Welcome to another week on A Series of Unfortunate Irritations'. I hope you've all had a lovely weekend.
As you may already know, the spookiest time of the year- Halloween- is once again upon us. Pumpkins are everywhere offering themselves 3 for 2....or 2 for £3 depending on which supermarket you go to, sweets are out and ready for the trick or treaters to descend and most importantly of all, the costumes and parties are out in full swing!
I feel that Halloween is quite an important thing to celebrate. I mean, what other time of the year is it socially acceptable to dress up elaborately and look totally and utterly horrid. Remember the last time you flippantly said to someone "I feel like death"? Well at this time of year, looking like death is the top trending look all over the internet. In fact, it's actively encouraged so, if you woke up today and felt like your makeup was just not going right, or your hair was completely untameable don't panic, don't fret because you have an excuse, it's Halloween!
Halloween is also a great time for fun. Along with the fact you can dress as anything that'll get a scare, you can unleash your inner artist by carving some of those 3 for 2 pumpkins or even flex your culinary muscles to make a pumpkin inspired dish. Whether it's impressing your mates, scaring the neighbours or just being completely horrid to children by giving them crap candy, it's a time when you can embrace the wicked side and have a truly scarily good time.
Talking of having a scarily good time, I had just that on Saturday night. Jade and her fellow housemates threw a Halloween house party. As soon as I RSVP'd to the invite I was already thinking about what I was going to go as. I'd done Edward Scissorhands in years previously but for various circumstances including the embarrassing and shameful fact that I could no longer fit into the costume, I had to think of something new and interesting. I pondered many ideas including going as Pennywise the clown but I actually wanted to be let into the house party so decided to go for a more tame idea. Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos to the Mexican's in the audience, has picked up quite a fashion following with more and more people choosing to dedicate their spooky costume choices to the Mexican festival. I too decided to honour this festival and immediately got onto the costume search. Now when you search 'Day of the Dead' in Google, a lot comes up; makeup looks, costume ideas, decorating tips and food recipes so understandably it was a bit overwhelming. However I decided to have a look on Amazon for the costume instead. This is where I came across the perfect costume- a 'Day of the Dead' bride! The dress was perfect; long and flowy, and it opened the doors to a whole world of makeup looks, perfect!
The day of the party was finally here and me and Jade were in Harrow sorting out some last minute costume related bits. Jade was going to the party as a fortune teller but while she had the main costume sorted, she was still short of a few accessories, namely a head scarf/head piece so we set out to find her one. After lots of wandering and even more laughs watching her faff about with dozens of scarves, we found the perfect scarves to match her outfit and even better, I'd found a long black wig to accompany the amazing costume I had.
It took absolutely ages to get ready. My makeup look was very detailed and required lots of layers before the white face paint took to my face effectively but I got there in the end! My makeup was finished and the dress was on- I truly felt the part and I felt fabulous. The dress is so comfortable, I probably would still wear it out after Halloween actually, definitely a costume worth considering if you're still stuck for ideas. The whole house was ready to party and I was excited to go downstairs and see everyone else's costumes too. Jade looked amazing as a fortune teller and we couldn't resist a quick selfie before we headed downstairs!
As for the party itself, it was great. syringes and blood bags filled with alcohol, spooky props filled the room and there were carved pumpkins outside, the hosts had really gone all out. We all had a great night but we both fell asleep far too early I'm embarrassed to say but I'd been on the spirits all night (no pun intended) and was ready to go to Bedfordshire.
Needless to say we did feel like death the next morning and I was feeling quite sorry for myself on my way back home the next morning but it was worth it. I'd had a great night with friends and I really enjoyed being a dead bride for the night. So I take my opportunity now to thank my party hosts for a horribly good time. (Ok I'll stop the Halloween puns now, they're pretty dead-ful.....)
Now on a more serious note, I've read in various places the debate on whether Halloween costumes have gone or are going, too far. I personally don't think they have and think it's just another ridiculous notion brought up to make us all feel bad for something else in society. Nowadays it's hard to even sneeze without offending somebody, and this debate for me just highlights how easily and how readily we are to get offended by something. It's Halloween for goodness sake! If there's anytime to embody the satirical and sarcastic, it's Halloween. I understand that there might be a line here where it goes too far, but the majority of the time, Halloween themes and costumes are meant to be in jest. For example, saying that someone wanting to dress as a geisha girl is for pure racist intent is simply unfair. First of all, saying that Chinese people and their race is wholly encapsulated in a geisha costume is in itself quite worrying, but to say that a geisha outfit is then "off limits" for this reason is ridiculous. These people seem to forget that dressing as something, or dressing in a certain way can be a way of complimenting and appreciating a certain style and culture, rather than mocking it. Halloween isn't just about dressing as something "scary" or "horrible", it can be a chance to use creative license to come up with something interesting or different. People now seem to tread the line between being overly 'dark humoured' and taking everything that is said and done far too seriously. In fact by overtly and openly omitting certain potentially "offensive" things, we invite offense in, letting it into the frame and then we end up setting a cultural fire we will struggle to put out. I'd never want to willingly hurt someone's feelings, and neither should anyone else but I feel that society's threshold for a joviality has lowered significantly. The fact we are now trying to dictate what should be a personal choice entrusted to the individual to decide upon is something I struggle to tolerate.
So, on that rather cheery note, I will leave you now until Wednesday. Have a great Tuesday guys.
Share your thoughts :