Hooray for failed videogame nail art! Hooray for false positivity! Hooray for changing the subject!
 Please ignore the fails that are the facial features of Toad and Luigi. The nail art pen tolerated Mario but Luigi seems to be all eyebrow and sideburn and Toad's face was such a travesty I just censored it with nail polish, lol.
The middle and end fingers are meant to be those little mushroom speed things you get while playing Mario Kart on Wii. I always considered myself quite the beast on Mario Kart until I played one of my best friends, who is quite frankly disgustingly fast. Didn't help that it was Rainbow Road, and that is my least favourite place to race, ever. Ever ever ever. I usually give up half way through and just deliberately fall into each and every hole. Still, twelth place for the win!

Nail polish I used for this:
Barry M Nail Paint in Spring Green
Nails Inc Diet Coke Promotional Nail Polish in "Milan" (I think)
The rest were all nail art pens mixed together to create different colours. Those things are life savers, let me tell you.

The fuckery continues!

NOTE: If you want a recap of the original incident, please click here to read up on it. It's been covered by several other bloggers as well, most notably Anastasia at Lipsticks and Lightsabers.

So for the past fifteen days I've been under the impression that my Sleek order has been dispatched and is winging it's way to me, albeit incredibly fucking slowly. When I log into my account on the website, it has my order written there all legit looking, the money has been taken from my account and I've reimbursed father dearest for the colossal amount I spent (yes, even with the 50% off sale). In fact, I'd conversed with the General Manager of Sleek MakeUp, over a second, different order which had mysteriously appeared in my "Open Orders" tab about a week after the incident, which he cancelled for me. That would have been a great time to say, "Oh Lena, by the way, your order is rotting in cyberspace right now." At least give me a bit of heads up and a refund so I can blow my money at Superdrug as they're doing 3 for 2 on cosmetics right now.

Even the parcel I ordered from Hong Kong for about a quid, free postage, got to me earlier than fifteen days, let alone a domestic parcel for which I've actually paid for shipping. I'd actually been contemplating contacting Sleek about the whereabouts of my products, but I cut them some slack, though, aware that there must be a backlog or some shit with the sale.
So I'm just chillin' on Facebook, excited over the fact we have a five day weekend (two INSET days at my school, fuck yeah) and whatnot, and I notice Sleek have got a new note up. Good job that they put it up late at night so it would fly under the radar because what I read next basically made me want to throw a cute baby animal into my monitor.

"Unfortunately if you have not received the email indicated above we will not be able to process your order."
What is this.

Your website has acknowleged that my order is valid. The credit card company has acknowleged that my order is valid. My savings jar is weeping because that order is valid. So where's my email?
Perhaps I'm not understanding this correctly, because this email was longass and incredibly confusing.

"Some of you would have received an email from our General Manager Saif Pathan within the few hours (Please check your Junk Mail also).   This email confirmed that your order was successful and your items have or will be dispatched shortly.  This email has been addressed specifically to customers who have paid by PayPal, placed an order on the website on the 11th or 12th of November where the payment was not rejected initially or subsequently."

Cool story bro! I didn't pay by PayPal. I paid by your Sagewhatever it is. I didn't recieve an email, but because your website said my order was fine, and the money had been taken from my account, and none of you said anything to the contrary at the time, or posted this I dunno, two weeks earlier, I'd thought I was done and dusted. Silly me!
Oh, and I asked on your website before the sale began whether you accepted PayPal, and you said you didn't. So how is everyone managing to pay by PayPal? It would have saved me a lot of hassle, let me tell you.

But apparantly, it's all OK because I still have my money. Wait, I wasn't aware that I still had my money. Explain this to me, Sleek.

"A few of you are concerned that money may have been taken out of your account but that we are saying you have not paid for your goods.  To explain, when an order is placed on the website no money is taken until your goods are dispatched and invoiced."

What a great system! Until you read on.

"We only began doing this on Thursday 18th of November."
Well that's fucking amazing, Sleek. But I ordered on the 11th, you know, when you held the SALE IN FUCKING QUESTION. So what was the point in even writing that? Save some pixels and stop trying to make yourself look good.
The bit that we're concerned with is this:

"However our payment system providers SagePay do have the ability to reserve funds for up to 30 days"
So these people have the right to hold onto my money for a month, during the Christmas period when I, miss broke student, have things to buy for people. And at the end of it, I don't get my products. w0t a Gr8 sistem! U guize R sooooo clevaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!1111!!!!11

What irks me the most is the lack of personal contact, and I don't mean a rushed Twitter message. A mass email informing everyone of the situation isn't so hard to do now, is it? Judging by the amount of spam that I recieve...
It's the unspoken assumption that everyone logs onto the Sleek MakeUp Facebook page daily. Hell, I stumbled on it by chance - it wasn't even in my newsfeed. An email, just repeating what they said in the note, would have done wonders, and even better would have been an email to everyone detailing where exactly they stood, order wise, and their website to be updated or something so that it doesn't "mislead" people.
 
I'm taking my sarcastic bitchface mask off, now, and putting it on my desk. Sleek do acknowlege their fail.

"Initially we received updates of what payments had been successful however this turned out to be not entirely accurate we received this confirmation of errors some 5 days after the sale had ended...I know there has been a lot of frustration expressed (and quite rightly so) as a result of our delayed response in getting back to you regarding the status of your order and dispatch dates and we can only apologise again for the delay.  As our server struggled to cope with traffic and transactions the information it was sending to our payment provider was skewed and we have had to wait for over a week to receive accurate information."

Thank you. Consumers need more of this, please, and less of tweets about pizza that you "deserve" and cheesecake.
And Sleek generously offer us a chance to partake in the sale - again - :

"For those of you that still wish to benefit from this offer we are putting things into place so 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."

Thanks again! This sounds like a great idea! Only:

"Since the sale the expected pre-xmas order rate has come through the website"
That and:
"The distribution of these codes will be staggered and this process will not begin until after at least 14 days."
Makes it all a tad moot, actually.
So Sleek have unwittingly mentioned that orders have spiked for their cosmetics as Christmas presents and the like, which means that they're going to be facing increased orders/work anyway, and we're not going to get this new code until at least after fourteen days - well into the Christmas shopping period. So the website is going to be busy and they're going to be rushed off their feet dispatching orders. Who's to say the same thing won't happen again? It's likely that we won't get any products (using this system) ordered until well after Christmas. Which sucks if you wanted to give some away as Christmas presents.  Which sucks if you wanted to purchase the limited edition Good Girl, which most likely won't be in stock by the time this second promotion rolls around. Which sucks if you just wanted look pretty for the Christmas parties. Which sucks if you wanted some, like me, to give away to your readers who don't live in the UK and don't have easy access to Sleek, so that they'd fall in love with Sleek products too, so much that they might even contemplate paying thirteen fucking dollars for postage outside the Eurozone.

The situation sucks all around, basically, for everyone.



EDIT: I appreciate that the staff are trying to do all they can to rectify the situation, it's not a personal attack on anyone. This probably sounds like an incredibly bitchy post but right now, I've got no product, no money and no giveaway, which is why it sounds like it does.

I can't even begin to fathom the incredible amounts of imagination that goes into these names.

...

Still, they're more imaginative than Barry M.

 Anyway, Totally Teal (the alliteration, do you see it?) is actually a pretty unique colour, for me at least. I haven't got anything in my collection that compares, colour wise, and application is buttery. My only complaint is that it doesn't dry particularly quickly and tipwear happens about two or so days into the wearing of the polish.

 This colour was really difficult to photograph accurately! I think the photos immediately above and below shows the actual colour best. It's quite glossy and has the /slightest/ gold flash which catches you offhand because it's been masquerading as an innocent creme. Don't trust it.
Look at it, begging you to trust it. Pah.

All in all, this colour is beast. I approve.

 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.

For my UK readers:

The December issue of Glamour (£2) is giving away a Nails Inc polish in a choice of four different colours! I bought "Jermyn Street". It's a pretty good deal because they're usually like £11 each or something dumb like that.

 I was so excited I totally ignored the fact that Charlotte Church was on the cover and just ripped the bottle off the cover lol :P
Sorry Charlotte. Not interesting enough. Look at that huge yellow banner!

 Sadly, this is the last of the ASOS Paints that I ordered. *sniffs* Loving the colour though.
 It's ever so slightly more green tinged in real life. I dig this one because it's not the ubiquitous mint green colour that everyone wore because it looked original and now it's more tired as a nail colour than red. It's an turquoise creme that is a dream to apply (like it's bottlemates) and just quite frankly awesome.
Wear time is meh. I'm pretty hard on my nails and for these swatches I didn't use a top coat as I was going to freehand all over it anyway. But if ASOS do another sale again, I'll be picking up these in a few more colours.

What are your opinions on overdone nail colours? I personally just feel that certain shades of red, mint green and black have been worn /everywhere/ and now they're just old. That's just me though.

The colours. Wow. The real reason why I purchased this palette. Though you only get six shades (which pales in comparison to the Naked Palette, which has like twelve or something ridiculous like that for only £7 more) I'd actually wear every single shade in this palette which is why I bought it. I don't actually think I've seen a palette where I'd wear every shade before, from /any/ company. Usually they all include some light or white shade that I wouldn't wear or a glitter bomb or some colour that's just plain nasty. But like I said, this palette is hot. Plus I've been hearing rave reviews about the liner, which is very soft, and the primer potion, though I'd rather it came in the Original or Sin than this kinda grim matte one but whatever.
It fits a mirror into it's sleekness. DO YOU SEE IT?
Zoomed out slightly. I love all these shades, but Cobra looks like one of the more unique ones.
It's very black, which I approve of. I have a few "Eye/Lip liners" which I use currently as eyeliners that are more of a dirty grey shade than black. I've learnt to run a mile when I see something masquerading as a eye/lip liner as it usually fails at both. One particular one basically melted off my face once the clock went quarter past three. Not a good look, let me tell ya.
You see my Frankenstein nails creeping in the foreground?
This swatch looks so unpigmented but it's seriously black in person. My camera skills are poor.
These are the dry swatches. From right:
Black Dog, (matte black) Barracuda, (black based silver) Jet, (practically Asphyxia in loose pigment form but darker, but it's a sort of black based purple) Sabbath (black based blue), Cobra, (think tarnished gold coins or something, very nice black based gold) and Libertine (black based green).
Pigmentation is excellent but I'd expect nothing less for £23.50. Plus train fare -.- /forever bitter about the fact that I couldn't purchase this in my local Boots and had to go all the way up to the huge city.

A lovely family picture of them all together for your time.
Lipglossiping's post is what made me want to purchase this initially (I've been lemming it basically since the summer) and she applies it over Pixie Epoxy and wow. Just wow. It's stunning. Unfortunately, I don't actually own any Pixie Epoxy so when I eventually get round to ordering from Fyrinnae I'll pick some up and see how the shadows look applied over it. EDIT - totally do now, and I love it.
Isn't it clever! The primer potion sort of sits there, chillin', until you decide to use it. I've heard god awful things about cutting these up and scooping primer out and all sorts of madness so I'm sticking with my usual primer until that runs out. And then I'll buy ELF's one and use that. This is going to be reserved for special occasions.
I couldn't resist temptation though, so I tried it out just once. It kept the shadows (not the ones in this palette, it was a cream eyeshadow and then a matte black) without any form of creasing for most of the day. It creased in the end but didn't really fade as such so yeah, great sucess. I approve of this product.
Don't approve of the colour though I mean ew. Looks nasty on me, especially as it leaves tidemarks. If your skin colour matches this then I guess you could have it double up as a concealer, which would be quite handy (and expensive).

 As with the rest of the range, this is smooth to apply, very well pigmented and dries reasonably quickly.
 This is without a topcoat, by the way. It's actually quite shiny. The colour is quite chic, I suppose now it's Autumn (or Fall to the Americans out there) then if the colour is dark it's automatically fashionable. That's the impression one seems to get by reading the beauty magazines, anyway. I swear that for the last three or so years, Spring has been light, pastel colours (or beige, I mean eww beige clothes are just no) Summer has an abundance of blue eyeliner for some reason and neon nail polish, Autumn is basically any dark colour for both lips and nails and Winter is dark red and metallic glitter that everyone regrets once Spring comes around again. Fashion world, plz. Give us something to work with here.
Whatever. These are definately in the running for the "Cutest Nail Polish Bottle" awards, if there were such an award. I mean, just look at the bow! It's so cute.
I'd need more than a poxy bow to make me pay £6.50 or whatever the full price was for all of these, though. /forevercheap.

Hey everyone. Can you tell by my tone that this isn't going to be a happy post, lol? I sound so depressing. Sorry.

Disclaimer, because I know there's going to be SOME illiterate fool out there who rages at me for this.
 - I love Sleek (product wise, anyway) and I like the way they interact with consumers on social networking sites.
- I'm not accusing anyone of racism. This is not a "pity me I'm black" post.
- I'm not ungrateful for the sale.
- This is all just. my. opinion, and what I've observed. If you don't like it, reply in an informed way please or just cry moar.

I assume almost everyone, UK resident or not, knows or knew of the Sleek 50% sale that began at 12:00pm today.
Not going to lie, I was pretty excited for it. I'd saved my job money for a bit and woke up early to leave instructions on the computer for my Mum to order the products for me (as I'd obviously be away at school and I didn't want to wait the three and a half hours until I returned as Sleek have some pretty hardcore stans who'd buy up all the good stock) and basically went through school in a happy daze despite the fact that we had double Maths. Yes, double Maths, I kid you not. I'd usually just sleep through that lesson but this time I pretended to pay some sort of attention. Well I tried anyway, so sue me.

But I get home and Mum starts talking about the website crashing, people can't find the code and other apocolyptic goings-on on the internet. At first I was pretty sceptical of that, but I went to the computer myself at about, I don't know, half three? And I'm still here at half eleven, typing this up.
The Sleek website has been on and off all day, painfully slow, and when you do (eventually) managed to fill your cart up, you go to the checkout and everything from your cart is emptied. If you leave the computer, the products that you want/are most desirable (for example, their recently released Bad Girl/Good Girl palettes) will sell out quicker than it takes to watch Usain Bolt do the 100 metre sprint. The website went down for about an hour (in total) so that the server capacity could be increased and of course angry consumers took to the Facebook page and Sleek's Twitter to report a glitch of multiple orders, trouble paying, emptying carts, general chaos and just raging really.

The whole thing was to celebrate 20,000 "likes" or "fans" on Facebook. It was mentioned as a goal a while back and the staff said they'd hold this sale to celeberate that occasion, and it just so happens that a makeup fan with a good memory reminded them of this and they held the sale. Now, I can't blame Sleek for having good quality products. Hell, I'm a huge Sleek fan and love their products. How couldn't I? I'm black living in a majority white country and most of the makeup is either a) not my colour/tone (drugstore foundation shades dark enough are always patronisingly named "Cocoa" or "Chocolate" and come with like no choice of undertones or anything. I suppose very pale people on the other end of the spectrum have the same problem. We can suffer together lol or b) expensive. This is a blog aimed at students, lol. Students generally don't have the money to spend on MAC or Chanel foundations just to get a match, and nor should they have to. The nearest MAC store is far, far away from where I live and I wouldn't know where to buy Chanel. :P
Where was I? Oh yeah. So the website crashed and burned terribly, and everyone was understandably upset. While some complaints were being addressed by the staff (who must have been really stressed by all of this, I do feel for them) others went under the radar. I guess the point of this post is that the sale just didn't seem well thought out, at all. It's been reported that over a million people tried to access the Sleek website today. Over a million! Did Sleek not see this coming? Did they not anticipate the need for more server space?
Sleek generously added a "10 for £10" deal on their eyeshadow dusts and said they would add Pro makeup brushes to the line up. I believe the eyeshadow dusts only actually appeared on the website at about seven or so o clock? The sale commenced at 12. I think people are still waiting for the pro brush set to be available on the website. The paying system is quite frankly messed up, it keeps showing error messages but yet deducts money from your bank site and some international buyers found that it did not accept their local credit card and there was no option for PayPal which is pretty much universal, so found they could not participate.

 No offence to the lovely men and women of Sleek but the sale just struck me and many other consumers as rushed and hurried. It was announced last week, but on Wednesday a list was put up of all the products that would be out of stock - many of them extremely popular, such as the Pout Polishes, palettes, foundation testers and concealers etc. If it had been better thought out, in my view, then Sleek could have got plenty of stock in of those products and then people would not have felt the need to stay online for so long, futher tying up the website (I admit to being guilty of this) in the fear that the remaining products would be sold out (not unfounded, Bad Girl was sold out and then kindly restocked by Sleek who had some backups for press events and all the Pout Polishes that were still in stock that I'd wanted were sold out, foundation testers, concealers and Contour Kits all went) and possibly stemming some of the frustration that customers were feeling on the Facebook page. After the initial wave had passed, many of the international buyers could actually access the site and make their purchases which seemed to annoy the UK customers a bit as products then began to sell out without UK customers even getting an opportunity to get them. Not to mention that a lot of people, international and domestic alike, had been up very early for the sale. One user had the sale start at seven am in her time zone and was understandably frustrated when so many hours later nothing had been achieved. All of this just basically pissed people off and stressed out the staff. Sleek, we love you, but please think out things like this a bit more. ELF, for example (though a bigger company) regularly holds little "free shipping" or "30% off of x line" deals on their Facebook page and don't have anywhere /near/ this kind of meltdown. Someone suggested staggered time slots like Next do, perhaps you'd want to look into that?

Anyway. I was one of the lucky ones who managed to order - eventually. Anyone else ordered (or has any horror stories)?

I apologise for the sheer incoherency of this rant. I can write better, swear!

 It was a Tuesday when I did this look, and I felt like pushing the boundaries somewhat so I came up with this.
 It's basically a sheer, french manicure type polish from Nails Inc (Sloane Mews) and the Konading is the ASOS Paint Alexa. I told you they were pigmented, didn't I? But I didn't realise just how good they were for stamping. They've surprised me, I have to admit - I thought it was all pretty bottles and no actual substance, but hey!

Thought I'd zoom in on the little finger design just for lolz.
Anyway. School appropriate look (ish) that lasted well chip wise.

 I apologise for the messy swatches, poor photo taking and, well, everything basically.
 So this is Alexa. It's a dark navy in real life so I have no idea why it looks black in my photograph. Why are you like this, camera? Why are you like this, light reflections? Why are you like this, shaky nail polish painting right hand?
/blames everyone but herself :D
Anyway. What I'm really loving about these ASOS Paints is that they're very, very easy to apply. Highly pigmented, but not to the point where it's too thick and just a pain in the butt to control. It's the right type of runny, doesn't pool all over your cuticles - unless you have zero hand control, like myself - and with this polish you could definately get away with just one coat. This is two, but that was just to be even. Which I failed spectacularly at, as you will see if you know, you have eyes.

Who else picked up stuff from their sale? (doesn't have to be polish related, I've seen some lovely dresses floating around the blogosphere!)

Told you I'd get round to one of these eventually ;)

 Really loving Boots No7 voucher thing that they had going on, snagged myself three of these as I got a voucher with my (very expensive) purchase...I'm saving the best for last...
From memory I believe the middle one, which looks black in the photo but that's only because my photography skills (or lack thereof) are seriously appalling, is called Totally Teal. And it is a very unique teal colour which is why I picked it up :P It's almost like a creme finish, but not? I assumed it would be metallic, but it's not quite. Very confusing. I wouldn't have bought this for full price but at £1.75, it was just about right.
The black one is called Glamourous Black or something equally as unimaginative and I can't be bothered to go find the bottles and scour them for the names so when I'm actually reviewing these I'll name them then lol.
 My Palmer's Body Cream ran out, and they seem to have altered the formula as it doesn't smell half as good as it used to, so I didn't repurchase and bought this instead. It's huge and overly runny lol, but I don't hate it. It's far better for the body than for the face in my opinion. Doesn't smell of anything really...*mourns cocoa butter formula back when it used to smell great*
 Lol it's deoderant. It works. Overly Lynx-esque design though, maybe Sure want to work on that or something.

Last but best. I don't care how disrespectful that sounds to the other products, I've been wanting - no, craving - this for an age. Since the summer at least. I AM A FANGIRL FOR THIS PALETTE. And I usually only say that about my favourite K-pop girl groups/boy bands but I feel the term can be applied here. I was totally an Urban Decay virgin, pure, untouched. Except for those loose pigments. *shifty eyes*
I'll do a proper, in depth (sort of. By now, I'm sure all of my followers - so many! Happy dance - are aware of how easily I get sidetracked. Oh look, something shiny! Must investigate!) later on, but if this palette were a man, I'd totally tap that. Plus now my mum has got one and everything. It's so cool!

Fangirling over, what have your best purchases of November/October been?

- No, I haven't forgotten about the giveaway lol, and also I still need to do one of those "November" posts. It's all coming lol :P

 So anyway. I bought this ages ago from Poundland, where as I'm sure you've all guessed, everything costs one or less of your finest British pounds.
 I wasn't actually sure what to expect when I got these - I was a false nail virgin up until I put these on. So inside the packet, you have about two or three different thicknesses and curve...nesses for your nails. I appreciated this as newborn children have wider nail beds than I so I could find nails that fit. So far, so good. At first, I only put a little bit of glue. I soon realised my folly.
 The next day, mother dearest wanted us to go shopping (this was during the Half Term break) and so I was like, "Fine, whatever, only if you buy me pizza." As I was putting the shopping bags in the boot of the car (because we are THAT eco-friendly, we take our own shopping bags and look all self-righteous and that) disaster struck. The middle fingernail flew off and landed unceremoniously on the floor. Boo. Then I realised that I needed more glue. So I reglued it on using a lot more glue. Same for all of the fingers actually. So if you're planning on purchasing these, don't hold back glue wise or don't use the glue supplied.
 Check out the length on these!
They made my fingers look really nice and glamourous, but I hadn't realised just how much of a pain having incredibly long, potentially breakable fingernails is. Take typing. The keys on my laptop are dumb anyway, let alone with those nails. How was I meant to touch-type with those beasts? I had to resort to the "two fingers" method.

Great for scratching though. :D
The glue supplied ^ It actually smelt and felt a lot like superglue, which I have been intimately acquainted with on many an occasion, which left me slightly worried, but it did come off. Eventually.

Yes. The removal.
I took these off about two days after I put them on because the fact I couldn't type properly really bugged me and also I had tried to paint them, removed the polish with non-acetone remover (I double and triple checked that it was indeed acetone-free) and yet it removed the white part of the nail and left the false nails a lot softer and weaker than they had been previously, which I wasn't pleased about seeing as it said on the packet that you could use acetone-free remover on them. So I soaked them in acetone remover and it took ages for them to come off (had to use the orange stick in the packet to prise them off my fingers) and loads of glue was left over which then had to be scraped off. All in all, it's kind of a "well what do you expect for a pound?" type deal. *shrugs*

 Yeah, I did another set lol. Only I did these before Halloween but posted them after like the uncool person I am. And my photo taking sucked as well because these were on my right hand and it's incredibly awkward for me to take photos of that hand without having the aforementioned hand turn into a creepy claw like appendage.
What do you think? BeautyUK's Slate, Miss Sporty Nail Polish in Black and this white one I got from a manicure set in Poundland.

Note - students, be wary of people offering you sweets. One of my friends offered me one today and I ate it and then threw it at him because he'd painted it with that Stop N Grow stuff some people put to stop themselves biting their nails. VILE. And my aim sucks so it only bounced of his jumper. Someone else that he did it to managed to get him in the head with it, and he said it hurt, though, which I found incredibly funny. So yeah. Beware, I telleth thee.