In the beginning, there was gloss.

In more ways than one, g33kchic and I are nothing alike. Next to her vibrant, curly-locked and pink-shirted self, I feel (and look) like an emo sea slug, black, dreary and lifeless. But where other relationships are bound by icky stuff like blood, sweat, tears and dead bodies (see I Know What You Did Last Summer), the glue that holds us together is gloss, or more specifically, lip gloss. This, however, hardly means that our friendship is a tenuous one; just as we need girlfriends to hold hands and eat chocolate cake with after a bad breakup, we need those who can tell us straight to our face that we're not getting any male attention because our favourite lipstick shade is called "Matte Papaya Brownie".

Our interests, naturally, extend beyond glosses to just about any damned lotion and unguent on the face of this earth, so it was natural to approach g33kchic with the idea of starting a beauty blog, an idea she took to like Michael Jackson to cosmetic surgery. But I suspect that her commitment to beauty products surpasses mine. Only yesterday, we took a short trip to the friendly (and ONLY) neighbourhood mall to look at some Christian Dior makeup. g33kchic was due to pick me up, and before she left, she caught me on Google chat.

"I'm going to go in my ratty shorts and slippers. This is Ipoh and I don't give a damn."

And that was what she wore when she showed up at my house. Bright orange flip-flops and a pair of grey cotton gym shorts half-concealed by her red polo tee.

But on her face was a perfect "five-minute face". Lipgloss (of course), blush, a hint of eyebrow pencil and undereye concealer set with powder. So much for rattiness.