my first ever job was behind a make up counter in a discount department store. i was lucky to not be a check-out chick or work at mcdonalds like a lot of my friends, but luckier still that i got to hang out in what 15 year old me thought was actually heaven, and get paid to play with the new products. in hindsight, i'm not sure they were actually paying me to test out all the new products, but it certainly didn't stop me from doing just that. on every shift. the 5% discount was oh so good too, and was partly to blame for some of the terrible looks that came out on my face in the late 90s.
one of those particularly bad looks was a heinous purple eye shadow-and-lipstick combo that had my managers kindly ask me to remove myself from the shop floor, and remove the offending cosmetics from my face before i returned to work. i thought i looked amazing. i was sixteen. and yet here i am, almost sixteen years later, allowing myself a second attempt...
granted, this time round my choice of cosmetics are somewhat more legitimate than those i was using at sixteen, so i had a little more faith that it would be okay now. i was curious to see how the urban decay moonshine eye shadow in intergalactic* would look on, knowing how pigmented the pots of colour can be, but i was pleased as punch to find out that even the lightest dusting of the lids left both a lovely mauve colour and a super sparkly sheen around my eyes. a second layer certainly brought the mauve shade up a notch, but nowhere near the vibrant violet that still haunts my dreams.
and granted, firebird in the gwen stefani collection* is a little more magenta and a little less lilac as per my teenage preferences, but it certainly is a more socially acceptable lipstick colour, don't you think? sixteen years is a lot of time to think about mistakes you've made, and figure out what went wrong. i think the secret to my current double-purple success is keeping one shade cool and one shade warm so as to not like, overload in the one spectrum of colour. if only i could turn back time...
dress : primark | sunglasses : asos | sandals c/o shoeaholics
and, if that wasn't purple and sparkly enough, enter my new sunglasses and sandals combo to pick up the slack. these quay australia sunnies are my second pair from the brand, and i am in love. i find it really hard to find sunglasses that fit my little pea-head and that don't slide down my nose, but my first pair were so perfect that i was convinced to buy a second. the purple mirror lenses were the clincher.
i bought this dress about a month ago, when we had a really hot day and i was bamboozled into thinking it was summer. it wasn't, and i have had zero opportunity to wear it since then. today though, as you're reading this, chances are i will be wearing it. why? because i'm currently sitting poolside, or strolling through a sunny village, or headed to the beach on day two of a six-day break on the amalfi coast. i also wore it out in the storm on saturday so it would at least it will have had one other wear this year. i also wore these miss kg sandals, which was a mistake; they make a squelchy noise when they're wet... they are literally the sparkliest thing in my shoedrobe at the moment though, and were sent from the shoe heavens to jazz up dresses just like this, so imagine this whole outfit happening today, just in italy and not rainy, miserable england.
i'm taking some time off, away from here, to relax. i'll see you all in a few weeks!
