The Lovely Laura from Petitmoi-bigworld has tagged me to partake in the five product face challenge.  I'm quite lazy really and make-up isn't part of my daily routine, I tend to only wear it if i'm feeling bored or particularly blue.  Occasionally i'll go through phases through which I realise that I do actually feel a but perkier when wearing it and will thus do so for a week or so but then I end up forgetting again.  I will however admit to the direct correlation between the increasing instances of me wearing it and my increasing age.

As a child I was in dance competitions as part of a group (yes really, me doing something physical and with other people too.  Obviously The Mother must have drugged my food) and make-up was mandatory, not just make-up but shed loads of it.  I hated it.  Then as a student with a zero hours contract at Principles I was informed that wearing make-up was part of the uniform.  I'm never keen on being made to do something.  Make-up became either a chore or a venting of expression.  I'd wear it as a statement, I'm a recovering Goth.  I saw little point in slaving over my face to perfect that 'I'm honestly not really wearing any make-up.  Honest' look so if i wore it, it was bloody obvious with thick black eyeliner, black, red or pink eyeshadows, coloured lashes and lots of glitter.  You get the picture.  Even at this stage though, because of the childhood dancing, I avoided foundation like the plague and stuck to plain old translucent (or white!) powder.

I'm getting older and sadder and I do actually quite like make-up and can see a difference now so I've finally relented and do have several variations of the 'making myself look human' au naturel look.  I even occasionally use foundation too.

I have a toolbox of makeup, yet for the challenge it's the go-to items, the ones you grab to use when time is limited and you just need the basics to make yourself look a little more human.

First off, you may have noticed I've already failed at the first hurdle.  I have chosen six items.  Oops.

1. I've tried several foundations ranging from BB creams, liquids, mousess, minerals yet I generally dislike the faff of putting it on, the feeling of wearing it and the colour.  I'm pale.  Ghostly pale.  I actually like it.  I don't want to be bronzed or orange.  I want to make my face look a tad less haggard without changing colour.  Even pale shades look oompa loompaish on me.  On a trip to the local market I was killing time looking at a make-up stall and found this little gem, Covergirl Tru-blend powder foundation.  It was a bargain at £2.50.  Besides the price, the good points are that it's compact, it goes on incredibly easy with minimal need for blending, it matches my skin perfectly in shade and it gives a decent coverage.  The bad point?  It's apparently discontinued and has been replaced with another bloody liquid foundation.  Needless to say i'll be stocking up on this whilst I can.

2.YSL Touche Eclat.  I already reviewed this here, so have a ganders to save me waffling about it again here.  I'm not one for fads or gimmicks but this does actually work.

3. LUSH Eyes Right Mascara.  Again, I've already reviewed this product here.

4. MUA Luxe Precision Felt Liner.  I have two eyeliner defaults, thick nasty smudgy grunge or else precision black with flicks.  For the latter this item is the bomb.  I've tried pencils, crayons, gels, liquids etc over the years but for a neat, quick, effortless line, in my opinion, a felt tip style liner is the way to go.  Every time.  You can buy far more expensive ones yet I see little point when in comparison this one does exactly what I want it too.

5. My favourate eye shadow for the quick human look is actually a L'oreal pallet there's one for blondes and one for brunettes depending on how I feel like looking that day.  They go on very smooth and the pigment is lovely.  However, I've not chosen them because for a quick and ready look you really can't beat the MUA Colour Blast eye tint in 'Stay' (I have some of the other colours too)  It's just a mere shine of colour that glides on.  No need to faff around with brushes, glide on and if needed give it a quick smudge and blend with your finger.  It gives a very subtle dewy look that's simple, natural and effective.  Incredibly quick.

6.  Yes, six.  Always one to deviate from the rules, sorry. It's only in the past couple of years that I've started to use products on my eyebrows.  I just never saw the point of doing anything other than plucking them before.  I'm not one for dramatic or silly statement brows so it just seemed a superfluous effort and purchase.  That is until I experimented.  I never realised how naked my brows looked before.  Giving them a bit of colour really does complete a look.  I'll even go so far as to say that when wearing make-up, I feel silly if I forget to do my brows.  I prefer the look powder gives them but for practicality and lack of smudge a pencil is far more logical a choice.  In typical Mama Undone style (or lack thereof) I go for the cheapest as all I want is a bit of colour and at £1 a pop including a brush you can't beat MUA Eyebrow pencil.

I'm suppose to tag five people here to do this themselves yet rather, if you're reading this and you'd like to take part, consider yourself tagged!

Still female: Mummy bags

I've never been unnecessarily huge on makeup, having performed in dance competitions as a child, it was more a thorn in my side then something to aspire to actually wanting to use.  Moving on to the teen years and it became a statement, black kohl and black lipstick were my friends, yes darlings i'm a recovering goth, do keep up.  However, now i'm of a certain age when quite frankly  I need daily intervention and camouflage from the shriveled and creased apparition that haunts my mirrors.
In particular thanks to The Toddler, those dastardly irksome shadows under my eyes.  It's like a stripe of motherhood we have to wear. I'm no makeup artisan, I'm just an every day pleb who's trying to look a little less ghastly with the aid of makeup, so what you have here is a no frills, bollocks free honest review.


Having tried various concealers and the likes over many years in sticks and pots and such, I remained unimpressed.  Lately I have invested in two products.

The first is PeepO by Lily LoLo, a corrector as opposed to a concealer having decided to take a new line of attack.  The blurb and indeed the reviews were surprisingly promising and since I'm a little bit in love with their foundation and finishing powder (more on that later) I figured I'd throw caution (and precious pennies) to the wind and to hell with it, give it a go.  It comes in the, by now familiar, Lily LoLo pot, with the nifty and practical design so you can actually turn and block the product from seeping out under the lid when not in use (take note E.L.F, this is something your mineral products lack) It's fairly tightly packed so you do have to give it a good old shake to get some content onto the lid to use.  Now I've tried using a concealer brush and my finger, I've tried blotting and I've tried dabbing and even, yes, buffing ... and not in the You Tube way either.  Yet, no matter what I try two facts remain 1) It's an absolute bugger to blend in and apply 2) For me at least, it doesn't actually work, insofar as to say after all the faffing I notice no real difference.  Arse.  At £7.49+ postage a pot, it's a rather expensive revelation.  Unfortunately they don't offer sample pots, a rather genius marketing decision on their part.  I really wanted to like this product, truly I did.

The second product is the terribly famous YSL Touche Eclat, yes I've gone all posh.  Even the makeup inept like myself can't fail to have heard celebrities, make-up artists and fellow plebs wax lyrical about this potent elixir of marvel for years.  The problem?  To be frank it's fucking expensive.  This is the one and only reason that it's taken me so many years to bite the bullet and try it.  As a rule I don't or should I say more honestly can't do expensive.  I have neither the money nor the justification to indulge. Fortunately I managed to source one at less then half price, surely that was an omen right?  It would have been rude to not try it.  Bare in mind though even at this price this is a rather significant expenditure for me.  What can I say?  I'm terribly cheap. It did take a while to actually order it as the shade guide had my brain twisting, seeing as none of the examples appeared to remotely resemble my skin, pink undertones? yellow undertones?  I thought the undertones were a band.  In the end with a mental tantrum I gave up and just opted for the original one.  Classic baby.  Yeah.

Firstly the boring stuff, the box, the gleaming sleek shiny wand pen of gold inside?  At least they had the decency to make it look expensive to match the price tag.  I admit to simply holding it for a while possibly expecting it to be real gold or to whisper sweet nothings to me to evoke instant l'amour. I even shook it a few times wondering why the spell hadn't been cast yet seeing as it's supposedly sheer utter witchcraft in a pen.  When you first use it, don't panic, you have to press the top up to 30, yes 30, times to get the product flowing.  Yes, I did have to check the instructions after I gingerly at first then somewhat frantically began pressing it panicking that I had an empty one.  I've read some people suggest using the brush end of the pen to apply it and others who insist you put the product on your hand and apply it with dabs of the finger, either way works, regardless I use my fingers to blend.

I really wanted to hate this product.  I secretly slip into a state of glee at finding out over hyped and over priced products are quite frankly utter tosh.  I'm a natural born cynic and find it terribly hard to buy into clever marketing.

However, I have to say, I love it.  It blends easily and although it's no surgical nor airbrushed perfection it does indeed cleverly deflect from the abhorrent shadow bags of doom under my eyes making them appear fresher, lighter and brighter.  Job's a good 'un.  It's really, unfortunately for the purse strings, all that jazz.  As it's technically a highlighter as opposed to a conventional concealer you can also use it on the contours of your lips, to contour your cheeks and other areas of the face.  It can be worn over or under your base and applied later in the day if you need to freshen up too.  The only cons are obviously, the price and over time the brush may become clogged with product if you don't precariously clean it frequently.  All in all it really is an absolute feel-good makeup item, several people list it as one of their must have products and yes, I can honestly see why.

I'm miserable with a cold right now, I may, when better update this post with some swatches and before and after application pics, but seriously people, don't hold your breath and if you're that interested, i'm sure Google is your friend.

Being Female

I promise i'll return with recent antics from The Party of Five soon to bore you to tears yet for now here's a post about make-up.

I'll admit i'm hardly the most proficient in the art of makeup infact i'd probably say i'm a tad slap dash what with having zero patience.  I wear makeup to express myself and not as a daily ritual.  I do not belong to the 'spending over half an hour every day skillfully applying makeup so that it looks like i'm not wearing any' brigade.  I know not a stippling brush from a bullet crease doo-dah and the word Kabuki sounds like a sultry cocktail yet leaves a rather pleasurable vibration in the mouth when spoken so much so that I'm sat here like a true berk repeating it in varying seductive tones. True story.  The closest to Mac I've been is in the waterproof pac-a-mac kind from my childhood.  See, that's the other thing, not only am I terribly skint i'm also an awful cheap skate and fiercely resent paying top end prices, more so when I am gifted with neither the knowledge nor the skill to actually make use of it so that I actually look like i'm wearing bloody expensive cosmetics.

Then comes the question of style, or should that rather be questionable style seeing as I never did succeed in truly outgrowing that petulant panda eyed sulky grunge look and as one knows  you're never cured from gothism, you're only ever in remission.

In my youth I had a caboodle case, a terribly useful contraption in bright colours that stored cosmetics, back when I hardly had any besides the trusty black eyeliner, black nail polish and lots of glitter.  Yet the years and several house moves took their toll on it's deceptive youthful looks and  to be frank, it took a battering and lost.  The thing with make-up is, you have to want to use it, and often once you have, be it the end result or merely the enforced concentrated 'me' time it's application involve, it does have an element of feel-good about it.  Yet when faced with rummaging through the murky depths of an old washbag through makeup and brushes old and new in varying states of glory and decay the alternative of bare and not-so-freshed facedness seems a trifle enticing.  Have you ever looked at buying a makeup box?  Gosh, how utterly alarming the prices are.  All in the name of vanity. Think how much Gin you could buy with that or adversely how much Valium you'd need to recover from the hole in your purse.  So, in a thrifty light bulb moment I sent The Long suffering Husband to B&Q on a mission to purchase a cheap plastic tool box.  For the total cost of £5 I got something to store and organise my cosmetic wares in.  Bargain.

So whilst on the topic of make-up I thought i'd share with you my top three recent favourate buys, short honest opinions on current products from someone who is under no guise whatsoever of being adept or talented in the art, moreso just someone who quite likes having a dabble.

So the first product is a staple favourate, black eyeliner.  I have liquid, creams, glide ons, pens, pencils, you name it.  You can never own too much black eyeliner if you're still reliving your teenage years of grungetastic gothdom.  We are what we are.  I love the felt pens for precision and kohl for drama and smudgeability.  I was recently sent from the lovely people at MUA, amongst a small treasure trove of other goodies, a 3-in-1 contour pen (actually I received two but have only tried the black so far)  Firstly, one can't possibly review anything by MUA without commenting on the price, because seriously, it's cheap as chips.  With MUA you have no excuse whatsoever to not treat yourself to some new makeup.  This eyeliner is a whopping £1.50.  From the packaging to the product itself, aesthetically speaking it's comparable to the high end counterparts being neat, sleek and yes, i'd go so far as to say elegant.  Not at all what you'd expect for the price tag.  The nib is angled, which gives incredible contouring possibilities allowing you to achieve both thick, thin and tapered results with ease.  The colour is a nice dense black, that glides evenly across your lid and waterline gently and easily, no more gouging through your eyelid with a broken scratchy pencil and it stays put.  Sure, smudge and blend if that batters your fish or simply leave it be, either way it stays put exactly where you want it to regardless of whether you build up in layers or just glide and go.  Another plus is the lack of need for sharpening, you twist and have a solid supply of perfectly contoured product to wind upwards.  I'd love to experiment more yet The Toddler had a most enormous tantrum over me refusing to share it with him.  He's such a glam rocker.

In a nutshell you need on of these in your makeup bag.  You'll probably need several seeing the rather impressive colour range on offer and quite frankly, at only £1.50 a pop, why the hell not?

Second is another makeup staple, black mascara.  It's a minefield out there with mascaras, with obese lashes, tangled curly lashes, should look fake but are real lashes, hooker-tastic lashes, drag queen lashes, super duper even Eric Northman will fuck you if you wear this lashes with a whole host of promises that in my experience are nothing more then an anticlimax.  All at obnoxious prices that turn my internal narator into a slimmer and feminine version of my dad as it mumbles aghast 'look at the bloody price of that! what is it made from liquid gold? sweat from a virgin possoms sphincter?'

Someone recently recommended Eye's Right mascara from Lush's emotional brilliance range.  Yes, Lush doing makeup, what an epiphany! The price is a competitive at £12, yet on my bufget it was  a splurge as a treat.  At first glance it's essentially a dinky bottle like something from an apothecary laboratory with a dinky brush inside.  Stop right there, a dinky brush? Oh no.  Oh dear oh dear, how quaint.  You' be forgiven for seeming somewhat bemused at this having being woo'ed by the plethora of 'wands' from the highstreet, this although charming is a stubby relation.  It's not rubber, long, curved, twisty, futuristic and nor does it vibrate (sorry ladies) However, what it does do is easily apply mascara to all your lashes, even the itty bitty scrappy ones. The Mascara though, what about the inky black elixir? The shiny wet black ambrosia?  One sentence, It doesn't clump.  Not even a little, not even at all.  No nasty clay like nightmare, just shiny, wet perfect black mascara that layers up brilliantly creating a depth of colour that doesn't clog up your lashes or the bottle and easily glides through your lashes.  Hallelujah. Someone must have blown Lucifer himself for such a dark triumph.  Then you have the added bonus' of being made from natural ingredients and not tested on animals as expected from Lush.

Finally, it's another treat from the Lush sale which was once again recommended to me.  Fantasy eyeliner from their emotional brilliance range.  Now firstly it's gold.  Yes gold.  I don't do gold.  Despite my allegedly green eyes (The Husband says they;re green yet I've had a lifetime of thinking they're blue/grey) that apparently need gold to accentuate them, I've always steered clear.  The only gold I do is white gold.  It was an impulse purchase.  Once again it's the familiar and quaint little bottle that looks as if it should have a dropper inside with some medicine born of sheer witchcraft.  It's shiny and glittery, it glimmers whorish through the glass in a 'use me. abuse me. you know you want to' to kind of way.  There's a deliciously magical feel to it, ethereal and fae like.  Firstly, shake it before you use it, otherwise the gold and the clear separate a tad, nothing to worry about.  It goes on effortlessly, even a novice at applying liquid eyeliner should get an impressively straight line.  This particular shade dries near instantly.  Witchcraft I tell you, utter witchcraft. It's wet, then before you finish saying it, it's dry.  It will not smudge, whether it's a subtle line of gold or layered and thick whilst possessed by Flash Gordon. Bloody marvelous stuff. Daytime hint of enchantment or night time dramatics, it's versatile and a little bit of genius. I just wish i could afford the other colours to trial