Cat's Cradle

Sh*t happens; life goes on

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 08:56:00 +0000

Sh*t ke side effects: you lose a lot of ballast.

No use whatsoever putting your life s little pleasures on hold. In the end those will be your only good memories. Not the Nobel you won nor your promotion to CEO nor the million dollars in your Swiss account. Nor the bereavements, the divorces, the sicknesses. Nothing will remain save a couple of inane family insider jokes, fading echoes of seventy year old songs and some very rare mental snapshots of real friends.

Yes, life sucks.

Yes, it happens.

Yes, when it happens, you don t want to do anything.

But there never really will be that perfect moment to do things, unmarred by tragedies and/or inconveniences and/or deficiency of time.

My blog, irregular, imperfect, is still my blog. It s real. It s on my list of little pleasures that are not little. And it continues.

Big day preps - how do YOU do it?

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Fri, 14 May 2010 05:29:00 +0000

Heyy, Beautifuls!!
Do you sometimes get this song going round and round in your head and you just can't stop humming it, or playing it again and again on Youtube? I've got a serious case of Umbrellitis Rihannosus :) ella.. ella.. ay.. ay..

So while she struts her stuff in that almost illegal outfit, I type away in air conditioned comfort waiting for my face mask to dry off. It is such a comfort to not have an alarm screaming in my ears at the crack of dawn, force down some calories (I'm not a morning person, as you might have guessed), slap on all that gooey gunky sunscreen and dash for the office.

I have a big day coming up tomorrow. A major function, a lot of social and professional acquaintances to confront, and I want to look as good as I possibly can. Now some of you would just pick up the phone and dial up an appointment with the nearest VLCC. Not me. Congenital cheapskate that I am, I do all my spa-ing at home. I did my own wedding makeup, for goodness sake! Wherever there's a buck to be saved, I'm right there in the forefront doing my bit. I have some cautionary tales too, all personal experience, of parlor jobs gone bad. The day I post those photos, you'll all swear off going to the parlor for life.

Coming back to the point (I always do, eventually :P) The first step is to douse your hair in oil. No hot mask, no cream, no mousse, just oil, preferably coconut. It's proven to be absorbed right into the hair shafts, making your hair soft and strong. The Beauty Brains blog has some pretty informative posts on coconut oil for hair. I couldn't find my Vatika bottle. We've moved recently, and haven't unpacked fully yet. So I had to compromise with this Bajaj Almond drops hair oil. To tell the truth, its 300% more vitamin E claims sound a bit far fetched, because they never did tell me 300% of how much, for example, if other oils used for comparison had no vitamin E, then just a little bit of elementary Mathematics will do full Bhaanda Phod of this oil too!! :)

Next step, wash the face. I do this after applying my hair oil, because whatever grease has leaked down onto my forehead will get washed off leaving a clean slate for my mask. I like to use Garnier skin naturals gentle face wash with fruit AHAs, because it really is very gentle, and won't cause that feeling of tightness after use. My face is anyway bound for quite an ordeal, and I don't want something harsh right at the first step.

For the face mask, I have quite a few options currently in circulation in my stash of products. For today, I took up with Hesh Natur-Riche skin tone up powder. Mixed with Dabur Gulabari rose water and dabbed on thickly (especially on the nose), it dries up within 15 minutes and should be washed off soon after because you don't want something that tight to be clinging on to your skin for too long.

Now the deviation from the norm: I don't use a facial scrub. Most scrubs based on walnut or apricot, have particles too large and too rough for delicate facial skin. A mud pack on the other hand, is effective enough to remove dead skin and dirt without hurting the skin precisely because its particles are so fine and tiny. Multani Mitti, which you'll find in most face masks, is particularly suited to the job. Those of us who've used it are familiar with its smooth, almost slippery texture; no roughness at all. However, it is grainy on a microscopic level, and it will exfoliate like a charm. The Hesh pack is inclined to be somewhat gritty because of the other ingredients (Masoor dal most likely), so once it dries, I splash on some water to wash off the larger pieces and scrub very gently for a minute or so with what's left. The resultant rosiness amazes me every time.

(Dunno why I look so grumpy!)

Next in the list is a rather dicey thing, which I guess I used today simply for its gimmick value :) The product in question (questionable product :P) is Everyuth's golden glow peel off home facial. It's a gluey, gummy mess with little specks of mica glitter which you apply thickly on the face, and pull off when it's dry. Probably works on the same principle as those blackhead nose strips, but all said and done, I'd rather NOT use it again. Applying and drying and admiring the glitter is all okay, but it hurts too much to pull it off, and I'm not sure that something so painful could be good for my skin. Besides, I don't like worthless additions and doubtful claims. The gold glitter is just mica, it won't remain on your skin or do anything in the way of providing a glow, and I have my face highlighters to do that job anyway.

The end approacheth, thankfully. I soothe, moisturize and de-oil (is that even a word?) all at once with - what else - the almighty Lacto Calamine, and we're done! The face, that is.

By now the hair oil has been here long enough to have done its job and next up is a nice, luxurious shower with your wash-time favorites followed by my body spa cum lawnmowing process. The shave comes after the shower because it's easier to get rid of fur that's all waterlogged and softened up, and you don't want to wash off the moisturizer.

This is my routine prep for big days, works well enough for me. I'm always willing to tweak it this way or that, though, so if you have your own pet tricks for looking great before a special occasion, do tell me in the comments!

If wishes were horses

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Tue, 11 May 2010 07:08:00 +0000

Hello, my long-suffering friends. This is a broadcast coming to you straight from Mumbai, the best (and currently sweatiest) city in the world. I'm here enjoying my earned leave, and earning every moment of it being the laziest bum in creation. I thought I'd post something new, but I happened to glance through my unpublished drafts and found this diamond in the rough dating back to my ranting doctor days. This blog, believe it or not, is four years old, which in blogging parlance is as ancient as Methuselah. Still, I won't really claim any laurels, knowing that quite a chunk of that was spent hibernating. Anyway, for old time's sake, here goes:

I am very angry. I had no plan at all of writing this one now or anytime in the near future. I've a thesis to complete, for heaven's sake! However, since Blogger beta is determined not to let me republish my settings changes and has thus vanished the status button from my window, I'm forced to use this means. Hopefully when I republish to get this posting online, my settings will get republished too....

Now no one get the wrong idea, I have the extremely privileged position of Resident Doctor at a top-class medical school in the best city in the world. Still as the song goes -

"Shikayat hai Shikayat hai Shikayat hai
Mujhko dil se yehi shikayat hai
Jo usko mil nahin sakta
Kyon uski chaahat hai
Shikaayat hai... "

I hanker after precisely what I can't attain :)

Fine for philosophical posturing, but some wishes are best left unfulfilled...

I walk through my lush green colony's roads on my way home everyday, exhausted, sweaty, cursing my fate and my salary. I see these street dogs luxuriously stretched out in the exact center of the road... sheer indifference to traffic embodied in every grubby hair.

I also see them sprawled all over my hospital campus. There's one who's earless, and seems to have made a permanent resting (and peeing) place out of the recess under the ground floor staircase. Come to think of it, I haven't seen him around in a while. Then there's the uncrowned king of the canteen entrance, a great favorite of the gynaec crowd. Saw what looked like the newest of the breed a couple of days ago. He'd have been quite cute if he wasn't the embodiment of canine Kwashiorkor. Come to think of it, since they all sport the inverted V tattoo of BMC sterilisation, this regular arrival of young blood makes me wonder what those vets are really doing. Population explosion aside, they're really quite amiable little fellows, much nicer anyway than certain humans of my acquaintance. I'll miss 'em. Look at me, getting sentimental about stray dogs! Where's a shrink when you need him?

So, the point I was trying to make, and I was sure I'd meander more or less to it some time in this century, is, there are two kinds of Residents in my hospital. Resident docs, and Resident dogs. Actually, I'm rather convinced that we should do away entirely with the first nomenclature and stick uniformly to the second, seeing as we both enjoy pretty much the same status.

There are three kinds of freedom that my doggy friends enjoy, and I don't, that have specifically caught my attention.

They sleep in the corridors, on the benches, and on top of cars in the car park. I'd be grateful if I could just get some sleep, never mind where.
They enjoy unrestricted lavatorial rights over each and every passageway in the building. A bright yellow pool of piddle is quite a refreshing sight first thing in the morning, but you know me, I like a change of scenery once in a while. I just wish I was bold enough to make do with an open space (especially that time in the rural Primary Health Center when I had diarrhoea and the only available toilet had no water and no door).
They... em, you know, socialize... quite freely, with their lady friends, preferably with at least 27 doctors, patients, ward boys and nurses in attendance. What I'd do with such freedom - err... lets change the subject, shall we?

And that's why I said, that some wishes are best left unfulfilled :D

p.s.- Before making pawns out of doctors and banishing them to rural health centers, our bosses might consider building a couple of working order toilets in said centers.

p.p.s- In keeping with the spirit of nostalgia permeating this post, here's a pic from my resident days, it was taken at a municipal school in Dharavi. Educating. This is work I love.

p.p.p.s- My hand's in a cast. Radial styloiditis. I'll give you a chocolate bar if you can pronounce that. I'll give you two if you can teach me to pronounce it.

At home spa with easy hair removal

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Sun, 02 May 2010 06:49:00 +0000

First off, my apologies for this blurry pic. My Canon's batteries conked out at the exact moment, so I had to use Hubby's Blackberry to snap this. It ought to have been a bit brighter.

Continuing the hair topic, I'd love to have hair on my head thick enough to make two fat plaits, but I seem to have landed with just enough to create a malnourished rat's tail. Considering I was born bald, I guess I ought to be grateful for small mercies. I'm blessed with a lot of hair where it isn't required, and not enough where it is. I was on the phone with my Mom this morning, telling her how I got nicked in the arm while lawnmowing. She suggested I just braid the strands and be done with it. Yeah right. I'm so hairy, even my mother makes fun of me.

I started using the razor to get rid of unwanted hair when I was about 15. Gosh I'm double that now!! So, hundreds of blunt blades and quite a few nicks and scars later, I have this to say:

Shaving is, hands down, THE most economical, safe, swift and convenient hair removal technique. I'll list out the disadvantages of other common methods, all of which are (not!!) applicable to shaving:

Waxing with hot wax causes a. burns, b. bruises (personal experience), c. hair follicle infections, d. ingrown hairs, e. embarrassing intervals of tolerating unsightly stubby growth until it's long enough to wax again and f. intense itching when the hair first starts growing back.
Waxing with cold wax causes all the above except a.
An epilator is safer than waxing, in that it doesn't cause burns and bruises and fewer infections (because the hair isn't yanked out that forcefully; less trauma, lower chance of infection), but it's a. An agonisingly slow process, b. Irritating to remove hairs that keep getting stuck between the pincers, c. You need a source to plug in, and d, e, f in common with waxing.
Chemical hair removers: a. NOT suitable for sensitive skin, b. Smell weird, c. Can cause caustic burns, d. Sometimes it's difficult to melt off coarse hairs.
Bleach: a. Smells weird, b. Has a distinct possibility of causing chemical burns if not mixed correctly, c. Can cause allergic breakouts, d. Irritates sensitive skin and the most obvious e. Hair's still there, so you can't just waltz out in a miniskirt.
Pumice stone rubbing: Gawd almighty, are folks still doing that to themselves??
Laser hair removal: a. Hair comes back (personal experience) b. It's quite costly, c. You can end up with burn scars that won't go away for upto a year, leading to d. You wasting a lot of time and concealer trying to cover up the dermatologist's fiasco. e. Did I mention that the hair comes back?

The beauty of a razor is, depending on your years of experience, you can have baby soft, ultra-smooth skin in a matter of minutes in the privacy and comfort of your own home. No money wasted on beauty parlours, no infections, no embarrassment. You don't even have to end up with washerwoman's fingers from excessive exposure to soap and water.

Image downloaded from http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/prune-skin/

What I do is, I get my hands on the cheapest and biggest bottle of moisturiser in the market, slather up and razor away. Works like magic. I don't even need any water to wash it off. This is, in addition to hair removal, a very good body exfoliator too. I can actually see dead skin flakes clogging up the tiny gap in-between the twin blades. So at the end of it, I have smooth, soft, glowing and moisturised skin; just like a foo-foo spa, but without any fears of unwashed towels and unsterilised tools.

A razor's only drawback is that it can occasionally nick the skin. Even that won't happen after some practice, unless you're busy daydreaming like I was (see the bloody spot in the pic?). As for that commonest of myths, of shaved hair growing back thicker,

It does not happen, folks!!!

In fact, just the opposite. Years of repeated minuscule trauma to the follicles leads to hair growing thinner, even sparser. The same way that over-plucked eyebrows don't always grow back. Take me for example. After fifteen years, if those stories were true, I should have been top contender for "Yeti of the Year". Contrary to expectations, I'm not. I'm just a rather clumsy, lazy bum teaching doc trying to maintain regular blog posts.

Stay happy, stay well groomed...

Sometimes, a heads-up is all you need

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Sun, 02 May 2010 06:44:00 +0000

http://15minbeauty.blogspot.com/

Pigeon inspired FOTD

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Sat, 01 May 2010 11:17:00 +0000

Yet another oooold shot from July 2008. I'd had to get ready in a hurry for hubby's friend's wedding, that too after a long working day. I chose to wear a green saree, and then couldn't decide what to do with the eyes. I started off with the obvious green eyeshadow, and then decided to give it a twist with a dash of pink, just like the iridescence of a pigeon's feathers. I used my Diana of London Bright light e/s in Green star 06 along with the fuchsia shade from my Revlon Colorstay 12 hour e/s in 10 Berry bloom. Here are swatches of both shades:

To finish off the details nicely, take a look at these close-ups of the eyes. They're a bit out of whack because we were getting late and I could only snap after coming back late at night, so there's been some amount of wear and tear on the colors. The Revlon shade did hold up nicely, true to its twelve hour claim, but the DoL had started to fade in patches.

I kept the lips nice and neutral with just a lick of Lakme Starshine gloss in shade number 24, which by the way, I think, is a good dupe for MAC Nymphette. My usual rule at weddings is, skip the red lippie, that way I can pig out to my heart's content without having to worry about half spotty, half pale lips at the end of it :D :D

Today is a rare two day weekend for me. I usually work on Saturdays too. How I wish I wasn't idiotic enough to chase after medicine all those years ago. I'd have been some obscenely high-paid techie with flexi-hours, long weekends, plush airconditioned office and lots of onsite trips in the bag. Oh well, lemons and lemonade, u know...

Conditioner wash, a nice alternative to daily shampooing

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:44:00 +0000

I do love the co-wash.

I have fine, almost straight, not quite black hair, which I recently tried to cut into layers. Salmaan the genius MUA over at MAC's standalone shop near Garuda mall, had a look at it and said it needed some more bounce, and that the layers needed to be somewhat shorter. Still, I saved myself 700 bucks, so I'm not all disappointed. Hubby likes it. He's grateful I decided to cut it at all, because till now he's always lost every battle in the Great War of Giving Wifey a Haircut.

I got into the habit of daily shampooing with the strongest concoctions available during my gynecology posting in internship. Twelve hours a day in the stifling heat and sweat of the labour room, and getting sprayed with unmentionable fluids every time a new little blessing pops out, tends to make one paranoid about the germs nesting on one's head. Worry not, my mane can take a lot of punishment. In my hostel days, I used to drench it in gamma benzene hexachloride, or lindane, aka the only effective lice killer, every week. You heard right. Every single week, 52 times a year. Government med coll hostels are always short of room. So are cooties.

My shampooing pattern saw no change in my three years of MD. I used to keep two shampoos on hand - the Clinic all clear antidandruff shampoo and a pink or yellow Sunsilk, and rotate through them every two or three days. Then in my second year, I discovered conditioner and The Dollar Store. Oh happy, happy me. Finally I had smooth hair inspite of the daily shampoo assault. Not that I neglect the hair oil. I don't think any Indian can imagine a life without hair oil. Still, once it's washed off, you will end up with rough, disobedient, flyaway hair.

And then at last, in early 2008, I discovered the nuskha a lot of women were adopting in the West. Cowash, or conditioner wash, is simply using conditioner like a shampoo. Take a reasonably large amount, work it through your hair - all of it, not just the lower ends (it does produce a faint lather) and wash off. Conditioner contains enough surfactants to clean off ordinary day-to-day dirt and grease from hair, and also leaves it nice and soft.

Lots of us have hair that is particularly vulnerable and shampoos end up stripping it of all its natural moisture. And yet the Indian humid weather combined with dusty, smoky, polluted city air, does warrant daily hair washing. Personally, I hate the dank, mouldy smell some women release when they're combing their hair in mall washrooms. In their fear of damaging hair through shampoo, they're actually doing themselves a disfavour. Sweaty, oily and unwashed heads are prone to fungal infection of the scalp as well as hair strands, and THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is the real cause of hairfall, not your so-called harsh shampoos.

If you like everyday clean and manageable hair, you could try to alternate shampooing with cowash, or evolve a rotation that suits you best. Do give it a try and let me know!

Joppa Minerals FOTD

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:32:00 +0000

Well it seems I had my half century yesterday. 50 posts in a span of four years, ha what speed! I'm the Michael Schumacher of the blogging world. Anyway, these days I find it very easy to post; probably because my self-imposed (hubby-imposed actually) embargo on self portraits is down. Today's FOTD displays the wonders of mineral makeup. If you have the means to get makeup from the US, I'd strongly recommend you try the mineral foundations from Joppa Minerals. Many manufacturers have started advertising their mineral products these days, but the mass market stuff usually has a lot of bismuth, which can aggravate acne for some people. Another problem with mineral makeup from large companies is that they usually put in preservatives (the notorious parabens) because of the long journey from factory to your dressing table. Joppa claims that its makeup is free of bismuth and parabens, and also animal cruelty free. The ingredient list for the powder foundation that I have, shows titanium dioxide and zinc oxide in the top two spots - meaning pretty good sunscreen action too. It's funny that the scorchingly sunny Indian summer is when we need sunscreen most, and that's also exactly the time when gummy liquid sunscreens are impossible to wear. This seems a very good alternative. Their shade range is excellent. I bought the full coverage foundation in Light #2, and it's a perfect match as you can see. The shade is extremely forgiving; I tan easily, so sometimes I'm three shades darker than my real complexion, but the foundation just melts in and there are no demarcation lines at all, just an overall rosy glow. Very happy coincidence, because I selected my shade online, never tried it out, paid thru credit card, got it delivered thru US Postal Service to my husband who was then on assignment in the US, and got him to bring it back. I don't really know the nitty-gritties of international shipping to India, whether the customs people create any problems, and most of all, whether the shipment will reach me at all, or grace some corrupt employee's wife. (The rant he is sneaky; he finds a way in without my realizing it :P) I also got their Dewy Sheer Finishing Silk, which is a very fine powder, absorbs oil and imparts a lovely glowing texture to the skin. I have been using these two now for the last two years, there is still a lot of product left, and it shows no signs of degeneration. Of course I save it for special occasions, I don't know when hubby will go abroad again. For daily use I have my TBS mineral foundation, which also works quite well, but is more matte than Joppa. The picture below is quite recent, like three months ago. I'm so chubby...

My first smokey :)

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:29:00 +0000

Ever since I started lurking on beauty blogs, I've been stealthily taking pictures of my makeup progress, but I had a blanket ban on publishing them on the internet, courtesy my overprotective hubbity-hub. Anyway, I'm not getting any younger and I figured I might as well do what makes me happy than have a lot of regrets later when I stare nostalgically at my stash of eye, face and lip macros. Today's pictures are actually dated around September 2008. I was relatively new to make-up then, so you might want to forgive my criminal neglect of concealer, not to mention the patchy blending.

I've used the Lakme Moondust ES quad, Lakme eye pencil in 20 Midnight Black and Lakme 9to5 mascara for this look. I kept the lips very simple, I think with only a single coat of ELF Super Glossy Lip Shine SPF 15 in Pink Kiss. I did use something on the face too, though it didn't photograph too well, probably because I skipped the powder. The Chennai weather may also have had some role to play. Don't let the apparently oily result fool you into dismissing the Revlon skinlights face illuminator lotion SPF 15 (shade Pink Light). Its actually quite good at achieving either a soft daytime sheen or a dramatic glow for parties.

Needless to say, this is not exactly a workplace-friendly look. I did this on a Sunday, and we went househunting. Not that it's the perfect thing for a shady broker's office either... :P

p.s. I searched high and low for a link to the skin illuminator on the Revlon website, but my search yielded "zero results". The website I finally linked to has product info as well as reviews, with a lot of users mourning it's having been discontinued. Perhaps that's why it's not on their website. Anyway, fear not, this magic potion is still available in our shops, in fact this shop assistant tried to sell it to me just yesterday at the Jayanagar Health and Glow where I was busy scoring some amazing deals.

FOTD

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 16:31:00 +0000

Yes, I know, I'm terrible at maintaining this stuff. But it seems out of the blue, the Indian beauty blogger (I mean Made-in-India, Living-in-India, Buying-makeup-in-INDIA blogger) has found a voice. Where my search yielded just one result (the sadly defunct sunneto) in 2008, now I've found FOUR!!! They have of course, instantly been given pride of place on my rather useful blogroll; the feedjit tells me that I still have visitors and that they usually go to one of the blogroll sites from my place. Anyway, less words, more pictures. I'm putting up a very random FOTD, just for the sake of it, and if someone comments, who knows, I might just oblige you all with a tutorial ;)

Crocodile pics from my (very very delayed reporting of) Christmas trip :)

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Mon, 04 May 2009 12:58:00 +0000

Hi everybody :)
I know its around half a year too late to be talking about "What I did on Christmas", but there's just so much piled up that I've got to post, and its all coming out now! Hubby and I enjoyed a scenic drive along the East Coast road, and went to see the Madras crocodile bank (it's still called that, although the city has become Chennai). Well, without yakking on too much, here is all the evidence:

The baby "Mugger" pit - they've got 356 crocs in there!

And here's the signboard to prove it!!

This is a full-grown mugger sunning himself in another of the pits; boy, I wish I could lie around all day with my mouth hanging open :)

p.s. on this pic - the signboard's in Tamil, but what it says is that this deceptively lazy-looking sonofagun can chase after you at 48 kilometres per hour if it's got a mind to eat you!!

Look deep into the eye of the dragon....

And this, children, is how they lie in wait for you.

The notoriously deadly Gangetic crocodile... a.k.a. Gharial.

That there ain't no log, honey...

The American alligator - looking exactly like a picture out of my childhood "Reptiles and Amphibians" book :)

The Morelet's crocodile, smiling at my hand getting deliciously near to its jaws...

The Crocodile bank also contains a snake pit - literally. Managed by Irula tribesmen, who have pursued their traditional occupation of snake-catching for hundreds of years, and are now putting their expertise to good use by extracting venom to make antivenin for snake bites, educating visitors about snakes, debunking common myths (No, they DO NOT drink milk) and demonstrating venom extraction. This is what I call good IEC - information, education, communication :)

Spectacled cobra with its hood spread out; the currency notes were dropped by religious minded visitors - snake worship is prevalent in most parts of India.

Guess who :)

Guess who came to visit...again! ... a.k.a. - Monkey pictures!

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:12:00 +0000

Last August, my husband went to the United States on a short term business trip. One fallout of that I've already mentioned in my previous post (Joppa Minerals,Hallelujah!). The other, equally pleasant outcome was that my paranoid family members (Mom, Dad, Hubby) being not at all convinced that I could spend any length of time alone in Chennai, packed me off to an unexpected Mumbai vacation. Of course I lost a month's pay, but that's nothing compared to the sheer joy of coming home. While I was there, I discovered that my favourite close relatives have learnt a bunch of new tricks. They no longer have to depend on bamboo frameworks which u only get when the building's being painted, they can now climb like spiderman all the way to the third floor getting good hand grips in bumps and crevices! Rather creepy, Gollumy, methinks. And because in the months after that previous post I've graduated from the old film roll Kodak to a cute little Canon A570, I can furnish instant gratification:

Oh look! Bananas! Oh no! A pesky human! Oh how annoying! That darned human's gone and closed the balcony door :( Oh nooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!! A camera!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To leap or not to leap... that is the question.

Hmmm... there might be a teeny little goof up in the parts assembly ...

...good, I've got it on its side; now give it a turn, and - Eureka!! I've invented the wheel!!!!

All this monkeying around is giving me a headache - time to go home now, I guess.

Yep! I've looked everywhere. No more peanuts. Definitely time to go home.

We buy a lot of peanuts, they're very healthy for snacks. But sometimes we'll get a bad batch. Infested with aspergillus. Those ones we don't just dump in the rubbish, we use them to fertilise our little effort at fighting climate change in the balcony. Obviously, we never budgeted for this gang of freeloaders looking for an easy lunch. We live in a city - in Bombay, for goodness sake. Anyway, these critters may look cute and all, but they're wild animals and very dangerous. I was alone at home at the time, the balcony doors were wide open and if I hadn't been alerted beforehand by their screeching, they could have ruined and rampaged all over the house. A gang of angry monkeys confronting a defenseless human can maul him beyond recognition, leave alone the aftermath of unknown infections and rabies. So all in all, I had a very lucky escape. We now leave all the doors and windows securely shut even when we're at home, unless someone is actually in a particular room. We also got firm wire mesh installed on the windows that we can't close.

Moral of the story? Wildlife close-up photography is best left to Discovery Channel. :)

Bye, and hope u all enjoyed the pics :)

Changes... so many changes.

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:20:00 +0000

He he. Time to come out of hibernation once more. I thought the blog could do with some color co-ordination. Now before we go any further, let me make it very clear that I have nil artistic tendencies as exhibited by the F grade I received for drawing in my 6th standard class :) So after a long couple of hours spent blundering around with colours and templates, I hit upon a very simple solution. I just adopted Revlon's 12 hour color stay eye-shadow quad in 01 Copper spice to be my blog's colour palette too! :) I love the warm brown shades - so appropriate for office as well as jazzy evening looks. Here, have a peep:

This quad is real smooth. So smooth, I can blend the shades using nothing but my fingers. The shades are mildly shimmery, or should I say metallic, but the shimmer's not so obvious in the two lighter shades, and I generally prefer them for work.
So much for the blog. Now for all the changes in my life. After I typed in my last post sometime in July last year, I've had a whole deal of new experiences. The worldwide essay competition I had entered - though I didn't win, I still made it to the shortlist of finalists and now my essay's been published by "The Lancet" and "Global Forum for Health Research" in an anthology of young voices (yeah I was below 30 then :P ) Turned out I had missed the prize by a whisker, because I was invited along with the winners to participate and present my essay at a global conference on research for health held in the heart of Africa - in Bamako, Mali!! Thus I had my first ever trip abroad, that too all expenses paid :) In the meantime, hubby got a two month assignment in the United States and brought me back a whole lot of swag. I am now the proud owner of Mineral Make-up from Joppa Minerals - truly the best I've ever seen. I don't believe I will ever purchase any other foundation after having used theirs.
We've also moved from our tiny one bedroom aparment in the heart of the city into a larger flat in the outskirts, in a gated complex with - guess what - its own swimming pool! :) :) So I am now frequently to be found splashing around aimlessly, inhaling water and having a whale of a time. But I've improved; I can now swim half the pool's length without floundering.
The college bus I used to whine so much about? I finally gave it up and started using public transport. Hot, sweaty, overcrowded... those were nightmare months, leaving me completely drained and depressed. Change that too. I've perfected my driving, and anyway since after we moved house the college is a lot nearer, hubby has lent me his car. So I now have fast, hassle free and most important of all, air-conditioned journeys to and from work. Of course, the Chennai traffic is as chaotic as ever. Its a wonder how my BP's remained normal.
I now have some free time. I've realised that maintaining a blog with regular updates is no joke. It requires time, attention to detail and a whole lot of commitment. Let me see how far I can pull along this installment of the cat's cradle. Hopefully, no more hibernations after this...
Bye and see u all soon :)

Nail color shot hybridized with book review

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:29:00 +0000

Yuck for the fag end of the weekend. I feel like I've been working nonstop for the last ten years. And when the much anticipated two day weekend finally arrives, the powers decide to keep hubby in office till unearthly hours. So no carousing for this cat. I gotta hike my big fat rear end out of bed and off to work at six am tomorrow. And yes, I know what Ayn (Dominique) said, that if you love your work it doesn't seem like work. Ok, I do enjoy the teaching and writing and all that, but who said I gotta enjoy a two hour, 60 kilometer bus ride in the devil's chariot rattler express whose suspension conked off like in the seventeenth century, and which gives you a tantalising choice of dislocating your intervertebral discs in the back seats, or sitting in the front seats and sweating your make-up and hairdo off so you look like a freshly minted scarecrow when you arrive.

That's my weekly whine nicely rounded off :) Coming back to the post title, I recently went through this lovely book by Linda Wells - Allure: Confessions of a Beauty Editor, where she's very nicely revealed beauty stuff she's learned in her years and years as editor of Allure. I particularly liked one of her tricks, so perfect for congenital clumsies like me - don't bother tearing your hair out trying to apply the perfect nailpolish. Just "color outside the lines" ;) ;) (p'keepsie pudding, anybody?) as much as you like at night-time, and in the morning when you shower, scrape off the extra polish from your fingertips! Me likes!

(Image courtesy of Amazon.com)

(With flash)

(Without flash)

(Color detail. And no you suspicious zoink, my fingers aren't clubbed, it's the camera angle)

This here is another one of those "And" brand nail colors I bought some time back at Pantaloonz, the beigey one I was rhapsodizing about in a previous post. Dunno if the photo captures it, but it has a very fine gold shimmer too, glimmers elusively where the light catches it. I'm wearing it to work tomorrow, I guess folks should render up heartfelt thanks that I finally had the sense to wear something subdued on my fingernails :D Only one problem. The consistency being thick and lacquer like, and me being severely afflicted with klutzophrenia. In the circumstances, it would have been wiser to restrain the eager hand before that second coat. Live and learn, Billydoc, live and learn... So - all u beautiful ladies - what plans? Watz ur nail color for this week? Refined or Rocking?

Ai yai yai, yai yai...

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:26:00 +0000

I'm paying tribute today to that unforgettable duo of movies, "The gods must be crazy" part one and two. I sez duo bcos, parts three, four, five, six, etcetera are quite forgettable, thank you very much. But no matter how old I get, I just can't resist going back to these two for a loading dose of floor-rolling mirth. I don't even remember how small I was when I first saw these movies on that outdated bulky video cassette player. In fact, I guess me and my bro were exactly the same age as Kisa and Kirey in part two. I suppose that might account for my attaching a lot of sentimental value to the story. Oh and of course, who can keep a straight face after seeing a one tonne jeep hanging like a slightly oversized mango on a tree branch, or a streetsmart Manhattan lawyer outsmarted by a gang of baboons! And because this blog is, after all, more or less dedicated to make up, I present before my adoring (and very very tolerant) readers the most hilarious shade of nail polish I've had the gumption to wear to college. Where I teach. Medical students.

The price of this beauty is even more hilarious. All of ten bucks. As our paunchy mustachioed leading men of the movies would say, "We yaar like that wonly. Mind it!"

Pink on the pinkies! (with a sunscreen review thrown in for good measure)

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:25:00 +0000

I had a pleasant surprise at the Pantaloons store recently. Seems they've taken to selling nailpolish in bins... pick and choose! It isn't a named brand or anything, and quite reasonably priced at 70 bucks a bottle. So I just picked two to test out, and was very satisfied with their performance. Funny, they haven't even named or numbered the shades! Truly a wholesale, "take your pick of the loot" style of marketing. But then, seeing as I'm not very brand conscious, and I've learned a lesson the hard way- choose by quality, not brand name, especially because you have impossible pale yellow Indian skin which no brand bothers to cater to - so I'm not complaining about the lack of a label. Judging from the design on the bottle, though, I suppose you could call it the "&" brand nail color. Funny, haanh? "And" Brand? The colors I picked were of course the one you see below - a hot pink with a lacquer-like texture, no shimmer, and a cute pale beige with very subtle gold shimmer. I think I like the beige better. Will post a pic of it soon. So suitable for my ultra conservative med coll in the heart of Tamilnadu. Not that I care, I'm continuously scandalising the workforce with my green eyes and five-color nails and what not!

Day 1:

Day 2:

Day 3:

And the pic above is the reason why I don't like Lotus herbals Safe Sun 3-in-1 Matte-Look DailySunblock SPF 40. It did everything short of outright dissolving my nail color, leaving it scuffed, scratchy and grainy with no trace of yesterday's smooth lacquer shine.

When it comes to sun protection, I swear by Lotus herbals, but this matte effect stuff isn't getting me excited at all. First, the label mentions only certain plant products as active ingredients. Call me anti-natural, but I want to see titanium dioxide, methoxycinnamate or parsol 1789 on my labels. Second, the matte look seems more of a gimmick than any smart product formulation. The lotion smells of nothing more nor less than calamine, and it stains my dress brown. It also creases and leaves fine brown lines in my skin folds - wrist, neck, front of elbow... very fashionable, if you go in for the unwashed tramp look. I look regrettably in need of a shower after about 3 hours of wearing this. I'd much rather go in for the much cheaper lacto calamine if this is all it can offer. The stuff also dries out my hypersensitive elbows and feet. Now I get real rushed for time in the mornings, and I just can't afford the luxury of layering sunblock over moisturiser. Double application, double time, no thank you. And it dulls my complexion, making it look (what a surprise, yawn) brown red instead of pale yellow, and doesn't really help with the oil glands, but then my nose is extra oily so I'll give it the benefit of doubt. Overall, though, my reco is to skip this dud with the extra hefty price tag - Rs. 275 for 120 gms, and stick to the much better spf 30 version of this brand, which I can tell from my extensive research into the realm, is the queen of sunscreen. One very complimentary review coming up. Watch this space!

Pretty in pink and green

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Hello ladies!

It's Friday evening and those of you who have the luxury of a long weekend are probably off to the hippest hotspots already. Not poor ol' me. I'm going to have to work two saturdays in succession, bcos last sat was a fifth, tomorrow is a first, and I only get second and fourth sats off.

There now, isn't it refreshing to start off a post with a nice, long whine? I guess I should feel lucky I'm not a 24X7 resident grubbing around in an overcrowded municipal hospital any more. Now I've managed to whine about the past.. see? There's no escaping the cribby cat. Anyway, I was examining my last few posts, and I find a reprehensible dearth of nice colorful pics. Only brush this, and vacation that, and doodle-dee-daah. I'm remedying the situation immediately with these pics of a pink and green look I did some days ago. Actually, lazy bum blogger's got plenty of pics stashed away, taken at various times during various experiments - make up exps as well as photographic. It's amazing, the kind of weirdness one can achieve in pictures by just tweaking a function or two.

This was a very hurriedly done eye-of-the-pizza-hut done for an evening devoted to whizzing around in the car with hubby and doing a first time in my life indulgence - we had pizza at a real pizza joint! Till now, I've been terrified of all those calories, but I'm putting the multiple staircases at my workplace to good use :) This was a nice excuse to play with some colors from my recent LA colors loot. I used Shimmering loose e/s in se116 melon sorbet on the lid, mint green from the pe788 quad for highlight, and the gold shade from my Lakme sheer color e/s duo in copper to line the lower lid. Upper lid lined with my favorite green Revlon eye pencil, doesn't it work wonders with that pink? :)

Ok, this is a lip look I had photographed some days ago, becos I really liked the color, but for the life of me I can't remember what on earth I used. I'm so pathetic, if I had a brain scan, they'd probably find no more than a couple flies buzzing around in the empty space inside my head :P

Heh heh heh! Meet my new pair of glasses :) And I'd be reaal happy if u all gave ur opinion on which one looks better - the old black pair, picture top, or the new one in copper, pic and close-up below.

Enough pictures to atone for my past sins, wat say?

p.s. : I find myself paying extra attention to the apostrophes nowadays, after reading ilovecheese's six quirks. Your royal highness sunneto, if u're done hibernating, would u kindly come and see the result of ur nagging about my glasses? ;)

Dr.Mukho M.D. (Master of Doodles :D)

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:04:00 +0000

You never really know what you're capable of until you're tested to the limits. Today, dear guinea pig who unwittingly stumbled across this blog, you will be put to the test of how well your sanity holds up after you've seen and commented on my artistic talents.

The output displayed below looks more like a five year old's scribbling than a supposedly responsible, "respectable", boring married lady's, but hey, I already told u I'm weird, just combine that with wits addled by a highly satisfactory lunch and here's what u get:

And then this:

Make-up will out.

Tagged - All about my beauty booty!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Thu, 29 May 2008 07:13:00 +0000

Once upon a time, a lazy bum blogger went to Mumbai on vacation. That was yesterday. Today's update is, my plane reached Chennai on time for once (don't u hate it when a plane gets six hours late, u reach home at 4 a.m. and have to get up again at 6 a.m. cos u gotta go to worrrrk) and I finally got a dekko at my MD degree... aah, so that's what cloud nine looks like :) :) Funny how u pass an exam in May and they send u proof in April - of the next year. Meandering apart, this one's for the awesome Beauty talk - I remember u tagged me dear, only u gotta contend with my awesome procrastinability!

Here it is, in all its jumbled glory, a bit of this and a bit of that, the goshdarned expensive sharing centrestage with cheapo paradise stuff that nevertheless delivers superb quality:

My Foundation: This is truly the best make up ever formulated for Indian skin, price be d_mned. I hunted high and low for the perfect foundation for my wedding, and Ambar moisturising make up lasted all night, did not melt, flake or crease, didn't dry my skin, didn't make me break out, didn't turn ashy and the shade melded into my skin like it wasn't there. It also hid my "ruin everything at the last moment" pimples without having to use concealer. The best thing about this one is that it doesn't have a trace of that ghastly red pigment everyone, including Lakme, Revlon and Chambor, is guilty of using in "fair" skin shades. Makes me look like a boiled beetroot, bleaghh. Oh, and it cost all of 40 bucks.
My Mascara: Heh, I got lashes that do the windshield wiper act on my glasses, coating them nicely with sunscreen and moisturiser. I don't think anyone's had such well cared for spectacles. Anyway, I use mascara only to get my lashes back to their coal black color after applying eyeshadow (spills over into the lashes), and Lakme nine to five seems to be ok for the job.
My Blush: Maybelline expertwear in berry sorbet and precious pink. I'm also lovin my recent LA COLORS haul, they got some naayice blush colors.
My Day Cream: Eh? Cream on my zit prone face? No way, dude! Lotus safe sun sunblock in spf 30 is my holy grail of skin care. Also, this one is real good for oily skin - Lotus Alphamoist Alpha Hydroxy Skin Renewal Oil-Free Moisturiser.
My Lipstick: Okay... I got like... umm... five hundred shades? Oh alright, not that many, but If I had to name one, it would be Lakme starshine lipgloss.
My Beauty Product Brand: The one I gotta use or the one I'd love to use? Brand by default would be Lakme, cos it is, after all, India's biggest name. Love to use... oh let me think... any of u guys ever heard of this brand called M.A.C.? Yeah, I guess not. It's a rather obscure line, but I'll let u all in on a secret - One day I'm going to get rich, and u all better hoard up ur faves, cos there won't be any left for u then.
My Essential Beauty Product: Sunscreen. Chapstick. Sunscreen. Chapstick. Sunscreen. Chapstick. Sunscreen. Chapstick.
My Favorite Makeup Product: Black eyeliner.
My Perfume: Romance. Oh not the one u all are thinking about. This is one more WMD from my Cheapo Paradise arsenal. Manufactured by an Indian company, eminently affordable and longlasting, a light, not floral, not spicy, not sweet, but extremely sultry and mysterious scent that's got me more compliments than I can count.
My Nails: Anything. More the color than the brand, I guess, but Lakme fireworks used to be my one and only until I developed this penchant for multicolored nails.
My Feet: Sunscreen in the daytime. Mannings shea butter reconditioning hand cream at night. Ok, so what's good for the hands ought to be good for the feet. It isn't like I'm half human and half Martian, lolz.
My Hands: Ditto :)
Three Products to bring on a deserted island: What a no-brainer: Sunscreen, Chapstick and Eyeliner anytime.
Women I admire for their beauty: Past: Suchitra Sen. Current: Kate Winslett.
Woman with the Best Sense of Style: Nafisa Ali
My Ultimate Dream: I got the degree and the husband. Now if I could just have the paycheck... Oh ok, I got that too. Wish it were a bit fatter, though ;)
How Do I Define Womanhood: Please see this post. And Thou shalt know all.
My Favorite Fashion Publication: He he, what a dud this one's going to be. I've only ever read one issue of one fashion mag, and I can't remember its name!

There. The lazy bum blogger's done her good deed for the day, and can now go pig out in the food court.

random...

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Mon, 19 May 2008 05:05:00 +0000

A few updates, neither in order of importance, nor chronologically arranged ;)

I'm back in my beloved MUMBAI, on vacation. Just how hot that city of Chennai can be, I've begun to realize... the temperature here today is no more than 30, and down south its a blistering 43 degrees! My poor, poor hubby... he's getting boiled.
I wonder how trashed an apartment can get when you leave a lonely husband king of the kingdom... I'm about to find out, aren't I?
I got a whole loot of stuff from the Dollar store - a brand called LA colors - at Rs. 111 per item, who cares? I just decided to pick up two or three of each, and got an astounding 2000 plus bill (what a relief hubby isn't here to wring my neck)
Tried out some of it last night... especially liked the 2n1 lip duo, a gloss and lipliner combo in very berry... gave my lips a beautiful deep reddish plum color that (according to Mom, and that's important) didn't look over the top.
Feels a bit weird to be in Mom's vicinity and go around snapping macros of eyes and lips... so I've given u all a product pic and swatch from the LA colors website.. heh, reminds me of this seventy year old gran who got herself a tattoo... asked why, she sez, till now, I was afraid of what my mother would say. Gramma, I so understand where you're coming from!!! (Shouts of laughter :D :D)
Oh, and I'm extra careful about the give credit where credit's due thing.. so the above sniplet is courtesy of an old issue of Reader's Digest.
Last and certainly not the least, judging by my fried finger joints - I've finally managed to write an essay for an international competition and submit it on time - lets see what the future holds! :)

Tryst with Ancestors

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Sat, 10 May 2008 06:36:00 +0000

Rain... many blogs, many writers, many ages, many professions... one theme... Rain.

This post was started, more precisely the 1st line of it was written about 2 hours ago, in a contemplative mood. Mist obscuring the mountaintop (don't goggle- there are people living near lakes nestled in mountains, even in Mumbai), breeze bestows moistly gentle kisses on my li..forehead, ad nauseam. Providence has a sense of humour similar to mine. Saved me from the ignominy of waxing lyrical at my age, by sending a troop of monkeys to my window.
Flashback to this morning - me unconscious under blanket, mom reading newspaper in living room, lovely monsoon green everywhere. Mom looks up from paper to see huge monkey on dining table, right in her face, coolly sorting through the clutter. Lady's got guts. Didn't faint or anything. Monkey's got guts too. Saw her freaking out, got up, daintily paced into my room, walked over my blanket and out of the window.

So there we were, windows safely closed, sitting down to a mango festival and of course we got an assembly of hungry spectators. Now these monkeys, we got a score to settle with them. Last week they demolished the netting on our storeroom window and made off with thirty or so full ripe badamis (king of mangoes to ignorant alfonso devotees). The least they could do in return was pose gracefully while I captured them for posterity. Posterity my ass... I've got a splendid closeup of the alpha male scratching his posterior.
Patience, gentle reader... kodak cameras need at least 48 hours to divulge their secrets. So no donut for you; atleast not immediately. I have to take the roll to Jenny's, get it developed, scan the prints and then upload to this hallowed site.

Till then, smell the wet earth, admire the clouds, grow fat on chai and pakodas, sing sentimental love songs, snog your sweetheart in public anonymity at Bandstand... whatever keeps your personal goat well-fed and happy.
Oh, and feel free to write what I didn't. Wax as lyrical as you wish on the breathtaking, soul-sucking beauty of the Indian Monsoon. Its a free country.

p.s. Hey, y'all, this is one of my earliest posts on this blog, dated June 2006. Thought I'd give it a second outing, cos I'm rather fond of it. It's going to remain the top post for some time, bcos I've postdated it. As for the monkey pics, my old Kodak chose that very day to act up, leaving me with blurry stuff not worth uploading. So instead of the star actors, I'm givin u all a dekko at the stage-set up :)

Enjoy the mayday hol, everyone! :) :)

I'm weird - and here's proof!

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Mon, 05 May 2008 09:09:00 +0000

Last week, two lovely ladies tagged me - Beauty talk and Sunneto - the first for my m/u regulars and the second, for six quirky things about me. The first is simple enough. For the second tag, I couldn't really think of something in just the right shade of weird - u know, eccentric enough but not so much as to gross u folks out ;) and then it hit me! Just ask Hubby, he keeps on moaning about how weird his wife's turned out so I hit him with the question the moment he came back from work. So this here post is actually a collaborative effort :)

I talk when I'm sleepy. I'm trying to keep awake, and yet I've already started dreaming; and this is where the really weird stuff starts to spew. The first time I did it to Hubby (then bf), we were having a late night phone chat and I suddenly go - "my teachers are coming". Hello, it's ONE a.m., I'm nicely tucked in, and now the teacher comes??
I walk around with my nails painted different colors. I actually go to class and teach medical students with my multicolored hands waving around :) Last time I did this was in March when I was trying to decide which shade to wear to a wedding. Right now, I'm rocking hot pink on my left thumb and a pretty nude on the left index finger :D
I look into mirrors. Obsessively. If there's a mirror, I gotta take a peek. No matter where. Even at a job interview :O
I lose my temper in hot weather. Happens without fail. Most of my arguments with hubby happen in the living room. Reason - AC in bedroom :)
I have to have a bowl of milk, bananas and shredded chapati's - no sugar - for breakfast. I just have to.
I still watch, and roll around the floor laughing at, Tom and Jerry. Of all things. I won't watch anything else if its on. Oh, and Harry Potter happens to be my favourite read. My poor, poor hubby :P

Ok... that's the tag completed. Now for the rulz - Link the person who tagged you. Mention the rules in your blog. Tell about six unspectacular quirks of yours. Tag six following bloggers by linking them. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

And this last part is a bit difficult, finding six bloggers who haven't been tagged yet... or, to make my job easier, who haven't already posted the tag :)

I tag Beauty talk, Mrs. Lynne, Gaia, Court, Christine and... you! :)

One more reason to splurge on make up brushes

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:15:00 +0000

Hello, everybody!
Let me inform u all at the very outset that:

I'm currently swinging between the two extremes of procrastinator's nirvana and a nasty, achy, tickly cooooold.
I was in hiding the last four days bcos, with my typical foresight and stick-to-itivity (thanks, Walt!), I had put off my essay writing till just before the deadline.
So I'd forgotten breakfast and lunch and was typing away to insanity, when, thanks to the sympathetic powers that be, the deadline was extended to 15th May - Yippeee!!!
Then this morning, I woke up with a very achy and scratchy throat, with my arms and legs protesting at the simplest of commands, and a lovely, comfortable, concrete -filled sensation in my head.

About the brushes, in answer to Sunneto's question- I wash my brushes often but I just hadn't expected a brand new, covered brush to be so filthy :(
The other day me and hub did one more trip to Health and Glow - I luuuuuurrrrvvves that store - to buy a blush brush and a fan brush for... he he... cleaning his lappy keyboard! Anyway, in my current state of paranoia, they promptly received a thorough dunking in soap (the two brushes silly, not my hubby or his laptop :P) but they weren't dirty at all, which makes me wonder what aberration caused the hairs on that retractable brush to be so foul! Maybe they were plucked from a particularly unhygienic horse's ass? (ICK!!! I managed to gross myself out!)

Anyway, this is what the "new and improved" brush looks like:

That metal casing pulls up out of the outer bottom shell to cover the hair when u want to put the lid back on. Once u're done, u can close the lid and push the whole thing back down.

We're done for today, my lovely cyberbaybz! Tomorrow is a hol, and I plan to inaugurate my new vacuum cleaner! :) :)

Brush alert!!

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:28:00 +0000

eeee ghaaa :P :P :P
I wish I could take a scrubber to my face with some really strong detergent in it and wash out the sins of this past week. How horrible does it feel when a trusty friend turns out to be a dirty, scabby backstabber! I am talking, my pretty cybersurfers, about the Vega travel style retractable powder brush that I spent 135 bucks on, and was ecstatic about! I only started carryin it in my purse last week, so I could apply my compact after reaching college. And today I decided to wash all my brushes. Horror of horrors! The moment the soap touched this brush, it started to ooze, no - spew - the most evil looking black, dirty gunk! Waaaaahhhh!!!!! :( :( :(
I never knew a brand new, branded brush could be so dirty! The thingy did use to smell a bit strange when I used it, but I thought that might be the smell of adhesive or something. Now I know... it was the stink of dirrrrt.
So a warning - to everybody - please do not trust even the branded brushes... wash them before first use, even if they're sealed, brand new.

Sultry melancholy

noreply@blogger.com (Mukho) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:18:00 +0000

Is what describes my mood exactly on these hot muggy afternoons with the post-lunch drowsiness tightening its grip, students all in other classes and my nice airconditioned apartment beckoning from thirty kilometres away. That's melancholy. And the hour long bus ride with a merciless four o'clock sun gnawing my skin? That's sultry!

So, without much wiffle-waffle, in honour of the equatorial summer and my cheapo paradise palette, here is my red and blue creation!

A very basic look, done with only my cheap palette and Max factor twist up eye pencil.

Listed:

Skin - nothing
Blusher - zilch
Lips - U cant see 'em, so dont ask
Brow - Comb (should have used :P)
Browbone - Very light pink shade
Lid - Peachy red (that's sultry)
Crease - Steely blue-gray (that's melancholy)
Upper lashline - Max factor twist up eyeliner in Black with a dusting of the steely blue e/s to make it look blurry, glimmery, mysterious
Lower lashline - Steely blue-gray e/s applied very carefully on the outer half and tapering away into the inner half (hurray! no pokey!)

Its a nice look to make your eyes prominent behind those glasses, and it isn't very loud either inspite of the shades used, so its safe for the workplace. With glasses off, it gives a sultry, mysterious look :)

So... this weekend, I actually have a weekend. Saturday as well as Sunday off. Go with the tidying up!!!