Lashes 6 - ModelCo Fibre Lash Brush on False Lashes.

Here is a look at another two-step mascara in my collection. Actually it is a three-step mascara, four if you curl your lashes first but, for me, I think the results are worth the extra step. This is the ModelCo Fibre Lash Brush on False Lashes. I have purchased this mascara myself and also picked up freebies with magazine purchases because it is a little bit pricey and because I love this mascara for added length. For best results curl your lashes first then brush on the mascara. This gives the fibres in the other tube something to stick to. Brush on the fibres then cover with mascara again for longer lashes. Yes, you can get length like this with some one-step mascaras too but I do like this one a lot. I think it is my favourite.

 Again here is my 'table' of the first five mascaras compared. I haven't added the ModelCo Fibre Lash yet. I'll do a 'Part 2' at the end of all the 'before & afters' I think.

Score chart currently goes something like this -

First Place -  ModelCo Fibre Lash Brush on False Lashes
Second Place - Maybelline One by One Volum' Express Satin Black
Third Place - Benefit They're Real!
Fourth Place - Revlon Grow Luscious by Fabulash because it actually looks quite nice in the pictures.
Fifth Place - Maybelline's XXL PRO Extensions.
Sixth Place - Maybelline's The Falsies Volum' Express

Wintergirls

Wintergirls

Laurie Halse Anderson

I recently went on a bit of a splurge and bought myself one of those fancy new-fangled iPads. Mostly I've been downloading books and using it as an e-reader, which makes me think I probably should have just bought a kindle, but I'm sure I'll get into the full functionality of it soon enough. I'm pretty slow when it comes to technology, I admit it. It's just so amazing that I can download a sample of a book, read it, and then if I like it, download the rest of the book. All at the tap of a button. Frankly, it's a bit dangerous for my bank account and I probably need to start exercising a little more discretion in my purchases.

That however, is not a comment on Wintergirls. I've been on a bit of a hunt recently for YA authors that I haven't previously heard of, and Laurie Halse Anderson's name cropped up quite a few times in my internet browsing. I don't generally gravitate towards EATING DISORDER novels. It's a bit like novels that are about DRUGS, or DIVORCE, or teenage girls who are in INAPPROPRIATE RELATIONSHIPS. Reading them is a bit like continuously being hit over the head by the author a baseball bat, with whatever the key message of the novel is painted on the side, just in case you're not getting it. It's annoying and painful. And let's face it, there are plenty of sophisticated teen readers out there, so odds are, they are annoyed too and there goes your target audience.

The first thing I will say about Wintergirls is that it's incredibly confronting. Anderson does an amazing job of getting inside the head of eighteen year old Lia, who suffers from anorexia nervosa. Anderson clearly did her research, and did it well. I consider myself a fairly empathetic person, and I still had to work pretty hard at times to remind myself that Lia was being controlled by a disease - she was not sound of mind and making choices simply to be difficult and make life hell for her family. 

The novel opens with Lia finding out about the death of her friend Cassie - who died alone - in a motel room. RIght away, you know what the tone is going to be. Lia lives with her present-but-absent father, stepmother and stepsister and has an extremely dysfunctional  relationship with her mother, whom she refers to as Dr Madigan, rather than Mum (or Mom - the book is American). Wintergirls is dark, there is no getting around this. Lia's fractured family life and fractured self-image, result in her walking through life in a haze of denial and obsession.  

Not all readers will like Anderson's way of writing. There are a lot of, as the author puts it, "stylistic quirks." I think the author made some great choices in this regard and those quirks really helped me, as a reader, feel what it was like to be Lia, and inside Lia's body. It's a very sensory novel, Lia's emotional and physical pain is pretty visceral.

While this a YA novel about a SERIOUS ISSUE, Anderson manages to avoid a lot of the cliches found in this kind of novel. There is one huge cliche, that I was absolutely sure would appear at the end of the novel, and I was absolutely delighted to be wrong. And thank god, because that particular cliche is not the answer to every teenage girl's problems. I can't tell you what it was without spoiling it for you, but should you read it you'll know what I'm talking about. Hopefully, you might just breathe a sigh of relief too...

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson is published by Penguin Group US, and is $10.99 on iTunes. 

Lashes 5

Now for a two-step mascara. I've noticed, on the web, that some people just aren't fans of the two-step mascara. I think this is partly because they feel it takes longer to apply and that annoys them. I've found that this type of mascara really can help to get that extra millimetre or two of length out of your lashes and that second step doesn't bother me. It's just another couple of seconds. I own a couple of this type of mascara which I'll be looking at here over the next couple of posts.

Today, a mascara that was an old favourite of mine -
Maybelline's XXL PRO Extensions. I think it is pretty good for a mascara that you can buy at a supermarket. It looks a little clumpy in the photos here... maybe it is... or maybe I'm not so good at applying the mascara? I don't usually find that it is too clumpy myself. Step 1 is a white 'primer', for want of a better word. Some two-step mascaras have small fibres to brush on to the lashes (e.g. Model Co. Fibre Lash which I will show soon) but this is just a white coat. Brush this coat on and then go back over it with the black coat. The white primer clings to the thin, light tips of the lashes that you normally can't see giving the black coat something extra to hang on to. It's not magic, just logic I suppose.

Maybelline XXL Pro Extensions mascara.

Now, I have put together a 'table' of the five mascaras compared so far. (It's a little odd seeing thirteen pictures of your own eyes staring out at you from the computer screen!) My lighting and camera angles are a little inconsistent but I think you can get the idea.

Looking at them all together like this is making me think differently about which ones I like best now.

I think my score chart goes something like this now -

First Place - Maybelline One by One Volum' Express Satin Black
Second Place - Benefit They're Real!
Third Place - Revlon Grow Luscious by Fabulash because it actually looks quite nice in the pictures.
Fourth Place - Maybelline's XXL PRO Extensions.
Fifth Place - Maybelline's The Falsies Volum' Express

- but that could change on a day-to-day basis.

Lashes 3 & 4

Today I bring you two mascaras from my excessive collection. Also, I realised that although I own twelve mascaras, some of them are double-ups so there won't  be twelve reviews. That would just be silly.

First up - Benefit's They're Real! mascara.

This is another mascara that I did actually purchase. It is a bit pricier than the others I have shown so far, especially if you buy it here in Australia. The Benefit cosmetics website in America ships to Australia now and their prices are much more affordable especially if you spend enough to may qualify for free shipping. It might be worth a look if you are a fan of Benefit. This mascara is good but it is not quite as good at separating and defining the lashes as the Maybelline One by One and it also doesn't add quite as much length but They're Real! adds volume for sure. I quite like this mascara. It's hard to say whether I like One by One or They're Real! better though. They're Real! creates a blacker, thicker lash look and One by One creates a long, black, separated lash look as far as I can tell with my untrained eye.

Benefit They're Real! mascara.

Second today is Revlon's - Grow Luscious by Fabulash. 

The Revlon - Grow Luscious mascara is more 'lightweight' and subtle on my already-dark lashes than the other mascaras I've tried so far.  Supposedly it contains ingredients that help your lashes grow healthier and stronger but as I don't use this one often I can't say that I have noticed any improvement. If you want a natural, subtle sort of look then this mascara might be one you'd like. I don't think I'd buy it again myself as I don't find it particularly amazing but it is not horrible.

Revlon Grow Luscious by Fabulash mascara.

The score card (in my personal opinion) now reads -

First Place - Maybelline One by One Volum' Express Satin Black
Second Place - Benefit They're Real!
Third Place - Revlon Grow Luscious by Fabulash
Fourth Place - Maybelline's The Falsies Volum' Express

Still a few more to follow soon and I'm working on a collage with all of the mascaras together for an overall comparison too.

Lashes 2 ... Electric Boogaloo

Continuing on with my mascara 'reviews', Caroline asked if I own 'that Maybelline one that is supposed to look like false lashes'. I do own Maybelline 'Falsies' but the one I've seen in TV ads the most lately is the 'Falsies Flared'. I don't have this 'Flared' one and at this stage I definitely don't need to buy it. (Maybe I can win one? I've entered the facebook competition already of course.)




So today I present Maybelline's 'The Falsies Volum' Express' mascara. From memory, this is one that I did actually buy but unfortunately it isn't one of my favourites. I would describe it as 'clumpier' and less smooth to apply. It doesn't seem to separate the lashes as nicely as the 'One by One' does. I find that the 'One by One' adds more length too. I've added the 'One by One' photo from the other day below the 'Falsies' photo for comparison.

Maybelline's The Falsies Volum' Express

Maybelline One by One Volum' Express Satin Black

The score card (in my personal opinion) currently reads -

First Place - Maybelline One by One Volum' Express Satin Black
Second Place - Maybelline's The Falsies Volum' Express

More to follow soon.

Um, I don't think you understand. I need to read ALL the John Green novels.

Falling in love with a new author always brings out two different desires in me. The first, is the wish that I'd discovered them years ago, because now they have suddenly brought so much to my reading life  that I have been missing out on. If only I had known about them sooner, who knows how different my life would be! (Okay, that might be a little over the top, but you get the picture). The second is the overwhelming need to read every single thing the author has written, ever. That feeling of excitement and joy when you realise they have a whole back catalogue of books that are yet to be read - the anticipation is delicious. Unsurprisingly - given the title of this post - this is exactly how I feel about John Green. I've raced through two more of his novels since devouring Looking for Alaska, so I thought I'd mini-review them both for you this week, just because I like them (and you!) so much.

Before I get into the book-y stuff, let's just find out a bit about the author first. I'll summarise his wikipedia page briefly for you - he's a 34 year old guy who is a New York Times best seller, married with one kid, lives in Indiana and is one half of the Vlogbrothers. "What?" I hear you ask. So, in 2007  John and his brother Hank decided they would communicate with each other only via video blogs and would stop all text based communication. I know, right? It turned out to be pretty popular, and at the end of 2007 they announced that the vlogging would continue and you can find out all sorts of interesting things and watch some videos over at their website, Nerdfighters. 

I feel the need here to make a point here about the internet. Huh...I've just realised I do that a lot. Oh well - it is something I think about pretty often and how generally, I'm grateful that it wasn't as pervasive or accessible when I was a teenager as it is now. Basically, the internet and email were cool, but they weren't such a big deal, you know? Social networking still happened in the playground, via telephones attached to landlines and on weekends at each others houses. Internet based conversations still happened via ICQ. So it makes me happy to find out that sites like Nerdfighters exist, because it is a cool place, and seems to be very much about letting teens (and everyone) be who they are and not telling them who they should be. 

The second John Green book I got my hands on was the intriguingly titled Will Grayson, Will Grayson, co-written with David Levithan. It sounds like it could be a poem about or a love song written to some guy called Will Grayson. Which it kind of is, in a metaphorical sense, except that the novel is about two guys who both happen to be called Will Grayson. It's an incredible cliche to describe books (and movies, songs, paintings, interpretive dance) as moving, but in this case it's true. It's also incredible funny - both straight up hilarious, and also in that "ha ha - ouch" way that is bittersweet and ironic. The Will Graysons meet under unlikely circumstances and from that night, their lives suddenly start moving in unexpected directions. This novel also features a musical, written by the most fabulous supporting character in a novel ever. The first Will Grayson we meet has a best friend named Tiny - and so obviously he is huge. Larger than life and huge of heart, he is the writer of said musical, which is autobiographical and features a character named "Gil Wrayson" - which was the biggest laugh out loud moment of the novel for me. Seriously, I'm giggling right now as I write this. WORDPLAY. 

I read a really interesting article today, questioning the need to categorise young adult novels as "YA" given that so many of them have "crossover appeal" and are read by a far more wide ranging audience than 13 - 18 year old readers. After all, it's not like the YA categorisation is like a PG or M rating on a movie, and nor should it be. One of the things I like so much about reading John Green is that things get pretty frank at times, without being deliberately titillating simply for attention and shock value. It's just real. 

The third John Green novel was the delightful, beautiful and sad The Fault in Our Stars. I'm going to warn you straight up here - it's about teenagers who have cancer, so maybe don't read it on the train on the way to work if you are the sort of person who tears up easily. Just a suggestion. I don't know if I'm making too much of this - so please, I would value your opinion - but I was really impressed at how well Green writes from the perspective of a teenage girl. Now, I'm not a huge fan of making a big deal about differences between the genders, but there was not one moment reading The Fault in Our Stars where I questioned Hazel's voice. The greatest thing about this novel though, is how honest it is about the struggles of its characters without remotely becoming an episode of 7th Heaven. Like all his novels, it's just real. Kind of messy and difficult, with occasional moments of light. And no sermonising or proselytising from Reverend Camden. Phew.

Cover Me: ...all my Sunday scheming.

I'm pickier than the average listener when it comes to female voices and I'm the first to admit it. It's a combination of a few things - being a female myself (in case you hadn't realised) and having had a certain amount of vocal and musical training sometimes it feels like a case of too much knowledge being a bad thing. An actor friend of mine can't watch plays for pleasure, and bad singing causes me actual, physical pain. So no, I've never been a fan of TV talent shows. I also think that it's partly to do with the fact that women in the entertainment industry are not necessarily given record deals on the basis of talent. Listening to Rihanna miss each note by a quarter tone is evidence enough of that.

It was popular for a while for female singers to sing in breathy, weak, little girl voices and that kind of singing drives me absolutely bananas. BANANAS. Bonkers. The sort of angry where you start a sentence trying to describe how the singer makes you feel and it just sort of trails off because you're so annoyed you forget how words work. I first heard Beth Rowley when a copy of her debut album landed on my desk, back in my record company days. This was a few years ago now, back when Katie Melua was still kind of a thing, and it seemed like every label had a slightly jazzy chanteuse to spruik. Listening to Rowley sing for the first time, it was so nice to hear a woman sing like, well, a woman.

Her cover of Sunday Kind of Love isn't on that album, but it is on the soundtrack to "An Education." (Sidenote - great movie. Watch it. Carey Mulligan is a delight and Peter Sarsgard is very Peter Saaaaaarsgaaaaaardy. If you know what I mean.) Rowley herself appears in the film, singing the song in a Parisian jazz club that makes me nostalgic for a time I never actually lived in. But, how great would it be if that was the sort of place we went dancing on Saturday nights? You might be familiar with the versions of the song by Etta James or Ella Fitzgerald. Originally published in 1946, it's done the rounds - I for one, am going to be tracking down Reba McEntire's version as a matter of urgency. Reba! But for now, I leave you with Beth's version to enjoy - and I sincerely hope you do. 

Looking for Alaska

John Green


I think what we all realise now as adults, that we have no idea of when we're teenagers, is that being a teenager is hard for pretty much everyone. As in all things, hindsight is 20/20 and now we can look back on those days and know that the kids who were better looking, or funnier, or cooler or richer were struggling just as much as we were. But when you're in the belly of the beast, it feels like you're the only one. It's part of what draws adult readers to this kind of fiction - being able to experience and analyse those emotions again as a reader, with the benefit of a bit more like experience and knowledge - hopefully.


John Green is a name that I have been hearing (or reading) again and again. Until recently I had never read any of his novels, just read plenty about what a great writer he is, so I thought that I would stick with the YA theme for this week's read and review "Looking for Alaska."  Of course, now I'm asking myself why I didn't start reading his novels earlier... There were moments when I wanted to dive inside the pages and tell some of the characters that, no really, it IS actually all going to be okay. It takes a really talented writer (in any genre or format) to create characters who cover well-trodden ground without being cliched or one-dimensional and Green achieves this while using some familiar situations and plot devices.

The most familiar plot device and frankly, one that I always enjoy, is setting the story inside a boarding school. I know the reality of boarding schools is most likely completely different from how fiction and our imaginations tell us it is, but seriously, it seems like so much fun. No parents! Pranks galore! Hanging out with your friends ALL the time! The main character Pudge - obsessed with last words - goes to Culver Creek to "seek a great perhaps," as he tells his parents. And that's pretty much what he finds - that everything is a perhaps, and even those who think they have all the answers, really are just making it up. He also finds friendship with his room mate, "The Colonel" and the alluring, clever, self-destructive and more than a little pain-in-the-ass Alaska.


Looking for Alaska is a short novel, but it packs a pretty good punch, dealing with some heavy issues. Life, death and the existence of an afterlife are mixed in amongst the more everyday love, sex, rules, friendship and family. It's all explored in a way that's real and funny, sad and sweet. The book was first published in 2005, years after I left high school behind. Not that I have the slightest desire to return to my teenage years, but I do wonder what it would have been like to read it as a seventeen year old - would I have seen things in the novel that I miss now?

Spoiled

Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan


If you have a vague interest in fashion or celebrity news, and you know how to use the Internet, chances are you've stumbled across Go Fug Yourself by now. This blog is a bit like kryptonite for me. I can spend hours falling down the rabbit hole of hilarious celebrity fashion crimes - check out the Britney Spears' "Letters of Truth" for a hearty chuckle - and also, nodding along in agreement when they wax lyrical over those celebrities who get it right (Emma Stone, I'm looking at you). So when it was revealed that the writers of the blog, Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, had written a Young Adult novel,  suffice it to say I was keen to have a read.

Like any literary genre, sometimes you have to wade through some pretty average YA novels to get to the good stuff. For every Sarah Dessen out there, there are plenty more writers without the insight or the talent to create a genuinely readable book, that doesn't fall into the morass of high school cliches. These days I do most of my reading on the 35 minute train rides to and from work, so any book that keeps me looking at the page and not gazing out the window is ahead of the game. It's funny how a view that I have seen literally thousands of times can still be so mesmerising. Although let's face it, that has far more to do with my tiny attention span, than it does to do with the beauty of the backyards, rundown fences and factories along the railway line. 

I digress. "Spoiled" is a delight. It takes us on the journey of sixteen year old Molly Dix, who finds out her father is movie star Brick Berlin, just before her mother passes away from cancer. After her mother passes away, Molly ups and moves from her life in Indiana to start a new one in the Hollywood Hills with Brick, and his other 16 year old daughter, Brooke. (Brick and Brooke...I know, right?)

It's not unusual for YA novels to be co-authored (for more examples see "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" and "Will Grayson Will Grayson" - in fact if you're interested in YA, these two are great books to start with anyway), and while it isn't explained anywhere, I'm going to run with the assumption that the point of view of each of the girls is split between the two authors. As readers, we aren't just privy to Molly's inner monologue as she navigates the changes in her life, but also how Brooke deals having a new sister that she had never heard about until weeks before Molly's arrival. It doesn't take a huge amount of imagination to predict the various conflicts and obstacles that both Molly and Brooke encounter, however Cocks and Morgan bring their wit, sarcasm and knowledge of Hollywood's ridiculous machine to the table, giving the reader something we haven't seen before in a YA novel. And really, part of the attraction of YA novels is finding out how successfully different authors approach the tropes of the genre. Upon further thought, I guess this could be true with any sort of genre fiction.

The novel has some genuine laugh-out-loud moments, including a reference early on that those who are aficionados of the early years of Friends will appreciate. It had me chuckling all the way to my desk. Also, the character of Brick Berlin, the girls' movie star father, is the creator of some truly inspirational catch phrases such as "Tears are full of toxins. If you hold them in, they'll flood your brain." Wise words indeed.   If you are a reader who likes to imagine exactly what the characters look like, to me Brick Berlin was a younger version of this guy. Although, if you're familiar with Harry Hamlin's character in Veronica Mars, switch the creepiness to vapid good heartedness. If you're not familiar with Veronica Mars, what are you waiting for? One of the greatest shows of all time. 

Excitingly, "Spoiled" has a sequel. I'm waiting for it to arrive in the mail (who doesn't love Internet shopping? I mean, seriously...) so stay tuned for the next review. 

 If you're into YA novels, or interested in finding out more, there are some great blogs out there. YA Books Central is a good place to start, or for something with an Australian flavour try Persnickety Snark.

Born and Raised

John Mayer

John Mayer and I have such a complicated relationship, sometimes I wonder if we'll ever get it right. On the one hand, if you were to look at the 25 Most Played Songs on my iPod, you would be certain to find a little gem called "Half of My Heart" pretty close to the top of the list. On the other hand, when the leading single from  "Born and Raised" was released, "Shadow Days", my incredibly eloquent review to a friend was that it was the "sookiest of all the sooky la la songs. Ever." I know. Erudite is my middle name.  Let me be honest, I still stand by my review of that particular song. I think it's a bit much for a guy who spent a lot of time talking to journalists about some pretty ungentlemanly things to release a song about what a good man he is with such a good heart. Just google his Playboy and Rolling Stone interviews from 2010 if you're curious, and didn't hear about his comments at the time. 

So I procrastinated about making the decision to spend $16.99 on downloading "Born and Raised", and giving our troubled romance (ha ha) another chance. But, apologies and deleting of Twitter accounts aside, I was genuinely interested in what his latest musical offering had to...well, offer. Mayer has been pretty quiet publicity-wise over the last few years and I was also curious to see if I could listen to the album without all the white noise of celebrity gossip and drama seeping through. Also, this is one of the best photobombs I have ever seen. The guy clearly has a sense of humour, so how could I say no?

For a girl raised on what I affectionately refer to as "Dad Music" the opening chords of "Queen of California" - the first track on the album - are a lot like slipping into that comfortable soundscape of 1970s music populated by The Eagles, James Taylor and Fleetwood Mac. In fact, the title track features backing vocals from David Crosby and Graham Nash, and is one of the best cuts on the album. Mayer is nothing if not straight up about his musical influences, so for those who would call him derivative well - at least he's honest about it, right?

One thing that Mayer does well, and has only become better at since his 2001 debut album "Room for Squares", is tell stories in a way that we don't see too much outside of country music these days. "Shadow Days" aside, his lyric writing is crisp and straightforward, without venturing too far into the territory of twee or fey. In fact, the album really does have a strong country vibe. But think the country of Townes Van Sandt, rather than Billy Ray... One such track is "Walt Grace's Submarine Test, January 1967."  When I first listened to it, I could imagine The Dixie Chicks doing a cover, and the song itself is one of the standout storytelling tracks on the album.

For the guitar nerds among us, Mayer plays with Fenders and Martins on the album, and surprisingly enough there are less guitar solos on this album than there have been on his previous efforts. Some listeners will prefer this, but I've always been a fan of a well-done guitar solo, cheesy or not. Instead, the more complicated licks and runs are hanging out in the background, sneaking into the layer of each song like a whisper in your ear, rather than front and centre demanding your attention.

I was surprised by "Born and Raised" and pleasantly so. It's an album that is a lot quieter than I expected, and cruises through the 13 tracks without requiring too much effort from the listener. But if you choose to pay close attention to the details of the lyrics, and the production and instrumentation choices, you won't be disappointed. And really, anything with a bit of pedal steel on it is always going to make me pretty damn happy.