Hullo everyone

I've had a rough few days. On friday we went to visit my Grandma, for a few hours everything was ok and then my Grandma asked me if I'd hoover upstairs for her. So I did and after a while my Mum came up all upset. While I was vacuuming Grandma had started crying and shaking and told my Mum that something really horrible had happened the day before. Grandma had been taking a nap while waiting from my Great Aunt to come home from her day care center. The doorbell rang and woke her up, usually she would check through the window and not answer if she didn't know the person but because she'd just woken up she was a bit dazed, assumed it was Auntie Pat and opened the door. There was a bloke there who said he'd just bought a house down the road (one that Grandma knew had just been sold) and there was something wrong with the drains. He said he was going door to door checking all the neighbours drains and was friendly and chatty so Grandma let him in. He went into the garden to look and the drains, came in and said it was hers that had a problem and asked for £45. Grandma said she wouldn't give him all that then, so he asked for £20 which she gave him. He then said he wanted to go upstairs and flush they loo to check the cystern and went up for a while, but grandma didn't hear the flush. As she started to go up he appeared on the landing, came down and said that he would have to take the other £25. Grandma had realised something was wrong by then and figured she should just give him the money and hope he would leave so she went to get her purse. When she had it he just grabbed it off her, splitting some of her fingernails and ran out of the house, stealing about £70.
Luckilly she wasn't hurt and they didn't have any valuables upstairs (he was clearly looking around when he said he was checking in the bathroom) but my poor Grandma was so afraid she couldn't sleep. But my Mum called the police, who sent a really lovely policewoman around to take a statement. She reassured my Grandma he wouldn't come back and when she left Grandma felt a lot better and wasn't so shaken up anymore.
It was so so upsetting for me just to hear about I can't imagine how my poor Grandma felt. What kind of horrible scum prays on little old ladies? £70 is a lot of money when you're living off a pension and he could of hurt her when he snatched her purse. It's just so so despicable. The policewoman also said he probably saw my Grandma napping through a window, so he was purposefully targeting someone old and weak who wouldn't fight back. It makes me sick with anger thinking about it.

Then I spent the majority of Saturday night in tears for reasons I won't go into. And yesterday I was feeling better after seeing Tron Legacy (it's awesome!) but when we came home we found that my Mum's Guinea Pig had died. We think it was just old age, so he wasn't in pain or suffering for a long time. But he was such a sweet, lovely little fellow that I feel very very sad.

Oh and I've got some sort of horrible carbuncle on my face! Well it's not really a carbuncle, I don't know what it is! It's a big red patch of intense pain, it feels like a spot but won't come to a head, it's just lurking around under my skin being a little boil bitch!

Posting may be a little sporadic this week as I'm doing a lot of art and preparing swatches for posts to come. You can check in the box on my sidebar to see what's coming up soon, and if there's something you'd like to see first leave a comment!

Also I'd like to do a little poll. I don't have much money at the moment but really want to try some new indie companies. So are there any that you'd particularly like to see swatches/review of? Or if not just help me make a decision anyway! The ones I'm thinking of are at the moment:
Brazen cosmetics
Suds n Sass
Epically Epic
More Fyrinnae
Morgana Cryptoria new lipsticks
Shiro
OHWTO
Venemous cosmetics
or any suggestions?

I think I'm going to do another blog sale soon (or might just make a new sale blog so i don't bug people who don't want to see) because I need money! In the next 3 months I have to buy presents for Valentines Day, Mothers day, 6 birthdays (actually possibly more, I may have forgotten a couple!) , Easter and... uhh ... I'm sure there's something else! And I'm still getting over the Christmas financial crisis! D:

Some current Giveaways

I know these posts might be a bit annoying to some people, but hey it means people who don't know about these giveaways can enter, and I get an extra entry for some of them :P

Sparklz and Shine's 1st anniversary giveaway! Ends tomorrow!

Through the Eyes of Laura's amazing Mac Lipstick giveaway! Ends Monday 31st of Jan


Hell Candy's second birthday giveaway! Ends 4th February

MakeupLoveer's 1000th follower Mac giveaway! Ends ?



Sprinkle of Glitter's 1000th follower Lush giveaway! Ends 9th Feb

Fancy Geek's Morgana Cryptoria Giveaway! Ends 30th Jan

Makeup Zombie's Morgana Cryptoria Giveaway! Ends Feb 1st

XOXO's Birthday Giveaway! Ends Feb 10th

Falsie Love's Valentines Day Giveaway! Ends Feb 14th

Lipstick on my Teacups Hard Candy Giveaway! Ends ?

Cats Little Obsession's Girls with Attitude Giveaway! Ends Feb 7th

Get Gawjus's I <3 Glitter Giveaway! Ends 30th Jan

Fab Frocks Brand Alley Giveaway! Ends 2nd Feb

Konadalicious' 1000th Follower Giveaway! Ends 1st March 

Phyrra's Brazen Cosmetics Giveaway! Ends 10th Feb. Beware, you have to share a bad breakup/valentines day memory, depressing! :P

Baroque Boudoir is having a birthday giveaway! Ends 10th Feb

The Polishaholic's 1000th Follower Giveaway! Ends 15th Feb

Good luck ladies!

Super speedy review - Estee Lauder Gentle Eye Makeup Remover

 

Claire's Mum buys lots of fancy makeup things which give her lots of gifts-with-purchases (whoa, grammar where have you gone?) which she passes on to Claire who in turn gives them to me, for Claire cares not for lotions and potions and basic skincare :P Anyway this is something that came into my possession in such a way.

If you wanted to buy it, it would cost you £17.50 for 100ml. It's a clear, watery liquid but emulsifies a bit on the pad to make some whitish bubbles. Smells a bit alcoholy but not terrible.

This is going to be a super speedy review because there really isn't much I can say about this. I used it once and won't ever again.

I used it in what I assume is the normal way, dumping a bit onto a cotton pad, holding it over the eye and then sweeping the makeup away. As i put it on my eye it stung a bit, but my eyes are sensitive and most makeup removers sting a little bit, so I didn't think to much of it.  But then the stinging got worse. After about 30 seconds my eye was burning, seriously burning, and getting worse and worse. I had to run into the kitchen and rinse my eyes for ages before the burning subsided, but even then my eyes still stung for a long time. I didn't get any of the product IN my eye, this was just from the soaked pad being laid on/swept across my closed eyelid.

Other than that it worked fine, my makeup was removed like it was meant to be. But who cares if it worked at all when it hurt so much Gentle my arse!

I don't know why it burned, maybe I'm allergic to something in it (I do have very sensitive skin and I think i'm allergic to some facial skin care ingredients, but I have no idea what :/) but if you have sensitive eyes I wouldn't risk it.  Won't use it again, but maybe I'll give it to someone in my family and see how it works for them... Yeah, blind your family Lillian, that's a good idea! :P

Bubblegarm Sigma Competition - Purple and Crazy

So the theme for purple was 'make me crazy' and so I decided to just flick and drop various purples all over my face. As you do.

 

Then I thought I'd add some eyeliner and lipstick, just because :P

Wearing:

Face: Sugarpill Chromalusts in Hysteric, Paperdoll and Weekender, Aromaleigh Rocks blush in Wildflower

 Eyes: Collection 2000 Glam Crystals eyeliner in Shake it Up

Lips: Morganas Minerals (Now Cryptoria) lipstick in Shrieking Violet

 

Doing this I felt a bit like The Divine David

Bubblegarm Sigma Competition - Cool and Teal 2

I really like the aqua brushes so I thought I'd do a second look to try and win them :P This time I decided to be 'cool' by doing something very simple and unfussy but again with a twist with the coloured mascars and the 2 different lips.

Here we have matching aqua lips:

But then I also wanted to do a more 'normal' lip colour, so this is a pink with a teal flash. The eye makeup looks green here for some reason. The other pictures are pretty accurate for colour.

 

Wearing:

Face: Nyx liquid makeup in LM01 Pale  mixed with Gosh Exceptional Wear in 11 Porcelain, Screen Face white loose powder, Sleek blush in Flamingo

 Eyes: Collection 2000 Glam Crystals eyeliner in Le Freak, Miners mascara in Tantalising Turquoise

Lips: Illamasqua Intense lip gloss in Gender or Nars Funny Face lipstick with Estee Lauder pure color gloss in  310 Clear flash

Bubblegarm Sigma Competition - Teal and Cool 1

Again another entry for Bubblegarms contest. This is for the aqua blue brush set called 'Make me Cool'. Now cool has 2 meanings of course, but I didn't want to go for the one meaning 'cold' because I've already done that with the Illamasqua competition trying to look like 'Ice' and I couldn't really think of any ideas that wouldn't just be a rehash with slight differences. So I went for cool meaning trendy. Which was really difficult because I have absolutely no idea what's cool. I don't think I've ever been cool in  my entire life!
But still this is what I came up with:

So as you can see it's a smokey eye but using a bright teal colour instead of dark. I am not the best at smokey looks but i thought this turned out quite pretty :) Anyway smokey eyes seem quite cool to me, they're basically always in style and a bit punky. I smudged black pencil all over my eye then patted aqua shadow over the top. I also purposefully smudged my mascara together. The lipgloss is clear but with a slight blue sheen. Then I thought I'd add some smokey blue lips too.

Wearing:

Face: Nyx liquid makeup in LM01 Pale  mixed with Gosh Exceptional Wear in 11 Porcelain, Screen Face white loose powder, Barry M blush in 4

 Eyes: Nyx jumbo eye pencil in Cottage Cheese, Barry M jumbo black pencil, Aromaleigh Rocks shadow in Bluespark, Urban decay 24/7 pencil in Flipside, black mascara

Lips: Estee Lauder pure color gloss in 310 Clear Flash or Miss Sporty Hollywood Lip gloss in 410 Punk it Up.

Bubblegarm Sigma Competition - Coral Blush 2

Here's a second coral blush look. I don't like it as much as the first one, but I still thought I'd enter it.
This is more of a 'regular' makeup look, using all corals of various shades but then loads of blush again :P

 

Wearing:

Face: Nyx liquid makeup in LM01 Pale  mixed with Gosh Exceptional Wear in 11 Porcelain, Illamasqua Loose powder in LP 005, Evil Shades blush in Ravishing, Illamasqua Illuminator in Fondle, Illamasqua powder blusher (dont know colour as it's rubbed off back :/)

 Eyes: Illamasqua Illuminator in Fondle, Hi Fi Shadows in Champagne Toast, Morganas Minerals (now Cryptoria) shadow in Coraline, Evil Shades shadow in Seraphic  Collection 2000 Glam Crystals eyeliner in Dancing Queen, black mascara

Lips: Illamasqua lipstick in Over

And yes, I need to bleach my moustache :P

Bubblegarm Sigma Competition - Coral Blush 1

My second entry, this time for the 'Make Me Blush' Coral Sigma set :)
Here I tried to keep all the makeup subtle apart from the blush, which I went to town with :)

 

Then I thought I'd pile on a bit more blush :P

 

Wearing: 

Face: Nyx liquid makeup in LM01 Pale  mixed with Gosh Exceptional Wear in 11 Porcelain, Screenface white translucent loose powder, Evil Shades Blush in Ravishing, Evil Shades blush in Gossamer.

Eyes: Illamasqua Illuminator in Fondle, black mascara
Lips: Illamasqua Illuminator in Fondle, clear lip gloss

Bubblegarm Sigma Competition -Black and classy

Bubblegarm is having an amazing contest where you can win a Sigma brush set of your choice. I'm so sorry I've only just mentioned it now, I actually thought I'd posted about it but now I see it was in a draft I'd written but not posted yet. Yeah I suck. But you can still enter until 11:59 tomorrow so get your brushes out real quick! ... Sorry again.

Anyway this is my entry to win the black set. It's meant to be a 'classy' look so I thought I'd keep it clean, simple and straight forward but with black glossy lips making it a bit special and unusual :)

 

Wearing:
Face: Nyx liquid makeup in LM01 Pale  mixed with Gosh Exceptional Wear in 11 Porcelain, Screenface white translucent loose powder, ELF studio powder blush in Peachy Keen, Evil Shades blush in Gossamer.
Eyes: the black matte from basically any Sleek palette on my eyebrows, Mac Gesso all over the lid, Illamasqua liquid liner in Abyss, black mascara
Lips: Nyx lip liner in Black Berry, Illamasqua Intense lip gloss in Repulse

This would work a lot better if I could have slicked back my hair, or if it just wasn't a ginger frizzy fraggle mane. But still, it's a makeup contest, not hair :P
And yes I'm wearing grubby pyjamas.

FOTD

Another pretty basic face for ya. My hair needed a wash but I had to go out, hence my 'Bad hair day hat' :P

 

I look super pouty but I wasn't, i just drew my lipstick that way :P Also i thought my eyeliner wings were even, but one's clearly very wonky. Oh well!

Wearing: 

Eyes: Collection 2000 Glam Crystals Eyeliner in Shake It Up

Face: Collection 2000 3 in one Foundation (used as powder), Illamasqua Chased Powder Blush

Lips: Barry M Lip Paint in 145

Also I totally worded my last post wrong. I don't actually mind the fact my hair is very damaged, in fact I rather like it! I just can't make up my mind what to do with it :P Thanks for all the tips though everyone!

FOTD

 

Wonky face!

Wearing:

Eyes: Mac Gesso and Vex, Illamasqua Sophie medium pencil, white eyeliner, black mascara

Lips: Illamasqua itense lipgloss in Hermetic.
Can't remember what was on my cheeks.

I can't do anything with my hair at the moment. I've cut about an inch off since this photo was taken, but I don't know what to do with it. The ginger hair dye sticks to my roots beautifully but washes off the bleached parts (the majority of my hair) very quickly. I like being ginger but I miss being blonde. And then I'm tempted to go black or bright red or pink or some fun colour. Who knows what to do with the damaged zombie hair?

Swatch Crazy!

Wheee!

This is possibly half my lipstick... D:

Illamasqua Throb Collection

I don't usually do these kinds of posts, and I'm sorry if you've seen this information a million times already in your dashboard, but these images are just so gorgeous I want to share again!
Illamasqua is just about to launch a mini collection with a valentines theme and (shockingly :P) it's right up my alley! The collection consists of 3 nail polishes (red, cream and black), a lipstick and an intense lip gloss (my favourite lipgloss ever) both in 'blood red' (though they look more bright in the pictures than a blood colour to me). There's also a gift set of everything (and a coco de mer eye mask) for £69. Anyway more information is available here.

But now just look at these gorgeous images!

I'm thinking of trying to recreate the look, could turn out very funny! :P I love the heart nails.
I am of course lusting after the lippie and gloss, but sadly can't afford anything at the moment :( Oh well, at least Illamasqua's collections don't tend to be limited edition.
What do you think everyone?

Edit: Win the whole Throb collection!

Bad news :(

The ban on cosmetic testing on animals that was scheduled for 2013 has been pushed back several years until 2017 (though of course it might be pushed back even further)
Then there is also the REACH initiative that, if successful, will mean ingredients previously found to be safe WITHOUT testing on animals will now have to be retested using animals.

This is really horrible new and oviously a terrible blow for anyone against animal cruelty. Honestly the whole thing gets me too depressed to talk about at length so please forgive me for only giving you the most basic details. Here are several great articles on the subject that say it all better than I ever could.

The London Beauty Review

Guardian Article

Lush article on REACH

Anyone who has any other useful links please leave me a comment and I'll add them in.

Questions

Does anyone have any questions (about anything, beauty, fashion, personal or whatever. Though if they're too personally I might choose not to answer. I'm pretty open though :P) they'd like to ask me? I really like answering questions, and if any came up a lot I could do a FAQ thing :)

Also does anyone know of a (relatively) cheap pale pink or flesh toned eyeliner? I've heard they're great for giving you a wide-eyed look when you use it on the waterline, but the only ones I've seen are from Benefit (which I think is discontinued now, not sure though) and one from YSL or someone else high end, and I can't afford that stuff :P

I'd also like to welcome and thank the new followers I've gained recently. I really do appreciate the support you guys give me so so much and am still a bit amazed that so many people are interested in my posts. I've started collecting stuff for a giveaway, but I want it to be a really good one and need to save up some money for prizes so it might not be for a while. Thank you all again, from the bottom of my heart.

Christmas and Birthday pictures

 Here's a bunch of photos from Christmas times. I've put them under a cut so as not to be irritating. But for now have a very naughty Weevil in a Christmas tree :)

                                                                                       

 

Woo it's my birthday!

And I'm going to party like it is my birthday. Ironic that!

Here's an outfit from a couple of days ago. I absolutely adore the jumper. It's fron Next but sold out, I got it on ebay (for the same price as it was sold for originally, which was great!). And I really liked the outfit but now all i can see is my spare tyre XD I wore the same outfit again yesterday (yes i am dirty and lazy :P) and pulled the skirt up a bit and it looked so much better.

My Gold Dr Martens were a christmas presents :) I love them. Since I've put on weight my head looks absolutely tiny! Ha ha! :P

And my face. I am wearing Evil Shades Gossamer blush (which is so so gorgeous in real life but not really showing in the photo) and MUFE lipstick in 203 (this is the old style I don't know if you can get anymore. Not the Rouge Artist Intense) and just some black eyeliner and mascara and face powder.

And a few more

Enough drama for now, on to the required new year post! :D

Well it's a brand new year everyone! New Years is never that big a deal with me, I find the whole idea of the new year a bit weird because absolutely nothing happens, it's just another day. But anyway resolutions and such are fun to make, and it is nice to think of having a fresh start.
I don't have a New Years look because I spent my New Years Eve at home watching Father Ted in my pyjamas. Woooo! But I do have some pictures from Christmas I'll share soon. I LOVE seeing what everyone got for Christmas but I won't post mine yet because it's my birthday on tuesday so I'll show off my new goodies all together after that :)

But for now i have some resolutions to share.

• Paint! Paint all the time!
• Learn to do new craft things like knitting or felting.
• Stop being so hard on myself
• Do more with friends
• Get my room tidy and keep it that way! (If you could see my room you'd understand that this is a very very difficult task)
• Party Hard! :P

And now some shallow beauty ones :P

• Lose weight (though this isn't a real New Years Resolution as I've been resolving to lose weight for about 2 years now :P)
• Learn how to make my eyeliner wings even!
• Wear false eyelashes more often and perfect putting them on.
• Start a proper facial skincare routine at least once a day and stick to it.
• Stop biting off the skin on my fingers.
• At least once a week wear a more exciting makeup look than just mascara, eyeliner and lipstick.

And a few for my blog:

Post on the blog once a week at the very least

Start making videos again!

Catch up with replying to comments and emails! So sorry guys :(

And I think that will do for now :) 2010 favourites coming up soon.

Insert Lime based Pun

I know what you're all thinking 'Oh no, Lillian's going to bore us all with another rant about Lime Crime' and yes you're right. And I am truly sorry, I had tried very hard to keep my mouth shut through all her recent shenanigans because I didn't want my blog to be seen in any way as a complete attack on her and because I had more interesting things to write about and didn't want to give her the time of day. But well now she's decided to insult me. So I figured I should respond in kind.

I would also like to point out that while I have repeatedly called her a lying, cheating, sexist, offensive moron, and written posts on all the immoral and shady stuff she has done on my own blog and youtube videos (which I would argue she brought on herself) I have never done anything outright to bring her down. I have not gone around trying to convince Lime Crime supporters to listen to my story, I only posted on her blog once (in response to the person who said I hated Lime Crime because I was fat, my comment was deleted). I've not reported her to any consumer groups or spoken about her/left reviews on makeup forums.
And like I said, even though i have had LOTS of fodder in recent months I've chosen to not discuss them.

But now look what the stupid mare has gone and done:

'QUESTION



I'm not a hater or anything, just curious. Was the duct tape dress rumour true? The TKB thing I don't really care about because it's not like you mark the price up while reselling in cheap bags/whatever, although if I'm honest your prices are high
 
ANSWER



Glad you asked that -- it's about time that misunderstanding was put to rest.


7 years ago (gosh, I'm old!) I sold a beautiful, long velvet dress on eBay. It was vintage from the 1960s and, alas, came hemmed with duct tape. Since removing the tape would mean cutting off the bottom, I chose to preserve its length and list it "as-is". I did make sure to include a clear disclaimer about the item's condition -- I wouldn't want my customer to find duct tape as a surprise. The buyer received the dress & didn't seem to have a problem with it. Had they complained, I would've taken it back without a hinge -- but they didn't. Years later, a *friend* of the buyer's daughter posted on the internet a picture of the dress, trying to unfairly out me as a bad seller. I told that person what's up using strong language. They shouldn't have jumped to conclusions, as I was upfront about the dress from the beginning.


I have never spoken to the actual buyer of the dress. I would hope that if there was a problem with their purchase, they would have come to me and allowed me to take care of it.


Regarding Lime Crime, I have covered this in the past, but just to reiterate: our eyeshadows are custom-blended. We are very concerned with making Lime Crime affordable for every budget, with that in mind we do have sales. In fact, there is one coming up very soon! :)'

Oh just charming! Xenia I am SO sorry that my mother bought a shoddily made dress from you and forced you to call her an asshole, oh what a bitch I am! I particularly love how she puts the word 'friend' in asterisks which seems to imply either a) I did it myself, even though said friend posted on the community using her own livejournal, which she had had for several years (Oh noes, she has seen through my evil plan of pretending to be a girl from Canada for several years beforehand just so I could post mean things about her. Come on Xenia, not everyone loves sockpuppeting as much as you) or b) I have no friends D: Ouch, i'm all hot from my burn.

Her reason for not removing the duct tape is complete bollocks also, but more on that later.

Ok so seeing as Xenia is so keen to put this misunderstanding to rest, here's what really went down.

Many many years ago when I was a mere chuppy sprig of a lass I discovered Xenia on the internet. This was back in the days where she sold Lolita-ish style clothes under the name of Thunderwear. She had a livejournal (where she actually spoke about her life like she was a real person and not some weirdo who lives only to do fashion shoots in her own bedroom and pretend she invented mathmatical theorums before then claiming a few months later to be completely useless at maths) and i liked reading her posts and thought her style (which was a sort of Wednesday Addams meets EGL thing at the time) was cool. She seemed like a sweet girl and, besides her being in a truly appalling band, I saw no reason not to like her.
Over the years though she changed, or at least her internet presence changed, knowing what I now know about her I am not sure at all that she was ever a nice person. On the outside her style changed to basically be a lesser quality rip off of her friend at the time (the amazing designer and now fantastic makeup brand owner) Shrinkle. And at the same time her blog changed. No longer did she talk about her everyday life, boyfriend, Guinea-Pigs (i remember she had one who looked just like mine at the time) instead it became all about the Lime Crime brand, mainly adverts for auctions and so on. I eventually stopped reading her journal properly but still thought of her as a cool person and good fashion designer.
I bought a couple of pieces of her clothing, and while I liked the designs they all had something a bit shabby about them. For instance I bought a top that had decorative serging around the cuffs, hem and neckline and somehow the threads just started falling off (I don't even really know how she did that, I had to unpick some serging i did recently and it took forever!). I also heard some slightly suspect things about her business practices. But again I thought it was no big deal and continued to think of her in a good light, thought it was beginning to dim.

Then my Mum bought a vintage velvet dress from her as a gift to my sister. It arrived and from the outside looked lovely. So my Mum was happy, left Xenia good feedback and packed it away for Christmas. Now maybe my Mum should have examined the dress fully before it was too late for a refund, but you don't expect an item that looks nice on the outside to hold a horrible and ridiculous secret on the inside, do you?
So Christmas came, my sister got her dress and went to try it on. She came down with an odd expression on her face, we asked what's wrong to which she replied 'It's hemmed with gaffer tape!' (gaffer tape = what we call duct tape in England). My Mum looked and was slightly annoyed as she had spent quite a good amount of money on the dress, but we just laughed at it, thinking how completely stupid it was. A hem is so so simple and quick to do. (most sewing machines can do a blind hem, but even if they can't a normal stitched hem can be done in a few minutes, it's just a straight line!).  It wasn't too big a deal, though we obviously said we'd never buy anything from Lime Crime again.

My sister apparently wasn't too keen on the dress as it ended up sitting in our house (Lyd lived in Birmingham at the time) for many years, with it's silver taped bottom, undisturbed until one day some friends of mine came to stay. They had both been fans of Lime Crime a long time ago too and we were all laughing at some of the nonsense she'd said recently or something when I decided to tell them about the duct taped dress. We all had a good laugh and one of my friends asked to take some pictures, I said sure. Said friend then decided to post them in a livejournal community called Meanestbastard.

Meanestbastard was sort of similar to Regretsy, only almost entirely about bad DIY clothing and a bit more meanspirited. Lots of people like Superyana and Shrinkle had been posted about but they all just either laughed or shrugged it off. Xenia however got a lot more coverage presumably because of her ridiculous reactions to petty comments about her clothes looking rubbish. She tried to have the community taken down, tried to get a 13 year old girl suspended from livejournal for breaking her copyright (which is hilarious seeing as recently Xenia has been called out for stealing numerous photos without giving credit), and either her or Mark sockpuppeted constantly with hilarious Xenia-is-a-God style compliments while also insulting Shrinkle as much as possible (something Xenia has also done recently) . However while all that is accurate, a lot of comments are just insulting 'she looks bad here' things, which really brought down the tone of the community to seem like a bunch of bullies, which is a shame as they had some very good points. The community proved that Xenia/Mark use sockpuppets, had admissions from members of Xenia's old fashion community confirming that she encouraged them to shillbid and attack other communities, brought the charity scandal into the light and so on. But some of the comments make it hard to take anything seriously.

However while you can see my friend's post is, while laughing at Xenia for selling a dress so sloppily made, not overly insulting. My friend didn't write anything nasty about her personally, just the dress. But I don't know, maybe the fairly innocent post just laughing at the duct tape hem was just the straw that broke the camel's back and she flipped out.
Xenia was furious and decided that the best way to defend herself was to shift the blame. She said that she hadn't put the gaffer tape on originally, she'd just sold it as is, so people shouldn't be attacking her which is an odd train of thought as she was the one who sold it. But anyway I digress. I forget what else was in her comment but the end was  (I paraphrase as the comment was deleted by the oh so honest and transparent Doe Deere) 'I sold a dress hemmed in duct tape, someone was stupid enough to buy it, who's the real asshole here ;) '

(if you don't believe it really said that then look at the replies to her deleted comment, it's very easy to work out what she said)

Now Xenia has constantly said that the ebay auction for the dress had a clear disclaimer that it came hemmed with the duct tape. My Mum has always maintained that it didn't say it anywhere. However let's assume my Mum was mistaken and it did say it, and Mum knew what she was buying at the time and then forgot (giving my friend and I the wrong end of the stick). Frankly I'm inclined to believe my Mum, but let's just give Xenia the benefit of the doubt.
 It doesn't make the fact that someone who claimed to be an amazing fashion designer either couldn't be bothered or didn't know how to hem a dress any less hilariously. And pretty much perfect for a community dedicated to bad DIY clothing.

So while maybe Mum was wrong and the dress was sold to her with a big, clear disclosure about it being hemmed with duct tape, that's really not the point. I and many other people I know don't actually care too much about the duct tape dress. As I said the reason my Mum never complained was because we all just thought it was stupid and funny, not anything terrible. The problem is her shocking behaviour in response. Calling my Mum an asshole was unforgivable. My Mum and me did nothing remotely wrong. I didn't post the pictures. I didn't say or do anything that could have been remotely harmful to her or her business up until her makeup line launched (and as I said the worst thing I've done is post in my own blog). Not only was the reaction shocking and entirely uncalled for but it said vast amounts about her business practices by insulting someone basically solely for being stupid enough to buy from her.

After that I was obviously furious. I recieved an email from her (more on that later) where she said she was sorry that we didn't like the dress but never apologised for insulting my Mum. I just ignored it. And then more and more horrible secrets about her started to come out. I just didn't want anything to do with her, and didn't say or do anything remotely to do with her right up until my first post on her on the blog about a year ago (despite the awful experience I'd had I was still considering buying her lipsticks, what a moron I am!).

The reason my Mum never spoke to her about it was because she couldn't give a flying fig about her. It was too late for Mum to get a refund and she could easily fix the hem herself so she just shrugged the whole thing off. If she knew that the seller of the shoddy dress she bought had called her an asshole she probably would have just laughed at it, she's that sort of person. However I am not the sort of person who can shrug off someone insulting my lovely Mummy. I am going to hold a grudge forever.

Now the incident happened a long time ago. I've been attacked before for bitterly clinging to the past (though obviously if you've seen even half of the shady crap she's been up to that she hasn't changed and that I don't only have one reason to hate her) but the fact is a while back when she emailed me with a very pathetic apology (she said 'I'm sorry if I offended you in any way' which is an apology but in the loosest possible sense as it sort of implies that I'm somehow pathetic for being offended by her insulting my Mum. I think maybe she's just completely unable to give a real apology and accept any blame whatsoever seeing as the apology I got after the asshole insult was just 'I'm sorry you didn't like the dress' not 'Im sorry I sold that dress' or 'Im sorry i insulted your Mum' ) I was ready to forgive her. I was very happy to finally have any sort of apology. But then someone contacted me to say that, while Xenia had been sweetness and light to me with her apology and email, behind my back she had said that the whole incident had never happened, so basically calling me a liar while lying through her teeth herself.

And now it's been brought up again by her and she's trying to suggest my friend (or me because her implication that it was really me, not my friend is pretty obvious) is the one in the wrong because she dared to suggest hemming a dress with duct tape was bad DIY.
So I think I have the right to be angry about the whole thing!

So yes, I'm angry. And because of that I'm going to do something I said I wouldn't do. I mentioned earlier (and have mentioned a few other times) that just after she'd called my Mum an asshole she sent me an email. I have refrained from posting it up until now because it is so incredibly moronic and I'd rather have just let her shoot herself in the foot. However because I am so mad I want everyone to see how she managed to not only miss the entire point (apologising that we didn't like the dress when I was angry at her insulting my Mum), insult her 'fans' ('butter knife suicide? nice one Xenia) and turn the whole thing into a pity party for herself.
Also I think it's important and it proves she lied in her formspring. In it she says she purposefully left it hemmed with the duct tape to 'preserve the length', in the email she gives a completely different reason.

It may be a bit bitchy to post this, but frankly I don't care. She's insulted me and my friends and family too many times for me to care about respecting her privacy.
 
'Hi. I figured I'd email you directly instead of commenting in your journal.

First of all, I am sorry you didn't like the dress. Heck knows why I didn't fix it up. Maybe my sewing machine was broken that week, or maybe I just didn't know how to do it at the time. Or maybe I was just broke and desperate to sell it in as-is condition. I really can't remember.


LJ is a wonderful place. Reading other people's thoughts entertains me immensely. But then there are these people always looking to say something nasty and then act deeply offended at my punchy comeback. And yes, I understand everyone has the right to bitch on the internet and blah blah blah but come on. It got to the point where I am not allowed to even be a *real person* any more without someone getting on my case. I'm not allowed to make mistakes without getting scorned by a stranger. I'm not allowed to look ugly without someone snapping a picture and posting it for everyone to laugh at. I'm not allowed to be in a bad mood and make a sarcastic remark. All I can do to stay out of trouble is to be is this perfect, bubbly girl with lime green eyeshadow and hot pink mini skirt. I just can't do it any more. I'm done with the limelight, (pun intended!).


I stopped selling on eBay 6 months ago. I don't really do fashion nor music either. I quit both in favor of a steady-paying job a few months ago. I'm getting rid of all my sewing stuff. You're probably wondering why I still haven't 'announced' it yet. Well, frankly, I can't think of a way to do it without coming off like an asshole once again. Imagine hundreds of emails from girls all saying how much you've inspired them 'to be themselves and to follow their dreams' and then bam, "Listen up kiddies, it's all a bunch of horse puckey and you'll be broke for the rest of your life, so forget it and conform now before it's too late." I don't think I'm special. In fact, I think what happened to me is very typical. But oh, the pressure! You know someone is gonna call me a traitor and a hypocrite and commit butter knife suicide because I no longer reconstruct t-shirts. lol

Or should I tell them the truth? How much of the truth? Should I tell them that if they think any of the top eBay designers make any real money, they're crazy? They all act upbeat and pretend to be successful because no one will buy from them otherwise. And the money you make slaving away 18 hours a day? You'd be better off working $10 an hour at a convenience store! It's freakin' depressing. As in, I was actually diagnosed with depression last year and am taking pills for it. O__O

Anyway, I'm not sure why I'm telling you all this. I guess I feel like there must be someone who will understand. I am a nice person (seriously). I try to do as much good as I can, and when someone undeservingly attacks me over something I did or didn't do 3 years ago, it breaks my heart. I hate being in a public eye, that's why I left entertainment. There is a lot of pressure to be this and that, and to be nice and to smile when all you want to do is punch walls and die.

Sorry about this lengthy email. Don't worry, I don't expect you to fall in love with me all of a sudden or anything. In fact, you can still hate me if you choose - I'm used to it. :) '

And i do choose to still hate her! While some of the things she said wrote (if true) would be very sad, such as her having depression (I suffer from it and wouldn't wish it on everyone, not even her) there was no reason to bring it up. Talking about those things was just an obvious tactic to gain sympathy, without her actually having to do something crazy like apologise for her behaviour. And depression is not an excuse to do something horrible to another person.

And again it's everyone elses fault, not hers (I'm on pills because of you!). While I agree that some of the things said about her in the meanestbastard community were cruel my friends post was really not. And my Mother did nothing wrong, so lashing out at her was completely unnessecary. Mum didn't laugh at photos of her stupid makeup, Mum didn't do ANYTHING nasty to her. She says 'But then there are these people always looking to say something nasty and then act deeply offended at my punchy comeback' But my friend didn't really say anything too nasty, just 'this is a bit rubbish' basically and Mum did absolutely nothing wrong, so why shouldn't I be deeply offended by her nasty, bitchy, completely uncalled for comeback?

'I'm not allowed to be in a bad mood and make a sarcastic remark' well not when you insult an innocent person you're not!

Also: 'I try to do as much good as I can, and when someone undeservingly attacks me over something I did or didn't do 3 years ago, it breaks my heart' a) you DID do it, you sold the dress. b) it was not undeserved, it was bad DIY, the post was made on a community about bad DIY, simples. c) That isn't an excuse to call someone who bought a dress from you in good faith an asshole.

And her saying that she hates being in the public eye is just laughable.

In a way I am sort of thankful for Xenia calling my Mum an asshole. Before it happened I may have laughed at some of the more amusing things she said and did but I wouldn't have found about what a gooddamn lousy excuse for a human being she really is. I would undoubtably have bought into her candyfuture nonsense and possibly bought her crappy repackaged eyeshadows and awful formulated lipsticks. Also while personally I have a bias to feeling that calling my Mum an asshole is the worst thing she could do it isn't. In the huge list of horrible things she has done calling Mum a nasty name is pretty low down.

This woman has lied again and again to her customers, has repackaged her eyeshadows then blamed tkb for copying them. (confirmed by Audrey Kitching who worked with her),  has tried to assasinate her competition repeatedly, has threatened to sue someone for a bad review then when the review was deleted and replaced with a nicely written apology claimed that wasn't good enough and made her put up a new retraction written by Lime Crime, has asked bloggers to delete negative comments, has given out a bloggers personal email in a newsletter and asked her fans to send emails   disagreeing with her fair review, has then claimed said reviewer was not objective, posted horribly sexist remarks, admitted to stealing a jacket, blatantly shillbidded (and according to people in her old community used to encourage them to shillbid) and kicked people out of her old community for not being power hungry enough while talking about them behind their back and has (almost certainly) STOLEN FROM CHARITY (sadly links have been deleted over the years. Ask if you want the full story, but you might not believe me). Her history would be hilarious if it were fiction but sadly it is not.

She is a nasty piece of work. But I had tried to be the bigger person and stop writing about her.

And then she had to bring it up herself but make things sound like she was in the wrong and again just the victim of nasty bullying.

The hilarious thing is I basically predicted all this back in 2007 replying to her insulting Mum:
'If you reply to this i'm simply going to ignore it because i know you wouldn't do anything as crazy as offer an apology for your behaviour, you'd probably attempt to shift the blame back to me for having the nerve to stand up for myself when being insulted.'

To quote someone on the examiner article: 'calling somebody's mother a hideous name for buying something in good faith is not "telling them what's up, with strong language!" it's being an odious little reptile with no sense of how to act.'

What a complete cunt.