TREATMENTS

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.

HD Brows: A Reader Writes…

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I read your review on HD brows and I’m sold! Would you recommend I get them done? I heard they dye your skin is that true?

In a word, dear reader: no. Even though I just had mine done on Monday, and feel a veritable expert, I googled they dye your skin with HD Brows and came up with no such thing.

You can’t dye skin — wait, hang on — nope, Google says you can’t do that either, but you can of course dye your hair with Kool Aid.

Listen, I was nervous enough getting the brows dyed, so I totally get the query. Anything that smacks of permanency makes me twitchy {Ooh, ‘scuse me, Dr Freud will see me now.}

Here they are, with make up accompaniment:

Must try a smoky eye, and false eyelashes! This is like having a whole new face!

HD Brows: In Which I Get the Eyebrows of My Dreams

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‘Open your eyes.’

I opened them, to see two intent faces peering into mine. It was like that shot in a hospital TV show, from the POV of the trolley*: the surgeons are huddled over a patient, a patient that they have maybe just zapped back to life, and they are ensuring said patient’s consciousness. I wasn’t in A&E, and the two intent faces belonged to eyebrow artists; despite the lack of cardio machines or whatever, this was something of a crisis situation, and it was about to be resolved. Categorically.

That brow, there, that’s what I brought before Marissa Carter and Katie Fox at Carter Beauty {the other brow, not pictured, is, you know, the same.} That’s a manageable brow for me. I can lay on the brow enhancer, like Benefit’s Browzings, or Clarins’ Pro Palette, and sculpt a decent shape, and take attention away from the stray hairs.

Why not tweeze those strays, you ask? Because I cannot bear the tweezers, as wielded by me. My nose is itching just thinking about it, and my eyes are tearing up. This reaction is why I have been getting my eyebrows tended to, by professionals, since I was 13 years old.

That’s a lot of years between then and now, and I can say with conviction that nothing has ever approached the shaping of my brows with the focus that the HD Brows system brought to the treatment table.

The procedure is delineated in seven steps: assessment of the client’s face shape in order to design a brow to suit; tinting to even out the colour of the hair; waxing; threading; tweezing; trimming; finishing {< which entails soothing lotion and application of colour to cover any pinkness of skin, but this was the least painful eyebrow treatment I’ve ever gotten, and there was barely any reaction.}

During the assessment part, Katie used a thread to get ratios of distances between my nose and the outside of my brows, between my pupil and what would hopefully be the arch I’d always pined for. She attended to the specificities of my face the way I imagine the people who cleaned the Sistine Chapel attended to its restoration, but with less scaffolding.

It’s not as though the guts of the above are not fairly typical to a brow shaping treatment, but in this case, I’ve never experienced such a comprehensive use of all of the elements. By this I mean, it wasn’t like, slap on the wax and rip out the hair, zip-zip. Or the scrinch-scrinch-scrinch of threading, boom, you’re done. I suppose it’s not like that because the seven steps don’t come in rote order — both Marissa and Katie went back and forth between the steps, waxing, tweezing, threading, re-checking the plumb lines, and yes, peering down at me until they were satisfied that they had crafted the perfect brow for me and my face.

Okay, you’ve gotta see this now: Continue reading →

Haiku Review: Ógra 100% Peat Face and Body Mask

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Deep black in the jar,
But not as thick as I wished.
{That’s What She Said; LOL.}

My thoughts are ordering themselves as bullet points:

>Excellent heft to the jar; the majority of Irish brands seem to cheap out on good packaging. Ógra lead the minority in making good choices re: design.

>Was surprised to reveal a liquidy kind of product. I guess I expected something more… muddy.

>I may have used more than someone else would, since I wanted my face to just be covered in peat, no skin showing.

>Eh, achieved that to a degree. Sat down, despite lack of glasses, and finished yesterday’s post, complete with skeereee photo of self with peat mask.

>Whilst proofing said post, the mask began to do its thing: its delicious, tingly thing, that as it dried, got just the right amount of tight — not so much that all the moisture was going to be sucked out of my skin, but just enough to feel like it is an active mask.

>It felt so good, that I wondered if I might keep it on for 2,500 years after all.

>Was strangely captivated by the way it dried: all crackly. Look how weird: one of my eyes totally looks bigger than the other.

I could probably look at my edit timeline to see how long I’ve had this working away, couldn’t be more than ten minutes at this stage — and I should really read the directions, should I remove this now? — and ooooh, baby, the tingles continue. It feels goooooood.

Also to hand, and what really ought to be the perfect follow up, is Ógra’s Nourishing Facial Moisturiser (€30). I took the unique route of  taking a bath to remove the mask — well, not just to remove the mask, I also needed to relax — and so I cannot report as to how much of a mess this may make in your sink*. As a rule, I give myself masks in the a.m. and then shower them off, ‘cos I hate the splash and mess otherwise.

I basically sweat this off. It felt a little grainy when I was washing away the hard-core hangers on, you know, the bits that are by your hairline? Just me? Otherwise, as far as I could feel, it wiped off easily.

The website pointed out that your skin may appear to be pinker than usual, and this down to an ion exchange {? Googled it; too sciencey} which draws the blood up to the surface of the skin. Given that there was a steamy bath involved, I may look dewier than I ought. Also, the lighting isn’t the greatest, but:

I wonder why I did that with my mouth. But: dewy! I let the, er, dew dry and then applied the moisturiser, which is a pleasing coffee ice cream-colour. It smells powdery, which I like, and it feels like the perfect complement to my newly de-peated complexion. I will quibble that it absorbed a smidge too quickly {that’s fancy beauty journo talk} but frankly, I was happy enough to apply another round.

What can I try next?! There’s a body exfoliator, which is a favourite category of mine, but really, I think next time I’ll do the whole bod and see how that works. Fewer pictures though — after all, this is a family blog.

Once again, the online store can be found here.

*I can report that it left some residue in the tub. Eh, no big, because my skin still feels great.

Irish for Youth: Preserve Your Looks with Peat

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If there’s one thing about which I can wax lyrical, it’s the smell of burning peat. Out of all the places I have lived here, I’ve only enjoyed an open fireplace once, but I loved, loved, loved burning peat briquettes, and once, even got actual hand-harvested peat straight from a friend’s bog allotment. Or whatever it was called. There’s a special name for it, and I can’t remember.

What is peat, you ask? {Heathen!} It’s a really, really old by-product of decomposed vegetable matter. Which doesn’t sound very appealing, but trust me, once somebody digs it up — it’s mud, basically, but really complex and rich mud — and dries it out, it fires up like a dream, it smells delicious and homey, and it is one of the most relaxing fires to sit before, musing and dreaming.

Now, a company called Ógra {which is… Irish for youth} have brought out a skincare line that speaks to peat’s other amazing properties, that of preservation and healing.

Founded by Bill Kenny, the peat comes straight from the heart of Ireland in  Co Offaly, and has been incorporated across a range that includes all the usual suspects of cleanser, toner, moisturiser, eye, and body cream. For me, though, I am all about cracking into the face mask: not only because of the opportunity to take a scary picture, but also because being able to sit back and relax and let all the peaty benefits sink into my skin over a period of time — well, how relaxing does that sound? Plus, look! It’s a body mask as well! I think I am going to go run a bath…

Before peat is dried out for use in our hearths, the stuff is bursting with essential oils, fatty acids and lipods, all of which help the skin retain moisture, which in turn makes the skin look bloomin’ youthful.

And of course, we all know about the preservative qualities of peat, don’t we?

I don’t plan on keeping this on that long.

And since I need my glasses to type, I’ll catch you up on my opinion later.

Ógra 100% Peat Face and Body Mask, €30.00 (50mls).

The online store can be found here.

An Ojon Hair Care Extravaganza

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Oh, man, I hate moving house.

I’m signing a new lease tomorrow, and I’ve been purging and packing for days. Every time I get up to do something, I end up doing something else, either throwing something random into the rubbish, or re-opening a box I’ve already packed to see if I really need to take that — what ever it is — with me to the next place…

In the spirit of this disordered thinking, I decided to do a hair treatment, because, why not have beautiful hair in the midst of the madness? Continue reading →

Update: Avon ANEW Clinical Resurfacing Expert Smoothing Fluid

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I had two treatments after I began testing Avon‘s professional-style exfoliating, microdermabrasing fluid, so I felt like I couldn’t really tell what was going on with my skin.

Additionally, even though I have the hide of a rhino, I didn’t want to be piling on all manner of potions on, because who knew what was working and what was not?

Nevertheless, I do have a few things to say {shock! horror!}, and they are:

> That stopper, there in the cap? I think it has  mind of its own, which is all to the good. No matter how much product I tried to pump into the cap, it only dispensed like, a drop and a half. Which is really all you need. And the directions say as much. But who uses only what they need? Huh? Who? Not me, because if one drop is good, then six must be amazing! Uh, no. And since this really is pro-style, I don’t think using more of something this active is a good idea.

>How do I know it’s active? It makes my face itch. Not in a bad way! In a Hey! I think this is working! way. In the way your skin responds to treatments. That way. Frankly, this is why I stopped using it during the two weeks of many treatments, because it felt as intense {in a good way!} as the product used in the salons.

Hmm, I thought I had more to say. Guess not! Oh: you can use this day or night, and I’m not sure which is best. Use it on fresh, rejuvenated skin in the morning? Or slough off those dead skin cells in your sleep? Obviously I’ll have to give both a try. As ever, will let you know!

Treat Yourself: Carter Beauty’s Hydrating & Boosting Facial

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Two things occurred to me as a result of the Dermalogica Hydrating & Boosting Facial in Carter Beauty, Blackrock I got last week:  one was a momentary flitter of a thought near the beginning of the treatment, and the other came about two hours later. The fact that anything could occur to me at all, either during and after such a relaxing experience is something of a miracle, but here we go.

First thought: there is no way I could be good at being a beauty therapist, as I was struck by the complete silence of my extremely able consultant, Katie. I talk to myself all the time — and I may have just made an exclamatory sound right this second, as in ‘Ha! That’s right!’  in response to my own thought. I mutter to myself all the time. And I’ve stopped caring that is sad and weird to occasionally mumble-sing when I’ve got my earbuds in. So there I’d be, trying to give you a nice spa experience, and I’d be going, *uh*, ‘Where did I put that effing cleanser — oh, yeah.’ And then I’d probably hum along with the music, even if it was pan pipes, and talk about a disaster. I would be fired probably before I even finished the facial.

Happily, I didn’t think of much after I acknowledged this personal discovery, and let my mind clear entirely {I’ve finally copped on to the common sense of asking for a list of products after the treatment, so I’m not trying to memorise as we go along.} I can tell you that my love for Dermalogica is never so strong as when it is being applied by a professional, and when the products used come from all across their range. No less than ten potions/lotions were swept, massaged, and let sink into my skin over the course of an hour {It felt like an hour? But one of those really short hours that should last longer?} Of particular note was Katie’s prowess with pressure points: much attention was paid to those that circle the eye, and wowee, it felt amazing.

Afterwards, I walked around a bit, showing off my shiny, hydrated and boosted skin; however, I had plans for the evening, and I wasn’t too keen on going out completely bare-faced. This leads to my second thought, which may in fact actually be a realisation. When you get your skin all hydrated and boosted, it creates the perfect canvas for your make up. I know: duh. It never struck me before, I suppose because I don’t generally do anything after a treatment except hope I can get home without curling up for a nap on the bus stop. Anyway, radiance doesn’t even begin to cover it, so if you have an event or something and want to look even more smashing than usual, I’d give this a go ahead of the big day.

Plus, you get a wee giftie of the Dermalogica Dry Skin Kit containing Dermalogica Essential Cleansing Solution, Multi Active Toner, Intensive Moisture Balance, Gentle Cream Exfoliant and Intensive Eye Repair Cream — a €30 value for nothin’. Since it’s been so cold and raw lately, this is a really good antidote, and thanks to the kit, you can keep up appearances on your own.

Carter Beauty Dermalogica Hydrating Facial is €65. Carter Beauty is based at 40 Main Street, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. wwwcarterbeauty.ie Tel: 01-2103624.