Lash me.

Help!

Can anyone recommend a great mascara for me?

I'm a bit of a mascara junkie. My lashes are flat, light coloured and nowhere near as thick as I'd like. A decent blacker than black mascara can totally change the way I look (none of this brown crap that makeup artists always recommend for green eyes...black all the way) and make my eyes totally pop.

A few years back I was so in love with this particular mascara, I think it was a Maybelline one. It curled, lifted and separated perfectly without looking like a few stray spiders had crawled in the vicinity of my eyes (OK skin crawling sufficiently now...dropping subject).

It wasn't gluggy, it wasn't too thick and it allowed me to do my customary dozen or so strokes that it takes to sufficiently 'lift' my old pale lashes without clumping them all together. Brilliant stuff. Best part was the price!

So OF COURSE it got discontinued. Because everyone knows to never fall in love with a product because it's a sure-fire way of ensuring it's taken off the shelves.

(Benefit - I'm calling you out here - if you ever, and I mean EVER, dare to discontinue your lip and cheek stain in Rose, there will be bloodshed. Lots of. Just saying).

So ever since then I've searched in vain for another really great mascara. I've tried expensive mascaras, cheap mascaras, and everything in between. Some are OK but they're not GREAT, you know?

So what's your mascara nirvana? I'm almost at the end of my tube of ho-hum mascara and would really like to rock a decent lash again.
xx

Currently.

I've done a couple of these posts now (here and here) and one of the things I like about them is that this exact moment I have very little of interest to report (see previous post on packing purgatory - still there) but there is so much going on around me and about to happen that I can write about instead. If I wrote about my actual day, you'd never come back as it was ultimately pretty damed boring!

Danielle from Sometimes Sweet does these so beautifully and I can only hope to come close to matching how well she writes but I'll give it a go.

Watching: got a secret, can you keep it? I'm recently gotten re-addicted to Pretty Little Liars. This show was on Aussie TV for a little while at one stage but somewhere it disappeared into the television programming abyss that always seems to happen with programmes I like! Anyhow, I had caught up on all my other de rigeur television viewing for the week and was looking around for something to watch online and stumbled back onto Aria et al. Yes, once again, a show aimed at 16 year olds, but I like it and am only very slightly ashamed to say so! The best part is I only saw about half of season 1 and they're now at season three so I have a lot to catch up on. Currently up to early season 2 so am looking forward to seeing how some of the storylines resolve.

Doing: refer to packing purgatory. I wonder how I accumulated so much in three years? We did a massive cull to move in and with only a smallish two bedroom unit, I really didn't think we had that much stuff. We've been a bit slack today, giving ourselves some time off to enjoy Mother's Day but got on a roll this afternoon and it seems the more we pack, the more is left behind! I must be going soft as I used to be the packing veteran. In fact I lived in more than 25 places before I turned 25 - the joys of having parents in real estate I guess! Since E was born I've tried to be a bit more stable, although 5 years is the maximum I've ever clocked up anywhere, we're a bit nomadic at heart. However I'm finding it all a bit hard this time around, when I thought it would be easy. It doesn't help that I have picked up some bug, likely the same one E had, and my body temperature is all over the place. I'm hot when it's cold, cold when it's hot and feel like I'm going to pass out the second I start getting warm. Urgh. I keep reminding myself I still have another week and a full weekend to do everything but I walk out into my lounge that looks like someone trashed it, and just see mess, mess, packing and more mess. E has dust up his nose and we both just feel really dirty. I know we'll get there but right now I'm just hiding in my room hoping it will all go away!!

Enjoying: Mother's Day, beautiful weather and my awesome child. I got coffee and breakfast in bed (cheese and bacon rolls from the bakery - slightly cheating but anyway!). He bought me the most beautiful shade of lipstick - it's called Cherry Candy and really shiny and I think I will have permanent cherry coloured lips for quite some time, it will be my new favourite! E went over to the shops and bought me sushi for lunch - my favourite. And in between packing, he's had time to create this brilliant Lego treehouse - check out the photo below. I don't know too many treehouses that have televisions and game consoles, but hey, we live in a technological age! It's also got a retractable ladder and a lockable trapdoor, I don't know about you but I'm pretty damned impressed.

Anticipating: my last week of work. I'm not looking forward to saying goodbye, it will be so sad! But so, so soon now we'll be leaving Brisbane and heading mountain-woods and I'm so excited to see our new house and finding out all the little things about our new town.

Eating: apart from sushi our diets for the last day or two and for the next week are going to likely be pretty eclectic. We are trying to eat through everything in the fridge/freezer and not buy anything unless necessary, so the pickings are pretty sparse. I'm going to be dying for a big salad or a meal with fresh vegetables by the time we hit Toowoomba. We have some frozen vegetables in the freezer to go through so at least we won't be completely nutritionally bankrupt. They're not my first choice but I always keep them in case I get home late and tired and can't be assed cooking anything more complicated.

Feeling: tired, sad, happy and slightly unwell all at the same time. It's not easy to pack and move when you're feeling under the weather so I hope whatever bug I have picked up leaves soon. My skin has also taken the opportunity to break out like a teenager's. I've suffered from adult acne for a few years but had it under control, however the last two months it has been ridiculous. I'm hoping it's just the stress and the dirt associated with moving (btw I thought I was a relatively clean person but packing has made me re-think this). Going to be working on improving my skin when I get to Toowoomba, hopefully that clean mountain air will help. Adult acne is the worst thing, it's so embarrassing and they always seem to congregate around my mouth so there's just nowhere to hide. I'm so good at the whole morning/night cleansing routine, but right now it's just out of control. I know it just sounds like vanity, but anyone else who has suffered knows what I'm talking about! And it's so hard to find the right combination of products that help with it, most of them are aimed at fresh teenage skin that just dries mine out and makes me look old!

So to all the mothers out there, I hope you are having a wonderful day and that your children have spoiled you rotten. And to all the men, I hope you've called your mothers today! Pick up the phone now!

Looking forward to the week ahead...let me know what you're currently doing, I'd love to know.

xx

'The Treehouse'

Maybe she's born with it...

I'm a giant big sucker for advertising particularly when it comes to beauty products. A great ad can leave me salivating and totally believing that THIS is the item that will change my life. I too can look like a Victoria's Secret model if only I had the right shade of lipstick...

Totally.

In my defence, the beauty industry wouldn't be raking in a gazillion dollars if YOU didn't think the same.

So my latest must-have crush has been the Maybelline Shine series that looks so unbelievably good on TV that clearly it will give me Angelina Jolie lips too, right?

Yesterday I rushed out and spent ages simply AGONIZING over all the different colour choices. Should I go with a bubblegum pink, or something darker and more mysterious? So many to choose from and my hand was completely multi-coloured after having to sample the test colours.

Decisions. Decisions.

Of course, being the creative female I am, I then thought outside the box and decided, why not get two? Hey, they were on sale.

I am now the proud owner of 'Juicy Pink' and 'Red Revival', because one of these days I will actually bother to wear red lipstick and I NEED to be prepared.

So far I've applied them and am slightly disappointed. They're shiny, great colours and feel good, but I simply didn't see Linda Evangelista staring back at me in the mirror, just me with some lipstick on (no comments about lipstick on pigs please!).

No this isn't a sponsored post, Maybelline aren't paying me anything (although if they'd like to, that's pefectly OK with me).  They just have me right where they want me because they know and I know that next time I go via the makeup counter, those self-same lipsticks will be singing my name with their siren song.

Because it's simply a matter of time and the right product that will enable my transformation from mum to supermodel. We all know that.

xx