As a curmudgeonly stickler, I actually find curmudgeonly Yelp reviews hilarious and stickler reviews super useful. I like specifics, and find reviews that say only "The food here is great! Five stars!" to be useless. Really? You've tried ALL the food and it's ALL great?!

@fashionablyevil: True, but I found that they tend to run a little narrow and I have slightly wide feet. :-( But you mentioning Eccos reminds me that Danskos are also really comfy - all the nurses I know have at least one pair.

re: question 2 - my main goal with professional makeup is looking awake and rested - I often work long, miserable hours and have no time or energy for extraneous goals like "attractive", hah.

Re: Question 6 - comfortable shoes are key. When I worked retail, we were allowed to wear casual shoes, so I wore converses with Superfeet insoles; expensive but they last forever and I was able to be on my feet for hours without a problem.

Thanks for the list, but a big NO to Sam's club. Owned by Wal-Mart, same awful working conditions. Plus it's just not as good as Costco in terms of what they carry.

@ametryst: Brilliant point about time being another resource that the working poor are short on. Middle-class and wealthy people forget exactly how much time money buys.

Aw, blaming individuals for institutional failures, capitalism's favorite trick.

#1 tip for petites (or for anybody who finds it difficult to fit in stuff off-the-rack, which would be, um, almost everyone I know): Find a tailor that's easy for you to get to, with reasonable prices, who is honest with you. And then buy that person chocolates and tip generously at the holidays.

@smurfette: Actually, I think kids' tops can be great for petite women. I buy JCrew Crewcuts boys button-downs, and they fit perfectly off the rack, and I'm not small-busted (28C). They're made of the same fabric as the adult button-downs, and are at least $20 - $40 cheaper.

@allyrebs: Kenneth Cole used to have a good line called "Gentle Souls." I think they replaced it with a line called "9 to 5." I have both and they're extremely comfortable, and I wear heels maybe only once a month.

@colorisnteverything: I finally started buying clothes that fit instead of giving up, and am in a similar situation - regular tops look like they're trying to eat me alive; and petite pants make me feel like an ogre. I'm mostly over it, but it still occasionally makes me feel like a freak of nature.

I'd also add for small-framed petite women - get yourself professionally fitted for a bra! And not Victoria's Secret "fitted" where they'll tell you you're a size 32a/b/c/whatever simply because they don't carry anything smaller than 32!

@CassandraSays: Uniqlo also hems all their jeans for free - even sale jeans. And unless it's holiday shopping season, turnaround is insanely quick.

@Dysphoria: I wen to Ann Taylor Loft today and ALL the petite sale sizes were on the upper racks - and the regular sizes were on the lower ones. I was ready to scream at the idiocy of it.

@hollygirl: Do you mean no spaghetti straps, or no sleeveless tops, period? (I'm thinking like a silk or poplin shell). Just curious because I occasionally work with social workers and think I've seen them wear shells (definitely not tank tops), but maybe it's because I'm on the west coast where everything is more…

My head is exploding with the racial and class analysis. But briefly:

The thing that annoyed me the MOST about Gilt was their blatantly sexist categories. I don't know if they still do it, but when they first started, they would put all the outdoorsy and electronics sales in the "Mens" section without a single mention in the women's site. They also used to put the children's sales in…

@Valkyrie607: I am taking that term "right wing dog whistle" and using it ALL THE TIME when I complain about the Obama administration, and you will be credited after each use.

@Little Green Frog: Preferably delivered through a lawyer, via reams of court papers.

@blah: A government institution fucked up at the behest of the White House, so yes, I think the president should apologize.