Tuesday 27 July 2010

My thoughts on the Mac + Rodarte update

Most of you have probably seen (from good bloggers who write things in a decent amount of time) that Mac and Rodarte have announced new statements responding to the outrage their collection caused recently (and, in my opinion, rightly) across the 'blogosphere':

Mac have said:

'We understand that product names in the M·A·C Rodarte collection have offended our consumers and fans. This was never our intent and we are very sorry. We continue to listen carefully to the comments we have received and have the following plans to address concerns:
  • We are committed to donating $100,000 to a non-profit organization that has a proven, successful track-record helping women in need and that can directly improve the lives of women in Juarez in a meaningful way.
  • We are changing the product names in the M·A·C Rodarte collection.
As we have done in the past, please be assured that we will communicate details regarding our progress in this matter.'

Rodarte's statement:
'We recognize that the violence against women taking place in Juarez needs to be met with proactive action. We never intended to make light of this serious issue and we are truly sorry.
Helping to improve the conditions for women in Juarez is a priority for us and we are thankful for all the comments calling attention to the urgency of addressing this situation.'


My feelings?

Rodarte's statement is pretty pathetic in my opinion. They apologise and say they realise the situation needs action but are not ofering anything. They're not planning on doing anything and that is a huge shame. They say that helping the women of Juarez is a priority for them, but what have they EVER done to help before? Other than use them as inspiration and make money from that, for themselves? Their statement seems to be missing the point. They did wrong and should do something about it. instead they act almost as if they've done something great, thanking people for commenting on the situation, as if they brought it to our attention themselves.
They've completely lost any respect i had for them.

As for Mac's...Well... $100,000 is a big sum of money to most people. I imagine it could do a lot of good. However, I must say I'm disappointed in Mac again. This is a gigantic company who must make millions of dollars a year, and because of that the sum seems a bit paltry. Beauty Mouth wrote the following in her post on the subject:
'MAC's number 1 door in the UK turns over around £4.5 million a year. ONE outlet. £86538 a week. £12363 a day. £1236 a working hour.'

So one outlet makes £4.5 million in a year, that's over $7000000 and again this is ONE outlet out of, how many in the world? I imagine there are at least a hundred freestanding Mac stores, and then even more counters in department stores, and then online shopping. So when you take this into account $100000 really sems like nothing.
Also i'm a little suspicious to be honest. At first they announced they were going to donate an unspecified amount of the profits from the collection, then this was dropped and turned into a flat rate of $100000.
Now I don't know how much they were expecting to make from the collection. If the estimate total profit of the collection was $200000 then they would be donating 50%, which is pretty good. However if they were expecting to make $1000000 from the collection it would only be 10% which is not great at all.

I am glad they've changed the names, and the donation is nice, if not overly generous, but there's so much more Mac could have done and honestly i can't believe they would do something so insensitive and offensive in the first place. As i've said before i've had mixed thoughts about Mac before but this has really put me off them as a company. I am not going to boycott them, though they don't actually do much i'd want to buy at the moment, but my whole outlook on them has completely change. Before i would not have hesitated to recommend them, now i think i would feel quite dirty doing so.


Whatever your feelings on the matter are i would urge you to sign this petition. it only takes a minute. If you are disappointed like me then this will help. And if you didn't have any problem with the names and inspiration behind the collection then wouldn't you still rather buy a product and know all the profit is going to charity?  It only takes a minute and could do real good.




Retro Cherry


This was just a simple look i did when going to a friends house. Pretty basic, just eyeliner, brows and then slightly overdrawn lips. Sort of 40s inspired.
Can't remember what was on my face, which is annoying because i think it was looking particularly good. Typical!
Eyes: Sleek circus palette white (terrible pigmentation, but was just used to highlight my browbone), black eyeliner, black mascara
Eyebrows: middle colour of the brow powders on Jelly Pong Pong's Wakeup Makeup kit
Lips: NYX Round lipstick in Black Cherry

Lips like these look good (to me anyway) when i have a neutral  or slight smile but when i really smile i look bizarre! Check it out:

I think it's because it's not my natural lipline, which makes it a bit clownish looking. Which i don't mind because i like clown makeup, though usually i do more Pierrot inspired looks not whiteface or auguste types.
As you can see i need to re-dye my hair.

Excitingly my air inspired look won second place in MizzWorthy and Illamasqua's Elementals contest :) Thank everyone who commented either on my blog or the contest page with kind words.

Also i just hit 400 followers, which is absolutely amazing! Thank you so much to any new additions reading this :)

xxx

Sunday 25 July 2010

New addition!

Hello everyone. I just wanted to share with you the newest member of our family - Weevil the Kitten!

Lookit that face! (I swear i wasn't strangling him)


Sleeping <3

Cobweb head!

PAW!!!

It's wuv!

We got him just last week from family friends who needed a home for him.
Weevil is about 8 weeks old and an absolute delight. He alternates between zipping around the room like a complete mental (trying to attack feet, practicing his pounce [like Simba in The Lion King!], literally climbing the walls, playing with his toys, chasing Digby etc) and falling fast asleep. While he does tend to scratch when he's play-fighting with your feet he is a real sweety, very affectionate and loving already. He's settling in nicely, he's made friends with Digby (though the poor puppy is a bit scared of him, despite being about 3 times the size of Weevil) and ignores Minnie as much as she ignores him. Our old grumpy cat Omelette is still unsure of him but no longer spits when she sees him and old grumpy Jim is too senile to care.
I'm also amazed at how clean he is! He's learned to use his new litter tray so quickly. It's a vast contrast to Digby who still has the occaisional accident.

So yeah, kitten joy! :D

And i thought i'd share my face and outfit while I had actually got off my lazy bum to write a post :P

My dress and tights are from the New Look sale, shoes are Irregular choice, crown headband is from the Asos sale :)

I look a bit weird here!
Eyes: Sleek Bohemion palette (light cream and bright yellow colours), MUA neon yellow glitter eyeshadow, black mascara
Lips: NYX Chaos

I apologise for being a bit rubbish at posting lately! I'm trying to tidy my bedroom which is a mammoth task. Sometimes it takes weeks on end to clear the floor, let alone sort things out! Anyway i have lots of posts planned so hopefully will get them written soon. And will be going back through and replying to comments ASAP :)
can't remember what blush it was

Sunday 18 July 2010

FOTD Going out to eat

Ok that last post was very important and needed to be written, but my blog has become to miserable, maudlin and grumpy, i need some stupidity and frivolity STAT!!

Last week Claire and I went for a date to my favourite restaurant, Marine Ices which does the worlds best Minestrone soup, tomato pasta and ice cream.

Here I am

Wearing:
Face: Can't remember. Probably Physicians Formula SPF 50 powder foundation in Translucent White.
Eyes: An eyebrow powder from Jelly Pong Pong's 'Wakeup Makeup' pallette on the eyebrows,  Too Faced Oooh and Aaah shadows, Sugarpill Tiara Chromalust, black liquid eyeliner, black mascara
Lips: Barry M patent pencil in Number 1



And Claire insisted on taking a photo of my outfit, even though it wasn't very exciting at all.



And the best part, ice creams!!

SO good! I had a scoop of white chocolate and one of toffee crunch with buterscotch sauce and chocolate bits (which were the yummiest ever) and whipped cream AND a hazlenut milkshake :D

Claire had a belgian waffle with Amaretto ice cream and the world's yummiest hot chocolate sauce and whipped cream and a Giandua (like praline) milkshake
And doesn't she look pretty? :)

And now, under the cut are some silly outtakes


Mac, naming your products after the sites of horrific abuse is not big, clever or funny!

Yesterday i went on twitter and saw a lot of tweets about some sort of Mac controversy. I hadn't heard anything about it and was a bit shocked as, while i've had my problems with Mac, i'd never heard any real controversy about the company.

I'd seen some of the Rodarte collection  before but hadn't looked into it because, once again, the colours of the collection did not interest me. But now I am horrified.

The reason everyone is so angry at Mac is that some of the names of the products are named after a border city notorious for it's crime rate, called by many 'the most dangerous city in the world'. Further more part of the reason for this reputation is that a horrendous string of murders against the women of the city (thousands have occured since 1993 and are unsolved). The majority of the women killed were between the ages of 12 and 22 and were factory workers.  And most of them showed signs of sexual violence and torture on their bodies.

Ignorance is one excuse, i can admit that i had never heard of or the atrocities comitted there, so if noone had pointed it out i wouldn't have known anything was distasteful about the names. However after learning about it i cannot believe that anyone who understands where the names stem from cannot see anything wrong with it!

As for Mac and Rodarte being ignorant about the subject, i cannot imagine how this can be possibkle.  The name 'Juarez' could have been an innocent mistake but when combined with others such as 'Factory' and 'Ghosttown' how could they be inspired by anything other than the city and the crimes. Especially when Rodarte have admitted that their A/W collection was inspired by 'the maquiladora workers going to the factory in the middle of the night'

'that, according to the designers, who certainly know how to romance a pitch, led to this conclusion: They’d build a collection off the idea of sleepwalking.'


'I came across a note about Rodarte's Fall 2010 ready-to-wear collection and the source of its creative energies – maquiladoras in Mexico's Ciudad Juárez. Yes, maquiladoras. The same maquiladoras that serve as the site for violence, exploitation and femicide, all neatly brokered by global corporate capitalism.'


The group of murders is known as 'las muertas de Juárez'  or 'The dead women of Juárez'. The makeup of the models from Rodarte's show and now the promo pictured for the Mac collection makes the women look like corpses or ghosts and this deeply troubles me. It's as if these women are supposed to represent the murdered girls, but a beautiful, high fashion, couture version of a murdered girl (reminds me of that awful poor-taste episode of ANTM where the girls posed as dead girls and the judges said things like 'you look beautiful...and dead'.). And this along with the idea that the show was inspired by 'Sleepwalking' does not sit well with me.



The idea that the models, inspired by the Factory workers are 'sleepwalking' is horribly offensive to me. The workers are real, living women. Many will have friends or family members who have suffered horribly and many must fear for their lives as so many poor, young women have been murdered. To use these women as 'inspiration' for you multi million selling makeup or clothes range just does not sit well with me.

I cannot put it better than the author of this:
'Women in Ciudad Juárez contend with casual violence, grinding poverty, and a higher risk of death than almost anywhere else on this earth — and they make our jeans. It's a little icky to ask them to "inspire" $4,000 dresses as well. Rodarte has done collections inspired by Japanese horror movies (they made dresses dyed so that they looked like they were bleeding), but there's a huge difference between aestheticizing fictional violence and aestheticizing real violence. It's discomfiting to think about the latter.'

Makeup is, let's not forget, a beauty product. While it can be used to create art, to make people look grotesque, etc it was invented primarily to make people look and feel more attractive. The collection is made of 'regular' makeup (as apposed to Special FX makeup or similar) which again is meant to enhance a woman's natural beauty. When this is combined with a concept to do with death, kidnap and so on it becomes incredibly morally dubious. The promo photos are not meant as artistic photographs illustrating the suffering, they are advertising a product. The model's look, while not to everyone's taste is meant to be something to inspire. Should Mac and Rodarte really be saying a murdered mexican woman is something to inspire us?  Should the  idea of these women be used to sell makeup or clothes?  Using these sort of ideas in conjunction with a beauty product appears to be glamourising Juarez.

As well as being shocked and appalled at Mac for this i am also just as shocked and appalled by some of the comments on the website. Many people seem to see absolutely no problem with the names.

The main argument people are saying as for why these names are fine and not morally dubious is that makeup is art, art is often inspired by horrible events, and so there is no problem.

They've got one thing right, art is often inspired by horrible events.
Take for instance Picasso's piece Guernica:



The piece was comissioned by the Spanish Government, meaning that yes, in a way, Picasso was making money out of the suffering. However what Picasso did was bring the true horror of the bombing to light, there is nothing remotely glamourous about the piece, nothing celebratory or heroic, just a piece that shows the misery and pain that war can create. Seeing the piece makes me feel a little queasy because it is just so raw and brutal, it's horrible and painful to look at because it relects the true misery of the bombing. And in fact the painting has become an anti-war symbol and a reminder of the tradgedies of war.

Then let's take the Juarez polish as our next example. It's described as a 'Bright Opal Pink' with a frost finish. I've seen no photos of the polish but looking at the packaging of the other pieces in the collection i imagine it will be a normal Mac polish bottle with 'Rodarte' on it.  Does a pink nail varnish named after a town where thousands of women have been raped and murdered do the same thing as Picasso's painting? Will this polish become a symbol of how wrong femicide is? Somehow i don't think so.

Also while Picasso (and other artists who make work to do with pain and suffering) was paid for the piece I believe (maybe i'm a little biased as i am an artist myself) that money is not the only, or even most important thing on the artists mind when they create the work. And while Mac may have had some artistic vision behind the collection the main and most important thing is to sell makeup and make money. 

I agree entirely that makup can be used to create art, makeup artists are amazing and can use the medium to make pieces as creative and moving as any painting or sculpture. However a nail polish is not art in and of itself! A lipstick named Factory is no more a piece of art than my tube of 'Titanium White' acrylic.

People are arguing that 'it's just makeup so lighten up' but  to me that's part of the problem! I love makeup but, lets be honest, it's not the most important thing in the world! It's a fun, frivolous thing that brings me a giddy little thrill and makes me feel better about myself. And as such it seems morally dubious to name something so frivolous after a horrific thing that is happening.

Another argument is that to complain about this is just politically correct nonsense. Political correctness Gone MAD to me is something along the lines of how once my Mum worked somewhere where you could not call coffee 'black' or 'white' (true story). Not being offended and appalled that someone would name a piece of makeup after horrific violence being put upon women.

A commenter made a brilliant point that, were the collection based on the Holocaust with colours named things such as Auschwitz, Gas Chamber etc people would have been up in arms, but for some reason it's ok when the name is inspired by a town where the murder and rape of hundres of mexican women has taken place. Other commenters then were furious at this comparison, but why? If we have learned anything from World War 2 and the Holocaust it is incredibly wrong to treat any person, no matter what colour or creed differently. Suffering is suffering no matter who it is happening to, which makes it perfectly sensible to compare 2 examples of human suffering. If it's somehow wrong to make light of the slaughter of Jews by naming a product after the place of their suffering why is it fine to do the same to Mexican women?

To me it also depresses me that, in the first Mac collection inspired by Mexico (as far as I am aware) there is very little the celebrates the beauty of Mexico and it's culture. The majority of the names are things like 'Bordertown', 'Badlands' and 'Ghosttown', which just seems that they are looking only at the problem areas of the country and can create quite a miserable, cynical view of Mexico as a whole.

As i wrote about before i was disenchanted with Mac's products and ideas, but I never thought they would be so careless, offensive and insensitive. Mac has often presented a front of being philanthropic, raising money and awareness about AIDS with the Viva Glam program for instance which i guess is why i'm so shocked they would do something so stupid and offensive.

Now, only after realising people are upset Mac have deigned to donate to charities to help the problem. This also is awfully distasteful to me, they had no intention to help before and were happy to capitalise on selling products named and inspired by a place rife with femicide, but then realised that people were unhappy and might not buy from them. Only then did they decide to donate an as yet undisclosed portion of the profits.

It's great that this has raised awareness of the awful situation in but this was not Mac's intention. They did not make any statement about the atrocities to go with this collection and so they should not be applauded. I'm certain they would never have brought it up at all. The awareness is coming from people who have been offended by the names, not Mac or Rodarte themselves. What they did was just wrong, and though some good has come out of it, it does not make it any less wrong.

To be honest I don't know what to do about this situation. People have already written to Mac with their complaints and they claim to have taken them onboard by donating some of the proceeds. Even i they were to change the names the damage is already dumb. To me the problem now is not so much  that the product is called 'Juarez' but that someone thought it was a good idea to name it such an insensitive thing. Inspiration can come from anywhere but it's just poor taste to profit from a glamourised idea based on human suffering. Especially when it's not saying anything about the problem. Is this what the murdered women's families will want to represent them? A collection of makeup?

Links:
Temptalia
Oh Industry
Ny Mag
Threadbared
The Frisky
ontd_feminism
Amnesty International

 Blogs:
 
British Beauty Blogger
Le Petit Jardin De Liloo
London Beauty Queen
London Makeup Girl
So Far So Chic
Sparkle and Shade
Vex In The City
Wande's World
Sparklz and Shine
Diary of a Cake Girl
Skeptic Ladies
Georgiexox
MakeupAdviceForum
Pink Sith
My Lips But Better
Tacky Blue Eyeshadow 
Konglish Beauty

(if you  know any more please tell me)

Edit:
After reading a few of the posts listed above (and i do suggest you read them, each one has something new to say and they are all very well written and thought through. Many talk a lot more about the awful situation in Juarez, i just touched upon it) I've discovered something else troubling about the collection.
This is a collection based upon Mexico and Mexican worker women. However all of the models are white. The selection of colours, to go with the beautiful corpse look, are pale. For instance there are a couple of products that go by the usual Mac foundation names and only come in one shade, up to NC30. Now this would be too dark for me but too light for the huge majority of Latina women. The other items also seem geared towards pale skin, with pale nude lips and white-ish pink blush. So it would actually be very difficult for the Mexican women that inspired this collection to wear the products. And this is troubling. It's sort of appropriating the inspiration to make it work for the white, middle class customer base of Mac.

Saturday 17 July 2010

Ginger + Liz: Big Bullies

Hi everyone. I'm sorry my blog is a bit of a big, ranty, grumpy place at the moment but some things have to be shared.

Ginger + Liz are a brand I knew very little about. I'd seen their polishes only really on Dailypolish's blog and not thought much of them. Some of the polishes looked very pretty, but didn't really capture my imagination. Still Sara had said good things about their formula and I may well have bought from them someday, especially if the polish frenzy i have been experiencing recently had continued.
But now i can safely say i will NEVER purchase from them.

They are threatening to sue Sara because of 2 posts she did comparing some of their polishes to Diamonds Cosmetics.

Now you can see there is barely any text, she doesn't state that the polishes are repackaged, she says they are identical and that she is disappointed, implying that she believes they may have been repackaged.
So now Ginger + Liz say they are going to sue for upwards of $200000 if she does not delete the post and all the comments. It's ridiculous and nothing but bullying to try and scare bloggers away from saying anything negative.
Sara bought the polishes herself and was disappointed to find they look the same as the cheaper Diamond brand.

I am going to be writing to the brand to tell them how disappointed I am with them. Even if they were the best polishes in the entire world, Sara was wrong and they weren't even close to DC and she had specifically stated that they were repackaged it would still be hideously wrong to threaten to sue. A blog is someone's personal opinion, other people will disagree (even in Sara's comments there are people who think the swatches look different) and by reacting like this Ginger + Liz have done their own reputation a lot more damage than Sara ever could have done.
In fact before this i had seen Sara's post and thought the polishes being compared looked slightly different. Now they've reacted such a way makes them seem like they have something to hide as well and i will be looking much further into the other claims of repackaging.

Doing this sort of thing is just plain stupid in my opinion. If i was a company and did NOT repackage but someone was saying i did i would address them, show evidence and be civil. Perhaps even offer to send them another polish with no dupe so they could see. Take photos in different lights showing the differences, discuss differences in ingredients etc etc but be sure to be friendly and, even if it's not true, say you are thankful to the blogger for bringing the criticism to your attention and so on. If i was a company who DID repackage i would keep my big yap shut, this way even i a few people saw the post it would not spread around as much.
I guess i shouldn't be giving advice to repackers but it just seems so incredibly stupid to threaten to sue (they would never win, Sara said nothing defamatory , just her assessment based on what she saw) if they hadn't I would never have seen, and would not be posting this now for you to see.

Tuesday 13 July 2010

Mac I think it's best we see other people

I'm in a ranting sort of mood at the moment so apologies if you'd rather see photographs or read a good review than just my silly ranting and ravings :P

As i've said in my previous post on the matter, for absolutely years if you asked me what my favourite makeup brand was I would have said, without hesitation, Mac. And they do still hold this place in my heart that when i think of lovely, high quality makeup, Mac instantly comes to mind. However lately i've been wondering why that is. I've not tried all of their products of course, but the ones i have are actually very hit or miss.

Their lipsticks are probably still my favourites, the amplified creams especially are rich and creamy and highly pigmented and, though not moisturising are not drying either. I love the look of the matte shades but some dry my lips, and personally I find Ruby Woo (which was my first mac lipstick and still one of the most beautiful coloured reds i own) so incredibly dry that i can't actually get it on my lips properly! The other formulas I can take or leave as i hate sheer lips and I find that some shades are sheer and some pigmented so it depends entirely on the specific shade. Their lip liners and glosses are nice but no better (though also no worse) than Barry M, Nyx or various other cheap brands i've tried.

Mac don't make a foundation anywhere close to my skintone. While the NWs are meant to be for pink toned skin they still turn up far too yellow on me and the lightest shade is far too dark. I did however try their blot powder and hated it. It just did nothing for me except cake up my skin and exaggerate any tiny dry patch of skin. But for some reason when it broke i actually went back and bought another one. Their blushes are nice, but nothing special, personally i find Barry M, Illamasqua and Sleek blushes (2 of which are obviously a lot cheaper) much more pigmented and just nicer in general.

The eyeshadows are, for me, like the lipsticks. The Veluxe pearl and Velvet finishes are nice and buttery and go on beautiful but i really hate the matte shades (which is a shame because i love matte shadows) i just can't get any off the pan and onto my brush, and then either less ends up on my eye!  The only Mineralize shadows i've tried are from the Style Black range and, while they do look gorgeous if foiled, are absolutely useless when used dry. I like their liqui-last liners and glitter liners but again i can find some drugstore brands that are either the same or even higher quality. And i've tried their eye pencils and, personally don't like them. I find that they smudge horribly and just 'melt' off my eyes quickly.

I've never tried their nail polishes but i've heard they are not good quality.

So yeah, basically I've had a very mixed bag in my of my Mac products. Now of course there are hits and misses with all makeup brands, however to be honest having read back on my list it seems that with Mac i really am finding more misses than hits. The only product i love are the lipsticks. Other than that i either actively dislike the products or find them fine but no better than a lot of high street brands.


Yet i keep being fooled, dragged in by the new collections, and keep crawling back to this old lover even though i know they're bad for me!
In my opinion the only great collections of the last 2 years have been the Style Black (though the lip products really sucked) and Dame Edna. With so many of their collections I have seen the concept photographs and got really excited, thinking there are going to be some great, exciting, new products and colours and then been so disappointed. It happened with spring forecast, where i thought there were going to be some very nice bright pinks and puples, but they all turned out to be pale, dusty and just rather dull. To The Beach was probably great to people who love nudes and tans, but to me there was absolutely nothing of interest. Liberty of London had gorgeous packaging and some beautiful lipsticks (Blooming Lovely and Petals and Peacocks were so lovely) but I found dupes for both of them which were actually made by Mac! Pret a Papier - more nudes and natural shades. Art supplies had some nice colours but i saw terrible reviews of the lip stains and, as i've said, i don't like their eye pencils. In the Groove just doesn't appeal to me. The purple lipstick  looks nice but i've heard that it's just a slightly cooler, sheerer Violetta (which i have) and as i don't like sheer lips i don't see a point in getting it. Hang Loose blush looks pretty too but i would want the lilac to be proper lilac, instead it's just sheer and shiny and only really works when mixed with the pink colour (maybe i'm wrong?). I also liked Chillin' as i love a blue lip and really liked the idea of a pastel, creamsheen blue lip but of course it's super sheer :(

The only collection released this year that i was really interesting in was Riverting, which of course we did not get over here!

I then heard about some of the upcoming collections, Alice + Olivia and Venomous Villains. I was so excited when i heard that Alice + Olivia was going to feature a neon yellow lipgloss, and a glittery one at that. I saw the product images and was delighted by just how bright it looked. Then i saw swatches... Oh dear. So so sheer you can barely tell it's yellow at all! I understand that most women wouldn't want bright yellow lips, but i do! :(
Then there's Venomous Villains. Again so exciting when i heard about this collection. I adore Disney and all of the Villains chosen really appealed to me. And then i heard the details of what was coming in the collection and was really excited. Lots of gorgeous pigmented lipsticks, rich vampy colours, interesting, complex sounding eyeshadows and nail varnishes etc It all sounds lovely and the colours go perfectly with the characters attached to them. I even didn't mind that a lot of it is repromotes (as Mac loves to do with it's LE collections) because they go well with the villains. The only thing i thought is why the hell did they give the mirror to Dr Facilier when the Evil Queen is one of the villains???
But then i saw the photos and was so disappointed. There was so much they could have done with the packaging in this collection. Before i saw the pictures i was imagining what they could be like. I thought Cruella's line might well be whit with dalmation print, or black, white and red or something like that. With Dr Facilier i thought maybe they'd use the lovely voodoo doll things from the film. Maleficent i thought could be black with the neon green and purple colours of the magic in Sleeping Beauty, or maybe have something to do with the dragon. And, well i didn't know what it would be like with the Queen, maybe poison-apple red and metallic to represent the mirror. Or i really liked the sketch drawings of the villains that were released with the sneaky promo video thing so i thought maybe they would be included.
There were so many amazing possibilities. But we got this:


...Oh. Just the normal black Mac packaging with cheap looking stickers stuck on....
I probably will still buy quite a bit from the collection because i do love the sound of a lot of the products but i am so sad about the packaging. It just looks cheap, like something you'd get from Claire's Accessories. And it just shoes a lack of imagination i think. It's just the regular packaging with a sticker of the villain.
And some of the products don't even have the stickers! The nail varnishes and pigment jars are just exactly as normal! So disappointing.

So i think the glitter is finally lifting from my eyes. Mac will probably always hold a tiny part of my heart but I am now going to try my best not to get too excited about new collections or caught up in the hype that surrounds them. They have some great products to be sure but to me there just isn't anything special about them anymore. Mac used to be known for doing really unusual colours, especially for the lips but now personally i don't see any. The 'unusual' lip colours they've come out with recently, the purples, blues and blacks have all been so sheer and disappointing. The eye products are opaque and pretty but i find the quality changeable and you can now get good quality, bright, pigmented colours most places. Sleek, Barry M, Gosh are all cheap and cheerful but, in my opinion, just as good. My favourite brand, Illamasqua, has colours that range from 'safe' to incredibly daring and, with each collection, are coming up with brand new, innovative products. And then there's the countless Indie brands that are inexpensive, beautiful, higher pigmented and of equal or better quality and also have the added bonus of allowing you to support small businesses.

So yeah Mac, I'm sorry, it's not you it's me...

Sunday 11 July 2010

Asos fail

I am really rather angry.
Asos.com has been, up til now, my favourite online shop. I just finished making a very sizeable order and, after i had put in my payment details was told that there had been a problem and my order had not gone through. So i went and made a duplicate order which went through with no problems. Then i checked my email and found i had 2 order confimations and that the first order i had made had gone through after all. So i emailed their care place and asked for my second order to be cancelled.
I have just been told that they cannot cancel orders once they have been submitted because: 'our warehouse picks, packs and processes your order fully within 30 minutes of you clicking the final confirmation. Your order then gets put with thousands of others and it is impossible for us to locate a single parcel amongst the rest'
However i reported the problem and asked for them to cancel my second order within less than 5 minutes of making it!
It is absolutely rediculous that they cannot cancel an order, especially as the reason i made the second order was due to a fault on their website!
So now i will be delivered 2 parcels and have to return the contents of one. My disability means that going to the post office is highly traumatic for me and so i avoid it at all costs. So having to return a parcel is stressful anyway, without the added frustration that it's not my fault. 
Also, like i said, this was a large and pricey order. I checked before i made it that i could afford it, but not twice! And it will take a while after i've returned the duplicate parcel for my refund to get processed. So basically they have put me in a financial mess.

Asos are a great site, and their sale (which is what i bought from) is amazing. But being unable to cancel an order made less than 5 minutes before i reported the need to cancel it is just terrible. I've had annoyances with their customer service before. Namely that twice i bought a specific type of ring and twice these rings arrived broken, in the same way. On their refund slip that comes with your order it says something along the lines that if anything arrives faulty and you report it they will ship you out a replacement immediately and give you 10% off your next order. So the second time this happened i decided to report it. I also tried to help out, suggesting that the reason the two rings had been broken was due to them being wrapped only in a plastic film and that the replacement i got for the first ring had come in a box, which seemed better protection. My reply basically just said 'just return it as usual'. So not only did i not get the 10% off that it mentions, but they completely disregarded my attempts to be helpful to them, which i really did not need to do after their merchandise kept breaking before i even recieved them.

LILLIAN SMASH!!


Edit:
After i complained about this on twitter Asos care got in touch with me and have offered that, as soon as i have a dispatch number and tell them they will get the... deliverer to return it to them, and then refund me as soon as it returns to them, which obviously would be a lot sooner than i i had to wait for it to be delivered and then return it myself. This is good. However i still think it's silly that they couldn't just cancel my order so soon after i had made it. Also if i hadn't been on twitter i wouldn't have got this option, which doesn't seem fair.

Saturday 10 July 2010

Old FOTD

I realise that the kind of heat we experience in the UK is piffle compared to so many countries, but my body just doesn't seem to cope with it at all. At the moment i am completely miserable. My skin feels really weird in the heat, I can't really explain it, it's partly that my skin actually feels hot to the touch, but it's also just uncomfortable and odd. Whenever i leave the house i get a terrible headache, i'm nearly blind all the time (i have a problem with my eyes where they let in too much light, so even in the darkest sunglasses the sun is too bright in the summer), i'm constantly in pain because my suncream gets in my eyes and honestly i just don't feel up to doing anything. All i want to do is lie on my sofa and complain! Which is pretty much what i'm doing now :P GRUMP GRUMP GRUMP!!

Anyway this was from about 2 weeks ago (i'm so behind!) when i went to see one of my favourite singers in the world, the beautiful Neil Hannon.

The lighting here was so flattering :P The blueish cast made my skin look so nice! I was actually only wearing some powder, but it looks pretty flawless! Go lighting!


I liked my hair, curly :)

And here's a closeup of the lips. It was a new Inglot my Mum got me as a present from Inglot in Finland. My first Inglot lippie and i'm guessing it won't be my last, i LOVE it!
The colour is so so pretty. And it's hard to explain. It's basically an orange red but there's also some pink in there and has a hint of coral too. It's completely opaque but glossy, supremely moisturising, long lasting AND it smells lovely!

(I also like this closeup as I can't see my little moustache XD)

You may have noticed that recently i am hardly wearing any eyeshadows and my looks end to be pretty simple mainly just eyeliner and lipstick. The reason for this is sheer laziness on my part! Basically i have only one eyeshadow brush which is clean enough to use. My brushes are all sat patiently in my bathroom, waiting to be washed... They have been waiting for over a month! I actually like washing my brushes, i find it quite relaxing and i like the grossness of watching the filth come out, but i just never seem to get around to starting to wash them! Maybe tomorrow... Maybe.

I realise and am sorry that basically every entry in my blog these days has to mention comments and the heat but i need to do it again! 

If you commented on one of my last two posts i'm afraid to say that your comment may have been deleted! I promise it was not me. For once i actually recieved some emails telling me i had comments. When i went to reply i discovered that all of my comments were gone! Apparently this happened on some other people's blogs too. So i am really sorry about this glitch and hopefully it will not happen again.

Monday 5 July 2010

My Franken

Here is my Franken that i posted about here worn properly :)
This was 3 coats of my franken over 1 layer of gold polish (Models Own Gold Digger) and then 2 coats of top coat.




I think it looks very nice personally! Definately good for something that cost a quid and 5 minutes to make :) It lasted about a week too!

Off to the Circus

Last week i went off to Ward and White's Kareoke circus. Which is an event run by my aquaintance Martin White basically a live Kareoke event with open spots but also celebrity comedians performing songs of their choice. My friend Foz plays guitar in the band and my other friend Chris is one of the judges, they live in Brighton so it's always a joy to see them. Anyway more about this will be written at my other blog if anyone is interested and wants to hear about comedians throwing shapes and singing off key :)

Here is what i wore:


And here is my face:


Pretty basic. Red lips, black eyeliner and a bit of a neutral and pink eyeshadow.

And apologies again for my terribly slow replying to comments. As I said I've been busy with boring home stuff (we managed to clear the room for my sister to stay in, now it is full of her stuff :P) and i still am not being emailed about my comments, or will get one out of about 5 so i will think I only have a few comments and then go to reply and i'll have about 20 and get flustered and not end up replying to any. Doh!
Also i got a nasty anonymous comment on my last post which has upset me a little to be honest. :/

I really want to do some reviews soon, those are my favourite posts to make, but they take longer so i just haven't had time recently. Hopefully soon!

Kiss Kiss