---It's getting hot in here---

So I've been lazy. Reviewing has taken a back seat as I have slowly drifted towards the more fun side of alcoholism as each day passes. I suppose working for the government will do that to you.

Possibly due to being a little drunk and maybe due to becoming more outgoing with age (hmm) I got up the guts to ask an incredibly cute guy out to lunch. Things started going wrong as soon as he said yes. (HE SAID YES!!!!)

As I gleefully skipped the half meter to my "hunky firemen" calendar, I noticed there was something already scribbled in the day in question. My brothers birthday. Which isn't normally a problem. Unfortunately he is in the country for it this year. How dare he!

So I was left with the task of convincing my whole family they really DON'T want to go to my brother's favourite restaurant (also my favourite as the case may be) for the first birthday in a couple of years he's been here, WITHOUT them realising why. That didn't really work. So now I'll have to pretend I don't know the crazy woman who keeps poking me in the ribs as she goes past our table (my mother), the man who keeps shouting "get in there, my son" (my father) and the little guy who comes over just to ask if we are getting married (my brother).

---So take off all your clothes---

To add to all this hassle, I have to look fabulous while I'm at a buffet. Who's idea WAS this lunch? Buffet + hot guy = Me making a complete pig of myself. If me making myself look like a pig isn't bad enough, I need to find clothes that make me look slim both before and (most importantly) AFTER three courses to start me off. What? It is a buffet!

---T-Shirt Number One. ---

On my travels I found the PERFECT T-shirt for this. Nice, black thing, very slimming and hides any...well...most... bumps. Dilemma number 20 million? It stinks. Some deodorant I tried out a few months ago took a liking to the fabric and stuck to it in two lovely white patches on the inside of each arm. Unfortunately it also stuck some sweat there with it. Ten washes (I kid you not) later and there's still a sweaty smell. After giving up I plonked it on the window sill in a rage, only to later find out there was a small puddle of grease that had splashed from a pan I was washing on the sill. I nearly cried.

---T-shirt Number Two ---

On my quest for another t shirt (and because I love clothes) I went shopping. Upon stumbling into New Look, I saw the most rocking t shirt ever. It even had "1986" on it, which is just a novelty since it was the year of my birth. Throw in that my friend gets me a 50% discount, I was sold. Just to make sure it was a good enough T-shirt, I went out in it. It lasted the whole night fine. No sweat stains, no bulge showing, no strange lesbians thinking I am a girl and trying to chat me up. Ace!

Then we had a kebab. Two, in fact. Large ones. Not surprisingly, I ended up covered in little red kebab marks. White + kebab = No. I was distraught and decided I must do something about all the T-shirts I was loosing.

---Here, Have a tub of pink!---

The first thing that came to mind was "vanish" . If I could vanish myself into a small dark place till the weekend was over, I wouldn't need to be seen stuffing my face in a less than perfect t-shirt by the hot guy. Thinking that to be a little extreme (and a sure route out of getting laid) I opted for a big pink tub of powder, also named "Vanish". What a coinky dink!

I whizzed down to Asda straight away and popped this pink tub into my basket along with the sausages, KY jelly and Cookie dough I was also buying. You can all stop being vile, the KY was to lube up a piercing! This insanely pink tub cost me a grand total of £5 (which made me sob a little bit, being skint). You do, however, get quite a chunk (1kg) of this stuff in the tub. It even comes with a tinsey pink scoopy thing. Girls will find it cute.

---Instructions? Pah.---

Being overly excited at the prospect of doing my washing, I packed the machine with everything I deemed stained or otherwise not as pretty as it once was. A few T-shirts, some towels and Bruce Willis. Reading the back I could see that I needed half a scoop for lightly soiled. I remembered the ten washes with the black t-shirt and went straight to the "heavily soiled" section. One full scoop with your wash.

This was my first bit of confusion. Do you want me to put you in with my normal powder? Do I put you in all on your own?? Do I sprinkle you neatly over the clothes in a fun, yet random pattern?? I will never know. So I just put it in with my normal Persil tablets and hoped for the best.

---Vanish Vs Sweaty-Grease---

After waiting the half hour on my machine , having to stop half way to let Bruce Willis out since he thought he was going to hurl, I opened the door as fast as I could and ripped my way through my washing to find my Black, sweat, deodorant and grease stained T-shirt. Would it be saved? Could I be seen in public looking decent once more?!?

Round one goes to... VANISH!!! YES!!! My favourite T-shirt in the world was not only free of stains and smells, the white graphic on it was gleaming more than when I had bought it. I fell in love all over again with my T-shirt. I no longer need hot guy. I do still quite want him though.

---Vanish Vs Kebab---

They say that only a drunk person would take on a kebab. Mostly, I find that to be true. Though there are times when I have battled with them sober. They always won. For example, the time I had a kebab so greasy, it dripped all over my lap in my car. I grabbed the first thing to hand (my window rag) to wipe the grease off.

When I got home I shoved the rag aside and forgot all about it. Till I next wiped my windows. You'd be surprised how hard it is to get kebab grease off a window. I never succeeded. So was Vanish drunk enough to salvage my brand new love affair??

Round two goes to....Kebab. I cried a little. I felt defeated. Vanish was dead to me. Dead as can be. Then I remembered the funky things they do on the advert with stretching the spot over a glass and going "oh wow, isn't it fantastic, how did I ever live with out it" in that very plastic way.

---Re-Match---

Well, t'was a tie. I needed a breaker. So I, in a rather angry last ditch attempt to kill the kebab stain, piled some powder onto my t shirt, over the stain and added enough water to make it pasty. I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed. I then rubbed summore! Turning the tap on, I rinsed and rubbed and rinsed and rubbed. All of a sudden a miracle happened. Kebab had DIED!! It had left my t shirt. Well...almost. Knowing where it was, I can still see it very, VERY faintly. But no one else will ever know. It is our dirty little secret.


---Other things you can do with Vanish---

I have found myself using Vanish in every wash now, just because it does actually make a noticeable difference in the brightness of your clothes. Maybe it's just because I changed the light bulb, but who knows.

You can also soak your clothes in the stuff, so if you have a stubborn stain (that isn't kebab) then you can hit it with all your Pink Power. Pink Power makes me giggle.

You may also be able to use this to slowly poison your loved ones if ever they insult your cheesecake making skills. What? It's just a suggestion!

---Boring stuff you might want to know---

Crap. This is the part where I have to actually get out of my seat and get the box for information isn't it? Fine. Grumble. Moan.

Ok, so, You shouldn't use this stuff on wool, silk or leather. So that's sheep, worms and cows out of the running. Don't use it on wood or metal, don't soak anything metal or flame resistant and over all do NOT burn your clothes after you've soaked them. At least that's what I got from that.

Chemical wise we have a blend of Sodium Carbonate and Peroxyhydrate and some other random "oxygen based bleaching agents". As you may have guessed this stuff can cause a lot of irritation to the skin, eyes, children, animals and your grandmother. Unless she is like mine, in which case, she will never become any more irritated than she already is.

---Ok, get lost now---

That's me done. There is nothing more I can tell you of this magical Vanish powder. I like it. It's pretty good at its job and will leave your whites whiter than white. White white white. I just felt the need to add more white to that since they clearly didn't put enough in.