TREATMENTS

Haiku Review: VOYA Organic Marine Eye Treatment

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Voya’s seaweed treat:
The eyes have it, and also?
Hydrotherm mattress!

I have been fairly blasé about eye creams, eye treatments, and the entire eye area in general. This view {ha, ha} has been altered somewhat since the great Botox/Restalyne adventure. Areas that have been plumped up are now highlighting, in an averse fashion, areas that are not so plump. Which is the first step down the slippery slope to pillow face.

In a bid to delay injections of stuff into the eye area, which just makes me go ‘Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!’, it seems like a good idea to A} start using eye cream, and B} check out a treatment that targets the delicate area, and see what kind of improvements can be made organically.

Organic being the key word when it comes to VOYA. You can read all about their use of seaweed here, and as I’ve said in the past, I adore a good marine-based therapeutic experience. There is nothing like water for healing what ails you, from the physical to the emotional. I was delighted to avail of the leisure centre in the Rochestown Lodge Hotel before my Organic Marine Eye Treatment. Got some laps in, in the 15 metre pool, sat in the steam room, sat in the sauna, sat in the Jacuzzzzzz — ah, God, hot, bubbly water. Best. Thing. Ever.

Already completely relaxed, I entered the hotel spa, Thérèse R Wellbeing and Beauty. I chilled for a bit in the room on the left, and then in the room on the right:

Both proved to be excellent venues for putting up one’s feet and almost falling asleep.

The 45 minute treatment, like all good ones, involves more than the eyeball area. Whilst they were, of course, the focus {ahhhh}, I also got some decolleté action, and a scalp massage. A scalp massage!

Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself.

>First: general cleansing, of the face and the chest area, followed a misting-by-toner, which was great. Christine, the beauty therapist, sprayed it like, four feet over my head, and the anticipation of it wafting down on to my skin was half the pleasure.

>Second: lymphatic massage. Still haven’t really satisified myself as to what the lymphs are, besides glands. I am sure I looked this up before, and probs even posted about it. It has not sunk in. Whatever it is, it felt great when Christine administered it, all around my eye socket and then down to my neck and shoulders.

>Third: Seaweed eye patches. Seaweed eye patches! Now these — I definitely want these for home. The patches are loaded with vitamins, and they were so cooling and soothing… just what I’d like to lay on my lids after a hard day’s blogging. They did their job during my scalp massage, which is just the next best thing ever, after hot bubbly water.

>>>Meanwhile, let us not forget the hydrotherm mattress, which gently supported me, warmly and whooshily, throughout the whole process.

>Finally, the application of VOYA’s Bright Eyes cream. Why does it feel so much more effective when someone else applies it? My eyes looked amazing after, and I never thought I’d ever recommend something like this, but this would be the perfect treatment to get on the day of a big event. I would never recommend doing anything after a treatment, apart from going home and napping, but this was relaxing without being completely … emptying, if you know what I mean? This would be an excellent bridal thing, on the Big Day.

I hope I get into the habit of this eye cream thing. I have, somewhat, since I am testing a bunch for the Herald, and I’m lining up a few that seem to make a difference. We’ll see. {Sorry.}

The VOYA Organic Marine Eye Treatment, €52, is available in spas nationwide, ring VOYA on 071 9168956 for more information.

Okay, Two Words: Hydrotherm Mattress

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HYDROTHERM MATTRESS.

So, up I got, onto one of the massage beds in Therese R Wellness and Beauty, in the Rochestown Lodge Hotel, preparatory to receiving Voya‘s latest treatment, and holy wow: the plinth was warm and it was moving.

‘What is this?’ I gasped, and my consultant replied, ‘It’s a hydrotherm mattress.’

A hydrotherm mattress. A mattress that is filled with water that is warm. So you lay there, and whilst your face and decolleté are getting their treat, your whole entire back is warm and floaty.

I will write more after the weekend about the treatment itself, which uses the Irish brand’s Bright Eyes cream, and involves lymphatic massage and seaweed eye patches, but wow, seriously: the HYDROTHERM MATTRESS*.

*Clearly, I have a thing for therapeutic furniture: I waxed lyrical about Zeba Hairdressing’s massage chairs only t’other day. Also, click the link for info regarding their fundraising event this Sunday!

Brows and Lashes: I Can Haz Cut ‘n’ Paste?

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Yeesh, sorry if my followers are getting update notices — saw some typos I needed to fix, or else I wouldn’t be able to sleep this night!

It may just be that I am addicted to Photo Booth, but I wanted to update with the latest installment of HD Brows: simply put, the treatment/technique is fab, and I got mine refurbed last Thursday. That one is the bottom image, and I wish I was adept enough at P-shop to put those brows over those eyes {top} because the top brows are definitely furry, and blurry around the edges.

At one stage last week, I finally tried L’Oréal’s Superliner Gel Intenza(€14.99), of which I went on record as being to afraid to try — but I did it, and it is pretty fab. I found that if you didn’t get it right the first time round, it meant serious do-over, down to having to use eye make up removal product to clean the slate. as ever, my right eye was a doddle, and my my left eye, a debacle. It is kind of tacky on the finish, and it dries quickly, so I don’t know, maybe practice on the back of your hand?

The main problem I have with liner on the top edge of the lid is that I have almost no eyelid to speak of, so it just looks like I fecked a dark bit of whatever on my entire eyelid; so rather than getting something all eye-opening and dramatic, my lid merely looks dark. And then you skip right to the part between my lid line and the brow, which is called… What is that called? The upper lid? I can’t even think — does it have a name?

I think I am having a senior moment.

Also in use was a sample from MAC’s newest eye shadow, Extra Dimension Eyeshadow in Warm Thunder (€20.50). It received compliments, and lasted like nobody’s business. I found it as sticky to put on as the liner, but both lasted as long as I needed it to — that is, until I got home — so my advice would be to go lightly with this stuff, but go with authority and confidence.

The Day Cream v Night Cream Debate Continues

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Or is it, in fact, concluded? The lads at Human+Kind have developed an All-in-one Day+Night Cream, a super-hydrating, double-dipping, wear-it-all-day-and-night-long concoction that makes having a million and one products in your bathroom superfluous.

{I like having a million and one products in my bathroom.}

Back in February, I had gone on record, wondering if it was actually necessary to use both a day cream and a night cream. Two days later, I posted a response to my own query, thanks to a talk given by Sally Penford of the International Dermal Institute. Okay, thought I, I will carry on observing the day v night divide…

And then this landed on my desk. Now, I have been using, to excellent effect, this brand’s Anti-Ageing Cream, at night, and I’ve been pretty darn pleased. I’m willing to give this a go, though, and will let you know how my skin reacts to it. At €23.95, this is great value, but we’ll see how quickly I use it up, given that it’s going to be in service twice a day.

And on a graphic design-y note: the packaging! Gorgeous!

Also! Sneak preview of how at least one varnished nail survived horseriding!

In Which I Get Botox and Restalyne in My Face {V}

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This is not the world’s best comparative photo, mainly because I took the ‘after’ with my computer, and am making the inevitable scrutiny-face at myself. And this was before the Botox kicked in. And — ah, feck it. Look: Continue reading →

In Which I Get Botox and Restalyne in My Face {III}

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Gotten away with… what, exactly? Gotten away with ‘getting some work done’ and no one can even tell?

So what’s the point, then?

Look, shit is starting to happen to my appearance. I realise that I have become quite attached to people gaping when I tell them how old I am. I am becoming disturbingly keen to get that reaction for, oh, the next twenty years or so. I realise that, after a lifetime of looking like a Cabbage Patch Kid, I am happy enough to keep that face, only with less blank staring. But, that shit is starting to happen. I can see the area under my chin, the turkey-wattle area – well, it’s beginning to look like a feckin’ turkey wattle. I don’t look good in scarves — I need every inch of neck that I’ve got. Dammit.

***

I wake up, and it is amazing: my mind, my poor, easily-led, easily alarmed mind, zeroes in on my mouth brackets. Or what used to be my mouth brackets. I think Dr Peter used the term ‘comma’ rather than ‘bracket’ which is so much softer and gentler, but no, I am all about the brackets. They have been the site of constant scrutiny in the last four {six, actually. Maybe eight} months or so, which only makes them worse, because I look at them and frown, and there I go! Digging them in! So much for the ‘detached appraisal’ of the beauty journalist. Yeah.

I wake up, and the area is less sore. I swipe the alarm on my iPhone, conveniently installed on the bedside dock, and removing it {haaaaalp me!} I take a look in the reverse camera. As I’m lying down still, I look even weirder than I think I look in my mind’s eye. I stick the phone back in the thing, and I close my eyes, my fingers gently massaging my jaw, which is rock-hard with tension.

***

Again: the actual process itself was professional, fast, thorough, and assured. Had Dr Peter been a dentist, I would have been like, ‘OMG this dentist I went to!’ And if you ask me for a recommendation for a … well, it’s not a nip and a tuck because: no knives — holy God could you imagine what I would have been like if there had been knives?!? — If you say to me, ‘Sue, these crow’s feet, what do I do?’ I would say, go to Venus Medical in Dundrum. <Not a word of a lie. You can hop on the LUAS and be there from town in twenty minutes, twenty minutes for your tweak, and then boom, back to work, that is your lunch hour.

***

I’ve been trying to take photos to show this, the brackets ‘after’, and have also been trawling old photos for the ‘before’. I have discovered that I make silly faces when I take pictures of myself, I think to acknowledge the absurdity of peering into a device and immortalising my new glasses or a lipstick. I didn’t think there was anything to this, that there was an underlying thing, but there I was, all along, mocking my seemingly regular documentation of myself.

I had always liked drawing and painting self-portraits in art college. What does this mean? I’ll give you vanity, but I don’t think it’s narcissism? <But forealz, what else would a narcissist say?! I just made myself laugh, and today, it doesn’t hurt to laugh. I woke up, and the left side of my mouth was little tender, but I just laughed and I feel like I’ve got the essence of my face, its movement, back. I feel like now, maybe, this wasn’t such a big deal?

Didn’t feel that way on Saturday, though, when I began to focus on the Botox-ed gully between my brows, and wondered: if I put on my riding hat, will that screw up the treatment???

Installment the first, and the second.

To be continued…

In Which I Get Botox and Restalyne in My Face {II}

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‘Do I look freaky?’

Noooooo, the gals assured me, but dammit, I felt freaky. I felt like I could feel all the stuff that had been injected into my face {with neeeeeeeedles!}, I could feel it, like it was going to start morphing underneath my skin, distorting my face, my face! There had been nothing wrong with my face! And now, what had I done, there was stuff in there, what was it going to do, would my friends even recognise me?!?

Always had way too much imagination. And a penchant for la dramz. Continue reading →

In Which I Get Botox and Restalyne in My Face {I}

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I don’t know if it actually needs saying, but of course all opinions on this site are my own.

All reactions are my own, too, and are mainly emotional, and I have given myself a lot to react to this morning.

I didn’t know it when I woke up, but by midday I was going to have ‘work’ done. Continue reading →

When Blogs Collide: Cicaplast by La Roche-Posay

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I posted this image on my horse blog, because I like to keep my readers apprised of the latest havoc wrecked upon my bod.

You can read all about the genesis of that bruise via the link, if you like.

Having attended the recent launch for Cicaplast Baume B5 by La Roche-Posay (€12.50), it only occurred to me after the fact — the fact being that we had a live Twitter feed provided at the event and I could have asked this question then — that this stuff might be good for that bruise.

During the presentation, the BB5 was represented as purely fool-proof for dry, irritated skin; as a ‘store-cupboard’ essential, as it is safe for use on infants and children; and as a miracle worker for those who have skin conditions the like of eczema. The results, as presented by Dr Geraldine Morrow and practice nurse Selene Daly, were compelling, and while I prefer to try and test products under the proper conditions, I didn’t really want to start cracking and peeling in order to determine its efficacy for myself.

I had forgotten about the bruise, you see, because it doesn’t hurt, even though it is gobsmackingly colourful, and massive.

Now, I had used the regular Cicaplast, which is generally used after skin treatments like peels, on the bit of my shin that had gotten kicked by a horse, and talked about it here — this post is turning into links within links, but the thing is: will the new stuff do the job, or is the other stuff the way to go?

The damn thing is big enough to try them both simultaneously… ah, sure, feck it, may as well try the new stuff. It’s not like it’s going to make it worse.

Okay, took this photo yesterday {photographing your own arm is very difficult.} Now, you can see that it is healing, but it’s still got a ways to go. I applied the BB5, and found the texture to be light and soothing, and the absorption rate to be very good.

Don’t squeeze out too much, because it’s unnecessary. The coverage is excellent.

I spent a long-ish day at the laptop yesterday, and so applied more before I went out to co-facilitate the writing workshop I’m doing in Blackrock*. I was wearing a short-sleeved dress-top, and no one recoiled at the sight of my arm.

Huh! This is today’s shot. Look how all the black is gone, and the whole thing is turning that awful yellow, which means it is really on the road to recovery.

Now, I’m no doctor, but I am something of a bruise expert, having always been a tender peach, and this is pretty remarkable.

I am fairly certain that there will be other bruises with which to conduct experiments from the beginning, so stay tuned. Unless they are on my arse — been known to happen! – then you’ll just have to take my word for it.

*Follow me on Twitter @SusanEConley, for updates on upcoming workshops.