Last weekend I attended the annual 5 for Change charity ball and auction. This year, the five chosen charities to benefit from the proceeds where all girl-focused and you can read more about them over here in my pre post. The MC was actor/comedian Siv Ngesi who brought the hotness in a fancy pants suit and The Kiffness and Louise Day (she does a great Coldplay cover) provided the entertainment.

This year, while the dress code was still black tie, there wasn’t a particular theme, so I ended up in a long lacey rokkie I snapped up at YDE for around R500. Bargain! I then went the extra mile in mooiness department by slapping on a pair of mini false eyelashes I picked up on a whim at Dis-Chem; Eylure’s Miss Eylure Lashlets. I loved that they’re smaller, so they fit my li’l eyes and pre-glued so you literally just plak them on like stickers. So easy even a twelve year old could do it.

My hair was curled by Tarryn Page, but I did my own make-up using, among other things, Bodyography foundation (awesome stuff), Catrice Camoflage Cream concealer, e.l.f eye shadow primer (I buy it via eBay), MAC eyeshadow in Tempting on my entire lid and The Body Shop Baked-To-Last blush in Petal. I’m wearing Essence  red lipstick and Essie’s All You Need Is Red. It’s become a bit of a winter staple, actually.

Peeps-wise, I didn’t do a lot of schmingling at the party. In fact, I pretty much plonked myself at a table station with my date Mark (who I promised that I’d let everyone know he’s just an old work friend – he is 100% single. Go get him, ladies!), Karisa and her ‘date’, Cape Town food blog’s Kayli (maybe we were trying to set her up with Mark… maybe we weren’t…), Ritza and Elrico (Luxo.co.za) as well as Clouds (AndLollipops.com) and her date, local designer Jacques le Grange, who also created her rokkie. No YDE number’s for Mevrou Clouds. No sireee.

Anyway, getting back to the ball… This year’s venue was The Look Out at the V&A and our journey there involved terrifying taxi ride with a rally driving mentalist who almost slammed us into a Tazz, we all needed a seriously stiff drink. It was also absolutely freezing so discovering Patron on ice and free Patron-infused cocktails at the door was like hitting up an oasis after a desert crawl.

We then moved on to bubbly and I hit the canapes hard, shoving a good five or so crispy potato cones in my face. So much so that I eventually bloated up like a whale and spent the night being strangled by my Spanx. Totally worth it though. They also had truffle-flavoured popcorn which was supposed to be a table decoration but, if you’re a shameless snacker like me, it’s the perfect foil to midnight munchies.

Eventually, after they flicked the lights on at around one or something, we jumped into yet another evil cab. This time the dude had no metre and when we asked what the rates were he was all ‘So… what do you want to pay for this?’ Er, creeptastical! Still, taxi dramz aside it was better than using Uber. They’d offered guest of the ball a free R100 off their ride in a bid to appear charitable but then doubled their rates due to ‘demand’. (Nice one guys. Real nice…)

Anyway, this was a fun night out as per usual. Almost as fun as crashing into Karisa’s bed with the Cream Soda and potato chips that she’d bought in advance for exactly that. Oh! And watching her freak out after discovering my falsies stuck in her hair and mistake them for baby tarantulas. Love that! (I’d show you a pic but just realised you can’t rip shots off Instagram. Ag nee! She’s ‘CTmylove’ and I’m ‘lipglossgirlx0x0’, if you’re interested…)

A big thanks to Kirsten from Prestige Communications for helping to put the event together. A whopping R132 500 was raised from the auction aspect alone.

Love, love

Leigh