A beauty treatment that actually works

I am obsessed with changing my face. I’m not blaming the media or advertising, this issue I am laying on my poor self esteem and desire for a non-freckled face and perfect eyebrows.

I‘ve had dismal results at getting the non-freckled face. Laser, the GDP of a small country spent in face creams, hiding from the sun in a manner vampires would approve of and I still have skin that would best be described as “pigmented”.

But eyebrows seem so much more manageable. The problem has always been the maintenance. I was getting them waxed and threaded and dyed and while they often looked quite okay, the periods of looking good were short.

So recently I decided to consult with a “specialist”. Someone that the inimitable Zoe Foster Blake had told me about in a previous life where Zoe and I chatted about beauty products for work.

I called Lien.

Okay we all know I didn’t call her. I don’t call anyone. I emailed her. She emailed back saying I should call her. I withdrew into my doona and fantasised about Zoe’s eyebrows.

Then I took the huge leap of courage and called her. Should have prepped with a valium.

“Send me a photo of your eyebrows” she said

Gasp.

Wait. What? A photo of my eyebrows? Like a selfie just of my eyebrows so she could assess the “damage” I had done to them. Her words not mine.

“I only do consultations where I can help people” she said.

I didn’t even know what that meant and I began to think she was quite mad. I wanted to put down the phone and tell her to stop being pretentious. But I had met her many years ago and I actually really liked her.

So I sent her a photo of my eyebrows and she agreed (Yes! Agreed!) to see me.

We made an appointment for that Friday which I think may have been the hottest day ever so I arrived at the salon literally glowing. Okay Sweating.

I walked into the room which you could have mistaken for the cubicle of a geometry nut. There was a ruler, set square, memories of year 10 maths and Pythagoras’s Theory. And eyebrow gel (okay so a geometry fan who has on point eyebrows).

Now normally when you have your eyebrows done you are treated to a little lie down while they tear hot wax off your face. But not here. Lien got me to sit upright on a chair so my face was at you know, a normal angle.

She made me hold a mirror in front of my face for the whole procedure which is one of the worst things you can do to me. But I was too scared to object, Lien had an authoritative tone and the best eyebrows ever. I wanted her to weave her magic on me.

She showed me the angle (using an actual ruler) that I wanted my eyebrows to be at. She showed me how to even them out so if I added to the top the bottom should match. Think parallel lines people, this is geometry class.

I’m going to be honest, I was not looking my best that day, my makeup had melted off in the heat and I was hot. I don’t cope with heat. But she magic-ed my eyebrows. She made them all gorgeous and frame-y and I could see an actual difference.

Therefore it is not recommended to drive a vehicle or perform any heavy duty tasks.One should tell their doctor prescription viagra prices about the possibilities, and do not give up. The leading order viagra online portal gives purchasers every possibility to place an order of their diverse choices with myntra. Today! cialis 60mg Many women are trying to get pregnant naturally. Headache Chiropractic therapy can low priced viagra be effective against a migraine which is caused by problems with the cervical vertebrae. And she did not use a drop of wax. She did not pluck them out with thread. Using a tweezers, eyebrow pencil and wizardy she just made them look really good. Like hers.

This was going to have to become my new go-to place for eyebrows. I was secretly hoping it wouldn’t involve any more phone calls and quietly calculating how much this was going to add to my budget.

But then she spread the final bit of magic. “I am showing you how to do this so you don’t have to come back” she said.

“What? Ever?” I asked, the incredulity barely escaping my lips. I have never had a beauty type person say not to come back.

“But…but…but how do you make a living if I don’t have to come back every 4 weeks?” I asked as if I had just become her career/financial advisor.

She explained something about her love of teaching and her desire to do more than make money but I was so gobsmacked I barely listened. Also I was staring at my eyebrows.

It’s a few weeks later now. I have awesome eyebrows and a huge crush on Lien.

And now I am developing a new obsession – getting rid of the creases, I mean crevices, in my chest.

What’s been your best beauty trick/secret?

Edit: This is a very bad before and after picture reference because I am a shite photographer and hate selfies and think that maybe the evidence is better in real life. I just took the after shot about a minute ago after some people asked me on Facebook so there is no brow on my gels or any other trickery – just their new natural shape.

before

This is the picture I sent to Lien

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

after

This is my “unmade” eyes taken 4 weeks after I saw Lien

I can’t call the hairdresser

My absolute hatred of using the phone to make calls is playing havoc with my hair. It’s not that I’m twisting my hair anxiously while I’m trying to pluck up the courage to make a call (I am) and it’s not that the fear has reached the point where it’s falling out but it’s stopping me from having it cut.

I hate talking on the phone but my very worst thing is calling people I don’t know.  To top that off calling people I don’t know to make appointments for myself is so heinous that I don’t actually do it. Or at least I try not to unless it’s essential to my son, my husband or my health. Hairdressers don’t fall into the essential category.

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A fate worse than half picked nails

There are few things I find as tedious as having my nails done. I know it’s a real first world problem but right now I am on holiday and trying to immerse myself only in the problems of the first world type (although to be honest I find it hard to stop thinking about asylum seekers and Kenya, and innocent women murdered and the Nigerian girls who were kidnapped nearly a year ago today – but that’s just my brain).

Before I arrived on holiday I had my nails done and sat through it in much the way I sit through everything that I find excruciating – I counted. It’s much easier to get through the nail painting if I think it’s only ten times four (ten fingers, 1 base coat, 2 colour coats, 1 top coat). What I hadn’t taken into consideration is that I find going on holiday can be a little stressful at times what with saying goodbye to the dog and flying. So naturally by the time I arrived in beautiful Port Douglas my nails were hideously picked (reference this video for a reminder of that “gorgeous” habit I share with my friend Kerri).
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I need to diet so don’t tell me not to. Especially if you’re a size 8

I spend a lot of my time online, I read a lot about body acceptance and self love, I read about diet and nutrition mainly because I am always trying to improve mine. Sadly I have yet to find a diet that advocates eating toast and nutella and drinking sweet, milky tea everyday.

The one thing that I have noticed, perhaps as a broad generalisation, is that most of the people who are spouting the “love your self, you are worthy, drop the diet and learn to love your inner beauty” message are of a certain body type themselves. And, to be honest, I am quite sick and tired of size 8 women telling me how I should feel about my size 12 body.
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The time I got into bed with my best friend

Regular readers (my sisters and husband) will know that I have been a bit chatty instead of writing last week I just jabbered away in front of the  camera.  Well, I’ve done it again and chances are I am going to keep doing it – it’s quite addictive this talking stuff and Kerri and I do a LOT of it.

This time we are talking about a million things – we touch on aging, my hypochnodria, make up routines and dirty linen. Literally.

Have a look
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Do you take your make up off before you get into bed? Honestly?

I didn’t even know you could do this to yourself at home. In 20 minutes

My problem was that I trusted a colourist.

If you know me at all you’ll know that I’m the kind of person who thinks a hairdresser is the person at the salon that does all the “stuff” to your hair. You know, like cutting and coloring and blow drying and in some unfortunate cases, thinking back to the 80’s, the perming. Then I went to a very swanky hairdresser and was informed that the hairdresser was the cutter, although I think he may have called himself a “stylist”. If I wanted colour I needed to talk to the colourist.

As it so happened I didn’t want colour per se but mostly I didn’t want the colour grey.

The colourist loved the “tones” of my hairs that weren’t grey and, in an act that made me really appreciate colourist integrity, told me I shouldn’t alter the colour of my hair at all. Apparently I was very lucky to be “blessed with natural highlights.”  Given that grey was the predominant hue of these highlights I wasn’t that sure I agreed with him. But he was convincing and so by mistake I listened to him.

He urged me to go to the supermarket, again I was happy with his integrity, and buy a colour shampoo. He said that if I bought a shade or two lighter than my hair I would cover the greys but not alter the actual colour of my hair. Sorted.

I waited about a year and then did exactly that.

caramel

I used a filter to protect you from the orange shock (and make my skin look good) But you can see how light my hair is …..that’s NOT a trick

I chose a lovely ash blonde because that is definitely lighter than my hair. I treated the actual colouring process with scant regard because after all, all that I was doing was covering greys.

Combine those qualities with the increase in crime rate, including that of unpardonable pdxcommercial.com buy viagra without prescriptions offenses like murder or rape, can be attributed to alcohol. You however need to follow generika viagra cialis all instructions if you aim to access quality results. The learner will have to complete the driving hours with legal guardians or parents in the assessment process, according to teacher training course increases the correctness of the data collected and paves the way for new options pdxcommercial.com purchase cialis and choices in your behaviors. This kind of injury, like many others besides, check cipla viagra causes intense pain and swelling during any gout attack. Actually I was very careful with my ears because I was happy with the colour of those and so I massaged the shampoo gingerly into the hair around the ear area. The top of my head along my natural path which seems to be a fertile growing area for greys was another story altogether. I rubbed the shampoo into the top of my head as if the actual process of rubbing would erase the greys.

Nobody warned me that you could lighten your hair with a colour shampoo. In fact, on the contrary, people told me that only bleach could strip away  colour and result in lighter hair.

Now I have caramel hair. It is almost the same colour as my dog which looks really beautiful on dog. Not as beautiful on 45-year old woman with fair skin and freckles.

But worse.  The hair along the top  of my head is REALLY caramel – like some kind of cheap, dodgy balyage gone wrong. And the hair at my temples is untouched, meaning that it’s grey.

I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t too bad and in fact it wasn’t even that different, surely I was just being over critical.  And then I went out and saw people that I know.

My hair is caramel verging on orange with prominent grey streaks. There is no denying it.

Nice.

At least hair grows.  A a sentence I must have repeated to myself about 100 times an hour (and heard about 100 times from other people).

Can someone explain the idea of makeup free to me?

MakeupI very rarely leave the house without make-up, I ‘d never buy an item of clothing that I thought didn’t flatter me, I try to wear my hair in a way that suits my face. I often fail.

One could say I had a low sense of self esteem or if, you weren’t tuned in to that way of thinking, you could think well, isn’t that clever, she’s putting her best foot forward, trying to make the most of what she’s got.

But if I did have a negative body image (which I do) there’s one thing that I’m sure isn’t going to raise it. Well there are a few, but I am quite certain that sharing a photo of myself without makeup won’t do anything to make me feel like I’m more beautiful.. Nor will seeing other people’s makeup free faces, as beautiful or natural as I am sure they are.

The Butterfly Foundation are hosting Makeup Free Me on 30 August to raise funds for The Butterfly Foundation which is a brilliant cause and well done them (I support any attempt to raise funds for organisations like this) . Celebrities often release makeup free shots (which are not free of good lighting and face placement), many bloggers and media outlets have hosted makeup free projects, the women of Sunrise on Channel 7 recently went sans makeup and Mamamia are hosting a makeup free promotion (seems I left in the nick of time) so maybe there are more people that actually understand this trend. I just don’t.

I find the idea of presenting your unmade up face in a bid to raise body image awareness a huge ideological jump and I would be happy for someone to explain to me just how it’s meant to work.

Is it helping anyone’s body image if we keep focusing on how people look? With our without makeup?

By rifling through hundreds of makeup free photos that are being scrutinised by thousands of other people are we feeding into the whole “looks are everything” issue? So what if you look great without makeup. So what if you look far better with a kilo of foundation on.

Seeing (and ultimately judging) other people without makeup on for a day is only focusing on how they look. I am quite certain you know when people are wearing makeup, they’re not trying to fool you. Just trying to look their best. There’s nothing real and authentic about going makeup free. Or is there something I am missing?
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I look at the galleries of makeup free woman and find the whole thing a little sad. It’s like a beauty contest but instead of the swimsuit competition it’s like some kind of “freak show”. For just one day or one photo I will wear no make up and take a photo to prove that…..And here’s where I get stuck. To prove what? That sometimes I do wear makeup and when I do it I feel that I look a little better? Like when I have my hair cut? Or buy a dress that I think flatters me?

How is it helping anyone to know that someone looks less radiant without makeup? We know that.

Some people look really good without make up. Some people don’t.

I am in the latter category and I am delighted to have makeup to help me hide the blemishes and even out the skin tones. I wasn’t blessed with flawless skin and big, clear eyes. I remember being old enough to wear make up as an important mile tone in my life. There was something I could do to give some colour to my face, some definition to my eyes. Some illusion of bones in my cheeks.

Nobody’s making me wear makeup just like nobody’s making me walk around in a pale yellow onesie which I imagine is the most unflattering outfit I could muster. I just wouldn’t do it. Even if you told me that dressing in clothes that don’t do me justice would stop body shaming.

Please know that I am not judging, or indeed, dissing anyone that has submitted a photo or is hosting a makeup free day. I totally respect what you are doing I just don’t understand it.

Can you shed some light? Can you tell me how not wearing makeup is going to change the status quo? Is wearing makeup to look better such a bad thing?