Its about time to clean my makeup brushes, I’ve been procrastinating for weeks and it just has to be done. This morning while doing my eyes, trying to use a gold shade, it turned up green!

I don’t tend to wash them with soap and water, they take ages to dry and the whole process its a bit messy for me. So instead, i use a milk cleanser for the foundation brushes and a cleansing water for the eyeshadow ones, teamed up with a roll of paper tissues.

Here it goes:

1. I use sample sized cleansers to do the job, i don’t want to use up my daily one for cleaning. For the foundation brushes and eyeliner ones, use a dry skin version as it is better at removing the dirt and it conditions the hairs as well.

For the eyeshadow , powder and blush brushes there is no need to use milk forms, as there is no oil in the product. A micellar solution would suffice to remove everything.

2. Using an absorbent tissue, apply a bit of cleansing product and with circular movements (like blending your makeup) start cleaning. I repeat the process until the final tissue is clean.

3. If i really want to do a proper job, i desinfect the brushes with a homemade mixture of water and surgical spirt. I store it in small pump atomiser and then spray the lot to kill the nasty germs.

Thats it! In no time you have all your brushes clean and ready to use.

How do you clean your brushes? Any handy tips?

Today it was a marvelous day, i might even venture to say that it was magical!

First i woke up at noon*, to a beautiful sunny day and a large mug of hot coffee. While i was watching E! News and browsing my favorite blogs, checking Beaut.ie Blather first as i daily do, I came across a mention of little old me on their reading list (see here)! Blimey!!

After jumping up and down in my sitting room, alerting my BF and upsetting the neighbors downstairs, i wrote a thank you comment on their page and of course in my hangover state, miss spelled ladies *hangs head in shame*. I’m such an eejit sometimes!

So if you read this, lovely Kirstie and Aphrodite, thank you so much for the mention along side with other brilliant bloggers. It really is an honour for me, that you even know about my blog and you read my rambles. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

But the magic didnt end here. While shopping for work clothes on Grafton St, i found 15 euro while crossing the street*! This never happens to me, ever! Must be my good karma hehe.

*before jugging me harshly i must add that i had guests last night. Drink might have been involved.

*felt a bit guilty about it though, i looked around for the poor sucker who lost the money but nowhere to be found. Maybe the fairies left me a tip.

Erm…not literally! I’m talking about the new shower gel goodness from Lush – Its Raining Men.

After buying four rader large bottles from The Body Shop Sale (here), I’ve vouched i will restrain myself from buying shower gel for at least a month or two. Must be sensible, i said to self. I will just use up what i have and then purchase new ones.

Well i have only to blame the lovely Amy from Makeup and Beauty.ie, who recently wrote about the new shower gel from Lush. It smells exactly like Honey I Washed The Kids Soap!!!

This beautiful honey rich, caramel scent brings back so many good memories. My first job ever was in a Lush shop (hence the fondness for the brand), where i met some of the most wonderful people in my life. I still believe to this day, that those two and a half years spent there were the best! Ah…memories…

Nostalgy aside, Raining Men is a little gem. The scent is gorgeous, it lathers well and can be used as shampoo as well. Haven’t tried it yet on my hair, but the idea of honey scented tresses is very appealing.

It retails at 10,25 euro for a 250ml bottle. Sample sizes of 100ml or large ones of 500ml also available.

I do love a Body Shop Sale, if I can say so myself. The discounts were good, consisting in mainly 50% of selected body butters, shower gels and the limited Christmas editions. I bought everything at the end of December, when the sale started but because of all the commotion with the move I didn’t have time or internet(!) to write about it. I think the sale its still on, at least it was last weekend in Dundrum shopping center.

 Some of the lines of body butters were the same as last year: blueberry, raspberry, almond which I already tried (read about them here). I was impressed of the shower gel and body scrubs selection, plenty to choose from: moringa, coconut, almond, grapefruit, brazil nut etc. at good prices: about 5- 7.50 euro the shower gels (previous 10-13 euro) and 10 euro the body butters (previous 18 euro).

They also had big tubs (400ml) of selected body butter for 25 euro, but as my boyfriend kindly highlighted it was better value to get the single ones. For example two normal pots of brazil nut (200ml each) would’ve cost 20 euro instead one big pot of 400ml for 25 euro. My man can’t be fooled he he.

Lets proceed with what I got:

Pink Grapefruit (400ml), Moringa Foaming Bath (400ml), Satsuma (400ml) and Almond (250ml) Shower Gels

Brazil Nut and Satsuma* (*not on sale, worth every penny)

I am absolutely obsessed with the Satsuma body butter, been using it every night on my arms and chest, love love love the scent of oranges! The texture it’s not as thick as the brazil nut, believe its suitable for a normal skin and not dry ones. Happily for me my skin is normal and loves every little bit of it. It’s just something really uplifting and positive about Satsuma/citrus scent, I want to get some candles or oils with the fragrance for the house.

The Brazil Nut Body Butter is lovely as well, the scent is more delicate and almost edible. Im rubbish at describing scents, I would want to say that it smells sweet like chocolate but it is not as strong.  Anyway, lovely stuff all together, thick texture and very moisturizing. Use this whenever I need a bit of pampering.

I am very pleased with all my shower gel choices, the smell lingers on the skin and in the bath and they just make the whole experience a bit different. The only back drawn is that my other half tends to think so too, despite his protests that he doesn’t need fancy shower gels and that Radox is grand. Then why do you smell of almond every time you take a shower??? Bless

Hello there, how are you lovely people? Embrace yourselves for a long one.

As I mentioned in a previous post (here), I have started 2011 in style: new job, new house, new city.  Three weeks ago, we packet our bags and left Sligo for an exciting new beginning in Dublin City. Frankly I found it quite traumatic, yes I was and still am excited of the change, but I really loved our little red brick house and the feeling of leaving all my close friends behind, sadness me.  What amazes me still, is that I found it easier to change countries four years ago, moving from Romania to Ireland, than moving from Sligo to Dublin. Life is funny sometimes.

We hunted for apartments for a couple of days, religiously checking daft.ie and making thousands of phone calls. I swear that some of the apartments must been photoshopped or something, because what seemed charming and new in the photo… was another moldy (literally) story in real life.  And don’t let me start on some of the letting agents, some of them were really cheeky on the phone… “Tell me miss are you working? Where? Oh aren’t you lucky to have a job. Can you afford the rent, it’s quite expensive you know?!”  No, I’m just going to pay deposit and first month in Monopoly money and then sell roses in front of the building and hope for the best.

Anyway, we found a lovely cozy apartment that I’m really happy with, very close to the Luas (or Lucas as Wendy calls it ) and only 15 min away from work. Awesome! Here are some pictures of my little home treasures:

 Our house and life motto. I got these pictures from Next, when they had their December Sale. They always cheer me up.

Unfortunately i had to leave behind my pots of flowers, due to the lack of space in the car. First thing that we bought when we moved in,were these new babies. They cheer up our bedroom and gives us fresh air, win win .

Absolutely obsessed with Yankee Candles and their accessories. My favorite so far are Lemon Lavender, Vanilla Lavender and Black Cherry.

All we needed was to set up the internet, TV, bins (!) and get all our deposits back from the old house. Easier said then done.

Cue another million calls to different providers, requesting our deposit money back and arranging installations. “Tomorrow we’ll post your check, you should have it in 5 days max”,said Calor(gas heating provider). Of course five days later, no sign of it, called again. “Oh, it hasn’t been posted yet, we will do it tomorrow” Arrrrrhhhhhhhhh!!! When they want my money for deposits, they want it NOW, but when refunding it I can wait, sure I’m made of money.

Sky in fairness was the easiest move, in two days had it up and running with no hassle, bless their cotton socks.

Eircom on the other hand, it has taken them three whole weeks to switch the button and give me my beloved internet, even if I had my phone line and everything already set up. Not impressed at all, they gave us three times definite dates and failed to provide each time. Don’t they know that I have to read my favorite blogs?

Also what’s the story with the bins in Dublin? 10 working days to deliver a bin??? What up with that? Where should I dump my rubbish? Ok, we recycled the cardboard, plastic and glass, but what about the rest of it? Felt like I was in my own edition of How clean it’s your house. Yes, I have been watching a lot of crappy TV.

Rant and stress over, I’m all set up and ready to start my job and hopefully, fingers crossed to start to blog more. Had mighty plans for this break like to start eating healthy, to exercise, bla bla you know…the usual. Instead, I’ve eat my body weight in M&S morello cherries pies and watched copious amounts of Mad Men and Come Dine With Me.

What have you been up to lately? Any moving house stories?