3 more Days til Africa Fashion Week!!!

 I am sooo excited about Africa Fashion Week in 3 days . .  . I really want to do a post of my outfit seems I have to make or modify it myself but I want it to be a slight suprise for you guys.

I am thinking of wearing something Janelle Monáe inspired as it would be super easy to pull off . .anyway I'm just going to leave with one hint . . I plan to wear a bow tie and spikes!!!!

Image Property of Rob Sheppard

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Should I Boycott MAC???

I’m really not sure on whether to write this post or not as I am not the biggest advocate against Animal Testing and I secretly think that half the members of PETA are a bit bonkers but I do have a personal anti-torture, anti-cruelty and anti-unnecessary pain policy on anything and everything as I don’t enjoy the thought of benefiting from something else pain and misery (yes I am very empathic . . .hence why I am a Disneyvore).

Recently, I have found out that two of my all time favourite brands MAC Cosmetics and Revlon have admitted that they do test on animals and have been removed from the PETA cruelty free list.

Assuming that they have taken this stance as they want to break into China where it is required by law to test products on animal, I feel a bit uneasy that first of all I had no clue that Revlon wasn’t cruelty free and second what the hell happened to MAC’s policy of ‘Tested on Models, not Animals’???!!!!

Image from So What? So there!

I would really hate to boycott MAC as living in London it literally is one of the only brands where a dark skinned girl can easily find your skin shade so I would be really gutted to have to give it up.

What do you guys think about MAC and their new animal testing policy? Is it worth a boycott, should I look at it as more as them required to do so by law or should I stop imagining little monkeys with their eyes stretched out and little acid drops going into their bloodshot eyes (Yes, this is literally my mental image of what animal testing is about  . . . tad bit dramatic, but Oh well it’s the Disneyvore thinking)

I would really like to know what you guys think so please leave a comment below

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Review: L’oreal Paris Studio Secrets Smoothing & Resurfacing Primer

I can’t believe I’m saying this but after complaining about how bad the weather has been in London recently and wanting the sun to come out, I am so happy to see the sun go.

I just couldn’t deal with the heat wave that hit London for the best part of this week. I was just hot, sweaty, uncomfortable and frankly a bit nauseated from the stink of sweat and body odor radiating off some people on the underground. So with the choices of having my foundation melt off my face *cue in creams of ‘I’m meelllltttiiinnngggg’* or powder my face til I look airbrushed, my makeup for the last few days has been minimal to none-existent as the thought of weighing down my skin with anything was just not comprehendible.

I have quite good skin so leaving my house without any makeup is not really that big of a deal, but I really hate how huge my pores look when I don’t wear any foundation; It’s like I’ve got an advanced level minesweeper minefield all over my nose, so I’ve just been using a primer to try and even out my pores.

 L’oreal Paris Studio Secrets Resurfacing Primer is my choice for a primer to use in the hot weather mainly because it is not a liquid or gel, and comes in a baby pink, air -whipped, matte mousse formula; which as you can imagine is quite light.

Right on cue, this primer does what it says it would do and seems to ‘fill in’ my pores and makes them less obvious to the eye. It lasts roughly all day and I find that if I use it on specific target areas, I do not look as hot & sweaty as I did sans primer.

For a drugstore/highstreet product this is very expensive. You only get 15ml of product in a teeny pot, which could probably be used up in less that a month if used regularly. My only negative points are that I find that it can make me look quite pale (but this might be more me using a heavy hand than the primer itself) and that it takes absolutely ages to blend foundation over this without getting a weird streaky look.

Have you tried this primer before? Did you think its a summer essential? Leave a comment and let me know what you think of this tiny product.

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Book Review: 'Miss Peregine's Home for Peculiar Children'

A mysterious island. . . . An abandoned orphanage. . . .A strange collection of peculiar vintage photographs.

‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’ is the debut novel by Ransom Riggs which tells the story of  how a horrific family tragedy and thin trail of clues sets sixteen year old Jacob off to a remote island in Wales, where he is lead to an abandoned orphanage.

Jacob has grown up listening to his granddad’s captivating stories about the island he lived on during the Second World War, which included monsters and strange children with powers. When his grandfather unexpectedly dies, Jacob finds himself taking solace in these stories and decides to try and find the truth within his granddad’s stories

He finds the abandoned and crumpled down Orphanage sure enough, and while he explores what is left in the ruins, it slowly becomes clean that maybe Miss Peregrine's children were more than just peculiar . . . . Maybe they may have been dangerous . . . . Maybe they were quarantined on a remote island for a good reason . . . And somehow 70 years on, they may still be alive.

Now I’m just going to pause here (as I don’t want to give away too much of this story) and explain what made me pick up a children’s/young adult book to read. . . .honestly, it was the pictures.

Riggs is a collector of vintage photographs and injects these photographs into the novel as a narrative guide that paints a realistic element to the story. While this does make this novel very original in this way, I couldn’t help running parallels with Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’ with the X-men (big house, kids with superpowers cordoned off from the general population) . I thought it started off great but started slowed down rapidly towards the end that I started skimming over the pages just to get to the end.

It's pretty hard to show any originality in books these days, but I was pleasantly surprised by how different (and similar to the X-men) this book was. I actually quite like this book and gave it to my sister to read but given that she started reading this book late at night, she claimed she couldn’t finish reading the book as the photos creeped her out. *shrugs* I guess not everyone appreciates the same things.

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Hilarious . . . . Non??

Hi everyone, today’s post is very impromptu and being drafted straight from my office computer on my lunch break, so I apologise if there are a few more spelling mistakes that normal but I really wanted to pen down my thoughts on this before something comes up and I never get round to it.

As a blogger, I am always keeping tracks on my stats, referring URLs, and keywords so I can always track what is going on with my blog, what topics my readers enjoy and what are not really as popular. While finishing up my most recent post on Keziah Connections Event, I noticed that my overall blog stats had jumped by about 1000 views in 3 hours and (unfortunately) this is not really normal. A quick scan of my keywords and referring URLs showed up a lot of traffic from Reddit.com, which I found very odd as I have never used Reddit and I don’t even have an account on their site.

Roughly 5/7 hours ago, a troll stole a picture I posted 2 weeks ago on a fake injury makeup shoot I did on an actor called Kassidy Chaplin and led people to believe that he was a black man who had been beaten and mugged by young black teenagers and he was having an identity crisis and considering becoming racist towards people of his own race (Click here for the reddit link)

 

At first, I thought this was HILARIOUS as while I am proud of my work and I knew that the fake black eye, swelling and bruising was good . . . but DAMN, I didn’t think it was THAT good!! Anyway, I started scrolling through the 300+ comments on Reddit and I quickly became horrified on what the troll was doing with a piece of my work. He (I’m assuming it’s a he) was literally creating a racial fire and conning people into sending him free clothes as his clothes were ‘allegedly’ destroyed by the black teenagers who beat him up.

I’m just horrified!!!

People, good Samaritans, were giving him emails and worse still were sharing their stories of when a similar experience happen to them, trying to counsel this sick, twisted b*****d

I am so upset and disgusted that someone would use my work in this way but whoever discovered this troll and exposed his con.

A BIG THANK YOU FROM ME!!!!

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Keziah Connections Event at Becca Cosmetics

An event about 'Beauty, Equality, Legacy' and Knowledge.

Keziah Connections is a monthly networking evening where entrepreneurial, enterprising, professional women of colour with a passion for beauty gather to share their expertise and experience to encourage and motivate. With Founder, Blogger and Host for the night, Natalie Clue (Beauty Pulse London) on hand all evening, introducing guests to each other and encouraging everyone to mingle, there was no doubt that the Keziah Connections debut event was going to be successful and meet its aim of nurturing and networking women of colour involved in the UK beauty industry

My main purpose for going to the Keziah Connections event (well apart from networking – I do love to network) was to show support for Hafsa from Muslimah Beauty who was giving a talk on her beauty blogging experience, how she got into blogging, her niche position in combining beauty with her Muslim belief & culture and how she combines this into her blog. Hafsa was absolutely FANTASTIC!!! She was clear, passionate, relateable and honestly I think she might just have a future in public speaking.

 ‘Getting into the Marketing Mix’ with Becca Cosmetics London, Marketing & Communications Coordinator Lara Odunsanya left the audience with a message that getting into the Beauty industry is more Passion and drive, over Book Knowledge. Talking briefly about her journey, Lara touched on her interest, the competitiveness and the rapid pace of the beauty industry, and also her views on internships.

She then gave a quick makeup demonstration of Becca Cosmetics on a guest, informing the audience of the key factors of Becca, its origins and how each product can be used to get a natural, dewy and even finish (Great for the days you don’t want to look like you are wearing an entire bucket worth of makeup).

 Lukwesa Burak was just amazing!!! Anchor for Sky World News and Founder of online haire care and beauty retail store Gidore (Home of products for Kinky, Curly and Multi-textured hair), Lukwesa is just amazing!!! I could probably gush about her all day about meeting her (and how I got gob-smacked and started stumbling over my words . . . (-_-) . . . typical) but what stood out for me was her knowledge and drive to create a portal and community for the knowledge of quality products, what certain ingredients do for your hair and relevant advice. Speaking on her personal struggle and frustration with trying to find products which were marked by brands as being able to work for curly hair but never lived up to their claims and promises, through Gidore she only supplies products which have been tried and tested. She also takes it one step further by putting up before and after pictures of customer who have used a certain product so it is easier for you to take their recommendation and judge for yourself whether a certain product is good for you or not.

She raised many good points throughout her talk, especially on the EU-certification of products, which I plan to do more research on and do a blog post as it is something I feel you should know.

Overall I had a great time, gorged on strawberries, met some wonderful people and with the recommendation of the Becca Staff, bought a new foundation and foundation brush which I can't wait to take pictures up of

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Product Want: Magisso Snow White Teacup

This cute and very clever Magisso porcelain teacup looks a bit odd and askew but it’s actually quite clever (for a tea cup anyway). To create the perfect brew, you tip the teacup to one side, pour boiling hot water over fresh tea leaves and leave it askew to infuse the tea to you desire strength.

 When you’ve infused it to your preference, you simply tip the cup so that it’s upright again to stop the brewing process.

I know, I really have enough teacup  . . .but one more couldn’t hurt right???

And look . . .its even got it’s on youtube video!

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Makeup Look:- Bronzed & Twinkling

I though I'd share a little picture of myself as I'm getting ready to hit up a late night viewing of Batman and I've managed to do my makeup almost 3 hours too early due to sheer boredom.

Eyes:-

Illamasqua Cream Eyeshadow in Linger

MAC Eyeshadow in Ricepaper

MAC Eyeshadow in Bronze

MAC Eyeshadow in Twinks

MAC Eyeshadow in Folie

MAC Studio Fix +

MAC Eyeshadow in Embark

MUA Cosmetics Eyeliner in Jet Black

New Cid Cosmetics Mascara in i-flutter

L'oreal Paris Mega Collagen 24hr Mascara

Face:-

MAC Studio Fix Fluid in NW45

MAC Studio Fix Powder in NW45

MAC Select Cover Up Concealer in NW40

Sleek Blush Trio in Sugar ( Mixture of Muscovado & Turbinado)

Sleek Contour Kit in Dark

Lips:-

MAC Lipstick in Jubilee - 

Revlon Colorburst Lipgloss in Strawberry (006) 

MAC Lipglass in Spite

It's very different for the bright looks that I normally post on my blog (not that I've done so for a while) but as it's just a trip to the cinema and I'm going to be in the dark stuffing my face with popcorn, I thought I should go a bit easy on the greens and blues.

I am really in love with this look, just because it's so warm and neutral and very different from what I normally do as it looks very Kelly Rowland Inspired; and I am soooo in love with Kelly Rowland.

What do you think about this look? Do you see the unintended Kelly Rowland inspiration? I would love some feedback, so please leave a comment below.

I'm off to see Batman: The Dark Knight Rises but click here for a full list of products I used.

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Africa Fashion Week, London 2012

With London soon to play host to a magnitude of countries and cultures over the Olympics, the time to highlight African fashion and the integration of 54 (give or take) countries in the fashion industry couldn’t have come to London at a better time.

 Africa Fashion Week returns on the 3^rd and 4^th of August and is set to be bigger and better than its debut show last year. With a new venue at London’s Spitalfields and more exhibitors and designers planned, this year AFW is set to be the first large scale event to showcase UK and non-UK based seasoned and emerging fashion talent.

I am so proud and super excited to see this taking place and will be going to both events, along with the guys from Leather Studded Jacket. We will be covering everything and I do mean EVERYTHING that goes on over the course of those two days.  If you like the sound of this event, there are still free, Standard and VIP Tickets left for the shows so HURRY UP!!

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Review:- Sleek 2012 London Olympic Collection Blush in Honour

I heard about the new Sleek Makeup Collection inspired by the London 2012 Olympics a few weeks backs and while I was excited (and a feeling a mild bit patriotic) about the new cosmetics collection . . . all my focus went on the blush, Honour.

I have a growing obsession with the pigmentation and great-quality of Sleek blushes and own quite a few (10 & counting, baby). In the stock pictures, Honour looked like a peachy-coral colour which I wasn't too sure about but after great reviews for Laa laa from Dolce Vanity, I thought why not just give it a try.

Honour swatches beautifully on very dark skin. A pretty deep rose-gold that warms up the skin without feeling like you are drowning in shimmer. On my skin it comes off as a beautiful wine/plum infused with beautiful gold specks so I can definitely see why it is sold out in a few stores. Honour follows Sleek Make-Up blush formula, so is soft, (but not annoyingly so) easy to apply and blend and has a good wear time. For me, it tends to last a good 6/8 hours depending on if my skin is primed or not.

While I do love this shade . . . .I can't help but feel like I've seen it before.

 Honour seems to be a very, VERY close dupe to two other shades that Sleek has previously released. As you can tell from the picture above, Honour, Sunrise and Muscovado seem to be uncomfortably similar in shade and swatches. Though Honour does seem to be darker in the pan when seen in natural day light this does not translate when swatched, making these 3 blushes barely distinguishable from each other.

As much as I like this blush shade (I obviously must like it a lot as I seem to own 3 (¬_¬) ) . . . Is Sleek trying to pull a fast one on its customers??

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FOTD:- To Beat Up A Guy Painlessly

Salutations my lovelies!!!!

Sorry I this post is a bit late but if you follow me on twitter or facebook then you know that I am on jury duty right now instead of parked behind a computer at work.

I wanted to post a few photos of a mini-makeup session I did on an actor; a few weeks back, as a favour for a friend (as he called me super last minute to this and I hate not knowing things in advance) for a sketch he is working on. I can't really tell you what the film sketch is about . . .simply because I'm not too sure myself.

My brief was simply to make Kassidy (the lovely actor I worked on) look jacked up aka beat up and bruised. I can honestly say I have never done anything like this before as I normally do beauty and weddings but working on a guy was so much fun and the reactions we got when he aired this picture on his blackberry and on my instagram let me know I did quite a convincing job

 ILLAMASQUA Cream Eyeshadow in Debauch, MAC Eyeshadow in Bronze, MAC Eyeshadow in Fig 1, MAC Eyeshadow in Woodwinked, MAC Eyeshadow in Handwritten, MAC Eyeshadow in Embark, Sleek Lipstick in Stiletto, Sleek Lipstick in Vamp, DUO Eyelash Glue, MARY KAY Liquid Lip Colour in Cherry Coffee, RIMMEL LONDON Royal Gloss in Moreish (301) 

I know that this is bit of a 'gory' picture to start the week of on but I had to post this up . . . it would be unfair to my memory card not to

UPDATE:- I am aware that a troll STOLE my picture and is trying to con people into sending his free things and trying to create a lot of racial tension. I just need to point out that I'm aware and f**king mad about it!!!


I apologise sincerely to anyone who has been targeted by this troll and can only pray that you did not part with any money or goods.

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Push PR Winter Wonderland Press Day 2012

Sugar Snowmen, Scents of spicy mulled wine, and snow . . . . Christmas . . in July. 

Yes, it does seems a  bit bammy to start thinking of Christmas especially as we haven't even had a summer yet, but Wednesday saw Push PR ( and some help from LSA International and Blank London)  transformed their showroom into a scene straight from a Christmas novel (fake snow and all).

I can't even begin to describe all the wonderful brands that where featured but I will add a slideshow of my pictures taken on the day so you can get my view on the gorgeous items.

Melinda Mulcahy

When so many things on the market today are mass marketed and batch produced, it is very refreshing to be introduced to a brand that allows you the freedom to custom-make your jewellery/gifts. Melinda Mulcahy is a jewelry brand designed to produce “quality jewelry” that mixes precious metals with fashionable concepts and colour, without breaking the bank

Their Mens A/W collection would be a hit for any guy into the ‘Big Bang Theory’. With silver necklaces and cufflinks stamped with E=mc² even I am gunning after a few of these pieces

Ayten Gasson

For me nightwear & lingerie is a big part of the Christmas/Winter season. Once the temperature start to drop and my clothes get dark and drabby, a little secret pop of colour can really take your mind of the lack of feelings in your fingers.

Adding to beauty of their collection, everything Vintage inspired Ayten Gasson produces, from their lavender infused eye masks and silk underwear are British made. Also with a Limited edition eco lingerie collection made using organic and cruelty-free silk, Ayten Mustafa gives us something extra to smile about this winter

 Abilu Creations
  

One jewellery collection that stood out for me was by Abilu Creations . I have heard about this brand before and I am in love with their Chunky Monkey Charm Necklace and their insanely cute Charm necklaces.

I can’t recommend this brand enough as their stuff is stunning.

Chamilia

I can’t finish off this post without mention Chamilia.

Feeling like a little girl kept busy at wedding, with a bowl full of charms and charm bracelets links, this made DIY activity made my evening.

Chamilia is all about the freedom to create and design your own jewelry. Given a selection of necklace & bracelets styles and lengths, as well as various bead charms in any theme, colour or style. Your imagination is really your only limitation 

 I know it might seem that I am harping on about the jewellery on this post but I'm a magpie at heart and anything that glistens will automatically capture my attention

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Recent Purchases:- MAC Eyeshadows in Embark, Club, Pink Venus, Fig.1 and Twinks

Having my office located 2 minutes away from a MAC store is slowly turning my blog into a one-brand swatches website, but as they are one of the only stores that stock my skin shade in a 15 minute walking radius, you guys are going to be getting a lot of MAC reviews.

Yesterday, I encouraged everyone to guess the eyeshadows I’m going to review today and despite me giving a HUGE hit . . . not that many people guessed any of the shades right.

Club is the most intriguing eyeshadow of the bunch as it’s a bit like a multi-dimensional chameleon. The purple, grey and green mixture of this shade gives it a flexibility that you really don’t expect so it works great as a lid colour for a smokey eye.

Pink Venus was a bit of an impulse buy. I will admit this right now as I’m not sure what was going through my head at the time when I bought this. Not normally a fan on Barbie pink or colours with a white-silver undertone but this shade was just tooo pretty.

I’m not entirely sure how I will use it as I find that when swatched it fails to show up very strongly on my dark skin. I think it would have to be relegated to a tear duct colour until I find a good use for it. 

Embark is a warm, dark brown that I would highly recommend anyone with dark skin like mine stocking in their MAC neutral palettes. 2 shades darker than my natural skintone, this shade works wonderfully as a crease and contour eyeshadow shade and I have sometimes even used this as a cheek contour as it is warm enough not to give my skin a dirty, ashy-brown effect.

This is the only shade that is a repurchase and this is actually my 3^rd time buying this eyeshadow colour, so just know that when I recommend it, I’m doing so because I believe in it

As I’m always expanding my purple and blue MAC eyeshadow palettes, Fig.1 was recommended to me by one of my favourite local MAC artist, who thankfully seems to be keeping tabs on what shades I buy.

I was looking for a dark purple but similar to Vibrant grape which I already had but was not quite right for the makeup look I was going for (had to create a specific look models face – will put up link later) and she recommended Fig.1 and omg can I just say it was perfect!!! 

Last but not least. Twinks – a beautiful dark bronze perfect for a black girl eyelid. This shade is so much better than MAC’s eyeshadow in Bronze (which I normally swear by) as it is one shade darker than bronze so looks more like my eyelid shade but with a little bit of a shimmer to it. I can’t wait to recreate a daytime smokey eye look with this because this just screams out for me to play with it.

 So Ladies (and gentlemen) that is it for the recent eyeshadows swatches, sorry I was a bit late posting this but my post schedule ran amok and this didn’t go up 10 hours ago like it was meant to.

continue reading "Recent Purchases:- MAC Eyeshadows in Embark, Club, Pink Venus, Fig.1 and Twinks"

Review:- Revlon Colorburst in Sizzle, Crystal Lilac & Strawberry

As summer decided to skip the UK this year, I'm using my funds that would normally go into sprucing  up my summer wardrobe on makeup (typical me), I popped into my local Boots and stocked up on my favourite drugstore lip glosses . . . Revlon's Colorburst!!!!!

I am a huge fan of the Colorburst lip glosses as the sleek Chanel-like packaging contains some of the most pigmented shades & moisturising formulas around. For those that have not tired Revlon's Colorburst lip glosses I would definitely recommend then as the formula is smooth, lightweight and non-sticky, plus right now Boots are having a 3 for 2 offer on the Revlon products which as good an excuse as any to pick up a few shades.

Sizzle (046, £7.99) is an eye-popping, orange lipgloss with red undertones in its tube but comes out as a semi-opaque orange that adds a lot of warmth to my lip, visualise an instant warm glow.  I normally do not reach for orange shades but there really is no denying that wonderful effect an orange-toned lipgloss has on dark skin.

Strawberry (006, £7.99) is a soft-pinky red lipgloss with specks of silver glitter in its tube that thankfully (as silver undertones can make dark skin look as chalky as talcum powder) doesn't not stand out when swatched on skin . . . well at least not on my lips anyway. Would love to team this up with a paler pink lipstick (maybe MAC's Creme in Your Coffee/Viva Glam 4) with Strawberry on the middle portion of my lip to give it a little pop.

Crystal Lilac (002, £7.99) is a bubble-gum pink which has this weird Northern Light Reflects going on that is absolutely dazzling!! I think the reflects in this lipgloss convinced me to buy this as I would never go for a pink that light if I didn't feel there was something special about it. I think this would go great as a lipstick/gloss come with some of my neutral lipstick though.

I really love what I picked up but I really wanted another shade called Sunbaked which looked absolutely GORGEOUS!!!! Seeing as I just bought 3 Revlon Colorburst, how do i justify buying one more?

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