A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

I have a reader who is currently enjoying the sunnier climes of Australia and needs some foundation help!

She’s finding that her base is simply not lasting the duration in the warmer weather.

Do you have any recommendations or hot weather makeup tips you’re happy to share?  I need your expertise!

Well… not really, but for the second Sunday in a row, you can find my post over at online beauty boutique Zuneta.

Today I’m talking about Japanese beauty brand Paul & Joe.

I’d be mighty grateful if you stopped by to have a read of my ramblings, there’s an Easter Egg in it for you!*

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*unfortunately, I’ve actually eaten the Easter Egg… but I know you’ll be pleased to hear that it was very nice.

Happy Easter everyone!

Whatever you’re doing today, do it with a light heart and a bellyful of chocolate or um… God, that picture has totally put me off my dinner now.

IN

~ Finally getting Lipglossiping onto Facebook!
~ Being able to see the floor of my office again
~ Discovering some lovely bargainous Loew Cornell paint brushes, great for lining!
~ Meeting a lovely MUA and Twitter friend this week
~ My Fyrinnae order blowing my mind
~ Finally being over the sickness bug that plagued us all last week
~ Planning for our New York trip next year (all tips welcome!)
~ Guest blogging on Zuneta

OUT

~ Being disappointed by MAC Viva Glam IV (which looks poop on me!)
~ Re-cultivating my Diet Coke addiction without even noticing – oops.
~ Leila waking up at 3am every morning, need to fix this!
~ My Summer shoes tearing my feet to shreds – need to toughen up those trotters!
~ Jealousy – My brother and SIL are off to Japan for 12 days today… green much?

and just because…

How’s your Easter weekend shaping up?

Thanks to a heads up from lovely regular reader Julia, I can point you lot in the direction of a great competition.

Simply become a Lancome Paris fan on Facebook by Friday night to enter and win lots of Lancome goodies!

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Whilst on the subject of The Book of Faces… yours truly has taken the plunge, jumped on the bandwagon and setup a ‘fan’ page thing.

I’ll be hosting my first ever Facebook competition VERY shortly, so if you wanna join in – come on over and keep a look out for updates!

Well, this here marks my 500th post…

Thanks for sticking with me, I’m having a blast – you lot really are rather special… sorry, I mean “special”.

…a sneak peek at some of the posts coming up this week at Lipglossiping.com:

~ Beautiful new brushes and an exciting new online store opening!

~ I get to grips with hair volumising, can you achieve real root lift from a bottle?

~ I’ll be commencing a series sharing my highlighter collection and asking for some of your favourites.

~ Pigment pressing tutorial, including how to press those pesky BarryM Dazzle Dusts successfully!

~ Gearing up for longer days and (slightly) warmer weather, I wanna know what puts a Spring in your step!

~ The Beauty Blender, can a makeup addict get by on a pink funny-shaped sponge alone?

~ I trial a very ‘Rewarding’ face mask, and it doesn’t dry me out!

~ Here comes a new spring Nail collection for us to drool over…

~ Benefit Creaseless Creams are having a renaissance, I’ll be sharing some swatches from my collection.

Throw in a couple of NOTDs, some interesting press releases (if I get any) and it’s gonna be a busy week!  I hope you come along for the ride xx

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Oh, while I’ve got your attention, I wanted to give my good friend VexintheCity a shout out, I’m sure you’ve been missing her updates as much as I have since her PC retired to computer heaven.  But check it:

The lady’s got herself a new laptop, (purdy aint it?) and I for one can’t wait for her to get back in the blogging saddle and embark on some legendary rants whilst sharpening my desires for beautiful blushes (the chick has a blush ADDICTION).  Anyway, go check her out!

After reading the article over at the Daily Mail about the self-proclaimed ‘Barbie’ mother who encourages her 16yr old daughter to have Botox injections to mask any premature signs of ageing… I was full of indignations and OMGs like most people who read the article I guess…

But then my focus shifted….

I looked at the first picture of mother and daughter together:

The caption under the photo reads:

“Misguided? Hannah Burge, 16, (left) with her mother Sarah, the ‘Human Barbie’, who injects her with Botox in an effort to prevent future wrinkles”.

Sarah Burge (Hannah’s mother) has had approx £500,000’s worth of cosmetic surgery, currently holding the world record the most cosmetic surgeries.  I studied the picture and took a guess at her age…

I went for 50.

She’s 49.  Well, maybe… ‘cos she was also 49 back when this article was published over a year ago…

So really, I’m more distressed by the fact that this woman has spent half a million pounds on plastic surgery to allay the unfortunate aesthetic effects of aging and to my eyes, she hasn’t got her money’s worth.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m not saying she looks like your ordinary 49/50/51 year old… of course she doesn’t.  But I’m thinking that has more to do with the hair and makeup than anything else.  A less tranny-licious hairdo and replace that ridiculous eye makeup and really… what have you got?  Probably a much more attractive woman actually.

I disagree with her active encouragement of Botox for her 16yr old, but mostly my annoyance is set-aside for her surgeons.  One day, I may consider some um… modifications?  Are they generally this ineffective unless your name’s Demi Moore?

I hate wasing money.  I bought a chicken and stuffing sandwich last week, it didn’t have any stuffing in it…. at least I only wasted £2.19 though eh?

Read the original article here.

I think the last time I did one of these was back in August, let’s see if I can still remember how it goes…

IN

~ My new lit mirror finally arriving after snagging a super laid back eBay seller
~ Getting surprised by the fabulous Aussie peeps, check out my ‘consolation’ prize – ohemgee!
~ Shopping with the lovely SecretDiaryofaBeautyAddict, although remind me to lock up my credit card next time. I can see a frightening future of enabling on the horizon!
~ Booking a dirty night away with Mr. L at a fancy schmancy hotel (shush – bargain price too!)
~ Mr. L being… well… Mr. L.
~ Looking forward to catching up with some buds on Monday (faster, faster!)
~ Getting my parent’s back from the other side of the world.

OUT

~ ‘Hitting pan’ is not always cool.  Sometimes it’s just plain ‘spensive.
~ Hand Creams, will I ever find a truly non-greasy one (that doesn’t break the bank!)?
~ Diets!  Not just yet, but soon to be on a MEGA one.
~ Not being able to attend LFW in the end, bawbags.

All in all, it’s been a good week!  How was yours?

Ooooh I’ve just clicked ‘schedule’ on my WordPress dashboard to setup that last Beauty Blender post so that it ‘goes live’ at exactly 9.37am on this (probably grey) Friday morning… and I’m sat here fretting.

“Did that last post actually SAY anything?”

“Do I contribute to society in any way, shape or form?”

“Is my blog a big waste of disk space on the interwebz?”

“Should I shave my arm hairs before the next swatching session?”

“They’ll never get back the 3 minutes it took them to read that.”

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And then it hit me… like a booming voice coming down from the heavens.

I’m having fun.  Can we play with some blusher next?

Oh and go check out Secret Diary of a Beauty Addict too today, cos she bought me a McDonald’s chocolate milkshake last night.  She’s the best.

With a title like that, I’m obviously referring to myself.  I thought I’d share my motives, aspirations and whatever else emerges from writing this post, which will no doubt at some point turn into a mild rant and an incredibly long ramble.

You may be aware of an ‘article’ (I want to say ‘post’, but that would suggest it was written by a blogger – heaven forbid) that has been causing a bit of a stir in the beauty blogging community.  Somewhere underneath the cloud of ridicule directed at a blog the writer has singled out for attack, she raises some interesting points.

She recognises a clear distinction between The Media (her capitalisation) and bloggers and never the twain shall meet.  Not a problem, it’s a word I don’t feel comfortable using to describe myself or this blog anyway.  You can also add ‘writer’, ‘press’ and a host of other professional sounding terms to the ‘makes me feel like a phony list’.

She sees beauty bloggers as consumers who are not qualified to give reviews on products.  She believes that beauty bloggers have too much influence over your buying trends.  It appears that as a consumer, you’re obviously not capable of reading my blog with any modicum of original thought.  You simply absorb what I tell you like some kind of foundation-fuelled osmosis.

One of her main criticisms of bloggers, is the writing style they use to feature a product or talk about the latest release.  I’m assuming she dislikes the anecdotal nature of blogging and the way we often eschew traditional journalistic methods of reviewing.

Good.  It would bore me to tears to write to you in a regimented albeit precise way.  To be fair, I don’t have the writing skillz to do so anyway.  I talk to you like you’re my friends because you are.  Don’t reach for the sick bucket just yet, I’m not arranging a sleepover, but it’s like this…

I have a passion.  A lot of you come back here day after day to share my passion and you understand why I would get excited about finding another perfect taupe eyeshadow to add to my ever-growing collection of perfect taupe eyeshadows.  I know that when I write, I’m sharing my experiences with you in an undiluted, raw way.  But as a blog reader myself, I embrace that because it’s pure and it’s true.

I write this blog because I love to see you come and read it.  I get a thrill if I notice my email subscribers jump up.  If I get linked from a forum ‘cos I’ve written something that interests you enough to come and stay awhile, my pride swells.  That’s my motivation.  PR freebies are a recent thing… probably from the end of last summer onwards.  They help me keep my content fresh and up to date and I love them.  I love playing with them, I love opening them and I love being invited to consider them for review.  Do they affect my honesty in delivering content to you?  You only have to read my negative reviews on PR acquired goodies to see that it takes more than a free sample of lipgloss to compromise myself.  Try a week in the Maldives next time nice PR lady.

I do try not to trash products, although I have on ocassion.  If I dislike something, there is usually some positives that I can include… not because it makes linking back to the PR any easier (although it does) but because I’m well aware that I’m only one person and what doesn’t work for me may be your next HG.

I do have a slight issue with PR that I’m struggling to find my feet with… perhaps the blogger/reader relationship should dictate that I keep it to myself… but being the chronic oversharer that I am…

In the article (or comments, I can’t remember which) someone raises the point about bloggers being a little sheep-like, reviewing the same thing at the same time.  It’s true.  And it’s the one aspect of this brave new world that I’m uncomfortable with.  I desperately want to come up with the goods for me, for you, for my blog.  Quality, independent features that no-one else has access to.  Why do you think I damn near peed myself when I got the Urban Decay Alice in Wonderland Palette?  Well… apart from getting to play with it before you suckers.  The problem is, I’m one of many beauty bloggers out there.  Not only that, but there are far better writers and reviewers out there too.  Until the dust settles and PRs learn how to ask bloggers for their pageviews and stats (why is that never done?) – I guess we all have to review Liz Earle at the same time.  Heck, I could turn it down if I’m so altruistic and concerned about your reading experience couldn’t I?  But I REALLY WANT TO TRY IT!  However, I am becoming much more selective nowadays.  It was only yesterday I turned down the opportunity to review the latest in nail fungal cream. (I jest…)

I accepted it. (ok, I jest again… sorry).

There is another genuine problem with the whole consumer turned reviewer aspect.  We’re fickle.  Sam raises this point in her article.  It’s a fair one.  In the past I have given you a crappy review of a product, only to fall in love with it weeks down the line.   If this happens, my intention is to go back to my initial review and update.  You may come across some of these haphazard updates in my archives.  Vice versa, we all get infatuated by a new product only for the shine to rub off a few weeks later and whilst we don’t suddenly dislike the product, newer shinier ones take precedence.  But does this make my initial review any less valid?  Of course not.  I’m a consumer and I’m doing exactly what you, Sam or anyone does.

If you’re looking for the perfect review that promises you will be as thrilled with the product as the reviewer.  Tell me when you find one.  I know I don’t need to tell you to check out lots of reviews and articles written by a variety of makeup lovers: MUAs, Consumers like me and Journos – looking at the combined picture will probably bring you closer to the perfect review than anyone can alone.

If you want shared experiences, a bit of banter and someone who lives to buy and play with makeup and beauty shit as much as you do.  Pull up a chair ‘cos I’ve just bought/been sent (delete as appropriate) this bloody gorgeous looking coral lipstick.  It pongs like grannies though.

Wow. 1110 words. 2 hours in the making.  If only I’d put that much effort into my Media & Cultural Studies degree *dons Mickey Mouse ears* then maybe I’d have those Journalistic qualifications I need to have an opinion.  Doh!

…apologies for this break in regular post scheduling but a couple of things…

1). I’ve noticed I’ve been missing a couple of questions by you lovely lot, I’ll be going back through comments this evening and answering any that I’ve missed!

2). It seems that my international ladies are finally receiving their Advent Giveaway prizes – wahoo! Hope you like them!

3). I’m going to London Fashion Week, please tell me that it doesn’t matter what I wear right?

4). Not only have I been missing questions, but my emails have been haywire too!  My hosting company has switched my account to a new server in the hopes that the problems settle down.  Either that, or just to shut me up… If you’ve emailed and I haven’t replied, I probably didn’t get it.  Please resend!

5). I’ve got another giveaway coming up, don’t get too excited.. it’s nice but not amazing… however, free stuff is free stuff right?

6). Was there a 6?

7). Oh yeah! My hair mare post… thank you for all your jeering, sniggering and downright bitchiness 😉  I have loved reading your stories and will be re-reading them tonight with Mr. L.  Together we’ll pick the worst (or is that best?) and get in touch with the lovely Aussie ladies. If you’ve yet to confess your hair shame… do it now, or forever wear a hat!

8). Leila is poorly, the little mite caught my cold.  It’s all my fault, but babies shouldn’t be allowed to catch colds until they’re old enough to know how to blow their noses.  My baby-nose-picking finger is getting a work out!

She’s doing her ‘monkey face’ but you can see her eyes are a bit watery. Can I get an “awwww”?  She’s 9 months old on Tuesday… I can’t believe how quickly time has flown!