In my Beauty Bag - Revlon, M.A.C and other miracles

The typical result of Saturday mornings at the nail salon

I've been wanting a manicure for a while now. I look at my nails and long for a new cute nail colour since I had to leave the majority of my stocks home. I am now bored with the 4-5 colours, I managed to pelt in the bag, which include my favourite, Supernatural by Orly.

Once upon a time, I used to wake up at 7am on a Saturday after a long, hard week at work, and jet down to the salon, before it opened, so I could be first in line. My nail technician was excellent but did not quite understand the appointment concept. Needless to say, my nails were always looking hot. Before I left home, I still got up early on Saturday mornings - even earlier - but not to shape up my nails but to shape up my ass. The gym was now the new king of the Saturday morning torture.

Touching up my Revlon Plum Seduction look in my office

My fave polishes are too expensive here - or maybe I should be accurate and say, on no salary, it's too expensive. Paying £10-15 for a nail polish, when one needs to eat is not practical. But I still go into a store and torture myself. I love OPI's virtual polish tester which allows you to see how colours would look against your skin tone. I have read that women, and these days men, with darker skin tones should wear darker colours. I tend to disagree. I love nudes, though you have to know which nudes to wear so you don't look hood-rattish. But a perfect example of a fantastic darker shade would be Revlon's Plum Seduction, which I love love love and miss miss miss. With 15 minutes before we left for the airport back in September, I was not tearing up or hugging relatives goodbye. I was on my knees, looking under the bed for my bottle of Plum Seduction. Never found it. Gutted. It costs £7.50 here. Again, the food concept supersedes that £7.50 for nail polish.

Photo: M.A.C.

My other beauty confession. I don't wear lipstick. Ever. I don't even own a lipstick. My mother had bought me a Sacha lipstick many moons ago and I used to wear it regularly but I always got bored with having to fix lipstick during the day. Now I just don't wear it. Not even to parties or formal events. Never. It may be almost scandalous as a woman and a self-proclaimed -nista to say that, but it's true. Not even M.A.C.could make me wear lipstick. I think what always stuck in my mind was getting ready for a wedding at age 11 and someone thinking it would be cute to put lipstick on an 11 yr old, but I was still a baby and my Angelina Jolie lips were not at the sexy, sensuous stage, but just a nuisance. An aunt remarked that my lips were too big for lipstick. That sealed the deal for me. I never really appreciated lipstick much after that, even with my body and age catching up with my gorgeous lips. Furthermore, I love a dramatic eye, and you cannot or should not do a dramatic eye, with dramatic lips. The eyes win.

Bare Escentuals Rose lipgloss and
Cargo's lipgloss duo - Walla Walla

But I am a slave to lip gloss. The ones I use on the regular are Bare Escentuals in Rose, and Cargo's Walla Walla duo. One of the many reasons I go to Sephora - to stock up on my lip gloss. I have found it rather challenging here though because in winter my lips, even with copious amounts of Vaseline lip balm with cocoa butter, were cracked and peeling. What a nightmare.  One thing I kick myself for not putting in my bag was my very useful and almost essential Jamieson's Vitamin E oil. On many a dry skin and lips night, this would have come in so handy. I hope I have not aged so much already from winter and from late nights and assignments that I cannot recreate youth at some point.

I had planned to go to Oxford Street today but just not in the mood. Window shopping loses its allure when in reality you really cannot hope to buy anything. The M.A.C. store is like a behemoth of envy and desire and torment. Best to stay home - be productive. It is after all why I am going through all these diva sacrifices - to get a degree, isn't it?