I think I might be losing it...

... because after writing that last post, I went on the Sephora website. You know, thinking that maybe outside of the magical aura of the shop it would lose it's power over me. I was wrong.

What actually happened was that the first thing I saw was a huge makeup set that I spent a good portion of yesterday lusting over, reduced from 45 euros to 30 in a special online offer. I immediately got very excited and started buying, sendng my friend Mel the following two messages in the process:

1. Sephora have a website, Mel. A website with OFFERS. I have lost my everloving mind. Why could I possibly need 84 eyeshadow colours? And 60 different shades of lipgloss? Because I've bloody well bought them (I think that's what I bought anyway. French website).
Between this and my hummus bill it is no wonder I'm poor. Poor and fat, but with excellent makeup. Arrgh!

2. Ohmigod, now they want me to choose between a variey of presents to go with my purchase. I fully love this shop. Do I want a sac noir or a box elegante? What use could I have for either? It's all wonderfully impractical and expensive. OH, and I got get to choose three free samples. Tiny things! AWESOME.
I need help. I think I'm just losing my mind because the kid who lives below me is practicing for grade 1 piano and I've heard Rock Around The Clock butchered 843 times this week. As Lydia said, somebody should go tell her now that she'll always be shit.

But shortly after sending the second I discovered that sephora.fr only accept payments from French bank cards, and I have no money in my french account. So what did I do? Give up? Nope. First off, I tried to buy the same thing from Sephora America, because there is no Sephora UK (totally ignoring the fact that the cost of shipping would make it cheaper to just go pay the 45 euros). When this proved impossible I decided it was time to turn the crazy up a notch, walk into town, buy a gift voucher, come back and buy it online.

I used the half hour walk to talk myself out of this plan. The sane portion of me pointed out very wisely that this set contains nothing that I don't already own thanks to my many previous Sephora trips, and that I was actually just being mental. This is the portion of me that won the debating contest in sixth form, in case you're wondering.

The other part of my brain, which I fear is gaining in strength, took this on board and decided that the decision to not buy the makeup meant that I had 30 euros to spend on something else. I then wandered round Zara for a while looking manic. Adding to the overall air of insanity is the fact that I left the house today dressed like an 80s hooker. I bought shiny plastic ankle boots a while back and apparently they were making all the decisions. Seriously, several people at the law faculty came up to me and opened conversations with 'English girls wear such short skirts'.

When nothing leapt out at me I decided that I should at least go and look at the makeup. Somehow I left Sephora without buying the gift card (or the set at full price, which was a distinct possibility by this point). I did, however, buy some sort of illuminating stick thing (at this rate my entire face will glow by the end of the month. Which could be handy as every night I have to navigate two flights of stairs in total darkness so as not to wake my landlord's family, and these people keep vases on the stairs). And I got a Sephora card.

Which means, of course, that the first thing I did when I got back was rush to my computer and check whether the card would somehow make it possible for me to buy the giant set. It didn't. So now I don't have a sac noir either (though I totally got samples with my illuminating thingy. Score).

I give it three days max before I crack and get my hands on that set somehow.

Did I mention that I literally have NO MONEY? Yeah? Ok. I'm going to book a ticket to Disneyland now..

Sephora is my happy place

Ok, so as addictions go a moderately overpriced beauty store may seem relatively harmless. And it's certainly not very rock and roll. But I am poor, people, and that makes my constant Sephora cravings dehabilitating as fuck.

It just that it's such a lovely place. Honestly, it's magical. It's like, you're having a shitty day and then you go in and it's all warm and calm and it smells nice. And all these pretty, colourful things are laid out neatly, and there are intriguing contraptions marked 'Tester' just begging to be played with. Plus, there are a bunch of perfectly made-up women and studiedly metrosexual men wandering about wearing, these artillery belts filled with make up brushes, like the minions of an army that just wants to make things look nice.

All which would be fine, if I could just soak in the soothing atmosphere for a while then leave, finances intact. But there's something in the air in Sephora that makes me want... stuff. All kinds of stuff. I'm not entirely sure what I bought yesterday but it was pink and sparkly and totally had miniature snowflakes pressed into the powder and I wanted it.

This is new to me. Like, last Christmas my sister got a load of posh makeup and I totally scorned her, all 'honestly Faye, what a total waste of money. I only ever buy Collection 2000'. But in Sephora, £35 Givenchy blush cubes make total sense. How could the world carry on being lovely without them?

What's more, they give you PRESENTS. If you buy a ridiculously overpriced eyeshadow, or some magic-pink-snowflake-powder (the label is in French, ok? I'm pretty sure I'm meant to put it on my face), you get home and discover that in the bag there's a teeny tiny perfume sample, or a thimbleful of exfoliator that smells of freshly baked cheesecake or something. How is anybody supposed to resist that?

I might well have discovered this luxury cosmetics addiction sooner, if it wasn't for my absolute terror of department store makeup floors. Seriously, enter Liverpool Debenhams and not only is it all so white and sterile and shiny that you worry somebody might take out your appendix, but you are immediately descended upon by a hoarde of ladies with drawn on eyebrows who are only a penis away from very successful careers as drag artistes, who will paint you orange and bully you into spending millions of pounds. Worlds away from the tranquility of Sephora.

In fact, the only part of the Sephora experience that is not blissful is coming home and checking your bank balance. Which... oh God... is pretty damn stressful. I need to calm the hell down.

Maybe a trip to Sephora is in order...

Ugh...

I hate early.

I just did that thing, when I was putting on my eyeliner. You know, when you put exactly the right amount on one eye. Enough so that you clearly have eyes but subtle enough for a lecture at 8am (I swear I do not know what's wrong with french universities. Sadists one and all) on a Wednesday morning.

Then I move my hand to my other eye, and somewhere in the space between it decides that I would be much better served going to Droit Constitutionnel 1 looking like Cleopatra on acid. Then I'm left with the age old dilemma - do I attempt to remove the splodge on my eyelid, or do I just extend the line to encompass it?

Bear in mind that removal of liquid eyeliner is a highly risky procedure, especially when, like me, you never have a q-tip to hand. So line extension is ideally the solution. But there must be a point when it stops being an option. Otherwise I will soon find myself spending my mornings colouring in my face.

It is too early to consider things of such importance. Like I said; ugh.