Being Accidentally Five Weeks Abroad

Recommendations & my episode of the Reading Writers Podcast

I hope you’ve had a chance to read my Bitch for a Week piece, I’ve liked reading people’s responses to it and I hope it made you want to be a bit bolder.

I appeared on this weeks episode of Reading Writers with the hosts Jo Livingstone and Charlotte Shane where I discuss the wonderful novel The Millstone by Margaret Drabble. Listen below!

Also, I am looking for more questions to advise on. Please send me your questions in this google form. Love problems, friend problems, style problems, philosophical problems, ennui problems, political problems etc.

Now, I am stopping over in New York for a few days for a wedding after having been in Europe for the last month. I only brought a carry on because I had only expected to be away for ten days. The weather in Greece changed so much over the course of October I had to pick up some layers along the way. I don’t know how I’ve been able to be so ascetic but I guess I’m glad it’s possible? The next few paragraphs are about beauty products so if that does not interest you please read further down.

Being in Greece for so long with so few products and frills has streamlined my whole approach to my makeup and skincare. Though, there’s something to be said for the fact I was eating the “Mediterranean” diet with food that wasn’t very processed. I didn’t get ANY breakouts at all.

Now, if anyone wants to offer me a beauty column again I am open to it simply because I actually put the products to the test. It’s a real “in the world” process. When I finally get home I’m going to have to purge my beauty cart since I actually don’t think I need ALL the things that I thought were necessary for my skin. Read about the time I tested all these lip products in Europe for Coveteur.

My most used products for this period of time and definitely in my forever arsenal now are:

-This Ultra Violette sunscreen… Since I didn’t check a bag I just used this for my body too.

-I’ve talked about this Danessa Myricks blush before and at one point on my trip I thought I lost it and I actually got upset (I did not lose it, I just left it back at the apartment). This is my FAVOURITE thing to use and makes me look healthy even when I’m feeling like hell. The shade I have is in Dancing Queen.

-The Peter Thomas Roth Glow Filter Priming Serum… listen I don’t really understand whatever it claims it does “5% Actigym”, but I know that wearing it as my primer under any concealer does make my skin look glowy in photos.

-The Merit brow combo. I don’t love how little product is in the Ultra Fine eyebrow pencil but it does the job at drawing fine hairs. The pomade is good on its own and after I ran out of the brow pencil, dare I say it makes my brows look a little too fluffy for my taste.

-I thought packing the Summer Fridays jet leg mask would just be for when I absolutely needed it, but I actually ended up using it as an every day moisturizer… Call me decadent!

-People are still getting panda eyes from mascara when tubing mascara is right! there! I live and die by the Milani lash extension mascara, and I’ve shed so many tears while wearing it and my mascara stayed intact…That’s a real endorsement.

-My favourite Greek discovery is the Korres brand and their more upscale line, Naxos apothecary. They sell it in New York but frankly, in Greece it’s so much more affordable. I went through two tubes of Korres body lotion.

What I read:

Nocturnes for the King of Naples by Edmund White

August Blue by Deborah Levy

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Now, you may be asking yourself why exactly I was away for so long and my answer is very much “because I could.” There are so FEW times in life where doing something spontaneous won’t ruffle many feathers in your everyday life, and whenever that happens you must throw caution to the wind.