Lillian Loves - Illamasqua

 

Why I love Illamasqua:

(Well apart from the products)

 I love the whole idea behind the brand, makeup dedicated to art and creativity rather than simply looking how society dictates we should look to be percieved as attractive. I love the themes behind the collections which always have a real story, not just 'we like spring'.  I love the sleek, classy packaging and innovative, stunning images. I love their connection to the SOPHIE charity.

But most of all I love them because, to me at least, they are quite possibly the nicest makeup brand I've encountered.

For about a week the brand had a great online sale so I bought some bits, mainly nail polishes (I'll show you what I got later :D ). Between the time I made my order and my products were packaged for shipping 2 things I had ordered became out of stock. most companies would have probably just sent an automatic refund and generic apology. Not so with Illamasqua. I recieved an email informing me and apologising but giving me several options. Either I could have a refund or an exchange of product.

And the exchange was fair! INSANELY fair!

Ok so I ordered a nail polish (I believe it was Fern) for £5 in the sale It was out of stock so I was offered a refund or an exchange for Force nail polish (as it was in the same colour family) I already own Force so I asked if there were any other alternatives. They said sure, I could have another nail polish of my choice.... Not just another nail polish for the same price from the sale, ANY polish that was instock. For the £5 price to apologise for any inconvinience.

I also ordered a special set they had called 'Boo!' which contained both Baptiste nail polish and a special glitter colour called Boo for just £10. As Boo is only available in the set and Baptiste costs £13.50 on it's own it was a really great deal and I was delighted to get it. Sadly the set became out of stock too. So I was offered a few choices. I could get Baptiste + the base coat, Baptiste + Harsh or Baptiste + Prism or just a refund. I chose to try the base coat. So I got a £10.50 base coat and a £13.50 polish for just £10. AWESOME!

As if that wasn't great enough I later discovered a message on my answer phone from them, so they really had gone to great lengths to inform me of the problem and did everything in their power to fix it.

You may have seen on other blogs that last week they had a blogger event to celebrate the launch of their new collection Theatre of the Nameless (which looks amazing, I really wish I had the money to get some of it, there's stuff I'm longing to try out!). I was invited but because my anxiety is so bad at the moment I had to decline. Looking at all the posts it seems like it was an amazing event and I'm sad I wasn't well enough to go :( Anyway when I explained I couldn't make it Hayley Smith (who is Illamasqua's marketing assistant) replied and was so so sweet. She said she was sorry I couldn't make it but completely understood and said she wouldn't want me to do anything that would make me uncomfortable. But then she said that if I felt up to it I could pop into the shop in September with a friend so she could show me the collection, or we could even go get a coffee together to discuss it, whatever would be best for me. As it is I probably am not well enough to do any of that just now but the offer is so so lovely and really heartwarming.

I haven't loved every single product of theirs I tried (though a lot are among my holy-of-holies) but it's things like this that make me love Illamasqua and make me want to buy from them again and again. They've gone above and beyond to make sure I am happy. It really really makes me feel appreciated, not just as a customer or blogger but as a person.

Lillian Loves... her Tangle Teezer!

 So this is going to be a new semi-regular feature, called Lillian Loves. I never get around to posting my  monthly (or even yearly :/) favourites posts, so this is sort of my alternative. I'll just be posting certain items that I've been loving recently and why.

So the first item is the glorious Tangle Teezer. Sure it may feel incredibly light and cheap and look like something you'd use to groom a horse with, but it is the best darn hairbrush I have ever used!

I've sung the praises of this thing before but only recently have I realised just how much I've come to depend on it. My hair is a bit on the thick side, curly and naturally forms tangles and even huge dreadlock-like matts if left to it's own devices (by which I mean if it's not combed, I do wash my hair... on ocassion :P). And for the last few weeks I've been leaving it to it's own evil devices. Why? Well because Claire and I managed to lose both our  Tangle Teezers a few months ago. At first I tried to keep my hair in check with other brushes and combs but it hurt too much and I couldn't work through my tangles at all because I'd just end up ripping out the tangles and huge chunks of my hair along with them. Luckily I found some styling mousse that stops the tangling a bit and makes my hair into big chunky curls so I gave up trying to brush it and just used that. But today I discovered that Claire had bought a new holy-of-holies! 

Using it was just great. When it runs through my normal hair it's just fab, it easily, quickly and painlessly gets rid of small tangles and the rest of my insane frizz. After washing my hair this morning I was left with three huge matts that I thought even the pink plastic beauty couldn't handle. And it took a little time, and a little wincing, but I got those matts detangled without pulling half my hair out!


Also back before I lost the first 2 and was using one religiously, I swear it made a difference to my hair's texture. It became much less prone to matting and just felt and looked a bit smoother and softer. I don't know how it happened, it could be a coincidence as my more recent hair growth hasn't been damaged by bleach like the ends have. But I do think that using the Tangle Teezer made at least a little difference. And even if it didn't I'd still love it because it's the only hairbrush I've ever found that is practically painless for me to use (it's painless unless I have a big matt)

(my family calls hair matts 'sheep knots', which I thought was normal but after googling it, it appears that noone else uses that expression! Bloody family slang)

Claire has also grown to love the Teezer. She wanted to weigh in with her opinions. It really sounds like a cheesy advert but it's what she thought!:

'Since bleaching about 8 years ago and not stopping to let my poor hair recover since, a particular section of my hair near my hairline on both sides of my head keeps breaking off and never gets longer than about 2inches long. Since I started using the Tangle Teezer, those little bits have actually started to grow, and look a lot less frizzy than they used to. And since I'm pretty horrible to my hair, if the Tangle Teezer can do that singlehandedly, I never want to be without one!'

So yeah, I love this guy.

*despite the ridiculous gushing this is all my own thoughts, I bought this myself and have recieved no form of compensation for writing this post. I just really love this!*