The power of pictures

The power of pictures. We see them everywhere: on billboards, in magazines, on bus placards. Pretty makeup pictures makes us to buy everything in sight, others will make us want to forget that the makeup collection promoted ever existed. What is seen cannot been unseen.     


Have you ever been in a dodgy toilet, where, at some point, an unfortunate person might have found themselves running short of loo paper? I have and the walls and every surface around are not a pretty sight. Now have a look at this beautiful picture promoting the 'By Request Collection'...






Anyway, if you’re not put off, you can find out about the By Request Collection and Concept on here.
I think I might just give it a miss…

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*Deal Alert* Mac Eyeshadows on Cheapsmells

Nic from Pixiwoo fills her eyebrows with it, so does Amanda from Beauty Blogging Blonde and if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. I am talking about 'Omega' eyeshadow from Mac and it's one of the many eyeshadows (55 in total) on offer at Cheapsmells.





Use the code MAC15 and you can get an extra 15% at checkout. So you will be able to purchase your eyeshadow at £8.03 (free delivery) instead of £11.50.




My personal favourites which might also interest you are Blanc Type (amazing for matte highlight under the brow) and Nylon (pale gold with icy shimmer in a frost finish) to highlight the inner of the eye, or wherever you see fit really :)

Offer is still on till 18 March but it's first come first served basis and until stocks last. Oh and it's a second chance to get your hands on some Mac 3D silver glitter if you missed the offer the last time.


disclosure: I am not affiliated with cheapsmells, even less with Mac!
picture: if you're wondering, the picture was taken from the Mac 'Flighty' Collection.

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My favourite go-to lipstick

Do you need confidence in buying certain items of makeup? I do. I could walk into a high street shop (I have yet to combat my fear of beauty counters) and buy every eyeshadow and nail polish in sight but when it comes to lipsticks, I need more help, I need personal recommendations from friends and I need to see it worn real people whom I trust, as opposed to magazines which I rarely identify myself to.





When I saw my best friend Jo, wearing this gorgeous darker than nude lipstick, I just had to find out what it was and give it a try. Little that I know that it was going to become then my favourite lipstick.






Introducing the gorgeous Velvet Teddy from Mac which I simply can't get enough of. Velvet Teddy belongs to the matte family of lipsticks and delivers a gorgeous darker than nude colour which will pretty much go with anything.


For going out at night, or on special occasions, makeup looks for the blog, I like to pair Velvet Teddy with Lip Inflation Extreme, in sheer bare from Sally Hansen, a £1.99 bargain I stumbled upon before my nearest TJ Hughes shop before its recent closure.





If you've never tried an lip plumper product before, boy, you're in for a shock. I knew I had to expect a stinging sensation but I didn't expect to be that intense. First time I wore it, I asked myself why on earth women would want to go through such a discomfort.






To add to the stinging sensation, Lip inflation has the most unusual spicy flavour/scent, reminiscent of Christmas spices. So all in all, the first I wore felt really felt I was wearing tabasco on my lips. As for the plumping effect, I think it's working but I feel the effect lasts as long as you can feel the light 'burn' on your lips. There is no way I could wear Lip Inflation on a day to day basis, too glossy, too intense, too much but at night time I really like to wear it. I've become really fond of the whole stinging spicy experience now and I wish I had picked more of these before the shop closed.


And this my beloved Mac Velvet Teddy and Sheer Bare worn together on the  lips






Where’s the rest of the head gone? Click here if you want to see as part of my ‘Safari Look’.


Off the top of your head, what is your favourite lipstick, which goes with anything?


top photo credit: lipstick (beautyflorist seller on ebay) and teddy bear.

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When makeup recreation goes wrong...

Once upon ages ago, I took part in a makeup challenge with a friend. The idea was to recreate a look from a Mac Cosmetic Promotional Picture. This 'BoomBox' look particularly caught my attention. Not the dog meets sad panda, the arty farty red eyeliner one.





Tonight, I have given up trying to recreate it.







Where do I even begin? bwhahahahahahaahahaha.



Why does it look so pretty on her and absolutely atrocious on me? Well, apart from not having the skills to do it, I think I just don't have the eyelids for it. Or maybe this look is just meant to be shown on closed eyelids and not meant to be worn. I'd give my wage to see the girl with her eyes open to see what the eye makeup looks like…



 


Even my huge and beloved Ardell couldn't lift that look up.
They say practice makes perfect but there are times when it’s good to give up as you realise your idea was totally ludicrous.  This post is dedicated to everyone who, every now and then,
try to bite more than they can chew and make a fool of themselves with makeup :)


When was the last time you made a fool of yourself with makeup?

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Double Dares with Lily – A clown in Vegas FOTD

In short, this post is about a cool makeup challenge the lovely Lily from Beauty's Bad Habit has invited me to take part in, my excitement the whole way through the challenge and lastly my disappointment with my finished look. If you're reading this in hurry skip along to lily's blog to read all about the challenge and her makeup creation. At the time of writing this post, I have not yet seen her look, but knowing Lily, it's going to be absolutely stunning!


And in details... (Put the kettle on)
I don't know why. It's my own personal blog but I can't help myself from feeling self conscious about writing lengthy posts and losing you, my readers in the process, even before you get to the 'meat' of the post. Even in normal speech, when I explain things at work, I tend to want to speak fast and summarise, before people want to cut me and lose interest. Today, I don't care and I have got a lot to say and I don't want to be rushed. Please bear with me, will you? xx


If you've been following my blog or my youtube channel for a while, you will have noticed that I am very fond of makeup contests and makeup challenges. I absolutely adore them. There's nothing quite like a makeup challenge to excite me, get my creative juices (or lack of) flowing, and have an excuse to play around with makeup. There is also that buzz, which is like no other, when you're happy with your finished look, especially when it's been challenging and that you've overcome successfully a few obstacles. (You’ve scrolled down to the bottom already haven’t you, had one glance at the piccie and left didn’t you? ;)

When Lily, from Beauty's Bad Habit invited me to take part in her 'double dares' makeup challenges series, I was bouncing up and down. Her first episode with Leanne (from donotrefreeze.com} really excited me and I just fell in love with the concept. I was also mega excited as I have a lot of respect for Lily. Not only her makeup skills are absolutely out of this world, she has got amazing enviable photography skills and  all this in a really cool and unpretentious blog. Off the top of my head, my favourite recent posts from her are her photography guide 101 ( for dummies like me), her bermuda sunshine makeup look fotd and her post about some cheap as chips crappy looking eyeliner at first, where she goes beyond the first impressions of the product, work with it and reveal its true brilliance. I love that about her: striking makeup looks with high end products as well as products that even a teen would be embarrassed buying because they *think* it's  going to be crap and they don't want to give the product a chance. So, put it that way, I was pretty chuffed when Lily invited me to take part in her 'double dares' challenge on top of mildy cacking myself with the pressure.
The idea of this double dares challenge is that I challenge Lily to create a makeup look (theme of my choice) and we both create a look from the same theme and post it at the same time and surprise each other with the finished product. The theme I have chosen for her this week was:

to recreate a makeup look from a Mac Cosmetics Collection Promo Picture from any collection she liked. To see her creation, click here (at the time I am writing this, I have yet to see her look).

Die hard fan of Mac Cosmetics or not, and if you are remotely interested about makeup, you would have come across some stunning makeup creations and visuals. It was very hard to choose but my heart set for this promotion picture, in particular, which I believe was part of the Star Flash or Star Vegas Collection.






Was this a wise choice? No. Was it more than I could chew? Oh my definitely. I couldn't have made life more difficult for myself. I wish I could be positive about my finished look. The truth is that I don't like it and that I didn't want to post it. Personal pride and respect for Lily made it that I just had to go ahead with it and post it anyway.





So without further ado, this is my very loose recreation of the mac visual (hell, there is some pink and yellow, right?)  I'll spare you the 1000 additional words of why I don't like my finished look and try to focus on the positive: I've had a whale of time playing with brown face paint and foundation changing my skin colour (I didn’t have to, but I really wanted to have fun with it) and I can't wait to be invited to a pocahontas fancy dress when I can play some more. :P





  
This week, a few things pretty surreal happened to me. I reached 300 readers on my little blog and 15,000 subscribers on my youtube channel. This is to hoping that I won't lose any after this makeup, where a 6 year old could have done better with just fingers for tools. I shall end this post, with a nice cheery smile…

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<3 you Ditzy! oh and a Mac Cosmetics Giveaway …

I can’t believe I forgot to post this picture. Who is the ditzy one now? :P I was lucky to meet again Sinead from DitzyMakeup blog recently on Bonfire Night for an amazing party hosted by Aussie Haircare in honour of the  launch of the Take the Heat. I think we both look good on this picture, so it’d be a shame not to post it right?


Do you know DitzyMakeup by the way? Her makeup is always flawless, she has cute manicures on her blog too and and and she has got a giveaway (ends on 24 Dec 2010) at the moment whereby you can win a gift card to spend on whatever you want at Mac Cosmetics, for the value of £50. Poor little rabbit has been through hell and back this year and has lost her daddy :( So even if you’re a not fan of Mac Cosmetics (I am not a great fan myself, although i do swear by my mac vanilla!!)  just have a looksie at her blog and say hello. Oh and ask her to do more fotd’s :)  Thank you xx

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Venomous Cowardice?

Blogging, blogging, blogging. For most of us it's a hobby we like to fit in in our spare time. But there are times when we feel we need to stop everything to talk about something and feel the urge to blog. Today it's one of these moments, my flat is a right pit, I've got stuff to do, I have not eaten since last night but I have got the urge to write about the Mac Venomous Villains “Blogger's Event'” which happened last Thursday.


Having been involved with lots of other bloggers in the Rodarte Mac awareness & action movement, I was very curious to see if Mac was going to take the opportunity to publicly update delegates on any Rodarte Mac collection follow up. I was also curious to see if bloggers sensitised to the Rodarte Mac scandal would take the chance to ask Mac on the topic. I was disappointed to say the least. All right, all right. I went totally ballistic ...


Having not read much about it from my blogger dashboard, I really really was anxious to know who else attended. This exercise first of all taught me that, for a beauty enthusiast and mini blogger, I really ought to extend my readership and there are still lots of bloggers I need to start adding to my subscriptions. Reading from these 'new people' and their tales from the Mac event didn't satisfy my curiosity and I still could not find whether anything was said about the Rodarte Mac collection donation, if anything was mentioned or asked. It was not long till I reached boiling point and I could not help from unleashing my frustration on twitter and then I found out ...


I found out first hand from others who attended that Mac didn't approach the topic, even if only to give a little update, and that there was no opportunity for bloggers to ask questions about it or any kind of serious questions on anything else either. I was fuming. Thousands of people had signed a petition about it, a minute lucky minority got the chance to meet Mac and I couldn't believe nothing had been said about it. My BFF used to say "flower, if you want to know something you "make" an opportunity to raise it" and I firmly believe that. And then I found out more ...


What really went on there? Could there be extenuating circumstances which prevented 'sensitised' bloggers to ask questions to the PR team? What kind of blogger's event is that when you can't interact with the people who hold it and cant' ask questions? Well the answer lies in the question really. It wasn't a Blogger's Event, it was more of a “Venomous villains Premiere Event” or an opportunity to purchase products earlier than the general public. It wasn't a Blogger's Event (it should have never been called or publicised that way) and that's why questions could not be asked and that is that.



Authentic Quotes from some bloggers who attended the event (Names have been removed for anonymity) (source: twitter)
 "It was basically a private shopping event" "The event was for people who love MAC and wanted to look at the pretty things. No deep discussions etc."
"too many people, no space, You had to push and shove to get to see products"


So how do I feel about the whole thing now that I know about the true nature of the event? Well, I realise it's not at all the responsibility of the PR team on that day to update the UK blogging community of the follow-up of a previous collection, at the very launch of a new one. But I was hoping that in the light of the past - but recent nonetheless - trauma that their collection had caused  that they would have thought it would have been a good idea to give the audience a little update on the topic, build bridges again to be able to enjoy the event (and future collections) without any ill feelings. How naive was I.


I realise also that you just can't turn up at an event, and hijack the agenda of the day and nor would I have expected anyone to put Mac (or the people representing the brand on the day) on the spot and embarrassed them asking them sensitive questions they hadn't had the chance to prepare.


Of course I am still frustrated but I am feeling more at peace that I understood the nature of 'event' to which beauty bloggers & Mac fans were invited. As one of the girls I follow on twitter said: "I think it would have been good to have a blogger event just after Rodarte, and not for a collection, to explain".


How do I feel about Mac now? Well, I will certainly carry on using my favourite foundation (Studio Fix) and beloved vanilla eyeshadow and will, definitely repurchase when I have run out, but I have been disappointed once again by the brand.

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The world of blogging, the good, the bad ... and the absolutely amazing

Do you remember what first motivated you when you started blogging, why you started blogging originally? Being a chatterbox on twitter, I feel it was only a matter of time till I started a blog. I needed more than 140 characters, I needed more room :) 
I remember I didn't have any particular aim in mind, other than wanting to share stuff and add my bit to the mix. Most of all, I can't help myself about feeling shy, self conscious and under confident about the whole blogging thing. There are so many talented writers out there, and then you have the wonderwomen and supermen of bloggers, who not only write quality (thought provoking, hilarious, well researched, current posts, out of this world photos/swatches etc) and who write as fast as a hen would lay eggs.

At the same time, I've felt there has been lately a bit of negativity and bickering rising and even paranoia around the blogosphere, and among the beauty blogging community in particular. For example, bloggers have been feeling self conscious about risking to ‘bore’ their readers about a particular product which they felt had been already reviewed too many times. Others have felt shy at doing giveaways in case people think they 'are doing it to just get more followers', and then there is inevitable jealousy about free products sent by the company for review.

When the controversy arose around the Juarez-inspired makeup line from Mac & Rodarte, something quite powerful happened. I am not sure how it all started exactly but somehow I caught wind on twitter of an organised action from bloggers to write an article about the mac/rodarte collection, expose the horror of its inspiration and post it at the same time in the evening.
What could I possibly write on the subject which could rival with my fellow bloggers? This was was not about that I quickly realised, it was about spreading the word and boy the response from the blogging community has been overwhelming. I genuinely didn't think so many would just drop everything that day and take part. Many of us were not even aware of the atrocities which had been going on in Juarez. And to stomach all this, regain composure, and respond so quickly to spread the message in such passion totally blew me away.

When Mac & Rodarte responded the following evening, I didn't want to believe that it could have directly been  linked with all the noise generated through internet. I would have never expected the companies to have reacted so quickly, never in a million years. Did bloggers for example help towards that? People seem to think so, and this is just unbelievable and empowering. It makes me really proud of the blogging community and to be part of it.

Despite Mac and Rodarte being very quick to respond, I cannot help but feeling disappointed still. Mac has pledged to make a donation of $100,000, but this is totally disproportionate to the amount of money they could give.  I believe they should do  donate ALL PROFITS of this range and make a longer-term commitment to helping the women of Juarez, to whom they refer in their collection, and who helped inspire their collection, by RAISING AWARENESS through the marketing of this makeup range.
Olivia from Healing Beauty has written a petition to this effect. I would love it if you could have a look at it and add your name to it:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/macrodarte

The petition calls for MAC to make a donation of 100% of the profits from this collection and names three reputable charities recommended by  Amigos de las Mujeres de Juarez and Casa Amiga - two reputable non profit agencies working with families affected by the families affected by femicide.

Thanking you everyone more ever for reading.
A special thank you and credit to Mizzworthy and Healing Beauty. I hope you won’t mind me ‘borrowing’ your words describing the petition.

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Is Mac Rodarte Collection edgy? Insensitive, more like…

Let me introduce you to Juárez. Juarez is a very poor Mexican factory town, on the border of  Texas and Mexico which became notorious for a stomach churning tragedy: Since 1993, the bordertown of Juarez already crippled with a high rate of poverty and narcotics trafficking fuelled violence became the site of a series of the most horrific murders: most of them young women between 12 and 22, raped before being brutally murdered.

Minutes into googling about the tragedy, and you will discover the most tragic thing about it:  "The victims were generally reported missing by their families, with their bodies found days or months later" with the families with only their eyes to cry to mourn the loss of their daughters, as the city is so rife with corruption, and the police would not even do anything about it.

Meet Kate and Laura Mulleavy, fashion designers from Rodarte who teamed up with Mac Cosmetics to launch a new makeup collection for the autumn inspired by the towns on the Texas/Mexico border. Among the products to be launched, 2 nail varnishes named Juarez (bright opal pink) and Factory (Light opal mint) As some poor families are still mourning the loss of their daughters, who disappeared on the way to and from their factory work, Mac Cosmetics somehow doesn't have any problems with this collection. Distasteful? The word 'insensitive' springs more to my mind personally and I am at a loss to understand why they thought for one minute that this was a good idea for a makeup line.

The Rodarte sisters"were struck by the ethereal landscape and the impoverished factory workers floating to work at dawn in a sleepy, dreamlike state". There is sadly nothing ethereal about this place, described as the most grim, depressing and deadliest place on the planet. If you can stomach it, have a listen to this 8-minute radio feature documentary and  let me know if this inspires you to create a makeup look.
 
I thought not…


Would I have I known about the Juárez femicides and atrocities without this makeup collection? Probably not. But there could have more tasteful and intelligent ways to draw the world's attention on the tragedy. Which other ways? I am not quite sure right now. Somehow the lump in my throat at this distasteful campaign is obstructing my creativity. May the Juárez families finally find 'justicia' (spanish for justice) one day, and comfort in their sorrow xx



What are your opinions on this collection?

Read other Beauty Bloggers thoughts on this collection.
Let me know in the comments if you also reacted to this collection and wrote a post about it xx



bangsandabun
the beauty button
the beauty mouth
beauty blog roll
beauty blogging blonde
beauty junkie london
big fashionista
british beauty blogger
catanya
the fashion freak
getlippie
glitterdollz7
healingbeauty
just nice things
katie chutzpah
konglish beauty
le salon de beaute
lady of the lane
le petit jardin de liloo
lilian
london beauty queen
london makeup girl
makeupsavvy
makeuploveer
miss ellie
mizzworthy
of faces and fingers
perfectly polished
reallyree
so far so chic
sparkle and shade
strawberry mochi
vex in the city
wande's world

and the list goes on. for updates see it on http://bit.ly/bloggerzunite

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A very happy tree :)

I can’t believe how many presents I got this year! I am feeling very loved. I could not resist telling the whole world about it. So this is a picture of my tree :) I got 7 presents this year

• a little flower brooch from @teampixie (square 1)
• a cute teddy bear from @sugonja (square 2)
• some scented bath salts from a colleague (square 3)
• a fantastic present from superdrug (square 4)
• a bundle of 3 presents from my ‘prison break’ friend (sq. 5)
• a mysterious box, as shown on sq. 6
• and all the way from the states, the biggest box ever from @glinda666, as shown on square 7.

Let’s open the presents shall we? :)

From Superdrug

This present got me sooo excited. Earlier on during the week, I won a twitter giveway competition from @superdrugloves. I did not expect to receive before Christmas. So I literally squealed when I received it, and squealed even more when I opened it. (I am reusing the word ‘squeal’, newly acquired from @lipglossiping haha! Inside, the best selling products from Elite Products, yep, and full size products too!!

From my friend ‘Prison Break’

Totally spot on, my friends knows me well, and it’s just all I love, aaaaaaa :) A bottle of kir royale, a single yet generous portion of panettone, and some lindt chocolate. A lot of thought has went into in the portion side of it, which suits the deranged food wise person that I am.

The mysterious present, as shown above on square 6

Now this one was totally a genuine surprise. For some reason, I thought it was another parcel from superdrug, or an order that I made some time ago. There was no mention at all of the sender apart from the name of a company on the packaging tape. And it turned out to be a present from my friend @joannadelilah. Really really thoughtful. I only met her once in real life, in wales. We had the most amazing breakfast in Wales, and she went ahead and has a mug of our mugshots holding a mug. This is incidentally the only picture I liked which was taken of all the fun week end spent in wales. That really really touched me and has brought so many memories back. @joannadelilah: we need to meet up again!!!

By coincidence as well, I just caught up with the facebook picture feed of my friend @joannadelilah (I can have access to have albums if people send me the external address of the album) and my favourite picture of the whole lot (after the picture of the radioactive eyes of madonna the cat) was a pic of my friend holding a mug, just chilling out, nice and relaxed, just like I met her, minus the ‘jordan eyes’ make up. There she is my friend @joannadelilah <3

and the box from @glinda666

Now this one as well has taken me totally by surprise. I am absolutely blown away by the generosity, fabulousness, gorgeousness, personal touch and exclusivity of this present. I am slightly embarrassed too because this is sooo much! Thank you so much @glinda666!!! Omg, you crazy woman, this is way too much, I can’t believe how much stuff you have given me. Omg, omg, omg, omg! I had to take multiple pictures of this because I am way too excited aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa !!!

Me, before opening it, all excited already. Told you the box was huge!

Inside the outer package, a gorgeous laminated luxurious christmas box. That box itself must have cost a fortune, it’s gorgeous!

And the treasure hunt begins. The lovely greeting card sets me on a mission to find in a sea of softly multifaceted confettis style streamers (not sure how to describe it) 11 little jars.

On my way there, I find buried in this sea of fun, 2 other little parcels. And there they are, nothing less a beautiful selection of 11 of the most gorgeous MAC pigments, yes, that’s right it’s all mac stuff!!! (I squeal at looking at the gorgeous colours and recognising names of products the big gurus of this world use). Totally overwhelmed at this point, I can’t believe how utterly precious and gorgeous those colours are. I feel so spoilt!

And then, I find buried in this sea of fun, 2 other little parcels.

• 2 full size MAC blankety lipsticks! Blankety being my favourite lipstick of all time, and I had lost the one that I had which got me all upset!
• And then, omg omg omg 3 nyx jumbo pencils, in the following colours: milk, french fries, and black bean. Makeup aficionadoes will know how exclusive the nyx jumbo pencils are, as they are nowhere to be found in the UK!!!

Glinda: This is way too much, (I am going to keep all the little treasures though, it’d be rude not to! haha) Youve spoilt me too much, thank you, thank you, and thank you. This is my best christmas ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reflects Transparent Teal is missing on this picture. But you’ll see it below :)

And there they are :) My 11 little piggies.

• top row: burnt burgundy, teal, pink pearl;
• middle row: crystallised purple, mutiny, violet, fuchsia, 3d silver;
• bottom row: reflects very pink, reflects gold, reflects transparent teal

Best Christmas ever aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa :) What about you? Did you get anything this christmas which totally got you… squealing?

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