Barry M. M for Middleton.

I kid, I kid. Thought I'd try and sneak the Royal Wedding in there somewhere.

It's taken me a lengthy amount of time but I've finally looked at the Barry M kit, the one that they were giving away free with The Sun Buzz. Why is this relevent to you guys? The promotion ended a long time ago. Well. I have another kit, to give away (with some other goodies, of course) when I reach 300 followers. Which I am only two followers away from! Yey! Thank you!



It consists of a lip gloss, an eye pencil, and a nail polish. I was most interested in the nail polish, not even going to pretend. It's a rather unique colour.





Wow, that was heavy on pictures.

Under artificial light, this polish appears almost terracotta - it reminds me of flower pots. I don't really like it when it's that colour. Under natural light, this turns into a gorgeous tea rose-esque colour. I love it.
Three coats, the formula was rather decent. They should make this one permanent, just because it's so unique.


The colour of the lipgloss is just completely, one hundred percent, no no no no no WRONG on me! Looks gorgeous on lighter skinned beauties. Just not on me. I was watching a Nigerian TV channel the other day and the presenter had on the most ridiculous, baby pink lipgloss/lipstick hybrid. It was so badly applied it made the left side of her top lip look rectangular. I was like, "What are you DOING? Get off the air. No wait, get out of the country. You deserve to have your passport revoked for crimes against cosmetics. Urgh."

It's a shame though, because I find this gloss really moisturising. I don't need a balm underneath or anything, and it makes my lips feel really soft. It's scented with this sweet taste that I can't place - not unpleasant, but these things differ amongst people. I find if I use this really, really sparingly, it just lightens my lips a little and I can get the moisturising benefit without the stupid lip colour. I'll be looking out for this gloss, in a different shade.

The kohl is bog standard. I like it because it's in an actual pencil and not a plastic surround. Quite hard, but you waste less when you sharpen it so it evens out?

Sleek's Response

Sleek got in touch with me regarding this post and this is what they had to say. All the bold apart from the signature is mine.

I am writing you in response to your post titled “Sleek MakeUP is no longer aimed at Black women” and follow up post regarding our True Colour Lipstick range as I know that you have sent a query through to PR and I thought I’d take the opportunity to respond and address some of your concerns.

Firstly let me say  what an interesting read your post made.  It touched on many issues that as a company we have had to address in order to position the Sleek MakeUP brand as one of inclusivity rather than exclusivity.

As a Black Caribbean woman and Marketing Director of Sleek MakeUP it was clear to me that it was not only Black Women that had issues with finding their particular shades of foundation.  Mixed Race women, Middle Eastern women, East & South Asian women and Latina women as well as others sometimes experienced this problem as well.  In truth Sleek Cosmetics (the former brand) catered predominately for Black but also Mixed Race and Asian women.  Our strength as a brand was being able to understand the requirements needed in the development of makeup for a  plethora of darker skin-tones. 

As a company we found that it was an untenable position to be in if we were for example going to some Caribbean islands and also South American countries where there were many mixed-raced women as well as Black women and saying to those women – our focus is only to provide makeup for Black women.  This to me not only seemed unfair but I also felt that it disregarded the contributions of the many women of Mixed Race and Asian backgrounds who do not consider themselves to be Black but have bought into the brand for many years. 

Our position will always be to celebrate the  variety and diversity in beauty and to enable women who found it often difficult to find their shades in mainstream brands to be assured that they can find their shade within the Sleek MakeUP range. Excluding particular women from buying into our brand because of their racial background goes against the spirit of celebrating diversity.  To take the Sleek MakeUP brand to markets where other brands often do not venture such as Brazil it is important that we are humble enough to research and understand the complexities of racial identity in these markets and not force our own perception of race and beauty on them.  To do this as a brand we have to be in the position where we offer a full spectrum of foundation shades from  which shades can be selected that are appropriate for their market and racial mix.

When the Sleek Cosmetics brand re-launched as Sleek MakeUP some six years ago we were clear that the focus would be not to sell based on race but to sell products based on high pigmented products that enable all women to further enhance their natural beauty.   The models that we use to reflect the Sleek MakeUP brand  are carefully chosen so that they are examples that we can all buy into beauty regardless of the race of the model on the front cover and vary so that we show all shades of beauty.  We do not believe this makes us just another brand as Sleek MakeUP is the only mass-market brand that provides 30 shades for all women – truly celebrating diversity.   Our aim is that any woman can say “My Skin, My Shade My MakeUP” – our tagline when referring to themselves and the Sleek MakeUP brand.

We understand that some of you may feel that you would prefer to shop from brands that only cater for a specific race due to concerns that you have about companies being able to understand the needs of women with darker skin-tones.  However I would like to assure you that what we have found is women of all skin tones often have very similar problems and what we are doing is trying to address this not for a particular race but for women in general.  It is admittedly a challenge but one that we embrace.

I would also like to state that in regards to our ‘Destination S’ event bloggers of many races were invited and present.  We have never and would never select invitees to any of our events based on their racial background!  And the suggestion that there were no black bloggers at the event is simply untrue.  Bloggers are selected based on past attendees list, bloggers that are on our mailing list and finally bloggers that have been in contact with us are put on a master list and then random selections occur.

The fact is many bloggers have reviewed the Sleek MakeUP brand from all over the world and who are of many differences, all of whom have contributed to the success of the Sleek MakeUP brand in recent years – we will never say to any of these contributors nor the consumers that have bought products as a result of the blogs and vlogs that we are happy for you to buy into one part of our range but not the other, it would be like saying thanks but no thanks.  We appreciate every customer, every blogger and vlogger that has bought and continues to buy Sleek MakeUP products and we will continue to work on perfecting our line for women of all races without neglecting the need to understand the complexities that women of darker skin tones have when finding their shade of makeup. I’m sorry if you or any of your readers who are bloggers felt they were over-looked in our selection as this was not our intention and in fact  you raising this issue has encouraged us to think about developing a fairer and more comprehensive selection process for our blogger events.

In regards to the discussion addressing the comprehensiveness of  our new True Colour Lipsticks range, in-particular it lacking in offering for women of darker skin-tones. As a company we work closely with some of the best makeup artists in industry and we get feedback from these artists when developing our range.  These make-up artists use our products on our campaign models who are ethnically diverse as well as on their clients.  They continually provide us with product feedback which enables us to improve our offering.  We combine this feedback with sales data and trend reports, this is the basis for us discontinuing or amending a range such as True Colour Lipstick. 

We have kept the best selling shades from the old range, introduced new shades based on trends and Makeup artist feedback.  There may be shades that you feel better fit  women with darker skin-tones that are not in the new range which may be the case, however the reason for this is probably because globally they were not either best-selling lines or lines that we decided to keep based on buyer and makeup artist feedback globally..  I say globally because this also takes into account markets like the ones you have previously mentioned i.e. Nigeria.

I will admit that this range does lack probably two brown-type shades which we found during our testing, these are currently being developed and will be available later on in the year.  Ideally they should have been included in the first launch however with only 20 in-store spaces we felt confident in the new line up being trend-inspired and compatible for many women to be launched as the primary range with provisions to add other shades for online sale throughout the year if necessary.

Once again, thank you for taking the interest in the Sleek MakeUP brand to take the time to write posts addressing some of your concerns and in turn giving us an opportunity to respond.  I hope in my attempt to clarify our position on this topic you will be able to better understand the challenges that multi-ethnic marketing throw up and our attempts to combat these as an ongoing commitment. We continue to listen, learn and position the Sleek MakeUP brand in accordance with our core beliefs and that best fit our valued consumers.

All the best,

Marketing Director

Sleek  MakeUP

First off, I was really pleased to read such a comprehensive reply from Sleek. They've addressed most of my concerns in this, so I'll just type a quick response.

The "no black bloggers" thing was my bad. I don't think I said it in so many words, but instead of researching into everyone that attended the event I just took Twitter's word for it. I hold my hands up, that was my mistake. Also, I never commented on whether the selection process was fair or unfair, though I have seen that sentiment around. Just clearing that up.
 EDIT: In all fairness, they only had one or two black bloggers/vloggers involved from what I've seen and read.

I probably didn't make this clear, but I really like the fact that Sleek have so many shades of foundation and that a good sized sample is available in store. It's great that they aim to cater not only to black and white women but also Latin, Asian etc. with the foundation line. What my main issue was with the change was that it seemed like carefully selected lip colours, eye colours etc. that were either nude on or flattering to women of colour were in danger of being lost in favour of this new diversity - that instead of producing more product to flatter everyone, the products that seemed too "niche" would be gotten rid of. However, if you skip to the last thing I bolded, later this year - fingers crossed - two more brown shades will make their way onto the shelves, or at least onto the website. EDIT: As of August 2011, this hasn't happened and I've heard nothing about it (though a LOT about their upcoming releases) so until this occurs, I'll be standing by my original statement)
What has been clarified is that Sleek are aiming it at "everybody" but rather than cutting down the shade range to reduce the exclusivity, if you will, they're saying that they will be trying to expand it and make it more comprehensive so that women of all colours will be able to find what they need. Taniqua mentions that Sleek are looking at or have already entered other markets such as Brazil and the Caribbean, so hopefully this means that the shade range of all of their products will continue to expand and grow, and Sleek can remain a company which black women can find makeup products they need at a decent price.

Their customer service is still appalling, though.

Nail Blog Round Up

Stacie went Rockabilly http://kawaiinailart.blogspot.com/2011/04/rockabilly-nails.html over at Kawaii Nail Art
The Nail Addict created some beautiful butterfly nails which look like damask silk http://thenailaddict.blogspot.com/2011/04/you-give-me-butterflies.html
Claire at Top Twenty Nails road tested some CDN Shellac http://toptwentynails.blogspot.com/2011/04/shellacs-rock-royalty-great-purple-long.html
Sharon mixed 2 blues to create a gorgeous effect http://polishinfatuated.blogspot.com/2011/04/beautiful-squishy-jelly.html
Linda was inspired by tokidoki and Sanrio http://wuliaonails.blogspot.com/2011/04/tokidoki-for-sanrio.html
Emily decorated her nails perfectly for Easter http://emilysnailfiles.blogspot.com/2011/04/easter-manicure.html
Grace showed her patriotic side with these cool Britannia nails http://ooooohpretty.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-royal-wedding-nails.html
Gradient or Holo? Jen went for both http://moondancerjen.blogspot.com/2011/04/purple-holo-gradient.html
Lena stamped with bundle monster on Essie Bermuda shorts http://thestudentsguidetonailpolish.blogspot.com/2011/04/essie-bermuda-shorts-preview.html

Essie "Bermuda Shorts"

Perfect way to kick off the weekend. Not that I'm doing anything more interesting than revision, but still. It pleases me to look at my fingers while I type :D

Bermuda Shorts is touted as neon. I think it's close but not quite as eye searingly bright as I would expect from a neon nail polish. I think my skintone has something to do with that, though. On someone with lighter skin, the contrast would be more striking. It does dry matte, however, so there is some truth in that claim.

I don't actually like this polish matte at all! It chips easily and just looks odd, to my eyes. Observe:






This went on so easily! No cuticle flooding or any of that nonsense. The formula was pretty much perfect. I liked the fact that it dried matte because that meant that it dried very quickly and it was obvious when it was dry, so I could apply another coat without the risk of bubbling.


Top coat makes it so pretty and shiny!

There is some visible nail line here. I did three coats on each, whereas above (matte) had like five. I'd usually refuse to do more than three, but the colour was gorgeous and application was good. Even with the large number of coats, it still dried well, so I'm pretty impressed.


I picked this up from a blog sale. Essie polishes are kinda pricey in the UK, but blog sales are a great option for overseas brands at a slightly cheaper price.

This was my first Essie polish! A pretty good introduction to a brand. Now if only they'd make their polishes widely available here, like ORLY...

Essie "Bermuda Shorts" Preview

Hell yeah, I'm doing a preview. Why? Because it's that damn awesome. Also, I've only swatched it matte and not glossy, so yeah :P *sheepish look*

Two/three coats of Bermuda Shorts, stamped with a generic Poundland polish and one of my favourite Bundle Monster designs.




Love love LOVE this polish.  Wish I could find the rest of that collection! :(

Purchaselist.

It's like a wishlist, but better, because I will actually buy everything on this list (it's all budget, so not a problem). Hopefully before the end of the year. I've set myself a goal.

Only problem is, I have a severe lack of funds. Money, I will obtain you.

In the meantime....

NYC Top Coat (will be a repurchase, I'm running so low at the moment)
Barry M Nail Paint in:

Black
White
That Chanel Paradoxal dupe
Mushroom
All the Ice Cream Paints, except Mint Green as I already have that

BeautyUK nail paint sets, all three of them
BeautyUK lipsticks
MUA lipsticks
MUA nail polishes
MUA eyeshadows
Sleek Concealer
Sleek Pout Polish in "Perfect Plum"
Sleek True Colour Lipsticks in "Blaze" and "Majestic"
American Apparel Nail Polish
Pure Acetone
Glitters for Frankening
Barry M Base and Top Coat
Barry M Nail Paint Lemon Ice Cream
Black and White Barry M Crackle Effects
Acessorize Nail Polish
False Eyelash glue

EDIT: 300th post and nearly at 300 followers! Thank you all so, so much!

Sleek True Colour Lipsticks, Old versus New

 Follow on from original post, here.

So I went to Superdrug armed with seven quid (some of which was later spent on bread, fml. Meant I had less to spend on cosmetics from my already pitiful amount) my camera, and my winning smile.

Monehz - to purchase and review.
Camera - to swatch.
Smile/undeniable good looks - to ward off any strange looks from passersby and/or sales assistants.

OK. So here's the stand, with the two lipsticks for six pounds offer that they've been running:


And the swatches:

I'll try my hardest to name these from the website. Might get a couple of similar shades mixed up, sorry :/
From left to right:
1. Stiletto
2. Bare All
3. Baby Doll
4. Mulberry
5. O.M.G
6.
7.
8. Fuschia
9. Naked
10. Heartbreaker
11. Cherry
12. Peaches and Cream
13. Mystic
14.
15. Pink Freeze?
16.
17. Peaches and Cream?
18.
19. Papaya Punch/Coral Reef
20.

It's late and I can't decipher the rest, any ideas would be appreciated :P

Old range:

Again, left to right
1. Blaze
2. Cherry
3. Fuschia
4. Vixen
5. Cocoa
6. Majestic
7. Earth
8. Amethyst
9. Rose Petal

Any way. So quoted again for ease of reading. New range:

And the old range (minus Mulberry, but that's in the new range anyway. It's a purple)


Right away, the difference in colour families is pretty damn visible. The old line had three different browns (you can barely see Blaze because it is THAT close to my skin tone) a couple of brights, some neutrals, and some dark, vampy colours, as well as the staple red. All could have been easily worn by black women and there was still a fair bit left for lighter skinned beauties as well.
The new line has no browns comparable to the old line. It has two very dark lip colours. It's nudes are far lighter in tone than the old line and are clearly designed to be worn by people with lighter skin tones and it has a heavy focus on peach and light pink shades, which don't often work particularly well on people with dark skin.

I was lucky and they'd literally just put the testers out, so I could use them on my lips without the risk of herpes. Right away, on my skintone and most likely on people that have a similar skintone to myself, 2, 3, 7, possibly 8, 10, 13, and 18 are completely unworkable on me - I look stupid. People of African descent tend to have larger lips (You guys have seen my lip swatches, you KNOW how true that is for me, lol) so light colours tend to make these look bigger, not only drawing more overall attention to the lip colour (which is very far from the skin tone, because it is in a light lipstick colour) but also making the lips appear oversized. I'm sure there are ladies out there that can rock this with confidence. I can't, lol.

I don't understand why Sleek discontinued the old line? If it's for everyone, then why not merge the two, and then a wider range of people will be able to find something for them. The formulas are pretty much the same (i.e, pretty hit and miss) and they've got a similar balance of matte, sheen and shimmer finishes. The only reason I could think of would be that the old range was too offputting to lighter skinned shoppers with the browns and what not, so they eliminated it completely. Not that it actually was, but that was the way their marketing person may have percieved it. Like I said, I'm waiting to hear back from Sleek as to why they've made the decision, and I haven't heard anything yet. If I do then I'll update these.

Sleek MakeUP is no longer aimed at black women.

 From Sparklz and Shine's blog post:

My first question to the lovely PR lady was about the brand's focus. I'd seen concern being expressed on twitter about the racial mix or bias of bloggers being invited to the event of a cosmetics company aimed at black ladies. And apparently that was the focus of the original company Sleek Cosmetics, but 5 years ago, along with the re branding to Sleek Makeup, they set a focus of affordable makeup for all. With the spotlight on skin tone not race. For marketing shots, they deliberately choose racially ambiguous models with the aim that we look and simply see beauty not skin colour.

 Am I disappointed? Yeah. I'm disappointed. Perhaps it's irrational to feel this way, but it was pretty good - felt good - to have the one brand that recognised that hey, black people have slightly different makeup needs, let's address that and make products that black women can use, and lets make them easily available and affordable.
I mean, I'm a student, who is broke most of the time, and I could walk into a Superdrug and get myself a foundation that fit my colour, a concealer, and then some pigmented eyeshadow that shows up on my skin tone (dark skin absorbs colour) and a lipstick that *gasp* was a nude on me! A brown lipstick that was probably very unappealing to lighter skinned shoppers. ("Why would you wear that colour? That wouldn't suit anyone!" I heard asked once, directed towards Sleek's "Cocoa" shade. I did hide a chuckle.) I don't see many other high street brands making brown lipstick. Nude lipstick. Lipliners like Cherry Oak/Rich Brown/Soft Brown that actually look decent on our skin. Flattering lip colours on ladies that share my skin tone, like "Perfect Plum" and "Chocolate Kiss" Pout Polishes.

I don't know for how much longer I'll be able to do that. The Eye Dusts are already being discontinued, and the old range of True Colour lipsticks, which contained dark brown nudes such as Cocoa, Blaze, and Earth, has been completely discontinued. I'm hoping to talk directly to their PR person to try and clarify their position, so I'll update this post if/when that happens. Fingers crossed, yeah?

I love England, I really do. It's a great country and people are really accepting of people that aren't of the same skin colour as themselves. It's just that, when you have demographics like what England has, which is that white is obviously the majority (92.14%, from the 2001 census) but there is still a sizeable (compared to many other countries, for example Japan or Korea which are extremely ethnically homogenous) migrant population, and of this, many are black, but what is in the stores still caters to the white majority. Which makes economic sense. Nothing wrong with that. It's just when that happens, it's hard for the minority that still constitutes a portion of the population to find cosmetics that are going to look good on them, and take into account their specific needs, as it were. Which is when Sleek came in, specifically targeted towards us. But they're not any more. Their ethos is the same as what every other high street brand proclaims, which is that it's for "everybody". Which means the majority. Which means lighter skin. Sorry, but I'm calling it out for what it is. Already, with the unreleased Nude collections and what have you, the products being touted as nude simply aren't really, on the skin of many (black) women. I can't judge until I actually swatch it instore - I'm going by the photographs and swatches I've seen online already, but yeah. What would be great is if they released different palettes/collections, with different colours of "nude". After all, nude can come in brown, pink, yellow (no offence intended, at all). All sorts of colours. Why not cater to a slightly wider range of nude? Feel free to shoot me down, people.

What I'm curious about is whether this "everybody" will extend to Sleek's overseas operations. I'm going to take Nigeria as an example, because I am Nigerian :P We have a far less diverse ethnic lineup. As in, the country itself has a very large, diverse amount of ethnic groups. But they're all considered Black African. I can't find any statistics that indicate how many foreigners we have in Nigeria but I'm sure it's not as many as is present in Britain. Will it make economic sense for Sleek to switch their focus from black women in Nigeria? Will the same range of foundation be available in Nigeria as I can find currently in Superdrug? When I visit Nigeria (hopefully) late this year I'll let you guys know what I can find. If I go. It's a bit uncertain because of the house move :/ No monehz.

I've looked over what I've written, and I don't see anything that could be construed as libellous or is incorrect, but if someone does spot something, please tell me off/let me know! I've tried to double check everything that I've written with the information at hand, so yeah.

Ultimately, I'll keep using the Sleek stuff that I have, and I'm sure to purchase more when something comes out that takes my fancy (I still need that concealer. And the Primer Palette. And some more Pout Polishes....*insert wishlist*) They make good products, it's just I'm a little saddened by the change of focus.
Anyway, I'm sure that I'll get over my disappointment, and in the meantime, Sleek are still producers of good quality, affordable makeup. So yeah, continue enjoying their products.
Do you guys still want to see reviews of the stuff I bought, or should I leave it? I'm perfectly happy to review it if you guys want to see it!

EDIT: Follow up here. 
Sleek's Response here.

Giveaway Closed!

Just updating to say that unfortunately, my BeautyUK Metallic Eye Sparks giveaway is now closed! I'll be choosing and announcing the winner sometime this week ;)

A Competition and Something You Guys May Be Interested In

An "Eggciting" Easter Egg hunt over at Beautique.com in which you can win quite a few cool things. The premise seems to be that you log on at 11am on Thursday (this Thursday, the 21st), and you click through all the different pages on the site. When you find an egg, you click on it, and "buy" it (for a penny) and then whoever manages to process the order first wins a prize! It's open internationally, too. Good luck!

Also, I've had some emails from Sara from The Fresh Air Fund. They need host families for this summer, and she thought my readers might be interested :) If you are, pop down and take a look.

Blog Sale Nail Mail

You see how that rhymes? Cool, no?

*is chuffed with self*
What? My titles rarely have catchy names. :P

So I purchased from both Jenni's and Ann's blog sales (like, within a day of each other) and the items came on like the same day. It was well cool. I felt like a beast.
I think Jenni's is still going on, so do check it out. She had 58 polishes up for grabs, so I'm pretty sure there's something for everyone. Prices are very reasonable!

Look at the gorgeous polishes!

Essie "Bermuda Shorts", American Apparel "Hunter" and "Passport Blue".

Thanks sooo much Jenni, much appreciated :)

I also got two NYX Jumbo Pencils (Milk and Black Bean) from Ann's sale.


Thanks Ann! Again, appreciate it lots :)

And yes, I am wearing Essie "Bermuda Shorts" in that picture. Couldn't wait :P I've had it as a full manicure for two days now, it's glorious. Glorious. Wonderous. Magnificent. Insert superlative of choice, ad nauseum. It's so good I want to track down the rest of this collection.

Await swatches. *salute*

If you've got a minute, would you mind popping over here and giving me a quick vote? The contest ends on the 20th! :) Which is like, today. So if you could get a last minute vote in, I'd be really grateful!

What gems have you picked up from blog sales?

"Cheek-y"

So I was reading through my comments on my v-nails post, and one anonymous commenter said this about them:

I'd call it the butt crack! It's hideous! O.O

So I was like, "Challenge!"

Now take a look:




It was a pretty poor attempt, I may have to repeat it.
Base: Barry M Nail Paint in "Raspberry"
Bum: Nails Inc "Caramel"
Various acrylic paints for the um, shading.

Nivea "Soft Rose" Lip Balm

You see that accent on the "rose"? That's European, that is. That's cool.

I feel like such a cool kid when I'm toting this around, not going to lie. It's like, European. Continental. A little bit of exoticism in my pocket.
*cheesy grin*

Tragic Superdrug balm trying to be as suave as Miss Labello, and failing.

I got this for the bargain price of a quid at Poundland, so I wasn't expecting my holy grail lipbalm, but this is perfectly adequate, and the shape is cute. It's apparantly meant to smell like roses and jojoba oil - at least, that's what it states on the packet. I sort of smell the roses, but I'm not really sure what jojoba oil is meant to smell like :/ Can't comment on that aspect of it.

It's not terribly moisturising, but it doesn't dry them out as such. I like the little hint of pink that it gives my lips. It's very subtle, but it's still there. I think this would work better on a lighter skinned person with cooler undertones, though.
Naked lips:

Nivea'd lips:

No frost is good frost.

It was actually really interesting reading the opinions of readers who have easy access to Labello/Nivea and the like. The general consensus seems to be that it's good, but not the best, and I agree with that. It's an average lip balm, doesn't feel too waxy on the lips, doesn't moisturise well but not horrendously, and I like the colour. Plus I can pretend I'm French or Dutch or something. Tres bon!
(I left out the accents because I can't type them I'm cool like that)

If you've got a minute, would you mind popping over here and giving me a quick vote? You can vote once a day :)

Wilkinson's 4 Way Nail Buffer

This is actually a repurchase.



89p at Wilko will get you this fabulous four way nail buffer. Complete with handy instructions on the back!


Start with black, to take down length (though I find the grit on it is really rough - practically sandpaper! So I use my own files instead) move onto blue, to smooth out ridges. Pink begins to produce a shine while still evening out the nail plate - a sort of intermediate stage - and the grey makes everything wonderful and shiny. Can't say much fairer than that.



I've been using this for my buffing purposes for a while now, though I'm tempted to try out No7's offering when the vouchers roll around again. What are your favourite nail buffers?

WARNING: This is a Feet Post

Yes, you heard me. A post. About feet. Feet haters, kindly look away now :P

So my feet have been increasingly neglected since...well. Last summer? Not a pretty sight.

Just to reiterate:

Yeah. Gross. Feel free to "ew". I "ew"ed. Multiple times.

Anyway, so I was sitting there doing French revision, and I thought, "Why not spice this up a bit? Have some fun while you're trying to remember how to conjugate verbs ending in 'er'" So I went to the bathroom and got myself a bucket, and basically did a makeshift pedicure. All sorts of nastiness went down (consider, this is after I've done D of E, as well. You can imagine) but yeah, I had a nice soak while I was doing my French. And the result?

BOOM. Ready for the summer. Or for Holy Thursday/Good Friday (wow, I'm a bad Catholic. Can't actually remember which day it is that the Priest washes the feet of selected parishoners.) foot washing. My Mum volunteered last year and she has lovely feet, and had her toes painted with a blue Nails Inc polish, I think. (Again: I can remember what polish my Mum had on, but not a vital part of Catholic doctrine? Niiice.)

I don't actually own any shoes which show off my toes, but we do go barefoot for Karate, so at least I'll be able to see them, newly preened and polished, once a week. Woo.

If you've made it to the end of this post, I'm guessing you don't mind/aren't icked out by the average foot. Know anyone that is? I know plenty, lol...

EDIT: If you made it this far, would you mind popping over here and helping me out? Thanks :)

April Giveaways

Win an Easter egg over at Beauty and the Blogger - hurry, it ends in just a few hours!

GlamaDazzzle is giving away $200 worth of makeup plus an iPod Touch, check it out! Open internationally!

Don't forget to enter my BeautyUK eyeshadow pencils giveaway! The deadline creeps ever closer...

As always, I'll update when I find out more!

Bundle Monster Competion

I've said it on the other post, but I'll reiterate here: the response from you guys was AWESOME. Thank you everyone that helped me make up my mind as to what design to put forward! I really appreciate it.

So, the candy design was chosen by popular demand:


In case people were wondering, that's a macaron on top of the thumb :P

And this was the design that received fewer votes:

 It's actually really easily created with Fimo and some rhinestones. I keep saying that I'll do a decoden tutorial. I must!



If you're still reading, I'd really appreciate your votes in the contest. You can vote once a day for your favourite entry (great if you've got more than one). You can vote for mine here, if you want. 
Alternatively, feel free to click the picture below, and it'll take you to the Bundle Monster Facebook page so you can have a bit of a browse before deciding on your favourite.

Like I said, if any of you do decide to vote for my design, I'd really appreciate it! The voting period is from the 13th (today) to the 20th - one week!

If you guys decided to enter, feel free to leave your links on this comment and I'll vote for your designs. Always curious to see what my readers are up to. O_o

Insane Sleek Haul

So I'm just going to copy and paste (every time I type that I start singing the BoA song, lol. I like K-pop too much!) this from one of my earlier posts as an explanation of sorts before THE PRETTIES. Wow.

Sleek have finally made good on their promise (six months later) and have been distributing the 50% off codes. WOOT. I recieved mine a couple of days ago and decided that since they did eventually do what they said they would, I'd give the brand another chance. So I spent all the money I'd saved up for circle lenses...on Sleek products. *facepalm*. Oh, and then some. Total came to like £63, sans discount, and I didn't even get everything I wanted as I had to cut down somewhat and then the website didn't have some things in stock. Like the Perfect Plum Pout Polish. ARGH. I wanted that colour so badly. *sniff*. I neeeeed it.
That and concealer in my shade and some lipsticks I wanted. Not to mention the distinct lack of online/accurate swatches for many of the products that I wanted but couldn't buy in store. Urgh. Anyway, that's another post. If you tried to order in the sale, have you recieved your code yet? Let us know. Also, if Superdrug decide to do another 3 for 2 on cosmetics (or, you know, just Sleek) do give us a heads up because there is still loadssss I want to get now I've cooled down on my pissed off with the company period.

 So I ordered:

Skin Revive Liquid Foundation (Henna)
Face Contour Kit (Dark)
Ink Pot in Dominatrix (Black. They seem to have stopped selling all their other colours...shame. The yellow colour was quite quirky, I wouldn't have minded some of that)
Bad Girl iDivine Palette
Original iDivine Palette
Sunset iDivine Palette
Storm iDivine Palette
Sheer Cover Lipstick in Calico
Pout Polishes in Chocolate Kiss and Sugar May
Blush in Pan Tao
Lip Pencil in Rich Brown
Total came to £34.60, including postage but minus 50% from the discount.

I placed this order late at night on Sunday. I recieved this today, on Tuesday. INSANITY. And postage is flat rate, which means that you could have a huge heavy box like mine and still only pay £2.95.

I'd walked into the car, all dressed in my Karate gear (before people start, I'm only a red belt) ready to go to Karate, when the next door neighbour calls Mum over. I'm sitting there, tutting because we're going to be late and then it's really embarrasing because you have to stand by the side until the Sensei lets you join in, and then after like five minutes she returns with this huge parcel. Apparantly the postman had given it to them to sign for...even though we'd been at home all day. Smooth. She said they hadn't given it to us earlier because they were at a funeral. But it was still good timing! I had something to look forward to opening after Karate.

I panicked when I saw the labels, I was like "Oi! I didn't order a Chaos palette!" but they just reuse the packaging, I think.

Everything was wrapped really securely, no eyeshadows were broken or pencils snapped in half.

Bam! As it came out of the boxes.

I was practically weeping just looking at all of it. I can't WAIT to play with and review all of this.

Loosely arranged by function and/or collection.

A teeny weeny part of me wishes that I'd had the opportunity to be this excited back in November...but what's done is done, right? And I'm pleased that they did eventually distribute the codes. I'm totally, completely (almost, anyway) broke now, but it was worth it in my opinion.

What do you guys want to see first?