I'm blue da ba dee, da ba da...

Do you remember that annoyingly annoying(yes, it WAS that annoying!) song from a few years back? No? Let me kindly remind you...



Yes I am aware of the fact you will "hate" me now as it will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day. I apologise for that and for the fact that the creators of such musical nuisance are fellow Italians...
So, blue is the theme for the day and this post.

I had a job interview this morning which was going swimmingly, until the human resources woman copped on to my eye sight. I was asked to wait outside while she and someone above her decided what excuse to make up not to directly mention my disability to turn me down.
Well, here's a little tip for ya if you work in that field: make sure the person you're about to bring down is out of ear shot, try to completely close the door for starters.
.....this is one of those occasions I hate how the rest of my senses make up for my eyes.

On the way back home my eyes fell on one of these:
NO ONE dare tell me how it ends, I haven't seen it yet!
I was always a Smurfs fanatic(you know me, anything of any shade of blue, I'm there), and I confess to still watching the odd episode I catch on TV when I go home. For some reason it seems us Europeans were more mad into the little Belgians things more than the Brits or Irish.
Back in the 80s and 90s ice cream parlours up and down the Italian boot were crammed with the Smurfs flavour, I survived on the stuff when I was a kid! And I tell you those little things are YUMMY!!! Anyway, I digress....

My head started to go off on one, as it often does, I believe mainly to try and distract me from what had just happened at the interview. And I had a Eureka! moment.
I remember the couture summer collections had plenty of blue splashes so I thought I'd feature some of my favorite in this post.
If you don't like colour (or blue) look away now

previously featured in my Bag Porn post, Juicy Couture

Emilio Pucci

Costume National

Mulberry

and my fave...

Moschino

*adopts tone of Discovery "How do they do it?" voice over* And that's how you smurf from a ridiculously depressing start of the week to some super expensive couture dreaming!

And remember, "don't smurf with the wroooong girl!"

Lil
xx

Best in beauty, Beaut.ie awards

Last Thursday I was invited along to the Beaut.ie "Best in beauty" awards reception at the Dylan Hotel here in town. For my international readers who don't know about Beaut.ie here's a little background info for ya'.
Since 2006 it is the number online beauty resource here in Ireland, and I know people outside the country that won't buy anything without treading their reviews. It is run by two sisters, beauty columnists and more general super media involved gals. You gotta love their writing style! If you're not a subscriber yet, what are you waiting for?! chop chop!! Trust yours truly, you shall not regret it !
For the past few weeks they have been running their yearly "Best in beauty"awards, receiving over 70,000 votes over the two nominating and voting stages. If you wish to see the whole list of winners, make your way over here.
Some winners didn't surprise me at all like MAC winning "best beauty brand" (and pretty much most of the single titles in the make up category as well) , Aussie and Batiste got most of the best hair section, Sally Hansen Airbrush Legs as "best tanning product". However I was positively impressed by some of the other winners being my own fave's like "best bronzer" Rimmel Sun Shimmer Maxi Bronzer, "best hair removal product" Gillette Venus Embrace, or "best body gadget" being none other than the super duper Penneys(Primark to UK peeps) exfoliating gloves.

Now back to the evening. Firstly I have to apologise for the major lack of photographic evidence, my camera decided to have a little hissy fit (or maybe it was too excited?!) and decided it wasn't gonna show me 90% of photos taken at the event and after.
This is one of the few that survived the mutiny

The reception was kindly sponsored by West Coast Cooler which provided plenty of bubbly and part of our goodie bags. Being the wine snob I am (hey, I'm Italian, I'm allowed!) my taste buds were introduced to a new bubbly experience! Thank you Beaut.ie and thank you to the guys at West Coast Cooler!
Here's my outfit of choice for the event:
I had a really good couple of FOTD shots but they also were part of the "can't display this image" bunch. My right eye was pretty much refusing to work properly on Thursday so maybe it's a good thing you don't get to see it, make up wasn't exactly impeccable...

Now to the aforementioned goodie bags, here's their content:

- Rimmel Vinyl Max gloss in Outrageous
- Sally Hansen complete salon manicure in Haute Chocolate
- No. 7 lash adapt mascara in black
- a Kiehl's handy travel bag with a few samples
- a money off voucher for a course of treatments at a local cosmetic clinic
- 2 different bottle of West Coast Cooler, currently coolly sitting in my fridge

There was also a pamphlet in the bag, which made me aware of the "Look good...Feel better" programme supported by The Irish Cancer Society, where "expert beauty advice will help patients gain the confidence they need to face the world and fight the disease".
When I was going through cancer myself I met a lot of women going through chemo or radio therapy and I know a lot of them would have loved the chance of taking part in little workshops like these. If you or anyone you know would like more info about the programme, you can visit their web site.
The gorgeous Karen Coster from Xpose was presenting the event and man is that woman even more stunning in the flesh!!!!
Did I mention the yummy finger food? No? Well I just did....finger licking yummy !!!

Here's to next year's reception

Lil xxx

Beauty TAG: would you rather...?

1.) Would you rather lose all of your mascaras, eyeliners, lipsticks, and lip glosses or lose all of your palettes and eye shadows?
Definitely lose all palettes and shadows, mascara, liner and gloss have priority for me (I actually DON'T wear eye shadow most days I wear make up)

2.) Would you rather chop off all your hair or never be able to cut it again?
now this is just silly, if I chop it off, it's gonna grow back :-p

3.) Would you rather have a coral cheek or a pink cheek?
I am not sure, I have to be careful with cheek colours with my skin tone, maybe a light dusting of pink is better

4.) If you had $1000 to spend, would you rather buy clothes or makeup?
The way my head works at the moment, neither! Apparently my brain has a temporary(I hope!) shopping block and won't let me buy anything other than groceries and strictly important items. I hate this whole unemployed and strapped for cash malarkey...

5.) Would you rather apply lipstick as eyeliner, or eyeliner as lipstick?
That would be very easy as I don't really use any lip liner, I don't like drawing attention to my mouth.

6.) Would you rather only shop at MAC or Sephora?
Big fat HAHAHAHAHAHA, for once we've no Sephora in Ireland, and MAC is way out of my league, so...

7.) Would you rather only use one eyeshadow color or one lip color for the rest of your life?
one lip colour

8.) Would you rather wear winter clothes in summer or summer clothes in winter?
Summer clothes in winter, I do it all the time, and you can always layer it up.

9.) Would you rather have dark nails or bright nails all year round?
I pretty much NEVER have dark nails, easy peasy question.

10.) Would you rather give up your favorite lip product or your favorite eye product?
lip balm or mascara? Yikes! NEITHER!!!!! they're my staples!!!!

11.) Would you rather only be able to wear your hair in a ponytail or a messy bun?
pony tail, I have too much hair for a bun, it takes me AGES and it makes me look older anyway.

12.) Would your rather never be able to paint your nails again or never use lip gloss?
never use lip gloss

13.) Would you rather shave your eyebrows and have none at all or sharpie them in everyday?
I pretty much have to draw them in every time I use make up, so...

14.) Would you rather live without makeup or nail polish?
nail polish

As usual I tag everyone, if you do it, leave me a comment with the link

Lil xx

One time, at band camp...

I thought long and hard about this one post, the post about my big modelling experience in Italy in June and... I came up to the conclusion that it would be WAY too long and people would get bored.
So, instead I'll do a little photo gallery with captions.

Plus as far as I'm concerned the trip dripped(see what I did there?!) with awakenings and realisations and little moments that would be too personal and difficult to explain, especially to an audience of "normally sighted" readers.

So, here goes and I hope you enjoy...


a relaxing Sunday by the pool; yes, the tan is ALL mine, not from a bottle or a bed! Later that day Florence saw the worst down pour in YEARS: about a foot of rain came down in less than half an hour. Town was a complete chaos and navigating our way back to our designer's place was quite the adventure!


After spending a good 12 hour solid helping Alycia(far right) put the final touches to the collection, we decided to let our hair down and try to relax the night before the big day.
From left to right here you see Andrea(1 of 3 Norwegian models), good ole Carla (Alycia's Aussie best friend) and Desiree from Gran Canaria.


Here you can see the source of MANY a worry: the shoes us girls walked the runway in. We practiced every spare moment we had but they were so ridiculously dangerous it got to the point where the director almost had us ditch them. And the best part? We were the only non professional models, we had the most hideous shoes, but unlike the pro's, NONE of us fell on the cat walk!! Pat on the back all round!
Alycia tells me these shoes came to her in a dream...too much cheese that night, eh?!

(spot me?!)

A group shot with our dressers, not long before one of the 2 shows. I love how I was put in charge of "communication" with the hair and make up department. Thankfully a couple of us had brought our own powders, foundations and concealers, just in case....we ended up pretty much doing our own make up as the professionals had nothing to match our skin tone.
I have NO idea the amount of bobby pins, hair spray and wax it took to keep my hair in place ALL DAY in that super tight bun. I had to spray my bangs in place every half an hour...

This is me (yes, really!) wearing and capturing the 3 piece you wouldn't be able to see on the cat walk. You can pick up one of the style inspirations for the collection: the 20's.


Here's one of the shots of the group mid show, I'm the one at the back with the "mop" on my head. See, the cape coat covers pretty much most of the underneath.
Now, imagine us coming out one at a time, pretty slowly compared to a normal cat walk show speed, a loud imposing music, like during THE scene in a movie, and then stopping in this formation for a few seconds....apparently we made a BIG impact and the whole thing was pretty moving, we heard reports of several members of the public actually being moved to the point of crying!


A couple of shots where you can see me better...


Guests of honour at the after show party. Aly's collection (amongst more than 60 of them) won one of 4 prices being given that day as "Most creative collection", which has given her an enormous amount of publicity. We're talking pretty much one of the top fashion schools in the whole world here...

The show was obviously covered by everyone of who's who in the fashion sphere in Italy and we ended up on a few web sites, the 2 most important ones being Style.it and fricking Vogue Italy, people...VOGUE ITALY!!!!

Aly's main inspiration(and aim at the same time) was the attention to the condition of people with albinism in Africa and especially in Tanzania where they get killed for body parts, believed to have magic powers. Families and relatives are so desperate they will even sell their own for a bit of money, children being killed and dismembered in front of their own siblings and parents. Those who can afford it have got to the point of living every second with body guards.
If you are interested in finding out more, just google and you'll get into a whole field of cruelty and gruesomeness.

I hope you enjoyed this little peak through the key hole, and if you have any questions I'll be more than happy to enlighten your curiosity.

Lil

I could use a dream or a genie or a wish

Can we pretend that airplanes
In the night sky
Are like shooting stars
I could really use a wish right now
wish right now
wish right now