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!