A concealer that's as good as a night's sleep!

So tomorrow morning I have to get up around 5:30am. Not looking forward it!

As well as occasional lack of sleep, I also inherited a propesity to dark circles under my eyes. So, I've been a keen fan of concealer since my teens. I've tried various brands and styles from the cheap but effective Rimmel Wake Me Up Concealer toYves Saint Laurent and  Estee Lauder's Double Wear.

On our recent trip to Budapest, we ended up with a fair bit of the local currency to get rid of. Lovely husband suggested a trip to Duty Free. I deliberated for ages and eventually snapped up Clinique's Airbrush Concealer. Gosh, I'm glad I did! Somehow a few light brush strokes magically make my black circles vanish into a soft radiant skin colour.

I was a bit worried that it wouldn't provide enough coverage and stay on all day, but it's fine on blemish scars and it lasts well on my sometimes oily skin. 

Clinique isn't infallible (some of their skin care is useless) but I have found some absolute treats in the make-up. 

Sadly the Airbrush Concealer only comes in a few very light shades, but if it'll suit your skin, I say get your mitts on some!

Age cannot wither her?

A couple of comments on my last post got me thinking... First of the wonderful Duchesse  (go and see her blog, it's a delight) commented that,

"You may not be as pretty as in your 20s but I'll bet you are a more fascinating woman!" 

And a friend commented on Facebook: 

" I would agree that everyone gets more interesting as they age, as long as they take pains to keep their habits and activities fresh and out of a rut. I'd say you are accomplishing this nicely!"

Excellent words of wisdom! I'll be mulling over this 'facinating woman' idea for some time to come, I think. Trying it on, tweaking it about, seeing if it fits and how I can style it. 

I just tried searching the phrase 'facinating woman' and came up with a lot of traditional American homemaker stuff. Ick. Not my idea of fascinating. I'm more in tune with my friend's comment about becoming more interesting as we age by making sure we keep learning and growing. 

The Shakespeare quote alluded to in the title is "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety". My overriding philosophy since moving to England has been 'Try something new'. I wouldn't claim (or want) infinite variety but I have loved stepping out of the old ruts of who I think I am and what I think I do. My younger self wouldn't recognise me in some aspects these days. 

I do recommend a seismic change every so often. I transformed myself around age 15 when I found a group of friends who hadn't known me since I was a baby. Being a new context allowed me to work out who I really was, instead of being stuck with the old expectations and patterns. Now with this move I've been freer to do that again. 

So what? Well, I guess I'll keep working on this fascinating thing and see where that takes me. What do you think - do people get more interesting as they age?

Obvious symbolism with the snake!

Save money - colour your hair at home!

Do you get your hair coloured at a salon? Well stop it! (Oh feel free to carry on if you like, but keep reading anyway...)


I'm here to suggest that you could easily save buckets of money by doing your own hair at home. If you've never tried it (or haven't tried it for years) it's much easier than you think!

Firstly, choosing the colour.

The safest thing is to chose something similar to your natural hair colour. If in doubt, go cool, not warm. When I see people with unfortunate hair colour, it's mostly because they're gone with a bright warm colour like burgundy or ginger when they should have chosen a cool colour that looked a bit more natural on them.

I swear by John Freida myself. I've tried a few different colours from their range and they've all been excellent. I'm on 'Deep Brown-Black' at the moment but I have dabbled in some of their very flattering and subtle reddish or purple-ish shades like the 'Radiant Red' shown in the picture.

Secondly, preparations. I make sure I'm wearing something that I don't have to pull off over my head and that I don't mind getting stained. (I generally don't drip dye on my clothes, but just in case). I also remove all the towels from the bathroom and get out an old black towel.

Mixing up the hair colour is easy - then I just slap it onto dry hair. I don't find it makes a difference how clean my hair is or if it's full of mousse and hair spray. I tend to only manage to use about half the hair colour as I've got fairly short hair. Rub it in well so that all the strands of hair are covered. Wipe any drips or smears off with a bit of loo paper (and soap if needed).

I also don't worry too much about the timings. I leave it on for about 20-30 min. If you're feeling nervous about stains, just sit in the bathroom and read a book. I've found that hair colour tends not to stain things like the bath or sink or glass surfaces but will stain painted or porous surfaces.

When it comes to washing it off, I've got a shower-over-bath arrangement with the shower head on a hose. I get right down into the bath to wash the first bit off to avoid splashing all over the bathroom. Then I shower as normal and use the excellent conditioner provided in the pack.

Finally, after a gentle drying my hair is done!

So, are you convinced to give it a go? Or do you have complicated highlights and lowlights or are you au naturel?

Too old for glittery nails?

I'm quite proud of these little beauties - Rimmel Black Cherry with Ciate Candy Cane over the top. The base is a very dark burgundy and the glitter is fuchsia.

 The ladies at Facegoop say, "That's the power of glitter nails. They make you feel special. Luminous. Invincible." (They have a helpful article about what to do with glittery nails here.)




But I wonder slightly if I'm pushing the envelope of professional attire. And I have read stupid articles that say 'no glitter nail polish over 30'. I do want to be appropriate - I'm not one of those 'I'll wear what I want and screw the lot of you!' lassies.

I've done an impression of the outfit I wore with my glorious nails - as you can see my cardigan is a bit brighter than the one I could find to illustrate. And my necklace was three strands of dark purple 'amethyst' beads.  

So, what do you think - acceptable in a reasonably casual office? On someone (gasp) over 30?

Rimmel Black Cherries and Ciate Candy Cane

Things they don't tell you about getting older

(This post was written as a guest post for CherrySue Doin’ the Do – you can see it here. )

So, the ‘this is puberty’ books give you the basics but don’t cover all the issues. There are some important facets of the maturing process that the books don’t cover so I feel I need to expose to these secrets to the

world. For example:

Hair

I knew that people grew hair in bits that didn’t have hair before but somehow I thought that was a one-time thing that happened between (say) the ages of 13 and 15. But oh no, I was mistaken! What I didn’t realise (and I’d like to share with any who haven’t entered this reality yet) is that YOU KEEP GETTING HAIRIER! 

Slightly horrifying, but true. My lovely husband, for example, had a few hairs wafting about the nip-ular area in his teens. Those hairs have spread across his chest and down to his tummy to make quite a pelt. He’s now mid 30s-ish. What’s he going to be like at 60? Will I be able to find my husband under the ball of fluff that he walks about in?

Nips

Sorry to get a bit rude, but talking about the nip-ular area, I didn’t realise that all women didn’t naturally grown thumb sized, sticky-out nipples like my mum’s. (How did I come to see my mum’s nipples? She was pretty casual about the clothing issue.). Actually those sticky-out nips are my fault (and my brother’s fault too, let’s share the blame fairly) as we got our early sustenance.  Fair enough.

Spots

Now here’s a really depressing one. Like hair growth, I assumed spots were a teenage phase that we all grew out of. Not so! It’s quite possible to have wrinkles, grey hair and spots. A fact I prove reasonably regularly. The only good thing is that with age comes a bit more skill in washing, anointing and covering up said spots so they’re less obvious (we fondly hope). 

Knees

I recently attempted day one of the ‘Couch to 5K’ app. I alternately ran and walked for half an hour. After about three days my muscles stopped aching then my left knee started protesting. Talking to other folks in their 30s and early 40s, it seems many of them just can’t run because their knees complain too much. Oh well, I didn’t really like running anyway...

So, what about you – are you enjoying these delightful signs of aging or have you been lucky? Anything else you didn’t realise about aging when you were an impressionable teen?