It is fair to say that my logic for keeping things safe is a wee bit haphazard. I put earrings in shoes, receipts on “the side” and my sentimental jewellery in various pouches and pots in my bed side table…though not in the pouches and pots they belong in I might add!
Last week we began packing for holiday. Conscious of packing with an infant in tow, I knew I’d have to pack light – not something I’m renowned for! I proudly pointed out my miniscule pile of clothing and highlighted that I was wearing a pair of boots and taking a pair of sandals…yes, that is correct, just two items of footwear! He looked suitably impressed. There even appeared to be room in the case for all of my “girly bathroom stuff”…and there came the issue. My make up case…it is a beast! I heard mumblings about having weigh the cases and realised that I needed to take action and fast.
There, in the bottom of my beloved make up case, I found two pens, a missing earring, a selection of flowers that I put in my hair several years ago, numerous paper clips and hair grips unified with several pieces of knotted cotton, 3 lip glosses which I never wear because I hate the stick of the stuff, a badge, a button and four brown eye liners…four I tell you! And right at the bottom? A shocking amount of glitter and those irritating perfume balls that La Senza wrap up with your purchases…I haven’t bought anything from there in YEARS so I have absolutely no idea how they got there. It turns out that the majority of the weight was down to 3 pairs of scissors, tweezers, eyelash curlers, two glass bottles of foundation (one that I don’t wear) and 3 bronzers. It would seem that I’m a walking make-up counter.
Knowing that I hadn’t needed 90% of this stuff in the last year I was unrelenting. I completed a hefty session of filtering, re-homing and discarding and then cautiously laid said make up bag into the case. I quietly willed each bottle, brush and pot to be as light as possible. I stood back and weighted for the obligatory weight check and Geoffers announced that we were officially within the airlines limits. I felt smug.
Once in Norway, I spent a large portion of the first morning fishing around in my bag for hair grips, I went to my bag twice on the hunt for a pen and deeply regretted binning my waterproof mascara when the rain persisted in falling. I consoled myself by knowing that those items would surely have put us over the weight limit!
The stitching on the bag reads, ‘beauty comes from within’ and so it does but it is also within this bag that I keep the vast majority of my worldly belongings so it’s not going anywhere!