The new hair

Please excuse the hilarious expression and rather embarrassing check-me-out pose. I was at a photo shoot for work and an old friend of mine was the photographer so I was prancing around helping her check the light in different locations - having enormous fun while I was at it!

The purpose of this post is not to tell you about my model aspirations however (ha!) - but to quickly show and tell with the new hair. I was threatening to cut it off as per this post and cut it off I did. I wanted a blunt bob, like this one but was convinced by the amazing Georgie in Pastels Salon to go for a slightly graduated bob, to give me a bit of shape and so on. Now, a few weeks later I'm still loving it - although I do have the odd moment of 'oh my god I wish my hair was still long!'

Naturally, I'm not happy to sit back and just enjoy my new hair, I'm already thinking about doing something else to it! And that is to re-ombre. I've decided to go full on, intense blonde at the ends type of ombre. Am I crazy? Probably.

Watch this space...

MAC SS13 trends presentation

During the week I shuffled along to the MAC SS13 trends presentation at XVA Gallery in DIFC Village. It was a really relaxing couple of hours (surrounded by makeup!) and I was lucky enough to be able to go backstage, have a snoop through some of their new products and have a chat with Caroline D, one of their amazingly talented artists from the UK, who incidentally - is also great craic!

Caroline created some beautiful looks for the show, my favourite of which is in the pictures above; a really graphic eye with nude skin which she did with minimal products. We also talked about her hair which, lets be honest, is totes amazing. Apparently, it's not hard to maintain the bright pink colour as she has a permanent red shade underneath. Clever, eh?

There were four trend looks in total at the presentation, all of which you can see above; a metallic eye, soft burnished skin, a graphic eye and natural luminous skin. The models were all pretty stunning so each look was very impressive, I'm not sure how some of them would translate onto those of us with not so perfect skin though... Interestingly, there was also a little presentation about nail trends. Did you know you can mix clear nail polish with any powder product to make it that colour?! Mind blown! Cue much experimentation with pigments in the coming week.

Hope you all have a nice weekend, I will be working for most of it, hurrah! :)

Goodbye for now, but not for good

My lovely friend Jack has decided to say m3a el salama to Dubai and move to the er, sunnier (?) climes of Qatar, abandoning me in the process. Am I bitter, hurt and borderline devastated? Yes, but what better way to express these feelings then over a delicious leisurely lunch in Paul's Cafe!

It was a fabulous food session that included yummy things like fresh olive bread, tea, french crepes, cappuccino, chocolate mousse cake and macaroons. Go hard or go home I say. Mind you, I'm not feeling too fresh now and wouldn't mind a quick snooze!

Jack will be starting a blog about his groovy new life in Qatar pretty soon so I'll do a little post about that when it's up and running. For now though, you can follow him on Twitter where I will now doubt be sending him long whining tweets along the lines of 'why did you leave meeeeeeee' etc.

That's all for now, I'm off to slip into a food coma :)

Hair happenings

I've been wearing my hair like this for the last couple of weeks, almost everyday I would say. Why? Well it's getting to the stage where my hair is starting to annoy me and as we've learned from previous hair musings, this is never good.

I'm writing this post is an effort to not do what I usually do which is land into my hairstylist on the spur of the moment and instruct him to cut it all off/dye it a different colour/add bangs/do all of the aforementioned. I always want long hair when it's short and I always want short hair when it's long, anyone else like that? It's always the same. My hair can almost be described as long now and so we're bang on time for an unplanned overhaul/freakout. I'm thinking something like this, or this or even this.

Notice how all of them are also ombre'd? Yep, still have that trend in a vice like grip as I just love it so much. I'm thinking of going down the extreme ombre route though, maybe something like this? It's so so fabulous, but I don't know if I can carry off blonde blonde. I certainly couldn't when I was 16 anyways. Whoops! So there we are, a potential hair disaster coming to a computer screen near you...

Any suggestions?!

Statement spikes

I'm obsessed with chunky statement necklaces at the moment but rarely find pieces that tick every box. The last one I bought that floated my boat was this one from H&M a couple of months ago - mainly because it's quite vibrant but also because it's the perfect drop length. I've been on the hunt for a standout gold one since then but hadn't spotted anything until this beauty from Zara turned my head.

I saw it the second I walked into the store and as it was the last one on the rack I naturally flung myself on it with gusto. It's heavy and solid with a nice bit of bling on the Tiger (or is it a Cat?) face, some of-the-moment spikes and a round clasp to the back, plus it's borderline tacky which is so me :)
I picked it up in the Mall of the Emirates branch for 115 dirhams, which isn't a bad price really and knowing my luck I'm sure its already been reduced in the sale that started on Friday! On the day I took this picture I was wearing it with a black silk shirt and black blazer - the perfect jazzy addition to an otherwise drab outfit :)

What do you think of it? Is it something you would buy?

Cosy road trip

I'm busting out all my semi-winter clothes at the moment as the weather here is lovely and chilly. I know the words 'lovely' and 'chilly' usually don't go together (unless you're talking about sweet, sweet Pinot Grigio) so let me explain. Living in the Middle East the majority of the year is like being stuck inside an oven without a fan. You might think ooh a nice warm oven? No no - think searing hot not-working-properly oven with temperatures in the region of 40 - 50 degrees celcius. Yeah, fun times. Sooo when the temperature drops here you can imagine the excitement that ensues; hello (half-assed) winter wardrobe!

I say half-assed because it's not full blown winter here obviously so I make do with light knits, cigarette combats and lots of cute flats and kitten heels. That's what I was wearing today when we went on a road trip to Oman; a light grey knit from Zara with lace detailing on the arms, green cigarette combats also from Zara and leopard print flats from Bershka. I contemplated throwing a scarf nonchalantly around my neck but it wasn't that cold so I decided against it. I did throw some bling in to the mix though, in the form of a Michael Kors watch, star spangled bracelets from Meemo Space in Bahrain, Topshop love heart ring and a hand twisted arabic gold ring The Husband gave me.

All in all it was a lovely relaxing day, so relaxing in fact that I didn't even think to take any pictures!  Lots of tea and coffee stops on the road trip, plenty of sightseeing and sand dunes, four wheel drive in the desert, learning how to say Happy New Year in Arabic and a happily snoozing baby on the journey home. Perfect :)
What did you all get up to today?

Nails right now

All of these beauties are on my nails right now. You might be wondering what the little pot on the left is with it's rather Irish sounding name and cute packaging. Would you believe me if I told you it actually hails from Korea and it's a peel off base coat. That's right, it peels cleanly off your nails with all the polish you layered on top of it! Genius. Now, this may not seem like a complete and utter revelation to some of you, but for glitter nail polish fans - YES, the solution is finally here - let us rejoice etc. No more spending 15 million hours trying to scrub glitter off our nails, hurrah!

All of the above polishes were ordered from Amelia's blog shop by the way, which coincidentally is relaunching tomorrow with lots of new fashionable goodies from Korea. I'm a sucker for a really decent gold polish, so when I saw her pics with the chunky gold one layered beautifully over the shimmery one, I knew they had to be mine.

This post about more glittery polish is rather appropriate considering it's NYE, don't you think? Sparkly nails are an absolute must no matter what your plans. I'll be flashing my glitter ball talons around the house tonight and ringing in 2013 with my nearest and dearest. Hope you have fun whatever you're doing and see you next year!