A little insight into my life… de A a Z

I don't usually like to write about myself. Isn't that what you're doing in your *god knows how many tweets a day* anyway? I hear you say. True. I also feel my blogposts include enough personal junk and I wouldn't want to add to the bore.


In my small life as a blogger, I've been invited three times to give more facts about myself: The lovely Briony Lou, Carla and Laura (Lil Fairy Doll)  have all tagged me and wanted to know more about me.


Today, I would like to beat the bull, the bullet and the horn while the iron is hot and just do it. Here's a little insight into my life, from A to Z…

	AGE: I'd rather tell you when was the last time I had some action on the sofa/bed rather than telling you my age. I don't do age and I don't celebrate birthdays either. The biggest favour people can do to me is to forget my birthday altogether and I'll love you back :) The look of the cars on the photo above will probably give you an indication of my age ^_^
	BED SIZE: 140x200 cm ha! aka a standard double bed with plenty of pillows.
	CHORE YOU HATE: Changing the duvet cover
	DAY: Wednesday
	ESSENTIAL START TO YOUR DAY: My mini bath of the morning. I don't like showers but I love mini baths
	FAVOURITE COLOUR: I have so many. Favourite colour to wear would be black (not in honour of the Rebecca afore mentioned. A bright fuchsia, lime green would perk me up, I am addicted to orange and purple eyeshadows too.
	GOLD OR SILVER: Gold, gold and definitely gold. I love golden toes, they go with anything and makes me feel like Cleopatra
	HEIGHT: I am very small. I am 158 cm (or 5.2 and a half for all you with the non metric system users
	INSTRUMENTS: Other than blowing my own trumpet at times at times, I play no instrument. I would have loved to play drums though.
	JOB TITLE: Administrative Assistant. Think typical secretary complete with the nail file, the photocopying machine, the tea/coffee round, the fit or not delivering stationery but without the typical secretary attire and makeup: I would mostly be in tracksuit or combat, whatever fits the bum.
	KIDS: Not in a millions years. I'd rather have a cat if I am bored one day
	LIVE: I live in the north west of England, about 1 hour away from Manchester. I spent most of my life in Réunion (next to Mauritius) which explains my frequent moans about the British weather
	MOM’S NAME: She's referred to as 'mother'. We are not very close and don't like each other. I try to keep in touch 3 or 4 times a year.
	NICKNAMES: Frenchie, French fancy, trouble, pain in the bum, lozza,and @tsunimee of course
	OVERNIGHT HOSPITAL STAYS: None thankfully. Well .. if you don't include that one time when I was a bit drunk. Tequila, never again.
	PET PEEVE: I have millions of pet peeves. The first one which will SPRING to mind, is air conditioning in shops and in trains, when the weather doesn't warrant for it and when I still think it's too cold for it. It is always too cold :)
	QUOTE(S) FROM A MOVIE: "What we do (...) does not define who we are. What defines us is how well we rise after falling" Maid in Manhattan, 2002 'Sorry' does not put Humpty Dumpty back together again’ (I think it's from Collateral, film with Tom Cruise) It's over! This this this twisted, toxic thing between us is finally finished. I'm miraculously done being in love with you. Huh! I've got a life to start living and you're not going to be in it! <-- Can you guess which film it is from?
	RIGHT OR LEFT HANDED: I am naturally left handed but they forced me to write with the right hand at school. So apart from writing, using a pair of scissors and using a computer, I would use the left hand for everything. It's not easy at times to live in a right handed ruled world. The kettle and the way the iron table are positioned in a shared building would be my most common pet peeves (told you I had many of those)
	SIBLINGS: What is this? Family time or something? I have one brother. We don't get on. Probably last time I talked to him was 6 years ago, if that. I don’t “do” family.
	TIME YOU WAKE UP: Too late that's for sure. I need to be at work for 9 everyday. Saturday is bliss and I am never up before noon. I am not a morning person to say the least.
	UNDERWEAR: You perv! Are you sure you really want to know? I got a preference for black underwear. Cannot bear visible panty line. I hate normal knickers and when the way the fabric goes and dislodged itself within minutes in between my bum cheeks. This is why I have been wearing g strings for as long as I can remember
	VEGETABLES YOU DISLIKE: celery, celery and celery.
	WHAT MAKES YOU RUN LATE?: I don't understand that question. Twitter on my phone is the number one distraction in the morning which would make run late for work? (is that what was the question asked)
	X-RAYS YOU’VE HAD: I had a x ray once. My hips. One is higher than other. Not a big deal. I sometimes suffer from bad back. Would you believe I was prescribed to wear heels to balance that problem. I don't mind that :)
	YUMMY FOOD YOU MAKE: I am ashamed to say that I can't cook to save my life. I don't even enjoy my own cup of coffee. I do make a good cheese on toast.
	ZOO: Would you believe I've never been to the zoo. I’ve clearly missed out on life.

Sources: Like this funky alphabet?
The artist who came up with this genius light lettering is called David Airey:


I would like to tag all of you my dear readers. If you wish to do it, send me a link to your post so I don't miss it. I've uploaded a blank version of this tag here for your convenience :)
Thank you for reading. Have you guessed the origin of the third quote? It's also a movie ...

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Help! My Google Friend Connect box has gone. How to create an alternative GFC button

Blogger has been a right pain in the bum working not very well lately. As if Blogger being down on Thursday 12 and Friday 13 May  was not bad enough, users have been experiencing trouble with leaving comments on blogs and even responding to  the comments left by others on their blog. Blogger is aware of it and they're trying to fix it. I hope they're sweating hard to fix it, as the temptation to move to wordpress is getting bigger.

There is another  glitch happening at the moment which Blogger has yet to acknowledge and I am left to wonder whether it's meant to  be like that from now on: The Google Friend Connect box seems to have disappeared. Whether this is going to be a  permanent feature, I don't know but what I do know is that lots of you are quite upset about it.


Personally I couldn't  wait to get rid of my Google Friend Connect box: I just hated being judged on the number of Google Friend Connect  followers I had. I know that people can still find out how many followers I have but it is not as  straightforward as before and I feel happier about it.


My lovely friend Bicky has written a lovely post about why she hates is not a fan of that contentious GFC box and thanks to her  video and help on twitter I was able to do an alternative GFC button and still allow new visitors to follow me  through Google Friend Connect.


Do you need that Google Friend Connect box anyway? People can still follow you through Google Friend Connect  thanks to the navbar at the top, right?


That box is not compulsory for people to be able to follow you. And yes, people can start following your blog using the navbar but not everyone is  aware of that bar and what it can do for you. At the end of the day, you need to give people what they want.  Getting more readers / followers is hard work and you don't want to put them off because their preferred option of following your blog is not showing. If your readers want to have a button to click on and that is all it takes  for them to follow your blog, GIVE THEM A BUTTON. Make it easy for them. Also, some Blogger users may have had  their navbar removed for aesthetic purposes, so you can't always rely on that navbar to be there. Sometimes,  even when the navbar is on, the 'follow' link is not even there!!! {I am looking at you Internet Explorer}

So how do you get/install/create an alternative Google Friend Connect button?


It's not too much hard work actually and follows a very simple concept:

1. Grabbing from the navbar the short line of code which, when clicked on, enables your visitors to follow your blog
2. Creating a picture which could say for example 'click here to follow me on Google Friend Connect’
3. Creating a widget/gadget where you are going to insert that picture with the 'follow' link. No need to tinker too much with your main template and have great knowledge of html. woop.

Need more help? Read on. The following explains in baby language the 3 steps you need to follow and it is not meant to be patronising.
I'm going to assume you have not removed your navbar. If you have purposefully removed it, I am going to assume  that you know what you're doing and that you will remember how to get it back. 

	Grabbing the 'follow' code from your navbar Sometimes Blogger (on internet explorer) goes off on one and won't display the 'follow' link. You'll have to refresh the page, or log in again, or open your blog with a different browser until you see your navbar display the 'follow' link properly as shown below: -- Click on FOLLOW. This will in turn display a line of code in the address bar of your browser (at this stage you don't have to follow your blog  if you don't want to) we're only doing this to see the line of code. -- Select that line of code, copy and paste it in a word document or text document (right click on the link to copy the code)
	Creating or choosing a picture for your alternative Google Friend Connect button If you have no skills whatsoever in Photoshop or similar programme, by all means feel free to pinch one of the pictures below, or all of them if you want. Although they are not the nicest pictures.  Bicky has done her DIY button to match her template and is just so pretty. transparent on white background:       transparent on dark background:        You don't have to have that Google logo in there, but the Google logo will make people feel at home  and immediately recognise it. If you are going to create a picture, and if you want to put this picture in your  sidebar, please make sure that the width of the picture is not bigger than the width of your actual sidebar. If  it is blogger will shrink it like a bastard find a way to shrink it no matter what and it will look horrible and you won’t be able to sleep at night.
	Add the widget/gadget -- Click on design, then page elements, then ADD A GADGET and choose to add the PICTURE gadget. The rest is pretty self explanatory: -- Where it says 'link' paste that line of code you retrieved before and pasted into a temporary document -- Upload your picture (if you choose to use one of my pictures, please be considerate to my bandwidth. Download the  picture first, save it on your drive and upload it on your server, thank you) -- No need to add a title, but if you must, you can type 'follow my blog' with Google Friend Connect or something  like that. Click on SAVE and voila.

Please note this ‘new’ DIY button won't display the number of GFC followers you have. This will be perfect for smaller bloggers who are a bit embarrassed about the number of followers they have. Bloggers with a bigger readership might get upset that they can’t show off their numbers.
If you like this 'tutorial' feel free to share it to your friends, family and pets.


Personally and on a selfish note, I am really happy that the box is gone (I have yet to ascertain whether it’s coming back) and I can’t help myself from being influenced by the number it shows. A low number will make think ‘aww, that little blogger and its 14 followers, bless her little cotton socks’. A high number will make me think ‘how did she got all of those, I am so crap in comparison wow this blogger is doing really well. And if I think like that, it’s only understandable that *some* beauty companies regrettably and frustratringly might think the same too and approach you or not accordingly.


Do you know what would be funny in an ironic way? That the wretched Google Friend Connect box reappears the minute I publish this post.

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Bonjour et Bienvenue…

I’ve only started this blog 2 minutes ago but since there have been so many of you following me and showing me support (100 of you since 2 days ago actually), I thought I’d try to do things properly and try to explain a bit more about what this blog is about. I’ve added a few sections on the banner with shiny buttons to access them. 

About me: will give you not only more background information about me, but also about the blog, and what it’s all about, how it came into existence. {I’ve copied this section just below so that you can react to it, and comment if you wish as with a traditional post}

Disclaimer: Following the issue of the FDA regulations, asking beauty bloggers to specify how they acquired the products they wish to feature/swatch/speak about, I thought that I had a write a little piece on that too, even though strictly speaking the law is only applicable to beauty bloggers located in the USA.

About moi

Nothing will ever come close to my first passion in life: the love for the English language. Many years ago, I was born in a small French island lost in the Indian Ocean (Reunion Island) and my wildest dream was to become fluent in English. 




Lately, I have developed a new hobby: the exciting world of makeup. I love how such a trivial and frivolous thing like makeup can make people happy: through its fabulous potential to turn people into a whole new different persona at Halloween (my favourite day of the year) and other fancy dress occasions or feeling prettier and more confident in everyday life. This blog is about documenting and sharing my experiences with makeup. Outside many wild Halloween Parties, I had always been shy with makeup until I discovered the addictive world of makeup tutorials on YouTube.


January 2009 was a turning point for me. I had been watching and enjoying Petrilude (one of my favourite makeup artists on YouTube) for a while on YouTube and one day he created a makeup look from an inspiration picture I sent him. On top of feeling like a million dollars and a celebrity for a day, it gave me the wings to recreate his makeup look and post a video response. My YouTube channel was born. 
Through YouTube and other makeup forums, I met some lovely friends and my next videos were about secret 'makeup challenges' where we could surprise one another. Many makeup challenges and contest entries later, I have yet a lot to learn (especially in the daytime/wearable look department) but I enjoy the process immensely.

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