Head & Shoulders used to tell us that, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” That’s true for wearing dark shirts, and it’s especially true for books. Sometimes the characters will hook the reader, sometimes the premise, sometimes it’s just knowing the author—but nothing beats a great opening for getting a reader to commit.
It wasn’t that Mason was vain. It was just that if anyone was going to mess up her face, she wanted it to be her. She already had two piercings in one eyebrow, two in her nose and multiple holes in her ears, but the guy approaching her with a slender but very pointy ice pick seemed to think something more central was going to really pull her look together.
Not that aesthetics were his primary concern.
“I’m going to hurt you,” he said, his breath a little ragged. Mason had just punched him in the gut, and he’d taken it badly.
from Deadly Does It by Abbi Waxman
Firsty17
Wait, what kind of statement does a dark shirt make? I love my black t-shirts!
HCNewton
Premise of the old Head and Shoulders commercials. You want to use it to prevent dandruff. Which they would illustrate by having someone in a dark shirt have to rapidly clean off a bunch of dead skin flakes before they met someone (potential employer, girlfriend’s father,etc.)…because you don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression.
HCNewton
In other words, my cultural references are at least 2x as old as you. 🙂
Firsty17
Some of my own cultural references are older than I am, too