Shiro cosmetics haul, swatches and review

I'm a little worried to post this review. Have you ever been in a situation where a friend has absolutely raved about something, whether it's a band or movie or whatever so you get really excited and have big expectations and then when you finally hear or see whatever it is you think it's good but not as amazing as your friend did? And then because you had such high expectations you're a bit disappointed, not because the thing was bad, but just because it's not as amazing as you were led to believe? (If you're a friend of mine you undoubtably know this feeling due to my hugely obsessive personality and the fact that I'll have attempted to make you watch Forbidden Zone repeatedly).
I don't believe I have ever seen a Shiro review with a single negative word spoken about the company. I've seen nothing but gushing support. Which is deserved! The products are good and Caitlin is a complete sweetheart. This isn't going to be a negative review at all, in fact it's nearly entirely positive, but I just wasn't 'wowed' by everything. I think this isn't down to the products being disappointing in any real way, just them being a little underwhelming to me when I've seen so many bloggers who are absolutely in love with Shiro.

Shiro is the first brand I've bought from that has a very very strong 'theme'. I've bought from places which have vague themes before (i.e. Evil Shades and Morgana have a 'gothy' theme, High Voltage and Hi FI Cosmetics have a 'rocker' theme etc.) but never one this blatant. Basically every piece of writing refers very obviously to it's geeky inspiration. I think this is part of Shiro's appeal, if you're into makeup and consider yourself a 'gamer' or 'geek' then this brand is probably right up your alley and very exciting. That being said I think the incredible strength of the branding could be a little alienating to people who are not into that scene. Personally I didn't feel one way or the other about it. I love the Super Effective collection because I've loved Pokemon since I was a wee girl, but I don't consider myself a gamer or 'geek' (I'm more of an arty muso ponce thing) and some of the references just went straight over my head. And by some I mean basically the entire Intertube line. I'd heard of Numa Numa and Rickrolling, but not a single one of the other memes referenced. It wasn't really a problem and didn't stop me from ordering or anything but I think I was missing some of the appeal. I guess the names act as a sort of in-joke and a way to bond with other customers and feel a kinship with Caitlin over your shared interests. So what is my point? I'm not sure really XD Basically I think that the very strong branding is a really good selling point for the brand, and sure to delight a lot of people, but I found some of it a bit baffling and felt a little stupid  and desperately out of the loop for not understanding the joke. However I'm overly sensitive and am most definately out of the loop :P

Having said that, my older sister is a huge gamer (she worked on the english translations of Final Fantasy XIII and Kingdom Hearts dontcha know) and when I showed her the site she was delighted, very excited by 'Leroy Jenkins' and as she spends a whole lot of her time holed up in her room playing Portal 2 I'm certain she would be all over the Science collection.

It's all down to personal preference. While I may not understand all the references, I can appreciate that the writing for every colour is very witty and fun with a lot of time and effort put in. And there's a lot of detail about the products, including ingredients, description of colour and any warnings (such as product staining, if it's lip safe etc) so it's not as if the copy is taking away from any important information. It wasn't enough to put me off ordering at all either. I just thought I'd mention it.

So I ordered:


1 Full Size Intertube - $6.50
1 Intertube sample- $1.80 (not in the picture)
5 mini size eyeshadow jars + stickers - $14.50 (2 not in picture)
10 eyeshadow samples - $9.00
and 1 Heart Container -$10.50
But I had a 15% off coupon so my order total came to $35.95 or £24.61.

(I ordered back when Shiro was still on Etsy, now there is a proper official website to order from instead)



The products were nicely shipped in the pretty bag you can see above and that was inside a bubble envelope. Along with my order I also recieved 3 free samples, 2 tasty little chocolates (which were eaten long before I could get around to taking the haul photo) and a business card :)

Shipping was exceedingly cheap at $3.50 from the US to the UK however it did take longer than the majority of other indie brands I've tried. I ordered on the 3rd of March and it arrived in the second week of April. Not terribly long, but longer than the average I've experienced with Indie companies which is about 2-3 weeks from ordering to recieving. I was slightly sad as I'd heard that their turnaround was super speedy and had ordered a couple of pieces for my sisters birthday (The 31st March) and it didn't arrive in time for that. That being said I never mentioned that to Caitlin so she had know idea I was hoping for it at a specific date. My own fault.

Right on to the product! The eyeshadows are first up, after the cut :)

Exciting stuff!

So for the last week or so I've been very excited about a new vlogging project. You may have seen posts about this on other peoples blogs as I've been being slow due to the various woes of the early part of this week. The fabulous Wendy from Turtle Beauty has set up a youtube channel for a group of beauty bloggers to collaborate with each other - The Makeup Heroes! And I am very honoured to be part of the group :)

Our youtube channel is here .You can see all the videos so far and information about all the bloggers involved there. Our first videos are introductions and 13 Questions Tags. Here's Wendy's intro and the intro to the whole channel:



And here's my video:



... Oh dear :P

Peoples videos are still going up so they'll be more to come soon. Please feel free to subscribe or comment :)

And the second exciting thing is this competition I heard about through Kimberly . Candace at Cinnamon Candies is asking for people to nominate their favourite bloggers to win the Cinnamon Candies Beauty Blog Awards!

' How would you like to win some awesome prizes from Darling Girl Cosmetics, Dark Heart DesignsEvil Shades just for being a beauty blogger? Here’s your chance. Susan from Darling Girl, Tina from Dark Heart Designs and Andrea from Evil Shades have all agreed to work with me to bring you all the “Beauty Blog Awards”. and
How does it work? Easy! Send me an email with your nominees in the following categories:

• Best swatches
• Best reviews
• Best eotd/fotd blog
• Best overall beauty blog
• and the fun category: Best indie make-up company!

Once the nominations close, nominees will be put to a vote. The winners will be announced and receive the awesome prizes from the companies mentioned above. Don’t worry, the winner of “Best indie make-up” will receive a lovely body pampering gift basket to give themselves a much needed break.'
(Taken from original competition post. You can find more rules and the email to vote on there :D )

I think this is just the sweetest, most lovely idea! It's so generous of Candace to have put this all together herself and such a nice way to build a community spirit among bloggers and indie brands. I'll be voting for my favourite blogs and it would be great if you did too!
(Please note I am not asking you to vote for me, vote for whoever you really feel is the best in those catergories! Not saying you shouldn't vote for me if you actually want to though! :P If I do happen to get nominated I will be incredibly honoured and grateful.)
You can even nominate yourself if you want to! (I'm tempted to because the prize sounds amazing, but I would feel too guilty XD)
Nominations close 7th July.

Anything else big and exciting happening in the blogging world that I've missed?

Things I want but can't afford number 1

Hullo everyone. I'm feeling a lot better today, the sun has gone in and though it's still rather hot the stormy weather has taken away my heat exhaustion. But I'm in quite a bad mood because of the ridiculous tribunal service I'm going through. A couple of weeks ago I was told that I shouldn't expect my appeal to be heard until mid December. Today a letter arrived saying in fact it would be happening mid august. While it will be great to get it over and done with this means I have less than 2 months to prepare and gather evidence and stuff :/

Anyway this is that start of a new regular (or I hope to be regular) feature 'Things I want but can't afford'. These are basically things I am lusting after but do not have the money to spend on them. 

So the first thing I am longing for but can't bring myself to buy is: 

Violent Lips!

If you've not heard of these then they are basically temporary tattoos for your lips. How cool is that? It means you can have lips with tiny hearts

Or polka dots

Or even amazing nautical stripes!

(all photos shamelessly nicked off Violent lips website)

I love bright and bold lips and sometimes like to do 'arty' things like heart shaped lips, or different shades on the top and bottom or even more complicate stuff but no matter how much lipcote I put on or how carefully I apply the lippie I always end up with a bit of colour blending or smudging or it just doesn't look great to begin with. I certainly would never do a look like that if I was going for a night on the town. So if these work they would be right up my street! An easy, quick way to get a neat patterned lip look. Most people would probably think these look too unusual or tacky or even downright freakish but I find them quite beautiful!

They cost $14.95 (or a few styles are only $9.99) for 3 applications and at the moment have free shipping and 20% off if you spend over $30. I see this price as neither hugely expensive nor cheap. While $15 may sound a large amount for something you can only wear 3 times I figure that these are mainly a novelty thing. I love bright, bold, stupid colour lips but even I wouldn't wear these just to go down the shops. They're meant to last 4-8 hours so they sound great for going dancing or to a party or something. And if you think like that $5 (i guess about £3) for a really fun look for a night out doesn't seem that bad.Well that is if they do indeed work!

Having said that I'm in no position to be spending $15 or even $10 on lip tattoos :( Maybe some day though!

More of my stupid face

I was going to finally finish writing one of my many review posts on the go. But yesterday I had to go for a picnic with my family (was my Dad's birthday) and despite sitting in the shade in my ludicrous new sunhat I managed to get either very mild sunstroke or heat exhaustion or something. I still feel awful and have been lying in dark rooms and having lukewarm baths all day. So I don't feel able to write properly.

So instead, have a lot of very old FOTDs. I've put in whatever makeup I can remember I was wearing, but unfortunately there isn't much! Enjoy! 

 

I know I was wearing my Illamasqua eyeshadow palette from the Dystopian collection but it doesn't say what the shade names are.

Glamracket

A few weeks ago we went to Glamracket again. It was a lot more fun that time as I didn't end up having a panic attack and crying (well I did but it was on the tube. I had fun at the actual club).

I decided to wear my sequin playsuit again as it's the glam-rockiest thing I own that fits me at the moment. It seemed to fit a lot better than last time (in fact it kept falling down) but I don't look any less poured into it :P

 

Here's my face. I actually did a video tutorial of this but haven't bothered editing it because it ended up just being a hideous mess of me dropping things and failing :P If anyone would like to see it then I will do it though :)

Wearing:

Face: Primark Prime of your life primer, GOSH x-ceptional wear foundation in Porcelain, ELF complexion perfection, Illamasqua Sin powder blusher, Shiro blush in Potion, Mac Wonder Woman blush in Mighty Aphrodite, Mac Cherry lip pencil, NYX Candy glitter Red, Hard Candy Bling Bling glitter, Hi Fi cosmetics glimmer gel in Superstar.

Eyes: High Voltage Cosmetics brow powder in Redhead, Illamasqua Medium pencil in Sophie, NYX cream glitter pallette, Fuschia/purple glitter from TKB Trading, Illamasqua pure pigment in Static, black mascara

Lips: Morgana Cryptoria lipstick in Valentine, Mac Dazzleglass in Funtabulous

Here is Claire looking pretty:

Here is my new friend Tom. He insisted I did his makeup (I was rather drunk, that's my excuse) but here he looks none too impressed.

 

And here's my bessie mate Xenia, Claire did her makeup.

We all had a real fun time jumping around to Glam rock hits.

And now some silly outtakes of me behind the cut.

Quickie

Update I mean not the other thing (I don't know, you kids and your filthy minds these days)
You may notice that after only about a day I've removed my donate button. While I don't see any problems with other people having one I realised that I wasn't comfortable with it myself. I'd rather just wait til our shop is up and then if you want to support me then you can buy something and get something in return. Blogging does take up some time and effort but I don't believe you guys should fund my obsession with cosmetics just because you like seeing my thoughts about them.
Of course if you want to support me and like my art I'm always open to commissions.
Thanks everyone, sorry for the many boring update posts that have been happening recently. I promise proper posts soon!

Why Claire won't shop at La Senza anymore

A short while ago Claire wanted to buy a new bra so she popped into La Senza, picked up her usual size, a 36C and went to try it on. It turned out to be too small, which she was wasn't surprised by as bra sizes tend to differ from shop to shop. Outside the dressing room 2 sales assistants were chatting, so Claire told her the bra was a bit small, that she usually wears a 36C and thought she'd need a bigger cup size. The assistant took one look at her, fully clothed and declared "there's no way you're a 36C in any shop. You're at least a 36F." Claire said that she'd never needed that size, that she'd been measured before and told she was a 36C and the vast majority of her bras are a 36C and fit her perfectly. But the assistant insisted she must be a 36F, that whoever had measured her before had managed to somehow be 3 cup sizes out and that she could now be measured 'correctly'. Claire said she'd rather not and left.

Now this may not sound that awful written down but the assistant was incredibly rude and patronising when she was talking to Claire. The assistants entire manner seemed to be trying to make Claire feel stupid and almost laughing at her for being so ignorant of her size. And insisting that all the 36C bras Claire owns from various brands must either be way off in size or not fit Claire properly when in fact they're fine.

Claire makes her own clothes, she knows her shape and size well and can measure herself. But she's been measured for a bra before because she deals more with dress sizes and trusts professional bra fitters, who have told her she's a 36C. She owns a lot of bras that are a 36C and fit fine. She's made her own bra before and, shock horror, turned out to be a 36C. And yet this person was insisting that she knew better when all she'd done is taken one look at Claire in a bulky jumper.

Claire is 5 foot nothing tall and pleasantly plump. On a 5 foot frame a 36C will look a lot bigger than on someone who is taller. For instance I'm about 5 foot 8 and have 36FF breasts and if you looked at both of us dressed I think my tits would only look a little bigger than Claire's because we have completely different frames. So it also upset Claire because it seemed like the assistant had made the assumption that because she's slightly overweight she must have a 'plus size' cup size.  (I.e. overweight people only wear plus sizes and 'normal' sized people only wear standard sizes which isn't true either way. And anything over a DD cup size is for fatties)

If Claire was a 36F that would make her basically the same size as me which is just laughable, I wish we were the same size so i could nick her clothes but unfortunately her dresses won't do the  whole way up on me as her full breast measurement is about 8 inches smaller than mine!

It's not that Claire really cares what her bra measurement is, if she really was a 36F she wouldn't care as long as the bra fitted. But you can't tell someone's wearing the wrong bra size by looking at them fully clothed (unless they're wearing something very close fitting and the bra is causing the breasts to look odd, neither of which was true in Claire's case). And it was the patronising, belittling way the assistant spoke to Claire, almost sneering at her.

The right way to handle the situation would be to say something like 'oh bra sizes do tend to differ, you may be a size or 2 bigger than usual in here, I could measure you to see or we could just try some different sizes to see what works on you' which would be polite and a lot more sensible than just saying 'you are wrong and whoever measured you is wrong and you're definately 2 sizes bigger than you think' which is really bad customer service!

And also La Senza do run small! Everyone I know who buys bras from there has to go up from their regular size. At one point I was actually a G in their sizes which I've neer been anywhere else.

I'm not saying I'm never going to shop there myself because I really like their bras (despite them being oddly sized) and swimwear. I find they give my boobs a nice shape and proper uplift. It's nice that they have a lot of really pretty 'fashion' bras that go up to a GG cup size. But it's definately left a sour taste in my mouth and I can absolutely understand why Claire is boycotting it.

What do you think? Would you be upset if you had a similar experience?

Thanks everyone!

Thank you everyone for your advice! I'll be replying to all of your individual comments ASAP :)
The general concensus seems to be 'Do what you want Lilzorz!'
So you may see I've made some changes to my layout, I think it looks nice now but if you have any suggestions I'm open to them!
I've added ads (thank you to anyone who clicks them for me!) and a donate button.
I know some people have problems with me asking for donations, and I'm sorry truly for that. If I lose followers over it I will understand and there's no hard feelings or anything. There is absolutely no pressure to donate, I'm not expecting many people to, but if anyone is generous enough to help me buy more things to review I will be delighted.
It's only temporary though, I will be getting rid of it as soon as my secret shop opens! 

So far the poll is saying that you like my blog as it is, with more fashion posts coming a close second. So I'll be keeping it basically the same but adding a few more outfits whenever possible. I'll be starting a new blog for tights but will occassionally post some posts here for anyone who doesn't want to follow that one as well :)
And blog sale will be put here, on a page thing. And I'll be contacting some brands to see if they would be interested in sponsoring a giveaway, I can only but try right? :)

Sorry I'm being a bit rubbish at posting recently. I'm doing that thing where I've got about ten different posts all semi written and I flit between them all and so never complete any! 

Advice please

So, like I said in my last post, I have no income (I get about £40 a month working for my sister, which just covers my mobile bill and pet insurance). Claire and I are still working really hard on our secret project which we hope to launch by August and that should bring in a bit of pocket money (hopefully!) but in the meantime I just can't afford much of anything. It's getting to be really depressing as I can't afford to pay my Mum rent and Claire has had to put the vast majority of funds towards our project as well as buying lots of things for me. I really hate to even think about it, but how would you feel if I had ads or a paypal donate button on my page? Please be completely honest, if you hate that idea and think I'm being greedy just say, I won't be offended at all. Also I've accepted some things for review recently, which I've always done, I've just got more offers recently but I assure you I will always tell the truth about my feelings for the product and always point out what was sent to me. I will never accept sponsored posts because they give me a funny feeling.
I've also been thinking about giveaways. I've wanted to do one for ages and infact have a few tiny bits and bobs stashed away but couldn't actually afford the shipping overseas at the minute (and I don't really have enough for a good giveaway at the moment anyway). I've never approached anyone asking them to send me products to review (in fact I have no idea how one would go about doing that!) but have been wondering about asking some companies if they would be interested in sponsoring a giveaway. What are your opinions on that?
I'm going to do a big blog sale soon, would you prefer it to just be on this blog or do you prefer it when people have specific sale blogs? 
Also in one of my recent posts  I asked about making a separate blog about hosiery. A lot of people said I should just post them here, I still think I'll make a separate blog because I've been wanting to post about tights for ages and never got around to it. I think having a blog that will be only for tights will give me the incentive to actually take some photos and make posts, otherwise the blog will shrivel up and die :P But people's reactions got me thinking about what you might like to see on this blog. At the moment it's almost entirely about cosmetics with a few fashion bits now and again. So I've put a little poll up there if you';d like to see any changes.
And how would you feel about some weekly posts? I used to do 'Muso Mondays' about my favourite bands but that shrivelled up and died :P I was thinking about things like a weekly post of things I'm lemming, or a favourite product of the week or something like that. How do you feel about those sort of regular posts? Or any suggestions for posts like that you'd be interested in?
Thanks for any comments you have for me!
(all comments from recent posts have been replied to now!)

First proper haul in aggggeeessss!

At the moment I still have basically no income (should have some basic ESA reinstated but the DVLA forgot about it -__-) so I can't really afford to buy makeup or clothes or other nice luxuries. I still make some very small purchases occaisionally but they are few and far between. I'm also currently having some problems leaving my house, so Claire decided to take me out shopping and buy me some presents. We went to Kingston. I was very anxious and had some real difficulties but in general I had a lovely time, Claire was really good at looking after me and calming me down and she was really generous! I got lots of goodies and technically only spent £2 of my money! I felt accomplished afterwards.

Claire also decided I needed to have my picture taken. I'm not sure why, I didn't look particularly nice! And yet I am sharing for some reason :P

 

It doesn't look it in the photo but it was too bright for me to see, which is why I'm pulling a silly face.

And I like this photo because it's just like this one from about a year ago when we first got Weevil :) Yet again it looks like I'm strangling him when I'm not, and he's a lot bigger of course!

And the other day Jesus appeared in my cooking!

 

It's Jesus or some kind of crab-beast anyway :P

Now please follow under the cut if you wish to see my haul. 

(Almost) Free nail polish :)

Hi everyone, sorry you've probably had this post pop up a lot on your blogroll over the last few days! But incase you haven't I'm sharing this deal.

I was sent these 2 lovely polishes by Sammy from Jam (thanks Sammy!). One - Atomic is a beautiful, nearly neon orange (possibly a dupe or similar to Illamasqua's Gamma) and the other - OMP! (Oh My Pink!) is a bright pink.

You can get them yourselves for (almost) free by picking up The News of the World on sundays. You need to collect 3 vouchers printed over the next 4 weeks from Fabulous magazine (The first voucher is released tomorrow 19th June) then take the vouchers to Tesco and redeem them for the polishes between the 3rd and 11th of July.

So they're not completely free (unless you already buy the News of the World on sundays) as you need to buy 3 issues of the paper. But I guess that will come to about £3 and the polishes are worth £22. Plus there are codes on the back of the polish box for 20% off at the Nails inc website. Plus you can get a half-price manicure at participating Nails Inc Salons. So it's a really good deal as long as you like the colours :)

I've never tried Nails Inc polishes before so this is a great opportunity to pick up something out of my usual price range. However I have some similar colours already, so there may well be a little giveaway coming up (when I can afford postage :( )

You can see some lovely swatches and a brief review of the polishes at Get Gawjus' blog here

a FOTD and some recent nails

I've finally caught up on replying to comments! Woooo! My Makeup Critic rant took quite a while because all of you guys were great and had really good things to say :)

Here's a simple FOTD from a little while back. I know my lipstick is Topshop's Brighton Rock which is a fantastic coraly-pinky colour. It reminds me of Barry M Flamingo Pink polish. Other than that it's just some black eyeliner, mascara and some sort of pink blush. I need to start making little lists of what I'm wearing when I take photos!                                   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

 

 

I have wet hair, which is why it looks so weird. I can't explain the mental look in my eyes though :P

And now for some nice manicures I've done recently. I have terrible looking nails because I have a nervous habit of ripping off my cuticles and the skin around my nails. I'm trying to keep my nails polished at all times because it means I'm less likely to do it and ruin my polish!

This is 2 coats of Barry M Fuschia and then about a million coats of Barry M Once Upon a Time. It was incredibly irritating as the glitter polish seemed to take hours to dry so I kept smudging, but it was oh so worth it!

 

Flash:

 

This is 3 coats of Accessorize Pink Spice polish (it only needed 2 to be opaque but I added an extra 

layer just because) it's an amazing red/copper/pink metallic multichrome colour. You can see a bit of tipwear but these photos were taken after 4 days of wear and there was no chipping :) I tried my best to get good photos of the colour shift, but it's much more beautiful in real life.

 

  

This is 3 coats of China Glaze Light as Air (again it only really needed 2 coats) and 1 coat of Barry M  Lavender Hexograms. I applied this one horribly, you can see a huge dent in one nail :P

And finally this is 2 coats of Sinful Colours Let's Meet, 1 coat of China Glaze Lighthouse and 1 coat of China Glaze Crackle Glaze in Fault Line. I love crackle polish, it's such a quick and lazy way to get an interesting and arty looking manicure :P

What are you wearing on your nails at the moment?

I want to start a hosiery blog because I own so so many pairs of tights and stockings and socks and never get round to wearing the vast majority of them. I thought a blog would be a good incentive for me to wear more of them. I can't think of a good punny name though, so far people have suggested:

Stocking Filler, Funny Face Lovely Legs, Tight Spot and just Lillian's Lovely Legs 

do you have any ideas? :)

Do my work for me so I don't  have to do anything crazy like make my own decisions!

Easter Face and Stylish Blogger award

This was my face on Easter Day. Yes, yes I am stupidly slow at posting, but I've actually got ones from over a year ago now that I still haven't put up. I SUCK!

 

 I'm wearing Sugarpill Paperdoll and Birthday Girl, a lime green Avon liquid eyeliner (name has rubbed off), High Voltage Cosmetics Eyebrow Powder in Redhead and OCC Lip Tar in Vapid. I can't remember anything else. 

Also I was tagged by the lovely Miss Bekka to do this Stylish Blogger award :) I love doing these things. I know I've probably missed tags in the past, so if you ever tagged me and I didn't do it then I'm sorry! I just tend to save things in tabs or my favourites and then forget about them because, as I said, I SUCK!

Anyway here are the rules for this one:

General rules of the award(s):
1.  Thank the person who gave you the award(s) and link back to them in your blog.
2.  Tell everyone 7 things about yourself (per award).
3.  Tag more bloggers for the award(s).
4.  Contact those bloggers to let them know they’ve been tagged.

I'n never keen on tagging people because I feel really anxious that I'll offend people I don't tag! So while I am only tagging Carla and Georgina please know that I think everyone I follow is super stylish :)

Ok so 7 facts about me:

1. I have a birthmark at the top of my left breast. It's sort of a triangle but with an odd top, so I like to call it heart shaped :P

2. I don't know how to ride a bike. I never really learned as a kid (I could ride but only with stabilisers :P) and though I'd really like to learn I'd be too embarrassed and self concious to now. If I could I would get a chopper!

3. I have quite a good singing voice, but only when I'm drunk (but not toooo drunk) or if noone else is around. Otherwise I'm too self concious and deliberately do a sort of weird comedic voice.

4. I'm honestly not sure what colour my hair is naturally now. I haven't had more than about an inch of roots since I was about 12. And my roots used to be darker than the rest of my hair. Anyway it used to be a dark blonde colour, and I imagine it still is, but I can't be sure.

5. I'm allergic to pineapple, kiwi fruit and a certain E number or something. Well I don't know what it is, I assume it's an e number. It's in pear drops, Apple Jolly Ranchers and some ice lollies. When I eat any of those things my tongue starts itching like crazy and I start choking. I'm also allergic to ant bites, they make me swell up in odd little cones.

6. I managed to insult Thomas Dolby via an old blog I had. Another claim to fame is that Harry Hill once called me a 'weird kid'.

7. Until I was about 6 or 7 I had quite an odd and sever speech impediment. I had a terrible lisp and could not pronounce 'K' or 'L'. I would say things like 'snate' instead of snake and I couldn't pronounce my name at all. I would say my name was 'Yeeyan' and people would think I was some weird girl called Ian. I also have a vivid memory of some adults (friends of my parents) laughing hysterically as I told our dog to 'sit' because my lisp made me pronounce it as 'shit'. I had no idea what they were laughing at.

So that's some stuff about me! Tell me things about you :)

The Makeup Critic

You may have seen this blog on some posts already. Basically it's some horrid person insulting beauty bloggers because they dare not do their makeup how it 'should' be done. It's stupid and mean and basically pointless except for insulting people for spurious reasons like their nails aren't absolutely perfectly manicured.

The writer is not a proper makeup artist or cosmotologist (though apparently her and doesn't seem to know much about makeup herself. She doesn't share any of her own looks, and the only tips she gives are tired old beauty 'rules' you read in every magazine, dictating what makeup should be like. And some of her advice is just incorrect.  The blog is not helpful, it's just mean. 

But.... God is it funny.

I can understand why some of my featured friends found the nasty criticism written about them hurtful, it really is horrible that someone would take the time to just criticise and bitch about things like that. But... God it's so stupid and funny!  She knows NOTHING! She's basically insulting beauty bloggers without even understanding what beauty blogs actually do. And she has very limited knowledge about actual beauty practices. She doesn't know what the point of 

FOTDs is, doesn't know why someone would show nail polish swatches, doesn't know what a cut-crease is, think nails breathe, etc etc.

What I find particularly funny is that the writer has only the shakiest grasp of the English language. The blog reads like one of those spam emails about a Nigerian dictator leaving you money in their will. Now I don't think there's anything wrong with not knowing English perfectly, God knows I couldn't write anything in a different language, but when your entire blog is basically saying 'you shouldn't write a blog about things you're not a complete expert at' then the ridiculous grammar mistakes and incorrectly used words sort of work against that point :P Her overuse of 'qualitative' is particularly hilarious, she doesn't use it correctly a single time! Some sentences are completely incomprehensible.

It's also funny because, like I said earlier, she doesn't actually seem to know a lot about makeup. Lots of her 'tips' are either incorrect or just stupidly dated. And the thing I find funniest is that she claims her posts are good for the bloggers they insult. That she's just kindly giving them some tips.

Criticism as a whole is not bad. Constructive criticism can be very helpful, and even vital. And I have no problem with snark, where the criticism isn't really constructive but it's used for humour. There's also a lot to be said for criticism where it's really deserved, towards liars, cheats and so on. But this blog is is just bitchiness, aimed at people who haven't done anything wrong, very poorly disguised as advice.

The whole point of her 'critiques' (which is really just her excuse for writing a blog full of petty insults) is that if you're not an expert you shouldn't do tutorials, or even just share your makeup, which really goes against the whole idea of beauty blogging. Of course there are some professional makeup artists who have blogs, but the majority are girls who just love makeup and want to share what they love, what works for them and any tips they might have. I actually prefer reading blogs written by non-professionals because I'm not a makeup artist myself. My needs are different than what a makeup artist needs and my skill with makeup is nowhere near their level, so it would be very difficult to pull off a lot of professional techniques and looks. So I prefer to read advice from people like me, who just have a passion for painting their face and whose looks I might actually have a chance of replicating. If only experts are allowed to blog there would be basically no baking blogs (only bakers could share recipes), no weight-loss blogs (only professional fitness instructors should write diet advice) and only a few makeup blogs, most of which would use products out of my price range.

She also thinks that if your makeup is 'perfect' then you have no right to be showing it at all.

I am under no illusions that my makeup is 'perfect'. I very rarely do tutorials because I do not feel that I am qualified to tell people how to do their makeup as I'm well aware that I don't know how to do everything in the 'proper' way.  I do it how it works for me, whether that means using a tiny concealer brush to apply my foundation, occassionally using sponge applicators, wearing colours that don't quite suit my skintone or forgoing eye primer because I am forgetful and damn lazy. Why do I share it at all then? Because I want to. It's fun. I don't expect anyone to look at my blog and assume I am a proper makeup artist and they should be copying my looks. But I think some of my ideas are fun and interesting and mostly I just share because this is MY BLOG. It's a personal thing for me to do what I want and I'm not ashamed to show how I look.

And what exactly is 'perfect' makeup? I would say my favourite makeup artist is Alex Box, I think her looks are just stunning. Look at this:

I would say this is 'perfectly done'. But I'm sure lots of people would disagree. It's over the top and fantastical and it would be hard to find an occaision suitable for such a look.

Wayne Goss just today said that to him this is 'perfect':

The skin is flawless and the look is natural and conventionally attractive. But to me it's a little dull.

Maybe my friend Mikey's makeup is perfect?

...Ok so that's a no :P

But my point is, if makeup is an 'art' as the blogger claims, then there cannot be any 'perfect' makeup. Art is by it's own nature subjective. Everyone has different ideas on what is 'good' art and NO-ONE'S opinion is correct.

There is no such thing as 'perfect'. There is no such thing as 'normal'. Everything is subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 

And even if there was such a thing as perfection, the idea that you shouldn't share things because they're not perfect is moronic. Where would we be in life if everyone acted like that? No-one would share ideas, they'd basically be no art, music, film etc. Also how will you ever become better at what you do if you don't share? As an artist I know my work isn't perfect, but I'm still going to show it to people and appreciate the compliments I get and think about the constructive criticism I'm given. If I'd never shared anything I would never have grown.

When she discusses the fact that makeup shouldn't have rules she says: “Yes, make up has no strict rules, but there are some guidelines to help avoid the most serious mistakes and did not look ridiculous and unnatural.” (although she then goes on to say some bloggers have failed the 'rules')

But I WANT to look ridiculous and unnatural! A mistake for me would be 'my lips but better' lippie on,  french tipped nails, brown mascara etc because I wouldn't feel pretty or comfortable. But is that sort of makeup a mistake for everyone? Of course not.  Do what you want, it's your face! Makeup is worn for so many different reasons, you can't apply the same rules of makeup to, for instance, a drag act or performance artist than you can to a woman who just wants to look good for work. And there should be no rules anyway. NONSENSE NONSENSE NONSENSE!

In a way I don't want to feed the troll by posting this and pointing you towards the blog, but some of the comments on her blog are wonderful, heartwarming and exciting. 

If you've been featured on her blog, or if it happens in the future, I can imagine how hurtful it would be, but try and look at it this way: How much bravery does it take to start a blog, never show any of your own work and basically anonymously (while her name is there there is no indication it's her, any talk of her life and the photo thats supposed to be her looks very much like a stock image) slag people off? She's not doing anything constructive, she's just insulting people who dare to put their faces out in the world and share their creativity. 

All the people she's insulted have thousands of followers and huge amounts of postive comments, so obviously they're doing something right! All she's got is a bunch of people who hate her for being a nasty critical person. Also seeing as she's so mean we have an excuse to laugh at her amazing destruction of the English language. 

I really hope that she genuinely doesn't understand how meanspirited and bitchy she comes across as and that after she's read all the comments on her blog she will rethink what she's doing. If not then she's just an idiotic butthole.