Ever since I got back from Miami I've really fallen out of the swing of posting regularly, so I do apologise for my week and a bit break. Work's been so tiring that all I want to do when I get in is have a lie down in front of a cooking show. However, I've really missed posting and now I'm ready to get back on the wagon!
This time last week I was at my company's annual black tie gala dinner at a swanky hotel in central London. It wasn't a complete knees-up for me though as I've been organising it since June and on the night I was dashing around making sure our guests were happy and things ran smoothly.
My little jaunt to Miami a few weeks ago for the launch of Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas was one of my best work trips ever, but it came at an inconvenient time in terms of pulling together my event. Normally we have our annual dinner on a newly launching cruise ship and get to stay over night, but this year none launching in the UK were available or large enough, so we had to go ashore. Even so it was a fun night and I did get to hit the dance floor by midnight with my lovely workmates. I've been catching up on everything else at work since last Friday and there's still so much that needs to be done that I may be celebrating Christmas day in the office!
I'm ashamed to admit it but one of the most stressful episodes last week was sorting out my dress! In the run up to the event I was so busy I didn't give a thought to what I'd wear as I've got 6 ball gowns in the wardrobe and planned on flinging on one of them. Thankfully I had enough sense to try one on the night before (the biggest one) and what would you know? It wouldn't zip up!
I lay on the floor. I donned ginormous control knickers. I tried it with bra on and bra off. I sliced off one of my spare tires with a kitchen knife...Okay I lied about the last one! Despite all the stresses with organising the event that I'd faced, my dress drama was the only thing which lead to a melt down. Now I'm not precious about not wearing the same dress twice etc. and I didn't care what the dress looked like on as long as it would zip up, but at 8pm the night before MY event, I literally had NOTHING suitable to wear to it. Disaster.
I grabbed my bag and ran out of the house like a mad woman over to Westfield. I don't think I even wore a coat and certainly didn't have gloves or a scarf even though it was subzero! I ran into every dress shop brandishing my credit card, and spent two hours (THANK GOD for the later Christmas opening hours!) buying two dresses from Monsoon, one from a random shop called Apricot and finally, the winning dress from Coast and other bits and bobs (read: even larger, sturdier control underwear).
This is the one from Apricot, it was only £29 in the sale, but it was baggy around the waist.
Kate Moss was right, nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, and the utter trauma that I went through that night made me swear off food, well junk food at least, forever, or at least until I'm a pensioner! If I hadn't been such a greedy guts for the past year I could have worn something I already own, saving £100 and a whole lot of unnecessary stress. Thankfully I got an amazing deal at Coast. The dress was originally £195, reduced to £125 and on the day it had a further 20% off so I got it for £100. If I'd realised earlier that I'd become such a hippo I would have gone shopping sooner and probably had to cough up a lot more for a suitable dress, so at least there was a little bit of a silver lining to the whole escapade.
But that wasn't the end of it. I got home and had to repaint my nails and toenails - the dress I'd planned to wear was black so Ciate's Dangerous Affair which I'd applied the the night before to get a head start on things clashed horribly with my pale blue dress. So I replaced it with Gosh's Metallic Purple with Frou Frou over the top to give a sort of pale purple silver colour. Then I had to sort out my hair. Like a complete idiot, I had a bath with some Sanctuary bath oil a few nights before the event and let my hair get wet. In the bath. With the oil. I washed it about 1o times and it still looked greasy. I even listened to my mum's insane suggestion of rinsing it in water with a bit of white vinegar dissolved in it. I was worried this would really strip my hair but was willing to try anything! My hair dried and the grease was still there. Earlier that day my workmate had suggested that washing up liquid would shift the grease/oil from my hair, which I guess makes sense, but I was terrified to try it and my mum said the bubbles would never rinse out. However it was gone midnight and my hair was still so greasy you could cook a breakfast on it. So out came the Fairy Liquid (I can hear you gasping!) and back into the shower I went...
Well, it was a revelation. I took care not to get the suds in my eyes and it miraculously rinsed out very easily. I didn't use conditioner (I'm DONE with greasy substances okay?!). I always use a plastic wide toothed comb to detangle my hair when it's wet. There were no tangles. The comb literally FELL down my hair and once dried, I don't think I've ever seen my hair shinier (and I didn't use any styling products/serums at all on it). So you're all probably beyond horrified by this revelation and unfollowing me and deleting me from your bookmarks as fast as you can, but what can I say?! Fairy Liquid is my new holy grail clarifying shampoo!
Not really, but if things ever go wrong for you with the old bath oil or olive oil hair treatments (that's a tale for another post) you know what to do!
I got to bed at about 2am, survived on adrenaline on D-day and have been exhausted ever since whilst trying to manically catch up on everything else before the Christmas break. Hence the lack of posting.
Anyway, our event manager at the hotel (who wasn't there on the night may I add! ¬_¬) gave me a Jo Malone candle. It's very pretty but I haven't burned it yet so I'm not sure about the scent. The packaging is so luxurious and it's my first 'Jo' product so I'm pretty excited!
So that's what I've been up to. Back to normal service :-)
This time last week I was at my company's annual black tie gala dinner at a swanky hotel in central London. It wasn't a complete knees-up for me though as I've been organising it since June and on the night I was dashing around making sure our guests were happy and things ran smoothly.
My little jaunt to Miami a few weeks ago for the launch of Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas was one of my best work trips ever, but it came at an inconvenient time in terms of pulling together my event. Normally we have our annual dinner on a newly launching cruise ship and get to stay over night, but this year none launching in the UK were available or large enough, so we had to go ashore. Even so it was a fun night and I did get to hit the dance floor by midnight with my lovely workmates. I've been catching up on everything else at work since last Friday and there's still so much that needs to be done that I may be celebrating Christmas day in the office!
I'm ashamed to admit it but one of the most stressful episodes last week was sorting out my dress! In the run up to the event I was so busy I didn't give a thought to what I'd wear as I've got 6 ball gowns in the wardrobe and planned on flinging on one of them. Thankfully I had enough sense to try one on the night before (the biggest one) and what would you know? It wouldn't zip up!
I lay on the floor. I donned ginormous control knickers. I tried it with bra on and bra off. I sliced off one of my spare tires with a kitchen knife...Okay I lied about the last one! Despite all the stresses with organising the event that I'd faced, my dress drama was the only thing which lead to a melt down. Now I'm not precious about not wearing the same dress twice etc. and I didn't care what the dress looked like on as long as it would zip up, but at 8pm the night before MY event, I literally had NOTHING suitable to wear to it. Disaster.
I grabbed my bag and ran out of the house like a mad woman over to Westfield. I don't think I even wore a coat and certainly didn't have gloves or a scarf even though it was subzero! I ran into every dress shop brandishing my credit card, and spent two hours (THANK GOD for the later Christmas opening hours!) buying two dresses from Monsoon, one from a random shop called Apricot and finally, the winning dress from Coast and other bits and bobs (read: even larger, sturdier control underwear).
These are the ones I got from Monsoon. I preferred the green (£120) even though I looked like a house in it, himself preferred the black (£90).
This is the one from Apricot, it was only £29 in the sale, but it was baggy around the waist.
And this is the one I went for in the end, I was so busy on the night I don't have one full length snap of me in it!
I spent last Saturday sheepishly returning the unsuitable dresses. And the chosen dress is currently at the dry cleaners being exorcised of red wine...
Kate Moss was right, nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, and the utter trauma that I went through that night made me swear off food, well junk food at least, forever, or at least until I'm a pensioner! If I hadn't been such a greedy guts for the past year I could have worn something I already own, saving £100 and a whole lot of unnecessary stress. Thankfully I got an amazing deal at Coast. The dress was originally £195, reduced to £125 and on the day it had a further 20% off so I got it for £100. If I'd realised earlier that I'd become such a hippo I would have gone shopping sooner and probably had to cough up a lot more for a suitable dress, so at least there was a little bit of a silver lining to the whole escapade.
But that wasn't the end of it. I got home and had to repaint my nails and toenails - the dress I'd planned to wear was black so Ciate's Dangerous Affair which I'd applied the the night before to get a head start on things clashed horribly with my pale blue dress. So I replaced it with Gosh's Metallic Purple with Frou Frou over the top to give a sort of pale purple silver colour. Then I had to sort out my hair. Like a complete idiot, I had a bath with some Sanctuary bath oil a few nights before the event and let my hair get wet. In the bath. With the oil. I washed it about 1o times and it still looked greasy. I even listened to my mum's insane suggestion of rinsing it in water with a bit of white vinegar dissolved in it. I was worried this would really strip my hair but was willing to try anything! My hair dried and the grease was still there. Earlier that day my workmate had suggested that washing up liquid would shift the grease/oil from my hair, which I guess makes sense, but I was terrified to try it and my mum said the bubbles would never rinse out. However it was gone midnight and my hair was still so greasy you could cook a breakfast on it. So out came the Fairy Liquid (I can hear you gasping!) and back into the shower I went...
Well, it was a revelation. I took care not to get the suds in my eyes and it miraculously rinsed out very easily. I didn't use conditioner (I'm DONE with greasy substances okay?!). I always use a plastic wide toothed comb to detangle my hair when it's wet. There were no tangles. The comb literally FELL down my hair and once dried, I don't think I've ever seen my hair shinier (and I didn't use any styling products/serums at all on it). So you're all probably beyond horrified by this revelation and unfollowing me and deleting me from your bookmarks as fast as you can, but what can I say?! Fairy Liquid is my new holy grail clarifying shampoo!
Not really, but if things ever go wrong for you with the old bath oil or olive oil hair treatments (that's a tale for another post) you know what to do!
I got to bed at about 2am, survived on adrenaline on D-day and have been exhausted ever since whilst trying to manically catch up on everything else before the Christmas break. Hence the lack of posting.
Anyway, our event manager at the hotel (who wasn't there on the night may I add! ¬_¬) gave me a Jo Malone candle. It's very pretty but I haven't burned it yet so I'm not sure about the scent. The packaging is so luxurious and it's my first 'Jo' product so I'm pretty excited!
I like!
So that's what I've been up to. Back to normal service :-)
LOVE the dress you went with, I think you definitely made the right decision. You look so pretty in it!
ReplyDeleteLove the dress you ended up with and love the green one too :) I have done the same thing in the past with greasy hair, I think I used Fructis when it first came out to wash my hair and it left my hair so greasy that the only thing that I could think of using was Fairy Liquid hehe Did the job!
ReplyDeleteI love the dress you went with - I like the black too but a bit of sparkle never goes amiss!
ReplyDeletei love the dress you choose
ReplyDeleteFairy liquid!? Well, shampoo is just a cleaning agent anyway, the less fancy the better. I use Lush shampoo bars.
ReplyDeleteAll the dresses are gorgeous, I love the Monsoon ones! If you wanna lose weight you should come live with me for month. I made Saraya lose a stone in a couple of weeks!
Excited about tomorrow's present swap!! xxxxx
Fairy Liquid is actually what the use on runaways to remove all the styling product/tame heat damage frizz!!1
ReplyDeleteA drop off laundry service Hollywood is a boon for the people who don't have enough time to visit the laundry individually. laundry service near me
ReplyDelete