As regular readers may know, Jo in particular has become very taken with the Ellis Faas make-up pens - concealers, blushers, lipglosses and mascaras, all packaged in these skinny metal canisters. (There's a coloured 'blob' on the end, to avoid make-up bag bamboozlement.) The big conundrum, as with all make-up packaging: what to do with them, after they've swept their last...?
Well, Ellis Faas have come up with the clever idea of retrieving as many of the pens as possible, giving them to visual artists (sculptors, fashion designers, photographers etc.), who'll then create one-off works of art using the pens - and those will be sold in aid of War Child.
War Child's the charity (ardently supported by us for some years now) which helps thousands of children in war-torn areas, in particular through sports and arts programmes. These a) ease the psychological damage done to children who live in war-torn zones, and b) can help unite groups of children driven apart by war, in the hope of a more peaceful future. (And there's something in it for you, too: in exchange for the pens, Ellis Fass will give you a 5% discount coupon off your next purchase at their webshop - for more info about all this, see website address below.)
So: if you've got Ellis Faas pens that are reaching the end of their lifespan, get cracking and use up that slap. Then recycle them back to Ellis Faas, to prove the (make-up) pen is mightier than the sword.
And the AK-47.
www.ellisfaas.com
