It's Tuesday at Makeupland (laaate Weekly Post)

I know it's been forever since I last posted here, I'm not even going to give any excuses, just say I'm sorry and really hope I could sit down and write the MILLION ideas on my schedule.

I don't want the post to be Bible-long, so I'm going to try to be concise and clear.

Weekly Offer

This week I've gone crazy, BUY ONE GET ONE FREE at my ArtFire shop!! (not on Etsy, sorry!). Everything applies except palettes and pressed palette refills.
This leads me to...

ArtFire

Lost in Makeupland is now on ArtFire too! For those of you who don't know ArtFire, it's an Etsy-like place but better.
Why? I'll give you the simplest reason. NO FEES for me. As my shop slowly grows, I also have to pay more Etsy fees and have to buy more supplies. I just can't put up with that.
Shipping costs have gone crazy, I'm still unemployed and have to pay my car, bills and eat and I just can't. I also want to study and just can't pay for it all. I don't want to raise my shipping charges and want to keep LiM affordable for everybody and that's the only way to do it I can come up with.

So, from now on, all my offers, discounts and a little reward system for returning customers I want to put up before summer are going to be on my ArtFire shop only.
Registering there is free for you and pricing will be the same for my products.

Navigation is easy and hey, the shop looks lovely! Another plus is that I can add more product pictures, keep a blog there... Really, it's amazing the tools they give us sellers to make the experience so much nicer and easier for you.

I'm not going to close my Etsy shop, but I'd like my customers to use the ArtFire one instead. Obviously, it's up to you whether you prefer to buy there or not, but it's a nice way to help support companies you like.

If you have any doubts or questions as to how to use ArtFire, just let me know and I'll try to put together a mini tutorial or something :)

Contest winners

I know, I know! I haven't forgotten about this! So, before you get bored of my ramblings and go away, I'll announce the winners of my 100 sales celebration contest! 

And, the lucky winners are:

-My favourite look (this was really hard to chose! I loved them all!) who'll receive 10 samples of her choice...

 Rach!!

-For the 50% off coupons

Aaaaaand, the big winner of $50 in Lost in Makeupland products of her choice is....

Congratulations ladies!!! I hope you're happy with your prices :D I'll contact all of you during this week with all the info.

I want to thank all the people who joined the contest, it was fun and I loved it. Next one will be when I reach 500! ;D

 
What's going on?
 
I'm working on a LOT of things. Those of you who follow me on Twitter and know me a bit know that I'm not going through good times. It affects me in a weird way, I find it very hard to sit down and "produce" stuff but I'm incredibly creative, I've been making a lot of new products, some of them have been tested already, some are being tested and others I haven't found the time to try yet.

As a new, important note, I'm trying out lip balm formulas, they're so fun! I can't give a launch date yet since it's still in the earliest phase of testing. I'll be sending a few volunteers samples so they can try them and I can also check how they behave in different weathers. My idea is to sell them in cute little tins, tinted and not. I haven't decided on a price yet. I'll tell you more about this as soon as I can.

The Alice's Chains collection is definitely going to be released this month.I want to add a couple of new blush shades to it, one of them will be very neutral going in the line of the collection, and the other will be EXTRA bold. The jar design will be super cute, it was designed by the lovely Sakura and I love it. <3

I also have a bunch of new highlighters ready to be released but don't see that happening anytime soon. I'm quite low on some supplies and until I find a new jar supplier with REASONABLE shipping costs I can't spend a fortune on big jars. Really, it's insane the way prices have gone up, I can't put up with that.

Something beautiful

I want to finish this post with something beautiful. I'm always angry at my neighbour because he's got a lot of trees on his patio and they go into my patio, fruits fall down and ruin mine, tree leaves fall down too, I just fucking hate it and have thought about ruining his trees more than once.

But I have to admit that I love this tree and don't mind it going into my patio (just while it's this beautiful lol). It bloomed a couple of days ago and looks stunning.

So, how are things going on lately? Have you ever used ArtFire? What's your opinion on it? I've only been there for a little time so I'd love to check out other people's opinions. 

Any blogs worth discovering? I'd love to get to know new food, fashion and hair related places on the net :D 

100!!!!

EDIT: Contest will run until March 31so you have more time to enter. I also wanted to clarify that you don't have to submit a look to enter the contest, just if you want to enter for the $50 in LiM products. If you don't submit a look you'll still be eligible for the 50% discount :)

I promised something very special to celebrate my first 100 orders, and thank you all for your support. I know it's a bit late, but here it is!

There'll be three lucky winners who will receive the following:

-One winner will receive $50 in Lost in Makeupland products of her/his choice.
-Two winners will receive one 50% discount code each.

Ok, so I've gone crazy! Just take advantage of it ;)

What do you have to do to win? 

First of all, follow my blog, this contest is for followers only.

Then you'll have to comment on this blog entry with the following:

To win a 50% discount code:

1. Follow Lost in Makeupland on Facebook. This will be worth 1 entry.

2. Tell me your favourite Lost in Makeupland product and why do you like it. This will be worth 1 entry.

3. Have you ordered from Lost in Makeupland? Tell me your etsy username! This will be worth 1 entry.

4. Blog about it and leave a link to your post. This will be worth 1 entry.

5. Tweet a link to this post, don't forget to mention me @lostmakeupland on the tweet or I won't have a way to count the entry. This will be worth one extra entry.

Now, onto the BIG prize!!

To win $50 in Lost in Makeupland products:

1. Follow Lost in Makeupland on Facebook. This will be worth 1 entry.

2. Create a look using at least one Lost in Makeupland (include a picture of the product itself too) products and email me the picture or include a link to it on a comment in this post. This will be worth 2 entries.

OR

Create a look using products from another company (which you'll have to state, I love discovering other indie products <3 ) inspired in what you'd wear if you ever visited a place called Makeupland. This will be worth 1 entry.

3. Tell me your favourite Lost in Makeupland product and why do you like it. This will be worth 1 entry.

4. Blog about it and leave a link to your post. This will be worth 1 entry.

5. Tweet a link to this post, don't forget to mention me @lostmakeupland on the tweet or I won't have a way to count the entry. This will be worth one extra entry.

A winner will be chosen at random on March 31th. The more entries you submit, the more options to win you have!

The contest is open internationally. Submitting a look will make you eligible for the big prize, and also eligible for the discount codes with the same number of entries. If you don't submit a look, you'll still be able to opt for the 50% discount.

Only one entry for person. You can add more later (EXAMPLE: You post on twitter and follow Lost in Makeupland on Facebook, then you decide you want to do a look later, it's ok, you can do that later, I won't count entries until the contest closes).

If you are a blogger and end up winning any of the prizes, I'll also do a little giveaway for your followers.

I'll also choose my favourite look from the submitted ones and will send that person a few samples of their choice.

It's everything clear? If you have any doubts, don't hesitate to ask me, I'll try to clear them as soon as possible :D

So, what do you think? Opinions are more than welcome. Are you as excited as I am? I hope a lot of you enter and that we all have fun. I <3 contests! 

I can't wait to see your entries ;) 

Weekly (and quite late) Post

Fist of all I want to apologize for the lack of blog updates. I've been busy, very busy, then sick and I've been neglecting the blog a lot.

There is a loooot going on at Makeupland, and I'm so excited to share the news with you! A few secrets will be kept for the momment too, but stay tuned and you'll know very soon :D

New equipment

I bought a new grinder last week, this one is much bigger than my previous one and more potent, so I can make bigger batches in less time with a bigger quality than with the old one. I LOVE it!! It's saved me a lot of time and has helped me get do all the delayed work quickly.

#100 and counting

Last week, Lost in Makeupland reached 100 orders!! I'm really happy and grateful for all the people who's helping this baby grow each day. I'm glad you trust my little company and like my products. 

As a way to say thanks, I want to celebrate with a BIG contest. The prize? There'll be three lucky winners.

One will receive $50 in Lost in Makeupland products of her/his choice, and there'll be two winners of a 50% discount code each.

What do you have to do to win? 

Just read a post with all the instructions which will be up tomorrow. The contest will last until March 10. 

Pressed stuff and releases!

I can finally announce when I'm going to release pressed highlighters, blushes and eyeshadows. It'll be by March 1st if everything goes well. 

I'm going to offer them in different formats, palettes and refills.

You have two options when you buy a palette. You can either request one with two 2,6cm pans and two 1,5cm pans at $22 or you can get it with two big pans at $20. Palettes will be magnetized so you can remove the pans anythime and put it inside another palette of your choice. They'll be made in your choice of colors so you'll have to leave a note with it at checkout.

 Palettes will look like this.

Refills will be $8,50 the 2,6cm pans and $1,75 the small ones.

Except for highlighters and blushes, I'll press eyeshadows by request, so you'll have to keep in mind that it's a process that takes quite a lot of time and you'll have to allow me 2 more days to make them than with normal loose powders. I'm going to try to make it quite fast though and have some stock ready before I launch them.

On that same day, I will be releasing six new blush shades which have been ready for the longest time. I'm showing you some swatches so you get the idea of how they look. These swatches aren't the best, they look much better in real life, but I wanted to show them to you before they were released. They were tested long ago and I've been wearing them quite often, but I wanted to be secretive about them.

They'll be available both in loose and pressed form.

On to the swatches and descriptions! :)

Say it isn't so

 

Bright cool pink with a blue shift.

Alive

Light pearly pink with a reddish light to it.

Peachy

Light sheer peach with almost unnoticeable gold and copper iridescence.

Exotic

Beautiful reddish peach with a slight orange duochrome.

But I like it

 Gorgeous mauve with copper duochrome.

Golden Touch

Flattering rosy peach with a golden duochrome touch.

I'm also working on an ultra secret collection I'm UBER excited about and it's going to be EPIC, but I can't give you more details. Haven't forgotten about the Alice's Chains collection either, and hope to be able to release it during March. And, there are a couple of super seeeeeecret collaborations with 2 ladies we all love which you'll know about very soon :D

I love shopping indie!

Lately I've received some more gorrrrgeous indie stuff. The lovely Sakura sent me samples of Sugarpill loose eyeshadows, which I'm absolutely in love with and I also received a Fyrinnae order which I bought together with her. I got samples of Damn Paladins, Feline Familiars and Pyromantic Erotica. I'll try to take pics and swatch everything I've gotten lately for you, but for now, I'll leave you with a picture of my today's LOTD using Fyrinnae's Feline Familiars and Lost in Makeupland's Glow.

Are you excited about the incoming releases? What do you think of the blushes? And about the contest? I've gone craaaaaaaaaazyyy!!

Weekly Lost in Makeupland post

No way, I can't seem to do this post when I mean to, so I guess I'll keep on trying to post this on Sundays and just be happy if I get it done before Tuesday.

This week's post won't be too long, I promise!

Delayed Packages from December

They keep arriving! At least two more packages shipped back then have arrived to the buyers :).

Next week, as promised, I will contact all the buyers whom I don't know if they have received their packages to check if they have received them, in case they didn't, we'll talk a solution.

Craziness grooowing

I'm very happy yet a bit overwhelmed by how my sales have increased lately. I know it's nothing compared with other companies, but it's far more than I expected and I'm adjusting to it. These days I've exceeded my turnaround time, which I'm not happy about, but that should be solved tomorrow morning since I've been working nonstop lately.
This week I'm going to buy another, bigger grinder to make my products (I managed to break my lovely little one T_T ) in order to:
1. Make bigger batches. I don't want to make very big batches because I find it's harder to do quality control the bigger it is, BUT, the ones I make are too small now and I find myself "wasting" a lot of time making a small batch after another. Better grinder means I can make more quantity and faster, whily still having time to do quality control, I find it's more productive.
2. Be very ahead of work. When I opened my shop at the end of October, I usually made the eyeshadows after the order was placed. I stopped doing that at December, when the shop started to start walking, step by step. I want to be ready for rushes and just about ANYTHING that may happen. I want to be able to ship your orders as soon as possible.


With that accomplished, I'd have the time to work on all the new stuff I've been developing and planning. I've been working in blushes, more eyeshadows and planned out a couple of collections that can't be released at the momment due to lack of time and preparation for their release.

I love shopping indie!

Yay!!! Yesterday I received my The Morbid The Merrier Valentine perfume order, my last Haus of Gloi order and a package from the lovely Sakura full of Sugarpill samples and stickers and goodies <3 I'll try to take pictures of everything (plus last week's stuff) to show you. I'm very impressed and happy with everything, even though I'm upset that in both my TMTM and HoG orders, various perfumes leaked and it kind of ruined the lovely labels.


I swear I couldn't SQUEEEE louder when I opened (that is, ripped open the envelope like crazy) my The Morbid The Merrier order. This is what I saw. Aren't you squeeing too? The care put on the packaging, image and feel of the brand is impressive. I LOVE it.

I'd love to read some new blogs, learn about interesting youtube videos, books, online comics, whatever to entertain myself when I disconnect from work. I'm kinda bored at what I've been watching on YT lately, I'm almost out of tv shows I like and only my fave blogs interest me nowadays. I need some new stuff and I'm sure you have great suggestions!!

I Love Indie!

I want to share with you a few products that have caught my interest in the last few days, trying to somehow make them work together. Most will be from Etsy, but they won't limit to that. I don't own these products, but certainly will consider buying them sooner or later!

Alice in Wonderland Inspired Small Makeup Pouch by You Are My Sin

 

Unii Palettes

I ended up buying two of them, in Coal and Twilight. I paid $56 for the palettes and shipping was $12. I'm still waiting on my order, so I'll post about them when they arrive.

Movie Horror Monsters Psychobilly Tote Bag by Exy Arnette

I actually plan to buy this one once I get paid and see if I can make an extra expense. I'm totally drooling over it!

Lullaby eyeshadow by Living Dead Grrl Makeup

Vixen from the Screw Cupid collection by Brazen Cosmetics

I'd use it as a liner together with Living Dead Grrl's Lullaby

Sealed With a Razorblade earrings by Running With Scissors

Lace Draped Spectre Necklace by Whimsy Beading

Ladies Nightmare Of You Platform Heels by Iron Fist

These aren't exactly indie, but... can you blame me?

What do you think? Do you like this kind of post? I spend most of my free time online browsing online shops, Etsy, etc and it's something I just LOVE (people on my personal FB suffer from my product spamming quite often lol). I was thinking about doing this weekly/2 times per month, would you like that?

Which is your favourite? Would you buy any of these? I know I would!

Highlight Me!!

The highlighter sample packs are FINALLY (took me forever, I know) available at my Etsy shop :D. At $4 they're a really nice deal, take a look at them! :D

Also, in other news and as I tweeted this afternoon, I've updated my Morgana Cryptoria post with more on lip swatches. Here's the link if you want to take a look!

I hope to be able tell you about the lovely package I got from sweet Becca from One Hand Washes The Other and give you an opinion on all the products I received. So far I'm in LOVE with everything I've tried. Here's some eye candy to make your mouths water! ;)

This week hasn't been very blog-productive, but I'm just too overwhelmed to sit down and write much. I've also had some real life issues that have kept me rather upset and without wanting to write. I'm already writing the Weekly post so hopefully it'll be up tomorrow the latest.

Weekly Lost in Makeupland post

I should really go back to posting the Weekly posts on Sunday, I feel like a total slacker when I post them later than Monday! Still, here is my weekly update on what's going on at Makeupland. There's quite a bit of stuff I want to talk about.

Delayed Packages from December

They are starting to arrive! One of the packages which was taking longer, shipped on Dec 11, FINALLY arrived to the buyer yesterday. I was SO relieved I can't even tell you. I'm quite worried about all the packages I shipped back them I hope they all start arriving.

Here's a bit more info on that, I took those paragraphs from the Royal Mail (UK Postal Service) page.


USA Start date: 18th November
End date: Ongoing

Update 28th January 2011:

The United States Department of Homeland Security is continuing to require increased security measures for items carried on passenger airlines. As a result, some mail entering the USfrom around the world, and including the UK, that would normally be sent via passenger aircraft must now travel by other means, including ships and cargo planes.

Most items, including personal letters and cards, magazines, CDs, DVDs and lightweight packets, will be delivered in the USwithin a few days of posting.  However, there are delays of about two weeks for some heavier packets.  These delays are currently affecting stamped items, franked items, and items posted under contract, with the exception of Destination Sort and/or M-Bag* items.

That means that items shipped via ordinary mail have more of a chance of arriving soon and well than registered ones. This is crazy, but there's nothing I can do but hope things are done eventually in a way it doesn't affect European people when shipping something to the US.

I also wrote a blog post adressing that matter a while ago, you can read it here.

I'm going to continue to keep in touch with the affected buyers and will try to find a solution by the middle of the month for those who haven't received their packages by then.

Releases

I know I keep promising to go back to releasing stuff constantly, but I've gotten an order increase and am working on a lot of stuff and just find releasing a shade per week quite annoying and time-consuming at the momment. So, what I'll do will be release what's left of the Lifestyle collection soon, all at once, and have a few batches prepared before I do it so it doesn't affect my work schedule. Also, the lightening here it's so bad lately (it finally stopped raining yesterday!) that I haven't been able to photograph anything, I still have to take pictures of nearly all my eyeshadows again and upload some more swatches.

Valentines

I won't be releasing a Valentines collection, nor am I going to have one of my weekly sales this week, but I will have a Valentine's sale. From this momment until February 20th, if you write the coupon code MUSTBELOVE at checkout you'll get an automatic 10% discount on your order! ^____^

Highlighter packs

My highlighters are becoming very popular, mostly thanks to Ana ;) and I get lots of questions about which one would suit you better. I'm always glad to answer your questions, and last week I actually posted a How-to tutorial thinguie with lots of pictures showing you how I use them and how they look on my warm skin, but I can't really know how all of them are going to look on you since we all have different skin tones and undertones. So, I've thought that the best way to let you find your perfect highlighter is by offering a highlighter sample pack.

It will cost $4 (separately the price would be $5.50) and you'll receive four baggies with a sample of each of my highlighters : Faerie, Glow, English Rose and as an extra, a sample of Whipped (this one doubles both as an eyeshadow and a eye highlighter). You'll get the same quantity of product than when you order the highlighters separately with the only difference of them going in the small baggies I use for eyeshadow samples instead of the bigger ones I use for highlighters, blushes and face powders.

I find it's quite a nice offer for those who are unsure of which shade will suit them best or aren't really into highlighters and want to experiment with them and their textures at a small prize.

These will be available sometime today or tomorrow. I'm qute busy at the momment and can't promise an exact date, but I will post about that on Twitter, Facebook and here on the blog.


How to's

Last week, I posted a tutorial on how to use my highlighters on the face. I took a lot of pictures and explained step by step how I do it, showing how it works with Faerie on a side and Glow on the other so you could see how a different toned highlighter can change and melt with a skin tone.

Is there anything else you would like me to explain? A tutorial on a make up technique, a way to apply any of my eyeshadows, swatches, comparisons, whatever? I'd love to know and would be glad to take the time and make them, I really enjoy all things make up related from creation, to experimenting with new stuff, and what I love the most is makeup application. If there are any tips you'd like me to share, don't hesitate to ask!

I love shopping indie!

A few weeks ago I received a Shiro cosmetics order I'm dying to share with you, so expect me to post some swatches and rave about the awesome stuff I bought!

Last week I also received a small Beauty From The Earth order I made because of a great sale they had to try ther products (Becca it's your fault, you convinced me!!!) and I also want to show you a couple of shades that really impressed me.

I've also placed orders from Evil Shades, The Morbid the Merrier, Haus of Gloi, and a package from One Hand Washes the Other (yayayayayayayayyyy so excited about receiving this one!!!) still pending to arrive, I'll show you the goodies once I receive them, I'm so excited about everything! ^_____^

Plus, Morgana Cryptoria is going to release 20 new lipstick shades, I can't wait to see them, I'm sure they'll be gorgeous! You can read about my great experience shopping from Morgana Cryptoria here. <3


I think that's it for this week's post!! Stay tuned, I'll be posting more this week ;) Really, thanks everybody for keeping up with the blog, following and all, I'm glad! <3

So, is there anything you're looking forwards to this week? Any ideas, suggestions, things you'd like me to talk about? What do you think of the highlighters pack?