Up close and personal

This week I had the misfortune of running into a magnifying mirror. What was supposed to be a quick eyebrow tidy turned in to a grueling pokefest of every pore on my face. I'm going to go ahead and admit it, and secretly I know you share my embarrassing obsession, I love squeezing spots, ingrown hairs and black heads. So when I saw all the blocked pores I had to clean I was in my element, well when I got over the disgust of having them in the first place.

Armed with a cleansing pad and willing index fingers I got to work. But I took it too far and ended up looking like Rudolph my nose was so red. The sides of my nose remained raw for a number of days and the cracked skin took almost a week to exfoliate away. I think I'll stick to normal mirrors from now on!

I'm a fan of D.I.Y. pedicures, mainly because I can't afford a professional one and treated my toes to a fresh lick of paint. As per 'predictable' usual I went for a French manicure. In the summer I usually do this every fortnight. The cracks began to show on my last attempt when I broke my baby toe nail. I got a kick out of going around saying I broke a nail, my 'toe' nail. I guess no one laughed cause it's not that funny. Anywho, I stripped off my old varnish, cut and filed my toe nails, and then I got my good friend Lizzy Arden's 8 hour cream and massaged in to my toes to stop the hard skin and left them over night. It sounds like I was cooking something. The next day I gave one last quick file to the nails to make sure they were smooth and got started. I started with the white tip, when that was dry I moved on to the pink and made sure that was good and dry and then to finish it off I painted on the clear top coat. My sister thought they looked like false toe nails, I was delighted with myself and spent that night eying up everyone else's handy work on their toes.

As a fake tan lover I also have to be a fan of scrubbing. I got a very good tip for a homemade/cheap exfoliator. If you have patchy skin mix ordinary salt with your showergel or for a less drying alternative mix it with caster sugar. Simple and easy!

Operation holidays is continuing. I have just 7 days to transform myself into a goddess and it's looking unlikely. The cellulite treatment is continuing and I can't believe I'm able to say this but it is actually improving. I think the combo of the cream, water and loads of exercise is paying off. Ahead of the dreaded bikini wax I've been keeping on top of the exfoliation, I know scrubbing again, and have been using an ingrown hair minimising gel from Boots. It seems to do the trick. Also my bikni line is finally getting the message that it's not wanted and the regrowth is slower and less, yippee!

Heading off on the 23rd and fairly confident that the day before will be spent filing, scrubbing, de-fuzzing, moisturising and painting toe nails.

I'm off to get to raid the cupboards for salt .......

Nail it!

This week has been all about the slog. The routine that I've committed to is like a life sentence and with every month, and at this stage week, there's a new lotion or product I really should be using. But this week a little colour was added to my life. It came in the form of the much sought after Chanel Le Vernis in Particuliere 505.

It's a mushroomy colour but I think it also looks like melted chocolate and have been tempted to lick my nails on more than one occasion. Nail polish is something I normally reserve for my toes and at that it's usually the French manicure option but I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked a splash of colour on my fingers. I prepped my nails with a quick file and got to work, trying to stay between the lines, three strokes and all that jazz. I was fairly happy with my 'handy' work and it only took two coats to hide the white tips of my nails. I've noticed there's a certain way you hold your hands when your nails are painted - everything is very gentle and lady like. Far from prim and proper are the inevitable chips - I got just about 24 hours out of it before it started to look far from glamorous. The simple act of typing seems to be too much for even the toughest nail varnish. (Think I've been listening to too much Barry Scott.)

Last week I started using a new eye cream and a Cellulite minimiser lotion. The eye cream I've been fairly religious with, every morning and night. You're only supposed to use a grain of rice sized bit of cream so I've been doing my best not to do more damage than good. The Cellulite treatment is supposed to be used twice a day but if I actually want to leave the bathroom and make it to work I can only fit it in at night. I've also been a little lazy with it at the weekend as you really have to massage it in and it tends to take off any fake tan you've on. I've been trying a combination of things to shift it in time for holidays so hopefully between the cream, all the massaging and litres of water I'll shift the craters.

Tanning has thankfully been pretty straight forward this week. Pity I didn't take my own advice of putting the Dove summer glow on at night. Ended up with patchy feet from putting my shoes on too soon. Not to mention the stink of the stuff all day long.

Now as us ladies know fake tan sometimes requires a helping hand. That normally comes in the form of our significant other. This week I've been reminded that although the tanning glove is a saving grace for us women for men it often ends up being a tight squeeze. We've all heard of mansized tissues, but the same can't be said for tanning gloves. A solution for our men as they help is on our plight to be beautiful is surgical gloves. These come in different sizes and can be binned afterwards. If all else fails the marigolds may have to be borrowed from the kitchen!

...... Time to deal with the chipped nail varnish. Where's the paint stripper, I mean nail varnish remover.