Hestia faces the Make Up Mavens

I dream that the lippy makes me look like this.

After our third and FINAL visit to Nando's (in Glasgow this time) we pulled on our  woolly hats, turned up our collars and headed back up a dark and wet Buchanan Street to return to our hotel.

But what's this?

A large and glamorous department store (that I visited in the past with disastrous consequences for my credit card....remember my session with Daniel?!) threw a warm and welcoming light out into the darkness!!!

I have a vague memory of asking Tartarus to bring me home a Chanel lipstick many months ago.  He had been dispatched so many times to the Chanel concession in the airport in the US that the girls who worked there must have thought he had a deep rooted Chanel addiction.  He had refused to go again and suggested that I just buy the lipstick in the UK, for all the difference in price there would be.

'Want to see your mother absolutely TERRIFIED?' I asked Sonshine.

Well, what small boy doesn't?



Before I could change my mind, I was through the highly polished wooden door and standing in the Chanel concession.  A dozen immaculately painted faces turn my way. I remember that I'm just out of Nandos and have a peri-peri breath that could fell a cart horse at 20 paces.

A magnificent girl sweeps towards me like a black-chiffon galleon in full sail (honestly, she was very friendly), her perfectly made up face hovvering inches away from mine.

'I'm looking for a lipstick,' I squeak.

'Which shade, do you know?' she asked, kindly.

I gaze at the gleaming hilts of a million different lipstick tubes.  'I don't know.  It's coral.  But it's pink,' I fluster. 'I saw it on the Chanel website. Months ago.'

Even I realise that this isn't going to help.

She carefully picks out a pinky-toned coral shade and ushers me over to a plush high seat before a brightly lit mirror.  After a wipe down of my own lipstick (which had been well-eaten off in Nandos, I can assure you) she began to paint up my mouth.  I totally tried not to breathe my fiery fumes on her, but she was very deliberate and my breath-holding isn't that great......

Sonshine was fascinated.

At the end of it she admired her handiwork on my mouth and I apologised to her for my Nando-breath.

Reader, I bought the lipstick.  I have no idea whether it suits me or not.  And I feel a bit guilty because my mother has been wearing the same shade of lipstick for the past 40 years and I have an artist's paint case that is filled with nothing but Disaster Lippy or Duplicate Lippy.

Outside in the glistening wet street, our hats once again jammed down over our eyes, we hurried back up the street to our hotel.

'Well, what did you think of the Make Up Mavens?" I asked him.

'They reminded me of sirens,' he replied *cue mental picture of Chanel Department full of flashing lights and wailing noises*

'Sirens?'

'Yes, you know.  The beautiful women that tempted sailors to their deaths on the rocks. In the stories.'

I grinned.  'Well, I don't know that they managed to tempt the only sailor that WE know, but they've certainly lured my credit card to a cruel death on the rocks of their lipstick counter.'

'You should go more often - and I'll come with you,' he continued, squeezing my hand supportively.

'They have nice swivel seats.'