Lunatick Labs and Pretty Zombie reviews

I just recently realised that I haven't done many makeup posts lately, especially not reviews so even though these are things I bought a while ago I thought I'd still share my thoughts. I really liked the products and they come from small cruelty free brands with amazing customer service and values I can really get behind.

Pretty Zombie Cosmetics 

As far as I know these guys only do the liquid-to-matt lipsticks, but they have a lot of really nice colours and the packaging is spot on. I got the shade Vamp, which is just a deep red so not that exciting but I do have my eye on the black and a couple of the grey/purple shades too. What I love about this (and also what I haven't yet found with any other product in this category) is that you paint it on and it dries pretty much instantly. One coat is all you need as the pigment is quite intense, and when it's dry it is so light on the lips that I always forget I am wearing it, whereas with Lime Crime but especially MUA velvets it can feel a bit dry and crusty and I feel as though I can't smile without it all flaking off. Not this one though, even the wear time is impressive- I wore it all night long on friday and never needed touch ups, although the product does transfer onto glasses etc. Personally I think this is one lippy that you definitely should try if you are into matt lips, and is actually really affordable at $12 each, so less than a tenner for me in GBP!

Lunatick Cosmetic Labs

I actually have two products that I bought from them and I really love both. They are another small vegan and handcrafted cosmetics company and they have spooky-cute themes for everything, with beautiful packaging (I actually bought the Coffin Pallet just because the pallet was pretty) and incredible shade selection and pigmentation.

The first product I bought from Lunatick Labs was the Appocalipslick in the shade Coven Cream. It is a lovely grey-beige and also the first nude lip product I have ever owned, I wear it a lot because it is the perfect deathly nude for someone who likes the dead girl look. Again this product goes on liquid (but quite thick) with a doe foot applicator but it doesn't fully dry, and is basically your average wet-to-touch but not shiny lipstick. This also has considerable staying power, but because of it's consistency is slightly more comfortable to wear and is easier to touch up later. As I mentioned before, I purchased the Appocalipslick a week before the eyeshadow pallet, but never received it and after receiving the pallet surprisingly soon after placing the order I decided to email the company about the missing first order. I have to say, their customer service team are truly wonderful, and endeavored to do everything in their power to solve the issue. By the time we had established the cause of the problem they had already sent me out a replacement product that arrived quite quickly also. It transpires that for some reason my house number was not on the address label, so without a legible delivery address the Royal Mail simply returned the item.

This is the coffin pallet, and as you can see from the photo the design is quite spectacular both inside and out, made from thick coated cardboard with a strong magnetic closing mechanism and a little bat shaped mirror inside. There are a number of themed pallets you can choose from but I couldn't decide on one, so I took the option of customising my own. I really liked that you can choose your own five shades from their entire collection because I wanted to enjoy every shade and not end up with one or two unused pans as so often happens with makeup pallets I find.

Here are my swatches, applied over Urban Decay PP with a slightly damp brush, as I have found this produces a more vibrant result with most darker eyeshadows. They have an incredibly soft and delicate consistency with a slightly shiny finish, and are prone to crumbling away to dust quite easily, however this is explained on the website I do believe, and each pan comes with it's own press should this happen. I just take extra care when handling and don't put any pressure on the product with my brush when I use it and have only used the presses once or twice. I don't have the shade names either, and I don't know whether this is because I ordered a custom pallet (but from what I can see the standard pallets don't include shade names either) so maybe just a little slip with the shade names included might have been useful. Other than that I have had a small issue with the wear time and creasing, but I'm working on the right combo of primer and technique at the moment, but it's  not a big enough problem to stop me using them.

So overall I have had good experiences with these companies and undoubtedly would shop with them again. I am planning to bery soon infact... Anybody have any other indie favourites? What are your experiences with this sort of company?

Big Weekend

Sorry I haven't posted much at all lately! June and July are and will be very busy months for us, we have been out almost every weekend and will be for probably the next six weeks yet. It is good though, all the socialising is helping my state of mind greatly and I'm  feeling nice and normal, almost my own age again... ha! This weekend is also Download festival, and the first time in four years that I haven't been, even though we only went for one day last year because I was so heavily pregnant at the time. It was strange not to be there, and if we weren't so busy I might have been sad about it. I think we might go next year though so I'm quite happy with that.

The reason we didn't go to Download festival was because I had promised to take my twin cousins to see Enter Shikari on friday night and they needed me to be their "responsible adult" because it was a club venue and they are only sixteen. I was actually really looking forward to it because I used to listen to that band a lot when I was younger. Unfortunately for us though the gig got cancelled, because one of the band members had been to hospital for some reason that morning so obviously unfortunate for him too, but the shitty thing was that the gig was cancelled at the very last minute, because the venue had already opened and started letting people in before the cancellation was announced. We didn't actually find out until we got there, so the boys went home (although I promised to take them to Download with us next year to make up for it) and I went to the pub because I had a babysitter until the next day and I couldn't bear to go home alone with Rob out at work! Some friends and I went to a couple of pubs before going to the club where Rob works and partied all night long. It's called the Bierkeller and friday nights are "Psycho Keller" which ia basically just a rock/metal night. We got excessively intoxicated and it was great. I have fully stopped breastfeeding now and with Reegan taken care of for the night I could really let my hair down, something I haven't done in a long time! I only have a couple of very rushed outfit pictures so apologies for the crappy quality!

After thinking that I had absolutely nothing to wear I ended up with a completely new outfit, although technically not new because it's been sitting in my wardrobe untouched for a while. I got the dress (although its very short and I wore a velvet mini skirt under it) on sale from Necessary Evil back when I was pregnant because it was a steal and just crossed my fingers that it would eventually fit me. Luckily it was perfect and super comfy! The huge collar necklace was a birthday gift from my auntie that I hadn't yet gotten the chance to use, and my tiny knuckle duster clutch was a Christmas present from my mum that I also hadn't used. Win all round!

Saturday morning we had to drive almost two hours to my  mum's house to pick up Reegan (normally it only takes an hour but the traffic was awful) and have some lunch with my gran and little sister before we made our way back to Bristol. I had a nice chilled out evening with my daughter whilst Rob went out to work again and played Sims when she went to sleep.

Sunday we went out with friends to the Bristol Tattoo convention, and I do believe it was the very first one. It was a fun day out because we started at the pub where I work, got the bus for the short ride into town for the convention, and then had food out before we went back to the pub again. In the end we were out for about seven hours and Reegan did very well considering she spent much of it stuck in her pushchair, but when we got back to the pub we let her play in the garden to let off some steam. Then we had to have a bath when we got home because she was totally caked in mud. But very happy. She really enjoyed being the centre of attention all day and I'm so glad we went.

Here are some pictures of prints we got from a guy called Marcus Jones who had a stall at the convention; Popeye because Rob loved him; Wednesday because we both loved her; Frankie because I am obsessed with him, and his bride because we couldn't separate them! They are all such amazing works of art and when we actually have our own place they will be proudly on the walls.