Three of the Best... Primers.

1. Lancome LA Base Pro oil free primer gel, £28

The moment the sales lady pumped a bit of the primer gel onto my hand, I knew I had to buy it. It's a really light, clear gel that is perfect for oily skin, and doesn't clog pores. After application, it leaves a really soft-skin feeling, and a great base to add make up to. One pot will last you a year - a small pump goes a long way!

2. Benefit PoreFessional, £24.50

This balm is amazing, aiming to minimise the appearance of pores. It's a thick but with a lightweight consistency that is surprisingly silky, and is a natural/translucent colour that will blend in with any skin tone. I add a bit first thing in the morning to reduce shine on my nose, but it's perfect to reel back in that pre-evening 'shine' by applying it on top of your make up. (I even know a few men who swear by this, to reduce shine and pores.)

 

3. BareMinerals Prime Time (Oil Control), £21

I finally treated myself to a pot of this because EVERYONE seems to have it. (Therefore you'll know how good it is already.) The oil control is a more whitey-translucent colour to the regular Prime Time, which is much more clear. The oil control has a bit of an odd (but faint) smell to it, but is really light and silky, and creates a flawless blemish-free base. When applying it to my skin, it felt rather like a glue, and I could feel it 'tightening' over my face. It was then really easy to apply the make up, as it feels like it glues the foundation onto my skin - there's definitely no budging it! 

All these primers are amazing, and I like to alternate them on a regular basis. If I had to take one to a desert island, however, it'd probably be the Benefit PoreFessional as it's great for touching up shiny areas throughout the day, and can be used as a primer. For holding make up down for a long amount of time, it's got to be the BareMinerals Prime Time oil control - great for those who exercise with a full face of make up (ashamed to admit I'm one of them). I use the Lancome LA Base Pro on a daily basis though as it's unbelievably light weight and provides a really nice texture on my skin to add make up. 

Shopaholic? Moi?

I'm the sort of person who'd rather spend a chunk of money on something truly amazing (a designer handbag, or the same pair of shoes as Kate Middleton) and live off peas and gravy for the next month, than stare at Net-a-Porter on a daily basis pining for some 5-inch suede pumps and fritter that money away on luxury food shopping (who needs halloumi anyway?), Amazon wish list splurges (buying presents for myself), and extravagant meals out with friends. Of course, I don't intend to turn into a hermit for the next few months, but by cutting back, in a month or two I'll be right back to where I was... Only with a fabulous pair of shoes in my wardrobe. 

Maybe it's due to my obsession with Gossip Girl and Sex and the City type boxsets, where you can never be too rich or have too many shoes. I'm the modern day girl finding that balance between paying rent each month, and investing in another classic luxury item. I'd rather surround myself in spreadsheets, lists of pros and cons, and progress 'thermometers' (made up of segments you shade in to mark your progress) with a clear plan of making that money back, than to just sit and dream.

I'm not much of a drinker or party animal, I walk to work, and I'm lucky to have bills included with my rent. As I reasoned with my first pair of Louboutins on my 18th birthday (another present to myself), 'now's a better time than any to spend money on something big - no bills, no kids, no debt'. I will hasten to add that debt can come from too much shoe-buying, but I think I've proven that I take cautious steps to scrimp in other areas of my life (the peas and gravy weren't bad at all, although the boyfriend objected to it and ended up buying me a Sainsbury's gift card!). 

It's not bad spending a lump of money on something that is a) high quality b) going to last, and c) not going to go out of fashion. I came up with many 'pros' for my most recent purchase (7, incidentally), as opposed to 'cons', and also compared it to a list of pros and cons for an iPad. (The shoes won by 2 points. Although I will admit that one of the pros for shoes was to one day have a floor-to-ceiling built-in shoe rack to display my thousands of pairs of shoes... You know, Carrie Bradshaw-style.) I'm not saying spend money on whatever, whenever. If it's something you've wanted for ages and you know will stand the test of time (that's why iPad's are 'out' unless you really do have money to squander), then have a look at your financial priorities and see where you can save to enable you to 'splurge' elsewhere.

My top tip for today, however, is one word: eBay. Ebay the shit out of your junk. I'm so ruthless, I can't even be bothered to have the stuff hanging around in my room for a week whilst people bid up to a measly £3 for an ancient jumper or out-of-fashion handbag. I attempted it again yesterday after many years of throwing an obscene amount of stuff into charity shops, and you can imagine my surprise when someone bought my old Paul's Boutique bag outright for £20. Didn't even bother with bidding! So my progress 'thermometer' is has started with a good surge, to my delight. 

Stop spending your money on silly little things; items of cheap clothing here and there, meals out and impulse buys online (post and packaging charges are ROBBERY), and you'll have the money to spend on something really amazing. 

Ask yourself: "Impulse, or investment?" By which I am classing designer shoes and bags as an investment as they will stand the test of time, both in wear and in fashion terms (so long as they're not the spotty green or patchwork Manolo Blahniks - shocking!), and quality is better than quantity. I'll also tell you that my shoe obsession has stopped me from ever looking at a pair of New Look shoes again!

Save well, spend wisely. 

Handbag Trauma

During my gap year in Paris, I treated myself to a mustard-yellow Marc by Marc Jacobs handbag. I still remember the whole experience with fondness - paying the very helpful and rather flirty sales guy my hard-earned and totally deserved money, who then chased after me with the box for the bag which he’d forgotten, and the satisfaction of leaving the shop with a bigger-sized bag that the one I’d gone in for. 

Three years later, and the bag was going grey and looked… well to be honest it was a complete embarrassment to have it hanging off my arm. So I did what any straight-thinking, money saving woman would do, and purchased a small pot of mustard-yellow shoe cream online, with the intention of ‘buffing’ it back to beautiful. I still don’t fully understand why it was such a bad idea… I was using common sense, wasn’t I?

Apparently not, and after days of returning to it to see if another 5 minutes of scrubbing cream into the leather would revive it, I gave up. Still grey, and now with a sticky coating all over, I put it into a Tesco bag and left it on top of my wardrobe for the next 7 months. The shame!

So come Christmas time I finally decided to do something about it. No, pay someone to do something about it. It didn’t take long to find a host of ‘handbag clinics’ online, and after  phonecalls and several quotations, I settled on handbagmakeover.co.uk, the cheapest and friendliest by far. 

They sounded really great, despite admitting after I explained my revival attempt: “Thank god this isn’t a video call or you’d have seen me totally cringe at the thought!”

So I shipped off my sorry-looking mouldy-mustard coloured bag and hoped for the best (and also hoped that it wasn’t a scam where people willingly send off their designer bags to an unknown address). Within a week, I received an email displaying photos of a brand new-looking bag. Shiny clean, back to it’s bright mustard yellow, and polished to the nines. My DIY attempt cost me an additional £10-20 for a ‘de-grease’, but the bag surgery was worth it. 

These websites have before-and-after galleries to show off their handiwork which is always fun to browse through - although HOW someone could put oily items or loose bottles of make up into a Mulberry Bayswater is quite beyond me. One lady had lost her Chanel bag to a house fire, resulting in one surviving panel. It did make me question, however, if it was still technically a Chanel bag if the four new panels had been made by someone other than Karl Lagerfeld, but then again I’d be pretty distraught if I’d lost a £2000+ bag to flames.

I paid £104 to have my bag revamped and revived - and some websites offer a total re-colour of your choice on your bag. It’s definitely cheaper than a new one, but do look after your bag in the first place, and definitely do not attempt a DIY involving shoe cream of any sorts!