L'Oréal False Lash Superstar

 After 3 visits to the pc repair shop, I now seem to be back in the land of blogging & all is well *touches wood!*

So, back to normality & here I have a new mascara for you.  You know I'm a complete mascara addict so couldn't resist this one when it was on offer in Superdrug, L'Oréal False Lash Superstar.  It's now full price at £10.99 but is on 3 for 2.

This is a two-step mascara, something I've not really got on with in the past & I only tried it because it's by L'Oréal, but I have to tell you, I'll not be rushing out to repurchase it!  Unfortunately, this is the first L'Oréal mascara I've not liked & I'm really quite shocked!  I love the brushes & there's absolutely no dispute in that it gives phenomenal lashes, but my god, does it smudge!  It's also a bit reminiscent of Benefit They're Real in that it's a bit of a sod to remove without seriously scrubbing your lashes - and we don't want to do that, thank you very much!

The first step uses an hourglass shaped brush & is a white thickening lash primer.  I applied this & then after leaving it to dry slightly, applied the second step fibre rich formula with the curved brush & the photos show just one coat of each.  I absolutely loved the immediate volumising effect, it was just a few hours later that I became disappointed.

I don't know if it's because I have oilier eyelids or something but after 3 or 4 hours of wear, it was all over them & smudged underneath my eyes, not good IMO.  As I said, I've never had this trouble with L'Oréal mascaras before & their False Lash Telescopic is my HG mascara but this one just didn't float my boat I'm afraid.  I'd only bother using it if I was going out for 2 or 3 hours & wanted some va-va-voom on my lashes, rather than an all-day mascara.

What do you think, have you tried this one?

New York #2

Day 3 & we woke to lovely sunshine again, albeit a bit cooler than the day before.  Today we'd earmarked for visiting the 9/11 memorial gardens & the Statue of Liberty so we hopped on the subway just by the hotel & a after short 8 minute ride, we emerged into the sunlight at the foot of the Freedom Tower.

The memorial fountains are beautiful but I really struggled with my emotions when I was there.  I'll admit that there were quite a few tears shed & generally, most people felt the same judging by the complete silence all around.  Most definitely a place for reflection.  Because of this, we chose not to go in to the actual museum, I'd have been a complete wreck!

From here, we walked by the river down to the ferry terminal & headed over to see Lady Liberty.  I love this ferry journey seeing the Manhattan skyline behind you & the imposing statue in front of you, just fabulous!

We wandered round the island & had a bit of lunch (with THE best deli sandwich FYI!!!) then caught the ferry back to the city where, after watching helicopters circling above all morning, we decided on a whim to try & find them & do a heli tour!  We pretty much just followed the helicopters & we eventually found the helipad right next to the Brooklyn Bridge.  After paying an extortionate amount (still makes me feel slightly sick thinking how much!!) & waiting an hour, our turn was up.  At this point I was extremely nervous about the whole thing & very nearly backed out but omg, I'm so glad I didn't!!  I absolutely loved it & it was definitely the highlight of our trip for me - and hubble would agree with that too!

After landing, we caught the subway up to Chinatown & had a mooch around & then the subway back to the hotel.  It was 5pm at this point & we were starving so we hopped into a diner & had a wee pig-out.  That night was spent doing a bit of shopping for the kids & we really had run out of steam at this point!  But I have to point out here that shopping for myself was verrrrry disappointing!! :'(  A lot of things on my 'list' were out of stock (this was in 4 different Sephora stores!) & I did see a few nice things - but they were cheaper in the UK so I left them!!)  I ended up with a few bits & pieces which I'll do in another post asap.

On our last morning we woke to torrential downpours that were already flooding the roads at 7am!  We were meeting my cousin & his wife who were in NY from California for breakfast so after a great catch-up with them, we headed back to the room to pack the suitcases before heading out one last time.  Within 10 minutes we were both absolutely soaked to the skin & frozen so that put a bit of a dampener of things but we still managed to do a few more shops!!

And then that was it, our trip to NY was over & we were in a very smelly, overheated cab heading back to JFK!!  It's really surreal that this trip we had been planning for soooo long is over - but on the upside, we're now planning a trip to Rome for next June to celebrate what will be our 20th wedding anniversary, yay!!!

Here's the last of my photos for you!

New York #1

Hi all, sorry for the unintentional blogging break!!  My PC has been in to be 'fixed' but I'm still not entirely convinced it's sorted so I'll get as many posts done whilst it IS still working!!

So, it turns out that turning 40 is not so bad after all! ;)  I had loads of fab presents (shoes, jewellery, personalised gifts, a clutch bag, restaurant voucher, Jo Malone perfume & enough pennies to go & treat myself to my fabulous Tissot watch that I've been lusting after for months!!) & of course, the highlight of my birthday was our trip to New York.  I'm going to have to do a couple of posts as there are mannnnny photos.......!

Hubble & I flew down to Heathrow the day after my birthday as we were staying at the Ibis hotel the night before (absolutely brilliant hotel btw for anyone needing to stay at Heathrow airport!) our flight to JFK.  We flew with Delta, an airline we've never used before but they were great & we wouldn't hesitate to fly long haul with them again.  We landed in grey, drizzly weather but we were quickly through customs & in a cab on our way to Manhattan & our base for our holiday, the Sheraton Times Square.  We were an hour early for official check-in but we asked at reception & our room was ready straight away.  Unbeknownst to me, Hubble had emailed beforehand to let them know we were celebrating my birthday so they kindly had upgraded us to a larger room on a higher floor & gave us a voucher for a full breakfast the following morning!  (We could just see Central Park from our room!!)  We dumped the cases & then headed straight out into the now-sunshine.  Times Square was only a 6 or 7 minute walk from the hotel so we headed there, where I promptly entered my first Sephora!  We spent a couple of hours wandering round & then ate before walking back up to Central Park to enjoy the sunset.  Jetlag was seriously setting in at this point but we forced ourselves to stay awake until 10pm (3am our time!)

Day 2, after we'd enjoyed a fabulous breakfast, we knew it was going to be a sunny, hot day so we wandered down to the Empire State Building.  I was surprised that I remembered so easily where all the landmarks were & was off leading the way like it was only yesterday since I'd been there - rather than the 22 years it actually was!!  

We did some more exploring - and shopping - then Hubble had to buy shorts & trainers as he was sweltering in the 28 degree heat!  That evening, we headed to Top of the Rock as I really wanted to see the sun set from up there & it was absolutely stunning watching the low sun reflecting off the skyscrapers & then the sky turning dark.  I didn't want to leave......

I'll leave this post at this point & let you enjoy (hopefully!) some of our photos from the first 2 days.

*hmmmm, the fact that it's taken 3.5 hours to upload these photos leads me to believe that my pc is still poorly, grrrr!!!*