Have you ever….. September 6, 2010

 

The sunglasses in black are to be known as 'the beloved sunglasses' from know on

Have you ever bought something that, regardless of how cheap it was, you would be devastated if you broke/lost it? Well I have!! At the start of the summer, I picked up a gorgeous pair of sunglasses (the glasses above in black) for the bargain price of 3 euro in Dunnes.

Never had I owned a pair of sunglasses that suited my face so well. Of course, I didn’t have the foresight to pick up a second (or third or fourth) pair at the time, and so when the arm of my beloved sunglasses broke, I was devastated!!!

It wasn’t until then that I realised how much I LOVED these glasses. I repaired the arm of the sunglasses with super glue to act as a temporary measure, until I could pick up a new pair but….you’ve guessed it-I couldn’t find any replacement, no matter how many Dunnes Stores I looked in.

After the arm snapping for the second time (and super glue barely keeping my precious sunglasses in one piece) I realised that I might just have to accept defeat

On my last search in a Dunnes I was passing, they were having a sale on sunglasses and I picked up these beauties.

Organized Earrings August 24, 2010

My beautiful, organized earring collection!!

 After seeing Arlene’s post on organizing her wardrobe, over on her Dress Junkie blog, I decided that my life could do with a bit of organizing …… starting with my earrings!! 

I was doing a few web searches, but found that a lot of earring organizers were quite pricey. I went to my old reliable (ebay) and found a lot of two clear perspex earring holders for $5.99 including shipping. Well that was too good to miss, so I placed my bid, waited a few days until I got an email confirming that I had won the bidding. As no one else bid on the earring organizers, I got them for $5.99.  This works out, as about 4-5 euro, which is pretty good in my books. 

The organizers have 120 holes and can hold 60 pairs of earrings. These are ideal for stud earrings or short drop earrings, as you can see below. 

A close up of my stud and smaller earrings

It was a dream to organize my earrings, all I had to do was slip them through the hole and put the back of the earring on, to secure the earring in place-easy peasy.

Xpose Live Comes to the Rebel County June 26, 2010

I am really looking forward the Xpose Live show-I saw a few snippets of it on the TV and it looked great. Will let ye know how I get on. Has anyone gone to it in Dublin last month and if so, was it any good??

UPDATE

(Sorry it has taken so long to get this review up  )

I was really impressed with Xpose Live. Though the venue was small (The Silversprings in Cork)-well much smaller than the RDS at any rate, there was still quite a lot of vendors present. So, here’s the low down:

Beauty

Make-up

Though there wasn’t a huge amount of make-up stands, with the ones present, I was quite impressed. There was a great stand that had all Bourjois make-up and had an excellent offer of 2 items for 5euro or five (YES-I said five) items for a bargain-tastic 10euro. I may have indulged in this offer-what self-respecting beauty hound wouldn’t?

The stand that I was most impressed with was the GOSH stand. Any three gosh products (with the exception of the primer which was 10euro) for 10 euro. This included foundations and other make-up bits (blushes, shadows, lipsticks, eye liners, etc) and make-up brushes. I picked up two Gosh pencil eye liners in petrol blue and lime green shades as well as a pink lipstick. They were such a bargain as most GOSH products start at 10euro plus anyway.

The disadvantage with this stands however, was that there were no testers available so it was a bit of a luck-dip regarding colours and you really were relying on the colour on the packaging, which I know from experience isn’t always a great way of selecting make-up.

Smashbox were also present, with makeup-artists on hand to advise or do your make-up and were offering a respectable 10% off of all their products (If it was a 3-for-10euro offer, like GOSH, I may have ended up purchasing the lot!!).

Fragrance

There was one perfume stand selling celeb perfumes. While it was a good deal (five or so full-sized perfumes for 30-40 euro), I’ve smelled more fragrant bottles of alcohol. On another note, I’d hadn’t heard of half of the ‘celebrities’ that put their names the perfumes.  Even if I had heard of them, I still wouldn’t have been interested. I never buy celeb perfumes as I see them as money-making schemes for celebs who have plenty of money in the first place (a rant for another perhaps…..)

Fashion

There was quite a lot of fashion represented there from shops and boutiques around the country offering 10 to 20% discounts off of their clothing. Other stands had rails of clothes, where everything on that rail was 20, 30, 40euro, etc. To be honest, the clothes stands didn’t interest me much the que’s for the changing runs were extremely long and the changing rooms were temporary constructions of cloth cubicles in the middle of the function room!!!! As a result, I decided to pass on the clothes, as I never buy something without trying it on.

There was a few jewellery and accessory stands also offering small discounts of 10 or 20% off. They hadn’t anything that I hadn’t seen before, so I passed on these also.

The Fashion Show

The fashion show, aside from the bargain makeup stands was one of the best things about the show. Karen and Ashling from the show opened the show, looking oh so glamorous and waif-like in person (whoever said the camera adds ten pounds obviously hasn’t met Karen Koster) for 11am on a Sunday. The show began with a dancing crew/troup? (I’m not too sure on the lingo these days ) rocking it up on stage, before the models came out. The same dancers also provided entertainment during the interval of the show also.

The styling of the clothes was amazing, with some very imaginative themes being used-one was Alice in Wonderland. Think hearts and spades, puffy skirts, ankle socks worn with strappy sandals and large pocket watches. I don’t even like the Alice in Wonderland story, and I was well impressed! One of the models had a Brittany moment, where she came out, and the clothes were the secondary focus, with a large and REAL snake wrapped around her neck. I got a bit worried, as the snake started slithering south by the time she reached the end of the runway….

With regards the clothes, there were offerings from all major department and clothes stores, e.g. BT’s, Debenhams, Awear, Oasis, etc., as well as offerings from boutiques around the country. The only negative about the fashion show, was that there was only two rows of seats around the runway, which resulted in the rest of us not lucky enough to get a seat (ahem, me) standing for the hour-long show.

Fashion, Make-Up and Hair Master Classes

After each fashion, there were master classes run by stylists, hairdressers and make-up artists demonstrating how to get certain looks and sharing their tricks of the trade, which I quite enjoyed.

Celebrities

Sadly, I didn’t spot many celebs, seeing as I went to the last day of the event. The most famous people I spotted were the lovely Xpose girls and guy and Breffney Morgan from the Apprentice and Celebrity Salon.

Competitions

On the day there loads of companies giving away prizes-“Would I like to win a spa weekend for myself and my friend?”, “Yes, yes I would. How do I enter?” J Sadly, I didn’t win anything on the day-oh well….

Goodie Bag

The goodie bag wasn’t anything to write home about. It contained no beauty products (sob), or full-sized items if you exclude the bag of Taytos and Go-ahead bar. It mainly contained discount vouchers and samples from sponsors or vendors present at the show, i.e. Lyons tea-bags, and seven Well Woman vitamin tablets.  I think that the goodie bag from the ‘Glow Feel Good Days’ set the bar so high that it has spoiled me for all other goodie bags!

The most vital question-Would I go again?

A resounding yes!!!! I had a great time, and think that for 20euro, it was great value. The discounts available far outweigh the cost of the ticket, and that’s not even factoring in the fashion show.

Were any readers at the show in Cork? What did ye think?

“And she said what about breakfast at Tiffany’s….” June 25, 2008

A piece of Tiffany jewelery is not just for Christmas..... but for life!!

Years ago, I thought that we were really cut off from the rest of the world, in terms of communications, technology, products ……..

Maybe I shouldn’t go there because there were a LOT of areas where we were behind in! However, our fair isle is definitely not as cut off as it used to be, particularly in terms of brands and products, as various brands are becoming available in Ireland for the first time.  For instance,  the stunning Tiffany jewellery brand is now gracing our beautiful shores in a Brown Thomas near you.

So what exactly is all the hype about this jewellery. Well (said while I sigh loudly and wonder where I start), when you think of Tiffany jewellery you think of duck-egg blue wrapping, beautiful packaging, excellent quality and craftsmanship, elegance and serious, dazzling bling! Is that not enough reason in itself to purchase some, I ask?

While I may not be able to afford the gorgeous jewellery on display, I can always drool…