I am here. At my desk. In Dublin.
I think. Continue reading
Haiku Review: Dry Shampoo
Greasy roots, dry ends.
Shampooing every day sucks.
What’s the solution????
Common sense would answer: dry shampoo.
I’ve only tried three, and I don’t know, I think I don’t know how to do it right. Continue reading
Haiku Review: Green Angel Sunrise Body Smoother
High maintenance, me:
On hols*, but missing my STUFF.
Would love a good scrub.**
Oh, the perspective one gains when life throws out a challenge. I admit that I am spoiled, and even as hard as this beauty reviewing can be {yes, it can be}, I enjoy it thoroughly, but I also take things for granted, and have high expectations. And I also can get kind of… bitchy about things. Continue reading
Haiku Review: Lush Exclusives
Many tiny scents!
An option for every sitch.
Staying power: low.
Okay, let me just get this out of the way: I am too susceptible to packaging design, and must express my deep loathing for the display font that Lush use. Oh, how I hate that class of scripty-brushy font!
But oh! how I love Gorilla Perfume Miniatures – EXCLUSIVES, a cleverly designed little box ‘o’ fragrance. The brown cardboard is sturdy and I wouldn’t hesitate tossing it into my handbag. Which I would have to do because the scents don’t really last all that long. This is a bother, but not a ginormous botheration, because you can bring it along because the box is so sturdy you can just toss it into your bag… see how that works? It is a little bit of genius.
Each of the eight scents have a genius touch as well. I don’t like all of them, which is normal, but the ones that I do like, I like unconditionally and unreservedly.
These are:
*1000 Kisses, which is sounds sweet because the name is sweet, but it actually has weight.
*B Scent, which goes perfectly with that sexy, sexy Ro’s Argan Body Conditioner I love.
*Cocktail, which: need I say more? Also: ylang ylang which = sexy.
*The Smell of Weather Turning, which OMG, smells exactly like a rain-washed forest. I adore this.
So, 50% ‘like’ for me, that’s pretty good. And it’s really not that big a drag to carry them around and to keep applying one’s scent of choice — something about dabbing on fragrance is unutterably sexy.
Lots of sexy in this post — Lush are on to something!
€24/£19.95/$24.95
Haiku Review: Eau Thermale Avéne Tinted Compact 50 SPF
When reviewing things
It helps to read directions.
Call me crazy, right?
I love French stuff: the food, the wine, the lifestyle, the whole santé thing that they do. I’d never heard of the Avène line before, but have had the chance to try several of their products. I particularly got a kick out of the Thermal Spring Water, but haven’t really made it a big part of my regime. I was spritzing myself with the pressurised spray because I was bored last year during the snowpocalypse. It helped break up the day, and I suspect my skin, housebound as I was, enjoyed the refreshing sensation.
We don’t suffer from a lack of moist air in Ireland, so it doesn’t seem necessary to carry around a container of hydrotherapy in my handbag. Neither is the sun much of an issue, but SPF enthusiasts will insist that any sun is sun that is going to age us and give us skin cancer, so when the Eau Thermale Avéne Tinted Compact 50 SPF came through the letterbox, I thought, ‘Better safe than sorry.’
Of course, I didn’t bother reading exactly what it was so when I tried to use it as pressed powder, uh yeah, it didn’t work. Because it is foundation. Unaware, I swiped it over a face that was already sporting foundation. Crazy! I put it aside and forgot about it, scarred momentarily by my misuse of it.
Then one day I was running late, and I wanted to cut out the middle woman, meaning the time-consuming dispensing of foundation and then application of it onto my face > yeah, wha’? This makes sense to me, okay? Remind me to tell you about the time I used to take a cab four blocks to work — And so! So I picked this up, and using the pad that cunningly rests in the hinge between the top of the compact and the flip-up mirror, had a flawless face in three-ish swipes of product. I’ve never actually counted. I’m trying to reconstruct in my mind’s eye… okay… more like four-ish.
I brought this with my on my hols because it’s compact and effective and easy. It looks amazing, and it lasts and lasts. It’s also got a laundry list of excellent qualities — protection against UV radiation, free radicals, and sweat, as well as offering irritation reduction — but frankly the most important thing to me, at the end of the day, is that I don’t want to have to be touching up excessively throughout said day. This is a matte finish that combines the best effects of foundation and powder, and I am quite sad that I am near to using it up.
€20/£15/$35
Note to Future Self: Bung These in the Bag
As a day-to-day routine, I never took to using Elemis Cellular Recovery Skin Bliss Capsules.
It’s not because they are no good, it’s because they are so good, and I tend to hoard them.
They work like this: there are sixty capsules in this delightful package, with thirty rose-scented for morning, and thirty lavender-scented for night; these are, logically and respectively, pink and green. They smell lovely and feel soothing, and the clean Elemis packaging makes your bathroom look like a fancy spa.
The thing is, they do feel a bit stingy, and the capsules seem too small to use every day. Like, you’ll go through these in a heartbeat. So I tend to ‘save’ them for when my skin feels especially rough, when I need a pick-me-up, when I forget I’ve got them and go, ‘Oh! These!’
I know I’m not going to get much benefit from them, these tiny little pockets of anti-aging and pollution-counteracting goodness, if I don’t actually use them consistently, but cast your eye over the price and you’ll see why I’ve gone all Silas Marner over this ish. Eep!
It occurs to me that under these circs, I could have brought them along on the trip, as a treat for my travel-stressed complexion. So I have made this note to my future self, and since I most likely won’t be using them on the reg, they can look forward to the next journey, whenever that may be.
€75/£58/$105
BREAKING NEWS: On Saturday, Elemis are having a QVC show, on air at midnight, 1am, 4am, 7am, 8am, 11am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm, 10pm. QVC available on available on Sky Digital channel 640, Freesat channel 800, Freeview channel 16 and Virgin TV channel 740. Yay!
Sweet Sixteen: MAC Beauty Powder
Okay, basically, this is a powder made out of beauty. Continue reading
Haiku Review: Dermalogica Multivitamin Power Recovery Mask
This tube of goodness
Is better travelled than most,
But should be retired.
I was getting a Dermalogica facial once, and a lovely lady at Papillon in Ranelagh said that whenever she travelled transatlantically, she used the Multivitamin Power Recovery Mask as a skin hydrator. Just apply upon take off, and then take it off upon arrival. The lightness and transparency of the mask meant that you would maybe look a little shiny, but you wouldn’t like you would be capable of scaring small nephews.
That sounded like a good idea to me: I didn’t really find it very effective as a mask, but thought that using in this fashion might be beneficial. The main thing I didn’t like about it was its quick absorption; I like that in a serum, but not in a mask. I figured that slathering this on, especially on the journey back to Ireland from NYC, would shield my skin from the worst effects of floating around in recycled air for hours.
This plan mostly worked when we didn’t have to display our cosmetics for the delectation of airport employees. Even when we began to take part in the product parade, the 75mls made it as regards the restrictions, but it took up too much space in my plastic baggy. Especially when they got strict about the size of the baggy, and I couldn’t use my go-to quart-sized Ziploc freezer bag.
Despite not having it to hand, I still packed it on every single trip I have taken over the last many years, even though it l
anguished in the hold. This doesn’t make a ton of sense, but once I had decided it had a use as a travel companion, it was going to go with me everywhere.
I wish I could sign it up for frequent flier miles, we could probably go round the world for free by now.
It’s been to Paris countless times. It came on honeymoon; it came with me to residential school at Bath University when I was studying psychology with the OU, mid-divorce; it is here with me now, and I’ve actually been using it as it is intended to be used since I did such a poor job packing adequate skin care.
I am still not entirely sold on it as a mask. As I have said, I prefer my masks to actually be mask-y, but if your skin is super sensitive, then this might be worth a go. Oh, and here’s the fancy-pants new packaging. Gosh, it is awfully modern-looking and sleek, isn’t it? I can’t see tossing my auld soldier, even if he is past his sell-by date. He’s still got some go in him yet.
€39/£33/$46
My World of Shampoo: Redken Extreme
I had been worrying about my hair. You can tell, can’t you, that I am a person who worries about her hair? I felt like it was thinning and that was making me nervous, and I was going to begin researching hair enhancement formulas, or whatever —
And then I came to the States for the holidays, and realized that it’s a water thing. And no, I don’t really understand. Continue reading
New Year’s Beauty Resolutions
>Get more treatments Yeah. Every time I get a treatment — a massage, a facial, whatever — I think, ‘I really need to get more treatments!’ And then I don’t get another treatment until my next one… which is always a significant time from the last. So, yeah. <This one will never happen. Way to think positive, I know…
>Stop hoarding! It many ways, it is worse when you get a bunch a sample products in all the time. Yes, this reeks of ‘Ooh these diamond shoes, they pinch!’, but the thing is, I’ll try something and love it, and then have to immediately start using something else, and then the first thing gets shelved, and I save it for when the second {third, fourth} thing runs out… except maybe the third thing is great, too? So 2012 is going to be the year of USE IT UP! <Yeah, that one will be a bust in a heartbeat.
>Purge and Prune I am actually pretty good at this. I have heard that products don’t ‘go bad’ or ‘go off’ the way we’ve been told, but nevertheless, there is nothing to be gained from having a load of half-used mascaras lying about. Into the bin! will be my rallying cry. <I can do this!
> … I hate making resolutions. I can’t think of anything else. Any ideas?
Bright & Beautyfull! 