The Chubby sticks of the poor: just bitten, just landed …

and just swatched.


For months now, the American have been teasing us with the Revlon 'Just Bitten' Kissable lipbalm stains. The wait is over and those of us living in the UK, can have finally have our grubby mitts on them now.




What are the Just Bitten kissable balm stains (again)?
They say: A pampering balm fused with a lightweight lipstain that gives you softer, smoother lips with a flush of shiny color that lasts hour after hour. The smooth and moisturizing gel formula glides on beautifully with a light peppermint fragrance for truly kissable lips – no sharpener is required!

The shades have all been named around the theme of love. My own ‘personal’ Superdrug received 7 shades, but I am not sure how many shades in total the UK will receive. Here are some quick swatches for you:







Just Bitten lip balm stains are usually sold at £7.99, but there is a special introductory offer. Boots being Boots, you need to purchase 3 to be able to use the offer (3 for 2 on selected Boots products) while good old superdrug lets you buy only one if you want at £5.99.

   

Will you be checking them out? Which is your favourite shade?

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Pout Painting

I've never been a 'lip' kind of person really When I  play with makeup, I like to focus the drama on the  eyes and tend to go for a very neutral lip colour.  I'm not a fan of textures of lipsticks either: I  usually find them sticky, messy, and not very comfortable to wear all around. When I first heard  of lip pigments, I had been wanting to try them  hoping they might give me the colour I want but  perhaps without the stickiness and usual gripes I  have about lipsticks.


At £10 a small tube, even when you apparently need a tiny little droplet to cover your own  lip, there was no way I was going to indulge in the  OCC (Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics) lip tars,  probably the most talked about lip pigments to date.  But when Sleek Makeup decided to release their  version of lip tars at half the price, £4.99, I  thought it might be the time to try some.




They say:

'The best of lipgloss, lipstick and a little bit  extra'
'Be a shade braver and have fun mixing pout paint to  achieve your own unique shade.
Pout pain releases the makeup artist in you and is  available in 11 shades.
'No more irritating tackiness or having to worry  about coverage wearing off, just bags of colours and  long-staying power.

I say:

Umm, there goes my ‘I am only going to spend a fiver in this’ out of the window since the ultimate purpose of the pout paint  is buy a few shades, let your creativity run wild and create your own shades.

There are 11 shades on offer and these were officially released in selected Superdrug Stores today:






First Impressions: a huge massive disappointment not  to see a black pout paint in there. What a crying shame. Since  the pout paint is hailed as being long lasting, I  was hoping to wear one of them for Halloween,  perhaps some sort of vampirish lip with black in the  outer corners or just full black, and forget about it and party the night away.

I came home with 3 shades:


 


This is the moment where I confess not having a lip brush. So I used a eyeliner brush to apply my first Pout Paint, which was milkshake. As as result, my application was very uneven. I doubt nobody, apart from Nicky Minaj would want to wear this on its own.






Magda in ‘Something about Mary’ called and said she wants her lipstick back…


 


Next, is a shade I had my mind set on trying from the very beginning. This is Rosetta:








and last but not least, the bright and majestuous Pinkini







My thoughts: I’ve got so many things I want to say about them. First things first, there is absolutely no way I would wear MILKSHAKE on its own, not even for fancy dress. I would not even consider bribery. ROSETTE and PINKINI by contrast are absolutely gorgeous and I feel that paired with a neutral eye makeup, they just add such a pop of colour to your complexion.


Application was, as to be expected, very laborious with a small eyeliner brush but I am reasonably happy about how it went, after a disastrous first go with MILKSHAKE. I can’t stress enough how little you need to cover a whole lip: a minuscule dot is all you need. Put too much and you’ll be left with a unpleasant wet feeling, as if you’re going to smear the whole room just by talking.


By the time, I applied ROSETTE and PINKINI, I felt so much more in control and applying less product made a massive difference. Non lipstick lovers will absolutely love this: As I was so desperately hoping, these sleek pout paint definitely deliver a great punch of colour without the stickiness of a lipstick. I am absolutely over the moon about that! This is precisely what I wanted from the Pout Paints.


I was afraid they would bleed and I am happy to report, that I didn’t experience any bleeding at all although I’m pretty sure some bleeding would have occurred after wearing Milshake for a while, as I definitely applied too much.



I wanted to test the bleeding and lasting power of Pinkini. I decided to venture out of my house (it was after 10pm) to Tesco and let me tell you that was a first for me. Apart from Halloween, I had never left the house with such a lurid shade of lipstick on my lips. What gave me confidence was the fact that it felt like I was wearing absolutely nothing: it felt liberating. I can’t promise you I will be wearing this, during the day as it takes some confidence to wear something so bright, when you don’t usually wear much colour on your lips.


A whole Cheese and Pickle sandwich later, this is what was left of Pinkini. It definitely took some battering but I am pretty impressed on how much colour I have been left with.


 


I am absolutely over the moon with the Pout Paints. The non-sticky lightweight feel of them is very liberating. What a shame they didn’t have it  in black…


What: Sleek Pout Paint
How much: £4.99
Where: Selected Superdrug stores and on Sleek Makeup Website

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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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