Blog Overhaul

So I decided to go for a bit of an overhaul and I am currently still in the middle of it. As you may have noticed ThingsGoGlimmering.blogspot.com is no more and LetsBeCool.com has just be born.

Needed something a little snappier and after the nightmare that was setting up an custom domain through blogger, I final got my lovely new URL. 

You may think that at only 27 followers, creating a custom domain is a little presumptuous but even if I only maintain ye 27 lovely ladies for the rest of my life, I will still be happy to have it as I intend to continue this blogging thing for quite some time. 

I will miss my homage to F. Scott but alas the show must go on!

Cheers for reading,

Jane

Hair Flair: the sequel

So as I has been raving on about recently, my hair in desperate need of a dye job and even though I have been telling and telling myself that I would get my hair done after the exams, I recently booked a facial and Dermalogica skincare overhaul so the hair will unfortunately being going on the back-burner. However I simply cannot bear seeing my three toned hair now every time I look in the mirror so today while in town I picked up some Clairol hairdye.

taken with Instagram

It is currently a fetching tricolour ranging from brown to blonde to greeny-blue (how magnificent that sounds). Unfortunately I don't have a picture to go show up but you can see how it originally looked HERE when I first dyed it. Unfortunately my roots have grown out and the blue has faded to a rather unappealing pale green - it is literally as rank as it sounds.

Mid dye-job. Quite sexy, no?

The completed look!

Jeez, I'm looking fierce serious with big puffy eyes

Still pretty light but its sill a change from what it was this time last year (below).

I have a feeling that it won't last though, I'm afraid I'm too much of a blonde girl at heart. 

Cheers for reading,

Jane

P.S Please excuse the shoddy photos. Am camerless at the moment as the majority of my belongings are still down in Galway and I have not yet had a chance to retrieve them!

Damn, Girl Special Edition: Beauty Youtubers

As my very first Damn Girl feature, I am doing a special edition. My current obsession is YouTube beauty bloggers. I have been a fan of general blogging for a while but only recently have I discovered the multitude of fantastic bloggers - or vloggers - on YouTube. If you found yourself in The Click List recently then you will have seen a couple of the channels to which I am subscribed. Because of this, I decided to compile a little list of my favourite beauty and fashion ladies and why I like them so much.

5. Beauty Crush
Sammi was the first beauty blogger that I subscribed to and it was through her that I subsequently found all of the other numerous beauty and fashion Youtubers that I am currently following. She has a keen eye for dupes of more expensive products which in my opinion is fantastic.

image via www.gramfeed.com/labeautycrush

A Bit Of Tumblr Inspiration

So I have been, for quite some time, a fan of Tumblr. I've been tumbling (yeah I just said that) for about two years now and I have to say that for a scrapbooker like myself Tumblr is an absolute haven. I always see people posting various style inspiration pictures on their blogs and even though I don't normally do that, there are just so many fantastic pictures floating about at the moment that I couldn't resist. So I just chose a few little pictures that I am finding particularly inspirational at the moment.

This girl is probably the coolest individual on the planet...

The Instagram Diaries

So I haven't done an Instagram Diary post in a while so I thought I'd just throw a little one together this evening. 

- late birthday present luggage tag and travel Moleskine - 

- study study study - 

- first outing of Topshop ear cuff -

- morning alarm for last Friday - 

- celebratory drinks after finishing exams - 

Click HERE to see the rest of my Instagram pictures and if you're on it leave your username in the comments below and I'll check out yours. 

Cheers for reading,

Jane

The Uncommon Oscar

The other day I had another look at the dresses of the past award season. Going through them and still standing by my decision that Octavia Spencer's Oscar dress was the most well-chosen dress of the  entire award season, I realised that this year was pretty short of risk-takers on the red carpet. This prompted me to compile a list mini-list of my favourite Oscar unusual dress choices.

First on my list and rivaling Martha Plimpton for the spot as my absolute favourite is Carey Mulligan's 2010 choice of a strapless Prada gown adorned with miniature kitchen utensils. When Mulligan, who had been tipped for Best Actress, arrived, few people knowing what to make of her cutlery adorned frock with the Huffington post claiming that she wore "a long black Prada number bejeweled with flowers, studs ... and what looks like nuts, bolts, forks and knives".  

image via google.images.com

The Ricardo Tisci for Givenchy dress that Cate Blancett sported at the 2011 Oscars was the subject of some debate. This Japanese warrior costume inspired dress is from what is quite probably my favourite couture collection ever (alongside YSL's Spring 2002 career retrospective) so I am possibly a little biased. Still though I think that Blancett's risky choice deserves a lot of kudos. The intricate beading and brazen colour pop showed that being 40 plus shouldn't deter Hollywood women for making a fashionable statement. This is aided hugely by the fact that Cate Blancett looks like Cate Blancett and could therefore wear a potato sack and still be utterly gorgeous.

image via google.images.com

When a dress can be described as mermaid-meets-Vegas bride it does not inspire confidence in the either the wearer or designer. However when Marion Cotillard arrived at the 2008 Oscar ceremony (at which she won Best Actress for her role as Édith Piaf in La Vie En Rose) in this Jean Paul Gaultier number, mermaid-meets-Vegas bride suddenly did not sound so bad. Although I would have forgone the navel-length necklace, I do think this dress is a show-stopper. With a nigh-on Veronica Lake hairstyle and the rosy lips, Cotillard definitely scored highly for this one.

image via google.images.com

Diane Keaton's 2004 Oscars outfit caused quite a stir. While I probably wouldn't wear this Ralph Lauren morning suit and bowler hat myself, the reason this has landed itself on my list is because of the absolute balls it took to wear this outfit on any red carpet not just at the Academy Awards. I'd like to see any actress today attempt to wear this, as nowadays it seems like that in 2012 a 'red-carpet risk' involves shock tactics rather than the attempt to be innovative or fashion forward. Like it or not though, you cannot deny that Miss Keaton is undoubtedly pulling it off. She became the queen of menswear with the release of Annie Hall back in 1977 and still is an icon of androgyny and even though this is a little too chancy for my liking, Keaton proves that with a confident smile and a bit of a nonchalant attitude, you can pull off pretty much anything.

image via google.images.com

Now to my personal favourite.

In 1989, River Phoenix was nominated for an Oscar for his part in the movie Running on Empty. To the Oscar ceremony, he brought his nineteen year old co-star and current girlfriend Martha Plimpton. Late 80s fashion was a time of experimentation, and apparently it seemed like a good idea to conduct these experiments on the red carpet. If you don't believe me just look at Demi Moore self-designed tapestry/bicycle shorts fiasco. Martha Plimpton however got it just right. Mixing one of the most glamourous items of clothing of all time - a 1940s style bias-cut dress, a favourite of the likes of Jean Harlow - with the androgyny of slicked back hair, Plimpton put a new spin on the a classic Hollywood look. Completely unadorned with jewellery, the main focus of the Plimpton's look was how an iconic Hollywood starlet dress can be juxtaposed by a nod to the emergence of the Grunge subculture in the late 80s and early 90s. A definite unexpected look at the Oscars and one that Rooney Mara, in her post Dragon Tattoo glow, seems to be channelling. 

image via Life photo archive hosted by Google

image via http://www.pinterest.com

image via Life photo archive hosted by Google

Cheers for reading,

Jane

Hair Flair

So as I summed up in a post HERE back in December my hair has changed quite a bit over the past few years. Now though I have decided I wanted to go very something altogether more natural.Preceeding this dicussion though, what did I decide to do? Dye my hair blue. Not entirely blue though (before you make that Seriously? face) just the bottom of it. Like a that dipdye that you see everywhere in that moment. It's just so faded now and is quite greeny unfortunately but I did like it quite a lot for the first few days. The semi-permanent colour that I used was Peacock Blue by Crazy Colour which you can buy in lots of Hairdresser supply stores for about seven euro or so.

I also made the massive mistake though of not wearing gloves (moron) as I had recently put lilac through my hair and as well as having little effect on my hair it did nothing to my hands. The blue however did and I had to do some major scrubbing to get it down to what you can see below.

All I want is for it to do now is grow which it seems to be doing painfully slowly. As it is now quite prominently divided into three different colour sections of equal parts brown, blonde and quickly fading blue so I figured that it was time to make a bit of a change. When I get back home after my exams I have decided to get my hair either striped of colour (which is so so bad for your hair) or just dyed the same colour as my roots which are now a light brown colour.  

Hopefully it will be back to around the length that you see below (taken September 2010) soon. Fingers crossed anyway. 

I am really feeling Scarlett Johansson as hair inspiration at the moment, all except for this dodgy look HERE. Am particularly liking this ones HERE, HERE and HERE if I cannot bring myself to ditch the blonde.

On a final note here a great song that is getting me through these final exams. 

Cheers for reading,

Jane