OMG—this blog just won an award! Even though yesterday I had a HUGE #beautyfail (it happens)

I have the best (and by best I mean worst) timing. Yesterday, on the night of P&G Beauty’s annual Beauty and Grooming Awards—a VERY big deal in my industry—my cat, who is 19 and also diabetic, decided to stop eating (which is very dangerous), and to make a long story short, cost me $400, two hours at the vet and literally ALL of my prep time for the event.

You see, normally when I’m faced with a special occasion—especially one where you’ll find more beauty and fashion judgement in one room than in all of Canada—I put a little extra effort in. If not a proper professional blowout then at least some DIY mega-teasing a la Sally Hershberger. Maybe one of these cool smoky eyes. And definitely a better outfit. But thanks to “kitteh,” I literally had to get ready in <15 minutes. And then walk up on stage to accept an award.

So… yay?

No, really, I’m thrilled to tell you that BeautyEditor.ca picked up the award for Best Beauty or Fashion Blog. Hooray!

I totally flubbed my acceptance speech because I was sure that one of the other nominees—beauty guru Janine from Beautygeeks, who won last year, or the clever Ali from ChickAdvisor—would win instead. If you don’t read their sites, you really should! (FYI—a full list of the winners is here.)

But anyway, because I am vain—which should not surprise you in the slightest because I write and generally obsess about beauty every frickin’ day—I can’t help but wish I looked/felt more, uh, beautiful. (And of course, it would’ve also been nice to actually have glass of champers to celebrate… instead of rushing home to administer Kitty antibiotics and special vet food with an eye dropper. Fun times.)

But you know what? Sometimes it’s good to have a total #beautyfail (complete with hashtag for extra emphasis) because you do learn some things.

The bad parts:

If your skin freaks out when you travel (and mine always, always does), it’s probably not a good idea to be in New York two days before your big event (which I was). I don’t know if it’s because I’m like a kid at Christmas and can never sleep the night before I leave—or if it’s the drying plane air or even the not-so-healthy food choices. But every single time, no matter how diligent I am with chugging water and applying moisturizers and serums and my fave cloth masks, my skin always gets super-dehydrated AND breaks out. A lovely combo.

Never, I repeat, NEVER start fiddling with your skincare routine before an event that requires you to have good skin. You would think I would know this, right? Everything was going SO well what with my cod liver oil and this great stuff for rogue pigmentation issues and these fancy European luxury botanical prodz. But then, coupled with the airplane travel, I threw the whole thing out the window by over-reaching.

Swayed by glowing reviews in forums such as this one, I tried the Oil Cleansing Method: more about it later, but you basically wash your face with a combo of castor and jojoba, olive or other type of oil. It’s supposed to make pores disappear, dissolve blackheads, soften fine lines… you get why I was intrigued, right? They warned that there was a “purging” period. I just did not anticipate it would be this severe, forcing me to abort my mission at least temporarily. (It didn’t help that I’ve also had to start rationing my cod liver oil, cutting my dose in half while I wait for my new shipment to arrive. As soon as it does, I’m mega-dosing to see if I can get rid of this “situation.”)

Probably you should not leave your manicure to the last minute, like I always do. I was planning to re-apply my new favourite nail colour in the world, the pinky-red hybrid Too Hot Pink To Hold ‘Em, from the forthcoming OPI Texas collection (out in Feb) in the short, rounded shape I’m loving these days. I just ran out of time… so I just had to roll with the chips. Ugh!

The good parts:

Cortisone injections are a lifesaver if you’ve got one of those inflamed suckers, and know where to go. I wouldn’t recommend doing this on the regular, but it’s good to have a place like the Toronto Acne Clinic up your sleeve for emergencies. Usually they can fit you in for a same-day appointment, where they inject two spots for $10. It can take a full 24 hours for them to calm down, but you should see a difference in as little as two hours. Yay!

It IS possible to blow dry your hair using the vents in your car. Random discovery: cranking the heat on high as you zip down the highway TOTALLY works to dry wet hair, maybe even faster than an actual hairdryer. It’s not ideal, but it works.

If you have straight, boring hair like me—an old school curling iron is probably your best bet when you need to do something—fast!—with your hair. I don’t know about you, but I’m just not skilled enough with a flat iron to get those perfect flat-iron curls in a hurry. Hot rollers also require time… and straightening your hair with a flat iron, at least on me, never looks quite dressy enough (at least not with the dress I was wearing). But you know what’s easy and fast? Curling your ends with an old fashioned curling iron. It takes less than two minutes and gives you that little bit of polish… instead of looking like you jumped straight out of the shower.

YSL’s long-lasting Ombre Solo eyeshadow is the very best way to do a smoky eye in a hurry. For serious. You don’t want to be fiddling with complicated lining or shading techniques. These puppies have the most incredible sheer but buildable pigment, which is easy to work with and along with just mascara is quite enough to dress up your eyes.

Perfume goes a long way in at least making you FEEL dressed up. It’s psychological.

At the end of the day, pets are more important than beauty and fashion. Right? (And here is where I indulge my crazy cat lady-ness…)

Have you ever had a major #beautyfail?
Sometimes it’s unavoidable, no?
Oh and back to the topic of beauty awards. I guess the pressure’s on, in a way, now that I’ve gotten all fancy and won something. (I NEVER win stuff.) So help a blogger out and tell me what stuff you’d like to see more/less of around here!