Saturday is for … shopping

I still feel a bit shy at this business of sharing shopping sprees (small or big) with you but since you responded quite well to my first two ones, I thought you might be wanting to read about this one as well. Funny enough and contrarily to what this blog might show, I don't really like shopping. I like buying nail polishes, makeup and beauty products but I can't stand going for clothes, shoes and outfit accessories. So I postpone it, and postpone it for as long as I can, until the shoes/clothes are totally worn out (or the seams have cracked) before I go shopping for more. I didn't used to be like that. I guess before I went shopping because I am bored but I have seldom found myself bored since blogging.






Anyway, I was in dire need to find some shoes to travel in, comfortable enough for a soon coming week end away, ready to wear, without the need to 'break them in'. I found these from New Look (£24.99 if my memory is correct). They are not your peak of fashion by any means, they look a bit mumsy to be honest but the leather makes them ultra comfortable despite their high-ish wedge. I am not in love with them, but I am desperate for some shoes and these will have to do. I find them a bit chunky and it was this photo of Eva Mendez which persuaded to keep them. Hers are much nicer but it's a bit similar, no? No? ok









Off to TK Maxx to find a basic handbag and I found this 'Sparrow True' one (I have already renamed it 'jack sparrow bag') at half price. I love the beigy/brown colour, the soft material, the size and even the price: £24.99. I rarely spend more than £20 in a handbag, but I am pretty desperate and I am travelling on Friday. I used to have a bag like before, purchased from good old Internacionale, but then I spilt some out of date fruits of the forest Cambridge Diet shake in there and it had to go bag heaven.








Next, still at TK Maxx, I was happy to find these shampoos from Organix. Organix is a brand I've been wanting to try for ages but its price tag (£6.99) has always put me off. Last Saturday they were at £3.99 so they had to come with me. The purple one (acai berry and avocado) is sulfate free and the beige one (vanilla) has got a traditional formula. I will report back if I like them. Had they had the coconut one on offer, I would have probably bought the whole lot.





Last but not least, I wanted to buy a sleek eau la la liner in shade cocoa for my brows but they had run out of them. I wanted to buy the tester but it was all broken inside. So I came home with a lovely Rimmel black/brown pencil. The shade is great: black is too dark, brown is too light. It's genius. Shame it's not waterproof. Again, this will have to do for now and I have a disaster to try to cover up.





I have kept what excites me the most for the end. The minute I saw this limited edition Marks and Spencer lilac nail polish on Emma's blog (Imagination in Colour) I have been longing to buy it and finally it's mine. Swatches and review will follow (edit: swatched here) but now a quick picture of the bottle of this little £3.50 golden lilac wonder.

I hope this hasn't been too boring. I am a bit stressed out with this trip so blog posts might be a bit thin on the ground this week.

Have a lovely week.  xx

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Oh so wiser…

There's been a little bit of action of the blogosphere today. A certain list  might have made the day or some bloggers and ruffled the feathers of some others. Ok maybe just my feathers. Today 'So Feminine' released the names of their top 100 beauty blogs.

Oh so what, did you say? I have never heard of them either. Bloggers who successfully topped in their 100 favourite blogs were emailed about it and can proudly display their award on their blog: a cute and snazzy badge linking to the oh so feminine website. I have been genuinely delighted for all my blogger friends who made it, until tonight when another friend of mine, couldn't help herself from feeling a little bit disconcerted for not having featured in their top 100. Me, being me, I would need to kick up a fuss about it on twitter and got all melodramatic about it. While I am by no means proud of another twitter drama, talking to my twitter friends helped me to see the light:


Who are 'Oh so Feminine' anyway? How did they come up with their list of 100 favourite blogs? If these 100 blogs are oh so good, why were not these blogs hyperlinked anyway from their website? What if this list was just a marketing ploy to have these 100 blogs talking about them today and displaying their badges? What amazing publicity would that be for them if all 100 of blogs 'featured' would blog about them!


Well, you know what? I don't like that list. Lots of my bloggers friends and their awesome blogs didn't make it and therefore, it's not a very good list. Oh So feminine, I don't need your badge. I've got one way cooler and it's got Cassoulet on it. Cassoulet is great. It's like  baked beans, but it's got sausages in it. Do you know who made it? My favourite blogger: Charlotte from Lipglossiping.com. So there.

I feel a bit silly to have totally fallen for their marketing ploy.
I might still be a bit childish to get worked up about silly things but I am a little bit wiser, oh so wiser.

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Interlude: What I get up to when I'm upset or bored...

There are hundreds of things I need to blog about. I am really behind with my blogging but tonight I am not in  the best of predispositions to blog. My day was ok, nothing bad happened bad at work. I went to my first class of  Zumba tonight, and let's just say that I was left pretty disappointed, with a deflated self confidence. Even  letting it all out on twitter didn't help.

When I feel a bit under the weather, it's actually doing a little  something for someone and hopefully making them smile which brightens my mood. I find that focusing on someone  else, instead of just myself, helps forget my own miseries, a little bit anyway…





So tonight, even if I have a backlog of emails and hundreds of things to do, I just wanted to play with my paint  shop pro (I can't work with Photoshop to save my life) and do something a little bit creative: a little banner  for my friend Catherine. Her blog is called Perfectly Polished. I think she likes as she has just adopted it :) 


This is the before:




and this is the after:


 


I am still a bit  mift about the whole zumba trauma and probably won't go to one of these zumba classes in  a hurry but I feel a little chirpier.


While I'm showing off, this a simple banner I did for  LouLou’s Blog. The brief was something simple, which goes with the existing background and with flowers and a bit of pink.



 





and this is a little banner/header I did for Miss Lori.
Again, this nothing special, very simple but different. It matches her love of pink, zebra and features one of my favourite pictures of her. I had so  much fun playing around with her banner.








I can't imagine why she didn't pick this one, can you? ;) Love you sweetie xx





Fancy a header for your blog?  I am not the best with taking photos but I can cook up something basic and simple  for you if you don't have a banner/header at all or if you fancy a change. Let me know.

Have you had a good day?

Liloo xx

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Poll: Why is YOUR blog post not getting ‘enough’ comments?

People can say what they want: that they blog primarily for the passion of blogging, sharing but ultimately, the more positive comments you receive on your posts,  the happier you are. And you can't help but  feeling a little bit sad or discouraged when some of your cherished posts gets very few comments or in some cases zero comments at all.






2 of my beauty bloggers friends were noticing  yesterday how the number of comments left on their blog posts had decreased, whilst the number of  visits had stayed the same. Why is that? What are they doing differently? What has changed? One thing led to another, this set my twitter timeline on fire and I found myself in the  middle of a very passionate debate:

When bloggers experienced a decrease in comments  is it because  they've lost 'their touch' and not engaging their audience as they have in the past or could there  other factors explaining the decrease of comments left

As a blog reader, do you personally feel you comment enough on the blog you read?
If not, what is preventing you from
commenting more?

And this is what you had to say on the topic:

Interesting, no?

So we have readers who don't feel their comment would bring valuable contribution to the debate,  others put off by the dreaded 'captchas' and technicalities associated with posting comments, on top of everyone who feel that they are simply not enough hours in the day to comment as much as they would  like to. The general consensus is that most of you feel they don't comment and wish they left more  more comments on blog posts.


Where do I belong? In every category really.  Since I have been reading blogs through Google reader, I find  myself managing to read blogs very fast: Google reader makes it very easy for me to read, as its  name suggests but it's definitely not intended to leave comments, which is my problem starts. I tend  to 'star' the blogs which I prefer and would definitely comment on 'later' but am put off to click  on the actual blog, and start the technical nightmare of commenting:

Like captchas was not bad enough (most of the blogs I follow - mine included - are on blogger) I  find myself to press the 'send' button many times, cos the first time I pressed it it didn't send  and having to wait everytime I pressed send for the confirmation from my blogger that message has  successfully, confirmation which needs me to scroll up and down the page like a loonie. Even  sometimes when I comment on my blog, I am having to log on again, press send, check to see if has  been sent, a red button appear, I press send again, a second red button appear, then some weird  stuff appears, asking me to preview (I don't want to preview the f*ckin thing god dammit, just send  the wretched thing already, will you blogger, and then after the 4th time I pressed SEND I see that it had  been sent ok. Needless to say that from now on, I always make sure to copy my comment before running  the risk of losing in the process. Like everyone, I wish I had more time, but commenting was easier,  then I would think I would spend more time commenting and make the most of it.

 


Time is definitely an issue and I feel some people (well I do anyway) after commenting on a certain  amount of posts (let's say 10) get tired. So whilst they found your post a very interesting  read, it might have come up at the wrong timing in their reading sequence: they are either reading  from their phone (can you actually comment from a phone) or have already commented on other posts. So your  post, however great it is, suffers that day from not being part of this selected few. This is  my theory anyway. Whilst your content is amazing and comment worthy, people follow more and more  blogs so your blog finds yourself in a big competition of hundreds of others popping up in your email / RSS  reader / dashboard …


Also your devoted readers, inspired by their readings feel like they can bring more to the 'beauty  pot' with starting their own blog as a result and find themselves to have less time to comment.  Whilst I am writing all this non sense and it's 1.45am, I could have been commenting on all the  blogs I've starred/favorited today, and promised myself to comment on. Sadly, I know I won't have reached my  target and would have probably tweeted about your post rather than commenting on it directly.


And then you have this mismatch, as observed by jadlgw above, about the amount of comments she  leaves (because she wants to and enjoys it) versus the amount of comments she gets on her blog  posts. Is it fair to expect a 'satisfying' amount of comment, when you, yourself don't leave many  comments? But then again, are you going to expect the girl behind Temptalia to go and comment on  your blog? When would she find the time? You'd rather she kept the beauty world up to date, as it  happens with the latest Mac collections rather than commenting on lots of blogs, right?


How many comments should we be expecting per blog post anyway? Whatever this desirable or expected  number might be, we need to find ways to cheer ourselves up. If you are a blogger, and reading this  and haven't already done so, I would strongly strongly urge you to subscribe some website which  helps you tracking the amount of traffic your blog is generating. I only opened a free account to  Google analytics a month ago, but if I hadn't opened an account at Sitemeter.com, I would have given  up blogging a long time ago. Being able to see how many visits your blog is getting, even though  it's not very much, allows to see that at least people are reading the fruit of your labour, even  though the comments are not always there to show it.


Thank you so so so so so much to everyone who gave me their views on the topic. I feel it has opened  my eyes. Will it stop me from being upset if a post dear to me doesn't trigger my idea of what a satisfying amount of comments is? Of course not but I am now reassured that we are all in the same boat, doing our thing, in a growing beauty  blogging community.


Please cherish every comment you get, even if it's just a brief and simple one. I do. If you’re still upset, go follow @loulou699, she’ll cheer you up, in less time it would take you to decipher a captcha

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