They know that you read alt.fashion when .....

1. You have (literal!) dreams about MAC lipsticks and lovely clean and huge Jane displays with zillions of lip quads.

2. You open your computer notepad each time you open the newsgroup to copy over color names.

3. You walk around stores with pages of printouts from the notepad and refer to the list for the colors and brands you want to try (I'm gonna have to start organizing my notepad so there's a page for each brand, it's getting unwieldy)..

4. You have no one :( else to talk to about this stuff except those on the newsgroup.

5. You get excited about trips to the drugstores and plan in your mind how you will attack each of the displays.

6. You can describe the Jane displays in each store in your area, and also which drugstores are the best at displaying new items from all of the lines.

7. You go to the Clinique counter and are looking at lipsticks, and the woman asks if you've tried their new kind of long last lipsticks, and you reply, "Well, yes Clinique sent me a sample in the mail." and she looks at you slack jawed and says, "Gosh, you're lucky.".

You ask them, "What are *you* wearing today?" even though you can tell just by looking.

The ultimate is now they know me by my voice at the Nordstrom's Beauty Hotline.

When you start asking total strangers how many lipsticks they have in their purses:)

When you call the Nordies hotline 3 times in a row to add to an order because someone mentioned a new product. <this HAS happened to me>

...when you have to build a wing on the house just to hold your shoes.
(Contributed by my wife, who says she understands Imelda Marcos *perfectly*.)

The sales person @ the chanel counter calls you by your e-mail name, compliments you on the urban decay lipstick you are wearing, asks where you can get it locally and who your hermes representative is....rjudith

When you meet someone on a BBS whose handle is "Spicie" and you think "lipliner!"

You can't leave the house before you apply your brow set though you've never used it for the first 40+ years of your life.

Spotting a well-stocked, clean Jane display (does such a thing exist??) you grab every Browned Down Red in sight and take them home gleefully, even though you already own 8 tubes.

..your husband asks what's the latest news from/about John-in-Dallas, Legs-in-Baltimore, Sheila-in-California, and so on.

.....you have a pair of tweezers & mirror next to your computer. :-)

• Friends asked me to recommend products and I blabbered on lists of things I see in here; and when they asked me if I had tried them myself, I just grin.

• I bought so many things not mentioned in local fashion magazines, like the likes of AHAs and Studio Fix and hey, next on my list, Chaos (must check that one out)

• You have a pen and paper ready everytime you read Alt-Fashion

• I went to Korea and to escape the cold, I dropped into a department store and saw Make Up For Ever, I was filled with joy. And I began scolding myself for not making a list of what must-haves from Make Up For Ever. Friends began asking me if it's cheaper in Singapore and I proudly said it's not available in Singapore but it's quite popular in the US.

• I owned more lipsticks than I have owned before. I have two foundations at one time, which it would never happen if not for...and am actually thinking of accumulating more

• The only things I go to have a look at department stores nowadays is cosmetics!

• Your friend decided to have a look in here herself. Now I have someone to talk to about Alt.Fashion too!!!

While you are shopping, you notice a fluid skirt/dress in red and think gawsh that'll be perfect for sheila (whom I've never met before or emailed personally) or when you can't pass a string of pearls without thinking about Carla's baby CoCo alter-ego or see an ad for Watne scarves and immediately think of AscotSilk or pass a super-stylish professional woman sitting in first class and wonder if it's rjudith or the dozens of other personalities that make alt.fashion such a great community (hey marie, if i ever run into somebody that fits your description i'd probably ask if she had an AOL account under legdotcom).

... When you go to see the new Star Wars, and all you can notice is Princess Leia's overly-glossed lips and the 70's hairstyles on Luke and Han, not to mention the VERY wide-collared shirt worn by Luke's Mom.

You do so many swaps with alt.fashionites that you start collecting boxes and envelopes and bubble paper to send swap items in!!

... When you visit a makeup counter, you find that you know more about the products than the person selling them.

...when you have to build a wing on the house just to hold your shoes.
(Contributed by my wife, who says she understands Imelda Marcos *perfectly*.)

You dream about finding lemming items that in real life have been non-existent. My first lemming experiences were the Black Rose Gloss from BBW and the Spice Cake, Mocha Berry and Razzleberry Liplites. I dreamed several times about finding each of these, and having to go to far, out-of-the-way places to find them.

I was in Target the other day and a woman in her late 40's was really concentrating on the Bonne Bell display. I swear she's an alt.fashionite. I was too embarassed to ask. Plus at Ulta last week this little girl (about 8-9 yrs old) was staring at the Caboodles makeup display and she just sighed and said, "This stuff is so cool". I smiled at her and said, "I know!" LOL I think we were looking at the swirly lipglosses that are packaged like ink wells.

Another hint you're a true a.f.er...every time you run into a new store you check out the Jane display looking for Browbeaters and Sweet Cheeks. The blush is usually there, but never all the colors. Browbeaters are still an elusive item near me.

--When you go to counters/Sephora and know all about lines/products/colors you've never actually seen
--When people shopping in the makeup aisle at the drugstore start asking you for advice
--You speak a litany of "makeup shorthand" that your friends can't understand
--You go on vacation, and have major AF withdrawal
--You own enough makeup to wear a totally different face each day for several weeks

Because you're so busy at work, it's not possible for you to check the a/f posts at 'regular hours' so you actually wake up extra early just to read them.

When you dream you're late to an important event because you 1) can't get your makeup done on time, 2) you haven't shaved your legs, 3) your clothes don't work right and you have to get dressed all over again. This is one of my recurring dreams...calling Dr. Freud!

Your reading and scanning through magazines and see an article that you think would be of interest to alt.fashionites, but then you usually forget the magazine at home and then by the time you remember, you have forgotten the article.

You advise total strangers at the makeup counter as to good color options.
You are constantly mistaken for someone who works there.

Or, your makeup is consistently *better* than that of the SAs who are working the counters.
Or, you continually run into people in the course of the day and think "Gosh, with a little Holly Golightly in the crease and a warm-toned lipstick, she'd look really great!"

...When you are at NM, looking at the Fresh Display, and even though it is your very first time to see it, you know more about it than the stupid SA who is giving incorrect info to another customer. So you correct them =)

.....you look at TV trying to figure out what color shadows and lippies the actors are wearing!

...you are watching a movie, and when the character pulls out a lipstick, you nudge your husband and whisper "Vincent Longo!"

I did that the other day at Kmart!!! The cashier had this thick brown lip liner around her lips and I kept saying to myself, "Blend damnit! BLEND!!".

You do your friends make-up on her wedding day and you are mistaken for the make-up artist instead of the maid-of-honor!! (I was actually asked what school I went to for make-up artistry ;)

...you dream about trying out the Benefit Creaseless Cream shadows at Sephora.

You know - I hate dreaming about makeup...I wake up feeling kind of shallow. Is that weird or what? Doesn't bother me to spend hundreds of dollars a month on the stuff, but I dream about it and THEN it worries me - LOL!!

Ooh, well I had a dream a few weeks ago that there was a huge Bourjois display in my local Wal-Mart! And then a few nights ago I had a dream that I was explaining the beneficial properties of Shea Butter to my dad. Pretty crazy!

Your entire purpose into going into Ulta is to try to find the lemming products, but alas, all the other lemmings have already bought them all! Oh the horrors! ;-)

- when you're lurking the cosmetic counters way in advance of the local new release dates. (is this like eastern time btw? Things hit the east coast first and then make their way west?)
- when you dream about sephora
- when you can rattle off the names of at least 3 colors from over 10 brands, whether you've seen them or not.
- when you know what colors are before you've even seen them
- you have a running list of the latest lemmings to look for (did you guys just make up the BB spice cake liplite? cruel, cruel trick)

It's EMiriam who keeps turning up in my dreams (wonder if she looks anything like the way she does in the dream?!). She keeps telling me to blend my blusher properly. The weird thing is - I don't wear blush!

you don't post about a great product until you have had a chance to buy it yourself.

... when your sister tells you on the phone that she would wear makeup but she just doesn't know how to apply it, and the next week you mail her a starter set of brushes, some cheap shadows and stuff, and a copy of "Making Faces".

When you scan the top of your vanity/bathroom counter and see a bunch of super expensive products and think, if anyone saw all the crap I have, they would think I was rich instead of a lowly grad student!

When you realize that a large portion of the things you use on a daily basis are stuff you never even knew existed before you started reading af...(Stila shadows, Pola Vitax, etc, etc....)

When I walked outside my front door this afternoon to pick up my beautyjungle.com package of Fresh sugar eau de parfume realizing many such packages were delivered throughout the world recently to other alt fashionistas. I thought to myself probably no one else in the neighborhood or perhaps even my city had this stuff. If we all did live in the same area we could detect others by scent, lip or nail color, shadow combos etc. I realize that limits this wide audience but it's that so many of my fellow Fresnans have not tried a new product not made by Revlon or Estee Lauder.

..when you dream that Saks closes early, but you get to stay because you know the manager, and you spend all night trying on makeup!! (dreamed this sunday...) Odd, considering that I've never been to Saks!

*You carry a list in your DayRunner of the MAC shadows you want to check out, drugstore items to investigate, and fragrances to smell
*You save boxes and bubble wrap for swaps
*You almost mention to the SA that "No, I already have that color, I got it in a swap" (thankfully you catch yourself and tell them your friend sent it to you!!)
*Every MAC shadow shade the SA suggests is one you already own and they say "Hmmm, you have a *lot* of these, huh?"
*You bite your tongue to keep from recommending colors to the woman next to you in Walgreen's
*Your friend is over when a swap package arrives and you stash it away so you don't have to explain
*You prefer to shop alone, it's just so much nicer not being rushed!
*Your credit card bills have increased in direct proportion to the number of online coupons that you got your hands on

When you go through the bag you carried in summer and ooooh and ahhhh at the lip glosses/lipsticks you forgot about!

*You dream about shopping at Sephora and clearly remember everything about the store before you actually had been to one.
*You write down Px as an abbreviation for a prescription. I actually had trouble figuring out if it was Px or Rx at the time! I think another a.f.er made this mistake too.
*You know all the stores to go to and where they are when you are shopping out of town such as in NYC, LA, and SF.
*You have a shopping wish list and of the 20 things listed, 18 are cosmetic/fragrance items.
*You drive all over town searching for the latest lemming item(s).
*You use acronyms in regular conversation. ("Oh CSP Amour de Cacao is the best!")
*A package for you in the mail is very exciting!
*You get very excited when you find out a local store has started carrying a hard-to-find line such as Bloom and Decleor. Then you get kind of tired of that line and go to something even more hard-to-find. LOL
*You can tell what MAC shade other people are wearing.
*You just can't understand why someone would just buy boring lines like Clinque and EL, rather than the more fun hard-to-find lines.
*You know more about the new items than the SAs.
*You make a post to this thread! :)

--your esthetician suggests that you could get a job with a plastic surgeon because you seem to know so much about skin care and makeup products.
--you go out of town or country and find yourself seeing items you could buy because you know somebody at alt.fashion would like one of those.
--you have bubble wrap, boxes in various sizes, labels and tape just in case you need to swap or send a gift to an Afer.

you can name the major make-up brands (all 8342 of them) and tell what will look good on various people...however, you can't remember the names of the four vedas for your hindu philosophy class...

When I gave my sister a birdhouse for her new home and there was a dead fly inside, I look at her and say, "Hmm, gwp," and she understood.
After making plans for the night, you e-mail to your friends, "What are *you* wearing tonight." Only one of them gets it.

Your aunt comes over and applies Revlon lipstick during the visit and you swear your whole house smells of it now, even though she's been gone for 3 hours.

*You read this thread, and to every single post, you say, "I do that!"
*You are at dinner with a big group of friends, when one tells you that a MAC counter just opened up in your town. You leave half your dinner and toss some money at your friend to pay your check because you can't wait to check it out.

*all of your friends ask you if MAC has gotten any new items in lately
*you can make colour recommendations for other people for lines you have never even seen before
*you had a near heart attack when you saw a Nars counter for the first time. the friend you were with didn't understand why you were so excited or how you knew so much about a makeup line you'd never seen ("ooh, so THIS is Copacabana! Look, it's the Tokyo duo!!")
*you dream about a Stila counter opening in your city and are disappointed to wake up and realize it isn't true
*your house is _the designated pre-party house to get ready at b/c of the makeup collection
*you can't even see the top of your vanity table because it is covered in cosmetics
*you do your mother's makeup for her when she's going for a big night out
*the people at the MAC counters know you by name
*you pine for Stila, CSP, Laura Mercier, Vincent Longo, and Body and Soul despite the fact that you've never seen them before

You get a visit from four different shipping companies in ONE day: USPS, UPS, FedEx, and Airborne Express.

Every time you have an opportunity to attend a conference in another state/city or accompany your husband somewhere on business, the first thing you do is go to the yellow pages on line to see what wonderful shopping exists...especially looking for things not available in your area, such as Sephora,etc.

Please send your comments, suggestions or questions to Sheila Faulkner.

Also if you'd like, you can leave me a note in my Guest Book. I'd really love to hear from you!

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