Now if there’s something guaranteed to make me leap out of bed and into the shower in a desperate frenzy to get ready in the morning it has to be:

a) Tom Hardy brandishing a loofah

b) a holiday  or

c) gorgeous new make up

Since Tom’s out of town and I’ve still got two weeks ’til Ibiza, it must be the third option…

Time to rise and shine for Urban Decay!

Of course, I have tons of make-up. If there was a national make-up drought and women had to make do with  existing supplies, I could quite easily get the entire female UK population glammed up and runway-ready every day for the next decade without so much as a liquid liner running dry. My make-up cup doth runneth over.

But that’s besides the point. There’s nothing like the magnetic pull of a mirror-perfect compact twinkling at you in the department store beauty hall, sparkling under the dazzling lights as it beckons you over to play.

Having worked in the beauty industry for more than two decades, you’d think I’d have built up an immunity by now, but no, I’m still a sucker for a slinkily-packaged product; it’s appeal hasn’t tarnished one iota. The novelty simply never wears off.

So, like a magpie, I was powerless to resist the draw of Urban Decay’s Naked Skin Pressed Powder compact as she shimmied and gleamed seductively from the cosmetics counter recently. I was innocently flapping on past on my lunch break, blinkers on, head down, trying not to get sucked in. Before I knew it I’d stuck my beak round Debenhams’ door and liberally applied the pressed powder from the tester in Medium Light, along with a slick of Razor Sharp Longwear Liquid Liner in Retrograde, an iridescent purply-black. Unfortunately, I fell instantly in love with both…

With a deep sigh I handed over my debit card (it’s £23 for the compact, £16 liner) and hurried back to work before I could be tempted by the remainder of the sexy selection of Urban Decay products, who were posing and pouting like Thai hookers as they tried to coax me into sampling their wares.

Back at work, I caressed my purchases in their premium, glossy packaging and checked the results again in different lighting. Still perfect. Hours later and my flicks are still on fleek: my ridiculously watery eyes haven’t made a jot of difference to the liner. It’s still absolutely pristine. My face is semi-matte, the powder still doing the tricky task of warding off a shiny face without being cakey.

 

The next day, my new purchases are put to the test when my sister and I take her toddler son to Knole Park in 30 degree heat. The park is home to herds of deer, who take a keen interest in our picnic; before we know it we’re surrounded. We take cute deer selfies before the mood turns menacing, and we’re snozzled (a word we created to describe the snorty nuzzling that takes place) then stampeded by the curious creatures. We are crying with a mixture of laughter and terror as we charge through the long grass to make our escape.

Back in the safety of the car, I check my make-up: despite sweating, laughing, crying and being mounted by deer, I’m surprised to say it’s virtually perfect. Now if that’s not putting the products through their paces, I don’t know what is.Hat’s off to Urban Decay: I had no i-deer (groan) just how good your products were…

Products from Amazon.co.uk

‹ ›

Sam x


Fancy reading my back-story before you go any further? You can find my other blogs at:

www.costaricachica1.blogspot.com
www.samgoessolo.blogspot.com
www.mummymission.blogspot.com
www.worldwidewalsh.blogspot.com

Follow me:

Twitter: @SamanthaWalsh76 (Life:ABird’sEyeView)
Facebook: @lifeabirdseyeview
Instagram: @lifeabirdseyeview

The post Rise and Shine, it’s Urban Decay! appeared first on Life: A Birds Eye View.

Come on girls, who doesn’t love perfectly winged eyeliner? That super-crisp, sleek Nike tick that flicks across your eyelid, creating the perfect feline expression: the cat that got the cream.Now we all know this look can be a bitch to perfect – one eye glides on effortlessly, lulling us into a false sense of security, and then….well, then the other is a total catastrophe. Cue an ever-thickening black wedge as you try to balance them out…until you end up with a couple of disastrous inch-thick lines that look as though they’ve been applied by a toddler who’s been left unsupervised with a black marker pen. Not a good look. More der-brained than doe-eyed, I’d say.

Which is where Soap and Glory’sSupercat Eyeliner Pen in Carbon Black Extreme comes in. I love a bit of sassy retro packaging, so for me this liner has instant kerb appeal: a slim glossy stick with pink lettering and a satisfyingly tight click lid. No-one likes a liner that dries out after a few uses (I recently tried a pricey brand who shall remain nameless, and it was utterly pointless – dried out in literally 2 wears). The nib itself is like a very pointy felt-tip, and glides on like a dream. Even a heavy-handed clutz like myself would struggle to mess this one up.

The resulting flicks are impressive: I’m a bit trigger-happy in my excitement to try this new product, but to my amazement the flicks are On Fleek, as the young’uns would say.

A few hours in and I’m still looking peng (to keep the youth slang going)…is it sad when 40 year olds try and act down with the kids? Hmm, I thought so. I’ll stop.

Anyway, as I was saying, I peer into my compact mirror whilst I’m at the festival (yep, still desperately clinging to my youth) and to my delight my eyeliner is still looking pretty good, despite several hours of sweaty booty-shaking in the scorching July afternoon sun.

Okay, so there is the faintest hint of a smudge in one corner, but to be fair when you get older and your eyelids start to mimic those of Droopy from the old kids’ cartoon, the resulting wrinkles are bound to cause a teeny-tiny smudge occasionally. It says more about the proliferation of my laughter lines than the quality of the product, I’m afraid; I must be walking around constantly cracking up (or should that be creasing up?) if these crow’s feet are anything to go by…

Oh yeah, you can smirk, but it happens to the best of us – you’ll get yours, kids! I remember when I was a young make-up artist and would practise on my mum: I’d bemoan her droopy eyelids that seemed to counteract all my hard handiwork with the eyeshadow. Well karma is a bitch as they say, because now I have a lil droopy eyelid syndrome all of my own. Thanks Mama!

If, like me, you also wear contact lenses and your eyes have a tendancy to water as though someone’s been peeling onions directly under them, then finding an eyeliner that doesn’t budge is no mean feat.

So this lil beaut comes in at the ridiculously reasonable price of just £6, and Boots often has offers on top of that: either 3 for 2, or buy one get one half price. Can’t say fairer than that! I invested in the Archery eyebrow pencil and the Thick And Fast mascara whilst I was there – it would’ve been rude not to, really.

So shimmy that sweet ass of yours down to Boots, or use my Amazon links below, grab your Supercat liner and get yourself some of these fleeky flicks, girlfriend!

You’re welcome!

Sam x


Fancy reading my back-story before you go any further? You can find my other blogs at:

www.costaricachica1.blogspot.com
www.samgoessolo.blogspot.com
www.mummymission.blogspot.com
www.worldwidewalsh.blogspot.com

Follow me:

Twitter: @SamanthaWalsh76 (Life:ABird’sEyeView)
Facebook: @lifeabirdseyeview
Instagram: @lifeabirdseyeview

The post Get Your Flicks On Fleek appeared first on Life: A Birds Eye View.

 In the impressionable early years of my life my biggest role model, as is the case for most young girls, was my mother. During those few short years when she was actually taller than me (only until I was about 6 you understand – she’s tiny!), I would crane my neck upwards to admire her flowing natural blonde locks, flicked Farrah Fawcett-style, her wide blue eyes sporting sky-blue eyeshadow (…well it was the Eighties), tugging on her skirt for constant attention.

I would listen for the sound of the clanking crockery downstairs which indicated she was washing up, then slowly and silently ease open the cream chest-of-drawers to reveal the treasure chest that was her make-up bag.

Checking over my shoulder at regular intervals, I would slide my grubby, chubby four year old mitts into the bag of booty and set to work emulating my heroine – first a generous puff of delicately-scented powder over my face, then a swipe of electric blue mascara, almost gouging my eyeballs out in the process. I cursed my clumsiness as undeveloped motor skills meant the sugar-pink lippy I was carefully striving to apply took on a life of it’s own and careered off-target, ending up somewhere near my left temple.

A quick spritz of her save-it-for-best Chanel no. 5 and my Mini-Mum look was almost complete. I admired my colourful appearance from every angle in her dressing table mirror, moving this way and that…So maybe I did resemble a deranged and dishevelled Barbara Cartland, but I thought I was the epitome of sophistication. Just time to slip my podgy toes into her slingbacks and…..
“WHAT THE….?! STAY STILL! DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!!”

For some reason I couldn’t quite fathom, Mummy wasn’t looking very impressed with my impersonation. Okayyy, so I may have made a tiny mess on the carpet when the lipstick flew out of it’s barrel and the eyeshadow slipped from my clammy grip, but surely she realised that imitation is the greatest form of flattery…?

And so it began.

My loyal and lifelong love affair with make-up.

Mum may have secured her make-up bag tighter than Fort Knox after that little incident, but I always found a way to set those pretty little pots free, Houdini-like in my dogged endeavours to release them from the confines of their vanity case. Once my little sister Karen was old enough to be my accomplice, we were quite the devious pair of beauty-product blaggers.

By the age of ten, I can clearly remember yanking my mum by the hand into The Body Shop to coo over the bath pearls. Now obsolete, in those days these squidgy little pearlised balls of bath oil that would dissolve on contact with hot water were the height of desirability amongst pre-teens up and down the country.

I would display a selection of them proudly on my bedroom flip-lid desk for as long as possible, until such time that they gathered a dusty fur coat; then I would reluctantly use one in my evening bath, soaking in it’s milky scented goodness in the manner of Cleopatra, emerging wrinkle-fingered and fragrant an hour or so later. Well, I had to get my pocket money’s worth, you understand. I would generally select the pink strawberry-flavoured ones with matching soap and mini bottle of Strawberry Body Wash, the synthetic scent of which was heaven to my childish unsophisticated palate. Give me those over a bag of chewy shrimps any day of the week….

As I grew, so did my appetite for all things beauty, and I would hoard my haul greedily, having to find increasingly cunning hiding places for it to avoid it falling into the wrong hands ie those of my sister Karen, who had a bloodhound-like ability to sniff out my stash.

By my mid-teens I had perfected my signature look, having watched my paternal grandmother carefully applying her salmon-pink pressed powder from the compact, a lit cigarette dangling from glossy scarlet lips.

In my head I had the mysterious look of Marlene Dietrich, all red lips and sexy slim cigarettes, but in reality a moody Ronald MacDonald puffing on a B&H was a closer resembance.

I even matched my pillarbox red lipstick to my favourite NafNaf bomber jacket, then immortalised the look by posing for my passport picture in that very same get-up. I lived to regret that particular sartorial slip-up; I spent the next decade willing that passport to expire….

A night out with my schoolmates would be a major event. I spent enough time getting my make-under just right for school, so you can imagine how much time and effort went into a night out.
Hours were spent in front of the my bedroom mirror applying layer upon chalky layer of foundation, concealer and powder in an attempt to cover my imperfections until what looked back at me was less a face and more a sheet of white A4.

All features erased, I’d set about drawing them all back on again, just as a toddler fills in a colouring book – heavy-handedly in a rainbow of colours. Finally ready to hit the bar, fake ID in hand, we’d totter down the high street like fledgling birds of paradise, slightly unsteady on our skyscraper heels, the sickly aroma of Impulse mingling with Diamond White and a few sneakily-smoked Silk Cuts.

There are two types of women in this world: those that believe in a bit of harmless fakery…. and those that don’t. I’d look at those who didn’t wear any cosmetics with a mixture of pity and disdain. Who were these strange creatures who couldn’t be bothered to take pride in their appearance? Did they really look better without it…. or were they just plain lazy?
Cindy Crawford famously commented that even she “doesn’t look like Cindy Crawford first thing in the morning.” 

If a supermodel needs slap to face her adoring public, what hope for the rest of us under the harsh striplights of the tube during the rush-hour?

Later, I’d find out that the feeling was often mutual. Non-believers regarded slap-wearers as slappers: weak, insecure creatures of questionable morals who needed to apply a mask before facing the world. Or they saw it as a feminist issue: why should society not just accept us as we really are? (Erm…because we’re all mingers sans mascara, love, that’s why.)

I still don’t understand the bare-faced cheek of that mentality. Why resemble a ratty grey pigeon when you can be a resplendent parrot?

To me, applying make-up is a ritual that’s worth every minute. Each brush stroke adds another layer of confidence, each sweep of mascara an extra dimension of character to my anaemic blonde features.

Without it I feel naked, exposed, my pink bunny-eyed expression bland and apologetic.

With it I’m fierce, fired-up and ready to take on the world.

I guess it was inevitable that despite A-level grades that saw me accepted into some respected universities, I tossed the offer letters in the bin and accepted a job as a make-up artist for Clinique in Harvey Nicks, much to the bemusement of my family.

Today my love of all things beauty still stands. I run a beauty boutique and go gaga over the latest fragrance or pretty pink packaging.

I understand that beauty runs deeper than a carefully-applied flick of liquid liner, but the indisputable difference it makes to your confidence is not to be sniffed at. Of course there are times when slumping bare-faced on the sofa in your PJs is unashamed bliss, but to venture out into the world ‘sans maquillage?’ No siree, not for me!

I’m not endorsing duck-pouts and scouse brows here; permanent marker is not to be mistaken for permanent make-up, no no no…..but never underestimate the value of a touch of cosmetic camouflage.

photo credit

As I strut down the street in heels and with my make-up applied just so, the words of one of my perfectly-groomed gay friends echo in my head…

“Life’s A Catwalk, Baby!”

photo credit

Sam x


Fancy reading my back-story before you go any further? You can find my other blogs at:

www.costaricachica1.blogspot.com
www.samgoessolo.blogspot.com
www.mummymission.blogspot.com
www.worldwidewalsh.blogspot.com

Follow me:

Twitter: @SamanthaWalsh76 (Life:ABird’sEyeView)
Facebook: @lifeabirdseyeview
Instagram: @lifeabirdseyeview

The post Life’s A Catwalk, Baby! appeared first on Life: A Birds Eye View.