Well, I suspect that in terms of make-up, nail care, and hair stuff, I'm probably the "girliest" girl around here. I used to spend a lot of time in various Origins stores and have lots of products to show for it. In the past several months, though, I've been breaking out a lot, and my skin care regimen has consisted of Purpose soap, Neutrogena blemish cream, and occasional dabs of Origins Night-a-mins moisture cream. I'm pretty sure that the culprit was the great Coconut Mango shampoo and conditioner, of which I bought huge bottles just before determining that I couldn't use it any more. (Naturally.)

I'm a registered user of makeupalley.com, so that should tell you something. I'm a product whore, but I do have my favorites. I really like most of the Sonia Kashuk makeup from Target, but don't like their lipstick, foundation, or concealer. I have to go to Sephora to get my mascara, which strikes me as a bit excessive. So is the price, but it's amazing stuff.

I have a plastic shoebox full of OPI nail polish. It replaced a similar shoebox full of drug store nail polish. For a while, I was buying two bottle of OPI a month. It's great, long-wearing polish with the most amazing color range. I almost never put it on my hands, though. Like others have said, I can't keep polish on my fingernails without chipping or biting it off. I keep my nails pretty short. It helps me type faster. Instead of polish, I buff the heck out of them. That makes them look very nice.

As for my hair, I've experimented with a lot of different products, but I've usually found that the best stuff is what my stylist recommends for me. It may cost more, but my hair is so fine, if it works, it's worth it. My hair's texture has also made me paranoid about using anything other than a wide-toothed comb (wet) or a boar-bristle brush (dry) on it. It's not particularly strong hair. The slavish devotion to my extremely fake blonde streak doesn't help with that. I've been wearing it fairly short lately, so it's a little more work than it used be.

Oh, and I've had a body mudpack and a pedicure at a salon. The body wrap was heaven. The pedicure was great, but nothing I can't do at home with some Johnson's foot soap and an orange stick.

I'm probably somewhere between Jenelope and the rest of you. I enjoy beauty products and makeup and getting treated, but I have all of two nail polish colors and one basic makeup palette. I am strict about my skin-care regimen though, and I love all manner of body lotions. Meanwhile, I have never really tweezed. At best, I've plucked a couple of stray hairs and yowled while doing it.

I like getting manicures for the most part, but while I always say I'm going to do it more often, I think I've had two manicures in the last five years. I don't care so much about the color on the nails, but the hands and nails themselves are just healthier and better looking with regular manicures. I had my first pedicure this past summer and I found it painful when she was pushing back the cuticles. Still, my feet looked so nice afterwards and the polish lasted forever, so I'll probably do it again a couple of times next summer.

I don't think facials are necessary for most people, but I really should get one because I have lousy skin which is prone to both acne and dryness. I put it off because I'm lazy, it's expensive, and I don't want those first couple of blotchy days Ananda complained about.

I've given up on getting my hair to look right. I spend more money than I'd like but not as much as I should trying to get the color to something that blends with my natural hair color but isn't so brassy, but it isn't really working. The top part with the high/low lights looks ok, but the underside is sooo much darker because it gets no sun. Even my roots are much blonder than the bottom layer of hair. Ugh. I have hair issues.

I've had a grand total of one chair massage, and it was heaven. I would get it once a week if I had the money and time.

When I was in Budapest, I had a massage in a Turkish bath by an actual old Hungarian lady. She beat me up pretty good, and it was heaven. There was a neck/face massage included in the facial, and I almost fell asleep. Very nice.

The day after my facial most of the blotchiness is gone, and my zits are diminishing. It is nice to have glowy, clean pores, but I don't know that it's something I'd pay for on a regular basis. I have a holiday party tomorrow, which is how I justified the cost (and the ridiculous shopping spree I went on today.)

My new roommate is a clothes horse, which has resulted in my spending more money than I'd like on clothes. Because I'm weak! Anyway, I find tops are easy to find and generally cute, but I have so much trouble finding any sort of bottoms. For one thing, I have short, badly proportioned legs, so I can only buy slacks at places that sell them by length. This tends to mean that I have to spend more money. Skirts are just as big a problem, because my calves are heavy, so nothing below the knee works on me. On the other hand, I'm usually not bold enough to wear minis. What happened to the simple black wraparound skirt, that didn't cling to every unappealing bulge, but also didn't flare out ridiculously. Some of the stuff I tried on today made me feel like the top of a wedding cake, all ruffles and taffeta and oddly placed bows.

My biggest weakness? Silver shoes.

Those sound nice. I like metallics myself, though usually not silver... I have gold nail polish, gold eye shadow and even gold eyeliner and gold mascara in my cabinet (though the last was from when I went as Buffy for Halloween and needed to lighten my eyebrows).

I too find it hard to find pants and skirts that fit, so I've always bought a lot more tops than bottoms.

Not exactly the trendiest company, but Lands End offers most of their women's pants hemmed to order. Jeans are the exception, but they offer a lot of lengths. There are often great sales, too. The skirt issue is precisely why I learned to sew.

Ananda, if you like the exfoliating results of the facial, Origins has a product called Modern Friction that works really well. They describe it as "nature's microdermabrasion." I really like the results with my skin. Also, the salespeople at Origins are usually bordering on pushy (which bugs me, to be honest), but they're also pretty big with the free samples. They'll fill up a little container with enough product for a few applications. Just enough to get you hooked.

I would have a facial and a massage every week if I could afford it.

I only wear makeup if I have a client meeting or going out somewhere special.

My beauty routine consists of a Lush face scrub and Nivea moisturiser. I don't own a hair dryer and can't live without my John Frieda Sheer Blonde Funky Chunky Sheer Veneer Texturizer.

I hate having to by pants at the moment, as I can never get them fitting around my waist properly. There is always this huge gap between where my back ends the pants stick out!

I think there are two things an adult woman must have: a good mechanic, and a good tailor. Once you've found each of those in your home city, you're set for life. I have a wonderful and inexpensive tailor, and it makes life so much easier when you can alter existing clothes as they no longer fit (or cease to please you in some way), and even more when you can buy things that are wonderful but just don't quite fit.

It's too bad more people of our generation don't take advantage of tailoring. Rather than get rid of the almost-perfect pair of pants (given how hard it is to find things you like), you can have just what you want for a few tenners.

I really vary in my approach to "prettifying". I love having a massage (except for my feet - I hate it when people touch my feet) and a facial, but I love it as a treat. I hate wearing makeup - for work I do lipstick and mascara, and that's it. The only time I'll do the full makeup thing is if I'm going somewhere special.

I love bath stuff - bubblebath, scented shower gels - all that kind of thing. I also enjoy having a manicure - always a French manicure, because I can never get that right if I try to do it myself.

The pants and skirts thing is a real issue for me too - I'm vertically challenged and curvy - so as with Beej, what fits on the hips swims on the waist. Unlike Beej, I always have to have pants taken up (and jacket sleeves). Even the petites ranges tend to be too long - I'm at least 3 inches shorter than their target demographic. The current dress trend has brought out another problem too - because I'm short, the waist lands lower on me than it should - always a stylish look. I have a tailor I take all this stuff to, but I always have to bear in mind when I buy something that I need to factor in the cost of alteration.

As the token male in this group I don't know if you could call me representative of anything but my grooming (sorry, couldn't call it prettifying, nothing pretty about me) consists of shaving, washing and deodorising/anti-perspirising. That's it.

Well, we do have another token male, but as lejo's in the Marines I doubt he's getting very pretty either.

Lejo joined the Marines? Where have I been?

Today I got all dressed up for a holiday party, and if I could give the female population one piece of advice it would be: spend money on your shoes. Seriously. Payless shoes will make you want to chew your own feet off at the ankle if you plan on standing on them all night.

Its taken me many years to come to the same conclusion. I bought a pair of boots and a pair of nice shoes for work recently and spent more money than I ever have before, but they are damn comfy.

Believe me, some Marines are very pretty.

Plus, shoes are unlikely to be outgrown or make your ass look big and they usually stay in fashion for more than one season. I agree, spend money on shoes.

And I also agree that some Marines are very pretty. I would wager that Lejo's in that group.