Lyndar the Merciless

a personal beauty + lifestyle blog

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A Spot of Summer Shopping

Sunday, June 27, 2010   |   3 comments


Although I very much like mooching around the shops, I very rarely actually buy clothes.

However, with holidays and Himself's sister's wedding on the horizon and some vouchers burning a hole in my pocket, the last couple of weeks have been the exception to the rule.

First things first: I found a frock for the wedding!


River Island

It's about a gazillion times nicer In Real Life than in that photo, now. The material's beeyorriful: really gorgeous gold shimmery detail on a non-shimmery peachy pink background. Oh, and it's quite a bit longer on me than on this bird! The hemline falls just above my knees. 

I'm going to see if I can have the straps removed - the top is boned so hopefully it'll be possible to wear it as a bandeau dress. 

A couple of sundresses have come home with me recently also...

L-R: AX Paris @ New Look, River Island, New Look

... together with a bird-print skirt that's not quite Miu Miu, but it'll have to do do...
River Island

... and an embellished white top that's lovely with jeans.

New Look

Accessories-wise, my collection of straw hats and flower rings has been expanded.

L-R: Accessorize, River Island

Although it's only for festivals and journeys in convertibles, I'm not convinced that the cowboy hat doesn't make me look like an eejit. If I can find a trilby that fits me properly it'll be a bring back, I think.

Last but not least, Himself is hopefully going to pick up this dress for me tomorrow...

River Island

And yes - it is far better looking in person!


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Talon-tastic Thursday: CND Shellac in Tropix

Thursday, June 24, 2010   |   0 comments


I test drove CND's new Shellac for last week's Herald article and I thought you might like to see how it wore on my nails.

It didn't occur to me to take any photos early in the life of the manicure, but you can take my word for how glossy and shiny and feckin' indistructible Shellac was on my nails from the get go. (And if you're wondering what the hell Shellac is when it's at home, see my Beaut.ie post here for the lowdown.) 


They stayed chip free for 13 lovely long days of colour, and here they are on Day 15:


Quite a bit of regrowth, which didn't really bother me, and would probably be less obvious with a French manicure or a nude colour. Other than that and the chip on the middle nail and wear on the nail of the little finger of this hand, it was almost as good as the day it was applied. On the opposite hand, it was the middle and thumb nails that started to go first, but not until day 14 of the manicure.

Tropix is a gorgeous coral - that photo doesn't really do it justice - and I think it was part of the reason I didn't get bored having the same colour on my fingers for a fortnight. I was bold and removed it myself with a bottle of acetone rather than going to the pros, but even so it came off beautifully and left my nails undamaged.

Love it!


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Can you tell what it is yet?

Wednesday, June 23, 2010   |   0 comments


Your clues are the below photos and the fact that I'm currently attempting to stockpile nearly three weeks' worth of work to try and get ahead of myself!









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Wantsies: Wall Mounted Vases

Tuesday, June 22, 2010   |   3 comments

I just came across these framed wall vases on Apartment Therapy and had to show them to you.


Aren't they gorgeous? They live in the home of AT:LA (Apartment Therapy Los Angeles) contributor Beth Zeigler and I wants them so bad.

Well. Them, and the frame, and the peony roses.

Pleaseandthankyouvermuchmwah.

I'm now going to show you the space in Beth's home that they occupy, but be prepared for some desk (and lamp) envy.


You have no idea how much work I would (probably) get done if I had a desk with star handles like this.


Images: Beth Zeigler, Apartment Therapy


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Buy today's Herald, get me free! (Sorta.)

Wednesday, June 16, 2010   |   0 comments

Flick to the Features pages to find me writing about the beauty treatments that promise - and deliver - long-lasting results.

Oh, and if you like the sound of any of the things mentioned, get your skates on to make a booking - there's already been a scramble for appointments in the Evening Herald offices!


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Sets & The City: Carrie & Big's Apartment

Tuesday, June 15, 2010   |   1 comments

Now, I'll warn you right this minute that this post is going to be image heavy, but I was really taken with the set design in Sex And The City 2, and Carrie and Big's apartment in particular.

Here's a gallery of stills of the apartment set - a house tour of sorts - for you to feast your eyes on!  


The closet/dressing room is, needless to say, fantastic, but I particularly love all the wallpaper, the butterfly terranium (a 19th century antique) on the console in the entryway, and the built-in bookcases in the... would you call it a foyer? As for the blue pouf (it's the Lola ottoman by Anne Kyyro Quinn) and the wall-mounted lamps in the living room, well, suffice to say wantsies

I wasn't mad about the bedroom, really, nor was I gone on the "Moroccan" corner and flowery curtains in the living room, but hey. I would still totally move in here in the morning.
 

Images via Elle Decor, InStyle, NY Daily News, Architectural Digest, Sex And The City 2, and Marks & Frantz

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Under the Sea Stairs

Monday, June 14, 2010   |   0 comments


I washed my car on Saturday and had an awful job getting into the downstairs loo to retrieve all my car care goodies. I think every house probably has a dumping ground, a corner where things are inclined to get shoved until they can be dealt with at a later date or, as usually happens here, forgotten about altogether. Well, our downstairs loo is just such a space, and it also houses the underneath of our stairs in the form of an alcove in the corner that's bloody awkward to get at.

As I moved wellies and tins of paint and indicators and brake lights (bet you didn't know I'm a closet car mod enthusiast!) around, trying not to knock over the two golf bags full of clubs in the corner with the hose of the hoover, I thought how much simpler things would be if we had a set-up like this for our understairs space:


Clipped from an issue of Livingetc

Ideally, I'd prefer to use push-click fixings rather than handles for a more streamlined look. That's what the owners of this snazzy understairs set up went with, and it looks great I think: 


If you or someone in your life is handy with a... um, whatever tool you would use to self-build understairs yokies, you'll find plans for them here and here.

I might just get in a carpenter, if I ever actually get round to doing this, because while Himself would of course be my first choice and has done woodwork, he is very busy. 

Oh, and of course he mostly hates home improvement projects.   


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Separated At Birth: The Musical


Song starts at 2:09

Does Lady GaGa's Alejandro remind anyone else of, well, something else?

Because I can't hear it without expecting it to turn into this...




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Become a shoe designer at BT2! (Kinda.)

Thursday, June 10, 2010   |   2 comments



I've been thinking about what I'd like to be when I grow up for more than 20 years now, so you'd think at this stage I'd have (a) grown up, and (b) come up with something a bit more concrete than "happy", wouldn't you?

Anyway, somewhere between wondering about being a lady farmer (age 5), a pilot, and a vet (age 18), I thought that I might quite like to be a shoe designer. None of the former quite panned out for me (bit afraid of cows' arses, flying, and needles, as it turns out) but it looks like I might yet get a shot at creating my own perfect footwear. Well, my own perfect pair of flip-flops, at any rate.

BT2 Grafton Street have just kicked off (ho ho) their 'Make Your Own Havaianas' service, where the discerning flip-flop wearer can choose from more than 100 combinations of straps and soles and 25 strap decorations (including some blingy Swarovski ones, which of course piqued my interest) to create and customise their own unique pair of Havaianas. Swit swoo. I have several pairs of these myself because they're the closest thing I can get to the ridiculously comfy flip-flops of my youth that came from Funges in Gorey, and I am a hoo-er for the ol' customising, so I reckon I'll be swinging by the next time I'm in town to have a goo at this set up.



Prices start from €25 which seems expensive to me, but then I can't actually remember how much the last pair of Havaianas I bought were. Hey, at least it'd get footwear creater extraordinaire off my career list...

Pics via Havaianas and BT2

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In which Steve Jobs makes me cry a little.

Tuesday, June 08, 2010   |   4 comments



But of course Apple would launch iPhone 4.0 within 2 months of me buying the older version. I should have seen this coming: they came out with the iPod nano almost immediately after I got an iPod mini. 

I must really have ticked Steve Jobs off in a previous existance.

As you can tell from the pic above, the new iPhone will be available in white - properly white, I mean, with a white front as well as rear. GAH!!! The black on the front of my "white" 3GS is taunting me as I type this. 

It's apparently 24% thinner than the 3GS, and is flatter, too - it actually reminds me quite a lot of my old Sony Ericsson w890i, which I loved dearly. The camera's up to 5 megapixels from 3, with an LED flash added, and there's a front facing camera for video calling (meh.) 

Oh, and there's an extra mic, which might help to make the speaker function on the iPhone actually usable. 

No release date confirmed here yet, as far as I know, but in Steve's address it looked like 4.0 will be hitting these shores sometime in July. 

God. I really wish I'd dithered for a few more months and held off on my iPhone purchase until the summer.


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A long post about the long weekend.

Since my subtle like a brick wall wrapped in barbed wire browsing of the Aer Lingus website and talk about Going Somewhere last week was trumped by the arrival of Himself's shiny new bicycle on Friday, I was all set for multiple "we never do anything" whinges over the long weekend.

I didn't get to utter the phrase once. (Hmph.)

Courtesy of some inspired spontaneity from Himself, we ended up in Kilkenny on Saturday evening and got in some comedy gigs at the Cat Laughs festival after a gorgeous dinner in Zuni. It was such a good night that we actually went back down for a couple more shows on Sunday.

Yesterday morning, we headed for a cycle. Now, I haven't been on a moving non-gym bike in about 18 months, and while it's true that you never forget how to ride a bike, you can be very bloody wobbly while pedalling and staying upright and wondering if you'll be able to take your hands off the handlebars for hand signals (polite "I-intend-to-turn-right" ones, of course) and only remembering that you should be using the gears when you can't get the pedals to feckin' move as you attempt to ascend a humpback bridge.


Yesterday afternoon, we took ourselves and Dad off to Bloom for the final couple of hours of the show. It was really, really, really wet, which I hadn't been anticipating or I'd totally have broken out the (pink) festival wellies rather than these lads...

Low vamp + canvas + rain = wet feets

As usual, my favourite show garden was from Doylescapes...

More details on Doylescapes' gold medal winning G&T garden here.

The duck garden that won RTÉ's Super Garden show was there too...


 ... complete with a few ducks who looked like they were plotting their escape.


I also liked Anne Hamilton's Islands, large raised undulating beds surrounded by narrow channels of water so that they seemed to float, which were connected by a curving wooden walkway...


... and Niall Maxwell's Victus Ortus, although I'm not entirely sure what the cream slatted concrete/render yoke on the ground (bottom right in this photo) was about...


Hostas seem to be back in fashion in a big way and featured in loads of the show gardens, and once again there were lots of ferns about this year.


Hostas are lovely plants alright. Well, until slugs and snails discover you've planted them, call up all their mates, and descend en masse to gorge themselves on the leaves. (I overheard one woman at Bloom tell another that she'd heard hostas were great for keeping slugs and snails away. Er, not unless your garden's in opposite land, missus.)


 I think these are peony roses..? Lovely anyways.

The quality of the photos is a bit hit and miss because even though I remembered to charge the camera battery I forgot the memory card - genius - so had to rely on the iPhone.

(True story. I am not just trying to slip a reference to it into every post.)


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