There are of course exceptions, but in general we ladies are guiltier than men when it comes to taking a long time to get ourselves ready for an event.
We've all experienced that moment when you look in the mirror, your face is only half on, there's spanx stuck halfway up your leg (cutting off the blood supply), and you hear an exclamation from downstairs of 'Ah JAYSUS! Will you ever be ready?'
If only those friends, family or partners waiting downstairs for the past two hours knew that we don't all particularly enjoy this process. The knowledge that you're running late for that thing you have to go to is often stressful enough to cause a mascara wand in your eye or a clamping the GHD on your ear type situation. Undesirable.
So I was impressed when I heard that the LA/Creative store and salon on Dublin's Chatham Street offers a 'beautified in 45' service - hair, nails and makeup all in forty five minutes; a really efficient way to save yourself stress.
To save time, the blow dry and hair bar is dry; so you head in with a recently washed head of hair, and they'll do the rest! I was very impressed by the range of styles on offer - there's everything from lazy waves to complicated upstyles and braids.
Being an absolute sucker for a braid, I watched in awe as the stylist gave me two lovely simple braids - so much neater and prettier than my usual home styled braid! She then proceeded to curl the rest of my hair so thoroughly that when I woke up the next day after sleeping on the curls, they were still in place!
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Yes, the amount of hairspray in there meant that I had to avoid naked flames, but the curls did not move and my hair didn't feel crispy, so I was happy.
While I was having my hair done, I enjoyed a file and polish with some pink nude polish from Essie. Then, as my nails dried, one of the LA makeup artists worked on my face. We decided on the feline eye that I favour most days anyway, but she added a bit more shading and drama. As a makeup artist myself, I'm very fussy about letting anyone else work on my face (I knows what I likes and I likes what I knows...).
I felt comfortable and heard throughout the process, though, so my fear was unfounded! In fact, it felt much longer than the forty-three minutes that the process actually took - I felt as though I'd taken some nice relaxing time to myself in a quiet, peaceful environment.
Before and AfterWhen I was finished, I walked out of the salon feeling weirdly refreshed. I just wouldn't be able to do all that for myself in such a short period of time, and I was impressed by the attention to detail shown on such a tight schedule.
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I'd really recommend this for a debs or other special occasion when you want to look nice, but don't want to injure yourself trying to put on spanx and false eyelashes at the same time. Oh God, the tweezers...
The Beautified in 45 service costs €40. Would you consider a service like this? Or, can you get ready to go out in under forty-five minutes, you mad thing you? Let us know in the comments.
