Tan Enhancer?

Oooooo I'm counting down. Only two days to go until I'm lying on the beach soaking up the sun. So thought I would take a little trip to boots to stock up on sun protection before I go. Now I wouldn't say I'm particularly loyal to any one brand in particular and since Boots are great at doing 2 for 1 I normally just pick the cheapest and be done with it. I always start with at least factor 25 because of my pasty Irish skin but I have been know to reduce down to 15 on the last couple of days though! Yes naughty me.

Anyhoo I was perusing the shelves when I came across this new addition to the Nivea sun-care range. It's the new Nivea protect and Bronze. No I have tried tan maximisers before as aftersun and sun-lotion but when you get down to the bones of it, it's just aftersun plus self tan. Which in itself is a clever idea but I found that it was ending up a little streaky especially around my hands and feet.

However this new clever little product claims to have no self tan in the ingredients at all but instead has a natural plant extract that helps support the skin's own melanin production for an even tan. Naturally I got excited as I'm a sunbaker at heart and when I'm not sunbathing I'm normally using fake tan. I checked around a few message boards and reviews and so far it seems to have gotten a great reaction so Im volunteering as a guinea pig to try this out on my hols and let you know how I get on. If I end up anywhere near the colour of this sun nymph, I'll be a very happy camper indeed!!

Anybody tried this before? Any good tips on getting a smooth even tan?

Pil Pil Prawn Pasta

This is the best and quickest pasta recipe I have ever found and a definite favourite! I am an absolute pasta hound and could eat it any day of the week, so combined with my almost equal love of prawns, chilli and garlic well this is an absolute dream of a dish.

The idea came from a dish I often have in Spain when I visit called 'Gambas Pil Pil'. It consists of king prawns baked in the oven in olive oil, heaps of dries chilli and garlic and is served with chunks of rustic bread. It is a perfect Meditteranean dish and reminds me of holidays.

At home I thought about how to recreate this dish as a main course and pasta really is the perfect compliment for these flavours.

This is the easiest recipe to make and takes minutes:
Cook pasta until 'al dente'. Meanwhile heat two tablespoons of olive oil, when hot add a teaspoon of dried chilli flakes and one large clove of garlic finely chopped. Let these sizzle for a minute and then add your prawns. These only need to re-heat and absorb the flavours so another minute of cooking time will be plenty.

Drain the pasta and add the prawns to the cooking pot and toss through. Serve immediately with plenty of freshly grated parmesan, salt and pepper.

This is perfect for a light lunch with a crispy green salad and a good catch up with the girls. Mmmmmmm.

Teasing the tresses

It's that time of the year again when I can get more playful with my hair. I can get very lazy at times and just do a quick rushed blowdry on my way into work and hope for the best. I have long strawberry blonde hair so I really have no excuse not to try some new things, especially when It really is easy.

I started to have a look around for inspiration and found these three cute styles to try.

I absolutely love this ponytail. It's cute and plyful and really handy for the beach if you are swimming or sunbathing. This will work best if the hair is not just freshly washed. I would recommend using some texturising spray like the one from Charles Worthington, it will give the hair more body and also a better grip and hold. Run your fingers through the hair to disperse the product and throw you hair upside down to add even more body. Then smooth hair from the front using a large paddle brush and secure tightly with a small band. Add three more bands to the pont tail spaced along the length and roughen up the hair inbetween each band to get this messy look. Add any hairband you fancy and voila!!!

This is my fail safe Summer beach hair and so easy to do. After washing your hair spray liberally with a sea salt spray, I like Lee Stafford Beach Babe Sea Salt Spray.

Then run your fingers through your hair to seperate the strands and spread the product. You can either leave your hair to dry naturally or i sometimes use a diffuser to quicken the process and give volume. I also find that if a twist strands of hair as I'm drying them is adds curl. Like the gorgeous Kate Hudson here you can use tongs to curl the front sections and brush out to add more waves to the front. 

I like this look for nighttime on holidays. Again it works best on unwashed hair. For added height a great product is Umbertto Gianni "Back comb in a bottle". When sprayed on to the roots it gives textured volume and adds height to up-dos without actually backcombing and damaging your hair. Spray this at the roots and crown and juzzsh the hair a little. Then grab hair up as if you were going to make a pony tail and pull through a hair elastic but not all the way, then pull hair back through a couple of times until the band is tight and grips hair. Pull out a few strands around the face and from the bun. Here it looks cut with a Grecian hairband but I would add a big flower for a Summery/ beach feel.

Do you have any good hair style suggestions? Can you reccomend any good styling products that could make Summer hair simple??

Beach combing!

Since I am off on my holidays in 5 days (yes I am counting!) I started dreaming of lying on the beach and listening to the waves lapping onshore. Now as excited I am about going to Spain, my mind started wandering and thinking about all the amazing beach holidays I would go on if money was no object and I compiled a list of five amazing beaches I hope to someday see! 

1) Seychelles, if it's good enough for William and Kate, then its good enough for me. Breathtaking!

2) St Barts, Carribean. Sugary sand, turquoise water....... ahhhh paradise. And they speak French the language of love. So romantic.

3) Koh Phi Phi, Thailand, the setting used for the movie "The Beach". It has become a little touristy since but still absolutely stunning.

4) Navagio beach, Zakynthos Greece. Wow this can only be reached by boat and has a decaying ship wreck as a centrepiece.

5) Whitsunday Islands Australia, I actually hapenned to visit the Whitsunday Islands so it shouldn't really be on my wishlist but it was so amazing I would love to go back. So amazing in fact that they filmed a bounty ad out here.


So if you are sitting at your desks bored in work and looking out at the lashing rain then these stunning photos can help you daydream away your afternoon. Mmmmm I can smell the coconut oil already..........

Feeing Blue

I have just discovered the fantastic new makeup range from Catrice. I had read about it on a few other make-up bogs but then i found it in a pharmacy in Dublin. My first Impression was the fantastic pricing of this range. It had a retail price cheaper than Rimmel, which in these tight times is exacty what a girl needs.

The  packaging is also fantastic, it's not cheap or tacky but actually has a failry expensive look and would attract the eye regardsless of whether you have already seen the price or not. I was fairly dubious about whether the product quality would be good though so I bought a nail polish to try as an experiment. Only 2.49 euro!!!

It comes in a very classy little glass bottle with a black lid and the subtle Catrice branding on the side. I chose colour 410 "Pool Party at Night". A pretty cute name I think. Its a royal blue colour. The consistency was surprisingly good. It wasn't oo runny or thick and one coat would have been adeqate but I did two for good measure. In comparison to the Rimmel lowest price nail polish it wins out everytime. I find Rimmel too watery and ALWAYS need a second coat no matter what. Plus the packaging of Catrice looks much more expensive.

I would be keen to check out more products from this range like the eyeshadow quads for 4.49 euro or lipsticks which are only 3.99 euro. Bargains!

Here is the link to the website so you can check this range out fo ryourself!

http://www.catrice.eu/home.html

Have you tried any other products from Catrice? Can you give me any reccomendations?

Bogus blind date!

So I thought it might be about time that i updated you on the internet dating. I must admit while it was a bit of a novelty at the beginning and kind of fun, I have since been finding it quite time consuming and a bit weird at times. It's amazing how quickly though you can weed out the lunatics, desperates, weirdos and the over 60's from the bumch!!

It came to the point where I had narrowed it down and was just emailing two guys. Rk78 and shyguy2010. I know, I know, it does take a while to get used to the screen names and eventually I found out that Rk78 is actually called Brian and shyguy2010 is Greg.

All was going well and I would be online with either one for an hour or so sending emails back and forth and after a couple of weeks of this slightly unnatural communication Brian asked to meet up for a drink!

Now I hadn't told anyone I was doing this apart from a close friend Rachel who has also dipped her toe into the pool of internet dating in the past. I decided to tell her I was meeting Brian incase he turned out to be an axe murderer or a train spotter...

We agreed on a mutual meeting place, full of people for security but I also had to pick a place I never normally go because I would be mortified if anyone found out I was on a blind date!!
I saw him as soon as I walked into the bar and It was like that scene from Extras where Rickey Jervais takes one look at his blind date and starts swearing.... I contemplated turning on my heel and running as fast as I could but I knew that he had seen me.

I knew immediately that this guy was not for me but all I could think was how long is long enough before I make my excuses and leave. Now I'm not saying he didn't look like his picture but whoever airbrushed the hell out of his photo deserves an enhancement award! He was smaller than he had said on his profile and he was definitely more rotund!!! In fact he was one of those guys who had been on his own for so long that he has forgotten about things such as ironing and hygiene.

 It was pretty painful conversation with lots of awkward silences. Brian only made matters worse when he told me the story of his last blind date, where the girl went to the toilet and never came back!!!! I mean why was he telling me this? Hardly encouraging plus I was slightly pissed off because it meant I couldnt do the same now!!! Darn it!

Two drinks later I made my excuses and escaped. This was after ten minutes of Brian pleading with me to have another drink, cringe. He got more desperate the more excuses I made about leaving........ I even got a text before the taxi door had closed behind me, asking me to meet him again! I'm sure you can imagine my reply!

Anyway, I'm determined to put that bad experience behind me and try not to let it put me off the next possible suitor! Although I think I might look a little bit closer at the picture next time...... Maybe shyguy2010 a.k.a Greg can restore my faith in cyber suitors!!!!

Please tell me your cringeworthy date story to make me feel better? Or maybe a sucess story to give me some hope!!!

Food Porn

I am a big lover of food! Good food and pretty much all types. I love eating it, cooking it and looking at it. I follow lots of food blogs, watch cooking programmes and buy recipe books.

I didn't think much about it until me and a friend were having a conversation about, yes  you have guessed it Food when she used the term food porn. I laughed at first but then i realised she was right. I am guilty of buying and engaging in food porn.

Now before you make any judgments, look at your own lives. Are you guilty of buying a cookery book and never making anything from it? Do you watch Jamie Oliver with an unhealthy obsession? Or feel lslightly aroused watching Nigella lick the spoon?

Well fear not, it's time we stood up and admitted our secret. Its about having a healthy attitude to food and the more "research" we do the better our healthy diets can become.

Here are some of the food blos i follow.:

www.veggiesandme.com is a brilliant blog written by Megan and gives fantastic new, modern and tasty vegetarian recipes. (I am not a veggie myself but this collection of recipes will get even the most hardcore meateater salivating!

www.donalskehan.com. Donal is fantastic, he is Irish, young and his recipes are easy so if you are starting out and need to learn the basics or are looking for ideas to whip up a food treat for your mates then this is the place to find it!

Finally (and this is my best food porn website)
www.smittenkitchen.com  I can say it enough but the food photograpy on this site is AMAZING!!! It will arouse even the laziest of cooks to try some of the recipes, or even to just salivate over them like me! It is written by Deb and her husband Alex. Deb is also a freelance photographer, hence the amazing photographs and boy does she have some talent. The food looks practically 3D, annoyingly so because I'm so tempted to reach out and touch it!

So now that we have confessed our sins, any guilt has melted away and we can continue to drool over french onion soup and death by chocolate photographs........ Don't feel ashamed, stand tall and admit you are a food porn addict like me?

Any one else share this guilt secret? Tell me your favourite food porn sites? books?