Terrible Day

I'm having an absolutely awful day.
Schnitzel attacked me twice, this morning he bit my foot badly and then in the evening he just flew at me for no reason (i was nowhere near him, he just attacked me when i called his name), trapping me on the sofa. I had a box luckilly, which i managed to use to block him from jumping up. If i hadn't had it he would have savaged me. It's scar. We had a vets appointment anyway, and our wonderful vet said it didn't sound like normal behaviour caused by dominance or anxiousness. I think i'm going to take him back to Battersea, because it's not fair on my family, or me to have to live in fear of a tiny dog.
It's devastating. Even though he hurts me i love him lots, and i know it's not his fault. Giving up on him makes me feel like such a huge failure and so incredibly ashamed. I can't bare the idea of him having to go back and live in that clinical place with all the other poor dogs, but what else can i do?

My pet rat died 2 days ago. It was just of old age but i still feel so incredibly sad about it. He was a really good friend and now he's gone.

I'm meant to be having a Halloween party tomorrow, i really don't know if i'm up to it, but i really don't want to let my friends down either.
But then if we still have Schnitzel don't know if i should let them come over, what if he attacks them?

This is just awful :(

Sorry, back to the beauty stuff soon, but at the moment i have to get all this awful stuff off my chest.

Lime Crime Finally tells us what she thnks of her customers:

'it was YOUR fault that you idiots were stupid enough to spend $16 for a gram of product.'

... now that's a good business tactic.

TKB Trading

In reponse to the whole big repackaging mineral makeup scandal my girlfriend and i did an order from TKB trading and it arrived today.

So this is what we got:


And all this, including shipping to the UK was around £20. Yep £20. For ALL of this.

And if you were wondering, here is me holding the bag so you can see the size.

Holy Zombie Jesus! There's just so so much! I'm going to put them in little jars (probably 5 gram jars) to make them a bit handier, and i bet i can get at the very least 4 jars worth from each baggie. It's an insane bargain! I'm going to have to buy a tonne more :D

Here are swatches:

flash:


no flash:


from left to right the colours are:

Grape Pop!, Tangerine Pop!, Apple Green pop!, Lemon Drop Pop!, Blueberry Pop!, Strawberry Pop! and Raspberry Pop!

flash:


no flash:


from left to right the colours are:
'Pink Blue Red', 'Green Apple', 'Coral Reef Blue', 'Cloisonne Red', 'Pure Purple', 'Totally Teal', 'Lotsa Lime', 'Antique Silver Mica', 'Polished Silver' and 'Sparkle Violet'.

(all swatches are used dry and without any form of base or primer)

And here is a look i put together using 'Antique Silver Mica', 'Polished Silver' and 'Sparkle Violet'.








First impressions are that these are absolutely amazing. The colours are so incredibly bright and pigmented! It's amazing to get such a huge variety of colours for so cheap. The shipping was quick and painless, and though i've only been wearing them for a while they're holding up really well and i found them easy to blend (though i am pretty terrible at blending anything!).

All the colours i got are safe to use anywhere on the body (with the exception of 'Green Apple' which can't be used safely on lips) and with these lovely low prices and extraordinary colours i'm going to get some of their lipstick base and have a go at maing my own. Who knows, perhaps i'll even get good enough to sell them one day :)

So if you want straight pigments go buy from TKB!

Or if you want somelovely hand-blended colours check out Mineral Makeup Mutiny to find sellers who definately do not repackage wholesale pigments:

Envy

At the moment i'm feeling hideously jealous of all you American guys and gals.
You've got such amazing beauty stuff! I'm absolutely lusting for the new Hard Candy range at Walmart and i'm desperate for a huge order from Sephora, but they won't ship to me!
Last time i went over there i didn't have enough money to have a huge beauty splurge, i got some L'oreal HIP and MUFE and a few little bits, but now i wish i could just go crazy in a big Walmart or Walgreens. I want Wet n Wild and Milani and anything really! And everything's so much cheaper! I want cheap MAC!
If anyone ever wants to do either a drugstore or higher end swap for some stuff you can't get across the pond please think of me!

I just cleaned my makeup brushes for the first time in about a million years. I am awful! The filth that came out of them was incredible. While the process is quite boring i do find it very satifying watching all of the dirt flow away.

This Weeks Ups and Downs

Ups:
Schnitzel. The little sausage makes me very happy.

Sleek's Pout Polishes. At the beginning of the week i had awful chapped, sore lips, i picked up one of these and have been wearing it alone or over lipstain for a few days and it's performed miracles!

Having some money!

Getting ready for christmas.

Barry M flamingo pink nail polish. Amazing corally pink colour and really impressive staying power!

pink and orange lipstick. This month i've been wearing them even more than my usual red!

Downs:
A mysterious illness that came upon me in Topshop yesterday. Often because of my social phobia i get minor panic attacks in crowds, and i thought it was just one of those, but it turned into something awful and fluish and i'm still feeling bad today.

Lime Crime. I hate that woman so much, it makes me so sad reading all these comments by peole who were huge fans of hers and she's treated them badly.

Not being able to find my Lancome mascara :(

my body. I've put on a lot of weight recently and need to diet, but i am rubbish at it!

The people at the Illamasqua counter and B never too busy to Be beautiful(who were otherwise wonderful) putting the hard sell on me.

What are you loving and hating at the moment?

I came into a bit of money just a few days ago, which made me very happy as i was able to buy all my christmas presents (i like to be super early so i can relax :P ) and still had some over to treat myself. I had a little drug store spree (UK people what do would be our word for this? Just low-end?) and picked up a few really good cheap bits i'm going to review, also a tiny illamasqua spree (in which i got Torrid, the acid green intense lipgloss! I'm trying desperately to think of a good look to put together with it!) and i've finally bought myself some proper make up brushes.

The ones i got were from www.eyeslipsface.co.uk 's new studio range. I got 10 brushes for only £35 and i've read excellent reviews of them! Until now i've been using a bizarre mix of brushes ranging from a few good ones (some screenface and gosh eye shadow brushes, a clinique lip brush) to a set of Hard Candy ones (that were once good but are now so old they're not the best) to the down right awful (a terrible, terrible powder brush that shed and scratches like crazy). I'm so looking forward to these arriving and testing them all out! :D

I've been very busy recently because just over a week ago i adopted a dog :) He is a miniature smooth haired daschund, about 4 years old and named Schnitzel Von Krum. I have always wanted a daschund but have a set of morals about buying dogs when there are so many out there who need homes, all of my pets (with the exception of 2 old cats who just arrived at my house years ago) are adopted and the idea of buying animals is weird to me now (not that i have any problem with anyone else doing it, my girlfriend has a gorgeous toy poodle she bought and that's absolutely fine and dandy, i just cant do it myself) so finding a little Daschund who needed a new home is just a dream come true for me. At first we had some problems letting him know who was boss, i did get bitten a few times, but he's settled down incredibly well in such a short time! He does get excited around the cats but he wants to be friends, not hurt them, and he is now good friends with my other dog Minnie. I'm really happy.

I was wondering if i could ask you readers for your opinions on some things, seeing as i'm so new to this beauty blogging world. Firstly do you prefer seeing review of things as videos, which is how i've been mainly doing them so far, or would is it nicer to see a proper written review with photos, or both? Also i was thinking of making a new blog for various non-beauty related ramblings, but would you be interesting in reading those too among my dreamings about lipstick? I really appreciate your opinions :)

Also i'm going to have a blog sale as soon as possible. Just a few bits that i never use and would like to go to a happy home. Everything is going to be really cheap, some of it free if you just pay me for the postage. If you could tell any friends who might be interested but dont read my blog it would be very much appreciated. :)

A few new videos

New videos on my youtube channel

A Show and Tell of various products:


Boots Original Beauty Formula Skincare


(i'm so sorry these videos are overexposed, i'm going to take photographs later of swatches and so on)

A collective Mac Show and Tell


An overview of my Mac Lip Product collection


Illamasqua Sheer Lipstick in 'Underworld' review


Red Lip Product overview part 1


Part 2


I thought it would be useful to post these here in case anyone wanted to watch these but not leave my blog, but if it's irritating or anything please tell me and i'll just link to my youtube channel when i have a new video up :)

Doh A Deere

So as you may have gathered from my previous post, i am not the biggest fan of Lime Crime Makeup, or indeed Doe Deere herself.
If you've missed the drama the problem with Lime Crime is that her mineral eye shadows (or 'magic dusts') are just repackaged pigments from wholesale companies, being sold for a much, much higher price but Lime Crime claim they actually formulate their own colours and say that there is no other makeup as pigmented and bright as them. Both of these claims are simply not true. And then to add insult to injury, when called out on the fact her shades are identical to ones available from wholesalers, she had the audacity to claim that THEY copied HER!

To find out more here are some good articles on the subject:

Lime Crime, So Ordinary it Should be Illegal.

Comparing Wholesale Micas to Retail.

No Originality With Lime Crime.

Mineral Mayhem v.20

Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?

Getting Duped.

Made me Giggle.

Lime Crime is a Ripoff, please read!

Thanks for everyones advice over my dilemma whether or not to buy her lipsticks. i have decided that, no matter how beautiful her lipsticks are (i'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and believe her pathetic new post claiming she had a big part of the production of them, unlike her eye dusts) there's no way i could fund her because of her lying, cheating ways and things she has done in the past (deleting bad comments and reviews about her, scamming people out of money they believed was for a charity, making shoddy garments in her fashion designer days and insulting my mother).

Anyway her most recent post really rubbed me up the wrong way.
Now let's just assume that what she's saying is true about the lipsticks, she worked with a lab, designed the colours herself etc etc, it's such a bloody vain, self congratulatory post (much like all of her blog) it infuriates me. Here are some quotes that were particularly untrue or irritating.

'The Opacity factor ended up being something I had to FIGHT for, tooth and nail. Having made millions of mediocre lipsticks, the lab didn’t quite understand why I wanted mine to be so pigmented'
Has his factory never heard of, i don't know, Mac for example? While Mac might not have the most unconventional range of colours, you can't fault their pigmentation!

'Indeed, in an industry that is supposed to be all about color, I felt strangely alone in my dedication to develop shades that were a little (or a lot!) outside the traditional spectrum. The typical color-developing process is quite uninspiring:

1. Client finds a ’sample’, usually another brand’s lipstick or eyeshadow
2. Lab matches it
3. Client tweaks color (darker/greener/more pigmented/etc) and sticks it in their own packaging.

That’s it. There are two things inherently wrong with this process. 1) Everyone’s making copies of each other’s stuff. 2) Nothing new is being invented, ever. Is it any wonder we have stores full of cosmetics that look exactly the same?!'

... Kettle, you are looking pretty damn black. She actually did WORSE than this with her eye dusts. Instead of getting a lab to match it, she just resold another brands eyeshadows!

'Is it possible to make neon lipstick? How about blue? Is it legal? Why isn’t anybody doing it?!'
Xenia, here are your answers. Yes, i have many neon lipsticks. Yes i have more than one blue lipstick. Yes it's legal and actually many people are doing it.

'You can imagine how crazy people thought I was for even asking these questions. In an industry that’s more about trends than creativity, coloring outside the lines is, well, …a crime. Imagine having to convince seasoned chemists that you indeed want purple that purple and pink that bright. In the end, I’m very glad I trusted my gut instinct and developed a range that helped set Lime Crime apart from other brands.'
Again, just not true. Many many companies have been making these sort of colours long, long before she decided to have a go at the makeup market.

Everything she writes about her makeup just claims that it is basically the only thing out there for people who want bright, unusual colours and it's just not true at all! While i will say her colours do look good and, from what i can see, good quality, they are all just photoshopped so who knows what they'll really look like on?

I have no real problem using photoshop for beauty photos, if you want to clean up your face, or a colour is hard to photograph i guess it's fine to adjust the photo a little to make the colour true to life. However what she has done is taken about 2 photos of her lip and then just coloured them in in photoshop. Or indeed at one point taken a photograph of Raquel Reed, photoshopped her 'Oh No She Didn't' on top and at least had the decency to say 'colour approximated'.

So if you're on the lookout for bright, unusually coloured lipsticks, but don't want to give money to a lying, self appointed 'unicorn queen' i've found quite a few places to try:

Firstly Stargazer:

Not only are these incredibly cheap (£3 or about $4.95) they come in a huge range of colours. From black and white to several different shades of bright pink, turquoise, blue, purple and orange and well as shimmery colours, a few bright lipglosses and glittery colours as well.
I have a few and i will admit they do not feel that nice on my lips, they're quite drying, however they are incredibly well pigmented and last a long time. You can't go wrong for 3 quid in my opinion. (also this website has a few shades on sale for 99p!)
It's been rumoured that her lipsticks are just repackaged stargazer, i have no evidence of that but you can get some pretty damn good dupes for a fraction of the price. I'd like to see her try and claim Stargazer copied her, since they've been around since 1978!

Barry M:

Barry M have a smaller range of 'unusual' colours than stargazer but are a higher quality, with great staying power, a lovely creamy quality and fabulous pigmented formula. They retail for £4.25 (about $6.95) and come in a wide range of wearable colours, such as their new range of pink and red colours, but also a fabulous black lipstick, some neon pinks, orange, lavenders and glitters. They also have a lovely range of glittery lip glosses, as well as an opaque bright orange and bubblegum pink gloss.

Illamasqua:

Illamasqua have a lot of lovely lipsticks, but apart from silver, black, gold and white none are really 'unusual' for lipsticks, however their Intense Lipglosses come in a huge range of very exciting, ultra opaque but ultra shiny colours. White, black, blue, purple, acid green and even grey! I have started a collection of these and i can truly say they are the best lipgloss' i have ever used. Pricier than the rest at £12.50 (about $20), but still thats only $4 more than Limey's lipstick.

Mac:

Mac don't have any incredibly 'weird' colours, but the pro range has a few slightly more unusual, but still very wearable shades. For instance Violetta and Neon Orange. Also in the style black range there are a few various shades of blacks and other interesting colours. I'm not going to go into the quality, because everyone knows MAC are just great. £12 in the UK $14 in the US.


I've never tried these following companies so i can't vouch for the quality, but they have a lot of nice bright colours and i've heard good reviews from a lot of people.


Glitter to Gore:

The website is not great as there aren't any actual colour swatches, just photoshopped pictures and a photo of a selection of the lipsticks. Retail for $7.99 (£4.89)

Amphigory:

A lovely choice of colours including some very exciting glittery black, blue and green lippies. Also a good thing about this site is they specify which of the colours are actually 'handblended' by them. Various prices depending on the type of lipstick, the most expensive is $13.50 (£8.27)

Morgana Minerals:

a lovely range of darker 'gothy' colours like blues, purples and blacks and some brighter colours like turquoise. Again not the best swatches, but at least they show them actually on the lips. Also you can buy samples of these lipsticks, which i think is great! A full lipstick is $10 (about £6.13) or a sample to try is only $0.50 (about 30p)

Fyrinnae:

a wide selection of 'lip lustres', which they describe as similar to a lip stain. They claim they are very opaque and have some gorgeous colours from blue to turquoise to a lovely range of pinks and coppers. $4.50 (about £2.75) for a full tube or $2.50 (about £1.50) for a mini tube.

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics:

I'm absolutely longing for some of these. They come in a wide range of really bright colours (stunning primary blue, yellow and red) but you are also meant to use them to blend your own colours and the results absoluely amaze me (some swatches are available here, here, and here.) They go on like a lipgloss but then dry to a satiny, lipstick-like finish apparently. $12.50 (about £7.70).

So i hope this helps you find some exciting new lip colours!

(also, [and this is a little bitchy, but hey she started it when she called my Mum an asshole!] does anyone else find her slogan 'so bright its illegal' annoying. It really irritates me. If it was 'so bright it should be illegal' it would be fine! But no, it actually claims 'its illegal' which is just a lie and pisses me off immensely!)

And incase Lime crime or a fan is reading this and just think i am jealous, i would like to assure you i am not. There are many people that i am jealous of, and would happily admit it, but in fact i tend to like these people a lot. For instance i am jealous of makeup artist Alex Box's talent, and her input into the Illamasqua makeup line. I do not dislike Lime crime because i am jealous of her, if she weren't a huge liar and hadn't insulted me i'm sure i would love her, and see her as a big asset to the makeup community. In fact i used to be friends with her, not proper friends but blog-friends and i thought she was lovely. I saw the fun, sparkly, interesting girl she portrays to readers of her blog now. Then she started copying other peoples designs, insulting people and trying to cheat people out of money and i saw her true colours.

Long Overdue post

Slorry about my slack posting at the moment!
Thank you to all my new followers, i'm checking out your blogs as i write this :)
Also thank you to all who left comments on my last post, it was very helpful to hear your opinions and support.

Here is a FOTD from (i'm ashamed) 2 weeks ago!


I am wearing:
Avon barely there tinted moisturiser in light
Illamasqua loose powder in LP005
Illamasqua powder blusher in nymph
Mac eyehadow in Vex
Lacoe Oscillation mascara in Black
Barry M lip pencil in 12
Mac dazzleglass in Via Veneto

Also i just thought i'd share this photo of me at my stall at the Islington Art fair. I just like it:

Although it really does highliht i need to lose some weight in the tummy area!

And finally, i am sorting out my lip products for reviewing. Here is a photo of them (not including lip balms, primers, a few lost bits and bobs and some things i want to sell or swap)



the frightening thing is, from what i've seen of the beauty blogging world, this is quite a small collevtion!
xxx

Lime Crime Makeup Dilemma

I'm really torn between whether or not to buy some new makeup (not now, i have no money, but in the future) from Lime Crime makeup (http://www.limecrimemakeup.com/). Specifically this problem has come up with her new line of lipstick.
The reason i am torn is that on the plus side the colours are beautiful and, as far as i can tell, the formulas look lovely. I want nearly every single one, probably not the neon pink, red or black because i have those colours already. But all the rest are really truly unique looking and stunning.

However the downsides are really really bad.
Firstly i think that, while they look quite high quality, it's a bit much to charge $16 for a lipstick when you're only just starting in the business, Mac charge LESS than that, and they are formulated by a whole team of professional make-up artists with years of experience, not just some girl who has decided to try her hand at it.

But the main reason is simple. She has pesonally insulted me and my family in the past.
I don't know if anyone remembers, but Lime Crime used to be a fashion line, ultimately it didn't work out which is why Xenia has now moved on to makeup. My Mum bought a dress from her and when it arrived we were shocked to find it was hemmed with Gaffa tape (Duct tape) but we still left good feedback and so on because we don't like to make a fuss.
Anyway a while down the line a friend saw this dress and decided to take photos and post them on an internet forum dedicated to bad DIY fashion. Now this wasn't kind or anything, but fair enough, it was bad DIY and my friend didn't otherwise slag her off. I didn't know she had done it until after the fact.
Anyway Xenia commented on the post defending herself, which was fair enough, but said (i'm paraphrasing as she deleted her comments) 'I sold a shoddy dress. Someone bought it for $100. Who's the real asshole here?'.
So well, as you can imagine i was furious. Even if she weren't actually calling my mother an 'asshole' it's terrible to say that to anyone. She was basically saying 'theres nothing wrong with me selling crap merchandise because people will be gullible enough to buy it'.
After i got angry and told her off for being rude she sent me a long email basically about how hard her life was at that point but not apologising or offering any real excuse. I found it very irritating as she just used to whole thing to try and get pity for herself.

Even if this hadn't been directed at my family, i would have been extremely put off. And so now really i'm dubious of the quality of anything she might make in the future. This has been bolstered by several bad reviews of her eye dusts on youtube. Apparently she sent larger pots of product to several gurus for free and gots lots of good reviews, but the actual product you buy is tiny. I've also heard that the pigmentation is not actually that great, and that a lot of it (or indeed all of it) is just bought from other mineral makeup websites, repackaged and sold for about 10x the original amount, if not more.

While i've loved the look of her eye dusts and so on since they came out, I've never been tempted to buy before. For one thing you can get a lot of good dupes (or indeed exactly the same pigments) from a lot of cheaper comapanies on the net. But Lipsticks are my ultimate passion, i love having every shade of lipstick and i really really would love these if they came from anyone else.

So i guess this comes down to whether or not i can forget about my personal problems with her and just enjoy what does look like a really good product.
If she had just apologised once, even if she didn't mean it and was just doing it to save her face, then i would have forgotten this long ago and probably would have rushed out and bought anything from her without a second thought. I don't like to give money to companies with ethics i dislike, and while her company seems ethically fine and i don't know her well, she could be a lovely person, i just don't know if i can fund someone who's called my mum an asshole :(