Lipsticks & Lightsabers

Hiatus

2011-10-31T19:36:00.002Z

The blog is going on hiatus for a while. I'm not sure how long, but I need a break from the internet.

During this time, I'll continue to work on the rants (Team Pink Eye is at $848 now!) and the new site (which is almost done). It's unlikely there will be any new posts here until I simply switch to the new site, except for the custom rants. The domain will remain the same, so as long as you're coming to www.lipsticksandlightsabers.com you'll find it when it launches.

I hope everyone has a great Halloween, and a wonderful Bonfire Night to my fellow Britons!

Vicarious anger saves your blood pressure.

2011-10-29T16:38:00.005+01:00

Don't give yourself a heart-attack; Lipsticks & Lightsabers rants so you don't have to!

In addition to purchasing your own, custom rant, you can now also adopt one of the pre-existing rants on Lipsticks & Lightsabers, like this one.

Why?

Adopting a rant can allow you to have all the satisfaction of having thoroughly pwned the subject of the rant, without feeling the necessary rage and raising your blood pressure. Vicarious anger through your adopted rant is better for your health!

Adopted rants will feature a box like this one:

This independent little rant has been adopted by Your Name.
Learn more about adopting your own rant for charity right here.

Which tells everyone the name of the adoptive parent(s), and links to a site of their choice. Adopting popular rants is a great way to drive more traffic to your site and improve search results.

Plus, you know, it goes to charity.

What?

For the same donation, $10 or more, you can pick any existing rant on the blog and adopt it. Adopted rants will have a box like the one above including the name and link of the adoptive parents (more than one person can adopt the same rant, and you can adopt more than one) and a link to this post.

The box, and your link, will stay there permanently. Adopting popular rants is a great way to drive traffic to your site, however you should be sure it is a rant you want to be associated with.

Adoptive parents will also receive a digital certificate of adoption via e-mail, which isn't pictured because I haven't made it yet. It'll be fancypants though!

Just like with the custom rants, adopting a rant will also make you eligible to enter all of the TPE giveaways this week (but you'll have to visit the blogs and comment to enter!)

How?

Just click right here and click 'Donate to Frances' who is the Team Pink Eye team captain for donations. Pick any donation amount of $10 or over, and in the note box on the donation form, make sure to include the note: Lipsticks & Lightsabers.

When you've donated, e-mail anastasia@lipsticksandlightsabers.com telling me which rant(s) you'd like to adopt and the name and link you'd like the box to show.

Bonus

Anyone who either purchases a rant or adopts one will also be able to enter all of this week's TPE giveaways without needing to donate again. Just comment on the blog giveaways to enter!

Here they are:

Tits or GTFO

2011-10-28T21:14:00.031+01:00

This independent little rant has been adopted by Frances Danger.
Learn more about adopting your own rant for charity right here.

It was brought to my attention by a kind soul (and I assume now former fan) on Twitter, that there is a right way and a wrong way to go about charitable fundraising, and that boob jokes are firmly in the wrong way camp.

I'm always grateful when people let me know when my humour, which they found perfectly funny before I joked about anything they actually cared about, steps over the line and becomes inappropriate. I'm especially grateful when this happens when I'm trying to do something for charity, because avoiding potentially-offensive jokes is obviously more important than raising money or awareness for good causes.

My mistake was in tweeting the new post about the rants for Team Pink Eye. I didn't realise it at the time, but in my attempt to be light-hearted and amusing about a serious and upsetting subject, an approach not unprecedented here, I was in fact reducing people to their body parts and contributing to a dark and terrible world where people make jokes to raise money for fighting cancer.

What I should have said was "save boobies if possible, but more importantly save the person they are attached to because they are more valuable and their life is more important than retaining bodyparts which women are often sexualised with anyway through angry ranting!" but it was over the character limit.

This was clearly too far. I did not realise, at the time, that the seriousness of my statement would be difficult to fathom. Clearly, it does look like I actually think that breasts are a worthier cause than dying orphans. I had plenty of characters left to write "joke", or simply ditch the tweet entirely. I apologise to anyone who felt they were devalued as a person due to my shortsightedness.

In before the self-proclaimed Humourless Feminist. I have edited out the name of this person for their protection, although they did not see fit to give me the same courtesy. All of the tweets posted are this same person. We'll call her HF for short.

No, obviously not. Just the boobs. The breasts would survive perfectly well all on their own.

I'm beginning to rethink that policy.

These three tweets prompted HF to post this calm, reasonable response to her tumblr:

One tweet would have been understandable. But not two. No, 'FUCKING FOLLOW[ING] UP WITH A SECOND TWEET' was, obviously, completely unacceptable behaviour from me and I'll thoroughly deserve being choked to death with a mouse cord as soon as HF manages to defy those pesky physics which leave her simply venting her murderous rage on the internet.

If you were wondering, the answer to: "angry, ranty, and foulmouthed, what's not to like?" is apparently: joking about breasts.

Oh gosh, did I entirely miss your point? Did I not react appropriately to being chastised for using inappropriate language in my misguided attempts to raise money for a good cause? I can imagine how frustrating that must be for you!

I just can't imagine how anyone who is so easily offended liked me before this. Still, to cover my bases and flush out anyone else who was offended by careless fundraising talk:

I mistakenly thought that the issue was offending someone's sensibilities because cancer is serious (hence the phrase, "as serious as cancer", which I'm pretty sure isn't supposed to imply "not very serious at all") and I was joking about it, assuming, of course, that it was a given that cancer is bad.

I was wrong.

Dum dum dumm, thanks for playing Guess What Pedantic Bullshit I'm Whining About, better luck next time! Cancer is a game, apparently.

So the issue is that I was reducing people to their body parts by talking about saving the boobs. Because breast cancer cares about you and values you as an entire person. I wonder if HF has similar problems with the phrase "break a leg"?

It seems like my previous tweets were taken seriously and that HF thought I was part of some hitherto unheard of majority of people who think breasts are more important than being alive.

All cleared up, right?

Just a reminder, we're not talking about me being racist in a political speech here, this is in reference to saying 'save the boobs' while fundraising for the fight against breast cancer. I pretty much think that, in this instance, yeah. I can do that, and it's fine.

Still, the point here is that the end does not justify the means. The end being, fighting cancer and helping to save lives, and the means being telling a joke about boobs on Twitter. You decide.

OK, GUYS. It's only a joke THE FIRST TIME YOU TELL IT. After that, it's OPPRESSION.

Technically, words don't intrinsically mean anything, they only have the subjective meanings that we attach to them. Nothing is objectively offensive.

Honestly, I'm not sure where feminism came into it, but you don't waste an invitation like that. However, breast cancer doesn't only effect females, it also effects men.

Yes, there's the accusation you literally just asked for. That wasn't a genuine invitation?

Is the prize for this game a sense of humour? If so, I forfeit and you can have it.

No prizes for guessing why HF has been called it before, though (not least because she invites it).

So, it would have been OK and inoffensive if it was funny?

Keep going with the patronising and condescending pet names, hon.

Yes, saying "save the boobs" whilst raising money for breast cancer is akin to encouraging arsonists and must be stopped. It would be better if we simply didn't say anything and, to quote directly from HF's blog post on the subject,

it's probably better for everyone if you [people who make boob jokes] just stay out of breast cancer awareness movements altogether

We don't need more money for cancer research, if you're just going to make boob jokes while you do it. Forget it. We don't want to beat cancer that badly. Just go home.

HF, deciding apparently that the game was over, went back to update her Tumblr on the subject.

OH! The game was BINGO!

Yes, you got the response you specifically and quite literally asked for. It is a shame, given that you liked my blog for me being angry and ranty and outspoken. That was all fine, apparently, until it was about a subject you disagreed on (charity). Then I'm PETA.

So, that was over, and my friends and I joked about on Twitter with one another on the subject, although none of them said anything directly to or mentioning HF by name, that I could see. I didn't tweet a general tweet including HF's name, only responses to her. Still, another charming Tumblr update:

Wankstain? Words have meanings, you know.

I actually didn't send anyone to attack her. I didn't tweet her name outside of my responses, I didn't ask anyone to speak to her, and I've taken the time to edit her name out of over 30 screenshots here, which was actually pretty irritating. If you work out who she is, please do not attack her on my behalf.

I never 'send people' to attack anyone, but occasionally the women who read my blog - who are, for the (slightly larger now) majority, intelligent, reasonable women who are capable of forming their own opinions, being offended and acting independently of me. This blog is not a front for a borg cube. It's a strange sort of feminist who doesn't credit women with the necessary brain power to be personally offended when insulted and to think up opinions in their pretty little heads all on their own.

The two women behind Team Pink Eye have put in a tremendous amount of work despite difficult personal circumstances, the bloggers and business owners involved have dedicated a lot of their time and energy to it (way more than me), and the others in this little community have donated their hard-earned cash for the cause. To insult them all with sweeping statements is pretty disgusting, and to then consider that - perfectly justified - backlash as me sending my drones to attack rather than these women having personal and legitimate grievances is the most appalling of all.

I wouldn't normally make a post about one individual, but I claim the "she started it" defence, what with her several tumblr posts accusing, insulting, and naming me, the "she insulted my friends" defence, and the "what the fuck you crazy bint, it's a joke about tits for charity", also known as the "common sense" defence. I've also refrained from naming/threatening to murder the individual, unlike her, which I think is the "moral highground" defence.

There are lots of arguments I could make, about how breasts are a part of a person and the part generally affected by breast cancer, about how humour helps to take away something's power, about how campaigns about tits are more likely to get men to donate, about how cancer doesn't care about you being a feminist, or a female, or care about you as a person, and that we could try seeing how far we got fighting cancer with political correctness and respect, but I'll wager it wouldn't be very far. In the end, though, I think the clincher is pretty much: "It's a joke about tits on Twitter for charity. Shut the fuck up."

Unfortunately, we can't ever cure righteous stupidity, but we might be able to make a dent in cancer. So, if you're not offended by my absolutely unacceptable sense of humour, please consider buying a rant, or simply just donating or entering this week's Team Pink Eye giveaways, to help us save the breasts*.

*if at all possible, but primarily the people they are attached to.

WTS Rants b/o $10 ea whisper with offer.

2011-10-28T19:05:00.005+01:00

I'm waaaaay late on posting this, but... it's week 4 of Team Pink Eye's fundraising in October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Some time ago I mentioned my participation in this was that people could buy a rant with their donation.

The Gist

Anyone who donates $10 or more to Team Pink Eye and uses the note 'Lipsticks & Lightsabers' on the donation form will not only be eligible to enter all of this week's Team Pink Eye giveaways (see below) but will also be entitled to have their very own rant written by me, on a subject of their choosing and posted here on Lipsticksandlightsabers.com. The rant is also allowed to include one hyperlink of your choosing, so you can plug your shop, blog, whatever you like.

These rants will have the rant label and will be easy to find by anyone looking through past rants in the future.

You can also choose whether you'd like a clean version or one with expletives!

The Smallprint

Terms of Sale:

1. Any person donating $10 or more to Team Pink Eye will be entitled to have a rant written by the author of www.lipsticksandlightsabers.com and published on the blog www.lipsticksandlightsabers.com

2. The donation must include the note "Lipsticks & Lightsabers" in the available note box on the donation form. Use of this note will also indicate agreement with these terms.

3. Proof of donation must be provided to the author.

4. The published rant may include a maximum of one URL of the donator's choosing. This will be included in the introduction at the beginning of the post.

5. The subject of the rant may be determined by the donator, however, final discretion rests with the author and subjects may be rejected if they are deemed to be hateful, targeting an individual or group, or if insufficient information on the subject is available.

6. A preview of the rant can be e-mailed to the donator for minor revisions prior to publication.

7. The length of the rant will vary, and is subject to the author's discretion. No specific length is guaranteed.

8. The timeframe for the completion and delivery of the rant is subject to change, dependent on the level of interest. However, any rant not completed within 2 months (60 days) of the donation date will be eligible for refund at the donator's request.

9. Returns will not be accepted. Completed and delivered rants are not eligible for refunds.

The Method

When you've donated, e-mail anastasia@lipsticksandlightsabers.com letting me know, make sure to include the name/e-mail address on your donation and I'll get back to you to get the details for your rant.

The Bonus

Anyone who donates to get a rant will also be eligible to enter all of this week's giveaways without any extra donation. Just make sure after you've donated you visit the blogs on this list and comment to enter!

Info taken from the Team Pink Eye Blog:

We still have this weeks giveaways and the products being sold with proceeds benefitting TPE to get to the goal. Check those out here: Ragdolls Bath and Beauty, Darling Girl, Silk Naturals, Glamasaurus, Cinnamon Cosmetics, Chequered Lily, Simply Sweet Skin, Unique Pigments, and Whimsy Beading. Our best estimate is that we should have a final total by November 12.

I have submitted paperwork to my new employer to see about a matching contribution. Fingers crossed it comes through and we will have exceeded the $1,000 goal. Regardless, it is overwhelming the response TPE has received and we are honored to have been a part of it.

But it's not over yet! We have some outstanding looks and giveaways today. Todays giveaways are sponsored by Silk Naturals, Darling Girl Cosmetics, Unique Pigments, The Chequered Lily, Linnaeus Cosmetics, Cinnamon Cosmetics, and Going Grey. Details on how to enter are below.

Let's get to it! Team Pink Eye Week Four:

Cupcake's Quirky Corner

g l o s t i x

Gothique

It's French For Staircase Wit

Just A Domesticated Glitter Goddess

Lacquered, Painted, Polished

My Socks Are Better Than Your Socks

Phyrra

Silhouette Screams

Utopista Beauty Blog

Helo Kitty!

2011-10-25T09:35:00.004+01:00

I know I'm way behind, but I'm going to distract everyone with pictures of my new kitten so you don't notice!

Meet Helo. He's 8 weeks old and joined my house last night. He enjoys running, exploring, trying to kill my computer chair's wheels, shooting down cylon raiders, sleeping on me and nomming on my hands.

^_^

He tires himself out with frolicking about every 30 minutes.

Exploring the seedy underbelly of my computer desk.

You are getting sleepy, getting very sleepy...

And, back to sleep.

Don't Feed The Trolls

2011-09-23T04:48:00.008+01:00

My good friend Amanda just posted an absolutely excellent guide everyone should read.
Presenting...

Amanda’s All-Purpose Guide to Avoiding Drama

Lesson One: There Are Assholes On The Internet

I’m not even going to get into the why’s and how’s of this. Just accept it. 50% of the people you meet on the internet will be assholes. They may be assholes in real life. They may be people blowing off steam from a bad day. They may be trolling. Who knows? The end result is the same. If you are here, also on the internet, then you have pretty much agreed to the unwritten rule that you’re going to have to deal with assholes. Put on your big-girl (or boy) panties and move on. [cont]

Read it all right here.

(psst, follow her blog while you're there)

Random Shit Tuesday Vol. 5

2011-09-20T03:58:00.009+01:00

I love this song so much.

We're Playing Anywhere But Here

The Any Alternative giveaway ended a while ago, and I've finally gotten around to drawing a winner!

Congratulations to... Denise!
Please e-mail me for your prize :]

It was completely random - entrants' names were put into a spreadsheet (multiple times if they had multiple entries), randomised, assigned numbers and then the number was drawn from random.org.

We had some absolutely amazing entries and all of them are hilarious and well worth reading. Here's a few favourites:

Glittersniffer Cosmetics: We'll rob you blind! Literally!"
(Rach)

Glittersniffer Cosmetics: Because looking good is more important than just looking.
(Kier)

Maybe she's born with it - Maybe she caught it from Glittersniffer!
(Faye)

Glittersniffer: Fulfilling all your fears about what's in your make-up!
(Lexy-thief)

Glittersniffer Cosmetics: As addictive as crack. Though not as safe.
(Jessica)

Glittersniffer: Red lips and pinkeye.
(Awesome)

Glittersniffer...truly blinding colours
(Caitie)

Your optometrist will think you look fabulous!
(Sam - my sister!)

Glittersniffer: Because Crime Does Pay
(Arika)

Huge thanks to everyone who participated!

Watch Your Televizzles

I suppose I watch a lot of TV. I don't watch it on an actual television, so it doesn't always occur to me that I do, but the list of shows I watch(ed) is very long. I decided to do a mini-review on the two new shows I've just started watching, would anyone be interested in seeing more of these types of reviews?

Breaking Bad - This is excellent. It might not be a subject you'd normally consider, but it's such a well-written, well-acted, well-produced show that it's absolutely worth watching. The depth of emotion that the main two characters manage to convey is incredible, especially Jesse. I hope that actor goes far because some of his scenes are absolutely heart-breaking. You'll get sucked in before you realise it and be desperately attached to the main pair, and the action is gripping and has a sense of urgency and reality to it that always makes me feel in suspense. Breaking Bad is a show you should be watching, even if Skyler is the most annoying character on the frakking planet.

This is Gary. He is awesome. You might recognise him from Bones.

Alphas - Alphas just started, and it's not about werewolves which was my thought when I saw the title. It's a weird combination for a show - kind of like Charles Xavier and The X-Men Help The DoD Solve Crimes. Parts of it remind me of X-Men, early Smallville and part Fringe - each episode has a new Alpha, a new person with some extraordinary ability (early Smallville's meteor-freaks) and the team have to investigate/stop/recruit/help that person, despite being completely unqualified and untrained. There are overtones of a sinister movement orchestrating events (i.e. Fringe) but it has the rebel "Mutants first" quality that Magneto's manifesto had. The group of Alphas is made up of some interesting, diverse characters with distinct personalities and interesting powers that make watching them work together creative and fun, even if occasionally their powers seem a little too convenient.

The weakest character, in my opinion is their leader, a psychiatrist Dr Rosen. He just seems a little overacted to me - too doddery, and although the series tries to show that these people are (mostly) untrained civilians who have personal problems and use Dr Rosen for therapy as well as leadership, sometimes Rosen's character makes intuitive leaps in the investigation which are unrealistically specific and feel like cheating at plot. In conflict moments when he's forced to act out of character, he doesn't seem to particularly react or have much of an emotional impact.

I like the idea that this mismatched group have a therapist who helps keep them together and helps them not only hone their powers (old hat) but also with their personal and character problems. Dr Rosen has no powers of his own, but he still fulfils the Xavier type role pretty well because of his occupation.

Overall, I think Alphas is very watchable. The action varies between brilliant and engaging (particularly when Hicks is involved) and weirdly stunted and awkward, but there are some excellent moments and it's entertaining and has a great premise. Most of the characters are interesting, many are a nice change from standard character types (it's nice to see a useful female character who isn't an overcompensating bitchy warrior-woman type for once), and Gary is an awesome character. There's a lot of good acting and some not-so-great acting, but that's pretty typical of a new show and my hope is that it improves as the actors get used to their roles and the show continues. It's already been picked up for a second season, so I'm looking forward to see where it goes.

A Sandwich? With Words?

After finishing The Magician King (brilliant) I was looking for a new audiobook. Audiobooks are great for me, since I suffer with agoraphobia and an anxiety disorder, and I find them invaluable for helping me stay calm and control anxiety attacks in public. Finding a good audiobook is very difficult, however, because the book has to be good, the narrator has to be good and has to be the right voice for the character.

I tried listening to an Ilona Andrews audiobook, but the narrator (Renée Raudman) reads everything in a faux-deep Batman-esque melodramatic voice, which drove me crazy. I mean, everything, every little bit of narrative. After a few minutes I couldn't listen anymore, so I'll have to read those on my kindle instead.

I was really pleased when I discovered that the Dresden Files (which were on my reading list) are narrated by James Marsters. Yes, that James Marsters. He doesn't have the faux-British accent for Harry but he still sounds pretty Spike-y and his voice is perfect for the books. He reads them really well, so I'm working my way through that series now. I'm on the second book and so far, I'd really recommend them.

Get The Fruit! Get The Fruit!

I've been on a bit of a retro(ish) game kick recently. After beating the main game on Pokémon White, I started re-playing Pokémon Emerald, mostly just so I could take this screenshot:

On a whim, I bought a slim PS2, wanting to re-play Final Fantasy IX on it. Then I discovered it wouldn't play on it. I don't know if it's because the unit itself is broken or if it's because it doesn't support FF IX - the slim PS2 is supposed to be backwards compatible but I've read that some titles are unsupported. Either way, the eBay store I got it from has been incredibly helpful and is exchanging it for me with an original PS2, so I can neglect the blog more and run around on a chocobo. They're even sending me a prepaid shipping label to return the slim PS2 with, and have been incredibly friendly and helpful and so on. If anyone in England is after slightly older pre-owned consoles or games for them, I recommend Gadgets4Everyone.

Lassie Always Gets A Treat

Some very good friends of mine have been busy organising the Team Pink Eye Project, a fundraising effort for the makeup community for Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October. Bloggers are invited to host giveaways or do pink EOTD/FOTD/NOTDs and many indie sellers have graciously donated prizes or funds from sales, all to help raise awareness about Breast Cancer, self-checking, and raise money for research.

I'm participating too, but since I look dreadful in pink I'm doing something a little different.

Anyone who wants to donate $10 or more to the Team Pink Eye Project can have their very own rant written by me and posted on the blog. The subject can be anything you like, with a few restrictions (nothing nasty/individually targeted/prejudiced - this is supposed to be fun!) and the length will vary, largely dependant on what I have to say on the subject. You can specify whether you want it with or without expletives and they'll all include the donator's name and a link of their choice, whether to their blog, website, Etsy shop, whatever.

I'll post more details when it starts in October, but there's still a few hours left for you to join in with TPE with your blog/shop or just help spread the word, so please check out their blog and get in touch if you want to take part.

Read Moar

My wonderful friend Lo, who's one of those brilliant people who's going to grow up to be president of something, has started her own blog and you should follow it.

Heartsy? More like failsy.

Siryn is amazing and annoyingly talented. She posts makeup looks based on comic characters. She knows way more about comics than I do.

There's a million things I should link, too many to sort through. My blogroll badly needs updating, but I'm putting it off until I switch to Wordpress.

All Other Times

I know I've been a terrible blogger lately. I tend to disappear whenever I've got stuff going on, because I can't write very well if I'm upset.
I have a metric fuckton of things to swatch. Over two hundred. Including a MASSIVE Evil Shades follow-up, long overdue Black Rose Minerals, Morgana lip balms, a new UK drugstore brand, four Sleek palettes, Detrivore, Persephone Minerals, a huge Shiro haul, Fyrinnae, Brazen, more drugstore stuff, and more on the way including Lost in Makeupland, RABB, and others.

I'm looking for advice on lip swatches - mine are always terrible, rarely in focus and they never properly show the colour. Does anyone have tips for decent lip swatches?

I'm not very good at this 'asking the audience questions' thing, because I usually just assume people will tell me whatever they want me to know, but here goes:

Are you interested in mini TV show reviews? What are your favourite shows, past or present? Anything new I should watch?

Your favourite games console? Computers count.

I'm trying to try more indies and new companies - is there anything you'd like to see me try/review?

I'm considering not posting EOTDs anymore. Would anyone mind?

Life okay?

Contrary to popular opinion...

2011-09-17T17:06:00.009+01:00

Britain is not one country. Europe is not one country.

This is a globe. Look at one.

I am from Britain, but more precisely, I am from England. England, not London. Britain is short for Great Britain which includes England, Scotland, and Wales. The UK is short for the United Kingdom, more accurately the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Someone born in Northern Ireland is not British, but an English, Scottish or Welsh person is, and they are all from the UK.

I don't speak British, I speak English. If you want to visit Britain, you want to visit Scotland, Wales, and England - but not Ireland. If you have a friend in the UK, they could be in one of four different countries.

Similarly, Europe is not one country. It is not a small collection of countries that comprises only of the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Germany, and thatcountryIKEAcomesfrom. Europe, whilst being small in terms of geographical size and population, covers more countries than any other continent, and they aren't all countries where everyone wears berets and visits art galleries and are delightfully continental.

Europe contains fifty different countries, more or less, and these are:

Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and Vatican City.

When you say "I want to visit Europe", please bear in mind you're not just talking about England, France, Germany, Spain etc. You're including Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Bosnia and thirty seven other countries. Describing something or someone as European when you have no idea what Europe comprises of looks, and is, ignorant. Saying you love "European food" is stupid, unless you really have tried and love the cuisine from every country on that list.

If you didn't know before, you do now. Please, for the love of baguettes, think before you call something "European".

Read More:

You can find out other basic information about the world we live in right here. It may not be a reliable tool for writing essays, but it's a great starting point and it beats looking like a moron.

RANT DISCLAIMER: If you think I'm talking about you, and you think I'm wrong and are upset that I'm talking about you and making incorrect assumptions, first please consider that I'm probably not talking about you.

This Is Madness.

2011-09-08T09:22:00.004+01:00

Today is the last day to enter the Glittersniffer Comeback giveaway, so make sure you've got your entries in.

If you're hurting for material to help you come up with an ironic slogan for them, Lela's latest antics might provide inspiration.

A few days ago, Lela, ~~creative~~ criminal genius behind Glittersniffer posted on Facebook the full name, address and phonenumber of Frances, the woman who runs the Glittersniffer Complaints blog. She continued to say that, if that one was incorrect, she had five other addresses for Frances and details of her living family members and would 'keep going until her demands were met'.

This version is censored to hide some of the information,

as I don't want to do Lela's job for her.

Way to sound like a reasonable and legitimate business owner, Lela! Also, this has been bugging me for ages, learn the fucking difference between slander and libel. It's neither, but, you know.

The post was quickly removed but not because she was sorry about it - this was her status immediately afterwards, gloating.

It was also not before many of her followers saw it, some commenting and 'liking' the post. At this point, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that any of Lela's followers who think this behaviour is acceptable should be sharing her fucking jail cell ♥. They'd better hope none of them ever complain about their orders, or they might end up getting the same treatment.

Mob scare tactics aside, Frances will not be taking down the Glittersniffer Complaints blog as Lela 'requested'. All Glittersniffer Complaints has ever done is post factual information and documented evidence on the business' practices and issues which affect their customers' safety and financial recompense. If Glittersniffer had done nothing wrong, there would be nothing to post. Threatening the safety of Frances and her family members in order to get the page taken down does not make you look like an injured victim, Lela.

This behaviour comes after she e-mailed Frances at work to try and intimidate her.

Hours later, Lela posted... not an apology, but another cop-out excuse coupled with a guilt-trip to try and excuse her publicly threatening Glittersniffer Complaints.

Notice how she doesn't take responsibility for what she just did or apologise for it. Apparently, Lela hasn't explained to her son that the reason other mommies are mean to his mommy is because his mommy stole their money and injured their children, and then threatened the other mommies. No, it's completely unreasonable of us not to simply let her rip us off so she can support her family by defrauding people.

For the record, Glittersniffer Complaints has never interfered with Lela's personal or family affairs. Frances also knows the personal details of Lela's whereabouts and where Lela works, and has not disclosed this information and won't, because she's a decent human being and not trying to be the Godfather.

I'd like to be king of all Londinium and wear a shiny hat.

2011-09-06T07:32:00.009+01:00

Geek Chic Cosmetics just re-opened and are having a 20% off Labor of Love sale which is on everything until midnight Tuesday 6th September. In honour of that, I thought I might tempt you all with swatches!

I was sent samples ages ago to swatch for Geek Chic, and they've been incredibly patient and lovely even though it takes me forever to do anything. They've brought out tons of amazing stuff since then, several new eyeshadow collections inspired by, among others, Star Trek and Game of Thrones, and they have lip products I'm drooling over, especially the tinted Bio Balms.

I'm also absolutely delighted to announce that Geek Chic recently bought a postage scale and thus will be working on introducing non-flat rate shipping, both domestic and international, in the near future. There's no firm date but it should be in place before the Cyber Monday sale (end of November for the non-Americans!). This means you can expect a lot more GCC swatches and reviews from me to come!

Blahblah, okay. On with the swatch pr0n!

Ambassador was the odd one out, so Inara got a ~~shuttle~~ swatch all to herself. Newb looks yellowish, but it's actually a soft neutral with an amazing buttery finish and slight sheen, it's my favourite neutral lid colour. Unfortunately Oath Keeper is now discontinued.

My favourites are:

Where's The Mountain Brew?
Newb
Very Fine Hat
Booze 'R' Us
Little Albatross
Love of the Uniform
Chosen One
Inevitable Betrayal
Tame This
Shammy
Glass Cannon
Fear Bomb
Vector
Katamari King
Blood Bond
You Have A Destiny
Drood
Ambassador

If you shop the sale, let me know what you get! Oh, and if you buy anything because of the blog, if you note it in checkout then it ultimately helps me (and thus, you) get things like reader-exclusive discount codes and other fun stuff!

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date!

2011-09-04T15:05:00.004+01:00

I'm still part-way through finishing my Future Primitive review, because I suck and it takes me a million years to write anything.

So for now, I'm going to very quickly say that they are virtually perfect in every way and if you dig indie B&B, you should absolutely check them out. To anyone outside of the UK, or used to shopping from US indies, the prices may seem really high since they're priced for a different market and, of course, supplies etc here cost more. All I can say is that even so, Future Primitive ought to be on your saving-up-to-try list. I think they're an insy bit pricier than Lush, but in my experience they're also several times better.

Full review to come, but right now they have two 20% off discount codes - OUTSIDER if you live outside the EU/UK and INSIDER if you live within the EU/UK. They have a ton of wonderful August/Halloween scents available and everyone in the world needs some White White soap!

If you try one thing, it should be soap. Tiggy's soaps are the nicest I've ever used. I'm also absolutely crazy about their Body Whip but I caution anyone who lives in a hot country, I know many US indies only sell similar products in the winter because they can melt, so be aware of that.

Absolutely amazing products, wonderful seller, fantastic service, great scents, blahblahblah don't walk, run.

Will try my very best to hurry up and get the review posted, but in the mean time you might want to grab something at 20% off, the code ends at 9pm GMT so gogogo!

Because any alternative is a better alternative.

2011-08-26T23:53:00.005+01:00

I know I still owe you a post on Glittersniffer (and about a million other things), but for now, satire will have to do. Astonishingly, somehow, Glittersniffer is still somewhat in business. They are making things and selling them and carrying on as if they don't owe tens of thousands of dollars to their previous customers and generally aren't scum-sucking criminals who knowingly sold unsafe products marketed specifically for use on children.

Giveaway!

So, fine. I'm hosting a giveaway to celebrate Glittersniffer's return. All you have to do to enter is come up with an ironic slogan or strapline for Glittersniffer to help them re-launch. For example:

"Glittersniffer: colours that will (literally) make your face melt!"

You don't have to be a wordsmith, just have fun! The winner will be chosen at random so even those lesser gifted in the sarcasm department can still win. If you can't decide what to say, you can suggest more than one, but it only counts as one entry.

Prize!

The prize for this is a $25 giftcard to spend at an online indie makeup/B&B company - any other indie makeup/B&B company because, let's face it, absolutely anyone is better than Glittersniffer.

Details!

The giveaway runs for 2 weeks, from now until 10th September at 11:59pm GMT, and the winner will be announced within 3 days - so get your entries in quick!

It's open worldwide and you can earn an extra entry by sharing the giveaway either on your blog, Twitter or Tumblr (not facebook this time because last time there was an issue with privacy settings) for up to a total of four. Just include what you did when you post your entry, along with links so I can check it out.

The winner will be announced on the blog & via e-mail if you choose to leave it - you don't have to, as it will be visible to the public. They'll have a week to respond to claim their prize, otherwise I'll draw someone else.

:(

2011-08-25T20:33:00.002+01:00

No blog today. :c

They aren't just afraid of snakes.

2011-08-23T23:59:00.000+01:00

Usually on this blog, and on most beauty blogs, the focus is on what companies should deliver and what we, the consumers, deserve and expect. However, I feel like we have a double standard when it comes to indie companies as opposed to corporate ones, and we're demanding so much more from the little guys than we are from business giants.

Indie makeup is like soylent green: it's people. Real people who have real feelings. On the one hand, we like that. We want indie to be our best friend. We want friendly e-mails and twitter conversations and to be their friend on their personal Facebook, we like business transparency and special exceptions, and personalisation to our packages and little notes on invoices and heads up about sales and coupons, and products named after us and products and colours we suggested or helped to shape and influence. We love it. We feel involved and part of the process and like we're buying from friends and it's not just business.

On the other hand, we want serious business. We want professionalism and orders to be filled correctly and in a timely fashion and mistakes to be rectified, we want polite professional e-mails and decorum at all times and no hint of getting annoyed at the always-right customer, and no slip in the PR façade. An indie business owner is your friend until they do something you don't like, and then they aren't. It's OK for a friend to borrow a DVD and forget to return it until you remind them, but it's not OK for a business to forget your free sample. That's unprofessional. If you call your friend a fucking bitch, it's OK (and pretty warranted, let's face it, you asked for it) for her to insult you back, but that's not OK if she's a business owner. Any business owner.
Anywhere.
Ever.
Even if the person isn't a customer, and an argument develops online in an unrelated group which has nothing to do with that business, with the business owner's personal account, with an issue that has nothing to do with the business, when no one has mentioned the business, and the person isn't even a customer. That's not OK. That's unprofessional and shocking and it reflects poorly on their business and you should boycott.
Business owners aren't allowed to get angry at people who insult them and threaten them who aren't customers, when they aren't working or in their uniform or on their business e-real estate. It's unprofessional. Even if it has nothing to do with their business, it still does, because they own one. They aren't even allowed to flip people off if they cut them off driving to Wal-Mart, or get in an argument with the guy who cuts in front of them with a million packages in the post office when they only have one tiny thing. It's unprofessional. They are their business, all the time, everywhere, even when they're in the shower. Opening an Etsy store immediately forfeits all rights to a human response. Every single person they interact with, however fleetingly or minimally, from the bus driver to their kid's teacher, must be treated like a valued potential customer.

Sound unreasonable? It should. It's an impossibly high standard and is no way to live. Yet, increasingly over the past few weeks I've been seen businesses criticised and condemned for not meeting that unachievable standard.

How do indies cope with the blur between professional and personal? How do they, without a publicist or customer service representative or PR agent, know where to draw the line between friendship and business?
It's extremely difficult and there is no right answer. Being too friendly can result in accusations of unprofessionalism or misreading situations or relationships, and being too business can result in people thinking you're being cold, distant, abrupt, rude or simply offensive. When we're used to the warm personal touches of some indies, running into a colder business presence can be jarring and even feel offensive, as if they don't want to be our friend.

The situation gets even stickier when you factor in that many indie owners are also customers of other indie stores. It makes sense, after all - they make makeup or B&B because they love it, so of course they also buy it and many support indie. As a result, they end up being a part of the blogging community when a new company or product is discussed, or they're hurt when something like Glittersniffer happens to them, too. They're people, and consumers, and business owners, and they're involved in the community. Is that OK? Can another business owner also be an angry customer? Is that unprofessional; is that bashing the competition, or is it their right as a consumer?

For most indies, their work is a labour of love. They make it because they love it and they love making it, and we respond to that. We like to encourage and support real passion for the things we like, rather than just profit margins and market gaps. When their work is criticised - even if that criticism is valid, it doesn't feel good, and while most indies respond with grace and take it in stride, I'm sure it's very difficult. Some, I'm sure, can take it personally and be upset and maybe defensive. To a certain extent, I think we have to forgive this, or at least try to be understanding. Customer service and making makeup are two completely different skillsets and an indie may not be blessed with both. They don't have a PR person to remain polite and detached when they sort out problems. And if you hurl abuse, unprovoked, at an indie owner, don't think it isn't within their rights to hurl it back simply because you might one day be a customer or they own a business. You have just as much responsibility to be civil, polite, and generally decent in communication with an indie business owner as they do to respond that way, and if you open by slinging insults you absolutely deserve whatever you get back.

I'm not saying that customer service doesn't matter or indies should be exempt from delivering it; genuine problems should be fixed and help given. We are all entitled to the products we paid for to arrive as described, in a timely fashion, satisfactory condition and to be fit for their intended purpose. I do think, however, that we set the tone of communication and that if you open communication with an indie business owner being rude or abusive, you need to be aware that they aren't your emotional punching bag, and they aren't some PR person trained to blithely accept your vitriol and respond with bland platitudes. They will react like a human, and you will deserve it.
That might sound strange coming from me. Sure, I rant and I curse - on my blog. In my communication with companies, even if I hate them, I'm still civil. It's just common decency. You don't send a storm of abuse into someone's inbox unless you're a troll. It isn't productive, it isn't a courteous thing to do, and even if you were in the right before, it makes your highground get vanishingly low.

When thinking about this issue, I tried to compare it to corporate makeup companies and relate the situation of what would happen if you got an e-mail response from a corporate business owner that could be considered abrupt, or a little rude. I couldn't, because it wouldn't happen. Not that a corporate business owner wouldn't send a response like that, but that you wouldn't get a response at all. Not from them. There are layers of staff between us and a corporate brand owner - you might have a problem with the shop staff, or the person answering the website e-mail, or the customer service rep on the phone, or their PR company, or an issue with quality control, but none of it gets back to the company owner. They're insulated from it all, and so if you really dislike someone you dealt with you generally think it was just that person and is not indicative of the brand itself, and you're less likely to completely stop shopping there.

Indie doesn't have layers of staff - most don't have any, or any training when it comes to crisis management and conflict resolution and how to stay calm and polite without getting personally involved or offended when you're being insulted or having your work criticised. I think it's unfair to expect a one-or-two person operation to have the same kind of service as a multinational corporation with offices overflowing with staff who have nothing at all to do with product creation. Usually, indie owners are the sole creative and driving force behind the company. Expecting them to do everything just as well as a fully staffed corporation is already asking a lot - expecting them to have no personal life whatsoever, no friends, and express no emotion so they can always represent their business perfectly is as ridiculous as it is impossible. When someone at Sephora leaves work and takes their uniform off, they're no longer representing their company. Their entire life isn't their job - why isn't the same true for an indie business?

We can't have it both ways. They can't please everyone and they'll go insane if they try. There isn't even an obvious answer - just a tenuous balance somewhere in the middle and the hope that no over-zealous blogger with a touch of crazy and a whole lot of angry isn't going to try and bring you down for it, and I know some of them are honestly afraid of this. Indie can either be cold and über-professional and business-like all the time and we can deal with them not being our best friend, with keeping communication curt and civil and us getting what we paid for, or it can be warm and personal and sometimes mistakes happen and that doesn't have to be the end of the fucking world. It can be one or the other, or it can try to be in-between and we should recognise that it can't be both and that finding that balance is hard, and inevitably people will disagree on where the middle should be. They can't be your friend when you want to feel involved and an unprofessional businessperson a beat later for trying to act like a person. Indie is people. All the time, even when it's inconvenient.
Mistakes and misunderstandings are going to happen, and if the standards we hold indie to don't become more reasonable, I can't see them wanting to stick around. I know that isn't what we want, and I certainly don't want to be the reason we can't have nice indie things - do you?

This isn't so much a rant, as it is a request. Every other post on this blog might be for the good of the consumer, but this one is for indie. For the love of adorable kittens, please give indie a break. Back the fuck off it for a while. At least don't hold it to higher standards than you hold corporations, for goodness' sake, when they're operating with approximately one billionth of the staff and resources. Get some perspective, they aren't all Glittersniffer. If the products are good, if you get them on time, if they're as described and they don't arrive split open or unsanitary or drenched in pig's blood, if you aren't robbed or lied to, maybe that can be good enough for a while, and we can avoid starting any more witch hunts.

They were clearly pies, not cakes, though.

2011-08-23T13:05:00.006+01:00

Wonderful Shiro Cosmetics has just launched five new intertubes today. I'm really excited about them, because I got to create the art for a few of the labels, and because Caitlin has introduced some really wearable shades in addition to the gorgeous bright/bold opaque ones.

Royal Wedding Hat - Yeah, that hat. It's a creamy pale nude lip colour. Caitlin makes magically addicting neutral eyeshadows, even to a colour-fiend like me, so I'm excited to see swatches of this since I'm sure she's also going to rock at neutral lip colours.

Nyan Cat - Nyanyanyanyanyanyanyanyan- it's described as pale rose with golden shimmer, which again, sounds really wearable but can be layered into something a bit more obvious if you like.

Forty Cakes - They are clearly pies though. LOOK.
The inaccuracy of counting books aside, this is a stunning colour. Look at it! Gah! I want it on my face. Also, the forty cakes meme was written into canon, which is pretty awesome.

Shoop Da Whoop - A bright red for chargin' your laser with, but sheer enough that it can be a gentle tint, or build into nice wearable red without needing too much preparation.

Team Buffy - They don't fucking sparkle, okay? Drawing the stake for this was the most difficult, but also the most intensely satisfying. Vampy plum/raisin, but like the bright red, sheer enough to be a wash of colour or built up to a wearable gothness.

I'm actually very conservative with lip colour, so I was among the people clamouring for Shiro to bring out some slightly less daring Intertube colours, and I'm so pleased she has. I cannot wait to try these.

Fyrinnae - Still Alive!

2011-08-22T05:50:00.004+01:00

There's been a lot of panic that Fyrinnae are closed for good. I just got confirmation that this isn't true, the store isn't closing for good and it will be back eventually.
[ETA: They'll be back in a matter of days, as opposed to months.]
I don't know when and I hope that we can all get ahold of ourselves, be patient and not spam them with requests or demands for more information.

I do not know the precise circumstances surrounding the temporary closure, but I have an idea and I'm absolutely appalled at some people I've seen complaining about what a poor way to "thank your loyal customers" this is. Fyrinnae deserve the benefit of the doubt. They fucking earned it. They aren't Glittersniffer, or Lime Crime, or whatever. They haven't stolen your money or lied or killed your bloody dog. Take a second to remember these are human beings, real people making your sparkly stuff, with real lives and shit going on. Instead of getting overwhelmed and ripping people off they're closing up to deal with everything and they'll be back when they can.

Fyrinnae have "thanked their loyal customers" by always being honest, providing fantastic products at reasonable prices and always doing their best to make sure your orders got to you safely and correctly. Sometimes indie business can make us feel important, if we think they need our custom to get by, but let's remember that we aren't owed a detailed explanation of their life or them always being on-hand when we want. We aren't entitled to more than we've already been given. Remember these are real people, and that their well-being is more important than us being able to buy things.

I should clarify that the above scolding is from me alone, and that Fyrinnae had absolutely no part in it or knowledge of it. It's been pissing me off for a while.

All that said, we can now all be grateful that we don't have to ration our Pixie Epoxy.

My haul smells better than a Bellossom

2011-08-17T23:42:00.009+01:00

I skipped the RST this week because I may have spent Tuesday watching pokémon. But, you should all know that Rock A Betty Beauty is currently donating proceeds from all orders that are placed via invoice (NOT THEIR ETSY SHOP) to help out a mother in crisis who is one of their former models.

As much of the proceeds as they can will be going directly to her, at least 40% but they hope for 50% by cutting out Etsy fees, so they're really just trying to cover their material/production costs and passing the profit along.

The easiest way to order is to check out their Etsy shop, make a list of what you want then e-mail it to rockabettybeauty[at]yahoo[dot]com and they'll invoice you. Don't be surprised to see the word 'Nutella' appear on your invoice, this is how they're keeping track of which orders are for charity.
Donations can also be made directly:

If persons would rather donate directly instead of making a purchase, they are more than welcome to do so as well. Donations can be made via Paypal to the RABB address: RockABettyBeauty[at]yahoo[dot]
com - These should be sent as a 'gift' and marked with the code word 'NUTELLA' - again, to keep these funds separate from business funds.

So if you can help out, do, and if you can't, spread the word!

In other news, I'm a little late on the next GtGaGR (isn't that an attractive acronym) post, because I was posting other stuff, but that's coming up... when I write it. Which is not going to be right now, because my Future Primitive haul arrived today and I am off to roll around in a bath with it and smell amazing.

Haul pr0n incoming:

Bath first. Review later. ♥

Cleanliness is next to Godmoddiness

2011-08-15T13:29:00.009+01:00

I think it's fairly obvious to all that I'm not what you'd call a reliable person. I might be one of the least reliable people on the planet. Back in January I got my first One Hand Washes The Other (hereafter referred to as OHWTO) order, took lots of pictures of the box and was very excited to try them out and promised to review them. Shortly afterwards I got the OHWTO prize I'd won from Grey's wonderful Halloween contest last year - the first one went astray in transit and they both, wonderfully, remade the prizes and sent them again.

My first order also contained a sample of a stock fragrance OHWTO sells called Fresh Snow. I knew I had to smell it the instant I saw the description for it:

This fragrance mimics the feeling of peace and tranquillity after a fresh snowfall. It is a very ozone-y fragrance, reminiscent of clean laundry or fresh cotton. This fragrance has a crisp heliotrope top with supporting notes of sprint water, juniper berry, vetyver and sandalwood.

I have simple, but very specific tastes in fragrance. I hate anything dark/spicy/musky/cloying/green/earthy etc. I like light, sweet, fruity/ozone/aqua/airy/cotton scents. Clean laundry is my favourite smell in the world (diluted bleach is the second, I guess I have issues with things smelling clean). Sometimes I put the dryer on when I'm sad and wash and dry clean things just to have the smell fill the house. I've been known to linger outside the dry cleaners, and when I was little I used to sit outside and play next to the vent the dryer used.

The way some people feel about their signature complex scent, I feel about the smell of fresh laundry. It's warm pyjamas following a hot shower, after you've been stuck outside in the freezing rain for hours. It's clean sheets on the bed when you're exhausted, and the perfect number of pillows. For me, it's all about that feeling of being comfortable and safe where you are and being able to completely relax.

I've never been very interested in conventional perfume, because I've always thought that my clothes smelled better than they did, and lamented not being able to just take a bath in fabric softener. So perhaps you'll understand, then, when I say that the instant I smelled that little sample vial of Fresh Snow, it started something in me.

I had to have it. I had to have everything I could possibly get in it. I had to use them all over me all at once to make sure I smelled entirely of it. In a perfect world, Becca would invent some means of making my entire house smell like this permanently.
I immediately placed a pretty large order, for one of ... almost everything, I think, that Becca makes all in the scent Fresh Snow. I ordered a few other solid perfumes as well, but truth be told as long as I have my Fresh Snow, nothing else gets touched.

When it arrived I didn't pause long enough to photograph anything before I dived right in, and I managed to use almost everything up, so I apologise for having a lack of pictures to show. Out of three orders and one prize-pack, I've only got pictures of two of them due to my slight impatience-problem.

So far, I've bought:
1x Black Magic Soap in a 2oz solid bar
1x Black Magic Soap in a 4oz solid bar
1x Tropical Vacation Gift Set (soap & solid scent)
1x Maple Syrup Gift Set (soap & solid scent)
2x Vegan Bath Bar Soap in Fresh Snow
1x Sugar Creme 4oz in Fresh Snow
2x Lip Balm in Peachy & Bubblegum
3x Solid Scent in Fresh Snow, China Rain & Partridge in a Pear Tree
1x Loofah Soap in Fresh Snow
1x Roll-On Perfume 1/3oz in Fresh Snow
2x Perfume Samples in Fresh Snow & Rain

I was lucky enough to receive as giveaway prizes:
1x Brains Soap in Sugar Skulls
1x Sugar Creme 2oz in Sugar Skulls
1x Whipped Soap 8oz in Sugar Skulls
1x Solid Scent in Sugar Skulls

As free samples in my orders, I received:
1x Sample vial in Bitten
7x Solid sample in Mercantile, Desolation Angel, Jasmine, Orange Crystal, Partridge in a Pear Tree, Citrus Cilantro, & China Rain.

Website

OHWTO used to be on Etsy, but moved permanently to Artfire after the fiasco with Etsy's privacy settings. I know that the owner felt bad that she had encouraged people to create an Etsy account to shop with her, and as a result had their purchases made public because of Etsy's ridiculous determination to try and be Facebook. I know many indie owners are trying to move away from Etsy, as their fees and policies make them a poor long-term solution, but I was impressed that it was the violation of her customers' rights which was the last straw and prompted the move.

The Artfire was recently changed around and looks pretty nice, for an Artfire store. The graphics for the store always reflect the brand beautifully, the fonts match but are readable, the layout and categories are clear. Navigation is simple enough, you can tell what is where and find what you're after quite easily. All of the listings include a good description of the product, an accurate ingredients lists, usually some explanation of the ingredients, and in place of the usual natural-is-fucking-magic bollocks is an honest admission which encourages the customer to do their own research.

Now, you can go ahead and google these skin-loving additives and see for yourself what their benefits are and how people use them (and please- I encourage EVERYONE to do their own research and come to their own educated conclusions)

While the ingredients are listed with some of their believed benefits, the copy is honest in addressing the fact that these are not proven, only widely believed, and all the soap promises to do is make you clean. I can't even express how much I love this approach. Take note, natural purveyors everywhere: THIS IS HOW YOU DO THINGS. Enough with the condescending, preachy, completely baseless claims which just show off your own ignorance. I really wish more companies would follow this example.

Shipping

I remember on my first order I was surprised, the shipping seemed really high. Around $9 I think. The dollar value of my order was low, as I was shopping from a sale, so I was a little leery of the shipping sum. When the box arrived I was surprised to see that Becca had actually undercharged me on shipping by about 30c. Since then, I haven't blinked at the shipping cost at checkout. I know that it will be either dead-on or very close on either side of the actual shipping cost. If it's significantly less when it's mailed, I know Becca will refund the difference to me.

When I placed my large order, I was in communication with Becca about my options, and she was kind enough to tell me the shipping quote with a 4oz jar and also with an 8oz jar, since the extra 4oz pushed the shipping cost quite a lot, so I could make my own decision and understood exactly where my money was going. I have to say I really appreciate that. As an international buyer I get used to paying exorbitant shipping costs, and it makes me really sad when companies try to profit off that or overcharge or don't really care that I have to pay more to get their items. I always get the feeling that Becca genuinely wants to save me money on shipping wherever she can, and I appreciate that effort.

My large order was snagged by customs, and I had to pay fees and had it delayed. Since then I've been placing more smaller orders instead; I can get everything I want in about two or three orders which I know will slide under customs' radar, and I know that I won't be getting screwed on an inflated flat rate shipping charge.

Shipping times vary; I've gotten packages after just a week, and I've also had to wait three to four weeks when they attract customs' attention. This is pretty standard for stuff from the US.

Packaging

This is where OHWTO excel more than any indie I've seen. My parcels arrived stamped or decorated on the outside, usually with the OHWTO key.

Open it up, and my stuff is not only packed securely, but in more little bags, gift bags, with bows and ribbons then I know what to do with. I actually have a drawer for the little bags and ribbons now, which I save to re-use when I send someone something. There's usually a couple of cute stickers hiding under my smellystuff, and OHWTO postcards, business cards and occasionally even fridge magnets. Remember that the shipping quote is always dead-on, so I'm not being charged for the adorable packaging and the personalisation and extras.

One of my favourite parts of any OHWTO package, is the invoice envelope. It's a little brown envelope with my invoice folded up inside and a couple of solid scent samples tucked away in it. It's stamped with a key and sealed with a blob of red glittery vegan faux-wax, with OHWTO stamps.

My bow-drawer also has a lot of those little wax seals. I can't bring myself to throw them away, I love them. I wish I had my own wax seal and ravens to send letters. The invoice inside always has a personal, hand-written note.

I know that Becca hates choosing samples for me, because my scent-taste is weird and I'm extremely picky. She does a great job though, and I like that I get to try a couple of new things each time I order.

Pricing

Stock perfume oil is $8 for a 1/3oz roll-on bottle, which is about 9.5ml. The private stock perfume oils are $9 for 5ml, or $16 for a 1/3oz roll-on bottles. Private stock perfume oils are the custom blends that Becca has created herself, whereas stock perfume oils come straight from the supplier. The stock oils are roughly half the price of the private blended ones, which seems reasonable to me; the oils that make up private stock formulations are usually more expensive than the stock ones, and they require a lot more work. The private stock oils are competitively priced at the low-end of the indie market, they're a little bit more expensive than some (few more cents per ml) and a hell of a lot cheaper than others (fewer dollars per ml). The stock oils are a bargain.

The solid scents are... ridiculous. They're $3.99 for a 0.15oz tube, which is roughly the equivalent of 4.2ml. This makes them cheaper per ml than even the stock perfume oils, and the price applies across the board whether the scent is stock or private. In addition, there's also multipack offers - you can buy 3 for $11 or 13 for $42. That's a lot of perfume, but it makes these even more ridiculous.

I'm told that the price of private stock solid scents will be increasing to reflect the extra cost of the materials and the extra work that goes in to mixing the private stock scents, although that won't be for a while and there will still be bulk savings.

Although not quite as insane, the prices on everything else are really reasonable. They may not be the cheapest on everything, but generally OHWTO are at the lower-end of the indie B&B price bracket.

Perfume

OHWTO has a huge scent library which is accessible on their blog. They have a really wide selection of scents, from simple stock scents to designer dupes and private stock blends. I've had a lot of disappointment ordering from B&B companies before, since my taste is very limited and a bit weird, and I'm a scent-n00b. I don't speak "perfume"; most of the descriptions and top notes and bottom notes and whathaveyou just confuse the hell outta me. I'm pleased then, that the OHWTO ones are relatively easy to understand. They include the usual stuff I have no clue about, but also have a straightforward description of the scent in plain English, which makes me happy. I don't know what vetyver smells like, but I know how clean laundry smells. I'd advise anyone who's thinking of trying any indie B&B company to try samples first, read the scent information and select samples you think you'll like, before committing full-size products, unless you're quite easy to please and enjoy most things.

Product

Black Magic Soap - This is one badass mofo, for your face. It's a solid black bar of facial soap which has a strong medicine-y scent. It isn't dyed or coloured (and usefully the lather is white, not black, so it doesn't ruin your face cloths), that's just the colour/scent that comes naturally from the ingredients being mixed together. When I first smelled this, I really couldn't stand it. It's a strong, cloying, greenish hospital smell to me. I put up with it though, since the smell doesn't linger on the skin at all. The second time I used it, I didn't notice the smell at all. I don't know whether I got used to it or if just unwrapping it and using it once made the scent weaker. Either way, I went from hating the smell to not noticing it within a day. Even if it still bothered me, I would put up with it because this soap is just that awesome. It will get off all but the most stubborn makeup (think, unmovable gel eyeliners or japanese mascara) so it's great for using after you're taken off your eye makeup with remover. It leaves my skin feeling incredibly clean, soft, and fresh, without any residue, stickiness, tightness or patches of foundation or makeup leftover.

I have combination skin with dry flakey places on my cheeks and oily T-zone and chin, this keeps my skin from getting too oily or too dry, calms my blemishes down and I always get considerably fewer when I use it than when I run out. I've tried cleansers and facial washes and makeup wipes from Clinique, Lancome, Estée Lauder, Bliss, The Body Shop, Clarins, MAC, Shiseido and every drugstore brand I could find. Black Magic is, by far my favourite cleanser. The Body Shop's Seaweed Facial Wash comes in second, with Clinique Liquid Facial Soap a close third. Black Magic is better than all of them, and cheaper at $3 for a normal 2oz bar or $5.25 for a 4oz bar. There's also a cream version and a breakaway version for travelling/sharing. It does everything I want a cleanser to do, leaves my skin feeling wonderful and improves its condition to boot. It is, in a word, amazeballs, and is one of my 1337 things.

Solid Perfume - My second favourite thing in the store. The solid perfumes are ridiculously cheap at $3.99 for 0.15oz, which is about 4.2ml in sensible measurements. They come in an oval lip-balm tube, neatly labelled, and are smooth and easy to apply. They're in a wax base with sweet almond oil, grape seed oil, coconut oil and vitamin E, so soft and moisturising and nommie on the skin. They're extremely travel-friendly, as they don't get melty (at least, not in the English sun) and you don't have to dig them out of a pot. I tried the LUSH solid perfumes and found it hard to get it on my skin, since it was in a pot and not at all smooth and silky like OHWTO solid perfumes. My favourite thing about them though, is that they're incredibly long wearing. I tested the perfume oil on one wrist and the solid perfume on the other prior to writing this review, to see which lasted longer. The perfume oil smelled slightly stronger, but the scent vanished after about six hours. The solid scent, however, remained lingering on my skin faintly a full thirty six hours later. Which is kinda nutty.
A lot of people report that they get through the solid perfumes faster than the oil, but since the oils are roughly twice the size, that makes sense. Given the price and the long-wear and versatility, the solid perfumes are definitely my preference over oil.

Loofah Soap - Isn't this an awesome idea? It's a slice of loofah embedded into soap. As you use it, you get the cleaningnicesmellinglather from the soap, with the loofah surface to exfoliate. Once you use up the soap, you still have the loofah. I'm completely crazy about this stuff. I was lacking a good way to exfoliate my legs pre-shaving, since exfoliating helps you get a closer, smoother shave, but I don't like to use scrubs which contain oils because they leave a moisturising residue behind which makes it less effective. Loofah soap is the answer! It's cheap at $4 a bar, versatile, and gives me exfoliation and lather and general cleanness. This is a new bathroom staple for me.

Whipped Soap - I love this stuff. I got an 8oz jar with the goodies I won from Grey's Halloween giveaway, and I couldn't stop poking at it in the jar. Look at it! Don't you want to squish it?
The name is pretty self-explanatory; it's a whipped soap. It's $5.95 for a 4oz jar and it's light and mousse-y and a little bit builds up a wonderful rich lather. Combine it with one of those puffy-shower-things and I have enough foam to resemble a snowman. Or at least, Gandalf. Am I the only one who does that?
It leaves a light scent lingering on the skin, but it's not overpowering and wouldn't clash if you wore a different perfume or wanted to use a different lotion.

Sugar Creme -These are a sugar scrub, similar to Haus of Gloi's emulsifying scrub but a little less scrub and a little more emulsifying. They're $6 for 4oz and the perfect combination with the loofah soap, as they aren't quite as harsh an exfoliant as some other scrubs, and turn into a more moisturising lotion that sinks into your skin and leaves it moisturised for ages. I use this after my loofah soap just to make sure I'm extra-smooth and to let all the oils do their thing and make me soft. My skin usually stays perfectly soft and moisturised until the next bath, so I get to skip body butter/lotion. These leave a lot more of the scent behind than the soaps do, I can smell it on my skin afterwards, so I tend to use it quite liberally. I like to use it on my hands, too, to get rid of any dry patches and keep them soft without messing around with hand cream.

Vegan Bath Bar - This is soap. There isn't much I can say about soap, really. It gets me clean, it smells wonderful, it's a pretty colour, it doesn't make my skin dry or give it that weird rubbery feeling some soaps do, and it doesn't melt and glue itself to my sink, which is a huge plus. All round, generally good soap. It's $4.50 for 4oz. I used up my first bar and ordered a second, and Becca sent me an extra-mammoth sized version because she's lovely and knows I have an endorphin reaction to Fresh Snow.

Perfume Oil - The perfume oil doesn't last as long on my skin as the solid perfume, but it smells stronger while it's there, and is perfect layered over the solid perfume for stronger-smelling longer-lasting goodness. The little roller-ball bottles are quite handy and I haven't had trouble with it leaking. I got through my bottle quite quickly, but that's probably because I'd like to bathe in it. When I first put the scent on, the slightly eye-wateringly-strong top notes smell a lot stronger from the oil than they do from the solid scent. They simmer down in just a few seconds, however, into clean-smelling wonderfulness. If I had to choose, I'd opt for the solid perfume over oil, but since I don't, I get both and layer them for wonderful results.

Lip Butter - While this isn't my absolute favourite lip balm, it is a close second. If you tried Aromaleigh lip balms, these are really similar. The name is appropriate, as they are more butter-in-a-tube than balm. Silky and smooth, they glide on and leave creamy moisturising balm behind, but it isn't stiff or thick. Shea butter lip balms always have a certain feel to them for me, slightly thinner and oily, but not oily in an unpleasant way. I know it sounds unpleasant. More like, they melt against your lips slightly so the balm feels less viscous. I can't seem to stop using gross words. They are nice, though, $3.25 a tube and great for anyone looking for a multitasker replacement for the Aromaleigh balms. The flavours are lovely; I've only tried Bubblegum and Peachy so far but the flavour balance is good, although with Peachy I can taste a little of the balm taste under the peaches. Bubblegum just tastes exactly like bubblegum. There isn't so much flavour that they taste artificial, and they last a while on my lips provided I don't lick it all off.

Overall

The website is clear and honest, lists ingredients and encourages customers to do their own research. The products are fantastic, and their packaging is functional with attractive labels that suit the brand's theme and have all the necessary information. The range of scents is huge and if she doesn't have it, Becca will probably make it, or can find it. Seasonal collections means there's always something new to try, and the range of products you can put your scents in is wide and they all perform brilliantly.
The Black Magic soap is not only a holy-grail, but it's a holy grail skincare item that's $3 a bar. The service is impeccable; I've never had to wait long for an order, Becca is always thoroughly professional and polite when dealing with business enquiries and accommodating when it comes to custom orders, even taking the time to give me multiple options and calculate shipping for each. Prices are excellent, and the shipping is never inflated.

Personalisation simply goes above and beyond, with samples selected based on my preference and order history, a hand-written note on every invoice and a mind-boggling number of little extras and personal touches that make every package exciting to open, and really make me feel special. It doesn't get any better than this. Every aspect of the business is outstanding. My only possible complaint is that I want more product lines, so I can buy more stuff. I know Becca has a lot in the works and I fully expect to see even more awesomeness coming from OHWTO in the future.

Price: Varies, between $3.99 - $9.00 for normal sizes.
Where?: OHWTO Artfire.

Look & Feel: 5/5 - Personalisation is amazing, product packaging functional and stylish, with all the correct information and attractive labels which fit the shop theme.

Quality: 5/5 - One holy-grail and six other products I use daily, and never want to run out of.

Value: 5/5 - Prices vary between competitive and reasonable to ridonkulously cheap.

Overall: 5/5 - Generally an all-round, supreme quality of excellence.

5/5 Internets

One of my 1337 things.

This review was long overdue, and as you can see, I'm delighted with every aspect of the company. I'd like to note that this is my blog, and my review, and that while I will not be censoring comments, if anyone attempts to hijack my review and use my blog to publicise their own personal, baseless, childish vendetta against the company or its owner, I will fucking tear them a new one. I've made my feelings about this perfectly clear in the past and this is no exception.

Quick as a snake, swift as a deer, awesome as a velociraptor.

2011-08-14T21:40:00.008+01:00

Click it click it click it to make it bigger!

Geek Chic Cosmetics have just released a stunning Game of Thrones collection. The colours are beautiful and you know you want The Imp on your face. Born Of Fire is actually a little less blue than in the shot above - check the swatch on the site, it's gorgeous. I helped to write the chic colour descriptions (sadly not the hilarious geek ones) which was a lot of fun.

Across The Narrow Sea - A lush, rich turquoise as deep as the sea at the end of the world. More green than blue, with gleaming seafoam highlight and a glimmer of aqua sparkles. Goes on opaque and smooth for even coverage. Can be used wet as an eyeliner. Not lip safe.

Born In Fire - The rich, regal violet of the Targaryens with smokey indigo depths. Silky, with a pearlescent sheen and a scattering of glittering ruby embers. Born in Fire goes on opaque makes for a smouldering smoky eye. It can also be used wet as an eyeliner. Not lip safe.

Brotherhood of Crows - Like a sword hidden beneath the black cloak, Brotherhood of Crows is a dusky black base with a glint of metallic gunmetal. In the light, it shines with a host of subtle silver shimmers. Goes on semi-opaque but is easily built up to full coverage. Can be used wet as an eyeliner.

The Imp - An opulent, indulgent gold as rich as a Lannister and overflowing with silver stags, golden dragons and glittering ruby sparkles. As much bling as we could possibly fit into one chest.

Kingslayer - A pearly white cloak of the Kingsguard which shines copper and golden in the light. The Kingslayer is iridescent, as multi-faceted and complex as the man himself. Kingslayer makes for a lovely highlight color and can even be used on the cheeks to add a coppery glow.

The Pointy End - A taupe with a real edge to it, The Pointy End is your graduation from practice neutrals. Pearlescent and smooth as summer silk, with a sharp silver glint. The Pointy end makes for a lovely twist on a neutral smoky eye and can be used wet as an eyeliner.

Sellsword - Deceptively simple and versatile, Sellsword is a smooth matte the colour of milk chocolate. Endlessly adaptable and all manner of useful, provided it doesn't get a better offer.

The Spider - A disarmingly delicate, effeminate pastel halfway between pink and lavender. Light and silky, The Spider glides smoothly over the skin for a semi-opaque finish. Not lip safe

Aren't they lovely? And you can buy them right here. They're $4.99 each or $3.99 each if you buy the full set, which is really reasonable.

Instead of your regular scheduled programming...

2011-08-13T01:18:00.007+01:00

Sorry everyone,
I should have been writing a blog post today, but instead I was watching

this video.
(NSFW)

And then making this.

I know you'll understand.

-Ana

Random Shit Tuesday vol. 4

2011-08-09T11:29:00.006+01:00

As I've been yelling on Twitter all day...

IT'S AUGUST 9TH.

August 9th means that The Magician King, Lev Grossman's sequel to his completely amazing The Magicians is out TODAY. TODAY AS IN NOW. THIS MOMENT. What are you waiting for?! Actually, you should wait for me to throwdown some affiliate US Amazon links, because this is a perfect time to use them.

The Magician King: Print Novel
The Magician King: Kindle Edition

If you buy it through those I'll earn like, half a penny. Unfortunately, it isn't released in the UK until September 1st. I already had a hissyfit about that, but then I have already acquired a kindle version which is sitting waiting to be read. The Audible website is saying that the audiobook will be added today, but it's not there yet. I really enjoyed the audiobook format for the first book, so if the narrator is the same, I'll be getting that as well.

If you haven't read The Magicians then... well, it had better be on your list of to-read books, or I don't think we can be friends anymore. Also if you're going to buy it, you could buy it... here.

Having said that, not everyone likes The Magicians. Some people say it's "like Harry Potter for adults" but it's not. The Magicians is "if magic was real". Actually real. As in, in this real life. It is difficult and oft times tedious and mundane and pretty much exactly what magic in reality would be like, as far as anyone can guess. People who like magic in their books for the sense of fantastical wonder may not like it, although they will relate to the main character who's also looking for that. The Magicians can be seen as depressing. The characters are realistic, flawed people, not swashbuckling heroes who always do the right thing. Bad things happen and they aren't all for some greater, higher purpose, which justifies it all in the end. The tragedy is actually tragic, the desperation actually desperate, and in the middle of the action is a very real sense of "Ohmygod, oh my god, this is actually happening. Is this actually happening? FuckfuckfuckwhatthefuckdoIdo."

After reading it, I was pretty sure that Lev Grossman knew something we all didn't, because it feels so incredibly relatable and, above all, real, that I was pretty sure he had to actually be a magician to write about it so convincingly. The writing is some of the best I have ever seen, and some sentences just make me stop and marvel at them for being so beautifully constructed. I read The Magicians after re-reading Harry Potter, and it was like a reminder that those were children's books and this was not.

I thoroughly, thoroughly recommend it. The Magicians is my favourite book, when I finished it I felt pretty miserable that there was no more, and that all other literature was ruined because nothing else was as good. Only now there's more, and it's out right now.

Tyrion is such a bad ass.

In other-book news, I have, of course, been reading the Song of Ice and Fire series. I'm a third into Feast for Crows, the fourth book, and getting annoyed at the lack of chaptersbypeopleIcareabout. Following Grey's advice I watched the HBO series A Game Of Thrones to help me get into the books.

I'm not a fan of epic fantasy, and trying to wrap my head around the ridiculous number of characters, places, histories, houses and loyalties would have given me a headache if I hadn't watched the show first. That makes it all a lot easier to follow, and reading the first book afterwards, I realise how much I'd missed in the show just because I hadn't understood the significance of what people were saying.
The show is very similar to the book, so much so that you may find yourself getting a bit annoyed getting through the first book because you want to know whathappensnextomg and they are not a quick read. Still, it is a huge, detailed, embroiling series and well worth getting into.
I do have to mention, however, how much the author George R.R. Martin looks like a sea captain.

Seriously! Have you ever seen anyone who looks more like a sea captain without actually being a sea captain? I know he's stood next to the sea, but even if I saw this guy in a desert, I'd be looking around for his boat.

The reason I've been reading so much lately (prior to SoIaF I read everything by Amanda Ronconi and Katie MacAlister) is because I bought a Kindle. I didn't think I wanted one for the longest time, I've always hated e-books. I knew that they were more comfortable to read on the Kindle than on an LCD screen, but what I didn't know was that e-books on a Kindle were more comfortable to read than an actual print book.

Not terribly spoilery, but that page is 37% through the 4th
Song of Ice and Fire book so you may not want to read it.

I can see the text clearer, sharper, and smoother on a Kindle and from further away/more awkward angles than I could with a print book. It's incredibly lightweight and I can hold and navigate it one-handed, or still read it if it's flat on a pillow next to me and I can't be bothered to hold it. It's easier to see in lower light than a print book - I can read it by the light of one of my LED candles, whereas doing so with a print book makes my eyes hurt.

I'm supposed to wear glasses (but don't) for problems resulting from having a squint corrected as a child, and I can get eye-strain headaches if I read for an entire day. The Kindle pretty much alleviates this. I can read non-stop (with sleep in-between, obviously) for about three days before I feel like I need a break. The battery life is pretty good, with continual reading it lasts for about a week before I need to charge it, if I don't use the MP3 player or turn the WIFI on. Mine is a WIFI/3G model, and I got it refurbished from Amazon for £110 instead of £152.

Out of all the electronic things I've bought, it is my favourite. I got it on impulse thinking I'd probably return it when I saw the refurbished deals, and then I used it for four days straight. I use Calibre to organise and convert e-books that I don't get from Amazon. E-books are incredibly easy to find online if you know where to look, but I always avoided them because I hated reading at my computer. Now I have a library of over 120 books on my Kindle still waiting to be read.
I haven't tried other e-book readers, so I can't do a cross-comparison. I will say, however, that if you're thinking of getting one, spend the extra cash and get one with e-ink technology, it makes a huge difference.

The skin is by GelaSkins. I have a bit of a GelaSkins problem, as you can probably tell.

I apply a GelaSkin to just about everything I can, and I thoroughly recommend them. They're strong and re-positionable, not difficult to use (press down in the middle and smooth out to avoid bubbles!) and the printing quality is always excellent. They collaborate with Tokidoki, Marvel, Dark Horse etc so you can have X-men or, you know, whatever you want, on your devices, as well as the art prints.

Television

Community is excellent. So is Arrested Development. I've just started watching Flashforward, since I never finished it the first time. I'm surprised by how good it is, I'll probably read the book afterwards.
Of course, the new season of True Blood has started and thoroughly derailed all the future books' plots, so it's exciting to see where on earth they're going to go with it. I hope Lafayette stays forever. I think the series has made a lot of good changes considering it's on TV - Bubba, for instance, would probably be very sad and in incredibly poor taste if we actually had to see it. I can't say whether I prefer the books or the series because the story is so far ahead in the books, and I haven't a clue how the series will resolve.

Other Stuff

There's an Illamasqua Summer Sale on which is a lot better than previous sales. It has stuff at £5 (including nail polish), stuff at £10 and stuff at 25% off, including some of the beautiful liquid metals.

I'm re-designing the site; I know I said it would happen in May, but my graphics designer fell through. I've found someone else and will be attempting (with help) to customise a theme I got with all the features in the right place I was after. I haven't a clue when it will be finished, but eventually I'll be on WordPress; hurray! The site will actually be possible to navigate. I've been trying to include space for everything it should have on the front page - blogroll, list of companies I like, tags, sales, featured/important posts, popular posts, GFC, etc. Any suggestions of what you'd like to see?

Last, but definitely not least, news of the London riots is spreading and I know some of you have been concerned for me. That's really sweet. I'm fine, and as is everyone I know. I don't live very near London, or near my city centre, so have been unaffected personally by it. I hope my other fellow UK bloggers and readers haven't been caught up in it, either.

I always get mixed up between golf and fire.

2011-08-08T13:32:00.013+01:00

I was going to write another thing, but then the pair of custom Converse I ordered on July 26th turned up and all thoughts other than "shoeshoeshoeshoeshoes" left my head.

I should mention that I only get this way over Converse and pairs of clunkygrungysteampunkyboots. I'm not a shoe person. I don't understand flats/heels/pumps and all that nonsense. The only high heel I'd wear is the completely plain kind that basically looks like a drawing of a shoe. Like, if Pictionary said "shoe" that's what you'd draw.
Alas, my faithful pair of graffiti Converse were over five years old and both had holes in the soles, which meant my socks got wet if I walked on wet grass. That was slightly inconvenient, and when I saw I could design my own custom pair on the Converse website, I went nuts.

I think it's pretty obvious that I like them a lot.

I was slightly disappointed with the print I used on the tongue/heel strip, as on the website the blue was more of an aqua blue than a royal blue. Now I'm concerned it doesn't really go with the aqua outside-body. I think if I'd known I would have picked the lining fabric, white with the pink hearts, for the tongue/heel strip instead.

This was the original design made with the online tool and submitted for creation.

The online tool was surprisingly easy to use. You could revolve the image, choose the section to customise either by clicking on it on the image, or by that row of boxes above. The boxes made it easy for me to recreate the design on Converse.co.uk after originally using Converse.com. Currently, they only ship to the UK and US respectively.

The shoes are manufactured and mailed from China, so at least I don't have to worry about customs fees. My old Converse were made in Taiwan so it doesn't really bother me. I know they aren't built to last forever, but I know they fit me perfectly, are comfortable and I love how they look. They only took 3 weeks from order to my door though, so I'm impressed by the quick delivery. Although, the delivery guy didn't stop me at the door to ask if I knew how to use my new Running Shoes, which shattered all my pokémon illusions.

I know the Personal ID is supposed to be your name or something, but Anastasia randomly on my shoes just looked... weird. I actually wanted "Press B To Jump" or "Hold B To Run" but was restricted to 12 characters. Still, if I ever forget how to sprint I just have to look down to remind myself which button to hold while I use the D-pad-- er, I mean, my legs.

All in all, I'm delighted. If anyone is interested, you can all the different styles of Converse including the swanky double-layer ones customised. For a cheaper alternative, especially for kids, the website Sole Creator sells printed Converse/Vans etc, and generic off-brand versions for a fraction of the price. They have some really cute artist designs (including mini Wolverine/Iron Man/Batman/Spiderman) although I found their creation tool infuriating and was annoyed by the lack of base colour options. I haven't shopped with them so I can't vouch for them, but they might be worth a look anyway.

Oh, you might have noticed that the photographs aren't blurry pieces of crap. That's because the incredible Rebecca gave me her compact camera out of the goodness of her heart. No more terrible camera phone! It's a Canon PowerShot A480 and I'm having fun trying out the different settings. Pictures look a lot clearer and truer to colour, which will definitely make swatching easier once I get the hang of it.

The Sleek Saga: Episode III - They're Still Really Shit

2011-08-06T09:31:00.027+01:00

You might remember Sleek from fuck-ups such as their Sale Fail and subsequent pathetic Conclusion (not resolution) to all of the problems the sale caused.

It all started with an idle promise to fans of a 50% off sale to "thank" fans for helping them reach a milestone in Facebook followers. It devolved into a clusterfuck of ripped-off customers, who lost their money and months of waiting and fighting for nothing but a vague promise of products that never arrived, a noticeable lack of apology and the even vaguer promise of restoration with an individual 50% off coupon to be e-mailed at some point in the future.

I've already been through the faults of the sale, the problems resulting from it, the customers left with neither money nor orders, or incorrect orders, or who - like myself - helpfully had their money 'held' over Christmas for a month, unusable, and were then told their orders were unsuccessful and the money would be unheld, well, whenever. Sleek responded to the problems by deciding there weren't any anymore, ignoring e-mails sent to them, deleting the comments off their Facebook page from customers who still had problems, refusing to apologise and publishing all information relevant to the sale on their Facebook page, not bothering to e-mail anyone.

The steaming crock of shit at the end of this rainbow was the promise that "everyone who contacted us by email regarding attempted orders but were unable to buy successfully will be sent an individual one time only 50% off discount code." These codes were promised to be sent in batches to avoid the same en masse grab that took the site down the first time, and were to start sometime in the New Year, after the Christmas rush was gone and products were back in-stock.

I feel incredibly stupid saying it now, but I actually thought this was going to happen. I actually thought that, since the Sleek MakeUp general manager Saif Pathan promised me I would get a 50% off code:

That one day I'd open my e-mail and it would actually be there.

Ahahahahahaha, I know, right?
I really should have known better.

Once again, like the all-important notice last year telling people that, actually, they weren't getting jackshit, on March 24th this notice was also buried on the Sleek Facebook page.
You can view the entire note via that link, but, as with the last one, I have cut it into edible chunks, for ease of snarking.

'Various reasons' including, but not limited to:

Widespread general incompetence
Too busy eating pizza to give a fuck
Entire office couldn't find their ass on a map

Uh, no... Actually, you didn't.
Since Sleek seem to have a bit of a memory problem, I'll remind them what they actually said back in November 2010:

"Everyone who contacted us by e-mail regarding attempted orders but were unable to buy successfully will be sent an individual one time only 50% off discount code."

Do you see the difference, Sleek? No? Okay, I'll explain.

Since your original promise states that everyone who contacted you by e-mail about an attempted order which wasn't ultimately successful would be sent a code, you saying that only the people logged on your database as having an unsuccessful sale order means that your database should include all of those people who e-mailed you whose orders were unsuccessful.

But surely it must, right? Otherwise what's the point of having the database when you have an inbox full of people who e-mailed you about this problem, with their e-mail addresses like, right there, in the e-mail. You could just reply to them, easy enough. But, you made a database, so as long as it works, okiedokie.

"You unsuccessful buyers" isn't that nice? You can't even succeed at buying things, you losers. More likely Sleek took the time to restock, sell that stock, restock again, sell that stock, and so on. Remember, the original sale date began on 11th November 2010. This note was posted March 24th 2011. It takes over 4 months to restock? Is your supplier on the moon?

Everything in-stock, codes in batches to avoid a mad rush, excellent. The fact that it took them over 4 months is less excellent, but at least this time we know they can handle it. They've taken steps, they've upgraded their server so everything is ready.

Are you getting that feeling of foreboding yet?

Annnd there it is.

Only customers who have received another magical, mystical, elusive e-mail will receive the codes, because those are the only people that were registered on the site and their order not processed.

So it turns out that when they said this:

By database, they don't mean they compiled a database of all the people who sent them e-mails about it, by y'know, checking their e-mail, they mean they looked at what their website says the registered users with unprocessed orders were.
You know, the website that crashed repeatedly and allowed users to checkout and pay without actually creating orders or order information. Yeah, that one.

Sleek, just to remind you - again - what you actually said was:

I know, I know. I've been over this already, but apparently it bears repeating. Sleek announced that all customers who contacted them by e-mail regarding an attempted order, which then was not successful, would be given a 50% off coupon code.

Instead of actually sending the codes to these people, whose e-mail addresses they quite obviously had since that was part of the criteria, they abandoned that, didn't bother to check those e-mails, and instead relied upon the information in their website which crashed repeatedly and was reported to not store or generate the appropriate information for customers, including taking funds for payment without generating orders, now saying that only users who are shown in their database as having registered at the time and show an unsuccessful order would be given a 50% off coupon code.

This is not what was promised. There was no mention, originally, of site registration or a database. They changed the criteria for eligibility and hid it, again, in another much-anticipated-not-received e-mail and a note buried on their fanpage. Even though we know they had all the e-mail addresses of the people effected.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the really hilarious part is that even the people who were registered, whose orders were unsuccessful, still didn't get the fucking e-mail.

Yes, you read that right. Even the people who were registered before the sale and whose sale orders failed still didn't get the e-mail. I was one of them. I was not the only one of them, all the comments on this note were from other people complaining that they were registered, their orders failed, they'd been promised a code even if the criteria changed, and they still didn't get the e-mail. I'm not sure these e-mails actually exist. Getting an e-mail from Sleek is like finding the fucking Questing Beast.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, except apparently Sleek, that their database is total bullshit. Still, moving on.

Whilst this is true, it fails to mention something pretty important, but more on that later.

Wait, was that... an apology?
Sleek seem to think they've actually apologised for all this shit before, hence the "once again". Really, this is the first time they have. If you recall, from their previous note after the sale they said:

Yeah, that's... not really the same thing, is it? I don't think the delay in updating your Facebook page was your primary failure.

So, despite never issuing an apology originally, or you know, after the sale, or for their response to the sale, or for changing the criteria to get the codes we were promised, or for people who met that criteria still not getting them, or for ignoring e-mails, or for deleting comments off their Facebook page, or for insensitive tweeting, or for taking people's money permanently without giving them orders, or for sending them the wrong orders, or for holding their money over Christmas without giving them their order, or for telling people their orders were successful when they weren't, or for generally taking a giant steaming crap on all of their fans, once again, they apologise. Except that they never did.

Until that one line, all of their references to the sale have implied that it was our fault if our orders 'weren't successful'. They talked about 'unfortunately you weren't successful' and giving us 'another attempt at ordering' as if this was a fucking fairground game and we failed to hook-a-duck.

This one, small line, is their first real apology which seems to acknowledge that the problems were their fault, and it's ruined by the fact that they think they've apologised before. Since they haven't, it doesn't feel very sincere to me. It's like Sleek really don't think they've done anything wrong.

I didn't see this note until May, since as I mentioned, I was one of those registered users who somehow failed to appear in their spectacularly-reliable database and Sleek only posts vital information in obscure notes on their Facebook page for fear that someone might actually read it. Upon seeing it, I e-mailed the Sleek General Manager Saif Pathan, the person who had personally promised me my 50% off code in an e-mail back in 2010.

Guess what happened?

Yep. Absolutely fuck all.

I waited but received no response, and finally posted a message on the only thing Sleek seem to look at, their Facebook page. On the 6th June I received an e-mail from another staff member at Sleek called Alice, giving me my 50% off code.

Success! Finally! Now I can buy all the items I wanted for myself and for gifts, so my friends and I never have to deal with this shitty company again!

Only... not so much. I know I KNOW. I SHOULD EXPECT THIS BY NOW.
I happily filled my cart with products for me, some stuff just to review, duplicates for friends and for giveaways. The subtotal before-coupon was about £160. When I tried to checkout, I discovered that Sleek had imposed a value-restriction on their checkout. You cannot checkout a basket of over £100, irrespective of how many items are in it, or what they are. The website doesn't actually say this, when you try you get this error message:

Since this helpfully doesn't say what the maximum total allowed is, I went searching Sleek's website for help. Their FAQ says:

Why is there a limit on the number of products I can order?
Sleekmakeup.com limits online orders to no more than four (4) units of any item since the site is primarily for individual consumers.

This is actually a different limit which produces a different error message. Since there wasn't (and still isn't) any information on the Sleek website about the currency limit, I spent a frustrating amount of time removing items one-by-one to find out what the limit was.

It was pretty disappointing, to put back a third of my basket after it took me over 6 months to finally get my 50% off. This limit is still in place, which is pretty irritating in terms of shipping costs on normal orders, too, especially for international buyers. In terms of cosmetics, £100 isn't a lot. Even when Sleek is cheaper than most, with most items costing £6-7 each, you can hit that barrier pretty quickly unless you're a regular shopper.

Since there's no information on the website about that limit, but there is about the other one, I'm not sure what to think. Has it always been there, and they just didn't explain it even though they explained the other limit? That seems pretty stupid, but Sleek haven't exactly shown they're above that level of stupidity.
Otherwise, they added the limit later. Personally, I think they added it before the sale or before the coupons, for the purpose of preventing anyone from getting too much out of a sale they never wanted to be having in the first place.

In any case, after whittling my basket down by over a third, I was finally able to reach the checkout. I entered my code, and... it didn't work.

I KNOW. All right. I know. By this point nothing should have surprised me. I ought be having a conditioned response to the word Sleek and instantly be overcome with a sense of frustrated disappointment.

Sleek's website doesn't have a phone number, so this time I replied to the e-mail Alice had sent me which delivered my code, explaining that it didn't work. I also posted this on their Facebook page to save time.

I'm happy to say I got an e-mail response within 15 minutes telling me that the code had been fixed. Even more amazing, the e-mail was from the MIA Sleek General Manager Saif Pathan. The same person who previously ignored my e-mail asking where my voucher code was. It was sent from their e-mail address, the same one I addressed my unanswered e-mail to, so I know they didn't change accounts and do, in fact, have the ability to respond.

This is the first time I've experienced good customer service from Sleek. Although, considering the response was from the person who previously ignored me, and it was to fix a code that should have been working, and that they should have given me back in March, and which was supposed to be them fulfilling the promise made back in November, it seems somewhat less golden-standard and more polished-turd.

After that, I tried my code again and it did indeed work. My order did arrive in a timely fashion, albeit generally 6 months late and a third smaller than I had wanted. I even, actually, really loved all the products I got. They weren't worth the ocean of incompetence I had to wade through to get them, but then nothing would have been.

In some ways I feel like that's worse. I wish I could hate the products, too, so I wouldn't be tempted to try and order more and get burned again. But, credit where it's due - the products are fantastic, it's just everything else that's completely awful. I'll even review them and post swatches, if you like, although any and all reviews will include a giant warning message about Sleek being chronically moronic, uncaring fuckwits and not ordering from the Sleek website.

Most of it can't be bought in-store, either, as the retail store Sleek uses (Superdrug) doesn't stock anywhere near the full range, and the staff have no idea if they're ever getting more, or when it might arrive.

No, your safest bet by far for getting hold of Sleek products and actually getting them sans-migraine is buying them from a third-party on eBay.
Which is pretty sad, when you think about it.

The Guide To Getting A Good Review - Chapter One

2011-08-04T18:11:00.014+01:00

As a beauty blogger I've received my fair share of review requests, written those reviews, and then gotten complaints when said reviews aren't all sunshine and bunnies. It's bound to happen though, especially for newer, start-up indie companies. No matter what you do, you can't please everyone all of the time, inevitably someone will dislike something you do, or something you make, and mistakes always happen. Unfortunately, the internet-court of public opinion can be a pretty unforgiving place.

Just because it's impossible to be perfect, however, doesn't mean you shouldn't try. It's important to know what's expected from you as an indie business, what you should be doing and equally, what you shouldn't, and how to recover if you make a mistake.

This guide will be split into chapters, with a new chapter appearing each week. It is aimed at explaining the criteria most reviews consider and what your customers may expect, the best practices for indie businesses, and what to do if you're caught doing something you shouldn't.

Promising the world may increase your sales, but they'll soon be flatlining if you never live up to them. Never promise what you aren't absolutely sure you can deliver. Don't claim your products, or your business, is something unless you've done research and know first-hand that it's true. Whilst this rule applies to all aspects of your business, there are a few worth outlining specifically.

i. Vegan/Vegetarian
Don't claim your store is vegan if you have even one product which isn't. Don't claim something is "nearly" vegan - that's an utterly worthless statement. If it contains even a tiny dab of an animal-derived ingredient, it's not vegan, and that's the end of it.
Know what is and is not vegan and make sure your customers will, too, by making this clear on product listings.

ii. Animal Testing/Cruelty
Small businesses cannot afford to test on animals. You can exalt this as a selling point if you wish, but we will know that it's nothing special and it's not an indicator of your virtue. If you want to claim that you're against animal cruelty, you should do more than simply not test on animals, since it's not a viable option for an indie business anyway. For example, be a vegan store, or donate a portion of your proceeds to an animal charity.
For the love of god, do not steal the cruelty-free bunny logo from PETA. You actually have to pay PETA to use that, and we can search their database and see if you did or not.

iii. All Natural
This is a tired, hokey sales technique. Chances are your product isn't all natural and that you wouldn't even know if it was. Mineral make-up isn't inherently untouched and natural, it's usually processed and treated in various ways, sometimes *gasp* with chemicals. Sometimes, chemicals make things better. Unless you have the detailed knowledge of the raw ingredients you're using and how they're processed, don't make this claim.

iv. Health Benefits
There's a right way and a wrong way to do this. The wrong way is to claim your product is healthier than something else without clinical trials to back it up. Certainly don't claim it's healthier just because it's 'natural'; this is complete and utter bollocks and we will know you don't know what you're talking about.
The right way is to explain if products are formulated without certain ingredients which are known to cause allergy/sensitivity problems in some individuals. For example, bismuth oxychloride or stevia. Do not claim that these ingredients are dangerous to health, cause cancer, or anything else equally stupid. Leaving them out for sensitive customers' comfort is fine, and should be mentioned. Leaving them out because you think they cause cancer just shows you're uninformed and fear-mongering.

v. Sun Protection
You cannot claim an SPF value on a product unless you've had it tested by the FDA. That's expensive, so you probably haven't. You can claim a product contains an ingredient which is known to offer some sun protection, for example zinc oxide. You can't claim it's SPF-anything without having done the tests to know exactly what the level of protection is.

vi. Going Green
If you want to claim your store is eco-friendly, green, or anything similar, make sure it actually is. There's more to being green than using recycled paper. Make sure your products, packaging, invoicing, suppliers, and distribution chain are in-keeping with the promises you make. Remember that customers will still expect a printed invoice and secure packaging that keeps their purchases safe.

vii. Timeframes
It is better to under-promise and over-deliver than vice-versa. Your TAT (turn-around-time) should include a longest, worst-case scenario time. Pad it accordingly. Customers should be prepared to wait that long in order to get their purchases, and hopefully get them sooner. This way, if delays do happen, the customer was prepared and agreed to this possibility before ordering. A shorter TAT might look inviting, but repeated poor feedback complaining of delays will definitely put people off.

viii. Ingredients
Full-size products should include an ingredients list on (or with) the product. I don't care what excuses you make, this can be fit onto the packaging, it just leaves less room for pretty logos. Use two labels if you must. I don't care if this is a one-of-a-kind mix, you made it, you should fucking know what went into it, and you need to make sure the customer does, too. Ingredients lists ought to be included on the product listing as well, because it saves customers asking for it, and lets us know you know what you're doing.
All ingredients lists must be accurate, and correctly written. An eyeshadow ingredient list should not simply say "mica". For example, an eyeshadow made using TKB Trading's CSmax base and Antique Gold mica would have to include on its ingredient list: Mica, Carnauba Wax, Titanium Dioxide, Iron Oxide.
Ingredients should be listed in descending order by the amount present in the finished product.

ix. Successful Sales
If you have a sale, make sure you're prepared for it. Make sure your website can cope with the demand, your codes work, and that you have all the stock included available. Decide how much you can sell and how much stock you can create to satisfy orders within a reasonable timeframe, so customers aren't left disappointed or with unexpected delays. Ensure you will have supplies leftover to continue business as normal when the sale ends, and carefully consider what type of discount you can afford to offer without harming your business.

x. Safety First
If you sell an eyeshadow, all the ingredients in it should be safe for use around the eye area. Do not sell a product which you call an eyeshadow if ingredients aren't eye-safe - even if you use a disclaimer telling people they aren't. It's just lying, if it's not safe for use around your eyes, it's not a fucking eyeshadow. If you want to use non eye-safe ingredients, list the product as multipurpose and make sure it's clear where the product is and is not safe to use, be it lips, eyes, cheeks, in nail polish, etc.
Sanitation should also be of paramount concern. It isn't explicitly promised, but customers expect their products to be created and handled in sanitary conditions and be free from bacteria. Of course they do. You don't expect someone to have sneezed in your brand-new lipgloss, do you?
Have a dedicated working area, wear gloves, remove jewellery, wash your hands and sterilise tools, do not smoke, or eat, or allow children or pets in the working area, and be careful to keep products from becoming cross-contaminated so your ingredient lists are always accurate.

Although most of these things are the law, and all of them should be common sense, you'd be amazed at the number of companies that fall down on some, or all of these points. Doing so is a pretty sure-fire way to earn one bad review after another.

Still Alive.

2011-06-22T18:35:00.003+01:00

I am still alive, although the blog is still on hiatus for a little bit longer - I'm hesitant to give a time frame because you know I'll just exceed it.
Sorry for vanishing and making you all worry, and thank you to all the warm wishes people have been sending, and especially those who tracked me down on my birthday. I've just had a lot of personal stuff to try and slough through and my normal reaction is to curl into a ball and hide from the internet for a while, mostly to avoid having to talk about it.

While you're waiting, I reviewed Portal 2 as a guest post over on Phyrra's lovely blog. You can read it here, and then read the rest of her blog if you don't already.

Here's a brief list of things I recommend to kill time:

Watch True Blood seasons 1-3 again ready for season 4 launch on June 26th.
Read Lev Grossman's The Magicians.
Be sad because all other literature is ruined now, because nothing is as good as The Magicians.
Pre-Order The Magician King, Lev Grossman's sequel to The Magicians.
Read Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde, because that's also extremely enjoyable even though it's not about magicians.
Play Portal 2, or Portal if you haven't, and then Portal 2.
Replay Portal 2 for the achievements - especially Overclocker if you're playing on the Xbox 360, because that turret shirt it unlocks is cute.
Watch a Ricky Gervais show because you miss Stephen Merchant being Wheatley.
Play Dragon Age 2.
Play Dragon Age 2 again, as each different class and romancing each possible companion, except Aveline because seriously, she's so bitchy, are guys really into that?
Read the blogs in my sidebar.
Watch Community. It's really funny!
Watch Mad Men because Community referenced it and wonder why all the married men cheat on their wives, and how Christina Hendricks can be so beautiful and why you didn't notice that when she was in Firefly.
Watch Being Human if you're not distracted by the intense desire to punch the incredibly annoying, whiny werewolf guy in the face. Is it me, or does he have a really punchable face?
Be productive and work and talk to people and those things I hear other people do sometimes.

Random Shit Tuesday vol. 3

2011-02-15T05:26:00.010Z

I'm still working on Part 2 of the Glitterhysteria. I underestimated both how tired I was after the first one, and how much there still was to go in the last one. There's also quite a bit of personal real-life horribleness going on that is eating a lot of my energy and headache-free time.

I realise I haven't even replied to the comments of last week's RST yet, and apologise. I read them all before I approve them (which is done manually) so I have read them all, but I tend to try and reply all at once, and now there's over a hundred on the last couple of posts to reply to so I am very behind.

TL;DR - I'm really behind. Sorry.

Blogs

Phyrra swatched every lipstick ever made because she's a crazy person.

Amy is giving away $50 to spend at very cool places, but it ends in a couple of days!

Jangsara is annoyingly talented and does incredible things with other incredible things.

News

Separate to the web designer who'll be doing the new look in May, I also commissioned a tremendously talented artist called Guibb on DeviantArt for new main character art I could use in a header and base the new layout around. The result is spectacular, he worked incredibly quickly and I'm a little ashamed it only cost me $20.

See the gallery version here. He's just re-opened for commissions and you should absolutely hire him.

The wonderful Grey sent me the most amazing Christmas package. I realise it's February - this had to be re-purchased and re-sent because the first one got lost. Which makes the new box seem all the more "woah".

It's an absolute treasure trove of wonderful things, and they're all so thoughtful it's incredible. For instance, I don't remember telling Grey that my favourite snack which-isn't-sold-here-anymore is white chocolate coated pretzels, or that I wanted a Z-palette to put my Venomous Cosmetics pressed shades in, or my desperation for an EOS lip balm. I do recall drooling over her amazing Tokidoki Robbery palette (SQUEEELOOKATIT!) and dying to get my hands on the E.L.F. stippling brush to see if it was any good (the studio line is not yet available here) although it was definitely a while ago.

The amount of care, thought, and memory that went in to putting this together for me is overwhelming, and I'm extremely grateful. I promise to talk about stuff in greater detail later, but for now I can say that I love everything and have already pestered Phyrra into buying four of the stippling brush - two for her and an additional two to mail to me.

Also, I've signed up for an Amazon-associates thing, as I realised I was promoting things anyway which Amazon sells, so I might as well. I'd already written the blog content before I decided to add affiliate links.

Books

Thank you for all your book recommendations in the last RST, particularly the audiobook ones. I've made a huge list. Currently I'm listening to all the Harry Potter audiobooks, but they're the American version narrated by Jim Dale, and hearing him say "soccer" irritates me. I've read the books before but don't own them anymore, so it's nice to revisit them.
ETA: Woohoo, I got the Stephen Fry versions! Thank you T! They're at least 17x better.

In the ... book-type of books, I just finished reading Jasper Fforde - Shades of Grey which was absolutely fantastic. Incredibly enjoyable, filled with fun, creative eccentricities, and a new twist on a very old plot. I was really pleased to learn that it's going to be a trilogy, because the world Fforde's created in it is way too fun to end with one book.

Since I finished that, I started reading I Am Number 4 by Pittacus Lore. The short sentences threw me for a little while, after reading Fforde, but once I now I'm used to the writing style I find it enjoyable enough. So far it seems pretty predictable and aimed at a younger audience, and keeps reminding me of Roswell and Smallville, but we'll see. I haven't seen the movie; I'll watch it after I finish the book.

Games

Today, 15th February, the open-beta of RIFT starts. Rift is a new P2P MMORPG which being released March 1st. It's perfect for me, because it's pretty much the best parts of WoW, Guild Wars and other popular MMORPGs just rolled together with smoother gameplay, new-gen graphics and animation. A lot of people have been criticising it because "it's just like WoW" but I don't see that as a criticism. WoW is a fantastic and fantastically old game. We need a new one. Or at least, I do, considering that I hate WoW's graphics (I know, I know, they're stylised so it's accessible to people with lower-end systems, but if you happen to think the style is gross, like I do, you might not enjoy it much).

There's also a lot of criticism of people who think graphics are important. I don't understand that, either. I paid for my graphics card and I want to use it. If graphics weren't important to me, I'd play a MUD. As it is, they are - I'm vain, I like to get engrossed in an MMORPG, to really relate to my character and care about them, and I like having a lot of choices over how they look as well as how they perform. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, I run a make-up blog, for fuck's sake.

Rift isn't innovative or particularly fancy. It's just a new-generation MMORPG with lots of character customisation, traditional class roles (but the ability to combine classes in a new way, have mages that can heal, priests who are melee tanks, etc), quests, grinding, crafting - same old thing, new sexy graphics. The character animations are really nice and the game combines elemental/arcane/shadow/demonic/etc magic, machines, faeries, holy magic, firearms, bows and arrows and a bunch of other stuff, for a really diverse mix. There's plenty of PvE content for us carebears (yay, let's all get along!) but PvP servers or something for people who want that. I don't know, I wasn't paying attention to the killing-and-maiming-of-other-people part.

Rift is pretty much what I was looking for; it has the same old qualities I love in older games, but is dressed up in a fancy new package. I'll still play SW:TOR and Guild Wars 2 when they're released, but for now, Rift looks like a lot of fun. Plus there's the rifts themselves which are universal boss-event-thingies. I don't know. If you're curious, join the beta - it runs for a week from 15th February, and is freeeeeeeeeeeeee. Sign up and download here.

I'll be playing on the US servers, I think my beta characters are on a server called Gnarlwood.
Also, if at the end of the beta you want to buy it and use one of my amazon links, I'll love you even more:
Rift - Standard Edition
Rift - Standard Edition Digital Download
Rift - Collector's Edition
Rift - Collector's Edition Digital Download

If you decide to play Rift with me, I'll post my character names and server details once the headstart begins.

Requests

Anyone got any good, reasonably cheap moisturiser recommendations? I have young-ish combination skin; it gets dry around my chin/cheeks and oily in my t-zone. The most important thing for me to have in a moisturiser is something which isn't too heavy, as heavy/thick creams will make me oily. I normally use Lancome Hydra-Zen gel-creme but have run out and it's frickin' expensive.

Are you as insanely excited about the new X-Men movie as I am? X-Men: First Class is being released on my birthday, June 2nd here. View the trailer and squee!

If you're not into X-men, is there a movie or game release you are excited about?

Does anyone really believe this? I know I'm not pre-ordering - I'll believe it when I see it.

Anyone else noticed the similarities between Emma Frost and Edward Cullen? Psychic, glittery diamond skin, intensely irritating...

ETA:

I forgot another thing. I entered Evil Shades' label contest and was lucky enough to win 2nd place! Considering how incredible the 1st place entry is, I definitely feel fortunate. This will mean lots of blush and lip swatches, woohoo! I can't wait to see all the other entries being posted up.

This was my label.

It's been a long time since I did any proper logo/graphic design, so I had fun. Uhm, started as a sketch in pen/paper, photographed, did lineart using the pen tool, painted in Photoshop CS4.

Please Go Directly To Jail - Part 1.

2011-02-11T03:46:00.012Z

This independent little rant has been adopted by Frances Danger.
Learn more about adopting your own rant for charity right here.

There's something else I need to get out of my system before I can continue with reviews and business as usual. I've done a lot of negative reviews, and my negative ones are, often, pretty damn negative. I've said that I don't recommend places and I wouldn't spend my money there, but I don't think I've ever asked you not to shop there before. Not even with Lime Crime; I generally accept that, of course, it's your money and you may spend it wherever you like, but I think it's a waste and the company and their products don't deserve it.

This post is going to be the exception to that rule, though. I very much hope this will be the worst company I ever have to write about, because they have stooped so low that it's positively frightening to consider a worse alternative. I am talking, of course, about Glittersniffer Cosmetics.

I haven't posted about them before because I haven't shopped with them, so generally I wouldn't bother getting involved, but the fact that this woman is still in business horrifies me. There are other websites, like this one and this one who strive to post all of the company's actions without personal comment, leaving a factual chronological account for you to read through. The information is great, but if you're like me it will leave you screaming internally and wanting to smash things because of just how incredibly FUCKED UP it all is.

So, this account will be factual, but it will also be angry, full of personal comment, name-calling, vitriol and swear words. And it's about fucking time.
All yellow highlights are mine and the only editing is blocking out personal identifying information and highlighting.
I'm going to take this step-by-step. Let me know which point you'd stop and "omgwtfno" at.

Glittersniffer Cosmetics

Glittersniffer Cosmetics is run by Lela Warren, a woman who is at best mentally ill, and at worst a lying, malicious, and manipulative criminal.

The company was founded in either 2006:

Glittersniffer Facebook Fanpage

Glittersniffer Recall List

Or 2008:

Glittersniffer Artfire Bio

But they don't seem to know, and it's hard for me to tell exactly when they started, considering that their Etsy page has been removed and all of their old blog posts deleted. You can tell they were deleted, rather than simply never existing, as halfway through this puff-piece the blogger links to: http://glittersniffercosmetics.blogspot.com/2010/01/clearing-dust-from-this-blog-and.html - an URL which no longer exists.

The business started out on Etsy, and then spread to Artfire, Big Cartel and also their own website. As their Etsy account was removed they switched to selling on their website primarily. Why was it removed? We can only speculate, but Lela admits that another Etsy shop was closed down by Etsy because it was flagged as being affiliated to her - I don't think Etsy do that if you leave voluntarily.

Glittersniffer Recall List

The website is gorgeous, beautifully designed and quite straightforward to navigate, although the press page is curiously sparse and outdated, the news is a blog with all its posts bar one (entitled "coming soon" and dating to five months ago) deleted, and the FAQ page glossing over the truth just a bit. However, since the website uses a Paypal checkout system, and neither the Glittersniffer paypal nor Lela's husband's personal Paypal can accept payments anymore, they have moved back to Artfire. The business Paypal account was frozen after they received over $5000 worth of claims from customers wanting refunds for mis-sold or dangerous products, and Paypal opened an investigation.

Glittersniffer fan page, then subsequently complaints page.

Glittersniffer attempted to use Lela's husband's Paypal, but it was reported (by some rude people) as being affiliated with her as this breaks Paypal's terms of use. Subsequently, they switched to Google Checkout, which conveniently has no buyer protection, and moved back to Artfire.

Glittersniffer fan page, then subsequently complaints page.

Glittersniffer Cosmetics is a cockroach that simply won't die. They primarily sell eyeshadows ("pigments"), but sometimes also mascara, lip products, soap, and cosmetic bags she stole from an Etsy seller. More on that later.

Shipping

Glittersniffer charges flat rate domestic shipping at $4.95, which is the cost of a priority flat rate envelope. They throw in the 19 cents it costs them for delivery confirmation because they heart us.
The international shipping, however, is not so generous. $6.95 for flat rate first class shipping is actually not bad at all, and although they will be making a profit if your package weighs less than 7oz, if you're buying soaps or body products, a flat rate comes in handy.

Glittersniffer FAQ page - highlight is mine.

But then Glittersniffer demonstrate that they don't really understand what a flat rate is. We're told that flat rate international first class shipping is $6.95 - this is their rate, their set charge for the first class shipping, as there is no first class shipping flat rate pre-paid envelope.

They say "we change you what we are charged" which cannot be accurate; if something is a flat rate then you are charging a set fee which does not change no matter what size an order is or what the actual cost to ship is. Unless you use a flat rate pre-paid envelope, then no, you aren't charging what we're charged. Clearly, this statement doesn't apply to the first-class international mail.

But maybe they meant the priority international, which does use a flat rate pre-paid envelope. Except that according to them a flat rate international priority envelope (which they don't make money off) is $20, when according to USPS it's $13.95.
Maybe it's a box, not an envelope? Well, no; they're all $13.95.

Okay, so maybe it's a bigger box? Seems unlikely, since the next step-up in pricing after $13.95 is $45.50. Go and see for yourself.

Both USPS.com

Seems to me like they're making quite a bit off shipping. $6.05, in fact, and contrary to the statement that they charge us what they are charged, they seem to be charging us 43% extra.
For the sake of pedantry, I'm going to call this lie #1. This one is posted on the FAQ on their webpage.

Glittersniffer artfire.

Currently the turn-around-time for Glittersniffer is five working days, and they ship three times a week. If you don't get your order within 12 days, then it probably got lost in the mail. This happens quite often to Lela, who must be the unluckiest person alive; the sheer number of parcels she diligently sends out that simply get lost by the useless postal system, and then the replacements which also get lost, and the e-mails customers send when their parcels don't turn up, which simply, somehow, fail to reach her inbox.

Both Glittersniffer Complaints Facebook Page

Glittersniffer fan page, then subsequently complaints page.

Paypal forum thread.

Story anonymously submitted to Glittersniffer Complaints blog.

Story anonymously submitted to Glittersniffer Complaints blog.

Packaging

If you do get your order, it may not be what you ordered, but something else entirely. If it is correct, then the items may have arrived completely unlabelled:

Submitted anonymously to Glittersniffer Complaints blog.

Or with the labels so damaged you can't tell what the product is.

Glittersniffer fan page.

But that's okay, because apparently that fan is happy about it. Notice how Lela doesn't think to apologise for a product arriving damaged? Perhaps that's because it happens so frequently. Same product, same problem, different customer:

Submitted anonymously to Glittersniffer Complaints blog.

It seems like that product has a problem with becoming unsealed and leaking, but hey, that doesn't worry Lela, why not slather it all over your eyes? It's not like, uh, bacteria or any uh, nasty stuff can get into it even if the product can leak out, right? Isn't that how that works?

Product - Safety

But as Glittersniffer state, their products are clean and never contain bacteria. Welcome to lie #2.

E-mail screenshot submitted to Glittersniffer Complaints Facebook group.

They can't possibly contain bacteria, because Glittersniffer employees always wears gloves, masks, and use a sanitary work area.

Check out the almost-identical TKB sample bags, top right!

That looks like a lab to me.

Here's our hero Lela, joined by one of her employees, cutting soap on some very-sanitised table covered in her kid's crap, filling jars in her lap and showing off the finished product with clean, gloved hands, no jewellery which can harbour bacteria, and using masks and sanitary tools. You might make the argument that these were staged shots, in which case she just contaminated 42 jars of eyeshadow and what-looks-like 20 bars of soap, which will need to be thrown away. Pretty wasteful photography.

As she explains, Glittersniffer has and always will be sanitary, always uses gloves and masks and fingers do not touch the pigment, they are poured from a bag into the containers.

Glittersniffer Recall List,

I guess that's lie #3.

See? Glittersniffer is completely sanitary, absolutely all of the time apart from those times when they aren't. The real kicker is that, six questions below the quote you just read, on the same page of the Glittersniffer Recall FAQ, Lela contradicts herself entirely.

Glittersniffer Recall List

It's moments like these that I need to take a deep breath to keep calm, because there isn't enough capslock in the world to properly express the sheer stupidity of this.
Read it again.

Well done, Lela. Well done. You just contradicted what you said six questions ago. The answers are so close together I can view both at once in my browser, look:

Glittersniffer Recall List

How does this happen? Are you high? Insane? Or just incredibly fucking dim? How do you not see that you just completely contradicted yourself? You say that the practices are and always have been sanitary, using gloves, masks, sanitary worksurfaces etc (as evidenced in pictures above), and then six questions later you say you've introduced new practices including gloves, sanitised work areas and hand washing.

...

I don't know what to say here. I honestly wonder whether this is intentional and incredibly incompetent deceit or whether Lela is just plain nuts. I think I'm leaning toward the latter. How do you not know if you used to wear gloves or not? Maybe the same way you don't know whether you actually mailed something or not, after you said you did, and you're not sure whether your company started in 2006 or 2008.

Whatever sanitation problems Glittersniffer might have, no one has been injured as a result.

Glittersniffer complaints Facebook group.

Yes, you read that right, that woman's child was injured as a result. Glittersniffer's position?

Glittersniffer Recall List

Oh, wait sorry, there have been allegations but no official documentation.

Looks unofficial to me. (GSC Complaint FB page along with 2 below.)

Here's a picture one allegedly injured party submitted, along with full details of their condition, medical trips, medication and the pigments which caused the problem, to Lela.

Of course, Lela responded promptly and professionally, expressing concern and requesting the official documentation required for her to act on the issue.

Great advice! Despite the fact that she already did see a doctor, which she mentioned, both the first and second time she e-mailed you about the problem. But it's good that, despite the first one unfortunately getting lost in the ether on its way to you, you took the time to properly investigate and respond to the issue, Lela.

At least these injuries were caused by products which have now been deemed to be unsafe and been properly recalled, right?

Maybe not. Aside from the fact that no Glittersniffer product is safe, because they don't seem to remember whether or not they wore gloves, masks, washed their hands or packed products in their lap, this person's injury was caused by a product not on the recall list.

The Statement

On December 23rd, 2010, Lela posted this statement to the Facebook fanpage. It has since been deleted. I have reproduced it here in its entirety, cut into sections to make comment easier.

Once again, starting in 2006. This makes me think perhaps the Artfire bio is a typing error.

If you make a product and sell it occasionally, then yes, that can be considered hobby income. However, if you make a product and sell it (however infrequently) and keep the profit, that is not a hobby, it is a business. This is a legal distinction used for calculating taxes on hobby/business income. Lie #4.
Even if it was a hobby (which it wasn't, it was a business) that doesn't absolve someone of the responsibility to ensuring the safety of the products they are making and selling. Lela is basically admitting she was completely clueless, but her excuse holds no weight - she started a business, it was her responsibility to do the research to make sure the products she was selling were safe.

She then explains that she did do research, find out about ingredients that weren't safe for use as eyeshadow, and made unsafe pink pigments (she later explains the ingredient which makes them unsafe is polyester) which she hadn't intended to sell as eyeshadow. I cannot verify whether or not this is true, but will note that the recall list includes every pink ever made, so evidently at some point these were sold as eyeshadows and this became her standard practice. She goes on to say that she realised other companies were breaking FDA regulations by selling neon colours as eyeshadow, so she made some for herself. She says that the neons are not safe for use around the eyes because they are soap dyes, but in fact these are not safe for cosmetic use at all. They may be used in nail polish or diluted to colour soap, etc, but must not be used on the skin - let alone the face or eyes. There is a huge difference. Lie #5.

This is the first part of the pity-parade. Lela made them just for herself, and everyone wanted them so badly she had absolutely no choice but to make and sell unsafe ingredients. She told people they were unsafe though. Except, she didn't. Here's one of the original 80's Collection listings; this stacker is entirely repackaged soap dyes which are not safe for use anywhere on the face/skin, let alone on the eyes. The listing does not say they are unapproved for eyes, or cosmetic use, it actually encourages use as eyeliner and eyeshadow. This receipt is from March 2010, which is contrary to Lela's statement that she knew the colours were unsafe early on and disclosed the information. Lie #6.
It also says the company was established in 2008 again. What the hell is going on?

This isn't an excuse. She seems to think that just stumbling onto five thousand customers and a massive website means she was helpless and the business grew out of control. Total bollocks. For starters, she never had to list on Etsy more than she had to sell. She never had to sell items which weren't safe for use, or lie about it. It sounds like she's trying to convince us she just woke up and, oh, crap, the business is huge. Judging from her web designer's price list, the Glittersniffer website probably cost her around $1000. Who the fuck makes that decision lightly?

Then the problem is that, despite having five thousand customers and dropping a grand on a website to avoid fees, and the business, by her own admission, growing, now she doesn't have any money to pay her staff? Despite the fact that she has let orders pile up i.e. has more business than she can handle, and has not been mailing stuff out (meaning she has both money from orders and stock) the fact that she didn't get a business loan meant she couldn't afford to pay anyone to help her keep up with orders. The money she got from the orders, apparently, didn't cut it, and the thousand she spent on the website had nothing to do with it.

More pity-parade. People wanted reds and pinks, so she had to put carmine in (carmine comes from ground up bugs, it is not vegan) and continue selling herself as an all-vegan company when she wasn't. The statement: "when a consumer is buying from an all vegan company, they shouldn't have to look for notes indicating otherwise" is particularly infuriating. No, Lela, when a consumer is buying from an all-vegan company, THE PRODUCTS SHOULD BE VEGAN. ALL OF THEM. Otherwise it ISN'T an "all-vegan company", and it's just lying. Which it was - lie #7.

Someone wanted inexpensive brushes, so rather than linking that fan to any of the other cheap brushes around (and there are many) or stocking synthetic brushes which were vegan, Lela had no choice but to stock non-vegan badger brushes instead.

This is the funny part. "From this point forward, we will only be selling merchandise through our official Glittersniffer Cosmetics website." That was December 23, 2010. At present, they are selling on Artfire. Lie #8.

"We are discarding all of our old stock" if, by discarding, you mean selling. Two days after this, their old stock (including unsafe products on the recall list) was sold off in a lot. Lela even admits to this on the fan page.

Glittersniffer fan page, then subsequently complaints page.

Lie #9.

Another statement which indicates that Glittersniffer staff didn't wear gloves when handling product, despite the assertion on the recall page right now which says they always did.

No, they haven't. Today, three months after saying they had applied, Glittersniffer still haven't applied for a business license in Michigan. Search for yourself. Lie #10.

Forgive me, but you don't seem sorry, considering that you lied six times in that one statement, and of all the promises it makes for the business going forward, none have been honoured. Perhaps she knew it was all bollocks, because as I say, this statement was deleted from the fan page.

Around the same time as this statement, the official product recall started.

Recall

I don't know about you, but seeing a company is recalling over 54 of their eyeshadows back, which were made over a period of four years using ingredients which were either not safe for use around eyes or not safe for use on the face/skin at all, fills me with confidence.

This wasn't a bad batch, this was four years worth of products, their creation continued for the entire life of the company. The recall also covers all pink eyeshadows ever made to be on the "safe" side. For some reason, I don't think doing things on the safe side has ever really been a Glittersniffer priority. The recall list is buried on its own page of the website and is accessible through a button on the FAQ page - not on the main page of the website itself. It is also not on the facebook fanpage, Artfire, or anywhere else. It also wasn't e-mailed to anyone, but knowing Lela's luck, her e-mails would have gotten lost on the way.

Glittersniffer Recall List

It seems like the official version of events, now, is that Lela knew they were unsafe when she made them and sold them, and continued to do so despite the knowledge. Whereas the original statement said she made the items either for herself or, in the case of the pinks, for nail polish/items other than eyeshadow. The snippet above seems to have abandoned that, and suggests that she ignored the safety rules in order to make things brighter and more colourful.
Some of the products were, eventually, updated with information saying they were unsafe, others weren't. Of the ones that were, the information wasn't always correct - as in the case of the 80's collection (repackaged neon soap dyes) being marked as not eye safe, when they were not safe for limited cosmetic use - a completely different thing.

It seems like Lela still doesn't understand the difference, because the recall list is separated into two categories:

So, the first category is products that aren't approved for use around the eyes, and the second category is products that aren't approved for use around the eyes - and/or contain soap dyes. This is misleading and still doesn't state that the soap dyes are not approved for limited cosmetic use i.e. lips, cheeks, skin - not just eyes. I'm not sure if this is because Lela still doesn't understand, doesn't care, or doesn't want people to know. None of those options are good.

Here's the official, final recall list.

Glittersniffer Recall List

If I haven't hit your "omgwtfno" mark yet, perhaps the highlighted text will do it for you. The Little Girls' Collection is on the recall list. The clue is in the name (although Lela got it wrong on the recall list - "kit" not collection) - this was a collection specifically designed and marketed for children. In that screenshot, notice this little Q&A:

Glittersniffer was also included in The Spotted Box, a sample box which is geared towards mothers and children.
In this e-mail, Lela is happily explaining to a customer that all of her colours are safe for children of any age - except for Flight Club, which is on the recall list, next to another fifty-three colours which were previously described as safe. Lie #11. Notice the e-mail is dated June; she's admitting the colour isn't safe, but is still selling it, and this is six months prior to the recall.

The recall list shows Glow In The Dark Collection and says it isn't accepted in the recall because it was advertised as being unsafe for eyes. Lie #12: here, here, and here are three listings showing the Glow In The Dark pigment marketed/suggested as eyeshadow/eyeliner with no safety warning.

Next to the recall lists, on the recall page, there's a bunch of questions and answers, some of which I've already discussed. Another one worth looking at is this one:

All oranges are safe, except for Finger Food. Just that one orange. Lie #13 - look a couple of inches to the right on the same damn page and you see 80's Orange and GLAAD orange also included in the recall.

The recall page is chock full of other lies, and there's still that Etsy seller I mentioned earlier, some issues surrounding veganism, alleged charity fraud, and the fact that Glittersniffer are still not meeting FDA regulations right now, today, in spite of this apparent wake-up call, but all of that will have to wait until part 2 tomorrow. There's just too much fuckery for one post.

Random Extra-Shit Wednesday.

2011-02-09T11:43:00.005Z

I forgot to mention this yesterday, but remember Caustic Cadets who appeared in the first RST? They were another company selling glow in the dark eye products, this time it was liquid liner. I mentioned that I'd sent them an Etsy convo to link them to the FDA information on zinc sulphide and ask where they got their information about it being safe for use around the eyes provided it was suspended in a liquid base.

I didn't think the owner would get back to me. She responded on the 18th January (same day as my question) saying she was going to work and would have to find it later. She then replied to me again on the 5th February, apologised for the delay, and said that she had triple-checked and found that I was correct and, indeed, the product was not safe for use around the eyes. Then she immediately discontinued the entire range of UV reactive/glow in the dark eye products. I've been informed that she's also notified customers who bought the products on Etsy to offer a recall and refund and tell them about the information, and is taking steps to track down customers who bought the items from other venues in the past.

I'll admit, I had expected her to know they weren't safe and just ignore the information, so I'm happy to have been wrong and very impressed, particularly at how rapidly she acted on the information once she realised the ingredient wasn't safe. Heather also pulled Caustic Cadets up on using bloggers' images in their listings, but having checked through the shop a few times since, I believe they're now only using their own images, or a couple of stock photos. I certainly hope this is the case.
ETA: It is. I asked the owner about this, too, as she was so transparent about the zinc sulphide, and she admitted and apologised for it and seemed genuinely sorry. The images used now are either actual product shots or stock photography (not used to misrepresent products, but for mixed listings etc) that is free to use.

I still haven't tried this company, and I'm not sure they know about the blog (they may have found the previous post independently, which is the only way to connect my Etsy account with the blog, but as I didn't link to them or include them as a keyword, I think it unlikely) but I am impressed by their ability to respond to negative feedback and mend their ways very quickly. I can't say I'd recommend them, since I haven't tried them, but I might be impressed enough to order some samples and see what they're like.

Random Shit Tuesday vol. 2

2011-02-08T00:00:00.003Z

Sorry, once again, for the radio silence. I had intended to have the Glittersniffer rant up but have been feeling ill for the past couple of days, and staring at the white monitor has been making my headache worse.

The name's sticking, since the majority of people liked it how it was, and I'm pretty lazy when it comes to naming things.

Blogs

Grey tells you everything you ever wanted to know about Inglot in one fantastically-comprehensive post.

Phyrra did one of my favourite looks ever.

If I made lipsticks, I would pay Cacau to do all my lip swatches.

Rebecca wrote a poem which includes cake, Gambit and Star Wars.

Do silicones secretly want to punch your mother in the face? Jessica's friend Molly investigates.

Links

I'm absolutely buying this. Come March, you may never see me again - unless you join too!

I want the R2D2 and Rebel Alliance ones, the X-men Retro and Wolverine ones, and, well, all of them.

I play these guys pretty much on repeat.

This is not the hammer.

News

I re-watched Dollhouse recently, and if you haven't seen it, or started it and got bored: watch it. Topher is pretty much the best, most adorablewonderfulohmygodIlovehim character ever. Joss, I forgave you for Wash because he's not really gone, but I will never forgive you for being mean to Topher. Picking on Topher is like kicking a puppy in the face.
You have to bear with Dollhouse a bit, it starts out slow and then accelerates rapidly, but the overall plot and character progression is phenomenal. It's also a nice excuse to see un-blue Amy Acker again.

I got another sample binder to supplement my old, full one. Then I covered it in glue, Gambit comics and stickyback plastic.

No, that's not his orgasm face, that's his "oh god Beast just karate-chopped me" face.

I might have a slight obsession. The above picture is also a great example of just how much my camera is pissing me off by turning things blue. Look! The right picture: same chair, more blue.

Requests

Read any good books lately? Does anyone else like audiobooks? I use them all the time as they help me control my anxiety disorder, so I'm always looking for more.

I've had a few people offer to do guest posts - what topics would you be interested in seeing a guest poster cover?

Which would you rather see - a Valentine's post, an anti-Valentine's post, or something totally V-free?

The new site layout will have much better navigation to make popular posts and series easier to find - is there anything you'd like to see improved/changed specifically? (The text lists instead of post previews when clicking on labels/previous posts will be changed.)

How many people noticed that the bullet-point icon is the stickman from the Portal logo?

Anything else? I'm sick; entertain me!

Thanks, but no thanks, Sleek.

2011-02-03T11:04:00.007Z

Sometimes we have to be grateful when companies fuck things up. Mistakes happen, and the measure of a company is how they deal with those mistakes. Not just their actions, but also their attitude toward acknowledging the mistake and trying to move forward. It's great when companies deal with these things admirably, but if you haven't noticed, all of my posts lately have been very positive ones. All the ones I have scheduled are positive, too - everyone's been doing really great!

Which is fantastic, except that when everything is positive you lose the perspective and it makes those positive reviews seem less glowy, which is unfortunate for the companies that deserve their glowy. So, thank heavens for Sleek, then, and their giant-ass fuck up that makes everyone else look much better in comparison.

I already posted about their fail sale, but in closing I was trusting the company to sort itself out. I figured it would take them a while but they'd eventually sort out everyone's orders and make sure people got what they paid for in the end. I couldn't have been more wrong if I'd been going the wrong way down a wrong way street.

Remember, this was a sale organised to thank the fans because they'd reached over 21,000 on Facebook. A sale they initially forgot about and only remembered they promised after multiple reminders from the fans they were so grateful to have. So, how did they thank us? By throwing together a sale with little stock, no preparation, the result of which was people spending two days trying to make an order and checkout, dealing with servers crashing, baskets emptying, items deleting, only to then have the transaction time out during their credit card being processed, or have the 50% off code appear to work but then be charged full-price, or to be charged twice, have orders duplicate, or fail entirely.

Sleek were completely unprepared and overwhelmed with the response to the sale and were suddenly drowning in unhappy customers who saw their money disappear, had no order history, had duplicate orders, or faulty codes that left them being charged too much, et cetera et cetera. They acknowledged that they were unprepared and overwhelmed, and despite the insensitive tweets about pizza, appeared to be trying to work through the huge mass of problems the event had created.

They didn't try very hard. On November 26th, less than two weeks after the sale ended, they posted a note to their Facebook fanpage declaring that anyone who didn't get a specific confirmation e-mail the day before "unfortunately" wouldn't be getting anything. Yeah, you read that right, this note was published to their fucking Facebook page. They had everyone's e-mail address, sent out one mass e-mail to the people who were successful, but didn't bother with the others. To date, there has been no mass e-mail telling people about the note or the contents of it, and only if they e-mail repeatedly do individuals get a personal e-mail brush-off. I only became aware of the note thanks to Lena's excellent and similarly outraged post.

The note was incredibly long and incredibly complicated. I've reproduced it here in its entirety but cut into chunks to make comment and explanation on each section easier.

So, they start off with an apology and explanation of all their efforts to fix the problem. They're not apologising for the problems, mind you - just apologising for the delay in providing a general update. There's a team of more than 14 people including the marketing director and the general manager all helping to sort the problem out. Great. They're also either writing the date wrong, three days in the future or edited the original note posted on the 26th entirely - I do not know which.

This starts out explaining that a very important mass e-mail went out to confirm successful orders on 26th November. Demonstrating, then, their ability to send a mass e-mail. This is not utilised again, however.
It then explains that this e-mail confirming successful orders is only to customers who either paid by PayPal (which was not an option on the website during the sale, I am given to understand it was offered as an option to some customers whose payment on the website failed - my website payment failed, but I was neither informed nor given this option despite e-mailing them repeatedly) or customers whose "payment was not rejected initially or subsequently" i.e. whose orders went through fine anyway.
That's not much of an achievement, is it? If payment went through fine, then, well, your order is fine! Well done you! What? What, exactly, have you fixed, then?

It goes on to say that all the past confirmations were incorrect. They might have 'confirmed' things, but they're going out the window. No matter what you thought your order status was, either from talking to staff or getting confirmation e-mails or checking the information on the website, unless you got one specific e-mail on the 26th November, then your order isn't "successful". And if it's not successful, it's...

I'd like to point out that I really hate the terms "successful" and "unsuccessful" in this instance. It makes it sound like it's your fault your order hasn't gone through. Bad luck, but you didn't manage it, try again next time. "Unfortunately" as well is employed multiple times to avoid taking any personal responsibility or blame for the problems.

This is the brush-off paragraph, it contains the most important information but is buried beneath statements of how well they've been doing and how all the orders that didn't have problems have been successful thanks to their titanic efforts. This is the only place this information is posted, despite how important it is and the huge number of customers it effects. This information is only found in the facebook note and was not e-mailed to anyone and is not on the website. Remember where they said their director of marketing had been working tirelessly to solve these problems? S/he's the person who should have thought that maybe this information ought to be e-mailed, or on the website, or anywhere fucking other than buried as an obscure note posted in the evening on their fanpage. It's not even visible on the front page - you have to look through the notes to find it.

This paragraph basically says that, unless you got their e-mail on the 26th November, or have been told by a staff member on or after 22nd November, you are not getting your order.
If you spoke to a staff member on the 21st November or at any point before - fuck you, they lied, you're not getting shit. If you got eight thousand confirmation e-mails before the 26th November, but not the 26th November one, well, then - fuck you, they lied, you're not getting shit. And whilst it is unfortunate that your order has not been successful, it's not their fault and they aren't sorry.

This part seems to suggest that when payments didn't go through, some customers were allowed to pay via Paypal for their order, as Paypal wasn't accepted as a payment option on the website during the sale. This wasn't announced anywhere and I am assuming that the option was extended to individuals from sleek staff members. I don't know why, or how, or on what basis. I sent numerous e-mails about my order and its status and didn't receive a single response until a month later, so this option was never offered to me.

It goes on to say, though, that this option isn't being offered anymore. It's clear that it worked, because when they described successful orders, people who paid by Paypal were on that list. This looks like a way for people whose payment was declined or interrupted to be able to pay and get their orders, but no. They say that if you knew you could have paid by Paypal sooner than yesterday - bearing in mind this is the first time they have mentioned the ability to pay by Paypal on their facebook/website/anything - then you could have, but now it's too late.

Why? Well, they told you in paragraph above. It's "due to the sheer volume of orders" they've had to process. So, the ones which went through successfully, those are fine, by virtue of not having any problems to begin with. But despite being told previously that your order will be honoured, it won't. Why? Because there are too many of them.
It's not impossible - after all, they've shown that they can process them manually with Paypal, but they're not offering the option to pay by Paypal anymore. They didn't tell the general public that it was an option beforehand, but by the way, it was, only not anymore, because... well, fuck you. There's too many orders. Too many people want to buy the things they sell and that's just unacceptable.
Maybe they just can't be bothered, or are too busy eating pizza, who knows. They don't tell you who was offered this option in the first place, or why it wasn't offered to everyone, or why we weren't made aware of it, just that it was and it isn't anymore because fuck you, there's far too many to do and they don't care about you or honouring your order.

If you didn't pay by Paypal you paid by SagePay, which was the only payment option on the website when I ordered. SagePay is their credit card processing company. When you did order, you, like me, may have noticed that your funds were debited from your bank account. So you think - excellent, OK, my payment went through, I'll just wait for my products.

Only then they don't arrive and you're being told that actually, your payment didn't go through. You think well, my bank balance says otherwise, mister. But it's OK because as they say, they only take payment when goods are dispatched and not when you ordered - wait, oh, they only started doing that on the 18th Nov? A week after the sale? Oh. Well, that's not really relevant then.
Turns out what actually happened was instead of you paying for goods and then receiving those goods, SagePay just decided to hold onto your money for 30 days. Isn't that nice of them? Instead of you spending the money on the things you wanted, instead, you just get to see that money be held for 30 days, so you can't see it, or touch it, or use it, over the Christmas period.
What, you wanted your money back so you could spend it? On presents and stuff? Well, too bad. It's not really gone, after all, and because of that you can't do dick about it. It's just being held for 30 days and after that it will re-appear in your bank account, and, well, fuck you if you needed it, because it's not gone - it's just gone for all intents and purposes and will be back after a month, so that's fine.

So, if your order was successful even though your money wasn't taken, it still could be. Anytime in the next month. Better keep it in your bank account just in case, because by this point you probably have no fucking idea if your order is "successful" or not.

This is untrue, as I know at least one person who was charged full price, got her order, had been in contact with Sleek and still never got a refund to cover the faulty discount. But maybe she will eventually.

It sold out online and the website didn't update, allowing people to order it even though it wasn't in stock. Instead of those orders being cancelled, people were just sent something else instead. This didn't just happen with the Bad Girl palette, but also other items, to the point where I know of some international customers who received orders that contained nothing they ordered. Considering those people paid over $13 shipping to get the items they wanted, it seems a little ridiculous that they would be substituting items without consent. Comments on the facebook page reveal people who want to return these items which they didn't order and get a refund have been e-mailing for two months and not gotten replies.

Also, you're allowed to return the stuff you didn't order for a refund, but you're not allowed to swap it for something else that you actually want. Why not? Who the fuck knows.

They say here that because they didn't realise that funds were simply being held by SagePay, and that transactions hadn't actually been successful (i.e. paid for) that some packages were sent out initially having not been paid for, with the funds simply held which would be released back into the person's bank account after 30 days. This is why there are complaints on the facebook page of people getting 3 e-mails a day from Sleek demanding that they haven't paid for their packages and need to do so, however, their e-mails aren't answered when they try to ask them what the hell considering that their money is missing. No one is going to pay again when they have no assurances that their missing money will be released after 30 days.

So their solution was to stop sending out orders until they were able to accurately verify who had and had not paid. The people who had not paid were most likely having their funds simply held by SagePay without their consent and had no ability to get them released before the 30 days were up. I understand them stopping at this point to sort out who had and had not paid - but we already know they could request payments manually but are simply refusing to because it's too much work.
If they got word of the errors 5 days after the sale's end (the sale began on 11th Nov and ended on 13th Nov) that places this around 18th November.
Why did it take them another week to tell anyone and then summarily dismiss everyone's orders whose payment wasn't successful?

Once again, they apologise for the delay. Not the delay in shipping orders out, just the delay in telling you that your orders, actually, will not be honoured. That's all they apologise for. They don't care if your money was held for a month, if they lied to you repeatedly and told you your order worked when it didn't, if they charged full price and still haven't given you a refund, if they took your money and then shipped you items you didn't want or order and refused to let you swap them for ones you did, or if you don't even know any of these because they couldn't be bothered to post this information anywhere other than an obscure note hidden in the note section of their facebook fan page. But they're really sorry it took them so long to tell you just how much they just don't give a shit.

In addition, their Christmas orders have come in - people paying full price for things, not like you plebs - so those have all been packed up and sent off and they'll deal with you when they fucking feel like it.

But don't worry! If you were one of the unlucky ones who failed at ordering and thus were unsuccessful (unfortunate, but not their fault at all) you'll have another chance! Lucky you! At some undefined point in the future, if they can be bothered, feel like it, or remember, you'll get an individual 50% code for your very own. Because this is an experience you definitely want to repeat. It should be noted that as of this post, 3rd February 2011, Sleek have still not begun to send out these promised 50% off codes or given any indication as to when they will be appearing.

There look, they admit they fell short of their own high standards and they've learned their lesson, but remember, it still isn't their fault and they aren't sorry. But it definitely won't happen again. Everything is fine now.

Nice of them to provide a TL;DR "fuck you" for everyone who got lost in that massive pile of shit. It says your order "cannot" be processed manually despite the fact that we know some orders were processed manually because some were offered the chance to pay by Paypal - but they're not doing that anymore because, well, it's just too much work, okay? Perhaps "will not" would have been more accurate.

Astonishingly, this note has no comments! Look:

Wow. Really? 32 people are super happy about that and no one has any comments? That's funny. Oh, wait, maybe this is why.

Wait, what was that? You mean...

You really do mean you deleted all the hundreds of comments from people complaining and reporting problems with their order. That's because everything is totally fine now, right?

...Right?

I took these as the first few comments off their latest post, which has 123 comments. Another has 70-ish. The vast majority are complaints and problems with orders, either from the sale or from orders placed much later. I thought everything was fine (by virtue of telling everyone that if they haven't got their order, they aren't going to) and that they were never going to fuck stuff up again?

But, let's be fair. They're probably e-mailing customers individually to explain the situation, right? Surely they wouldn't just leave that note up there and then ignore repeated e-mails completely?

Well... sort of. I placed an order on 11th Nov after spending several hours trying to get everything in the basket and get through the checkout. I checked my bank account and the money was missing, I got a confirmation e-mail and personal assurance via the company's Twitter account that my order would be processed and just fine. I sent off an e-mail on the 11th Nov just to check everything was OK. I received the following automated response:

Scenario D was me, so hooray! My order will be honoured.

However, I didn't hear anything else. I sent another e-mail on November 11th to update with an order number after I managed to login to the website. I got another automated e-mail confirming my order on 13th November, but no personal response and no dispatch confirmation. I waited, thinking they would come, but they didn't. On December 1st I e-mailed again, explaining the situation and asking about the status of my order. No response.

The first, and only personal e-mail I ever got from Sleek arrived on December 16th, over a month after I ordered, and it was as follows:

Excuse me? That's it? It took you a month to tell me that UNFORTUNATELY MY ORDER HAS NOT BEEN SUCCESSFUL, that you took my money and held onto it without my consent for thirty days, ignored my e-mails for a month and then DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING APOLOGISE?

Sleek have still not apologised for anything other than the delay in telling us in an obscure hard-to-find note that we wouldn't be getting anything and that all their previous confirmation e-mails were lies, and that if our money was missing it was because it was being held and there was nothing we could do about it.

After spending hours trying to order, sending them repeated e-mails, watching them fucking tweet about rewarding themselves with pizza and cheesecake, and all the promises that orders would be honoured, having my money held, unusable, over Christmas, they don't even apologise, to me or to anyone else. They're so sorry it took them an extra week to let us know that they were giving up and couldn't be fucking bothered to honour any of our orders despite all their promises to the contrary earlier, but they're not sorry about anything else. It's incredibly unfortunate that this wasn't a success, but it's clearly not their fault.

Before I get accused of being pissy because it was, after all, a generous sale, I'd like to remind you all that this was a 50% off sale originally promised and then forgotten about, which was designed as a way to say THANK YOU to their fans.

Sleek, if this is your idea of gratitude; thanks, but no thanks.

ETA 03/01/11: The final word.

Sleek make some great products at great prices. Their excuse for this mess is that they were overwhelmed and only had 14 staff to try and sort it out, but their response was to deny blame, break the promises they made originally and just write off the customers they were supposed to be thanking - and never apologise for any of it.

Being a small company doesn't excuse that. Fyrinnae are a small company. They're just two guys who are always flooded with orders and they have to also spend time making everything they sell, not just packing orders and shipping and answering e-mails. They still do it, though. They apologise for mistakes, try their best, go out of their way to make sure the customer is happy and got what they paid for. When they're flooded with orders, they tell people it's going to take a while and they take the shop down.

Sleek has a history of terrible customer service, and although they make some lovely products, they aren't so lovely that they're worth putting up with all of this. They might argue that they simply couldn't do anything else because of the number of orders, but then I'd love to see them explain why this notice was hidden away in the note section on their Facebook fanpage; not on the website, not in the news stream, not in an e-mail, and why they then deleted and have been systematically deleting negative comments about order problems ever since.

Despite all their talk about appreciating and thanking their fans, I have yet to see any real evidence of it. If they really want to thank us, I suggest they start with an apology.

Random Shit Tuesday!

2011-02-01T10:54:00.006Z

I don't like doing "here's a million random things" posts - you know I don't. I'm going to make it a weekly thing like a lot of other blogs do, however, because otherwise I never get around to doing it, and often there's stuff I want to draw attention to which doesn't warrant an entire post, or someone asks me a question I can't help with, but you may be able to.

So this is "random shit Tuesday". Enjoy!

Blogs

Phyrra posted here about Sigma Makeup's shitty service, when they mailed her two brushes she didn't order as a mistake, then demanded she return them when she contacted them to ask why. She told them she was reviewing them and offered to use them in a giveaway, but instead they demanded she spend her time and money shipping the two friggin' things back to them. Which is illegal, by the way. Products sent as a mistake without charge to a customer who didn't order them are legally considered a gift and the company isn't allowed to demand their return.
An edit declares they changed their mind again - perhaps the 60+ comments had something to do with it?

Grey has started another Reader's Suggestion Week, so be sure to check daily to find out what she thinks! I didn't submit one this time, since she dropped a ton of money on my suggestion last round and the product is weird and inconsistent.

Shattered posted about eye-safety in response to Heather's post about bad Etsy companies. Both make for interesting, and enlightening reading. I contacted the Caustic Cadets to ask where they were getting their safety information for zinc sulfide, because the information I found said that it was never eye-safe. She responded saying she'd "have to get back to me" with the information because she was heading out. That was over a week ago, she has not responded again or provided the information.

Tempest reviewed ZOMG Smells, a fantastically-nerdy perfumery. As if you couldn't tell from the name.

Requests

I have a friend who's looking for a graphic designer to design her wedding invitations; she's hoping for a nerdy theme, probably Mario/Princess Peach related. If you know of anyone suitable and relatively cheap, please let me know in the comments.

Someone e-mailed me looking for a blue-based purple lipstick to match this image. I've searched and can't find any blue-purple lipsticks that aren't lilac. Anyone know of any?

I need a better name than "random shit Tuesday"; suggestions?

I recently updated my blogroll - if you're someone I talk to semi-regularly and have a relevant blog that's not up there, please let me know!

I'm planning an absolutely MASSIVE giveaway to celebrate when I hit 1337 followers. It will be huge and epic and generally incredible. It will also be heavily promoted, so any business wishing to throw something into the prize pool, please e-mail me.

Got something you want to request recommendations or advice for? Leave it in the comments and I'll edit it into this post.

News

I've finally found someone I can afford who's going to re-design the entire blog look. The new one will be sexier, nerdier, brighter, and much easier to navigate. I'll also be moving to Wordpress, as it's much less restrictive. The URL will remain the same, and this won't be happening until May as my web-designer is quite busy, but I'm still very excited. In the mean time, if you see any of my ads that look interesting (quite a few new indie companies advertise, now) then please go check them out, 'cause the ad revenue will be going toward the blog remodel.
On a similar note, if anyone wants to rent ad space on a monthly basis, they should get in touch.

Coming Up
(not necessarily in this order)

Vicious Cosmetics - swatches & review.
One Hand Washes The Other - review.
Living Dead Grrl - review.
Psyche Cosmetics - review.
Illamasqua - customer service review.
Sleek - rant.
Glittersniffer - rant (about fuckin' time, eh?).
Geek Chic - swatches of everything and interview.
Beauty From The Earth - eleventy-billion swatches.
Venomous Cosmetics - interview.
Fyrinnae - review.
Product Body - review.
Latherati - review.
Best Of... series.
How To Get A Good Review guide.
Tutorial - Blending/Monochromatic EOTD.
EOTDs - 7 different X-men themed looks and a few unthemed.
Trading post - opportunity for you to advertise the buying/selling/searching for obscure/discontinued/limited edition items or pimp blog sales.
The White List - my cosmetic heroes.
The Black List - companies I wouldn't touch with a barge-pole.
Other stuff.

Sorry posting and comment-replying is being a bit sporadic. My brain isn't being very write-y lately. I'll have to beat it into submission with more caffeine!

We've done the impossible...

2011-01-30T22:56:00.000Z

And that makes us mighty!

Well, it makes Geek Chic mighty. Back in November, I was approached by Chantel from Geek Chic Cosmetics to get my input on shade ideas and names for a collection they were working on. The inspiration behind the collection is my favourite thing ever but I was sworn to secrecy and not being able to squeal happily about it all over the blog was killing me.

I'm so incredibly, insanely delighted to finally be able to tell you all about it! Geek Chic have just released their incredible Firefly collection, Big Damn Heroes.

The colours are complex and beautiful and manage to represent their namesake and still be very in-keeping with the show's aesthetic. They have a Western feel with a little decadence to me, and the collection name as well as the individual names are incredibly appropriate. I was also allowed to write the descriptions!

Captain Tightpants - I love my Captain; he might be bad in the Latin but he's a nice man, really. Someone must have told Mal he was an autumn, because he's always decked out in earth-that-was tones. Captain Tightpants is a ruddy shiny golden-toned copper; it would look right at home next to his coat, which is... kind of a brownish colour.

Very Fine Hat - Badger is a businessman, a fine upstanding gentleman with roots in the community and yes - a very fine hat. He also got his hands on a couple of diamonds the size of- well, you know. A very blackened, dirty gold, just right for the sad little king.

Ambassador - Plenty of worlds won't even let you dock without a decent companion aboard! It lends a certain respectability, as does this eyeshadow. Ambassador is a rich, reflective plummy-maroon filled with golden sparkle..

Inevitable Betrayal - Some people juggle geese, some play with dinosaurs and some wear green eyeshadow. A tribute to the best pilot we know, even if something about him just bothers me. His was an evil laugh, but Inevitable Betrayal is a reflective golden-toned dinosaury-green.

Little Albatross - Way I remember it, albatross was a ship's good luck 'til some idiot killed it. Morbid and creepifying, but brilliant nonetheless. Also, she can kill you with her brain. This Little Albatross is a deep, steel-blue with blue and silver sparkles. The sparkliest of the bunch.

They all have a smooth, buttery formula and some sparkle. Little Albatross and Ambassador have very obvious sparkle, whereas it's more subtle in the others. Inevitable Betrayal has a lovely strong golden reflect, whereas the golden sheen in Very Fine Hat is much softer.

I can't pick favourites; I love them all! You'll see me doing some looks with these lovely things pronto, as well as swatches of the rest of Geek Chic's shades.

I upgraded my bags!

2011-01-26T21:24:00.008Z

Sorry for the lack of posting! In preparation for my sister coming and building a desk for me, I tidied and cleaned all the things yesterday, and somewhat sort-of put my make-up away. It's now slightly-more-organised and mostly contained to the vast number of mismatching sets of drawers I've been building up.

I took a boatload of crappy photographs and painstakingly annotated them all in minute detail for you.

All my make-up!

My most-commonly used stuff.

Other stuff I use quite often.

The lip drawer! A lot doesn't fit in here.

My non-indie stuff!

This seriously needs sorting through & old stuff throwing out.

Wonderfully organised, eh?

Sample-binder! Organised by rainbow.

It's full now; I bought another 100 wallets and new binder today.

It holds 450 samples; 70 are Shiro's.

This is why I didn't photograph all of them.

Super organised, huh? Well, at least it's all... sort of relegated to one area now. I need more drawers, especially the wonderful shallow ones perfect for jars. Things will be easier once I have my desk I can arrange things on.

All the drawer units are from different places. Supermarkets, cheapie stores, stationery stores, etc. The cute wooden set was donated by one of my sister's friends, though. My sister hates that 'hat box'; it was a free gift with some Lancome stuff ages ago, and is useful for storing things in, but when I stayed with her she somehow managed to trip over it on a daily basis, so now she groans everytime she sees it.

I know some people have those lovely, huge drawer-sets on wheels, but they're pretty damn expensive. My stuff looks kinda gross and mismatched and disorganised, but at least it was cheap - more money to spend on makeup to put in it!

How do you store all your make-up? Got any fantastic bargain storage ideas you can share with me?

EDIT: Lots of people have asked, so re: the sample binder - the plastic wallets are just called "9 pocket sleeves for trading cards". Googling will bring up tons of results. You can find loads online, or most comic/nerdy shops will sell them.

GPS is Overrated.

2011-01-25T01:24:00.005Z

After I posted my Lost In Makeupland review, I went and bought a giant 10g jar of Faerie and Whipped; because at the time Belén was running a buy-one-get-one-free offer on all her full-sizes, I got a jar free and so both jars only cost a total of $8 - which is fantastic. She does a different offer each week!

Belén is fast becoming my make-up hero. She offered to make me a custom highlight after I more-or-less begged her for one, I asked for it to be designed for pale-pale girls with cool pink undertones. What she came up with is fantastic. She used photos to match it to my skin, and it really does. When I use it on my eyes it melts into my skin, disappearing except for lightening and lifting the area and adding a beautifully subtle, soft shimmer. I got to name it, so I called it English Rose, after the term used to describe the gorgeous pale-skinned rosy-cheeked complexion I adore.

I also got Glow this time, which looks similar to Faerie when swatched, but Faerie is more of a warmish peach tone, whereas glow has pink undertones with golden sheen and shimmer. Glow would look fantastic on me if I wanted to warm up a look, and I think would make a lovely cheek highlight. You really can't see how beautiful it is because the pink tones disappear on me, but let me reiterate that Lost In Makeupland make my favourite highlights and I think you should all own them.

As you can see, I also got samples of Belén's new colours and her Rock My Look collection, an absolutely stunning set of deep, dark, dramatic, metallic shades which are complex and gorgeous and generally amazing. They're all inspired by rock songs, and you can read about the inspiration and see some lovely swatches in different lighting here. You can also see that Seven Nation Army isn't as green as it looks there and is, in fact, much sparklier and more delicious.

I swatched Whipped again next to Snow for comparison; Snow is more of a pure white eyeshadow which is a little more satin and a lot more pigmented, whereas Whipped is a much sparklier, much more reflective highlight which is a little more golden. Whipped will go on much more sheer applied with a brush because it's a highlight, whereas Snow is more of a traditional white eyeshadow. I love the soft, buttery golden yellow of Lazy Sunday, and I adore the satin dirty gold of Mustard, and I am absolutely crazy about Sugar-Coated because, well, look at it!

Suffice it to say: love. Totally absolutely in love. They are all totally gorgeous.

Since my original review, Belén has also got business cards, printed labels which list the shade name, whether or not it's vegan and company logo, and sends an invoice with a personal note and a print-out of all the eyeshadow ingredients on the back. It doesn't just have a general and 'may contain' list, but a specific one for each eyeshadow, which is very useful.

I know about some of the things that Lost In Makeupland has coming up, and although I can't talk about them, I will say that I am incredibly excited, and extremely impressed with everything they've produced thus far.

Don't forget I've swatched the rest of Lost In Makeupland's eyeshadows here.

KABLAM: Interview!

2011-01-22T21:58:00.005Z

Just a short post today, as I have some very upsetting personal crap going on, I wanted to share with you that the lovely Rachael who runs The Beauty Spot interviewed me the other day :]

It was a lot of fun, the questions I get asked most often are about my camera or other boring things, and while I don't mind answering them, it's always nice when someone takes an interest in me outside of my swatch photos! So you can read that here.

While we're on the subject, I thought I'd answer my three most frequently asked questions:

What camera do you use? A camera-phone - my Sony Ericsson k770i. It was good for a camera-phone when I bought it, but there's loads of much better things out there now, I wouldn't recommend it. I have to take 5-6 shots just to get one which isn't blurry.

What is your necklace/collar/where's it from? I answered this on Twitter but then got the same question again twice. My collar is stainless steel and made by a German company called Axsmar (WARNING: website contains some NSFW products), they make a lot of different collars and... other things. Mine is the 8mm talena model with a removable o-ring and hex-lock. I've owned it for three years, and I love it to pieces. It was expensive but their service is great and their craftsmanship absolutely impeccable; it will last forever.
If you're interested, you can read more about how it works on the website, or ask me about it. I wear it 'cause I'm kinky, although that's not something I really talk about on the blog, but if you know what it means then, yes, I'm a sub, and that's why, although it's not representative of any relationship at the moment. If you don't know what it means, then don't worry about it.

What daylight bulb do you use? I use a 100w equivalent BioBulb, it uses 25w and puts out 1750 lumens. It's this one. It's not necessarily the best, it's just what I have and I like it. As far as I know the best way to compare is by the actual wattage, the equivalent wattage (what it's as-bright-as) and the lumens it gives off. I use mine in my overhead light, since I'm often awake at night and I prefer a daylight bulb over a yellow bulb, and that's what I use for taking swatch photos.

Shortest FAQ ever!

P.S. Thanks to Joeybunny for submitting the "Kablam" portion of the today's post title.

EOTD: Do Not Talk About Robot Club

2011-01-20T14:32:00.008Z

This is going to be the only non-X-men-themed EOTD in a loooong time. I was playing around with my Living Dead Grrl make-up samples and this happened.
Please excuse my eyebrows! I'm growing them out so I can get them waxed; they've been getting progressively thinner in my quest for a decent arch-shape and Phyrra keeps taunting me with her ridiculously perfect ones so I'm starting over. Also, please forgive the lack of a proper step-by-step, this was another long-winded experiment so I'm not sure how to explain it.

Do Not Talk About Robot Club

All eyeshadows used are by Living Dead Grrl make-up.

Primer - Urban Decay Primer Potion & Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy
Lid (inner 1/3) - LDG eyeshadow That's A Fact!
Lid (middle) - LDG eyeshadow Skip To The End
Lid (outer-V) - LDG eyeshadow Prayers For Rain
Crease - LDG eyeshadow Prayers For Rain
Lower Lashline (outer) - LDG eyeshadow Prayers For Rain
Above Crease - LDG eyeshadow Robot Club (to blend out crease)
Highlight - LDG eyeshadow Passing The Star
Eyeliner - MAC Feline eye kohl
Mascara - Bourjois Liner Effect

I threw this together just to test the eyeshadows, but I like how it turned out. The blending could have been better, I was using my back-up brushes as I hadn't cleaned my regular ones, and I'm not very good at doing looks with a few different colours without overblending and turning them muddy.

I'll do a proper review shortly, but I'm happy to report no problems with the Living Dead Grrl stuff, as you can see. I've been having trouble lately with eyeshadows balding on the lid and am not sure whether it's my brush cleaner, the eyeshadows or my primer, so I was happy to see that I had no problems at all with these.

If you don't recall, Living Dead Grrl is the UK-based indie company who got my attention by having a Spaced collection, I swatched all of her current eyeshadows here. I used three out of the four eyeshadows in that collection for this look, and some of the others. She doesn't currently ship internationally, but she has said she'd start if there was demand for it, so if you'd like her to ship to your country feel free to say so in the comments.

Sweet lewts!

2011-01-18T19:23:00.014Z

Christmas is normally a pretty dismal time for me, since I cut ties with the majority of my family around five years ago, most holidays have just been me and my sister surrounded with happy families everywhere we look. Christmas at University was the worst, and I would skip the first few days back so I didn't have to listen to other students talking about their holidays, families, gifts etc.

This Christmas took me totally by surprise. Although it was still just me and my sister there, a lot of the people I've come to know and care about through the blog reached out to me, and I felt a lot more loved and included on any holiday than I have in years. Just this morning I saw someone on Twitter complain about people who don't have a "real life" and rely on "internet friends" and it made me want to smack them in their screenname. Their "internet friends" might suck, but mine are fucking amazing. Friends are friends, wherever they live - love and support do not need to be geographically convenient to be real and meaningful.

With that in mind, I wanted to share some of the wonderful thoughtful gifts I was given this Christmas and thank all my wonderful friends for making my Christmas awesome. I know it's late; I was waiting for everyone's parcels to arrive but it looks like the post has lost one, so I'm posting this now.

The gorgeous Carolyn, of Handcrafted Carolyn, sent me the best-addressed-package I have ever received. Originally she sent me the two adorable pairs of sterling silver studs you see, and then later surprised me with chocolate from a local extremely posh chocolately place where she lives, and a little pair of dainty dangly earrings she threw together out of random things. I adore them! I adore them even more because they were an improvisation and are exclusively mine, although I won't mind if she makes more. They're a beautiful size, really elegant and dinky, and best of all they don't hurt my ears at all - it's the first time I've been able to forget I was wearing a pair of earrings.

I'm crazy about the studs, too - it's a really lovely change to see something nerdy made into a really beautiful, delicate, elegant piece of jewellery that anyone could get away with, and the quality is fantastic. I have no idea how she manages on such a small scale.

Yes, that's how she addressed it. :D

Cutest. Note. Ever.

Teeny dinos! Teeny rockets! Squeee~!

A handcraftedcarolyn exclusive, woot!

My friend Charlie (my real life friend! I do have some) sent me a selection of insanely-adorable panda stuff from Artbox. He did this last year as well, so I'm hoping this is a new tradition, because I reaaaaally like these pandas.
People who got packages from me might recognise the panda stamp; I have been stamping everything.

Pandaspandapandaspandaspandaspandasmushroommushroom.

Before Christmas, Kelly from Whimsy Beading asked what my favourite colour was. I replied, "lightsaber green" without realising she'd take it literally (although knowing her, it was probably her plan all along). Lo and behold a little box turned up on my doorstep containing the most epic thing to ever be made out of beads - a little green lightsaber! Okay, so, purists might argue that the hilt detail and ratio isn't totally accurate, but hey, it's made of beads, not the Force!

Does this make Kelly my father? o.O

I love it, I particularly love how the beads in the middle are lighter and reflect the light a lot, like a real lightsaber glow :D. Before I looked at the Whimsy Beading shop, I would have thought that beading wasn't my style, but the things those two can do with them is insane. They can make virtually anything, down to the most intricate, exquisite detail, in so many different styles. I've always been more into costume jewellery than overpriced precious stones, so it's right up my alley.
UPDATE: You can now buy your own lightsaber from the Whimsy Beading shop! :D

Caitlin from Shiro Cosmetics sent me a Kawaiishadow set (with extra kawaii stickers!), a bottle of Tilt-A-Whirl, the perfume oil she developed with Darling Clandestine, and a kickass Tokidoki make-up bag filled with chocolate!

Tilt-A-Whirl is a gorgeous, gorgeous scent. It's a lot like Haus of Gloi's imp, which I adore, but the sweetness is balanced out with sage, leaving an incredible sweet-but-not-too-sweet fruity mix. I've been wearing it a lot, although I do wish it lasted a bit longer. I was really surprised by the tokidoki bag; I've wanted one since I saw the release at Sephora (who don't ship here) but when I saw they were plastic I figured they wouldn't be very good. I'm happy to report I was wrong - they're fantastic! The plastic is like a super-soft, strong, flexible PVC so it doesn't feel cheap in the slightest, and it has such wonderful details - the really chunky Tokidoki charm on the zip, little metal studs with the logo, all the little details are gorgeous and really reminiscent of one of the expensive designer Tokidoki bags.

The last gift I have a picture of is pretty much the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me. You may or may not remember, but when I moved into my new place I didn't have any appliances or furniture, I broke the bank just on an inflatable bed, second hand fridge-freezer, and everything else I have was donated. The one thing I really missed was an oven - all I had was a microwave, and then eventually a table-top-hob (stove for Americans) on loan from my sister. It was a total pain because there's so few things you can cook without an oven, and cooking costs a lot more without one. Unfortunately, though, ovens are expensive.

Then I discovered halogen ovens, and when I shared the discovery with Phyrra, she decided that was what she wanted to get me for Christmas. It was a ridiculously expensive, generous gift and I can't ever thank her enough, both for the gesture and for the thought behind it. I actually got the oven before Christmas and have been using it for over a month now. It's amazing. It does, well, everything an oven does, but it can also grill, steam, air-fry and other things. It takes a little practice to get used to adapting recipes to it, for instance my cakes keep ending up soggy in the middle, but everything else comes out perfectly and usually in a much shorter time.

Here it is with cookies inside! It's cut my food bills dramatically, means I'm eating healthier and more regularly, and I get to cook all the things I want now! It's pretty huge, 12L which can cook about a 10lb turkey or so on, so it's more than adequate for me. It comes with racks and so on so you can cook an entire meal for 2-3 people in it at once, it's self-cleaning and all-round wonderful. I actually find it easier to use now than a regular oven, it's a lot more consistent.

When I mentioned it on Twitter a lot of people were curious, so I'm going to review it, although it's pretty obvious I love it to bits.

After Phyrra got me my fantastic oven, I thought the only other thing I could really do with (aside from y'know, a washing machine or a proper bed) is a desk that's big enough. The one I'm using was a donation, and while it does in a pinch, I have nowhere to put my make-up on or put my netbook. Whenever I do my make-up I have to shove my keyboard off this desk and put my little mirror on and do it here, 'cause there's no other surface in the house... except maybe the kitchen worktop, and that's just weird. So I asked my sister to build me a desk, a huge desk, essentially just an incredibly wide table that would stretch the entire width of my livingroom wall. I'll have enough space to put computer and everything related on one side, make-up on the other side, and wheely-chair between them whenever needed.

She's still working on the desk (I sprang the request on her about a week before Christmas) but got me some bits to open, like my favourite candy and an adorable little panda bag. I don't have pictures because I ate it all *cough*. Also not-pictured is the awesome Belgian chocolate that wonderful Marie-Ella sent - remember her surprise package with the toothpaste last year? She said if I liked it I could have more at Christmas, and I did - woohoo! I don't have pictures because, er, we ate it. But it was delicious!

Saila as in, the The Purple Koala surprised me with a card and very generous amount of cash, which was really kind of her. I won't say how much because I think maybe that's a tacky thing to do, but she told me to buy something I needed, so I spent it on cold-proofing my freezing flat, which was very welcome indeed. Also, she lives in Finland, so I kind of wonder where she got it from? Anyway, it was very sweet, very helpful and infinitely more useful than a gift-card.

Jangsara, who I maintain is one of the most talented make-up artists I have ever seen, sent me a bunch of Sugarpill samples (including Royal Sugar! Squee!) and some other samples and even full-sizes of various brands, which was fantastic, and then her sending me a sample of the old formulation of Paperdoll prompted Shrinkle to send me a full-size jar of the new formulation and some extras. I'll show you a comparison shortly and have a few other Sugarpill updates to share. The best part of all this was that I got to try Royal Sugar, Tipsy and Darling however, and realise I absolutely need all three. Or maybe that's the worst part for my wallet.

I hope this doesn't look like gloating, after my last post showing off my recent hauls. I just wanted to take the time to thank my friends for their thoughtful gifts and for being so wonderful. You all made my Christmas, and in fact, everyone who reads and everyone I've made friends with as a result of the blog make my life richer and more wonderful every day. :]

This is the last of the sappy nonsense I promise. I'll be ANGRYRANTY tomorrow. ♥