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...
For me, this is my perfect summer coral. It's bright, clearly coral (doesn't lean red or pink or orange in particular) and applies nicely enough that I don't have to struggle every time I apply.
Two non streaky, opaque and even coats and this was good to go. Drying time was slightly quicker than average, even without my usual quick drying top coat. For a freebie, this was pretty darn good (the now ended buy-two-Dove-deodorants-get-a-nail-polish offer in Boots)
*snuggles bottle*
I liked this one so much I actually bought a backup bottle so I won't run out. That's something I NEVER do with my beauty purchases, so yeah. This one is a keeper.
I was actually going to wear this to my afterprom, but time constraints (I spent too long watching Question Time and therefore had no time left over to repaint my nails) meant that I didn't use it then. I applied it the day afterwards expecting a nightmare (application wise) but I was actually pleasantly surprised!
First, I went for this because I was looking for a good, cheap nail polish and since I'd had a good experience with 'Slate' by BeautyUK, I hoped the rest of the line would be up to scratch. I'd call it a true, neutral yellow. I have no idea why it's more eyecatching than the other yellow offerings different brands had to offer :/ Something about it that I can't put my finger on...maybe the fact that it has a *touch* more green in it?
Yeah, my nails look fabulous here. But they're fake. I wish my real nails looked this good.
Application wasn't that bad, surprisingly - the formula didn't feel thick or chalky (and believe me, just from looking at the bottle I was convinced that it'd be chalkier than a cliff in Dover) and it was fine in two coats, both the opacity and the levelness (not a word?) of the polish. Impressed!
I wore Yellow Peril again, on my (disgusting) natural nails, and it lasted with minimal chips for three days which is pretty damn decent considering the state of my nails at the moment. Peel City. Yuck.
I've noticed that they've raised the price of these recently - this cost me £1.99, as opposed to £1.79 last year. An increase of 20p isn't too excessive, though, so I'm not crying over it.
This is soooo long overdue but I've been holding off on posting it in the hope that things may get better. Which they haven't. Last Sunday's chat had me hysterically clicking the 'block profile' button in the hope that all this spam would just go away from my timeline. I barely remembered to do this:
I know that's not even correct grammar in the context of my sentence but I was that angry. That extra 'e' can go to hell.
I DON'T EVEN LIKE THIS SONG THE BOYBAND ARE SO DUMB AND THE DANCE IS RETARDED
OK. This has been going on since probably the second or third #bbloggers chat. I'm not going to printscreen any individual specifically but I'm so sick of how bang on nine o clock there is an influx of 'wow great chat here's my blog link hiimwastingbandwith@blogger.com'
FUCK OFF. GOD.
It is so incredibly rude just to sit there and be like 'Well, that was great. I'm going to shamelessly self promote myself at everyone else's expense now! *flips middle finger at other beauty bloggers*' especially as many of the main offenders don't even seem to take part in the actual discussion! Recently, there's even been a lot of 'Ah, I missed the chat! Oh well, here's my blog link.'
I know lots of people seem to think that it's 'alright' because there are so many fools doing it that it looks like the norm, but just because lots of people do it does not make it 'alright'. By whatever arbirtary concept 'alright' is. I'm defining it. Don't like it? I can recommend you some (good) K-pop. Nothing by the boyband you see above.
Just because the chat is officially over, doesn't mean people are done talking - the chat often continues for an hour or even two after the official end. #bbloggers encompasses people of many different time zones who may find it easier to join in the chat a little later than the majority and also want to talk to other #bbloggers. Is it really too much to ask to leave the link spamming out, so they too can enjoy a conversation? Same as for those who've been busy during the chat and wish to catch up. On the last chat before Fee gave up leadership of #bbloggers, I was away doing something which I can't even remember so it can't have been that good. The next morning, having been informed it was a SERIOUSLY juicy discussion, I went back to try and read it. After three pages of 'READ MY BLOG PLZ' Twitter kindly informed me that it couldn't go back any further. So I obtained absolutely no information about the chat whatsoever and had to get friends to recap it for me. And this was just the day afterwards, before the spam really had a chance to accumulate. Incredible.
If you're one of the tweeple that spams DURING the chat, I hope you tweet yourself to death. I don't think I even need to get started on the foolishness that goes into thinking that is going to get you any followers. Or friends.
'Companies' (though truly, half of these barely deserve the term) can get lost as well. I'm all for cosmetic companies taking part in the chat, giving meaningful and interesting feedback, and generally getting stuck in - in fact, I love that. Brands like MUA Cosmetics and The Teacup Agency are present week after week and forge connections with bloggers while not blatantly advertising all over the hash tag. Then you get brands like (pictured) who clearly aren't interested in connecting with bloggers during the actual chat, rather using them for free content and promotion (see below).
Why the hell did anyone think this was a good marketing strategy? It cheapens your brand and makes you look desperate. Leave #bbloggers be...if you're looking for people to try out your product, go the old fashioned route and contact bloggers that you enjoy reading to try it out. That was at you, Youngblood. :) Next time you fancy creating rivalry and tension between bloggers, leave the innocent hashtag out of it. Ta.
I hope people think more of their blogs than to go for this sort of thing. Companies rock up and decide that the 'best beauty bloggers' are the ones who should feature them. OK...
The attitude that bloggers jump when companies say 'how high' and that we're automatically inferior, somehow, really pees me off. If you're a company moving into a different market or you're a new company trying to establish yourselves, don't expect bloggers to be all over you, just as new bloggers don't expect to be showered with free samples.
I thought the whole point of #bbloggers was to show us as a blogging community. So many people love and enjoy beauty blogging because of the sheer amount of interaction that we all have with each other, and the fact that we can all connect because we're doing something we love. #bbloggers has grown into a networking tool that allows the beauty community, established or brand new, to all talk with each other as the equals we are - so why are some people showing such basic disrespect towards a community that's so welcoming? If posting your URL in a comment on someone else's blog is widely frowned upon, why isn't this practice? On #bbloggers, as long as you have your blog linked in your Twitter profile, it is incredibly easy to find new (to you) bloggers and read their blogs without cluttering up the chat for everyone else with, "omg, need some bedtime reading material - send me your blogs! My blog is apieceofshit.com". If someone makes an interesting point during the chat or calms down some tension or even has an awesome screen name - investigate them! Look at their profile, look at their blog. I was under the impression that this was common knowledge but apparantly not.
It's similar to the 'sub for sub' thing going on over at YouTube. You suscribe to me, and I'll suscribe to you. Did we suscribe to each other because we like each other's content? No. Are we even interested in the other person's blog/channel? No. We did it just to boost the numbers. It's hollow and fake and when you see #bbloggers littered with 'Hi, I saw your blog on #bbloggers and I really like it! Here's mine.' then you can't help but feel it's going the same way. Which is a real shame.
Wow, that was an angry post. Have some hot Korean men for your time.
I say slightly redundant because I've pretty much not hauled anything this month. Between Duke of Edingburgh, family members coming to stay, and that huge boner kill of not having any funds, it's been a spend free month :( Apart from prom shopping. That was essential. and expensive.
Regardless, here is like a collection of stuff that I've cumulatively hauled from 2001 last month. Feels like forever :(
Nails Inc/Fabulous polishes: I collected the tokens, so now I have a spare set which I was going to give away until I got back from D of E and then everyone hated the News of The World so I thought it might be best to leave that...alone for a bit.
Two Miners polishes which I should add to the blogsale, not really that enamoured with these.
Last month's Glamour offer. I picked up Benetint and High Beam.
Two Barry M crackle polishes, the pink one and the black one - these are sooo cool and were my first foray into the dark crackle underworld...does anyone want a full review on these? I'm under the impression almost everyone has already done one.
Everyday Minerals rollerball eyeshadow! It scares me how easily I fall for a gimmick...
I bought Pears soap on the basis of a review I saw by Fee on how non-drying and gentle it was on sensitive skin, which really excited me. But when I got home and talked to her on twitter about it (@MakeupSavvy) I realised she'd actually done a follow up post to say they'd changed the formula and it was now quite harsh! #learntoresearchlena
I cut it up into little cubes and we're using it for hand soap at the moment. At least it was (relatively) cheap.
Lastly, my new nail polish love: 'Copacabana' by Nails Inc. It's this gorgeous coral colour which everyone and their pet of choice needs in their life this summer...bright but not off putting and applies really well. I had to buy two Dove deodorants in Boots for this offer, which wasn't too bad as I usually use Dove anyway. I then went back for two more so I could get another bottle...obssessed much? The other colour, 'Havana', was really boring and looked sheer so I left it alone. They should have named it 'Sand' or something. If I think 'Havana', I think something vibrant and colourful, not yet another greige nude tea colour. grumble, grumble.
September Lena. Living in the UK. Just trying to evade capture by eagle eyed teachers because my nails MUST be painted.
lenatallina at googlemail dot com
