I like an easy life these days. Since losing my hair the care for my appearance has dropped a fair bit. I’m not self-conscious about my looks or anything, I’m just not bothered by how people perceive me. From someone who was heavily involved in the beauty industry and had a fairly structured skincare routine from the age of 12 I’ve surprised myself.

I haven’t quite lost all my eyebrows and eyelashes but they’ve massively dropped out. When I’m without make up, I’m fairly featureless. So without hair and pretty much no eyelashes and eyebrows, I thought I’d give a few easy products a go!

Before all this cancer drama, I would say I filled in my eyebrows fairly heavily… Even though I probably didn’t need to. So to find a product that makes my life so much easier without going into the dramatic side of permanent make up makes me scream with delight.

Maybelline’s tattoo brow is a gel like brow product that tints your brows and the surrounding skin. (See photos of the process on my blog.)

You apply the gel and leave it on for 20 minutes for an all day wear. Now the best bit that makes my simple easy life all the more better is that if you leave the product on for 2-3 hours it can last up to 3 days!!

I find as my skin care routine is pretty shocking these days and you’re lucky if you catch me on a day that I shower, I find that the gel tattoo can last me up to 5 days.

Thankfully, being a beauty therapist, getting the brow shape matching doesn’t take me too much time. However if you’re new to any kind of brow product or don’t feel too confident it’s probably best to practice with a normal brow powder or pencil first. The gel is pretty forgiving in removal if it’s wet and you remove it straight away but if you leave it to set, then it will stain the skin beneath and you’ll be left with that error unless you scrub a fair bit.

I tried the new fad of magnetic eyelashes too. They’re an “easier” alternative to strip lashes that use glue. With my eyelashes quite sparse and thin I thought strip lashes would preserve those that I have left as I won’t be aggravating the area like I would if I used mascara and the whole removal process with it. I’m shit with the normal glue strip lashes so the magnetic lashes sounded right up my street!

Well… That one wasn’t such a great one. They ended up making me look like a toy doll. And not in a good way. They stuck on pretty well but they were too straight and unnatural against the lash line and I looked like a twat.

So I’ll keep with my new fave product for brows but that’ll probably be as far as I’ll go.

In other news… Last last week was a pretty rough week! From having shingles, then chemo, I got a cold straight on top of it all. I have to say it is the absolute WORST I have ever felt during all of this. It is the first time I can say that I actually didn’t want to get out of bed. I pride myself on the the fact that I’ve never moped about and always kept somewhat of a routine. The only reason I did actually get out if bed was because I had a doctor’s appointment to see how my shingles was going.

Thankfully after some strong pills and a lot of rest and relaxation I’m almost back to normal.

I’ve had a little help in my recovery this week too… Hugo!

This post originally appeared on Happy Smiling Cancer Girl on October 27, 2017. It is republished with permission.