Quick note

\Hi everyone
the internet has died at my house (i'm being sneaky at work now) and i don't know when we'll get it back so i won't be around for a little while.
Speak to you soon!
x

Doing Claire's Makeup

Claire wanted me to do her makeup. Oh boy was it stressful! I don't think i've ever done someone elses makeup before and i am not very good at it! Though she didn't help, she kept having laughing fits and thrashing around. I originally was going to do a semi complicated eye look but after nearly having a nervous breakdown i wiped it off and went for something much more simple.
Claire wanted a regal look to go with her new crown:

  

The ferret princess is better than the unicorn queen, that bizyotch don't even have no proper crown!

Claire is wearing:

Face: UD surreal skin cream foundation in Illusion, avon face powder, Illamasqua powder blusher in Sin

Eyes: BFTE Lace (on browbone and inner corner) and Sugarpill Goldilux Chromalust on lid, black mascara

Lips: NYX round lipstick in Black Cherry

Anyway even though it was stressful Claire really loved it, she said she felt beautiful afterwards so i will do it again and who knows, maybe i will get better!
However, occaisionally (presumably because i do lots of over the top 'out there' looks quite well on myself) people say i should be a makeup artist. Umm... no! It was so, so difficult to even achieve this look! :P

I then did my makeup in the design i had originally been trying for with Claire before i had to resort to a very simple one colour plus highlight eye look.

 

 

Face: UD surreal skin cream foundation in Illusion, avon face powder, Illamasqua powder blusher in Sin

 Eyes: BFTE Lace (on browbone and inner corner), Sugarpill Goldilux Chromalust used very sheerly over Lace and used wet as liner on upper lid line and on waterliner, Royal Sugar on lid, black mascara

Lips: Well i thought i used the same lipstick as on Claire but it looks different :/

In other news there are too many great things I want to buy at the moment :( For the first time in ages  actually want some Mac stuff (Dare to Wear lipglasses), Models Own are having an amazing 50% off sale, Illamasqua are coming out with their new collection (anyone know if the bloggers event is happening? I got an email saying it might be in August but nothing since then so i assume it's not happening anymore), Cherry culture are having their 20% off sale etc etc 

But i am going on holiday soon and also owe my mum money so i can't afford to get anything and this makes me very sad.

Goddess of nails

Hi everyone
once again i'm sorry for not posting in a while (God this is getting to be a recurring theme!)
I've been having a bit of a stressful time at the moment. I may have mentioned a while ago that i was very happy to have got a few pieces of my work into an exhibition at a (rather highly thought of) local commercial gallery. It was due to open a few weeks ago no-one got in contact with me and because i am so shy i didn't ask and I thought i had missed the private view, which made me sad. Anyway i finally emailed them about it and recieved no reply. Then about a week ago the gallery seemed to shut down, we assumed this was because the show was being put up and i was relieved. But low, a huge 'TO LET' sign has been put up. I've emailed everyone at the gallery whose address i had but haven't got any reply.
So obviously my work won't be exhibited and while that is disappointing i don't really care now because i am just so panicked about getting my paintings back! It's terrifying that no-one will reply to me and tell me when i can pick up my stuff!
I've also been trying my hand at making gloves (ho ho ho i am making a pun) and god it's awful! The pattern is so so tricky (partly because you use just a 3mm seam allowance and partly because of the insane gusset things between the fingers) and i don't even know if they'll fit when they're finished. Grump!
Anyway that's what's been going on.

A while back Cherry Culture were having a 20% off (which actually they are again at the moment! Use code B2S20 until tuesday sadly i cannot afford to get anything) and i picked up a huge amount of nail polishes :) One of which was this:

LA colors Goddess

 

This is a lovely muted slightly nude toned gold with tiny and large silver holographic glitter.

It's lovely and i know i'll where it on it's own at some point, but I just wasn't feeling it. I needed more bling!

So i popped on a thin layer of my gold holo glitter franken and then some silver large square glitter (Essence nail twins but i don't know the name!)

 

Ta daa!! Much more tacky :)

What's on your nails at the moment?

Clowny Clown Clown

Saturday was David Bowie night at my favourite club, Feeling Gloomy. Bowie is one of my heroes, he's one of he biggest ponces ever to break onto the music scene. Anyway i dressed as a Pierrot ala Ashes to Ashes.

Makeup isn't that great as i was a little tipsy before i started it (and it would have looked a lot better if i had gotten around to bleaching my eyebrows, grr). Also i couldn't get any good photos of it, i did the old 'use blush to pretend one has cheekbones' trick :P

Face: Gosh foundation in Porcelain, Screenface White translucent powder, Illamasqua Powder blush in Sin
Eyes: Mac Gesso eyeshadow, Black Kryolan Aqua colour, Black mascara
Lips: Mac Russian Red

I'm sorry i still haven't replied to comments. I was away from blogger for a few days and then it took me another few days to get completely caught up on all of the entries i missed. I read absolutely every entry of the people i follow, i might not comment on them all but i will have read them all :) (by the way if you have a blog and would like me to follow please leave me a link. I can't promise i will follow because im already following about 290 blogs and you're only allowed 300 but i will look)


I need to do some reviews! Reviews are possibly my favourite thing to do on my blog but they also take the most time and effort and i've been too busy lately :( But i really am not pleased looking at my blogs front page and seeing only pictures of my big ol' face and grumpy rants.

Anyway here is a list of posts i have coming up (though it may take some time)
Haus Of Gloi review
Eccentric Cosmetics Review (this one is done but i need to do swatches and have managed to lost the products D: i know they're in the room but where??)
Second Sugarpill swatches and review
Bodyshop, Lush and Avon toilletry reviews
BFTE blush and eyeshadow reviews
And more

Also there has been a lot of ridiculous, sneaky, nasty stuff comitted by that damn Citrus Crook (you know who i mean) lately. I don't know if i should post it though. Is anyone still interested in her absolute ludicrousness? I know i still find it amazing, funny and just unbelievable but other people might think i am just petty and bitchy (which of course i am but i don't have to make anything up about her, it's amazing what she gets up to).

An experiment - Making Perfume

I was researching bath and beauty recipes when i stumbled upon a very simple recipe for making flower perfume. I was a bit suspicious of it as it seemed far to simple to work properly and used only water whereas i know from my vast knowledge of perfumerie (watching Perfume: story of a murderer once) you generally need oil for it to work, however the recipe said it would only last a month so i figured that the water might work for that short amount of time. Also i really wanted it to work because i have been desperate for years for a Buddlea (or Butterfly Bush) perfume. To me there is nothing nicer than the smell of Buddlea and i have been so happy on the recent mild summers night walking up my drive smelling the amazing wafts of the Buddlea scent that pass over me, or just grabbing the nearest flower and huffing it's great honeyish goodness. Anyway i have searched thoroughly (or googled it) and i cannot find anyone who makes a Buddlea perfume, essential oil, fragrance oil or anything similar so it seems my only resort is to make my own.
So here is the recipe i followed.

Step 1: Gather your flowers. You want about a cupful. 

(I am using Buddlea obviously but it should work with any flowers you like)

 

Step 2:  Chop your flowers up a bit.

(As buddlea flowers are so small i only did it a bit, if you're using something with big petals you'll probably want to chop it up small)

 

Step 3: Line a bowl with a piece of muslin, you need part of the fabric to hang over the bowls edges. Pop your flowers into the fabric lined bowl and add about a cup and a half of water. Make sure the flowers are covered in water. Cover and leave overnight.

(I didn't have any muslin so i just used a tea towel, works fine but may stain your towel so don't use a nice one!) 

 

Step 4: In the morning pull the muslin full of flowers out gently, squeezing it into the bowl.

(at this point everything was looking good, the water smelled a LOT like Buddlea flowers)

 

Step 5: Put the flower-water into a stainless steel pan and simmer until it's very reduced and only about a teaspoon of liquid remains

(i was a bit frightened so i simmered it very gently. It took about 10 minutes to be reduced as much as it should be)

 

Step 5: Done! Pop your perfume in a container.

(Proper perfume containers should be coloured brown or blue or something to stop the light hurting it, but as this was only meant to last a month anyway i figured it didn't matter)

So did it work? 

... No :(

It was all going so well until it came to cooking the water. While i stirred it often and only simmered gently (so I know it didn't burn) the nice gently scented water at the beginning morphed into something that smelled of peppermint tea in the end :( 

I don't know if i did something wrong or the recipe just doesn't work very well or Buddlea doesn't want to make proper perfume (which would make sense seeing as noone makes it).

But anyway it was a fun thing to try! I felt like a little kid again making potions :)

Now i've found another recipe online that uses oil and sounds more 'proper'. Unfortunately the flowers of the Buddlea Bushes in my garden are drying up so it will have to wait until next year.

Oh well!
If anyone else decides to try this (it is fun!) tell me how it goes. Or has anyone successfully made a perfume before?

Pink Looks

I've been lazy with my looks lately, i need to sit down and spend some time on my appearance. My hair desperately needs a cut and dye and my eyebrows need bleaching (or plucking if i finally decide to grow them back to their natural colour). Anyway i've just been shoving on dead simple looks i i actually bother putting on makeup at all :/
Anyway here are a couple of looks

 

Eyes:

Superdrug MUA glitter eyeliner (pink colour with blue flash), black mascara. Brows are Jelly Pong Pong Wakeup Makeup brow powder.

Face: can't remember. Probably Physicians Formula SPF 50 powder foundation in Translucent Light

Lips:

Models Own Lipgloss in Fuschia-Full

 

Eyes: Sleek Circus Pallette, black mascara

Face: don't remember, possibly same as above

Lips: Models Own tinted lip balm in Fuschia Full (practically the same as the gloss. Stupid me!)

Then I added some tightlining using Illamasqua's Sophie Medium pencil (LOVE this, it lasts all day)

 

 

 

As you can see i'm not very good at lining my inner eyes. It was my first attempt in a long time at lining the upper waterline but i've done the lower one recently so there's no real excuse.

And i found this photo from my last FOTD and it was just so utterly beautiful i had to share with you:

 

My God, i truly am the most beautiful woman in Puppetland.

Safety in Cosmetics

I just saw this video (brought to my attention in a tweet from the lovely Grey) and thought it was worth sharing.
Safety in cosmetics is very important, however this is purely scaremongering. Most things in the world from air to cucumbers have been linked to cancer by now (especially in the Daily Mail) and when you combine a carcinogen with a scary scientific word that most people won't fully understand it's easy to believe that big cororations are posioning our babies. So it's great to hear from someone who can sensibly decrypt the scientific mumbo jumbo.



Science is real!

Final Mac + Rodarte Update

Once again i have only just got around to writing this when the information has been out for days, so you probably all know about it anyway... but still:
Mac are now going to donate ALL the profits from the collection to charity to try and help the women of Juarez and raise awareness of the problems there.
You can read more here
So we did it everyone!
It's nice to know that consumers can change things if they work hard enough and really care :)