fruitybeauty

When you're busy, your skin starts to hate you.

Especially when you REALLY don't need it to misbehave and start being dry and spotty and just generally quite shit.

It's the crap food you eat when you work back.
It's the rubbish cold, dry weather and the heaters.
It's the water you forget to drink.
The gym you don't go to.
The flying, the wine at dinner to relax from the big days and the scorching hot showers you take to relax.

So, you know what I do when all of this happens and my skin is all like, "Oh, poor me, I'm all reactionary to stress, ooh, I'm so upset and dismayed at the way you're treating my body, oooh, why don't I just go and cry about it like the big epidermal baby I am, waaaaaaaaah," and I'm all like, "Whatever, skin, I'm gonna get me some beer battered chips."

Usually, I'd recommend a quick DIY peel (very much enjoying La Prairie's new 3 minute peel, after all, who has 4 minutes?) and a little hydrating mask (Alpha-H does a cracker called the 15% Glycolic mask. If you haven't heard of Alpha-H, I suggest you trot over to their site and sniff around. They are very very underrated, and very very good. Strayan, too. I love their Liquid Gold lotion, the aforementioned mask and their Micro Cleanse scrub. KaPOW! Spots gone, skin clear and all hydrated. Take five, Alpha-H. Your work here is done.)

But today I'll recommend a holiday to the Seychelles.

I can recommended an amazing travel agent, if you need one. Here he is, all ready to book your flights for you.

And now over to Fruity for the Overt Product Adoration Segment.

Brought to you by:

ELES sheer mineral tint, a tinted moisturiser slash illuminator, which is giving my face the most delicious glow, and being mineral is of course non-irritating (which was IDEAL after being given a nasty, acne-esque rash from one of the 456 products I tried last week at some point: rash covered, no further skin irritation). I wear it alone on weekends, but through the week when I need to look all professional like, I combine this with...

ELES Liquid mineral foundation which is excellent because I love the finish and sunscreeness of mineral makeup, but have the accuracy and carefulness of a drunk wearing a blindfold on rollerskates when it comes to applying powder anything. So, with this, I get the benefits of mineral makeup, sans mess. It's sets as a powder, (although I wouldn't call it a matte finish, just nice and flawlessy) which is why I blend with the Sheer Tint, so that I get the dewy finish I've been loving since 1963. And! ELES is an all 'Strayan brand! Stone the flamin' galahs!

Estee Lauder Sumptuous mascara, which kindly gives me glamorously thick, overweight lashes every day, in just a few simple strokes. But they're still light, if that makes sense. No matter how much you put on: no clumpy. Lauder have delivered some cracking mascaras over the past few years, (special nods and knowing winks to Projectionist and Illusionist) and each of them have been marvelous in their own way (curling, separating, lengthening, dancing), but who am I kidding: I'm a volume whore. Always will be. I love volume like Meowbert loves Toobs.

Decleor Aromatic Essential Balm, also known as The Thing That Keeps My Skin Glowy despite heaters and air conditioners and performing massive aerials at Thredbo on the weekends. If you like La Mer, or Ella Bache Creme Intex (it's like I'm addressing myself here), you'll be so down with this, you'll probably need to dig a hole for how far down you are.

Aaaaand, cut.

To those asking about Primped, not long now, fruits. Not long at all. We're working our asses off (saves going to the gym/spending on cellulite creams) to get it PERFECT before we launch and elegantly and aggressively create an entirely new way to enjoy/drool over/learn about beauty.

Antigone: Sings, dances; has great hair.

My sister Antigone, is a very clever lady. If you look up clever in wikipedia, it says, See: Antigone Foster.

I haven't actually checked that, but I'm pretty sure it does. I'm pretty much always 100% accurate when I make stuff up. Anyway, so she's a singer/songwriter/performer/fox, and her voice will probably already be familiar to you, because her stage name is Brian McFadden. Haha! But seriously, it's Enrique Iglesias.

No, no, no, she sang this song, which you would definitely know, and this one too, which you would also know, if you ever listened to awesome music at any point over the last couple of years.

But she's now gone solo, after hauling buttock to the UK and she's just dropped her first solo track, More Man Than Man, which is already a Top 10 UK Club chart hit, and which is catchier than than a one year old with a cold.

Check it out, Fruits. Check it out and try not to get that hook embedded into your noggin.

Creme blush application tip mimics multinational sporting brand logo; blogger awaits legal action

So, I just learned a wonderfully simple and effective and easy-to-pass-off-as-your-own-tip application technique for creme blush from a wonderful M.A.C makeup artist, Lisa.

It's to apply in the shape of the Nike symbol.
If you have just returned from Saturn, (how amazing is the coffee there?!) this is the symbol she is referring to:

You start the symbol on the apple (fleshy part of your cheek) and then take it down, and then up and under the cheekbone, right back to the top of your ear. Repeat on the other side of face. Blend any edges with a clean foundation brush or clean, blush-free fingers.

This part: "under the cheekbone" is crucial, because if you apply your blush above your cheekbone, you drag your whole face down, and that ages you, and unless you are 13 or attempting entry into a licensed residence as when you are yet to blow out 18 candles jovially placed on an iced cake, you don't want to look any older than you actually are.

Simple.
Clever.
Looks Very Good.
Try it.

Ps Many kind thanks to all of the fun, gorgeous, excitey fruits who came and got a book signed at my Myer/M.A.C makeup parties yesterday and today. You guys made me feel very special. Especially since I had texta marks (yesterday) and chai latte spill (today) screaming at you from my dress and you were all kind enough to pretend not to notice.

M•A•C makeovers! Pens being used to sign books! Excellent fun had by all

Once upon a time (12 noon til 2pm) there was a day called Friday July 11, 2008. And on this day a young lass called Zoe Foster stood at the M•A•C counter at Sydney city Myer and watched as talented makeup artists gave fun women complimentary makeovers that matched the looks in a book she once wrote called Air Kisses.

The looks were created by M•A•C Senior Artist and hotstuff genius person, Nicola Burford, and were inspired by the characters in Air Kisses: One was called Illuminated, and was a lovely glowing, no-makeup look. One was called Hannah Red, which featured a deliciously dramatic red lip, and the third one was Thunderstorm Brewing, which was a sexy, foxy, minxy and other words meaning 'attractive' and involving the letter x, smoky eye.

And so these women came to this M•A•C Myer counter and they had their copies of  Air Kisses signed as they enjoyed one of these three magnificent looks being applied to their face and then they all went out that night, some to dinner, some bowling, some to origami making class and some to the kind of nightclubs that charge $17 for a vodka, lime and soda and give you attitude when you ask for a glass of water please, and they all looked incredibly beautiful with their professionally applied makeup and took lots of delightful photos that ended up on Facebook but they didn't un-tag any of them because they looked so hot.

And then, the very next day, July 12, at the very same time of day, Zoe Foster did the EXACT same thing at the  M•A•C Myer counter at Parramatta because she enjoyed it so much the first time. THEN she did it again, but this time in Melbourne city Myer, on Friday July 25.

The end.

For more details and less fairytale, open this file: Download book_signing_media_alert.doc

For a really cool thing to do on Friday or Saturday during your lunch break, go back to the top of this post and read it again.

You know how Perez always talks himself up and it's really annoying?

I'm about to do the same!
Huzzah!
Let's smash some Annoyingometers!

So, I went on Mix 106.5 this morning, and Sonia Kruger has this incredible skin right,  and looks about 18 and she's really actually very hot, in that guys-swivel-heads-in-the-street way. Todd was a cracker, and you know, it's funny, I was nervous, right, cause you wonder if they're gonna throw you a curve ball and you won't be able to answer it, or you'll answer it terribly, or you'll swear (guilty, your honour) or you'll just be extraordinarily dull. But they were so nice and enthusiastic, all my nerves went down to my toes, and out the ends of my French pedicure.

God! This isn't about toenails! It's meant to be me BRAGGING! Stay on task, man!

Here are some links to some sweet bloggy girls who have written nice bloggy things about Air Kisses for a small fee and a Vegemite sandwich. There's Girl With A Satchel, who is one of my beauty editor cobbas and all-round unreal woman, and who published an enormously enormous interview with me about why umbrellas belong to s secret cult whose job it is to escape human beings (mostly at cafes and on public transport) and get back to The Umbrellatron, which is a large spaceship run by and full of umbrellas and due to leave earth within the next 100 years. Or the book, can't recall which.

Just now the beautiful, clever, generous Mia Freedman has cooked up a lovely little slice of post pie on her blog, Mamamia, which, like GWAS, you've probably already got on your favourites and would've seen without me politely bullying you there. But! It is a lovely, blush-inspiring post nonetheless. She also made an incredible speech at my launch, which to a girl who sent her faxes (kind of like email, only less 'e' and more 'pain in the ass') as an optimistic 15 year old, trying to secure work experience because I adored her, is pretty cool for me. If by 'pretty' you mean 'arctic'.

Here is one by a girl called Belinda who will probably intern with me at Primped sometime soon, because she's eager (sends emails regularly) and has started a blog (shows initiative) and is said to be the daughter of a man who owns a chocolate factory (has lots of chocolate.)

Then there is UK based blog, beautypopstar, who found me via my amazingly, super massively talented sister  Antigone talking me up on her myspank page. Just on that, Antigone's brand new, definitely excellent single, More Man Than Man, dropped YESTERDAY and if you liked that song "Ooh, The Bass Has Got Me Movin'" or "The Whirled You Live" then you'll love this track because GUESS WHAT? Those other two songs are also by her. Zing!

What's that? You want to know if I have any other siblings doing new and great musical things? Well isn't that funny. Because would you believe that my brother, Levi, a DJ and producer and the guy who made nice music at my book launch last week (see visual aids 1.0, 2.0) has a new track out now also!

1.0 Signing books that lovely polite people bought so it wouldn't look stupid: me sitting at a table, pen in hand, nothing to do.

2.0 Best Dress Ever and a man-sized book cover.

I think I've exhausted my Bragging Mechanism for today. Except to say  that I will be on the Today show tomorrow morning. Yes, you guessed it, discussing umbrellas.