About Me

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Vegan. Ex-makeup artist. CFS/ME sufferer. Cares about human rights, equality, animal rights, conservation/climate change.

Chitika

Sunday 19 February 2012

Animal Testing Bombshell - Step Backwards for Cruelty-Free



I am SO annoyed and frustrated after learning that Peta has struck Estée Lauder, Mary Kay and Avon off their cruelty-free list. After many years being at the forefront of the cruelty-free movement, these companies have backtracked and started animal experiments again. 


Why? Why on earth, after proudly claiming 'Not Tested on Animals' on every website, box, and leaflet, would they suddenly U-turn and start maiming mice? 


Greed.


China is a massive market for cosmetics. In order to sell their products there, they have to conform to China's requirements - many products have to be tested on animals before they can be marketed there. No testing - no money from China. And so they caved. 


Now unless you've swotted up on your beauty company knowledge, you might not realise the enormity of this policy change. It's just three companies, there's plenty of others, right? Well Estée Lauder owns 28 of the most popular beauty and fragrance companies, including M.A.C Cosmetics, Bobbi Brown, Clinique, Smashbox, La Mer, and many more! (click here for a full list)


As you can see, this is a large chunk of the beauty industry that has gone to the dark side. So I got to thinking, what can we, the consumers, artists, beauty gurus, and bloggers, do to stop this? We have to talk to them in the only language they'll understand - money. We need a boycott. In order for them to listen, we need a large enough number of people to stop buying their products until they change their minds. 


This needs to go viral. If you're a blogger, blog about it. Gurus, post videos about it. Tweet #ELauderAvonMaryKayBoycott , facebook it, stick it on reddit. I've started a petition, so please sign along with Peta's petition. If this gets big enough, we won't have to go without our beloved Mac for long, as they'll soon come round! 


I'd really appreciate if you help me out in this. We, as consumers, have the power to change things according to where we spend our money. 


Sorry for going all soapbox-y on you, I promise I have more, less rant-y posts on the way!


Emma
xXx



Monday 13 February 2012

IMATS haul and something awesome...

When I did manage to squeeze through the droves at Imats, I made a couple of purchases.

I got a palette of Kett's Fixx Creme in neutral for concealing for £53. I also bought a Cozette eyeshadow blending brush for £10.40.


I'm very excited about buying OCC's airbrush kit! For £250, I got a Sparmax compressor and airbrush gun, 2 sets of 5 mini foundations (red based and yellow based) a set of mini highlighters, contour/bronzer and blushes, a set of colour correctors/adapters, a full size primer and a full size mixing medium! Here it is -



I've booked an airbrush course at Mink London on 2nd March to hone my skills.

When I went to the OCC stand, David Klasfeld, the owner, recognised me immediately. "I remember you, you're the girl with the nail varnish from last year!"

Last year at Imats, we got chatting and he admired my nails, taking a picture of them on his phone. I was wearing GOSH holographic nail polish -



It turns out, my nails were the inspiration for OCC's Mirrorball Glitter, a beautiful rainbow holographic glitter! He gave me one for free! (my camera doesn't begin to capture its colourful shine.)


So from one vegan make-up artist to another, thanks David!

Emma
xXx

My thoughts on IMATS...


So on Saturday 4th I went to Imats. I had a lot of fun, and meant to take lots of pictures, but my camera ran out of battery! Ugh!

The demonstrations are always amazing, but the scheduling is so annoying. Take this example -

10.15 - 11am -Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics presents David Klasfeld HD Make-up Techniques: Airbrush And Beyond


10:30—11:30 a.m. - A Design and DuPont present Damien Dufresne Artistic Make-up: From the Studio to the Finished Image

So you have to pick which to watch, when I would have liked to see them both. Plus a lot of the timings are set so that if you want to catch the beginning of one demo, you have to miss the end of another, which tends to result in a mass exodus 15 minutes before the end of a presentation. For a presenter, it can't be very nice to see people leaving halfway through your make-up.

Personally, I think the days should be lengthened to end at maybe 7 or 8pm, and sectioned so maybe fashion and beauty demos go on in one area, theatre and film go on in another, and Special FX in another. None of the demos should overlap other demos from the same section, and there should be enough time to move between demos without missing any. This would annoy artists that work in more than one field, but as most artists specialise, there shouldn't be too much of a problem.

I do, however, love the idea of the pro-only day. I was invited to go by Illamasqua, but something came up and I couldn't make it. I was gutted because I would have relished the opportunity to shop without fighting through the crowds!

Emma
xXx

Wednesday 8 February 2012

It's been a while...

I'm back! After the world's longest hiatus, I am now back to blogging! I had some drama in my life so decided to take some time off from blogging, and subsequently from make-up, until things were sorted. So it's about time I got back in the swing of things!

There will be no more of this -




Instead, there will be this -







And lots of this -








Anything you want me to post/blog about?

Emma
xXx

[All pics from weheartit.com]