A couple of dullish FOTDs and What is this on my face??

I am super super lazy at the moment with my makeup. I don't want to be! Part of me longs to wear several shades of eyeshadow, perfect winged liner, contour and highlight my face and so on. But another part of me, the part that always wins goes 'meh, just chuck on some lippie and let's get going!'.
I still thought I'd share them because the lipsticks are nice :P

 

Here I am wearing:

Face: Nothing

Eyes: Black mascara

Lips: NYX round lipstick in Louisiana

 

Face: Avon tinted moisturiser all over, Gosh X-ceptional Wear foundation in Porcelain (used just as a concealer on some blemishes, under my eyes and on my cheeks), Laura Paige pressed translucent powder, Sleek blush in Flamingo.

Eyes: black mascara

Lips: Models Own lip balm in Tangerine

I've added a swatch of the Tangerine lip balm to my Models own swatch page :)


Also this morning I woke up and under my eyes, where usually I just have light bluish shadows, I saw these weird red spots! They weren't there the night before and I have no idea what they are. They're almost like tiny scabs. My guess is they're some sort of broken capillaries. It's bizarre that they all just popped up at once overnight.

 

This is the best phot I could get. You might not be able to see them properly, basically it's those tiny reddish looking dots under my eyesT;. hey're more pronounced than this in real life. Also I have a tiny spot there which is very annoying (and appeared at the same time). And yes, my eye is super bloodshot!

If anyone can tell me what they are and if I can get rid of them I'd be very grateful!

New email

Hi everyone,
just a quick note because I've changed my email. I use the old one for everything and (I assume due to having it available online on this blog) it started getting huge amounts of Spam. Presumably because of this  the spam filter went mad and anything coming from a new email address (one that hadn't sent anything to me before) was put into my junk mail. It's getting annoying having to filter through it so I figured having a new one for blog related stuff would at least help a little!
So anyway if you want to contact me for any reason my email is now lillianfunnyface@hotmail.co.uk
If you've emailed me and not got a reply it's probably because it got deleted as spam before I could see it, so I'm really sorry if that happened! Please feel free to contact me again and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
Oh, but if I've been talking back and forth with you on my old email you can keep talking to me there if you want, cause it means my email doesn't hate you and designate you spam :P
Also I'm trying my best to catch up with comments, but it's taking me a while so please forgive me if I don't manage to get back to you straight away!
Also I decided to go to the Illamasqua event, but one of the 'intimate' events so hopefully will be less scary :)

Symmetry test

There's a famous theory (or fact, I'm unsure which) that the most beautiful or attractive people are those that have the most symmetrical faces. I've seen a few instances of this post floating around (see here and here for cool examples) and thought I'd do one myself! B

Basically I took a photo of myself as head-on as possible, then split it in half and doubled it. That way you can see how close one side of your face doubled is to your original face.

So let's have a look!

My normal face (eek, no makeup! D:) :

Left side doubled:

Right side doubled:

 

My face is a lot wider in one picture than the other because it is bloody hard to find the middle of your face! Also my picture wasn't perfectly face on to begin with. Still you can basically get the idea.

Hmm well from these I can deduce that when my face is perfectly symmetrical I look really really weird :P

But also it seems like my face is pretty symmertrical, just not perfect. And of course there's my super wonky brows :D I particularly like how the spot and freckle on the left side of my face gets doubled, so it looks like I've got 4 weird dots around my mouth. Well seeing as I'm not super even I guess I'm not a great beauty after all XD

Swatcharama - Models Own lip Products

Dammit I don't want to like these but I can't help it! They're really, really good and it pisses me off! (for reasons why I don't want to like Models Own see here)

They're all  affordable at £5 each (and often on 3 for 2 at Boots) and they just work. The lipsticks are creamy and truly opaque in one swipe, the lip glosses are pretty pigmented and really glossy and the balms... Oh the balms! I need to write a full review on these products because they really deserve it. Godammit, stop being good, I want to hate you! :(

Anyway here be swatches:

Lipsticks:

Coral Pink:

 

More under the cut :)

Swatcharama - Illamasqua Intense and Sheer Lipglosses

Today I have a tonne of Illamasqua intense lipgloss swatches for you, and 2 of their sheer glosses too.
I've reviewed this properly before here and here so I won't bother saying anymore, just look at the beautiful glosses!

Also I now have nearly every single colour of the Intense glosses. I think there are 2 or possibly 3 nude colours I don't have.... I'm even tempted by them because I love these so much, even though I don't really wear nudes! I wanna catch em all!

Intense glosses

Mistress

Tonnes more under the cut :)

Valentines OOTDs

This is Claire and I on our Valentine picnic in my garden (before we gave up and went to 'picnic' indoors on the sofa). Claire looks lovely and I probably would have looked nice if I was wearing some different tights (they have hearts on, it was valentines day, thus i had to wear them even though they really really didn't go with the dress) and was less fat! Claire made her outfit because she is talented. I did not make mine because I am not :P

 

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar has learned 1 trick, sitting up on his Bum. He looks so cute we used to make a huge fuss whenever he did it, now he does it ALL the time. It's all he's got! it leads to nice photos though

 

And now, because I like when I make funny faces, there are 'hilarious outtakes' under the cut

Illamasqua Art of Darkness Blogger Event

Having just recieved an invitation to the blogger event for Illamasqua's Spring/Summer collection Toxic Nature and realised that I never actually blogged about the event I went to for Art of Darkness.

... The event was back in October. I am posting about it now. I SUCK! I am basically the worst blogger ever! Why they would invite me to another one is completely beyond me! This review is pretty damn pointless now, seeing as the collection has been out for over 4 months, but they invited me so I will  post about it dammit!

(I'm not including many swatches because I basically own the entire collection and my photos from the day are pretty rubbish, so I will swatch/review products later on.)

The event was also the opening of  their new Flagship Store, which is really lovely. The decor is all in black and silvers with neon signs and lots of smashed mirrors. It's punky and pretty and classy all at the same time. There are also large mannequins with designs on them personally painted by Alex Box. The actual products are spread out nicely so there shouldn't be too much cramming in if people want to look at the same thing. And there are price lists out, which I love (even if I wasn't so shy I'm sure I'd find asking for prices distressing, I always think if you ask the price and then don't buy something people will think you can't afford it. Or maybe I'm just paranoid?)

We were left some time to wander around, chat to each other and check out the collection for a while. When we walked in we were given an envelope with our names on (though i don't know what that was for as mine was empty) and were offered a delicious cocktail (no idea what it was but it was sour and lemony and lovely!). Then we were called into a talk, which was in a back room, through a little curtain. This is where the makeup school (god i wish i could afford to go!) takes place. We were spoken to about the collection, the theme of it and what was new with the formulas and so on, then shown a short film that went along with the concept photos. And then again allowed to just roam as we wanted to as Alex Box created a look on a model in front of everyone. As the event wound up we were given goody bags including 2 items from the new collection, a cd with the video on, press releases and a booklet featuring all the looks created for the collection and product list.

The actual products released included a new powdered metal colour - Ether, a new lipstick colour - Disciple, a new intense lipgloss colour - Hermetic, 3 new liquid metal colours (and a new 4 colour palette of them) - Resolute, Superior and Stoic, 2 new Pure pigment colours - Ore and Alluvium, new false eyelashes, 2 new nail polish colours - Scarab and Viridian and a whole new product the Precision Ink liquid which comes in the colours Abyss and Alchemy. At the event I got Scarab and Ore in my goody bag and have since bought/been given as presents Alluvium, Hermetic, the 4 colour liquid metal palette, Abyss, Alchemy, Disciple, Alluvium. So you can see I really liked this collection! Reviews and swatches to come later :)

So here are some photos from the day:

 

smashed mirrors with little dummy hands holding the product

 

Mannequin

 

Mmm giant bowls of pigment.  

 

Golden platter of new products. Check out the lovely beetle packaging!

 

False Eyelashes

 

Scarab Nailpolish

Viridian Nail Polish

This was also my first look at their Competition winning nail polishes (They asked people to describe their perfect polish and then made 3 winners) here they are:

  

Raindrops  

 

Eclipse

 

Shrapnel

 

Alex Box and Alex Cummins during the talk

 

Pretty ladies! 

  

Alex Box working on a model

And the finished result:

Now as for the Toxic Nature event, I really don't know what to do. In a way I really, really want to go. Obviously I want to check out the collection. Illamasqua are one of my favourite brands and  from the one photo I've seen, the collection appears to be right up my street. The Art of Darkness event was really wonderfully organised and so interesting. And also I really would love to meet some other bloggers, especially anyone who actually reads my blog, it would be so great to get feedback from someone in 'real' life. And I like people.

However I was so awkward and freaked out by the last event that I just don't know if I can cope with another one. I'm just not up to social situations like this. I've actually been invited to a couple of other events from various brands, but they've all fallen on dates I cannot make anyway so I haven't had the same quandry.

Please don't think this is anything to do with Illamasqua, or the event. It was really great, all the staff and bloggers I talked to were absolutely lovely. Alex made me feel so welcome and treated me like a real friend, lots of people working came up and asked if I was alright, anything I needed etc and Alex Box actually complimented my outfit (I think! Now I'm paranoid that my mind has made this up!). But, as you probably know if you've read my blog for a while, my mind is wonky (I've got social phobia/social anxiety disorder). I panic about what people are thinking about me, fear talking to people, crowds freak me out etc. So an event filled with people I don't know is stressful. Also there was actually only one person, there who I knew from their blog (That was Sarah from The London Beauty Review who was an absolute doll to me, even though I was quite probably a quaking moron mumbling nonsense).

But there's actually a special 'intimate event' thing where there will only be 4 people at a time invited, so that might be better.

Anyone reading this going? Anyone have any thoughts on my dilemma?

Sugarpill discount and Chromalust swatches

Hurry! It's Sugarpill's birthday and to celebrate they are offering 20% off everything today! Use code 'birthday' :) 

I would buy some stuff, but Claire already bought us everything they make. Seriously. I thought we didn't have one pair of the eyelashes, but I just found them in her stash. Jesus. We love us some Sugarpill!  

A while back now they released some new colours of their Chromalusts (loose shadows) and Claire snapped them up. Here are some swatches (if some of the cropping is weird it's because I have fat forearms and very skinny wrists :P):

 

 

 

 

 

Swatches from left to right:

Paperdoll, Weekender, Birthday Girl, Magentric, Tipsy, Darling, Stella

I just couldn't get a good photo of Weekender or the glittery sparks in Stella (they're multicoloured and it's super beautiful). Weekender is a sort of metallic, dark lavender with multicoloured sparkle, much less grey than it appears in the photos.

Oh also, the boxes Chromalusts came in now have the name and ingredients on the bottom, like so:

Left is a new box, right is an old version of the boxes.

Since we bought these Sugarpill have reformulated Birthday Girl and Paperdoll to give them a better texture. To me these apply fine already but I'd be interested to see how the new ones compare.

Here are some more Sugarpill swatches and a review :)

Valentines FOTDs

Happy Valentines Day to everyone!

I love Valentines day, the idea of a day being dedicated entirely to celebrating love is right up my street! Also I love pink, red and heart shapes, so that's another plus!

Claire and I were planning to go to Brighton to celebrate, but for some reason I just couldn't sleep at all last night, so i got up in the morning feeling awful and knew I just wouldn't be up for walking around all day. So instead we stayed home and watched Gone with the Wind (can you believe I'd never seen it before! But frankly I don't give a damn!) and then later had a little picnic outside. After a while though it was just too cold, so we had a picnic inside instead. Which basically just meant we sat infront of the tv eating way too much crap :P

Me:

 

Mooore under here!

NOTD

I absolutely love my nails at the moment. I decided to use my Barry M Nail Effects for the first time and absolutely love it! Now I want crackle varnish in every colour of the rainbow. I neeeed the China Glaze ones but am poor :(
Anyway here they are:

 

 

I used Sinful Colors Let's Meet which is a shimmery yellow with a tiny hint of pink to it's pearl, then the Nail Effects.

I Loooove watching the Nail Effects crack, it's so cool, I could watch it forever! It hypnotises me. 

I actually preferred it without the top coat because then the black shatter is matte which, against the contrasting shimmery glossy polish underneath, looks amazing. But I wanted it to last a long time so i put on a shiny top coat. It still looks great.

Here's a picture of it sans top coat:

 

I love this. The black crackle look both classy and grungy at the same time and looks a bit like leopard print from a distance. Not only that but it covers up any problems in the application of the base coat (if you look very closely you can see some air bubbles in the yellow) :P

But of course now I want to get rid of it to have a valentines mani! But as it's still perfect I won't.

What you wearing on your nails at the moment? What are your feelings on shatter/crackle polish?

Swatcharama - Barry M Lip Gloss swatches

 Here is the last lot of my Barry M lip swatches, today it's the lip gloss wands and glossy tubes :)

Firstly the wands. These retail at £4.49 and come in a hard plastic tube very similar to a Mac dazzleglass. The opacity changes according to the colour. I don't find these sticky at all, they're sort of silky feeling. They're not particularly long-lasting but don't disappear immediately.

No 5 - Bubblegum Pink

 

Slightly disappointed with this one to tell you the truth, it's a lot brighter in the tube than on the lips and not completely opaque. Still pretty though. Smells like bubblegum, but not too noticable once it's on the lips.

 More below the cut :)

Swatcharama - Barry M Lip Liners and Lip Lacquer Crayon Swatches

Today I have some swatches of Barry M lip pencils for you :)

Firstly the lip liners. These are your regular common or garden lip liner pencils, they last very well, they're very dry because they're all pigment and wax and very little oil, so if you were to wear these alone I'd highly suggest using a balm underneath, or a lip gloss on top. They apply quite nice and smoothly if you take the time. I did not :P  They cost £2.99

No 13 - Baby Pink

 

More under the cut :)

Illamasqua Throb Manicure semi-tutorial

It's a semi tutorial because I am too rubbish to even have done this manicure very well, so I can't expect anyone to be able to follow my rubbish instructions! But still, I thought you might like to have a look :)

Here is the original:

  

Illamasqua actually made a tutorial of how they did this, you can see it here. I couldn't do it that way because I don't have any false nails.

And here is my take:

I don't have a cream or plain black nail polish (well I have a black one, but it's very old and has gone too gloopy to use. I must get some thinner!). Illamasqua used their new 'Load' and 'scorn' polishes for this cream and matte black look. So instead I used Models Own 'Snow White' and Eyeko Vampire polish, which is a lovely black with red shimmer. 

Please go under the cut to see the steps I took :)

A couple of things you've probably seen before

But I just thought I'd post anyway, just in case :P

1. You can get a free Barry M makeup kit with Buzz magazine from the Sun on saturday. You just need to collect one voucher this time, and the kit includes a pencil eyeliner, lipgloss and nail varnish worth 'over £9'. It looks nice, I looove Barry M, but there's no way in hell I'm buying the Sun! :P

2. No 7 are having a 'best wink' competition to celebrate their new Exquisite Curl mascara. Upload your picture or video to their facebook page and you could win a goody bag or a star prize of a pampering weekend including a makeover by Lisa Eldridge. That would be awful for me, craven creature that I am, but I'm up for a goody bag! :P Also I like the advert because the musical backdrop has a proper 70s glam rock drumbeat. Just needs some 'heys!' with air punching. And a man with dodgy hair and platform shoes... Ok i'm waffling. The competition ends on the 15th so get your wink on ladies!

... Now I want some Glam Rock!


Oh boy!



Disclaimer: Someone from a company representing No 7 emailed me and informed me about the competition. I am sharing because I thought the Idea was cute and interesting. This is NOT a sponsored post, I am under no obligation to post about it and recieved nothing in return.

Swatcharama - Barry M Lip Paint swatches

I've decided that as it would appear I own all the lipsticks in the entire world I should swatch them all. First I will list them by brand, so if you're interested in, for instance, Nyx lipsticks, you can look at all the colours I have. Then I'm going to organise them all into colours, so if you are looking for an orange lipstick you can see swatches of all the different ones I own and decide if there's any you like :)
For starters here are my Barry M Lipstick swatches (some of these and some of the writing comes from an old post)

The swatches were done quickly, with no lipliner, lip primer and applied from the bullet (no lip brush) so if they're messy I apologise. Also some might be a little blurry, I've chosen the ones that show the colour the most accurately and in some cased out of focus shots I took were more accurate.

Actually some of them still aren't great, the camera I usually use is out of battery and we can't find the charger. I used my Mum's which, despite being much more expe nsive and in theory better, just completely sucks! Maybe I'll redo some of them when we find the good camera's charger.

I love Barry M and particularly their lipsticks. They're £4.49 each, come in over 30 colours ranging from the sillier ones like green, blue and black to more conventional reds, pinks and nudes. The formulas are mostly creamy and smooth, but there are some exceptions. Some of the more matte colours can be a bit dry (in my collection no. 147 Peachy Pink is the worst for this) and some of the others apply patchy. They're very long lasting and (generally) very true to colour and opaque. To me they don't seem to have any scent at all. I love them and suggest you pick up a few if there are colours that excite you!

Anyway on with the swatches!

No 37 - Black

 

More under the cut:

Eccentric Cosmetics swatches and review

Disclaimer: I was sent these products to review. However all thoughts are my own, this is a completely honest review.

I was sent these samples to review way back in the summer last year I feel absolutely terrible for not being able to write this sooner. Basically it's just been one thing after another! First of all I was trying out the products for a while. Then when I went to make swatches I discovered that the bag of samples had gone missing. When i eventually found it weeks later I took my photos, put them on the computer and in theory could write the post, it was the late autumn and, if anyone remembers, I sort of disappeared in then, only posting a few times a month (if that), not commenting on others blogs and so on. Then when I finally got my act together and was up to posting, the computer died.
Excuses, excuses, I know. I genuinely feel terrible. But anyway, there's nothing I can do now, so let's get on with the review!

Honestly when Anna contacted me and asked if I would review her shadows I wasn't sure I wanted to. The colours on the listings looked, quite frankly, dull. The colours all seemed to have a slightly dusty look about them. But I realised that i didn't actually have any of these neutral,  dusky colours, so i decided to give them a shot.
And again when my samples arrived (packaged nicely in a bubble mailer with handwritten note, candies and a lovely lipgloss as a present) they didn't really excite me. They all do just look a little drab in their baggies. But bizarrely when you swatch them something magical happens! The colours look much, much prettier on the skin! More complex, brighter, less grungy. For instance the colour 'Autumnal Crush' looks like a quite boring, matteish pale brown in the bag. In fact it looks like a flat brown oxide. But when you wear it it becomes a lovely dark, orangey gold colour with shimmer.
Now don't get any ideas, these aren't eye-searing bright colours, they are definately (for the most part) neutrals, but they're all really pretty and a lot less 'dusty' looking that the Etsy pictures or baggies appear.

Anyway here's swatches:

  

Dry and Dusty, Ted, Humanitarianism, Dawn Night, Hard Sun

  

Paradise Circus,  Rain Song, Heart Beats, Marble House, Love Generation

  

Wrecked Metal, Acid Drops, Tar Heart, Wolf

 

Heroine, Autumnal Crush, Weathered Stone, Geology, Magic of Metals

Here are the samples in their baggies:

 

Can anyone see what I mean about them looking 'flatter' in their bags than in the swatches.

As you can see, these shadows are not super complex, no multichromes for instance, but they're still lovely. I love complex colours of course, but that doesn't mean more 'simple colours' are bad in any way. Having said that, it would be nice to see some different finishes to the shadows. All of them had the same lightly shimmering finish, so it would have been nice to see some matte for instance.
These colours are most definately not repackaged.

My favourites are Wrecked Metal - a lovely aqua,  Hard Sun - a shimmery peachy, coraly, goldy colour and Dry and Dusty, Weathered Stone and Autumnal Crush - all goldish, sandy colours that make a fantastic Pin-up look when worn with black winged eyeliner.

I tested these for a while and found that I really liked the formula. They're smooth as butter to apply, blend beautifully and last for a really long time! I wore these all day once, without primer (I never remember to wear primer even though I own a few and know how much difference they can make!) and they lasted about 5 hours without fading, creasing etc. After 8 hours (when I went to take off my makeup) they had creased where my eyelid crease is, and faded a little, but it still looked alright. Very impressive. When I came to take them off the removed easily with makeup wipes.
Each sample is a 1/4 of a teaspoon (which is quite a lot, will last for many applications), in a small zip-lock bag with the name and ingredients.

So in conclusion I really liked these eyeshadows. While generally I prefer brightly coloured shadows, these are really lovely and make a lovely wash of colour, they're easy to apply and blend well. The only negatives I can think of are that they all have the same finish and it would be nice to have some brighter colours in with the neutrals.

You might have noticed that I'm using the word 'neutrals' very widely in this review. I can't think of a proper term for it. I mean they are not brights, but all the words that are antonyms have negative connotations like 'dull'. They're not dull, they're just... not bright!

I have just checked and I don't know what is happening but Eccentric Cosmetics has no items for sale in their etsy shop. I really hope this is just a temporary thing as they were really good products and she really didn't deserve to fail. And more selfishly, because I want full sizes of some of the products!
Because of this I can't tell you prices/sizes or information like that. Hopefully the shop will reopen and I'll keep you informed if possible.

More Birthday

I mentioned in my Cookie Monster post a few days ago that I was going to a friends birthday. I meant to post a picture, but forgot. Anyway I thought you should see because I look hilarious!

 

Me, Philippa (birthday girl), Xenia, Ian, Martin

I look absolutely terrified in every photo that was taken! Possibly because I was quite terrified, but it's still funny :P Also hellloooo double chin!

And I just thought I'd share, this was one of my presents for Philly:

I made her an adipose :)

I've had a horrible morning. My Mum had to wake me up to tell me that our Cat, Jimmy, had died. He was very old, 3 legged, deaf and going blind, but he was the nicest boy ever. Not a good week :(