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