The Make-up Mania

Totally by chance I came across a girl on Instagram with beautiful and simple make-up tutorials.  I got hooked in no time and I wanted to buy all the products she was using.

Watching her insta lives every time fuelled my desire to look flawlessly beautiful. I started buying make-up products – all sorts.  It didn’t matter if it would suit me or my face, I bought it.  I was scouring YouTube for more make-up tutorials. The more tutorials I watched the more make-up products I bought.  And I still couldn’t achieve the flawless look.

Then I read an article about impulse buying and I recognised that I carried all the symptoms mentioned.  It kinda woke me up.  The fact rammed in harder when the sales consultant at Superdug told me the capuccino shade is totally my shade and I listened to her and bought it! I have Indian oily skin and my skin shade, in general, is classic tan.

It eventually dawned on me that no matter what product I buy, the most important thing for me to do is to take of my skin. A properly laid-out skin-care routine is what I need.  And no, this time I’m not rushing to the store to buy skincare products.  I’m going to take my time – do more research on exfoliating and its bitches.  The second thing I promise I’ll do is to go to a bigger Boots store and get my skin shade properly matched.

I feel much better now that I’m applying a face moisturiser only.  I’m not going to succumb to societal pressures…I’m not…

Would you like a cuppa?

So you know when you’re back at work and it’s your turn to make tea or coffee for everyone? I hate it. I don’t like making tea for others. It stresses me a lot. Was that one spoon of sugar? Did I put enough milk in? Will they like my tea? The questions in my head are endless while I put on a smile and ask, “Would you like a drink?”.

Ugh…

Anyway, I have a question for the tea drinkers – when you make tea, do you leave the teabags in or you juice out the bag as much as you can and throw it away?

I always leave my teabag in!

I made a cuppa for a new work colleague today and he found it funny that I left the teabag in! At that time, I was like, make your own tea then! But now that I’m writing about it, I’m chuckling…what’s your tea-making routine?

The Momster is Back!

Hello readers!

I’ve been gone for a long time! I promised myself I would try harder to at least post once a day but I miserably failed at it. I’ve gone back to work and since then, it’s been manic. I don’t know how our older generations were doing it – working and raising children – but I find it very exhausting.  I barely have time for myself. I shouldn’t complain, some mothers would say to me. These times go fast. That brings no solace to me at the present moment, I’m afraid. I’ve never imagined that I would miss my bed so much!

So, yes, I make myself a promise again – I will try HARDER!

I will be back. Watch this space!

The Mush App

​Quite a busy day today!

I’m doing my best to post one post a day.

Anyway, I want to write about my slight addiction to the Mush app. It’s an app for mommies in a forum layout. It’s available for both iOS and Android users. You can talk about anything and everything. I just love it.

Like you know, I’ve woken up to the fact that I need to spruce up my looks. Last Saturday I went to this hairdresser / salon to get my boy a haircut. Advertised on the walls of the salon was “Threading – £2”. I was excited. £2? For eyebrow threading? So close to home? Whoa! I should definitely get mine done!

So I asked the hairdresser and she called on the eyebrow lady. She rubbed some kind of alcohol-based solution on my eyebrow to clean it. Next, she went for her thread and she started threading. It was awful! She didn’t even clean up my eyebrows. She was plucking off eyebrow hair one by one!

Being new in the area, I had to look for another salon. I took to Mush and within minutes I got replies.

But what I really like about Mush is that it connects you to mums in your area. You can choose which borough/district you want to join and your choice is not limited to one area only.

I opted for my current borough and the two nearest ones. Any questions you have, especially mommy-baby related, you can ask on the forum and your phone will start pinging within minutes.

Some mommies are even organising meet-ups. That’s one activity I will definitely look up once my youngest become less dependent on me.

Currently, I don’t know if the app is available worldwide.

Give it a try – https://www.letsmush.com

Transfer Your Files Wirelessly From WhatsApp To Your Desktop

​Hola!

So, I needed to use my own pictures in my last post. I used my phone to take the pictures. I’m currently using an iPhone 6S. To transfer pictures (original size) from my phone to desktop, I’d usually email them to myself and then retrieve them from my email on the desktop computer.

For the last post, I took more than 10 pictures and of course, Gmail or any other email provider won’t let you send files greater than 25Mb. At least, that’s what I know.

I couldn’t be bothered to sync my pictures through Dropbox. Too much of a hassle in my humble opinion.

When I chat with my parents and siblings, if I can, I’d use WhatsApp, the desktop version. Typing Creole (mother tongue of Mauritians) on your phone with autocorrect is a nightmare. I think nowadays, everyone on WhatsApp is using the WhatsApp group in one way or another.

Like a genius that I’m not, I had this crazy idea of creating a WhatsApp group with myself as sole participant. That would allow me to send pictures to the group and then retrieve them on the desktop!

What I did:

1. Create a WhatsApp group
2. Add one member – it’s a prerequisite for creating a group.
3. Once the group was created, I removed the member added in step 2
4. Send pictures to the group you created. You can send any types of documents via WhatsApp if I’m not mistaken.
5. Go to the web-version of WhatsApp and save the pictures

Et voilà!

I don’t know if anybody else uses this trick but if it’s of any help to you let me know in the comments!

Thank you for reading!

Make Up & Shake Up

Hello beautiful people of the web!

If you’ve read my previous post, you’d know I decided to finally take care of my skin. I’ve been looking around on YouTube and read a few blogs on skin care.

I follow this girl’s blog – Diaries of an islander girl – and she has documented her experience with L’Oréal clarifying mask. Now you read from beauty experts that the first step is cleanse your skin. And a good face mask is always recommended.

The first and last time I had a face mask was last year. I had to go for a job interview. I left the salon disappointed because I couldn’t see any changes. The only difference was how clean my skin felt. I realised after a few more google searches that’s what facial masks are for – cleansing. Ha! I was expecting a face-lift!

So back to the girl’s blog – she motivated me to go out and seek a charcoal-based face mask. I went to Boots on Saturday and asked the sale consultant there about charcoal masks. She showed me one which was £10. To be honest the price was a bit too much for me. She then showed me the L’Oréal clarifying mask and coincidentally it’s the same magic pot that the girl on the blog used!

I jumped with joy and bought it. I also bought a day cream/ primer from Olay. Again the last time I’ve used any sort of facial cream or moisturiser is..well…I can’t remember…that’s how long it was!

Saturday night, with the kids in bed, I had a bath to have my pores open and then applied the L’Oréal face mask on and followed the instructions on the box. 20 minutes later I washed it off.

Besides feeling clean, I didn’t see much change to my face. But my skin was glowing and thus making my blemishes more prominent. Even my husband noticed something about my face. So I guess it worked?

I didn’t take any pictures. I’m very conscious of my looks right now. Hopefully, with time, I’ll have a picture or two up.

Another thing that I bought on Saturday was a make up brush. I went to Poundland and got me one for a pound. I didn’t feel like buying expensive brushes so early in the game. I don’t know how to use half the make-up brushes they sell in packs. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the Poundland brush. It didn’t shed like I expected when I washed it. I think I got myself a good bargain there eh?

One more thing that I do and I’d like to mention is that I love using baby skin care care products. They are less harsh on your skin than regular products we, grown-ups, tend to use. Sometimes, I use Dove soap too. Smells amazing!

Well that was my first step in fixing up my face. Coming up next through my postal box will be a foundation I bought on Groupon. I gotta wait for seven days or more.

In the meantime, I’ll be using the Olay day cream and will keep on using the L’Oréal face mask twice or three times a week.

Fancy huh? Ha!

Introducing Myself

Now that I’ve got over the dreaded first post, I would like to give a brief introduction on me, myself and I. 

I’m Amira and has been in the UK for over a decade now. I hail from Mauritius – a small but beautiful island in the Indian Ocean. 

At the present moment, I stay at home to look after my four spoiled children. They are five and under. If they’re not watching TV / Netflix / YouTube, they follow me around the house, minding my every move. They are like my entourage. 

To de-stress, I wait for them to go to bed at night and have tea with biscuits. I let them eat all the cookies so I don’t have to but I keep the Digestives for myself. 

I was an avid book reader but now with the chaos around, I can barely hear my own thoughts sometimes. So I just let my books collect dust on the shelves. 

Children, tea, TV shows and movies – that’s my life pretty much. 

I’ve recently developed a new passion. I’ve let go of myself, on a physical level, from my first child. I am now properly looking at my reflection in the mirror and there are days I don’t recognise the woman staring back at me. I’ve decided to do something about it. I’m starting with my face. I might write about it in another post in the future.

 Oh yes, the husband. He’s in the picture too. He’s still loving me – me and my extra surface area. Bless him. 

What will be my blog about?

Well I’ve considered the niche angle and broadly speaking, yes, you guessed right! It’s motherhood / parenting. Ta-da!  

But I’ll also publish materials regarding my newly-found subject of interest – beauty and make up. It’d be refreshing for me to write about my beauty regimen. 

Thank you for reading and if you’ve liked it so far, click on follow or subscribe. 

I’m carpe-ing the diems!!!

My First Blog Post

This is my first post. (Simple and to the point?)

I’ve been having nightmares about writing my first post. First of all, to start a mommy blog excited me – still does – but there’s so much pressure!

I’ve been scouring the internet on how to properly start a blog. The web is such a beautiful place. You have so many people offering you advice and giving you tips for free. I thought “this is great!”, but I must admit, the avalanche of information I got when I asked Google how to make money out of blogging confused me. I felt like I was at a Chinese buffet. I love Chinese food.

So what I did was take away bits and bobs from each link I visited – just like what I do at the Chinese buffet! – and brought it down to three steps.

1. Focus on content

What every expert in the blogging world tells you – find a niche.

This was a source of conflict for me. I mean, I’m a mother so my niche should be motherhood. I didn’t like it in the beginning. In the past (years, years ago) I had quite a successful blog. I didn’t have a niche then. I was writing about my life in general. My posts were loaded with sarcasm and humour. So I guess that was the trick.

I know a lot has changed since then but one thing remains the same. Content. That’s a challenge I’m looking forward to.

2. Write consistently

Keep your audience or readers entertained on a daily basis. If you can’t do daily, then at least one or twice a week.

Now that’s one hurdle I will have to jump over. Pre-motherhood, I was shamelessly showing contempt to mothers who whine a lot about how they don’t have time for anything! I didn’t realise then how one baby can take all of your time. Now I have four children; the oldest was born in 2012 and the youngest in 2015. Do the maths!

I would like to apologise to all the mommies I was rude to. It was sheer ignorance on my behalf. Please forgive me.

My second challenge is now to find time to write. Easily said than done.

3. Networking

If you don’t tell people about your blog they wouldn’t know. I like to think of it like when you’ve moved in to a new area. You go around, introducing yourself to your new neighbours. But in real life, I don’t do that. I don’t think it’s a common thing in the UK. But if I want to have a successful blog, I’ll have to knock on doors!

So there are my three steps that I’ll apply to The Momster Daily. Keeping my fingers crossed. Wish me luck!