The Nutshell

I grew up on a farm in the "Sandveld" region between Piketberg and Velddrif. I had a pretty normal childhood, bedtime stories, playing in the dirt, playing with my dolls, walking in the "veld" with my guardian and best friend at the time Beatie.

Beatie was an old lady who never got married and gave her life to my family, raising my father and his sisters and then me and my brothers. She wore Pinafore's, stockings and good leather shoes. She always visited with a big basket, never a suitcase, filled with Smarties, a good night gown, stockings, blouses to wear with her Pinafore and Oil of Olay. She knew every single plant in the "veld", made the best "potbrood" (a bread made in a tin" and told me stories about my grandfather and father every night while I was falling asleep. She was a magical part of my life and I wish she knew how much she meant to us, you kind of don't tell people this enough when they are alive. 

I have always loved mild weather, books, adventure, travels and of course beauty. 

Beauty became my career choice after school and it funded my travels around the world while paying off my student loan. I saw 21 countries working on cruise ships. (I will need a separate post on cruise ships altogether)

Beauty forms part of every life, even Beatie in all her devil may care attitude, used Oil of Olay religiously every single night. My mother had a beauty routine that lasted 30 minutes on her skin alone, make-up and hair took another 30minutes. She had lotions and serums that filled a tiny country. My grandmother always put her hair in rollers and used soft lip colour, with her pearls and matching handbags. She was a real lady and my mother takes after her. 

They became my guinea pigs in all my beauty adventures, once I learned that there was ways to manipulate product penetration and results, there was no stopping me. Tinting eyebrows, Facial Peels and Microneedling, I have done it all. I have always been a before and after kind of person. This created great job satisfaction for me. 

I am now a Client Relationship Consultant for a beauty company that I have stocked and worked with for many years, created by a genius plastic surgeon. I am truly blessed to be representing this fantastic company. All because I took a leap of faith and tried something that I was afraid of doing. 

So this blog came about as an outlet for my creative side, a destressing tool and to share some of my stories. I have always loved a good story around a wooden kitchen table with a big pot of coffee. So this is my new kitchen table, this blog. I will share stories, some will teach you something and others will just be fun to read. Some might not appeal to anyone and that is okay too. 

So that is a short introduction to Ilze and some of the characters you might meet. The people who have inspired me and shaped my life into what it is today.