Beauty Review - Estee Lauder and Brown Thomas Gift with purchase

I have to say, I am a huge fan of Estée Lauder skincare and make-up and although it might be a little bit more expensive than some other  brands, your skin deserves it! Apart from the amazing quality of their products, another great thing about Estée Lauder is their rewards to customers by offering incentives such as 'Gift with Purchase'. Brown Thomas usually run these promotions and this time they have really outdone themselves. The March/April gift, which comes free with two or more Estée Lauder purchases, one to be a moisturiser, eye care or repair serum, is absolutely amazing. It contains a large tote bag, small makeup bag, Re-Nutriv creme cleanser and Re-Nutriv handcream, Re-Nutriv age correcting face cream and Re-Nutriv ultimate lift age correcting eye cream, Love Bite red nail polish, plum divine lipgloss, and my favourite, fuchsia fever lipstick.

The pink lipstick is so silky and the vibrant colour lasts all evening. I used this on a client at the weekend and she blotted it to make it matte, which was another fabulous way to wear the lipstick.

I am also a massive fan of the Re-Nutriv cleanser and this is something that I would use on a daily basis to remove my make-up. It smells amazing and gets a full face off in a couple of wipes! The hand cream has taken position at my desk and the bag now accompanies me to the gym!

My new gym tote

If you regularly use products from a brand such as  Estée Lauder, find out if and when they are running in-store promotions. It's an excuse to stock up on your make-up and skincare and also get some gorgeous freebies too!!

In love with this hand-cream

Weekend style, skinny black jeans and chocolate cake...

Every girl should own a pair of black skinny jeans, they are a wardrobe staple. Not only do they make you feel slim, but they go with most coloured accessories, shoes, bags and you can completely change the look with a different top and pair of shoes... as I did this weekend.

Make-up looks from the weekend 

The first half of Saturday was spent beautifying some lovely girls around Galway and I stupidly wore a black playsuit which ended up covered in an array of different makeup products. I also had to rush into River Island to return and re-buy a playsuit that I bought last weekend (my monthly payday treat) because before the courier had even graced me with that lovely red package, I got an email from River Island announcing SALE! and yes, the playsuit had gone down half price before I received it. So, I brazenly returned it and bought it again, along with two new tops in the sale that made up the difference in price! Well it is a recession and I am all about value for money...

           

I raced home to get changed for my twin niece and nephew's first birthday party and threw on my trusty black skinny jeans with my new white River Island shirt (another stupid decision) and white pointed stilettos. I was obviously in a rush because usually chocolate birthday cake and kids hyper on sweets do not mix well with white clothes!! Surprisingly, I kept the shirt clean but I had been in such a rush that later on during the party my eagle-eyed boyfriend shouted across the room, 'Jess the tag is still on your top'... so much for him not finding out about that purchase! No sooner was the party over and I had the white shirt back off again and replaced with a tracksuit, we were babysitting the twins and stilettos and skinny jeans are not so practical for rolling around on the floor with three kids!

Sunday morning was an early start, at 6am I was downstairs feeding two 1 year olds and a tired 4 year old Weetabix (Morgan is not so used to early rising at the weekend). I had planned on taking advantage of this weekend's sobriety by going for a run during the twins' 9am nap, however I decided to take the advice nurses give to new mothers and 'sleep when they sleep', plus Sunday is meant to be a day of rest!

I didn't have much time to get ready for our lunch date with the girls (I had a very tired and cranky 4year old by 1pm) so I showered and threw on the trusty black jeans again, this time with my second new River Island sales purchase, a black and grey boucle peplum top (a steal at €14). Paired with a pair of black Topshop shoes, it looked completely different. After spending all week looking forward to my beef salad in Mixgreens, I was still so full from the morning's fry (the run never happened) that I had to take it to go! We finished off the day with a wander around Penneys and The Once Loved Showroom (of course I couldn't leave Penneys empty handed), did our Sunday family visits and as soon as I got home, straight out of my jeans and into a trusty trackie again! As much as I love them, no one ever says, 'I can't wait to get home so I can get all snuggley in my jeans!'

Because no-one can leave Penneys empty handed!

                                      

So the moral of the story is, just as every woman needs an LBD, I think that everyone should own a pair of SBJ. I love Topshop's Leigh Skinny Jeans, but at €60 they might stretch the budget. This weekend's pair were from Penneys and at €13, they are an absolute steal, and are comfortable as well as flattering! I like to think of skinny black jeans as being a 'wardrobe investment' as they look great dressed up with sandals and sometimes better again with a pair of Converse and a hoodie.

Fashion GorJess Blog: Hair, Make-Up & Beauty

Fashion GorJess Blog: Hair, Make-Up & Beauty: Make-up looks created in March 2014                                            Wedding Hairstyle ...

Chocolate Muffins and Muffin Tops....

So welcome to my world... where it is a constant battle between my love for food and a desire to have a body like Michelle Keegan. I spend 3-5 days a week working out to try and attain a 'desirable' beach body, whilst fighting the constant urges that come with having the most ridiculously sweet tooth.

 

I absolutely adore chocolate muffins with ice-cream from Supermacs (see I am a country girl at heart), I will happily gulp through one on a Tuesday night and then go to TRX training at 7am on Wednesday and literally work my ass off to get rid of the muffin top that is there only because of habits like these. Pretty ridiculous right?

On paper I am pretty healthy, I go to the gym regularly and my meals usually consist of breakfast smoothies, salmon/turkey and salad for lunch and sweet potatoes, vegetables and some form of meat for my dinner. I keep my 3 main meals a day pretty clean and even my snacks in-between are either corn cakes with organic peanut butter and fruit, or something pretty unsinful. But then Friday arrives and I am like a food junkie who has been kept deprived since last Sunday night and all hell breaks loose! Chinese, wine, crisps, chocolate, there's no stopping me! 

I made a poor attempt at cutting 
out chocolate for lent this year

Being a size 8-10 I am not saying I am overweight by any means, but like most women I am never satisfied by the way I look.

For example, last Sunday I had toast with peanut butter and banana for breakfast, followed by popcorn in the cinema, then McDonalds, and then a Sunday roast, with some mini Crunchies thrown in for good measure! And this could be a regular weekend occurrence. That's why I am starting to believe that abstinence is the only way forward, if I don't taste it I won't want more. Maybe I am just a glutton for punishment, I actually love TRX and Spinning classes, and the feeling you get afterwards is amazing.

I really really do want a stomach like Cheryl Cole, but sometimes food tastes better. I mean, whoever said that nothing tastes better than skinny feels has never eaten a bag of chocolate mini eggs (whilst supposed to be off chocolate for lent!)

But I just have a weakness when it comes to food, I need to learn to say NO.. Is this something you can train yourself to do, or just a curse that you have to live with?

Another example, I spent two hours on Tuesday evening cooking 'clean' meals for the week - chickpea burgers, sweet potato wedges and butternut squash & sweet potato soup. I then went to Lidl and did a healthy shop for the week, whilst also throwing in a couple of packets of cookies and dairy milk bars, oh and a MaltEaster bar 'as a treat' for spending so long cooking. But instead of eating it, I put it in the cupboard and went for a late night run.

I did however, come in last night and eat that said MaltEaster bar, followed by a couple of cookies and half a share bag of Sea Salt and Balsamic Vinegar crisps that Andy had left lying on the coffee table.

      
So I guess that word abstinence comes in again, if I don't eat it I won't want more. As I said, it is a constant battle with myself and I just hope someday the better half of me, the side of my brain with willpower and strength wins...

       

         Clean VS. Delicious

Cleaning out my closet...

As you can probably tell, it is quite rare for me to get a weekend free from work/social engagements. So last weekend, I took full advantage of this by partaking in very productive activities such as opening up credit union accounts for both myself and Morgan, cleaning out my wardrobe, and the dreaded task of... throwing out shoes!

Yes I have been known to have slight hoarding tendencies and this especially applies to my vast shoe collection. Definitely one to rival that of Carrie in Sex and the City (just with much smaller price tags), I have shoes in every nook and cranny of the house. There are boxes under my bed, stuffed in wardrobes, and even taking up some space in the spare room. So on my quiet-ish Saturday after I returned home from Morgan's ballet class I began pulling my bedroom apart. A move I almost instantly regretted after I took a break to meet with a bride regarding her makeup and lunch date with my mum. I returned to the room feeling relatively relaxed, until I remembered what I had started...

But I continued my task and finished it with a glass of vino, just so I could really appreciate my work. And I have to say, I threw out about 12 pairs of shoes and individually dusted the remaining pairs that I carefully placed back on my now immaculate shelves. I organised my makeup, jewellery drawers, cleaned all the mirrors, rearranged picture frames, and even hoovered the blinds. The end result was me going to bed feeling so chuffed that my room felt like new again. When I called in my boyfriend and asked, " What do you think?" His response was, "It's the exact same." Lucky I had moved all the shoes back or he could have gotten a stiletto into the forehead for a comment like that! 

I definitely need to invest in one of these, there are a lot of separated pairs in my room!

Life and Job Juggling...

Life is much easier as a 4 year old

My four year old daughter asked me something very intriguing a few weeks ago, "Mummy, what are you going to be when you grow up?" I sort of stuttered at the answer and said, "I am grown up," to which she responded, "Yesssss... SO what are you going to be? I am going to be a real princess!" Although a very innocent question from a very inquisitive little girl, it really got me thinking.

An article on me in the Daily Mail YOU Magazine in 2012

When I was younger I always dreamed by the age of 27 I would be a famous television presenter or just really well known for something. Now I feel like the phrase, "Jack of all trades, master of none" was specifically coined for me!

Although I studied for five years and received a Masters in Journalism, I graduated smack-bang in the middle of the recession and watched my journalism career deteriorate before it began! I finished in the Galway Advertiser and as a means to an end, I started working in Brown Thomas as a make-up artist for Laura Mercier. Although I had no makeup experience, I am a quick learner and before I knew it I had landed a dream job working for MAC. I worked here for two and a half years, and as much as I loved the makeup and the girls I worked with, there was always a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that said this just wasn't my dream. At the time I was also teaching dance classes in-between shifts and writing freelance articles for a newspaper which shortly closed down and again, left me feeling completely lost in my career path.


It was then I started applying for PR jobs, having worked in promotions since a teenager and being quite a 'people person' I felt like it might be a good direction for me. I left my full time job in MAC and started as an intern for H+A Marketing and PR, which wasn't easy considering I have student loans to pay and a child to support but I realised that this was the only way I was going to gain experience. So I worked unpaid Monday to Friday and kept my MAC job on a Saturday. After four months I was hired as a PR Consultant and two years later, I am still there. However, I haven't gone all '9 to 5' and still work as a freelance make-up artist at weekends. I guess I have just become used to a life of working two or three jobs to make ends meet, and a part of me thinks I will always be a person who needs to be kept busy 24/7,

Don't even get me started on trying to keep up appearances on top of everything else! As well as worrying about job juggling and family time - there is the added pressure of clean eating and working out. So, just when the week isn't jam-packed enough, I try to fit in 3-4 classes of either TRX, kettlebells or spinning. And even at this, I was told I need to be introducing more cardio into my routine... isn't running around the place seven days a week enough cardio for one person? Obviously not...


Of course, someday I dream of having one job so that I get to spend all my free time with my family. My head is like a never ending rolling schedule that never seems to rest, if anything it gets worse at night when I finally try to wind down. Also, there is the complication of not really knowing who or what I am. My passion for writing and fashion combined with my experience and skills in make-up and Public Relations will have to create a perfect job for me someday, right?

To be completely honest, fashion and writing are what drive me and are the two things combined that take me to my happy place. 

It pretty much summed it up last weekend, I was in Edinburgh with my girlfriends for a well needed break away. Some guy was asking us what we did for a living, one of the girls replied, 'scientist,' the next, 'accountant', 'hairdresser'.... When he asked me, the girls all blurted out a different profession and I wasn't sure whether that should make me feel really special and blessed to have been able to say I can do so many things... or just appear to be the most indecisive person in the world.

Until I figure this out, I am just going to carry on being me...

Enjoying time with the girls in Edinburgh 

Twitter Trolls and Instagram dolls... The trials and tribulations of social media

For a self-confessed social media butterfly (or addict for want of a better word) I still struggle to keep up with all the social networking sites. From creating filtered pictures on Instagram to Facebook statuses and tweeting, there is barely enough time in the day for real life.

Or is what our 'real' life has become? I was at an 11 year old's birthday party recently and every single one of them were sitting around the table glued to their smart phones, not speaking a word to each other. Just last weekend I was at a wedding and as I glanced across the aisle, sure enough the entire row were on their phones..in a church! Even I am not that bad, although I am not one to talk, I am a prime culprit of online addiction and Facebook is a part of my everyday life. It's a habit, pick up the phone and check emails, text messages and Facebook.  I often find myself having a conversation with someone in which I will tell them something and their response is... 'Oh yes I saw that on Facebook.'

I am totally addicted to my iPad and iPhone, constantly checking my WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and more recently Twitter. But it is just so hard to keep up with them all, I still keep forgetting to update my Twitter as I am quite new to the world of tweeting #latestarter. Any time I told someone before that I wasn't on Twitter, I got this look of disdain and response 'Really?'

Yes the social media world is quite bitter/sweet, you want that constant reassurance from people (half of whom you don't know) 'Woohoo! I got 100 likes on my status!' Yet it is the very same thing that makes us feel bad about ourselves. We all do it, get jealous of the person always away on holiday, or the girls with the gorgeous figures, clothes, family. We can spend our life getting jealous but at the end of the day.. who is going to put up a picture of them having a 'fat day' or looking glum while on holiday. Social media is aimed at making everything look great and making us feel, a lot of the time, inadequate.

Then there are the socially awkward people who seem to just come alive online and would nearly get hit by a car to avoid you when you actually meet them in real life. So is this what we are going to evolve to eventually, a bunch of 'keyboard warriers' as my boyfriend calls them, in other words people who are brave when they are behind the safety of a computer screen but shrivel up when faced with having a conversation with someone face-to-face...

But I have to admit it, nothing feels better than picking up your phone after coming out of a meeting or waking up in the morning, and seeing that screen in all it's glory with lots of notifications. You've been send 8 new whatsapp messages, four new people have started following you on Instagram, and you have new photo comments on Facebook.

You know how the saying goes... 'If you can't beat them join them...' And if you don't like them, just press the 'block' button!