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Tanning Twenty Twelve: Tired of It {Soap & Glory Glow Getter}

/ MANY BRAVE FOOLS / 2 Comments

How much work can it be, this tanning? It’s not like digging ditches, I mean, come on. But there is a mental tiredness I am experiencing that is pretty comprehensive, and makes me think I’d rather go pick up a shovel. There is actually a lot of thought that goes into this caper: making sure I’ve exfoliated, because sometimes I can’t be bothered; making sure that I am all moisturised and whatever; and most of all, get my head round the particular qualities of the tan involved.

Glow Getter by Soap & Glory is a Face & Body Sun Powder Spray. Okay, ‘spray’ — already an issue for me, because of the mess. ‘Powder’? Wha’?

I couldn’t get my head round it, and so I kept putting off putting it on.

I gave it a go the other day and I am so confused.

It is awkward. You can’t spray it on a mitt and manage to spread it around as well as you would a mousse or a gel or a liquid. So I had to spray it directly onto the bod. Which resulted in splotches of powdery {it really is a powder!} patches, because I didn’t want to hold the can too far away because the spray would get all over the place.

Too splotchy, though, spraying up close, so I got into the shower — my white, pristine shower — and tried again. It wasn’t much better, to be honest.

I used my mitt to spread the tan around, and was just effing and blinding the entire time. This is a pain in the arse was the prevailing theme.

In about two minutes, though? Pretty feckin’ lovely colour. Extremely warm and … posh. This was instantaneous poshness. I looked like, if my life was Inception, I’d put on some fancy dress and when I walked out my door I’d be stepping onto the Riviera.

Confusion! It is the messiest tan I have ever used, probably down to the powder element — but it is also like the kind of tan you get when you have nothing else to do but lie around on a lounger on the deck of a yacht. {I am guessing. I would very much like to find that out in practice.}

My conclusion: I will take this with me on holiday to a place that has a bathroom that I don’t have to clean myself. Otherwise? Too much like work.

***

€14/£10.50

Also! The next morning in the shower, the colour just rolled right down the drain. Just so you know.

What I Did Yesterday *or* All the Stuff I Put On Myself

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I’ve been going round barefaced most of the week, and yesterday it felt like I was wearing all the make-up in the world.

I blame the mascara.

Well, it is not the mascara’s fault. In fact, the mascara is pretty spectac: Clinique High Impact Extreme Volume Mascara in Intense Black. They’ve changed the wand into one of those spiky applicators, and it seems to be twice as long as most spiky applicators. I forgot to put this on my list yesterday because I forgot I had it.

I was never a fan of the Clinique mascara, but this one has changed my mind, even though I went abso crazy and layered on a million tonnes of it. Look how fake the lashes look, though, without having to mess with glue and tweezers!

Also on view is Clarins 3-Dot Liner, with which I did an okay job. The applicator brush is kind of like it is cut into three points, and you just dot it on. The theory is that this is easier than trying to draw a perfect line. In practice? Yeah, easier, and a good result. I recommend using a hand mirror, because I didn’t, and I seem to remember the inimitable Claude Defresne, Clarins’ make up artist, saying to use one. It’s easier to bring the mirror closer to your eye, rather than the eye closer to the mirror.

Lips: NYC Smooch Proof 16H Lip Stain in Berry Long Time. Eh. There’s a difference between matte and flatte, and this was very flatte, and drying. This experience of NYC lip colour was saved by a layer of NYC Kiss Gloss in Sugar Hill Shimmer, as shown. It is very shiny — and fruity! That was fun.

Hang on, what else — OMG. The Glitter. I was like a walking glitter machine yesterday. I apologise to all the people I met, whose hands I shook, and wow, people I hugged? Sorry! The kisses on the cheeks? Mea culpa!

Because I was covvvvvvered in shiny little bits and I am sure that I spread them around like a luminescent plague.

The Eau Sublime Or from Roger & Gallet was not that bad, actually, so the hand-shakers probably got off easy. It is full of sparkle, and completely perfect for highlighting decolletage and bare shoulders. Super sexy, if not super scented. Didn’t get much of an impression off of the body cream, but that was because I mistakenly put on the Glow Getter: Face & Body Sun Powder Spray from Soap & Glory, which is going to get a post all its own, because hoo boy, what a imperfectly perfect product.

So, body aglow, and hey! here’s some stuff for my face. I dispensed a tiny bit of Uplight: Face Luminizer Gel from Make Up Forever and applied it — and almost started screaming, because holy wow, the amount of glitter that is in that stuff is like … it was like a frollick of fairies had farted on my face.

Now, seriously: a day without shimmer is a day wasted, but this was ridic. I had put on some Lancôme Flash Bronzer Face Gel and didn’t want to wash it off and start over, I was pressed for time — and feck it, I said I would wear this stuff, so wear it I would. I scraped off as much as I could and proceeded to try to dull it down with some bronzer.

I don’t think it was noticeable, but again, I do apologise to anyone that got glittered.

Here’s the line up:

It’s that last one on the right you’ve got watch out for…

***

Glow Getter not pictured because I am still processing its effects.

What I’m Going To Do Today

/ brightandbeautyfull / 1 Comment

Because it is soooo interesting.

No really, I have a lot of stuff to slap on the bod and the gob, and since I am going in to town, I have an reason to get all gussied up.

Also: Going In To Town has become kind of a big deal, because I don’t really need to Go in order to forage for anything anymore, not food, not shoes, not books, so it feels a bit like a staycation.

So:

Just this very morning, the postman brought be Eau Sublime Or and Crème Sublime Or, from Roger & Gallet. Both are shimmery!

I’ve got this stuff called Glow Getter: Face & Body Sun Powder Spray from Soap & Glory that makes me nervous, A} because I hate spraying stuff in the bath and B} powder spray? Like the stuff you spray on your smelly feet? That stuff is a mess.

What else? I got a bunch of NYC Smooch Proof 16H Lip Stain in, so I think I’ll give the Berry Long Time a lash.

I’ve got this Make Up Forever Uplight: Face Luminizer Gel that’s been sitting on my desk… I don’t know, I tried a bit on that back of my hand, as you do, and I don’t think I did it right. I may have to find a tutorial. I think if one messes this up, one looks like an eejit with crazy, shiny pink stuff all over one’s face.

Also! Very, very excited to try Clarin’s 3-Dot Liner, which the brand’s make up artist, Claude Defresne called ‘eyeliner for dummies’ in his lovely French accent. *Sigh*

I better get crackin’. You will probs be seeing me from my usually spot in the back of the 46A…

Haiku Review: Weleda Sage Deodorant

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OMG, it’s hot!
Sweaty pits, rarely an ish —
What’s a girl to do?

Yesterday was hot — and it’s still hot out, right?* I don’t know, one day of warmth and for some crazy reason, I think that yet another day of warmth will follow! Nutter!

Anyway: deodorant. Not the sexiest of beauty products, possibly belonging in the health category, but they exist to help you not smell too bad, and therefore your feelings of beauty are not impinged upon.

I went on a kind of purge for a year or so, because I had been addicted to a deodorant that as far as I can tell, in retrospect, basically sealed up all the pores in my pits. There was an impressive absence of pong, but I think it was probably worse for me than smoking 40 cigarettes a day and washing them down with a fifth of Jack.

So, I gave up deodorant! It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I used to be very self-conscious about body odor: then I started horseriding and since I was smelling like a whole bunch of other smells, my own stink was the least of it. I did find I was doing laundry much more often, but that seemed to be an okay compromise for my health and wellbeing. Except for all the water! All the water in all the washes!

Now that I don’t have my own washing machine in my flat, though, it’s not as easy for me to just bung a load of laundry in, and so I figured I better find myself a deodorant that wasn’t composed entirely of aluminum.

Enter Weleda Sage Deodorant. The Swiss brand are all natural, and I have to say, I have mainly found their packaging — heavy glass containers for most of their lotions and potions — to be unwieldy in the extreme. The deodorant is no different, but I am happy to announce I am over the prejudice against glass because of the refreshing product it contains.

{Seriously, though, not terribly portable.}

It is free of aluminum salts; that’s all I needed to know. It spritzes like a perfume, due to the lack of aerosol, which is a little freaky the first few times you use it, and then fun and refreshing once you become accustomed.

The refreshing-ness lasts for about half your day, which may be enough for you. Depends for me, now: if I’m heading out into public later in the day, then that’s fine. It’s not robust enough to use for the horseriding, but in fairness, what is. Trying to deodorize for that is a bit like throwing a deck chair off the Titantic.

{The power of Google has shown me that there is a 30ml version of this. Still in a glass bottle, but smaller. Well, okay then.}

So: saving water, saving my pits. Noice one!

***

Weleda Sage Deodorant: €11.50/£8.50/$13 for 100mls

*My phone says it is not very hot out anymore. It is only kind of warm.

Tanning Twenty Twelve: Karora Self Tan Mist

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I hate the self tan sprays, as I have mentioned before, mainly because they are not very precise. It’s like when you clean the mirror in the bath — which you will have to do if you use a spray tan! — and you squirt the Windex and it’s like SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT. It’s okay when it’s Windex and it’s a mirror; it’s not so okay when it’s yer bod and a container of stainy stuff that will get all over the place.

So I end up SPLAT SPLAT SPLATing the stuff directly onto the mitt, and so what’s the point, then? You’re not getting the ‘salon experience’ at home, are you? Feh.

So with my usual open mind, I wielded Irish brand Karora Self Tan Mist (€14.99) and pointed it at my mitt. And then something truly amazing happened! It was all sssssssssssssssssssssssh: a truly gentle and absolutely misty expulsion of product.

Huh! I pointed the canister at my arm and depressed the button. There it was again! Ssssssssssssssssssssssh, resulting in a perfect mist of self tan adhering to my skin.

I used the mitt anyway, to distribute it evenly — I hadn’t lost my mind entirely — and have to say that the spray thing is really convenient and gentle and thorough. Who knew!

In the usual run of my criteria, this is yet another self tan that doesn’t smell bad. This also dries instantly, which is probably the most important thing to me.

However: it shows colour only to a small degree on contact, so you’ll have to plan ahead with this one. I put some on going out, and it didn’t really make an impact until the next day. Normally, I wouldn’t be okay with this either {so impatient!} but because this dries so fast, I’d put this this on and then get between the sheets without thinking twice.

Finally, I am guessing that is terrific value, because the sssssssssssssssssssssh doesn’t waste product, and with the help of the mitt, it distributes really well. Excellent all round, and it should last for the best part of the ‘summer’.

***

http://www.karoracosmetics.com

Tanning Twenty Twelve: L’Oréal Paris Sublime Bronze Self-Tanning Golden Mousse

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Right, so. It is 6.30 in the morning. It is… to say it is pissing down rain is to insult piss, to be honest. It is filthy, foul, and soul-destroying out there. Your first thought, before you are even conscious that you are thinking, is Holy crap, I have to get my Christmas shopping done! before you remember that it is July, not November.

You are actually vertical, and preparing to leave the house in an hour. You can’t imagine what in the world you are going to wear, because your phone says it is actually kind of warm out. You look at yourself in the mirror — the lovely suntan you picked up in the South of France is fading, as is the memory of that strange glowing orb that was present in a sky that was this really weird colour, like blue or something?

You think, Feck it, and even though everything you’ve ever read tells you to tan the night before the morning of the deluge, you don’t give a toss. You grab the can of L’Oréal Paris Sublime Bronze Self-Tanning Golden Mousse (€22.49) and your trusty mitt, and go to work.

On a day that seemed to start out so wrong, suddenly everything is right. The mousse is light, it doesn’t have that stink, it imbues you with instant warmth and glow, and dries in finger snap. It is perfect.

That is all.

The Scrub of a Lifetime: VOYA Organic Lavender & Seaweed Sugar Glow

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I exfoliate a lot. Like, I am pretty sure that I have exfoliated all the hairs off my arms. Plus, I use the gloves along with the exfoliant, which is cray-zay, I know, and I’m surprised I haven’t scrubbed myself down to the bone.

Exfoliant and me, yeah, nothing new there. But you know what? There is absolutely something to be said for getting a professional treatment.

I very happily found myself once more at Therese R Wellness and Beauty in Rochestown Lodge Hotel, Killiney. I had forgotten my togs — clients of the spa may avail of the leisure centre, which includes jacuzzi and sauna and steam room, oh, my — so I stripped down, bundled up into a beautiful spa robe, headed into one of the well-kitted-out treatment rooms* and lay myself on the plinth.

Okay: did you know that when you exfoliate, it doesn’t have to be like you are keelhauling a ship? It’s no surprise that I’ve scoured all the hair off my arms {if only it would work on my legs!} I lash away with the stuff like I am scraping barnacles. Susie, my massage aesthetician, applied VOYA’s amazing concoction with all the gentleness that one would bring to tending a little baby.

At right is not me, but that is a true representation of the colour and texture of the scrub. A combination of organic ingredients,with the main players being hand harvested seaweed, lavender buds, and cane sugar, there’s a bit of a pong off it at first because, hey, there’s no fake rubbish in this bad girl. Once you get used to it — if you have to, it mightn’t even register for you at all — it’s nothing but gentle application and the feeling that dead skin cells are going on to a better place.

After the scrub is showered off, Susie applied VOYA’s Softly Does It Body Moisturiser, again, in a professionally massaging manner, not in the slapdash way I would do it. I’ve used this moisturiser in the past and wasn’t crazy about it, but my mind has been changed: the combo of the scrub and this was excellent.

This is not a total, float-away-into-the-ether thing: it is relaxing, sure, but it is primarily a very functional treatment, and you come out with astonishingly smooth skin — I made my friends touch my arms the next day, and they were gobsmacked.

Pretty perfect! Although… if there had been a wee facial exfoliation to go along with it? Just something to think about, VOYA…

***

The VOYA Organic Lavender & Seaweed Sugar Glow treatment is €55 at Therese R Wellness & Beauty, Rochestown Lodge Hotel, Killiney, Dublin.

*OMG, remember the hydrotherm mattress?!?

Tanning Twenty Twelve: Decadence Self Tan Mist

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Always ready to support a product that is Guaranteed Irish, it was with a paradoxical mix of optimism and trepidation that I cracked open Decadence Self Tan Mist (€14.99). Akin to the way that we really, really hoped the Boys in Green would make a good go of the Euros, we really, really hope that any new thing that comes out of Ireland will make a go of it, and then kind of sigh and shrug when it doesn’t — we had hopes, sure, but they weren’t all that high.

So, off came the plastic cap. I was exfoliated and ready to go. {I should have moisturised, I know, I know, but that’s a post for another day.} The container is a soft plastic, which allowed me to get a grip on it, which I counted to the good. I gave myself a cursory spray, even though I knew I wasn’t going to spray myself all over, because it got all over the place, and: nightmare. I have honestly given this technique a fair go in the past but here’s the thing: because I am worried about the spray tan all over the bath, I immediately start to clean it, and then get all sweaty, and then get all streaky.

Does this misting lark work for anyone? Am I just doin’ it rong? It’s a class thing, isn’t it? Because I’m a renter? Do all you home-owning, spray tanning-types have entire bathrooms devoted to the art, that you can just layer and layer in tan?

Anyway: gave it go, got it all over, proceeded to spray it on my handy applicator mitt, and it was joy to the world after that.

This is dark, and it goes on dark. This is good because you can see what you’re doing. It’s not great if you are super, super fair — at least, I don’t think it would be. It felt a little bold to me, and I am medium fair-ish.

I made sure that I got as much coverage as possible, so that I wouldn’t look too too dark, and I have to say, once it settled down, it gives an excellently warm and rich tan.

I put some on my face, which I am not sure I was meant to, not after it was too late and I did it anyway. I was far too, er, generous with the product, and I immediately scrubbed about half of it off. In future, I’ll be more delicate in my approach to that area.

Drying time: eh, only hits ‘okay’ on the Fab-U-Lometer, and actually inspired this post.

It has lasted for the guts of six days, it didn’t smell bad, and I have to say, this may be the best tan I’ve ever used on my legs which, even with fake tan, stubbornly refuse to look elegantly bronzed. They did with this one.

This is championship-level tanning. Olé, olé, olé!

***

Decadence Self Tan Mist is available in pharmacies nationwide.

What I Think About While Waiting for the Fake Tan to Dry

/ brightandbeautyfull / 2 Comments

… Is it twenty minutes yet?

… Being naked is not that big a deal, and especially now that I am bronzed all over. Well, mostly. I’m sure there’s that bit in the upper middle of my back that’s like the opposite of painting a target on your back. But yeah, so standing here with my arms held out so they don’t, what, glue themselves to my sides? I think I need to improve my technique. I go too fast, getting it over with, because — because of this stupid standing around part!

… Should I — nope, still a little tacky.

… So standing around naked, it’s dumb, just standing here.

… This colour, is it too dark?

… Is it — dammit. Five minutes, maybe, at the most.

…

… Oh, I did a crap job on my feet again.

… This colour, is it too orange?

… Is — dammit.

…

… Holy God, I can’t even believe I am doing this, just standing here. I should have brought the laptop in here and, I don’t know, it’s not like I can work or anything and —don’t move! The duvet cover! Not yours! The landlord’s! It’s white! Who buys white duvet covers? Rich people, that’s who! White stuff never comes clean properly in these little European machines! Even when I use those white sheet yokes that you put in with the wash! Crap, crap, did I — no, okay.

… Hate this.

… Is it — feck it, I don’t care.

Puts on loose black clothes; they feel a bit like they are sticking but could not be bothered at this stage. Fin.