I've been MIA for so long, it's actually shameful :( My only excuses are exams and the fact that I spent every single week of the summer holidays doing work experience of some sort. This is the year in which I apply to university, and since I'm hoping to study Medicine I've been trying to do as much extra curricular stuff as possible, now that the academics are somewhat out of the way.

Peace offering: May I show some pretty pictures of what I've been up to while neglecting my poor blog? Then tommorow, I promise to answer my comment backlogs and work on some new material. I've seen some product launches that are impressive and I'd like to talk about them, though I'm way behind the times!
 
Boo, Chemistry.
 
Boo, practice exam papers.

 
Volunteering at the hospital!

Out with friends to celebrate the end of results...we went out to eat a lot. Wagamama was probably one of my favourites.



I was lucky enough to be able to watch the Athletics at the London 2012 Olympic Games! One of my Mum's friends works at a company involved with the Games and was able to score us free tickets. We saw the morning athletics, including the men's 200 metre sprint heats - which featured Usain Bolt! Slightly in love with that man.




Interesting entertainment outside the stadium!



 Gold Duke of Edinburgh practice expedition up the Brecon Beacons. Seriously hard.




Back to work at the library! My college was one of the earliest in the area to go back. Typical. Latest to break up, earliest to start term again...


Squirrel in the bin. Not sure why I found this so amusing.


I'll endeavour to update far more regularly now things have calmed down somewhat. To be a good doctor, I'll need good time management skills, and where better to start but here?

(If you made it all the way to the end, please award yourself an e-medal)

So, nearly a term into the new school year, I finally emerge from behind my humungous pile of AS textbooks to say hi. Huge apologies for the lack of warning before I suddenly stopped updating. The step up in workload from GCSE to AS is insane and far more than I'd expected, especially with Physics amongst those subjects (thinking about taking Physics? Don't take Physics. So much effort.) coupled with the fact that I'd also got a new job and suddenly my school got all these new, attractive people (hot boys in my Science classes, was I really meant to be concentrating on molecules?) and my days turned into incessent studying at home, socialising at school (yes, these two should be the other way around) and going out pretty much every Friday night before work on Saturday and a frantic homework catchup on Sunday. Once again, huge apologies.

Stuff I've missed, apparantly, and am looking forward to:


The Magnetic Nail Polish Trend

Apparantly 17 have just brought out/are bringing out a set of magnetic nail polishes for only six quid or so, compared to Nails Inc's price tag of like twelve (plus the colours are pretty much the same) so I'll be looking out for reviews on those.

MUA's Eye Primer

Finally, I can buy eye primer at Superdrug...

Winter Nail Colours

Maybe it was the grotesque lack of summer experienced in this country this year, but I'm really in the mood for some dark, brooding winter nail colours, especially with the upcoming metallic/foiled finishes that seem to be in season. My collection is mostly cremes and jellys so I'm up for the opportunity to expand somewhat.

High Street BB Creams

Garnier started it, 17 have bought one out (that I'm ignoring as it only has two very light shades) and MUA are planning to release one later on. Please bring out some darker shades, please.


Inglot's Online UK Store

This was LONG overdue but I'm so psyched about it I can overlook the fact that we were basically the last people to get anything along those lines. I can continue to put off that trip to Westfield and order online - as soon as I get paid. I'm planning to /splurge/.

Hot Science Class Boys

Did I mention that we finally have some attractive people in my little old Catholic school. HELL TO THE YEAH

Do you see what I did there with the title? DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE?

If not, you need to follow me on Twitter. @SeptemberLena

So today is (just about) the first of September, 2011. All through the summer, even though I've had awesome nail polishes to wear, my peeling, soft, and weak nails are continually spoiling the fun. I refuse to take any more of this.

Behold:



For the month of September (all 30 days of it) I will religiously apply these two products. Every. single. day. The short, slightly ominious looking blue one says to only apply two/three times a week, but I'm living on the edge. Every day. Under polish, most likely. Lol. Old habits die hard etc etc.

It'll be my first experience with Mavala...aside from a nail varnish drying spray and a set of nail files, I haven't really experimented much with them, and especially not with their new, revamped image. I'm hoping this nail serum and hardener set will help my nails. That and obviously eating healthier but that's so much effort, yano?

Also, seeing as it's the whole 'going back to school' period of time, I was floating the idea of starting a fashion/outfit blog, to blog the outfits I wear to sixth form (no more uniform. SCORE.) Would that be something anyone is interested in? *is nervous*

Anyone else making 'resolutions' this September? I have an excuse, you see. It's the start of the school year!

The NPLQ is the qualification you need to lifeguard in a pool in the UK, and it's a week long course that I've just completed. Basically, they teach you how to save someone in the water, CPR, First Aid and all the sorts of things you'd need to know to do your job effectively. And we were in the water for hourssss each day (OK, perhaps not 9 and a 1/2. But a LONG TIME.) Naturally, I couldn't NOT wear makeup where other people were around...but I had to improvise.

Behold:



We have an Active Cosmetics Eye/Lip palette, a Barry M 3 in 1 (supposedly) Nail Strenghthener, Base Coat and Top Coat, an MUA nail polish in 'Shade 9', a NYC top coat, an Urban Decay 'Zero' eyeliner and an MUA Pro twist up eyeliner. Apologies for the somewhat natural background, as we've moved house I'm yet to find another suitably brightly lit, flat white surface to photograph products on. Until I construct a light box (or miraculously locate such a surface) photos will be taken outside...



The soft texture of the MUA pencil makes it easy to blend, which is why I use it primarily for filling in my eyebrows. It's not the blackest black, which means that I can overapply a little and I don't look scary/angry. It's slightly oily texture means that it holds up decently in the water, as long as it's not rubbed, and I was too busy desperately trying to follow instructions and swim while dragging big heavy teenage boys to the other side of the pool to start fiddling with my eyebrows, yo. The two lines underneath are the MUA pencil. The big 'UD' is the Urban Decay one...sensible to wear a waterproof pencil in the water, no?



I was planning to have painted nails all week, but these were my hands by the end of the first day - not great! I remember the teacher trying to teach us how to do a spinal board (google, because it's too long to explain here) and we had to support the casualty with our palms facing down. I was staring at my hideously chipped nails as opposed to worrying about the 'casualty' with a potential spinal injury...

At first, I suspected it was merely the brand (even though I'd had no problems with chippping using MUA polishes in the past) so I then painted them with a Barry M polish the next day (same thing) and finally a Nails Inc one (not even a freebie, a genuine, £11 bottle of Nails Inc polish) and the exact same thing happen. Clearly, no brand is immune to prolonged immersion in the toxic soup of chlorine, baby vomit and piss that constitutes poolwater.



Please excuse my photographing of hideously used and abused makeup (I guess that vouches for it's effectiveness? Lol...) but we've misplaced the baby wipes in the move so it's not even like I could clear this up. Regardless, I used one of the lip colours as a blush and a lip tint in the pool, because it's waxy texture meant that it's somewhat water resistant.


A tiny dab like that, mixed with a little moisturiser on the palm of the hand, then BLEND BLEND BLEND like it's the UN truck out of a war zone once applied to the cheek. Then you're good to go. Apply to the lips as normal, though I think I stopped bothering with lip colour after the second day.


 I never had it quite that bright, though...


 This cloud is a seven.

It was actually rather pleasant taking photos and blogging outside. Might become a regular thing!


The mini trampoline which I was lazing around on while taking photographs.


 New garden!



I stumbled upon some rare, highly sought after blue grass. It doesn't look at all like it's been painted with MUA's Shade 9...

GUESS WHO'S BACK


Yes, it is I of the reclusive GCSE enforced break from blogging. My last exam was today (well, yesterday technically, as it's now 12:33) and I've got a gloriously long summer to do jackshit. And blog. WHOOP WHOOP.

I've missed writing so much, lol. Reading about how best to design my imaginary product for Technology so that OCR give me good marks hasn't been quite the same as reading about beauty products.

Some things that I should mention:

First off, thank you and hi to all my new followers! No idea where they came from, but welcome! Please stay a while. Or run screaming from this blog which is probably the safer option.

My Barry M giveaway is open until midnight tommorow, because I feel it's only fair as GFC was down temporarily and so I thought I'd give people the best chance of entering.

I have a LOT of stuff to catch up on, review, and generally talk about, so yeah, please stick around :P Thanks in particular to numerous lovely twitter ladies who kept me entertained through hours of painful revision (think trigonometry, circle theorems...shudder.) @uknailpolish, @tsunimee, @lipglossiping, @RandomLanda, @MorenaBarbee, @JennMUA, @25fLONDON, @nav_t, @brainsinajar, @xloodiex, @PolishGalore and I should just do a Follow Friday already. Sorry.

The culmination of a very long story is that I basically need to purchase Sleek palettes in:

Curious
Chaos
Bohemian *pending*
Graphite *pending*
Jewels
Safari
Paraguaya
Primer *pending*

Yeah, I know. Don't ask.
However, they can be in a completely disgusting condition. As in, hit pan on every single shadow and little bits of dust all over the mirror. Used is entirely fine. In fact, the more used, the better, as long as this reflects on the price :) So if anyone out there has some completely used and abused Sleek palettes off that list that they are happy to swap for or sell, or knows of any etailers that sell these as cheaply as you can get them, livejournal sellers, MUA swappers, anyone, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. I have exactly one month. *salutes*

If anyone who has followed for a while remembers around this time last year, I was moaning about going on our Duke of Edinburgh Expedition. Too right. It was awful...

Wet. Cold. Windy. Obnoxious teachers sitting around eating bacon sandwhiches in the warm. Tents collapsing. Mud. Almost getting killed by a load of cows that wanted to eat us...the less said about the expedition, the better.

So it's like a day until the whole experience is repeated again, this time for two nights and three days. Three days? Three days without the internet? Three days without makeup?

No.

Instead, I have challenged myself to come up with a makeup look that is light (to carry), not bulky (again, to carry), and pretty low maintainence. Sparsity is the key. No foundation, probably no concealer, and multi tasking products are the order of the day.

My eyeshadow primers of choice (I do love my eyeshadow) will be a tag team of Pixie Epoxy and Urban Decay Primer Potion in Eden. I want to put this deadly duo to the test - how long can it keep on my eyeshadows through these conditions? I don't think we're allowed to shower on the first day (can I say GROSS! A day of walking in heavy clothes and no shower!) but it'll all be washed off on the second day, when we are.
My emergency, no makeup makeup D of E kit is just three items. And a mirror, but I didn't photograph that.  I'm trying to regain the momentum I lost when I mentioned the mirror...yeah. No brushes required, just apply and go, basically.
It consists of No7 Amazing Eyes Eye Pencil in Black, No7 Metallic Eye Pencil in Purple and a homemade lip tint.
The black eye pencil can act as a brow pencil, and I'll tightline as I don't have any mascara on me - the Metallic Eye Pencil will serve as an all over wash of colour which shouldn't budge and the lip tint will double as a cheek tint. Innovative, right? Or plain stupid, no one needs makeup on D of E.
I've schedueled posts, don't worry :)

Le continuation. Yes, you can tell I'm failing my French GCSE :P

I had quite a few lovely comments on the last post, which were incredibly informative and expressed what I was trying to express, but far more coherently. Henceforth, I thought I'd add a couple here and use them to expand my points. If you'd rather I didn't, please just comment/email me and I'll remove it!

From Jaljen:
"Love me, love me now blogs? Nah. There's one high-profile one (whom I shall not name) who has excellent nail swatches (Eastern European may narrow it down a bit) but does rather use her blog as a way of eliciting sympathy/outpourings of "Ah, you poor diddums....". I got sucked in until it got old."

Which provides a nice lead to discuss...

The "Sympathy pl0x" blogger

The type that's complaining about her personal life in every other post. I don't mean like a one off, or even once a week. Most people think nothing of feeling sympathetic towards someone who's going through a rough patch. But there's a difference between doing that, and attention whoring. You know who you are -.-

The "Forever left out" blogger.

The type that always complains on Twitter/Facebook about everyone having been sent a new product to try but herself, or everyone recieving an invite to an event but herself. That sort of thing. I'm sitting here thinking that if PR companies are planning to go down that route, surely they'd have to invite everyone?
Perhaps you don't have as many followers as the other people that have been invited. Maybe your blog doesn't appeal to the PR company. Ultimately, there's no obligation for them to invite you to anything. Focus on improving your blog so that they will, if you're that bothered about it.

Ulmiel also mentioned about people following just for giveaways, which I'll expand to discuss:

The "Ten updates a day, and nine are giveaway notifications" blogger.

I'm going to admit, I was guilty of this back in the day before I realised one could have more than one link in a post and it was fairly easy to group giveaways into one monthly post. But it just gets annoying when you check your dashboards and find all these giveaway notifications from the same blogger. There's nothing wrong with entering multiple giveaways, but just have them all in one post!

Ditto on sidebars, they don't annoy me at all.

The "I'm an insider, and that makes me better than you" blogger.

There are a couple lurking around the UK blogging scene in particular - crossovers from working in fashion or magazines (that's all we know. We're not told that much more) who suspiciously fail at using cameras or describing colours in much depth but often do posts on how PRs feel about bloggers and the inside workings of the industry. I don't know what's true and what is exaggerated, but I just find certain bloggers referring to the rest of the blogging world as if they don't belong to it quite amusing.

Thanks so much for the discussion on the last post, guys. It was so interesting to read!

 This is part two because linked to this is part one.
Anyway. This first picture is a load of belated birthday/christmas presents from my friends (I had my party two weeks after my actual birthday, lol...) and apparantly they ordered the rest off the interwebs so they'll be coming soon. O_o

 I just thought this was really cool! If any of you remember my blue/orange leopard print manicure, when I went to take it off this happened with the remover...it amused me enough to take a picture of it.
 This product is a nice little bunch of nasty.
 I accidentally left this out of the "Products I've Disliked Using" callout. It's a very oily lipbalm. Too much and it makes you look as if your lips have been lacquered...I put this on without a mirror in an orchestra rehearsal and my music teacher full on stared at my lips for like a minute. Most uncomfortable rehearsal ever. *shudders*
This dries my lips out more than it moisturises and took forever to finish. But I've finished it now, so yey!
 But the rollerball thing is all kinds of cool. Perhaps another brand can put this innovation to good use? This was from Blistex, by the way.
 So futuristic. Pity the product doesn't actually deliver.
 Finished. 'Twas satisfactory. I still prefer spray deodorants, though.
 They see me Fauxnadin', they hatin'.
 This design is from the Bundle Monster Plates. This is ASOS Megan as the base colour, with Boots "Berrylicious" as the design colour.
 Same design, different colours. Miss Sporty Clubbing Colours in I don't know what, the silver one that I've reviewed here once before (Chrome? Liquid Metal? Plain old Silver? Did this even come with a name?) and the design is in ASOS Alexa.

And the rest was me pic whoring.

OK, vault cleared satisfactorily.

 And only one word in that title was relevent to the post. At all.
 This. Is. JIGGLYPUFF. He/she (not really sure, not a big Pokemon fan to be honest) is one of the cutest characters in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which is how I know he/she/it. Plus it sings you to sleep as one of it's moves. How cool?
/explains the random z's on my remaining fingers.
It's "Incarnation I." because I'm planning to redraw Mr. Puff so it's less bumpy. I'm planning to get some acrylic paints because that seems to make nail art easier? I dunno.
 This was pretty poor, though. Next time I'm planning either to do half a Jigglypuff, or size down the Jigglypuff on the middle finger. Ha. Jigglypuff. Try saying it out loud, the name makes me chuckle.
Nail art pens + permanent marker (great for outlining; not so good when you want to topcoat it and it smears like melted chocolate on a snow white school t-shirt - baaaaad memories) + Boots No7 polish in something involving pink or fuschia. It had a gold lid, I believe.

Childish? Yes. Yes they are. But I was feeling uber lazy and it's a pretty quick way to jazz up my alt. French thing that I had going on.

I found these in the same place that I found that generic pink nail polish. There were quite a few different sizes, it was basically a matter of finding the ones that were small enough to fit on my nail.
 *picspams*
 That was against the window of our house at night time (like eleven, twelve o clock?) I kinda like the effect actually :P