Lipgloss is my Life

This morning I’ve had the piss taken out of me from all sides ’cos one of my girlfriends, Shazz, just slapped up a verrrry old piccie of me on Facebook.

Check it out:

Ant (her neighbour), moi et Shazzle.

Yessiree, I was a super-geeky Children o’ the Corn type of kid. 

This piccie was snapped when I was 9 years old and in Std. 2. This was a few months before I learned to put in contacts (with a broken arm, nogal) and two years after I got my ears pinned back at 7. I would also go on to endure a horrible experience with headgear when I turned 12, which I only had to wear at night, thank God.

So ja, I know all too well what its like to live on the not-so-pretty side of the fence and trust me, it wasn’t all champagne cocktails, goodie bags and feeling up Ryk Neethling…  But now that it is (nyhahaha!), I’m loving every minute of it. So suck it!

Mwah,

‘Little Miss Sunshine’.

P.S. Note that, despite being a lightie, I’d watched enough Miss South Africa pageants to know how to pull a ‘zexy leg’ pose for the camera. So proud…

Seven Springs 2010 Sauvignon Blanc - yumness.

In case you didn’t know, Seven Springs Winery is situated in the Hemel and Aarde Valley between Hermanus and Caledon. Look how pretty it is:

Chardonnay growing in the shadow of the Babylons Tower mountain.

Anyway, I invited a few of my girlies over and we indulged in a yummy spread of cheese, olives, pates, grapes and strawberries which we washed down with Seven Springs Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay.

Karis Piss, La and Nickle Pickle.

Of the vinos we tried, the Sav Blanc was definitely my favourite. It’s got aromas of ripe apple and passionfruit and, when served with ice, I reckon it’s the perfect light, crisp wine to sip on while watching the sun go down on Clifton 4th. (Provided the cops don’t catch you drinking on the beach… I got bust for that last summer and had to pour a super-fancy wine out onto the sand so as to be let of with a warning. Oops!)

Lize, however, was big into the Chardonnay. It had a slightly smoky, woodier flavour that went down well with all the cheese.

Ooh, I like...

It comes with an eco-friendly screw cap which suits me just fine. Despite being a waitress for yonks back in the day, I’m still pretty rubbish with a corkscrew and have managed to stab myself in the wrist more than once.

KP and Nix get their 'Chardonnay faces' on.

As the wine flowed, the evening got more and more interesting…

What do you mean I've got something in my teeth?

But wait! There's more... if you buy one bottle of Seven Springs Chardonnay, you'll get two drunk girls for the price of one...

Eventually, all the posing wore us out and Lize and I conked out on the couch.

What do you mean this shot looks 'staged'? We pass out looking picture perfect alll the time. This is how we roll...

But the party didn’t stop there. Lize got a second wind and continued to booze it up. I, however, crawled into bed so as to black out in peace. Alas, this was shortlived ‘cos the girls decided to blare old techno videos via Youtube and rave it up opposite my bed, as you do.

No no no no no no no no no no no there's no limit...

Please. Make. It. Stop.

Despite waking up to a kitchen that looked like a bomb had hit it and finding a camera full of photies too embarrassing to post, this was a fun night in.

Happier, less hungover times with Seven Springs...

Thanks Tim, your Sauvignon Blanc was delish!

Love, love

Leigh

Want to try Seven Springs vino for yourself? Pop on over to Cybercellar. They’ve got the Sav Blanc going for R77,50 per bottle if you buy six.

After living it up on champers and macaroons at the Skip launch, myself, Mark and Gert decided to put in a cameo at the Ard Matthews benefit. (It was in aid in MyLife, a charity that helps out impoverished youth). We arrived in time to miss Ard and Zolani from Freshly Ground sing the national anthem (perfectly, just so you know), but caught a bit of Jack Parow who was beyond awesome.

Dig this chick, she's kiff.

I later met Mr. P in the smoking section and embarrassed myself by reeling off some of the lyrics to Cooler As Ekke, telling him I had ‘a tattoo of a sleng op my tette’ (which, by the way, is an absolute lie…) He was like ‘Really? A SLENG?’ Clearly my Afrikaans needs some work…

Clouds and I being stalker fans.

Other interesting peeps out and about included fashion blogger Sam Walker from Pop Ya Collar. I made a point of introducing/showing off Gert to her and they’ve swapped deets.

Sam and Gert being adorbs...

2Oceansvibe radio was also on the scene.

Gary Cool and The Passion from The Rock Dimension.

They gave me a rad little car kit so I can listen to their show in my Kia. All I need to do is download the 2Oceansvibe radio app to my phone, connect it to the car kit and plug it into the AUX connection in my karretjie. Easy peasy…

The Wings Group stand was also there and Gert damn near lost his mind when he realised he could buy any of their sweets or biccies for a mere five bucks a pop. (Wings Group tend to give their goodies away for free, but because a portion of the event’s proceeds was going to go to MyLife, they decided to sell instead.) He immediately snapped up at least five trays of Toffifee and that’s when I realised he was my ‘sugar soul mate’ in that we’re both OBSESSED with Toffifee.

Back off bitch, it's mine!

The divine Dr. Susanne Reuther, the owner of Wings Group, AKA my sugar mommy.

When things started to wind down, Mark and I took Gert back to his hotel, but we were on too much of a sugar high to call it night. Thus, we decided to partake in a li’l more Toffifee and vino by the pool. (Within ten minutes, Gert had polished off 80% of the tray. He sure wasn’t kidding when he told me Toffifee was his favourite thing in the world…)

I gotta tell you, as a journo, I’ve gotten to meet a fair amount of designers throughout my career, particularly when I used to write for One Small Seed, and a lot of them are total toss pots. I’ve often felt so grateful for my dictaphone ‘cos I’ve totally tuned out when they’ve spouted endless streams of designer-babble. Think ‘Ja, so I was, like, totally inspired by the obscurantism and pure ostentatiousness regarding the fluidity of today’s collective psycho-narrative…’  Gert-Johan, however, is an absolute peach of a human being and I’m actually very sorry he lives all the way up in Jozi.

Mark, Clouds and Gert

Anyway, this was a super-fun evening and was totally worth the hangover. And I’m still finding various Wings Group lekkergoed everytime I get into my car! Yesterday it was a stray box of Toffifee and this morning Venco Dubbel Zout liquorice fell out my glove box. Score! This is Mark’s Absolute Favourite Thing in the world. (As he’s far too young for me to fiddle with, I pass this wisdom on to any young vroumens wishing to reel him in…) 

He devoured half a packet next to me while I drove him home and kept telling me to ‘just try it’, but I wasn’t having any of it. The whole idea of salted liquorice just seemed so… vile. Eventually he managed to stuff get a piece into my mouth and – shocker rocker – it was totally delish and v. v. addictive. I’ve seen them lurking next to the counter at the Woolies Engen on Orange, so next time I’m in there, I’m totally going to pop them into my basket…

Thanks Susanne! Dankie Marina! (This was a Little Black Book function, just so you know…)

Love, love

Leigh (the girl who’s soon to be the size of a Wendy House… )

Last night, I popped into the launch of Skip’s new liquid washing detergent along with Mark not-so-Bland, an old mate from Jupiter Drawing Room. To celebrate the new Skip, Jupiter teamed  up with Mila (a design house) and conceptual designer Reep Verloren van Thermaat, (try saying that three times fast) to create a truly gorgeous art installation. Check it out:

See the big, pretty washing machine? It's where all those missing socks go when they die...

Now get a load of all the cutesy li’l seagulls hanging from the roof:

They've all been made out of repurposed Skip Liquid bottles. Clever, ne?

There were gorgeous models on the scene, clad in David Tlale rokkies that had been specially designed for the bash:

David gets cosy with a 'Skip chick'. If you look carefully, you'll see her headpiece is also made from a Skip bottle.

Marky Mark gets some Skip lovin' too...

Other peeps out and about? Fashion blogger Jasna Zellerhof AKA Fashion Jazz and celeb expert Clayton Morar:

Clay Clay, Jasna et moi.

Malcolm Kluk was also there (he says if you invest in one trend this spring, make it ‘tribal’), but I accidentally deleted his piccie while cleaning my camera. Oops! And it’s all these babies’ fault:

Le macaroons o' death

Upon spotting a trayful of vanilla macaroons, I decided to migrate two of them into my handsakkie. Thing is, I was semi-blind drunk somehow underestimated their goo-factor, so they pretty much exploded on my every belonging, covering my camera, phone and hairbrush with their evil, custardy awesomeness. Ag nee!

It was around about the time that I was licking macaroon off my Crackberry that I was introduced to yet another designer on the scene, Gert-Johan Coetzee. (In case you’ve been living under a rock, or happen to be my dad (love you!), Gert, is like, ‘the biggest deal’ in SA fashion right now… Dude dressed the bloody Kardashian’s, for heaven’s sake…)

Gert: Darling, you need to let me go now... Moi: I can't babe, I'm stuck!

Due to the fact that Gert was now stuck to the side of my face via macaroon filling, I thought I’d take advantage of the fact and drag him along to partytjie nommer twee; the Ard Matthews bash in Woodstock. I mean, when else would I get to tell people I was ‘wearing Gert-Johan’? And besides, it wouldn’t have been right to let him go back to his hotel room all alone on a Phuza Thursday… Thus, Gert, Mark and I bundled into my karretjie and zipped off into the night, but not before collecting our Skip goodie bags. Each sakkie contained two big bottles of new Skip liquid that I’m uber-keen to try.

'Cos its a liquid, you don't have to worry about getting powder residue all over your LBD's. Also, as it makes use of Fibre Protect Technology, your clothes will look as good as new, wash after wash. Kiffness...

Anyway, I’ll be sure to write all about the Ard Matthews gig tomorrow when I have time. (It was a super-fun though, just so you know…)

Thank you By Invite Only, (they’re the events co that threw the bash) I had loads of fun, (ate a good half kg of that awesome springbok you had going) and reckon the installation’s truly beautiful.

Love, love

LeighWant to check the Skip Liquid installation out for yourself? It’ll be up in the Lampside Court at the V&A (upstairs next to Mango and La Playa) until 5 September.