatpants. How did she do that! If you asked me I would have put that necklace with a dress but she looked pretty darn good.

Walking into the department stores in NYC make shopping at David Jones Sydney in peak season look like a corner store. I have never seen so many people let alone the selection of clothes. Where do you start? For a fleeting moment I almost appreciate Sydney for its small selection - unfortunately I don't appreciate the price tags which are double that of NYC. Those designer jeans that everyone dies over for $150-250 in the US see us paying $300-500.

Keep that in mind and drop an Australian into the US shopping stores and she turns into a dog in heat - matching becomes an afterthought!

Size Does Matter
Source: www.three2seven.com

A women standing in line at a Sydney grocery store was holding some American Tampax Tampons when the box suddenly burst open. My head was saying, "Oh my goodness, not the big Tampax. She must be American. How embarrassing. People don't use those in this country. What is she thinking?" When I realized it was only a box of candles it was too late. The memories of checking my Tampax at the door had already come flooding back.

Two months after moving to Australia from America, a co-worker who forgot to bring tampons to work asked to borrow one from me. Her face was full of shock and horror when I whipped out the good ol' Tampax. She had no handbag to take it to the bathroom and made a song and dance about the fact that it was the size of a missile - she didn't even know what to do with it! I was so shocked that she was so shocked, and from that moment I never bought another Tampax in Australia again. I conformed to the Australian way and decided to buy what I call "teenage plugs".

Who knows why it's taken me 11 years of living in Australia to discuss the tampon situation with friends. But last night when my friend Carrie called I was off and running. I was telling her that Americans only use those little non-applicator tampons when they first get their period. It's so we know how to drive it. It's like getting a permit but the permit might only last a day. Then you graduate to Tampax with an applicator - which is like having your license.

Carrie couldn't believe I felt the need to use a tampon with a gigantic cardboard tube attached to it. She insisted, "There is no way a piece of cardboard is going anywhere near that area and besides, when I insert I know exactly where it's going!"

My American friends on the other hand think it's so unhygienic. Who wants to stick their finger up there when they have their period. Well I don't ... but funnily enough I do because I'm buying these little tampons like every other Australian.

It's obviously comes down to a cultural thing but I'm still sticking to the zones. In Australia I'm using the teenage plugs and when I go back to America, it's all about the pipeline!

Manhattan Fitness
Source: www.three2seven.com

No one told me to put bricks in a backpack while standing on a treadmill before I hit Manhattan. It's simply not possible to shop for four days straight in Manhattan without severe consequences. My feet have never experienced anything like it. It wasn't as if I chose my wedges, killer stilettos or even a mild pump. We're talking about pure and simple Havaianas thongs. One would never think that a comfortable thong would be a problem, but if you were doing the mileage that a typical New York shopper does it requires severe preparation called Manhattan Fitness. It's specific to the pounding that your feet take and requires you to walk constantly as if there was no end.

While visiting the city, I found myself in two positions for four straight days, vertical or horizontal and nothing else. I wondered why my hip injury felt so great, then I realized it was because I never actually sat down. Even on the subway I stood in the sandwiched packed carriages. When I got back to the hotel with my husband we both collapsed. I can understand my man being quite damaged after four days of straight shopping in Manhattan let alone a few hours in Sydney, but me? I'm a woman with reasonable fitness and a serious need to get my fashion sorted.

I can now see the need for personal trainers all over the world to develop the "Get in Manhattan Shape" for summer plan. I didn't see a fat person in site. People move, and when they move they do more than the so called 10,000 steps a day. I would love to strap pedometers to these people and see what the results come back with. It would no doubt confirm that New Yorkers have a specific kind of fitness.

While there, I was living every bit of the saying "women suffer for fashion". I didn't care that my blisters were so open that my shoes felt like they were touching bone. The jeans, the handbag, the shoes were all coming home with me regardless of my bleeding, swollen and throbbing feet - nothing stops a woman from purchasing!

Outside from my suffering, I made a serious observation: Manhattan women wear flats. I walked up and down the streets in Uptown, Midtown, Soho and everywhere in between and I'm telling you they wear flats. There were all kinds of flats ranging from a dressy sandal to a closed toe to a basic thong. Everyone thinks New Yorkers are all walking around like they're straight off the set of Sex In The City. I'm here to tell you they wear flats! Of course there are women in stilettos but there are very few of them walking around - these women are the type that get chauffeured from their home to the office door and again to the charity gala. But there is no way a woman in her right mind would be travelling from her five-story walk-up in stilettos to walk two blocks to a subway and then another few blocks to her office building. If you see stilettos in the workplace, they most likely stay in the workplace, living in an office drawer.

It took three days for my husband and I to realize that giving our feet an ice bath might be a good idea. It turned out to be the best damn idea of all time. Our feet were numb for at least five minutes after the bath - I experienced my first foot orgasm! And in New York there is such a thing.

Information: Too Much or Barely Enough?
Source: www.three2seven.com

Everyone has information that has passed them by. I'm talking about the things that you really should know but somewhere along the way it never reached you. It's the stuff that is even too embarrassing to admit. My most recent evidence of this was a thing I found in the shower at my parent's house on our last trip to the US. It looked like an exfoliation device. I figured since I hadn't exfoliated my body in such a long time that I'd really give my legs and body a good scrub. But hours after, my legs were covered in a rash that was so bad they were bleeding. I couldn't work out why an exfoliation device could do so much damage.

Later that day I said to my husband, "I think the exfoliation thing in the shower is too strong for my skin." He replied, "You mean the pumice stone? That is for your feet not your body!"

Then there is information you hear so often that it goes in one ear and out the other. Like when my girlfriends talk about the latest bikini waxes. I've been amongst these conversations for years now and not once has the information really sunk in.

I have one friend in particular who seems to be fresh from her Brazilian - all off - almost every time I see her. I sort of laugh at the thought! Then one day it finally registered that maybe I ought to see for myself what was so fabulous about such a wax. Also it sort of appealed to have everything off and start again.

It had been so long since I had a wax that I couldn't even remember the drill. But ready to put down my Gillette, I decided to make an appointment. I was under strict instructions from my friend to NOT make the appointment with my eyebrow waxer. She said to me, "Do you really want the lady who shapes your eyebrows to shape your pubic hairs." I took that as a very good point and booked it so far from my eyebrow lady there wasn't even a remote possibility of her knowing I did such a thing.

I found it quite funny when I booked the appointment because I didn't know what to call it. Was it a bikini wax or just a Brazilian or was all off like the Brazilian Maxi? I started by telling the woman that I'd like to book a bikini wax but when the lady asked if that was all, I responded with, " Yes, just a Brazilian". Then she said, "Oh, a Brazilian!" I didn't realize a Brazilian was in a league of its own.

When I arrived for my appointment, a young Irish girl showed me to my room and left me to get ready. I'm standing in this room thinking does she mean lie down on the table with pubic hairs face up or does she mean grab a towel and place it over first to ease into the process. I went for the open air pubes. Luckily she wasn't shocked by my decision.

She began the procedure as we were having a nice chat about stuff. The powder was being applied, the wax was going on... then she pulled the first strip! I almost died right then and there. Then the second strip... I was just short of screaming! By the third strip I was asking this girl about her upbringing in Ireland, her goals, her travels and absolutely anything I could think of to get mind anywhere but down there. I couldn't stand it for another second. But somehow I survived the blood, sweat and tears of my first Brazilian!!