Halloween make-up for grown-ups - Topshop and Mac

Is there any excuse as good as halloween for indulging in some quality fancy dress? I think not, but if yuo can conjure one up let me know and I'll be there. This year two of my good friends, Miss Laura Trouble and Eloise de Fine, are hosting a Zombies Ball at the Hoxton Bar and Kitchen so of course an outfit must be planned. Especially as it is on a Friday night so I will probably have to get changed in the toilets at work or at the venue.

Usually what happens in these situations is that I go out and blow between £20 and £30 on pointless pots of glitter, eye crayons and all sorts of other rubbish from Superdrug, half of which I never end up using and the rest of which I use once, only to discard it all about six months later in a make-up bag purge. I promised myself this year would be different. I already have two suitable eye shadows from Mac - a poisonous looking glittery purple called Beauty Marked and an evil potion shade of shimmering green called De Menthe.

But I need another texture. Mac have just launched a new range called Venomous Villains, inspired by various evil Disney characters including the wicked queen from Snow White and, of course, Cruella de Vil. 

Venomous Villains lipstick in Heartless - £13 - Mac

Venomous Villains mineralize eye shadow duo in My Dark Magic - £16 - Mac

Sadly my budget won't stretch that far. Instead I found the final ingredient for my make-up concoction at Topshop, whose autumn/winter Heavy Duty range is rather pleasing and filled with suitably dark and sinister colours with names like Grunge or Gloom. I was seriously tempted by a very deep purple lipstick which was tempting, but realistically was only going to be worn once so I steered myself away and towards a gel eye-liner in an emerald green called Ravine. Layer it on thickly with the little brush and it's dark enough to wear on its own so won't just be a fancy dress purchase but smudge it up and it makes a great base for something else. For halloween it will become a rather gangrenous looking cream blusher. 

Solid gel eye liner in Ravine - £8 - Topshop

I'll post a picture of the finished results after I sleep off the hangover next weekend...

A friend in need needs Falke

Today I got an email from Which? titled 'Affected by the eruption?'
Don't ask me why but I found this completely hilarious.
(For those of you who don't know Which? is a consumer rights and reviews magazine which I subscribe to because occasionally it is useful when trying to choose which fridge/camera/car to buy.)
Does anyone not know that all flights in the UK and across most of Europe have been grounded because of a giant cloud of volcanic ash drifting slowly through the sky from Iceland making flying conditions a bit tricky? Apparantly, yes - at least one person on our web services team had no idea what we were talking about this morning.
There are a few upsides to this situation - my editor for example is stuck on a Spanish island which only has two flights a week anyway and probably won't be back until next week now, which is a bit of a mixed blessing becasue she's stuck in a lovely sunny place but is probably very worried about the likelihood of us doing something awful to her newspaper.
Miley Cyrus can't come to the UK to launch her new film and Chris Moyles was unable to present his breakfast radio show so England actually seems a bit nicer.
I also know a number of people who have been adversley affected by said eruption.
Among them is EDF, my favourite South African Brit and part of my very small group of friends who are so close they are practically family.
She was supposed to be flying home, having spent far too long away from the bosom of her family, and was due to arrive in time to celebrate her birthday. But it was not to be.
What do you do when one of your best friends is so miserable that they have to retreat to Chiswick? You give them Falke.
For girls who like tights, Falke are a sort of secret weapon. Moderately cheaper than the other super-opaques, Wolford's Velvet Touch, Falke's cotton touch tights are difficult to beat. Impressively ladder resistant - they even survive being jumped on and clawed at and licked and chewed repeatedly by a foot obsessed puppy - and soft and as thick and black as they promise to be without feeling like you've wrapped your leg in anti-blood clot bandages. None of this namby pamby M&S pretend-we're-opaque-til-you-put-us-on-and-can-still-see-skin-before-laddering-two-minutes-later nonsense. No, these are serious tights - armour for the legs of the urban woman. 
Throw in a Mac eye-liner, one too many fizzy cocktails and a cheeseboard and you have a happier friend and a nice glowy feeling in your tummy like you've done something to make the world a slightly better place... which is much better than the sloshy feeling you usually get after one too many of those vodka and chamapgne and sugary flavouring of goodness drinks, especially if you've had to go all the way to Chiswick.