Framing Her Face

Here's another rant.

I've been reading so many instances where, when an author describes a girl getting ready for an occasion, or arriving for a date, or whatever, they make a point of describing how "two strands have been separated from her updo, to hang down to frame her face."

Really?  Is this so important as to be remarked upon?  Is is such a travesty for a girl to not frame her face that an author would heap insults and ridicule on her?  I began to read up about this, and it appears that using two "tendrils" to frame a woman's face became popular around the year 2000, and now any woman who looks in her mirror is not quite satisfied unless there are two strands, one of the left, and one on the right, that narrow her face a little.  I believe that women with a narrow face don't feel that the 'framing' is unnecessary; at this point, the two strands are sort of their own thing.

Listen, any authors out there, who're reading this.  Some girls look perfectly fine with their faces framed by their ears.

Authors would do better to focus on how interesting the girl's manicured nails are!  This sort of thing brings out how much the author has gotten carried away with her story, and the sort of trivialities that she is preoccupied with.

Maybe the author wants to emphasize that she's 'regular people', with the same silly concerns as her readers.  It annoys me just as much as minute descriptions of the height of the heels one girl wears, so as not to be too much taller than her date.  Or how many sequins her gown has.  The women I have hung out with, even if totally girly, and even if they do calculate the lengths of their hemlines, so that they're visible under their coats, don't bring up those sorts of issues in girl talk!  Oh God, am I getting old?  I'm also put off by the elaborate patterns girls have their nails done up with, probably with stick-ons, or something like that.  I didn't like the style of painting their fingernails with that little arc of white at the tip, to begin with.  Now these stick-on styles are just weird.

Kate, noticing her wrinkles ...