Nails shouldn't be lilac!

Someone saw this colour on my nails the other day and said in horror "your nails just shouldn't be purple!!!"...

Barry M 308 Berry £2.99 (how is this a berry colour?)

1) This is lilac and 2) I happen to like this colour very much, thank you :)

I've been thinking about getting this colour for a while now and last wee when I was in Superdrug I noticed that Barry M nail polishes were on 3 for 2 so I grabbed this one and 3 others (the woman at the counter collared me into buying the forth so my total would be over £10 and I'd get 100 beauty points :s).

I really like this and am glad I got it. I find that Barry M polishes can either have really great opacity, only taking 2-3 coats to get a brilliant finish, or be quite sheer and take 4-5, which the last oats taking a while to dry. This polish is one of the better formulas, you could get away with 2 coats if you were in a hurry :)

It's a lovely pinky lilac and although not very autumnal, it makes me happy!

Shiro cosmetics: my thoughts

Surprising as it may seem,  I've never bought from an indie company, though I have looked through a lot of indie websites and picked out things that I liked.

One of the things which holds me back is that a lot of companies use Paypal. I can completely understand why - it's safer and easier for both parties - but I've had problems every time I've used Paypal so I tend to steer clear of it now. 

That said, my first experience with indie makeup has been a good one.

I ordered on a Sunday (I believe, I can't remember clearly) and about 10 days later my package arrived. I was impressed with this as Shiro is based in the states and I always expect packets from there to take weeks to get here. It came well packed and slealed, and when I opened it up I was delighted to see the inner packaging:

I'm a massive sucker for packaging on anything, and I liked the little touch. She could have just plonked it in a plain bag, but chose to use these instead.

What i got in my order is as follows (left to right):

Pigments: 

• S.S. Anne
• Midna
• Majora's mask
• Veran
• Deku
• Mew

I got these in the mini size because I didn't want to buy full size ones and not like them. I have so much eyeshadow and you use so little of the pigment that I thought that I wouldn't use a whole full size jar unless I really really loved the colour ;) The mini sizes are very fairly priced as well, which meant that I could try more colours!

Intertube sample:

• Leeroy Jenkins (I honestly didn't look at the name of this till I got it but it certainly did make me grin when I saw it ;)

I got this in the sample size because I simpally didn't know if I'd like the product and didn't want spend £4 for the full size when I may never use it. Fortunatly, I love the product, so will be purchasing more at some point in full size ;)

Free sample baggies:

• Moosh
• Epona 

I like the little token here, and it's something you won't often get with a corporate brand. The only one I can think of off hand is Lush, but only after you'e spend half your weeks wages on soap and bubble bars that you don't really need! I like the shades I was sent and you get a reasonable amount in the baggies. I'm going to need to find something to depot them into though, as I hate fiddling about trying to fit a brush into a small bag with one hand, whilest holding it open with the other and praying that you don't drop pigment everywhere! I'm clumsy :s

As for quality, I'm very pleased! I wasn't expecting anything horrific, but I didn't bargain on the amount of shimmer and glitter that would pick up on the eye with the pigments. I've got a few pigments that look beautiful in the pot, but don't last on the eye very long at all. These aren't at all like that, the glitter stays for a fair enough of time and doesn't simpally just drop off after 10 minutes. The only down side to this being that you do get some fall out, but all you need to do is be careful and you're fine.

In shade

In the sun, the colours don't all show up very true in the, but you d get an idea of how glittery they are!

Over all, I'm very pleased with my Shiro experience! Nothing went wrong with the payment, my package didn't get lost or take forever to arrive, and I didn't get charged a fuck load of customs (which is another thing I'm always afraid might happen when I order from the states :s). I with be buying from Shiro again and will do a more in-depth review when I've tried more of their products and for a longer period of time. I just wanted to share with you briefly, my first thoughts and opinions :)

An early birthday present!

It's my birthday tomorrow, but my boyfriend (Jorge) gave me this present early ^.^

I do believe that it's a 96 palette and the colours are really pretty! I'm not sure that it's cruelty free, but I can't really blame him for that as he doesn't really know much about what I look for in makeup!

I wanted one of these last year, but didn't  get one. Some of the colours are a little chalky (mainly the mattes) but others are really good!

The pans aren't really that big, but that's not too bad for me. It means that I'm more likely to use up an eyeshadow, rather than just leaving it to rot in the pan while I try to use up other shadows!

I thought it was a really nice gesture from someone who has no clue about makeup, and something I'm going to use :)

Makeup on a train!!

At 7am last Firday, I boarded a train to Reading. Myself and a colleague were being sent as extra staff for a Bar in Reading because it was the festival weekend. The night before I hadn't gone to sleep untill 2am and had been working all day/night. So you can see this is going well.
To save some time and get me a few minutes more in bed, I decided to do my makeup on the train, which takes half an hour to get to Reading from where I live.

This is what I took with me, in various pockets of my bag, as I didn't manage to find a makeup bag that would fit in my handbag :s

• Collection 2000 foundation (Ivory) 
• Elf eye primer
• MUA face powder (shade 1? It's the lightest one)
• Elf all over cover stick (Sand beige)
• Sleek storm palette (I will be talking about this in a upcoming video, it's been a staple this month)
• An old Rimmel* mascara (I know it's bad to keep them for long periods of time, blah, blah... but my sieve brain forgot that I needed mascara when I went shopping ;)
• Elf studio C brush
• Elf blending* brush
• Elf kabooki (face)

Now I don't have a picture of my final face, as I forgot when I got off the train and by the time I remembered I'd just finished a 9 hour shift so it didn't look as good (we'd also had a few free beverages ;). But the makeup wasn't half bad for something that took me 15 minutes in a moving train and had to last all day!

So the moral of the story is, if you really want to spend more time in bed and have to tralvel, take your makeup with you xD

Oh dear me!

You see... I've been slacking... Mainly on YouTube, but I don't think I've ever been this bad on my blog before, even though i'm not a really regular poster :s
But, as always, I have some excuses:

• I'm working 49 hours this week. As I'm now one of the most experienced there, I'm called on a lot to cover for people and do shifts where I'm on my own, which newbies can't do.
• New boyfriend. Takes up a fair amount of time!
• I haven't been getting on with my mum, for various reasons and so I've been spending a lot of time away from home

While I can't make videos at my boyfriends house, I can blog as I almost always have my laptop, so I will start trying to blog more!
I don't have much to bog about today, however I am thinking about getting Gel Nails!

I've thought about this before, but decided that i'd rather have natural.... I've since realised that I can't keep naturally long nails due to my job/horses/photography, so I'm thinking gel is the way forward, seeing as I don't have very good nails anyway. I wouldn't get them really long, because although they look amazing, they'd annoy me too much! I'm thinking of just a french tip so that I can paint over it. I love the glittery/intricate designs you can get, however I like to change my nails a lot, so it would drive me mental!
Let me know about your experience with gel nails and if you think I should get them. I also can't find much out about prices, so an idea of that would be good too!

If you're wondering :)

Now, I realise that I'm not really a consistent blogger, I am however very regular with my Youtube.
Just recently some... things... have been going on in my life. Please don't think that they're all negative things, I just need time and space to be able to think and Youtube and makeup will take a back seat for a bit.
I got a job in a bar/pub and have to do a lot of memorising for that. We're also going to start our last unit for this year of my course and I want to get the highest grade for it if I can. There are also some more personal things that I won't go into ;)

I do have a video to post which I recorded last week. I may also do an April favourites, but it depends on how I feel. I don't want to seem uncomfortable in my videos, so we shall see.
I'm not going to stop making videos, but I want to be really enjoying what I'm doing and not be distracted, like I am at the minute.
Thank you everyone for the support. I think that doing Youtube is partly what helped me get this job because I can now talk to people better than I could before (sounds weird I know).

Thanks again, I promise I'll be back soon xxx

Cutest things EVER!!!

Some of you may know that my rat had babies (kittens). You can hear them in my recent videos! ^.^
I know I said that I was going to put up pictures AGES ago but it's really hard to get good pictures of them, and I didn't want to interfere too much in the first week.

I did however get some pictures at about 3 days (this is basically how they look them they're born, except they're smaller and pinker. They've started to get markings here.)

 

I didn't want to take pictures while holding them till they were a little older, I only held them to check them over very quickly at this stage... This is at one week:  

 

They've started to go fuzzy (they're born completely fur less) and they're markings are very clear.

 

This one is SO CUTE!

 

They're now 10 days old, more fuzzy with bigger noses! 

Of course I'll keep you posted :)

Now something you may not know, is that one of our dogs has also had babies!!

They're 2 weeks old in these pictures and have started to open their eyes! I took pictures of the black one because she was the first and only one at the time to open her eyes fully. They all have their eyes open now :)

They're Chihuahua's if anyone was wondering (not my first choice of dog, but my mum likes them because they're small).

She did have 4, but one was born with a cleft palate and wasn't eating enough get grow and get strength. By the 2ed evening he was so small that my mum decided to feed him by hand every hour and  took him to the vet the next morning. But unfortunately he died whilst he was there. He started having a fit and they took him off to be resuscitated but couldn't do enough. He had a lot of milk on his lungs because he hasn't developed correctly. They said it might've been because she had so many, normally Chihuahua's only have 2 pups at a time!
Either way, they're all so lovely ^.^
I'll be sure to take video and put them up on my other channel when they start to walk, they're not all that interesting to watch right now because all they can do is crawl around (my mum says they're swimming on air!), sleep and eat.

Sleek Paraguaya palette

I think I'm starting up a collection of these things!
My boyfriend very kindly insisted that he buy me this palette after he saw me ogling it in Superdrug!


Here's some different pictures I've taken of it.. I feel like a lot of pictures I've seen online are a  little darker than the palette actually is!
Hopefully these here look a little more true to life :)

 

Something I find really cute about this palette is that it comes with a little name sheet :) I know that the perminent palettes don't have this, but I can't remember if the Circus palette had this...

I also think the packaging is really cute :)

 

The Naked palette: my experience.

I will do a video about this that better outlines why I chose the Naked palette, this is just some pictures and brief thoughts on it.

I thought about getting this palette back when it was released, but held back because I really don't wear neutrals that much. However I do need a job and I would like to be able to wear makeup where ever I work. I do have some neutral palettes (like the eBay one) but that's not necessarily very consistent in quality and I feel guilty/weird using it because I don't know where it came form.
That said, I decided that I would save up and treat myself to Naked.

It took me about 2 months to find somewhere that stocked it (I'll go into this more in my video), I resorted to checking the Debenhams and House of Fraser websites every evening because from what I could make out that's what other people were doing too.
It was still luck that i got it though, seeing that it was in stock for a whole 12 hours!

I was very excited for it to arrive and when it did come no one was in, so my mum very kindly took me to get it from the Post office after college.

 
This is the package it came in. I took this picture in the car because I knew that I wouldn't have the patience once I got home!

 I've had it for a week now, and so far I like it. The shadows are really nice! Very pigmented (though what else would you expect?) and I really like the different finishes. For the moment I particularly like Sidecar, which has little bits of glitter in it! I've heard some people complain about this, but in my opinion it would be too much like Sin if there were no glitter.

 

I don't have a problem with fall out, I know some people do. I think it's because I'm used to using loose pigments which can have a lot of fall out, so maybe it's just the way I apply eyeshadow in general now that prevents me from getting really bad fall out.

There are a few things which I don't like about the palette which I'll go over in my video, but there's one thing that I want to bring attention to here too. That is the packaging. I quite like Urban Decays normal packing, it's different and fun. But I am a very artsy person so I enjoy it looking different.
I don't necessarily dislike the design of the Naked palette, but I really, really, really hate the velvety covering they've used on it! Granted, it's a nice touch, but as others have mentioned, it's likely to get things stuck to it.
Now I have a few jewellery boxes with this material on them, so I knew what would happen and I wasn't looking forward to it...

 

This is after about 5 days, I haven't handled it excessively or put it in a very dust place, just on my shelf.

DUST! My room is very dusty, I think it's something to do with the rats but no matter how much I dust there's still loads. The palette, like my jewellery boxes, is covered in dust which sticks to it and won't come off. It really irritates me to see it!! It's fairly easy to remove with some gaffer tape, but I don't have time to do that every few days.
Now I might have a ridiculous amount of dust in my room, but this is going to be a problem to everyone eventually and I just don't think it was very well thought out!

So, I like the palette, I just don't think it should be held in such high regard!

Naked palette vs. Storm palette

A subscriber commented on my haul video where I showed the Naked palette and said that she really wanted it but didn't think she's be able to get her hands on it, so she was think about getting the Sleek storm palette instead. This got me thinking, I've thought about getting the Storm palette before (for the same reason I have Naked, but I'll get into that in another video ;)
I was in Superdrug today looking for the Sunset or chaos palettes, but they had neither so I thought it would be interesting to get Storm and compare it to the Naked palette.

I've numbered the colours for reference in a minute.

This isn't my palette, mine is the one with the brush. Being honest, I could get a good picture of mine so I gave up!

 

Ok, here it is without flash and numbered

And here it is with flash, exactly the same ordered, I just didn't both numbering and naming the shades again because it took ages!

There will be a video to go with this post, I'll talk about the actually quality of the shadows ect. But I'll have to film that when Dan had gone to work at 10 tonight so it might not be up till tomorrow ;)

Favourites, favourites and MORE favourites!

Review: Lipcote

One of my Christmas presents was this:

 

 Image from http://www.beautyhobby.com/beauty/make-up/review-lipcote-the-original-lipstick-sealer-photos-swatches-tests/

My mum has been using this since she was a teenager herself and loves it, so she got me one. This use of this is to seal your lipstick in and make it smudge and transfer proof. And it works! I've worn this over a lot of different lipsticks and it will take hours for them to fade, even when I eat and drink. Obviously eating and drinking makes the colour fade faster, but it's still there, which is great.

The application is simple, the product comes in a bottle which resembles that of a nail varnish, with a brush attached to the screw off cap. You can use the brush attached, or your own brush to apply the product, which is of a watery consistency. You cote your lips with a thin layer of this formula and wait for about a minute for it to dry. On the packaging it says that you might experience a sharp tingling feeling, however I don't feel much and certainly nothing uncomfortable or painful.

The product is a little drying, so I wouldn't recommending it everyday.

Now here's the great part, I thought that it would be owned by a company which is in some way affiliated with animal testing. I found a contact address an emailed lipcote, asking if they had ever tested animals, if they were owned by a parent company who test or contract people to test on their behalf and if they were sure that their suppliers were cruelty free. I got this email back the next day:

Dear Indigo

Thank you for your email.  You will be pleased to hear that Lipcote is not (and never has been) tested on animals, likewise we require our suppliers to confirm that the ingredients we use in making Lipcote not to have been tested on animals.  Matthews & Wilson Ltd, our company, has never undertaken any animal testing since it was formed in 1946.  Matthews & Wilson is owned by Matthews & Wilson Holdings ltd which likewise has never undertaken any animal testing.

We hope this sets your mind at rest, but if you have any further comments please let us know.

Kind regards

Ben Woodward

It was so nice have an email back from someone who was for forthcoming with information and I am happy with the answer that I received. There was no dodging the question, which I find quite often happens when a company is trying to sugar coat something because there is testing going on somewhere along the line.

So in conclusion, Lipcote is not along a great product, but a great cruelty free product and I love it!

Borderlands inspired makeup :)

I've wanted to do a tutorial on this for ages and have finally got round to doing it.
I did one of these game inspired looks last summer (for Bio Shock 2) and planned on doing more, but the idea slipped and I just never got round to doing on again. But I have a ton of ideas now, I've just started playing games more and there are so many things to take inspiration from.
Something that did put me off doing this series is that 'geek' is now all cool, or 'in', or whatever, and I didn't want people to think that I was just playing games because everyone else is doing it now. A certain Youtuber is now a self proclaimed 'gamer girl', despite having hardly any independent opinions of her own on games... But that's another story. My point was that I'm not. I do love games, and have since I played my first game on PS1 (Although I don't remember what it was, I was 5 and nither the PlayStation nor the games were mine, I was just given the controller)...
So here is the look, hope you all like it :)

Beware, big pictures of my spoty teenage face!

Too Faced cosmetics: Label whore dupe

Today I was in Boots, browsing makeup. I haven't looked at the high end part of the store in a long time - I hate those orange girls who look at me like I have a  disease and try to tell me what would look good on me (I know what I like and I didn't ask you for help!) ... Rant over, my point was that I spotted something which I don't remember clocking before: Label Whore. It looked duo chromed red-brown with a green tinge to it and very pretty in the pan, so I swatched it. I was immediately reminded of MUA (Makeup Academy, available at Superdrug in the UK) shade 12. Now I don't own Label Whore, so I can't do swatches of the two together and taking photos in Boots is a big no-no (it's in a complex where if you even so much as take a camera out of your bag security have confiscated it!) so I've stolen this swatch of LW:

http://bloggers.com/topics/label+whore

And MUA shade 12:

 

With flash

 

 

Without 

(this photo pains me to show you, I hate the yellow tint to it, however it's very late & I know I'll forget to do it in natural light.)

 

And this is what it looks like in the pan.

I am very tempted to take the MUA shade into town next time I go so I can swatch LW, then go outside and swatch the MUA shade next to it. If I do end up doing that I'll put up an edit here so you can see both shadows together...

On to the price; Too Faced single eyeshadows are £11 each in Boots ($16 on the Too Faced website) and you get 2.5g of product. With the MUA eyeshadows you get 0.5 less, but it costs £1, blends beautifully, is just as pigmented as LW and stays all day when I use a primer. I have other Too Faced shadows and I have to say I don't notice any difference between the two brands in terms of quality, so why spend £10 more than you have to?

Obviously this won't really help you if you're in the US, unless you can get someone to send you one, but if you do get the chance, go check out MUA shade 12.

And for those of you wondering, both brands are cruelty free :)

Girls (and guys) I think everyone should be watching!

This is my version of a Share the Love. I don't really see the point in doing a video about this, but I did want to write about these girls and how much I like to watch them! If you look at my subscriptions then you will see that I'm subed to quite a few people. And it's not that I don't enjoy watching all of them, but the people I'm about to mention have stood the test of time and I'll watch their video first out of all my new videos ^.^ There are some people who I've been watching longer but they or I have changed since I started watching them.

This apperently my watching YouTube face O.o

So, in order of the A to the Z here they with the newest video on their channel (at this time)...

camiloveskiwi

Such a lovely,  articulate girl, I absolutely love her reviews as she goes into such depth with them without being boring. I wish I could hold information in my head, long enough to do a review without having to cut my video up so that I can referer to the notes I've made.

dermTVdotcom‬‏

 

This guys is a fully qualified doctor and makes such interesting, easy to understand and very useful videos about skin and everything related to dermatology. I watch all of his videos because they're very to the point and even if I don't have the problem he's talking about, it's so helpful to know. I think he should have so many more views and subscribers as he is highly trained and yet girls who don't really know what they're talking about have hundreds upon thousands of those! 

Dottilicious‬‏

This is the lady who made me want to make videos myself. I was looking at how to use bendy rollers and came across her video. Before that I didn't have any idea about the beauty community on Youtube so all this is really all her fault! She's from the Netherlands and doesn't make videos all that often because she has an illness called Myoclonic Dystonia which she made a video on if you're confused. But never the less she's lovely and I love seeing her pop up in my subscriptions.

JLovesMac1‬‏

I have to be honest and say that I didn't like Jermain when I first found her. But was a room tour thingy and I just thought she was stuck up. But I rediscovered her (without knowing it was her) when she'd lost all her videos and found her just hilarious. I will admit that I normally like to watch more down to earth people but I do smile at her randomness :)

KlairedelysArt‬‏

In my opinion she is so underrated! She has so much more talent than other, much more popular 'gurus' (without mentioning any names, I don't want to be bitchy) and as far as I know she has no professional training. She uses cheap drugstore products (many of which are cruelty free but I don't know if she intends this) to create amazing designs.
This isn't her latest video, but I just loved this look so much that I just had to share it with you all!


lolipop26
I'm not posting a video of hers because she's correntally taking a break from video making and blogging, but I felt the need to mention her because, again she was one of the first people I started watching, and the very first person who I subscribed to.

petrilude‬‏

He is amazing with tutorials (I know this video isn't a tutorial) and I like how honest he is when it comes to he opinions on a product/technique. Not really much else I can say on him really, but I always watch :)

veggiebeauty‬‏

Kristy! Lovely, lovely girl, she found me after seeing my animal testing video. She's so passionate about animal cruelty and I've never seem someone help as many people as she does with trying to go cruelty free/vegan. I personally would never have the confidence in myself and my research to do that. I can see the amount of effort she puts into researching companies and the loop holes that are created by them, she's been indescribably helpful to me and others. She another person that I feel should have many more people watching her because of the knowledge she could instill into people!

wildkatmakeup

Yet again, another lady with not as many followers as she deserves! I do believe that she's a professional makeup artist, but either way her looks are always stunning and I just looove listening to her voice in tutorial. Another of my first subscriptions.

xsparkage‬‏

When I first saw her she was doing a 'how to apply false lashes' video (the old one, she's done and updated one now) and I was looking at her makeup for the intire video. It was so bright and colourful that i had to check and see if she had any tutorials like that which I could get ideas from. And of course she did! I love she tutorials for ideas so much!


So that was it! Haha, I wasn't expecting it to be that long. I have to go t bed now, so I'll see you later :)

Meet Jasper!

This little ginger ball of fun is a Welsh section A pony who will make about 12 hands. So he's tiny, and he has what I like to call 'little man syndrome', where he's very little but thinks he should be the boss.

 

He actually belongs to Dans mum, who was basically guilt tripped into buying him by someone at her old yard. She has 4 horses/ponies at the moment but doesn't have the time for them all so is selling 2, Jasper and his half brother Loganberry (who is much better tempered)...

Jasper, as I mentioned before, thinks that he should be in charge, but at the moment the pony he's kept with (Loganberry) doesn't seem to be able to put him in his place as he would be in the wild when they're in a big herd. That's causing him to be very... difficult. He bits, fidgets and trys to boss everyone around - yes, that includes people and here in lays the problem.

Because of his size he would be a kids pony, maybe for kids up to age 8 but more for little'uns around 3 or 4. And although he's lovely to look at, once you saw his temperament anyone who knew anything about horses would say ''NO WAY, am I having that pony!''... because he's not a kids pony, he's too strong headed and no where near patient enough!

The point of all this is that if Dans mum were to sell him she would either get next to no money for him and have no idea where he was and what was happening to him. OR she could sell him to someone to knows nothing about horses, but they wouldn't be able to treat him right and wouldn't know how to deal with him. He might end up being put down in either incidence!

She and her husband have kindly decided to GIVE(!) him to me. I've always liked him despite his temperament and I want to spend time with him to calm him down. He could be a lovely pony I think!

Also I think that it could do with having room to roam. At the moment he's stabled, but when he comes to us that will all change; we don't even have stables! 

And coming back to what I said earlier about him having 'little man syndrome'; we have another pony with that, a Shetland, Copper and he puts everyone in their place, Jasper won't mess with him for long.

We have another horse (Jem) who's around the same age as Jasper and is still a baby (Jasper is 2 1/2 and Jem is 1 1/2) so they will be able to play together like they really want without annoying the other older ponies :)

So this is the reason that I will have even less time than I did before :) I'm looking forward to it!

Lip art on year news eve...

Dan and I didn't get invited to any parties, seeing as 99% of our friends live in a different town and we were ot of money from Christmas. We ended up having some cider and going for a walk at midnight to see the fire works, it was nice :)
But before that I desided to play with my makeup. My eyes have been getting a little irritated lately so I opted for some lip art!

First I did a leopard print onto a backgroud of gradent purple.

I love doing these kinds of design because it's really quite easy to do and I think it looks quite effective...

I washed that off but after a few mintues I was thinking about different things I could use on my lips, gitter being one of them....

This is a purple glitter liner with a gold patted on top.

Now these obviously are not confortable to wear, but they're more of an art statment than something you'd wear out - I wouldn't wear leopard lips out anyway ;p
But they're very fun to do :)