I'm back (+ a little Illamasqua blush candy)!

Hello everyone!

I have returned from my holiday overseas and I had an absolute ball. I hauled shoes, jewellery, makeup, perfume and of course polishes as you would expect. I'll definitely be posting some haul pics for those of you who want to see it all but in the meantime let me share some pics of my current favourite blush- Illamasqua's Zygomatic. I just loves it!

While it looks like a simple colour (the first pic is most true to colour -sorry about the swatches they are a little brown) it is absolutely lovely on the cheek and that sheen makes your skin look like magic. High 5 Illamasqua!

Hope you are happy and well.

Jacx

I'm not sure what happened

I sit here in my pjs penning this post wondering where the month of September has gone and slightly freaking out that I am about to embark on my first overseas holiday in a little over 34 hours.

I had planned on doing some new NOTDs, posts about the ABC (because I had a ball), some reviews and a very overdue empty post - so what happened? I'm not sure but here a couple of things that have contributed:

• WORK -  has been challenging as we restructured as of the 3rd of the month, not to mention having work coming out of my ears.
• WORK AGAIN - I have been in an interesting recruitment process that took 5 months to tell me I had been successful. I am so happy with the outcome but in my role I have been supporting others who did not receive the news they were expecting.
• HOLIDAY PLANNING - because I have no idea what I am doing I have tried (with my husband) to work out as much of this holiday as we can. I spent an evening a few nights ago on google street view trying to work out what places were near our accommodation. Why? I have no idea.
• ANXIETY FILLED DREAMS - nothing better than waking up each morning after odd (sometimes disturbing) dreams before beginning another challenging day at work.
• WORRYING OVER MONEY - I want to punch myself over this one as we have planned so well that our holiday is fully paid for before we go. But I do love a good stress out over money.

And so it could go on blah blah blah...

The reality is that this month has been somewhat "too full" for me. If I use an analogy of my energy being on a budget of $20 a day, then my dearest blog I have run out of my $20 often before lunchtime. And because I do blog for fun, I haven't pushed myself to go past my limits.

To sum up briefly -sorry (my bad) for posting only twice in September AND sorry for October because I am on holidays overseas for most of it but if I can I will be posting a few pics on here.

Hope as always this post finds you happy

Jac x

So here's what happened yesterday...

Some of you may know that yesterday was the Adelaide Beauty Conference and I had a ball. I was so impressed by everything I felt compelled to jump on here immediately and post about how happy I am to be part of Adelaide's Blogging Community.

There are so many favourites I have for what happened yesterday (and I will do a proper recap post sharing pics and what happened in the next few days) that I feel like I have "stuff" inside me ready to burst. One of the reasons I got into blogging in the first place was because I have interest in learning more about products and ingredients so I was in my nerdy-heaven yesterday when we had a couple of different companies talking to us about their products and their philosophies.

But what I call the highlight was the blogging panel about monetising blogs featuring some bloggers who had monetised and some who had not. This is a topic I have felt uncomfortable about ever since starting to blog. There is so much finger pointing at people who receive PR samples etc... stating that they cannot be independent. Honestly I don't believe that receiving compensation makes you a sell-out but here is where it gets interesting for me.

After the last conference I did receive a number of samples from PR (which I am very grateful for), the problem was that I FELT COMPELLED to review them in a timely manner and where possible feature them on my blog. I was never asked to do this -but I didn't want to be a PR black hole so I put the pressure on myself. Ultimately because I am not willing to spend the time it takes to post everyday I found that I was no longer posting about stuff I discovered but rather stuff I received - which took the fun out of it for me.

Blogging for me is a release from my stressful and very serious full-time job and because I am the type of person who doesn't like to get something for nothing, PR samples are a bit of a double-edged sword for me. Let me guess - are you thinking did you take a goodie bag yesterday (hypocrite implied) - and the answer would be yes I did. And here's why I did.... It was stated several times that if you did not want to take a bag you did not have to, bags were provided to all bloggers rather than to me specifically and remember why I got into this in the first place - to learn about new things and products.

The products provided to us had a focus on Australian companies and natural products - which is right up my alley. There are several products included in the bags which I have been very interested to try and because I do not have an unlimited budget I may not have been able to try them for some time. I was never made to feel that my taking a bag I have to review them on here but I suspect I will (Sukin provided some items and you know how much I love them for starters).

So where to from here for my little blog - there are enough products provided yesterday to keep me busy for months so I'm not really 'open for business' but what I am is more educated about the monetising issue more generally. I know I will never monetise my blog because of my reason for starting this blog and what blogging means to me in terms of my whole life. But I am not and have not been looking down my nose at bloggers that do either.

The key to blogging for me is hearing your voice and what you have to say about things. If I start to just hear PR lines instead of what you have to say then the reason for me to read your blog has gone. It's the same reason why I don't read magazines. But that is just my personal opinion.

Anyway... I guess I just wanted to share and would be really interested in hearing your thoughts on this topic too. I am genuinely appreciative to the ABC organisers and the panel bloggers for sharing their thoughts on this issue.

Happy Sunday

Jacx

NOTD: Color Club's Revealed.

Color Club's Revealed is a pink-peach with subtle shimmer. I had hoped it would be more peach than it was and decided pretty quickly that this colour was actually quite unflattering on me. Lovely shade just not for me.

All pictures are taken in natural light with 2 coats. The difference between the first pic above and the second below is that the second one is not in direct sunlight.

 

Pretty and definitely work appropriate but not for me sadly.

Jacx

Maybelline Dream Bouncy Blush in Candy Coral

I love a good gimmick and I want to love cream blush (but I don't really) so I pounced when I had the opportunity to pick one of these up through my US-based friend and blogger Tammie.


I asked her to pick me up the colour Candid Coral in the hopes it would give me a peachy flush. I then proceeded to break my arm and leave this blush sitting for the best part of 4 months untried until this last week.

So here are my thoughts so far:

Packaging: Very cute no issues there. It also seems to close well which hopefully will slow the drying out process.

Smell: Not sure there is one. Kind of wish there was - is that strange?

Texture: It is kind of a play dough type texture somewhere between a cream and a powder. It's spongy and kind of strange. I have been rubbing it around and then applying it to my face with my fingers before blending out with my Real Techniques Buffing Brush. I kind of wish this had a shimmer as it seems to sit flat on my face.

Performance against it's claims: The back of the packaging (pictured above) says it melts into the skin and I am not quite sure of that. Maybe this works better if you have oily skin - on dry skin it doesn't seem to do much for me at all. Mind you it doesn't have outlandish performance claims either so it does get a thumbs up there.

Value for Money: Look this is at best a novelty item and for that it works nicely. I certainly wont be replacing my blush collection with the Bouncy blush range anytime soon but it's a nice reminder that makeup can be fun too. It is also quite sheer so probably best for light to medium skin tones only.

Have you tried this range? What were your thoughts?

Jacx

NOTD: Butter London's No More Waity, Katie.

Apart from the bucket I needed after reading the name of this polish I desperately wanted to LOVE this and I don't. It's lovely but the problem I have is that unlike China Glaze or Zoya, Butter London polishes are $14. I need this polish to be crazy special for $14 USD and it just isn't special. It's nice but that's it.

All pictures are taken with 2 coats in natural light.

The glitter in this polish was dull although the polish applied well but so it should given it's price. I feel quite depressed about my BL experiences so far - I hope they release something that blows my mind because I want to love them so much

Any BL suggestions?

Jacx

I don't like it.

Ever had that instant screw up the nose or hair stand on the back of your neck reaction to something - even if you are completely uneducated about it? Well I have and here is my Top 5 "I don't like it" topics even if I have grown to have a better understanding about them now:

1. Double Cleansing: I cannot get past the idea that if the first cleanser was any good you wouldn't need the second one. Yes, yes I know that if you use heavy superglue style foundations and waterproof mascara these are probably a god send but to me it seems like clever product marketing to have us buy 2 cleansers instead of 1.

2. White lab coats on cosmetic sales people: I must admit I do get my back up at the idea that there are magical medical ingredients in makeup and skincare and that you can trust me because I have a white lab coat on. I'm sorry but if you have to make up a word to explain what your product does then I'm probably going to be suspicious of you.

3. Made up words that sound like real ones: Drives me crazy! We've all seen it though, made up words that sound like real ones and it doesn't only exist in the cosmetic world either (yes Palsonic I am looking at you). At best it is misleading and at worst it is downright deceptive.

4. Our product lasts for 100 hours: I don't need my makeup to last for 24, 48 or 72 hours, you don't actually make any that last that long either so how about we stop with the bullshit claims shall we? There is a great line JFK about how theoretical physics can tell you that you can hang an elephant over a cliff from its tail and I kind of think these people are also responsible for the ridiculous long wearing claims we see on makeup now. And don't even get me started on the mascara claims (let's save that rant for another day).

5. Sheer nail polish: Ok I can accept the french manicure colours being sheer but anything else that's just crazy talk. Do not make a gorgeous shimmery polish only to have it be streaky and sheer with ugly VNL everywhere. In fact this hatred was one of the main reasons I swore off Essie and OPI for so long. I still will not purchase one of their polishes without checking swatches first. Sheer nail polish I hate you so hard!

Well.... that was cleansing and a little awkward lol. But I hates what I hates - logical or not. Am I alone here? Would you like to share- if you do happen to do a blog post about your "dislikes" link it below.

Happy Wednesday my friends

Jacx

p.s that is actually a picture of my cat Madison yawning but seriously it is perfect no?