What's going on?

I began working for Beauty Review nearly three years ago.  I can't imagine doing another job - this First Lady is going to be around for more than two terms.  But it almost wasn't to be.  Thanks to Facebook.  (I'm gonna hold this grudge for a longgggggg time)

Do you remember when you didn't get a notification if a message went to your Facebook 'Others' folder?  If you didn't remember to check it you wouldn't know if there was a message sitting in there or not.  Well 3 years ago my baby knocked my laptop touch-pad and opened my Others folder.  And thank goodness he did.  

Wait, lets rewind a bit more.  I discovered BR and joined as a member when I was a stay-at-home mum to the then nine month old Milky Chops.  It was (and still is) the perfect site to get you through late night feedings.  It's a great place to meet other Kiwi women in a similar situation.  It's a fabulous resource to make you feel less like a dead mummy and more like a yummy mummy.  

I got stuck in online like I never had before. I joined in discussions, I commented on articles and I reviewed products.  I even found myself making suggestions of ideas for the site I had during those 3am feeds.  I felt pretty darn special when Merilyn the founder of BR made an off hand comment about how I needed to keep on feeding Milky Chops because my ideas were great.

Have you guessed who the message in my Others folder was from yet?  Yes, it was a royal telegram from the Queen of BR.  I can remember it as clear as day. 

'Hey I hope you don't mind me messaging you, it's just you seem really on to it and I wondered if you'd like to do some work for me'.

I sat there having a bit 'whoa' for a minute and then I saw the date.  The message was FIVE days old.  Now in the days of snail mail, 5 days without a response was nothing to be offended by.  In modern times 5 days is a major snub.  Damn you Facebook.  Damn you.  Seriously, the developer back then didn't think...hmm they may like to know if someone's messaged them?  Really?!

I hurriedly replied, my fingers frantically flying across the keyboard, yes.  Yes.  YES.

One Skype call later and we'd both decided somethings are just meant to be.  You see what Queenie didn't know was that I had a lot of experience working online - I'd set up a clothing wholesaler's online store the year before I had my son.  I'm a confident writer.  I have a tenacious work ethic.  And what I didn't know was that Queenie was going to become my ultimate boss-crush.  She has a wealth of corporate experience, she's ballsy, she's confident, she's open to ideas and never closes the door on one without considering it from all angles.  I learn something from her every week and genuinely have yet to have a 'God my boss is annoying' moment.

So the moral of this diatribe (against Facebook, just to clarify)  If you like something online, if you connect with something, don't be afraid to join in.  Don't hang back and lurk - comment, share and learn from online communities you relate to.  Enjoy being a part of something that is constantly growing and evolving from the involvement of other humans.  You might not get a job out of it, but you'll be fulfilled in other ways.

And always, always check your messages.  

• Going braless is good for you, moving around without a bra supports and encourages lymphatic flow and proper drainage of the breasts.
• The largest natural breasts according to the Guinness Book of Records is 70 inches around the fullest part, along the nipple line. That's 5.83 feet, or 6.5 inches taller than BR Natalie!
• 1 breast is usually around 1/5 of a cup size larger than the other.
• 6% of ladies have 'accessory breast tissue or nipples'. 
• Mark Wahlberg and Lily Allen are a couple of celebrities who've opened up about their tripples. (Third nipples)
• After looking at breasts, men perform poorly on cognitive tests.
• Breasts are naturally warm, cosy places - they regulate a newborn's body temperature, which is why mama and baby being naked (skin to skin) is the fastest and easiest way to warm and soothe a baby.
  
• In Mongolia, when a baby cries all of the females of the tribe lift their shirts and shake their boobies - which calms the baby and makes them happy.  It'd probably work on the men folk too!

 And speaking of believe it or not, can you believe what's in the Incredible Eyes box?!

Today marks six years since I met The Husband.  If you're reading dear, Happy Anniversary.  Yes I know it's not a 'real' anniversary but bring home chocolate anyway!

In six years we've got to know each other pretty well, we trust each other, we're comfortable with each other (not that comfortable, the toilet door remains firmly closed) and we like each other almost at least half of the time.

So I let him give me an undercut.  With a design in it.  Yeah...we might make seven years, but we will be talking? 

I recently chopped my hair from my at-home, slightly wonky lob, to an on-purpose asymmetric bob.  I was umming and ahhing about that Halle Berry photo and eventually told my hairdresser;

"Just do it.  If I cry it's just my natural reaction to being left with an inch of hair, it doesn't mean I hate it"

For the record, I did cry in the shower that night, but only because half of my hair was missing.  During my shower of irrational girl-monal tears, I decided I wanted a rose design etched in to my undercut.  You know, a realistic shaded rose.  Because why go easy on the man you love?   Something like this:

So massive undercut undertaken, design chosen - it was time to put my trust in The Husband's clipper-wielding hands. I should point out three things:

1. The Husband shaves his head weekly, so he's good with clippers.
2. The Husband is a fantastic artist, so coupled with point 1, this wasn't a huge-huge leap of faith.
3. If it goes tits-up my remaining hair is long enough to cover it.

This is what happened:

So not a complete failure, not a hair-up result.  Looking back I may have aimed high.  I probably should have gone for a simple line design rather than asking The Husband to attempt shading a life-like rose.  Well, much like marriage we live it and we learn it.  

Two weeks hath passed since that fateful night, filled with promise, met with both a smidgen of disappointment and the sparkle of potential.  My nape has grown back and is ready to go again, but can I be bothered?

Nothing to do with The Husband, I reckon he'd have this down on the second sweep.  My issue isn't even the neck crippling position I was in for an hour.  It's more to do with the undercut itself.  I had visions of Ruby Rose.  But when I feel the bristles I think I got the Big Boo 'do instead.

If you have to ask yourself 'is this me?' chances are, it isn't.

What do you reckon?  Shall I rope The Husband in for another attempt?  Or do we leave this in the never-again pile, along with dreadlocks?

I love being tagged in amazing beauty things on Facebook and Instagram, there's just so much on the internet it's easy to miss the next great article idea.  Lutece tagged me in this video last week and I was in awe.

"Next blog challenge?"  I replied, tagging in my colleague (and one of my most favourite people) Kellie.  We concurred that the key was confidence.  You just had to take that eyeliner pen and whip it.  One confident swipe and the perfect flick would surely follow.

Here's what Kellie has to say about it:

Cheers Pixie-pie! Haha.

Ok, my turn.  Confession.  I am pants at applying eyeliner.  Pants.  I have never mastered the cat's eye or the perfect wing.  The best I can do is a lil flick.  But I decided after watching the video that I'd clearly been over complicating matters.

The first line wasn't too bad.  Filling it in was a disaster.  The second eye started bad, and got worse.  By the end I was one beehive short of looking like Amy Winehouse.

Which means we had but one lady left in whom to place our faith.  Now if you're not familiar with makeupforpandas, we should point out Lutece is an eyeliner goddess.  But could she wing it like the video?

Not too shabby at all!  Now Lutece calls this 'eyeliner fail 101, but her standards are clearly really high!

I think we can conclusively say that the art of eyeliner isn't just confidence after all.  I don't know what it is, confidence, a steady hand, 20-20 vision, daily practice.  A dollop of luck too probably.  What I do know is...

 

This might just be the prettiest makeup brush I've ever owned. It's the Za Kabuki brush.

It's as soft as it looks, yet has enough resistance to apply and buff powder well.  You can even contour with it.  Ok I'm taking all this as gospel based on the 20+ reviews over at Beauty Review.  Because I just cannot bring myself to use it.  It's too cute.

And the worst part of buying this brush, other than knowing I would never use it?  I bought it in a set with a bronzer I didn't need, just because I wanted the cute brush.  

So there the brush sits, like a flower in bloom on my art deco mirrored table.  Which no one sees.  Because MTV Cribs have never asked me to appear.

So, does anyone else do this?  Buy pretty things, knowing you'll never use them? 

Oh and if you want to own the world's most beautiful brush, it's available here.

 

Reusing the It's All About You box to hide a bad hair day

I remember Nanna Babs telling me about the war and post-war years, when the economy was stunted and people simply had to make do.  From unraveling too-small sweaters and using the yarn to knit hats or gloves, to reusing the bath water to water the veggie patch, war time households learned the hidden value of many a used-up thing.

Then came years of excess, of wants that became needs.  Houses became full, then over full, and before we knew it, we were running out of room in our landfills.

And as with many things in life, we seem to have come full circle, with more and more people trying to reuse, repurpose or upcycle

Here's some ideas for your beauty stash.

I pride myself on being able to get ready super quickly. Up and out the door in twenty minutes, including a shower, is what I tell myself I’m capable of. The Husband takes longer to get ready than I do, I’m sure of it! Well… I’m not so sure anymore, because I’ve noticed something recently. After putting some toast and milk in front of the blessed child, I head downstairs to put my makeup on before whizzing us out the door, and next thing you know, we’re running late. Because of me. And my makeup routine.

Yep, it turns out my makeup routine, which I don’t think is excessive, is taking far too long. Here’s a breakdown of what I do:

Prime.

Pop on green concealer to deal to my reddened areas, scars and the odd angry pimple.

Apply foundation or CC cream.

Bronze.

Blush.

Highlight cheeks (sometimes).

Eyeshadow.

Mascara.

Quick brow swipe.

Lipstick or gloss.

And that’s it. That’s an average day. There’s no major contouring, no eyeliner, no under-eye concealer. And yet it takes me this side of forever to do – and I’m not even a perfectionist. Clearly, after yelping at my darling human that we have to hurry up or we’d be really late for the millionth time in the past few months something had to change. Someone had to change. And that person was me.

 So I looked up the Five Minute Makeup Challenge on YouTube. Watching those makeup maven’s videos left me amazed. Some contoured, did their brows, lined their eyes, and powdered their face on top of all the stuff I was doing – in four minutes. So if they could do it, then surely I could, right? Yeah….

Here’s my before face. Cleansed, toned, serumed, moisturised. Not a scrap of makeup on it.

Now for the record, I didn’t have everything laid out in front of me, because I feel like that would be cheating. This is real life and I’m not the kind of person who prepares things the night before (although perhaps I should be). So for the purpose of doing this challenge for real, I had to dive through my stash as I usually would. But, I did put aside the products I used, and this is what they were:

So with confidence and a dash of nervousness I set the alarm and off I went. Who knew it took to long to buff in foundation after priming and concealing? Maybe it’s because my skin’s not so youthful, maybe my brush needs a clean, but giddy aunt, it took up a good two minutes. Then came a quick wash of bronze and blusher, and I was up to the eyeshadow… with less than a minute on the clock.

I can do this, I told myself as I patted on shadow and buffed out the crease. And then the alarm was going off. Seriously? Is that alarm for real? It was. Here’s the fail photo:No mascara, no lipstick, no brows. What a mess. There was no way I was heading out the door looking like this. So I checked the time and went at it again to see how long my full face took me. I finished the eyeshadow, added a tiny bit of eyeliner, because I was running late anyway, so pffft, why not? Added one coat of mascara, brushed a bit of colour through my brows, then slicked on some lip stain because I was beginning to get embarrassed as to how long this whole situation was taking.

All up the process took ten minutes. That was me being quick. No wonder I’m always running and hollering out the door in the mornings. 

So what did I learn? Those beauty folk who can whack their makeup on in five minutes are legends. I am not a legend. And I’m just going to have to get up fifteen minutes earlier, because there’s no way I’m walking out the house with half an eyelid made up and no mascara on.

Think you could do a five minute makeup challenge? Our beauty boxes have everything you need to give it a go…