KEEPING UP APPEARANCES:LIFE'S NOT FAIR but we must do our best with what we've got and get on with it. My sister and I had donned our glad rags even though the local pub/restaurant in Connemara wouldn't have batted an eyelid had we shown up in our tracksuits. Sis had a shower at mine as her heating was on the blink, forgetting to bring her own shampoo/conditioner/ towel/deodorant, so I felt I may as well go the whole hog and offer to do her make-up, too. Quicker than you can say "maquillage", she was sitting on the bed, face up with my beauty trunk open at the ready, writes Phyl Clarke.
I admit that for the layperson, the array of products I carry around with me might appear to be dazzling (and that was the small trunk as I was away for just the week). The product that made the most impact? Estée Lauder’s Turbo Lash mascara (€35). “It’s the latest thing,” I spouted on about it’s vibrating technology, lengthening, volumising and curling effects, but she wasn’t listening – she was oohing and aahing and batting her lashes away in the mirror.
As it turned out, we needn’t have bothered with our preparations for all the attention we got at the restaurant. There we were, thinking we were only gorgeous, when in walks a real live Bond girl.
Rosamud Pike was minding her own business, seemingly unaware that the entire restaurant had paused mid-fork to take in her elegant frame, perfect profile and hair casually knotted back to highlight her swanlike neck.
Believe me, this lily did not need gilding – her only discernable make-up was a slick of silver eyeliner which opened up her eyes in a most fetching manner. A neat trick easily copied with Givenchy’s Precious Sari glittering eyeshadow in Maharani Silver (€24).