Since the sun is well and truly out and long holiday weekends beckon, I thought it might be a nice idea to share some tips and recommendations for make up survival at festivals.

Based on trial and (considerable) error, I’ve come up with some golden hints I swear by. Hopefully these will help us to avoid the third-day-leprous look that can afflict the make up wearing festie-goer.

Clueless at Glastonbury in 2000

Before we start, feel free to disregard these tips if you’re “going to a festival” by staying in a hotel or rocking up from home with a day ticket. You can have your assistant do your make up and your butler can carry your cosmetic kit around in an adorable little golf cart if you like. You’ll have access to showers, and baths filled with champagne – my humble words may damage your noble eyes so feel free to skip!

For those of us who will be spending three nights in a grubby tent around a camp fire of plastic and rubbish, the following might be useful…

Wear Sunscreen

You know how Baz Luhrmann would like to recommend you wear sunscreen? I’d like you to wear sunscreen even more than that. Aside from cancer, premature ageing and leathery complexion –all of which are likely to affect you after the end of the festivities– sunburn sucks.

Sunburn hurts and makes you feel sick and hot, no good for festie fun times. As someone who experienced completely drug free hallucinations at a festival, and risked brain damage thanks to sunstroke, I’d also like to strongly recommend you wear a hat or head covering of some kind!

Ace of No Base

Usual “Primer, Foundation, Powder” routines just don’t work in a camping context. Even if your campfire is composed purely of organic sapient pearwood, a thousand nearby fires of crisp packets and stolen trainers are not. There’s smoke, grease and dirt in the air and your seldom-washed sleeping bag and backpack-as-pillow are not really helping.

Your face responds by becoming extra greasy itself to wash the smoke-ick out of your pores and suddenly nothing will stick to your face. Carefully applied base and powder ends up as a muddy slick at your hairline, and orange rings around spots and anything else you’d rather not draw attention to.

The answer to this is to skip your usual base entirely. You’ll look a lot better. If you really need something, a smidge of tinted moisturiser or b.b. cream will do. In the picture above I’m wearing a little bit of Garnier Miracle Skin Perfector BB cream in “Light”.

If you’re a concealer user, I understand I’m not going to be able to talk you out of using it. Take a versatile one that is easy to apply and you don’t mind losing (make up bags, like wallets, are highly stealable, so don’t take anything you can’t face losing). Superdrug 2true do three products for a fiver or £1.99 each, and their concealers are decent enough. If you bring your Touche Eclat and lose it, don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Emphasis for three-day eyes

With all the grot floating around and all the laughing and crowd surfing you’re going to be doing, your eye make up is likely to run or smudge. You can embrace this! You can Michael Stipe  it and ninja turtle mask your eyeliner over half of your face. It’s a festival! It’s fine!

If you don’t want to do that, you’ll want to select eye make up products that aren’t soluble in the things they’ll be exposed to, and stick to them. Chief among these genius products are mascaras with “tubing” formulas like L’Oreal Double Extension Beauty Tubes mascara (pictured).

The two-step formula sets to form tubes around your lashes that are only soluble when warm water is applied for a couple of minutes. Once set, it won’t dissolve in tears or face grease, it’s non-transfer and gives you super huge lashes to boot. I wear this mascara surfing and even the repeated cold-water dunkings won’t shift it.

I’m going to go really grungey here and make a suggestion that may horrify some – don’t remove your eye make up at the festival. Wipe your face clean with your baby wipes or whatever, regularly, but if you choose a powerful eyeliner and a tubing mascara, this won’t actually remove them. Ignore this completely if you have contact lenses, sensitive eyes or OCD, and never do this at home, but at Glasto? It could work! The eyeliner I’m using is Collection 2000 Extreme 24H Felt Tip Liner, which is just brilliant.

It deposits colour like a new Sharpie on good paper, then leaves it there as a stain rather than a layer of material. It dries quickly and once on, it’s hard to remove. I say, get your eyeliner right before you go and just top it up while you’re there. Getting it all off and getting it right again in a hand mirror in a tent? Well, you can do this if you like but I’m not going to.

Cheeky Girls

Like foundation and powder, sophisticated blusher, bronzer and contouring is likely to lose its sticking power by the end of day 1. This is where a sheer, creamy colour product like this Daly Face Bronze I picked up in the M&S sale for £1 can be your friend.

Applied lightly to areas in need of colour, a product like this can eliminate pale pastiness without building up a layer of powdery mess on festival skin.

It’s also handily packaged with a mirror so you don’t need to bring a separate one. I’m too pale for bronzer at this point in the year, so I’m wearing the cream blusher from the Boots 17 All About Nude compact, which is another useful mirrored kit. Choose one that suits and stick to it – sorted.

Flaming Lips

For lips, your best bet is a balm with sunblock in. You’ll be outside all day, imbibing many fine beverages, partaking of peace pipes and organic falafels, and you will need your lips to be in good shape for that. If you want to add some colour, a gloss like this one from MUA can add a glamourous touch for just £1.

MUA glosses are nicely pigmented and can double as a cream blusher, saving even more space in your backpack for essential beer and baby wipes. You’re welcome.

So, that’s seven essential products to make you up without messing you up this festival season. If you can reduce the number of products even further, I’d love to know how you do it.

If after all this you’re feeling naked, not made up enough –How will they know I’m a girl?– do not fret, I’ve done some research and tacky bejewelled tiaras still exist!

Still clueless in 2012

Enjoy the festivals kids! Wear Sunscreen!

Love from Bee

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Thanks so much to Machiavelli Id for inviting me to do a guest post. My name is Bee, I’m a beauty blogger usually to be found at http://beelovesbeauty.com. I’m not a beauty expert or a make up artist, just an ordinary make-up wearer who likes to blog about it.

Handmade feather headband from a selection by Bijou Bijoux.

Photography credits: Image 1 by D. Trezise, 2000; Images 2 to 9 by Bee Loves Beauty, 2012.

By the time they’re toddlers, kids think keys are even more magical. Not only fun but also a tool for opening exciting boxes or –even better!– doors and windows onto the outside world. Plus the keys are clearly important to the grown-ups, which makes stealing them or hiding them much more satisfying.

My Toddler, My Key Thief

Hmm, these look interesting… is that a beetle preserved in perspex?

She whisked them off the high chair tray and ran around behind her playpen to make her escape. But then she came back to taunt me with them. Evil genius.

Shiny shiny! And they jingle, too.

I love that photo – the keys are moving and everything else is staying still. Normally it’s her face that’s all motion-blurred, so it’s nice to finally have another photo where you can see her properly.

Funny funny noise!

After all the hysterical laughing and key-waving, she finally decided to make a break for it.

 Unlock the window, Mother, I’m going out.

It’s the same white hardware and extra stuff as you get in the older Xbox 360 Family Pack:

• a white 4GB Xbox 360 S console
• a white Kinect sensor
• 2 white wireless controllers
• Kinect Adventures
• Kinect Sports
• 3 months’ Xbox Live Gold membership

The only extra to what they’re calling the “Celebration Pack” is that it comes with free Union Jack skins for all the hardware, so that you can make it look like this:

Xbox 360 Celebration Pack with Union Jack skins

That means you have to apply the skins yourself, so you still run the risk of cocking it up. And there’s nothing updated about the hardware. That said, it’s a good deal for the full bundle offered, so if you need new hardware then snap one up – you don’t have to use the stupid skins if you don’t want to.

You can pre-order the Xbox 360 Celebration Pack on Amazon for £239.86 right now, and it will be released on 25th May, just in time to cash in on the Queen’s Jubilee madness in June.

If you’ve already got the hardware, save yourself a couple of hundred quid and just by some Union Jack Xbox 360 skins instead.

Personally, I prefer the Xbox 360 Star Wars bundle - it’s got a cool C3PO style gold controller, and the console itself is styled to look like R2-D2.

Robots sadly *not* included

Plus it makes R2-D2 sounds and has a bigger hard drive at 320GB. You only get one month of Xbox Live Gold with it, but then you get the Kinect Star Wars game instead of Kinect Sports. It costs about £50 more, but I know which one I’d buy.

Sorry the photo’s a bit blurred – I was being pulled along by a toddler at the time.

I for one welcome our new robot sex overlords

They go even further, saying that a massive increase in human trafficking is going to necessitate these sex bots. While they aren’t the first to envision a future of robots pleasuring humans, it is this specific claim I want to address.

Sex is far more complex than the physical desire to climax. And sex crimes aren’t necessarily simply about sex, if at all. Outsourcing fornication to robots won’t miraculously cure the sad reality of people being kidnapped and sold into sexual servitude.

We’re all wired differently when it comes to sex. Different things trip our triggers. Maybe our fetishes are inherent and can’t be explained. Maybe they’re classically conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs associating a ringing bell with steak.

Sex can drive technology. I fully expect we’ll see sex bots in my lifetime. And if there is some promise of a robot who can pleasure me better than any human, I’ll certainly line up to try it. If nothing else, it will take the work out of masturbation. Some days, that’s all I want and frankly I don’t see a problem with safely trading gratification for money.

My own hollow needs affirmation from time to time. I assume this is somewhat universal of the human experience. I also crave sincere human intimacy. I can’t imagine a robot can provide the girlfriend experience.

I’ve never solicited the services of a prostitute, and certainly never patronized a business that exploits the victims of human trafficking. But I can imagine the motivations of their clientele are not simplistic. An adult toy store could otherwise service them far cheaper, and with less legal risk.

Some couples are already conflicted over sex toys, and whether they threaten partners. This study suggests spouses won’t feel threatened by sex bots, but if you’re insecure, wouldn’t you feel more threatened by a sex toy that has a face and is perhaps more attractive than you?

Each relationship is a different social contract. Perhaps sex toys and porn are acceptable, but casual flirting with others isn’t. Another couple might have a completely open relationship but draw the line at farting under the covers. You can’t simply state that spouses universally are going to sign on sex-bot parlors because we all feel differently when it comes to sex and what we need in a relationship.

Image credit: jwilson at syslog

• No mini-map
• No HUD
• Friendly fire allowed

Why Switch Off the Mini-Map & HUD?

Machiavelli has been going on about how the HUD (Heads Up Display) makes games like Battlefield 3 much less realistic and she says it just turns it into a game of follow the lights. And it would be interesting to see how the death count and kill:death ratio change when you don’t know where you are unless you follow landmarks and remember the terrain.

Because we’re aiming for improved realism, I’ll also be allowing friendly fire, so no more shooting at everything you see LOL. This is war!

So, from 10 p.m. London time on Saturday 28th to 10 p.m. on Sunday 29th April, the mini-map and HUD will both be switched off on my server for a full 24 hours of Battlefield 3 realism. Friendly fire will be allowed but not encouraged. You’re welcome to come and play.

Join In and Be a VIP!

Send a message or friend request to Matt4nim4l on Xbox Live to get on the guest list as a VIP for better server access, or just show up and join us on the Matt4nim4l server. You can find Matt4nim4l on Battlelog, too.

Researchers at Newcastle University say electric vehicle drivers report feeling less stressed, calmer and more in control of their electric car.

In addition, electric vehicles were found to emit less than half of the carbon dioxide produced by conventional combustion engine cars and grid energy is increasingly being generated by greener renewable sources.

Walking slowly helps reaching the destination

Despite the environmental benefits of electric vehicles however, their take-up remains slow.

The government has an incentive package – the plug-in car grant – which gives customers up to £5,000 towards the cost of an electric vehicle, but just over 1,000 were registered under the scheme during 2011.

The Newcastle study, carried out as part SwitchEV, a project trialling 44 electric vehicles across the north-east, found that with an electric car drivers will think twice about making unnecessary journeys and are generally more environmentally conscious of the journeys they make.

Professor Phil Blythe, who led the study, said: “In an electric vehicle, drivers reported being very aware of the battery charge and this made them think twice about hopping in the car for a journey which they could perhaps walk or maybe combine with another trip out.”

However, the research found drivers tended to increase the number of journeys they made to city centre locations where public charging posts are sited.

This suggests strategic siting of posts may have an economic benefit to the area, researchers said.

Professor Blythe, who leads Newcastle University’s Transport Operations Research Group, also said electric vehicles had resulted in safer driving.

“Because drivers were trying to conserve battery power, they didn’t push their car and tended to stay well within the speed limit. The unintended benefit was one of improved safety, bringing down driving speeds,” he said.

One driver part of the trial said: “I’ve reduced the speed. I don’t race to places, keep it about 58mph and I’m not using the fuel I used to use.”

Edmund King, AA president and visiting professor at Newcastle University said the recent fuel shortages had encouraged some drivers to think twice about some of the trips they make.

“This study shows that electric vehicle drivers are one step ahead and tend to cut out unnecessary journeys to preserve their battery charge.”

The SwitchEV project, which began trials in November 2010 and involves 44 electric vehicles, is aimed at accelerating the widespread adoption of electric vehicles in the UK.

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Robert Taylor is a GreenPeace supporter and he would like to contribute to making our life better by making things happen. For instance Robert has recently dumped his old car and purchased a new electric car.

Image credit: Autoviva.com

The one in the photo is “Poached Pear”; the main ingredients are pear, sultanas, vanilla pumpkin seeds and lemon infused sultanas. The pumpkin seeds are sweet, sticky to the touch, and taste like they should be a lot less healthy than they actually are. The fruit is tasty and tangy, and I’m surprised I’ve never tried dried pear before until this week. It really is awesome.

On Tuesday I tried the new “Pear Tatin”, too, which is a mixture of dried pear, raspberry infused cranberries, yoghurt coated sunflower seeds and almonds. It’s extremely tasty, raspberry infused cranberries are my latest fetish, and you should definitely try it! 143 calories per portion, food haters – if you’re trying to lose weight then one of these will not fuck you up. It’s half the calories of a Mars bar. [You know, a Mars bar won't fuck you up either if you apply some common sense and don't eat fifty of them all at once.]

To claim a free Graze box, click here and enter this code: XF1RCB8. Then tell them what snacks you like the sound of! They’ll send your snacks to you in the post.

Seen from the Inside

I was taken with my dad to gigs from a very young age. I barely remember it, but he played at Stonehenge free festival when I was about 2 or 3 years old. As I got older my dad took me along as his roadie at first, and later as his drummer.

They weren’t massive festivals, some were small shows and some were bigger, but on the whole I spent most of my time helping set my dad’s equipment up. If there was time to sit down, I was either grabbing a drink or just resting, as lugging all that equipment about can be tiring and thirsty work!

We still managed to lose things at gigs, even though we tried not to. I’m sure some of the best bands in the world have. I think it happened to my dad’s bands too many times, before I was even born, so he imprinted this rule in my mind from the day I first started helping out:

Always do your stupid check!” – Roger ‘Smokey Joe’ Lewis

Never Seen from the Outside

I have never been to a festival or concerts of the size of Glastonbury or Reading (Carling) festival – those are two that I would definitely like to visit. The bands I would like to see include classics like Jimi Hendrix, The Who and Thin Lizzy. But some of them are dead, and even if they weren’t I don’t think that these bands could ever be experienced the way they were back in the day.

I’m guessing one of the reasons I like these bands a lot is that they were around the same era my dad was playing, and it reminds me of how my dad played. He had a classic Les Paul Gold Top with a Marshall Super Lead and a 4 x 12 speaker just like the one Hendrix used.

Of more recent artists, I wouldn’t mind seeing Dream Theater play live. Some of the people I know who have seen them said they are brilliant live and I’d like to see what they’re like when they perform instead of just hearing them on recordings.

***
By the way, this is my first ever sponsored blog post! It was sponsored by Ticketamerica.com for exactly 1 American dollar, so I am now officially a blogger who makes money LOL.

Ticketamerica.com has tickets for Korn concerts and Robert Plant shows and all the Ozzy Osbourne concert dates. If you’re interested, check out these links:

• Korn rockstar energy mayhem festival
• robert plant tickets
• ozzy osbourne tickets

Image credit: Machiavelli Id

I’d seen Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan and she was the coolest of cool. In the time since then, she’s rocked some deeply dubious looks [including the rarely spotted "squatting-naked-with-a bottle-of-mineral-water"], but the 80s are back [still, FFS] and Vogue just published an online gallery of her styles through the years. They left out the mineral water shot, though.

Madonna (waxwork of)

Meanwhile, zooming back up to 2012, there’s yet another new name for the kind of outfits I’ve been wearing since the gods know when. This year –according to the Company magazine that I bought in a moment of brain death yesterday– it’s called the “Teenage Kicks” look. The black is still in full effect; crucifixes are a thing again, though they’re not something I’ll be wearing. More androgyny than the Desperately-era Madonna, and less lace.

Ho hum, but at least I’m in fashion for another year under another newly-minted but very old look. Roll on the full 1990s revival. No, wait, roll off again; I just remembered the white hoodies and dungarees.

The early 1990s, yesterday

Maybe I’ll finally be able to find some clothes worth buying again – last season’s offerings were all kind of seen-it. This year I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for a dark, skinny-slouchy tomboy style to outrock the neon-blocking sports luxe freaks, so that I can buy some new pants before the ones I’ve had since the 90s fall apart.

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This post was sponsored by Ticketamerica.com, which was handy as I probably wouldn’t have got around to finishing it today otherwise. Ticketamerica.com has concert tickets for Madonna and Drake for their world tour and One Direction concert tickets. Look them up for madonna tickets, one direction tickets and drake tickets if you like that sort of thing.

Image credit, top: cliff1066â„¢

Image credit, bottom: Horia Varlan