I, along with literally hundreds of thousands of others, felt extremely seen by this tweet from makeup artist Gracey O’Connell (please follow her on Instagram and Twitter, she is fab):
I am fascinated with people’s shower routines. I want to know all about it — what order do you do stuff in, what do you use, and how often do you go the whole hog? For me, a Type 3 shower goes as follows:
Spritz in Color Wow Dream Filter pre-shower treatment, cos that Dublin water be hard and my balayage only loves getting yellow
Shampoo x2 (I always shampoo x2, despite Ethan from Lizzie McGuire’s advice)
Apply hair mask
While the hair mask cooks, I wash-a the face (yes, I do this in the shower, I care not for your cries that the water is too hot, I am not doing a separate face washing)
Exfoliate the bod
Perform a devastating, soulful rendition of cowboy like me/Mariners Apartment Complex/Vienna
Shave (this is entirely subject to what the weather is doing because who could be arsed otherwise)
Rinse
Moisturise (...sometimes)
Blow dry hair (...sometimes. If I have night showered, for example, because you can’t go to bed with wet hair, even though I have done this and will probably do it again)
Let’s get into the details. I’ll level with you: With my hair, I cannot tell the difference between expensive and cheap products. I know some people can say they switched to Kerastase or whatever and never looked back, but my hair looks and feels the same washed with Oribe as it does with Garnier. When I’m feeling really fancy I’ll get the OGX shampoos and conditioners from Boots, but only if they’re on offer. I’m sorry, hairdressers. This is just my truth. The same goes for hair masks — I will go back to the L’Oreal Dream Lengths one over and over again because it smells great, leaves my hair silky soft, and costs a whole €5.99.
I can see when people click the links I put in these newsletters and far and away the most popular thing I’ve ever linked to is the Salux cloth (unfortunately an Amazon link, but I don’t know where else to get them ATM). I cannot for the life of me remember how I discovered this, but it’s a Japanese beauty staple — a long rectangular cloth that exfoliates the living hell out of you in the nicest possible way. I’m not going to get into the leg-washing debate with y’all, but my ankles are sparkling. And you can scrub your own back with ease! Best €8 or so I’ve ever spent. At the moment I use it with Jo Malone’s stunning Poppy & Barley body wash but that was a Christmas gift and not at all typical for me — usually I am using anything that is under a tenner and vaguely coconut-scented.
And now, after all my chat about using the cheapest possible shampoos, hair masks, and body washes, I’m about to give you whiplash by telling you that I dry my hair with a Dyson Airwrap. My Airwrap was kindly donated to me by my former editor at STELLAR, Vicki Notaro, and I absolutely would not own it otherwise because a) I barely dry my hair ever, and b) it is €500. Annoyingly though, it makes short work of taming my extremely thick hair without giving me hand cramps. We’re talking ten minutes, people! For someone whose head usually takes at least a half an hour to wrangle, the fact that I can get a sleek blow dry in minutes is incredible.
HOWEVER. I pretty much exclusively use the paddle and round brush attachments — I have tried the barrels, but I find them fiddly and time-consuming for the amount of hair I have (they also make it absolutely enormous and mother-of-the-bride-y, which… no ty). If you’re shelling out the €500, you’d want to be sure that you’ll use every attachment. There are plenty of hot brushes out there that can do the same job for much less $$$ — the Revlon One Step, for example, which I had before the Airwrap and liked perfectly well.
What I will always do, regardless of whether I blow dry or not, is spritz my wet hair with the Revlon Uniq One detangler and comb through with my Belle Brush. My hair gets so knotty that brushing it frequently brings tears to my eyes, and this combo makes the process about 85% less painful. I am serious. If you have a sensitive scalp or hate brushing your hair for whatever reason, this is the way. No more tears!
Phew. This newsletter covers a lot of ground. I may be an impossible combination of high and low maintenance, but I am clean. And that’s what it’s all about.
Look of the month
I feel like I’ve been getting into a nice little makeup groove over the past month or so — usually I flit about from product to product, but I’ve been going back to certain items over and over. This is a pretty standard everyday look for me these days: Radiant skin, a simple one-shade eye, lots of mascara. S’boring, but it works. I’m wearing the Sculpted by Aimee Tint & Glow in Shade 3.0 here, which is exactly what I had hoped the Fenty Beauty Eaze Drop would be. Loaded with glow, nice coverage, lasts well throughout the day. The eyeshadow is the Smashbox Always On Cream Eyeshadow in Amber, a camel colour that could not be easier to apply — just pat the moussey formula on with a finger and go. I find that I don’t even need to use a brush to blend. I usually go for a neutral lip (because masks) but for fun, here’s Laura Mercier’s Velour Extreme Matte Lipstick in Fire. It is NEON RED. I love it.
Favourite of the month: Sculpted by Aimee Complete Cover Up concealer
I’m really on the Sculpted buzz at the moment, aren’t I? They are killing it when it comes to complexion products. I’m picky about spot concealers because I find so few actually do a good job of covering stuff up, but Complete Cover Up actually works. It’s neither radiant nor flat matte, landing somewhere in the middle — kind of like actual skin — and looks pretty seamless when applied correctly. I use the shade Fair Plus 2.5 and apply it with a small, flat brush, tapping around the outside of the spot with my finger to blend the edges. The Brighten Up undereye concealer from the same launch is also amazing, if you’re looking for a more general brightening concealer.
I’ve actually built up enough empties for another dedicated empties post (yeooo!), so expect that in the next couple of weeks. Thank you for reading this instalment of Vanity Project! Love you! Bye!