Stuck in a Rut

I don't expect many people to read this post since this blog has been inactive for so long, so I guess I'm mostly just writing this to myself. But if you do read it, feel free to let me know in the comments.

So it's been a long time since I wrote much on here and even then it was mostly about nail polish. That's the only part of my beauty routine that I'm actually varying at all. I do a new mani at least 3 times a week and I've been buying soooo much nail polish, it's shameful. Make up, not so much, although I have bough the odd blush or lipstick, even foundation, I haven't really been keenly following the new releases. I guess it's partly because I have a massive stash already and most of the new releases look similar to what I already have, and I simply don't need any more. Not that I need more nail polish, but that's another matter. Anyway...

Despite owning a massive amount of make up, I have only been using a very small portion of it. Why? Mostly due to lack of time in the morning, partly due to how my make up is stored. So I tend to just use about 5 different blushes and maybe 10 different lipsticks, hardly get around to wearing eyeshadows, and things like highlighters - what's that? This evening I was looking for a couple of old Mac face products as I was reminded of the summer collection from 5 years ago by a blogger and in the process I decided to look through my 6 drawer chest that contains most of my Mac blushes, MSFs, lots of other blushes and a whole drawer full of again, mostly Mac lipglosses. I don't think I'd opened that drawer for a good year if not longer. This gave me an idea.

From now on, starting tomorrow, I'm going to try and use as much of my make up as possible. Instead of frantically trying to find something in the morning, giving up and settling for the same blush I use most days, I will pull out a few products the night before and actually plan my look in advance. I will also document what I wear on here (might not be photos of my face, maybe just the products for starters) as well as keep note of it on a spreadsheet (which I'm yet to put together). Why? Because I need to get out of the rut and realise just how many wonderful products I own and need to use. I will also aim to post pictures of my manis and nail polish purchases which I will also try to finally curb, but that's another matter.

So here we go, first step out of the beauty rut and onto a journey to rediscover my stash. Who's coming with me?

I'm back and NOTD with OPI You're So Flippy Floppy!

Hello! It's been a VERY long time since I last wrote a post, mostly due to personal reasons, but also I've found that my interest had shifted from make up to nail polish. I still use make up all the time, but I'm buying a LOT less, however, I'm now so into nail polish, I have built up a massive collection. So from now on I think I'll be sharing my nail polish purchases and manis with you with the odd make up post in between. Hope you'll like it.

First up is OPI You're So Flippy Floppy topped with Chaos & Crocodiles Paint The Sky, a very neon glitter topper with lots of different shapes and colours. OPI You're So Flippy Floppy is one of the Beach Sandies mini polishes from their summer collection. Chaos & Crocodiles is an indie polish brand, they have lots of fun glitter toppers. You can purchase them from Mei Mei's Signatures.

I wore this for 2 days, but by the end of the second day it had chipped. I don't know if it's to do with the glitter or just the formula of this particular polish, but the other OPI sand polishes from the same pack lasted on me for 2 days without chipping.

What do you think? Do you like sand polishes? What about indie polishes? Glitters? Let me know in the comments!

Update On My No-Buy 3 Months On

Here's another quick update on how I'm doing on my lipstick, lipgloss and nail polish no-buy. The answer is not too well. Firstly, I'd abandoned my plans for the nail polish no-buy because I just couldn't resist all the pretty colours I keep seeing on blogs and in shops. But yesterday I decided (having realised that I've managed to buy the same colour nail polish multiple times, sometimes even from the same brand!) that I'm really going to have to give it a proper go. So I've decided that I'm going to do a one month nail polish no-buy and actually properly stick to it this time. I now have over 700 nail polishes which is just crazy. I'm also going to do a giveaway very soon and include some of the multiple colours I've got so you can benefit from my silliness.

As far as my lipstick and lipgloss no-buy goes, I didn't do too bad. I got tempted into buying lip products a couple of times, once for a free nail polish and once because I wanted to try a different product (Lip Tars). Oh and I got a free lipstick with my B2Mac empties, but that doesn't count surely? Other than that I've been pretty sensible, so yay for me!

I know this isn't the most exciting post you'll ever read on this blog, but I thought some of you might be interested in seeing how I'm getting on. Let me know if you are on any kind of a no-buy and how you're getting on!

Happy New Year!

Hope 2013 is a good one! Have you got any resolutions? I don't really, but I will continue with my diet and excercise plan ones I'm finished with all the yummy food in the house. I did really well in the 3 months before Christmas and lost 19 lbs (8.5 kgs), so definitely want to get back to it.

Beauty-wise, I will try to buy less, blah blah blah, but in all fairness I don't expect to. I do need to keep going with my lipstick/lipgloss no-buy for the whole of 2013 (maybe allow myself a few, but definitely not many). I will aim to do lots of reviews and keep up with the blogging for sure, I love it and hope you enjoy reading my blog as much as I enjoy writing it.

Now, without further ado:

PS. I'll be doing one or two 2012 favourites posts later in the week, but I won't have time until Wednesday when my husband and children are going away to my in-laws for 3 days. Until then, feel free to let me know if you had any favourite products in 2012.

Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Hope you're all having a lovely time. I'm spending mine with my closest family including 3 children and 3 cats. It's going to be everything but quiet and peaceful around here!

Thank you all for reading my blog and hope you will continue to do so after the holidays and in the new year! I really appreciate it. I also really enjoy reading your comments and hearing your opinion on products I've reviewed and maybe even influenced you to buy. So I hope you stick around and keep enjoying reading my posts!

Have a great Christmas everyone!

Update On My No-Buy 2 Months On

In case you're not a regular reader of my blog (and why not?), to fill you in, 2 months ago I went on a no-buy for lipsticks, lipglosses and nail polishes (you can also read my original post by clicking here). Well, an intended no-buy anyway. I have been doing well in some areas (lips) and not so well in other areas (nails).

Firstly, the positives. I haven't bought any new lipsticks this month, so that's a definite well done to me. I have bought 6 lipglosses, but those were still (just about) within my limit, and now I've reached that, I'm not going to allow myself any more.

Secondly, I can't stop buying nail polish. I did better than last month (not hard), but still bought far too many. The picture below shows a small portion of my nail polish haul. I have to say, 9 of them came from my wishlist (those gorgeous holographic Color Club polishes on the front and left of the picture and the Enchanted Polishes on the right), and one was sent to me by the lovely Liloo as a prize (the other gorgeous holo by 17 on the right), so surely that doesn't count, right?

The trouble is, there are just too many pretty, glittery, holo polishes out there, and I'm too weak. But I'm trying. I have quite a long wishlist now and I have been better about not just buying things when I see them on a blog or in a shop, so hopefully it's a start. However, feel free to give me a kick up the bum and tell me to stop buying them since I already have enough nail polishes to last me 20 years or so!

I've Been Busy - My Depotting Adventure

A little while ago, when using my Urban Decay Mariposa eyeshadow palette, I began wondering if there was a way to depot the eyeshadows in it and use the tin to hold some more eyeshadows. So I got a pair of nail scissors and started digging...

The eyeshadows came out really easily (they were only glued onto some cardboard) and the tin ended up housing not only the Mariposa palette, but also the Sustainable palette, the Deluxe palette and the Rollergirl palette. Talk about saving space!

I also decided to depot my many Urban Decay eyeshadow singles (same method as Mac eyeshadows - I use my hair straightener to heat up the bottom of the pans) and Stardusts eyeshadow singles (they just pop out with very light force), as well as all my big Mac eyeshadows (Mega Metals, Jeanius and Tartan Tale). I ended up purchasing my first ever Z Palette and now I have 17 empties waiting to go back to Mac in exchange for some lipsticks (my no-buy doesn't extend to free stuff - crafty eh?). Wish you could also return the Urban Decay empties, it felt wrong to throw them out.

There were a few casulties as you will see in the pictures below, nothing serious, just scrapes and bruises (the eyeshadows, not me). I enjoy depotting, I usually do it while watching a film on telly to keep me entertained. I'm now seriously tempted to depot a few of my bulky Book of Shadows as well, although the first one and the Alice in Wonderland ones are so pretty, I don't want to touch them, but the other 3 I might just have a go at. Just need to get another palette or two to put them into.

Do you depot your eyeshadows? Do you take your Mac empties back for free lispticks? What palettes do you put them into?

See more pictures after the jump!

Update On My No-Buy

You might remember this post about me going on a lipstick, lipgloss and nail polish no-buy a month ago, so I thought I'd do a little update on how I've been getting on.

I'll start with the good bit. I have only bought 4 lipsticks over the last month and those were all on my wishlist, so that's all good. I have now reached my 400 limit, so now I have to be very strong and not buy any more. I can still buy 4 lipglosses until I reach my limit of 600, I have only bought the 3 Mac By Request ones lately. I've not been tempted by any, so hopefully I'll be able to resist beyond the 4 I'm allowed.

Now onto the bad bit. I am embarassed to say that I have totally and utterly failed when it comes to not buying nail polish. The bag in the picture above contains over 70 polishes and I bought most of them in the past month. This is now a serious addiction I have to address. I think the problem with nail polish is that there are always so many new colours, glitters, holos, it's very hard to resist, whereas once you have 10 red lipsticks, you're pretty much set.

So I have decided I really must stop buying them now. There are a few I absolutely must buy (Echanted Polish Magical Mystery Tour and I Am A Walrus for example), but after that I will write a wish list for every nail polish I see and think "ooh, I must have this" and then only allow myself a few (5?) every month. That way I really will only buy the ones I really really want and hopefully think twice about whether I actually need a certain shade.

For now I have on my wishlist: Color Club Halo Hues polishes (x6), Gift Of Sparkle, Fame And Fortune, Zoya Aurora, Blaze, Electra, OPI Polka.com (Spring 2013), Butter London Scuppered and Shambolic.

Wish me luck! I will update again in a month's time.

Is This Thing On?

Over the past few days I have not received one single comment on my posts, so I started to wonder: are my posts so boring that nobody is interested in commenting on them or is the comments function not working? So to find out I would like to ask you if you have a minute, would you please leave a comment below this post to see if the comments are working? If you can't leave a comment, please could you e-mail me at pleasureflush@yahoo.co.uk?

Otherwise, if it's the quality of my posts that's the reason why I'm not getting any comments, please feel free to let me know if there's anything you'd like me to do a post about and I will do my best to make the blog more interesting. Thank you!

I'm going on a no-buy!

Okay, first of all can I just say how much I hate the new Blogger layout? The older one was so much easier to use and I can see this is going to take me a lot of time to get used to. Meh.

Anyway I have decided that due to the number of products in my stash I have to go on a no-buy*. I have been addicted to buying make up all the time for the past 4 years or so and have accumulated a crazy amount. The worst areas are lipsticks, lipglosses and nail polish. I now have nearly 1000 lip products (over half of them are lipglosses) and over 500 nail polishes. There is just no way I can even make a dent in them let alone use most of them up in the next year or two. So I have decided it has to stop. (*I've just re-read my post and want to clarify that the no-buy only relates to lipsticks, lipglosses and nail polish, just in case you all think I'm going to give up buying make up altogether!)

I am going to allow myself 4 more lipsticks and 8 more lipglosses until I reach the magic 1000, and then I will stop buying them. I have given myself a very few exceptions, like limited edition Guerlain Rouge G lipsticks (I love those too much) and Mac Dazzleglasses, possibly Lip Gelees. Do you know what? It's actually been quite liberating to not be able to go out and buy lots of lipsticks, I've been carefully planning what to do with my last few remaining choices, and have only bought 3 lipsticks in the last 3 months. I still have one choice left after buying lipsticks from the Mac By Request collection and I don't know what it's going to be yet. It's almost exciting!

Nail polishes as well, I have bought so many over the past couple of years, it would take me 1.5 years to use them all if I painted my nails every day. Which I don't do. So let's make it 3 years, and that's only using them once each. Yes, it is that crazy.

So I guess what I'm saying here is that you won't be seeing many reviews on lipsticks and lipglosses in the future,  but on the other hand you will be seeing lots more nail polish posts and I will maybe continue with the "Swatching my stash" posts because that way I can also be reminded what lipsticks I already own and not be sad about not being able to buy a new one.

How long will the no-buy last, I don't know. Initially I'm thinking a year. Then we'll see. Right now even that sounds thoroughly scary, but I just have to be strong. I will no doubt continue to buy other type of make up, so that should help too. It's not like I actually need any more make up for a year (or ten!), but I can't go cold turkey. Make up is my hobby, my passion, so it would be like giving up a small part of me and that would certainly not be nice.

Right, enough waffling. Feel free to let me know in the comments if you've ever done a no-buy and how it went.

Quick Update

Firstly, sorry I disappeared for over a week, the reason for is that we went on holiday to Britanny. We had a lovely time, although the weather wasn't much better than here. We did see some lovely places including Le Mont Saint Michel (below).

Just wanted to say that I am finally back online and will be doing some proper posts starting tomorrow. I have gone a bit crazy lately and bought lots of new stuff, including 9 of the new Estee Lauder Gelee Powder eyeshadows, 4 Mac Electric Cool eyeshadows, tons of nail polish and lots more. So as and when I find some time to take pictures and do swatches, there will be plenty of new reviews.

In the meantime, check out my giveaway, you can win a lovely Anna Nova make up bag and other goodies! Click here to enter the giveaway.

(Almost) 600 Follower Giveaway

So I was going to do a 500 follower giveaway and then suddenly I realised that I now have 574 followers (at the time of typing this). So I thought, I'd call this giveaway (almost) 600 follower giveaway and hopefully by the end I will actually have 600 followers. This time I'm using Rafflecopter to save me verifying 100+ entries.

Here's what you can win:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And The Winner Is...

Many thanks to all of you who entered my 3 Year Anniversary Giveaway. Sorry it has taken me this long to annouce the winner, but I have been very busy (you have no idea how long it's been since I last wrote up a blogpost, thank goodness for scheduled posting is all I'm saying). Also, I had to go through 132 entries which did take a long time, but finally, I can announce the winner and she is...

Nóra 

Congratulations, I have e-mailed you, please let me have your postal address, so I can send you your goodies!

Those of you who didn't win this time, don't worry, there will be another giveaway coming up very shortly.

Giveaway Time! Help Celebrate Our 3rd Birthday! *CLOSED*

As you know, Pleasurefush has just turned 3, so I thought let's celebrate it with a giveaway! I have put together a bunch of products that I think you'll like.

One person will be chosen randomly and will win the products listed below:

• KIKO Long Lasting Stick Eyeshadow in #09 Nile Green *full size*
• The Body Shop Super Volume Mascara in #01 Black *full size*
• Nails Inc. Nail Polish in Emerald Street *full size*
• Max Factor Mac Effect Mini Nail Polish in Fantasy Fire *full size*
• Chanel Rouge Coco Shine Badge
• Chanel Chance Eau De Parfum 2 ml sample
• Marc Jacobs Oh, Lola! Eau De Parfum 1.2 ml sample
• Valentino Valentina Eau De Parfum 1.5 ml sample

To win the above goodies all you have to do is be a follower of my blog via GFC (new followers are very welcome) and post a comment below with your e-mail address. For up to 2 extra entries you can also follow me on Twitter and tweet about the giveaway (make sure you include me @Anitacska in your tweet) and/or post a link to the giveaway on your blog (make sure you let me know the link as I will be checking). You can do both or either for one extra entry each.

Remember, you MUST be a follower via GFC or none of your entries will count! You must also leave a comment below with your e-mail address to enter. The giveaway is open worldwide! The giveaway closes at midnight (UK time) on Saturday 14th July 2012. Good luck!

And The Winner Is...Me! My Very Own Personalised Estee Lauder Lipstick!

I'm sorry, I'm being all me, me, me right now, but I'm really chuffed about this, so wanted to share with you. A while ago I entered Estee Lauder's Facebook competition to win a personalised Pure Color Long Lasting Lipstick and it came just the other day. Wrapped up in white Estee Lauder tissue paper it arrived inside this cute blue pouch together with a sample of Advanced Night Repair.

I had a choice of three shades and went for Wildly Pink which is a bright pink shade with subtle shimmer.  The formula is lovely, it's very smooth and pigmented and feels comfortable on the lips. It lasts pretty well, for about 4 hours even with eating and drinking and it leaves a nice stain behind as it fades. It's not very moisturising, I did feel like reaching for a lip balm after about 3 hours, but it's not drying either. I like it a lot, all in all it's a really lovely lipstick. I also got my name engraved on the lid which makes it all very special. Thank you Estee Lauder!

See more pictures after the jump!

Happy 3rd Birthday Pleasureflush!

Yep, my blog has turned 3 today. Although I did neglect it for a while at the beginning, I have been regularly blogging for the last 2 years or so and really enjoying it. As I don't know other people "in real life" who love make up as much as I do, it's really lovely to have found so many on the internet who share my passion. I can't believe I have almost 500 followers and my blog is visited over 1,000 times every day. I'm really glad I can share my thoughts and love of make up with you lovely readers and thank you so much for coming back to my blog time after time.

I will be doing a big giveaway to celebrate my 3rd blog anniversary and reaching 500 followers (which will happen hopefully soon), just bear with me for a little while as it's always a busy time in my life with several birthdays and commitments in my "other" life.

For now, I'll just say thank you for following my blog and for all your kind comments over the past 3 years. It's the readers and the comments that make spending hours writing up posts worthwhile. 

What's In My Holiday Make Up Bag?

You might not have noticed (thank God (Blogger) for scheduled posts), but I went on a short holiday last week, and I thought I'd show you what make up I took with me. Now bearing in mind I was only away for 5 days and on day 1 I'd already done my make up, I'm thinking I might have taken a bit too much with me. Well, see for yourselves...

It doesn't look too much in the bag, but that's just the basics, I also took 5 Sleek palettes and my Mac highlighting palette with me. So yeah, too much, especially bearing in mind we spent 3 of the 5 days at the swimming pool, so those days I pretty much only wore waterproof mascara and lip balm.

Do you also take loads of make up with you when you go away or are you a minimalist? Let me know in the comments!

For details of what I took with me, keep reading after the jump!

Last Month I...

Following on last month's post idea here are the things I did / liked / loved / hated / finished / threw away / etc. in the month of March beauty wise. So here you go:

Last month I...

• finished 6 beauty products including a fragrance (The Body Shop Cherry Blossom perfume) which is especially great because I have put myself on a fragrance no-buy until I finish at least 5 fragrances since I have about 50 bottles on my cupboard and I need to get through them eventually. I didn't actually like the Body Shop Cherry Blossom perfume anymore, which is a shame especially as this was my second bottle because I initially loved it and I bought a back-up, but never mind, finally it is gone!
• having finished one I didn't like so much I gave some love to my all time favourite perfume, Paris by Yves Saint Laurent, in particular one of the limited edition springtime variations: Jardins Romantiques. I have loved Paris for so long now and I used to buy the limited edition springtime fragrances in the past, but they seemed to have stopped releasing them which is a shame. The bottle's massive though (125 ml), so it should last me through a couple of springs though. And just how pretty is it?

To find out what else I did last month, carry on reading after the jump!

Are You Missing Some Of Your Favourite Blogs?

On 1st March Google have disabled their Google Friend Connect service for those blogs that aren't on the Blogger platform. So since then you've not been able to follow those blogs with GFC and in your Dashboard. Charlotte at Lipglossiping has come up with a way of reuniting those blogs and their readers by creating a Twitter list. Please read the details below:

Here's the clickable link: http://twitter/lipglossiping.goodbye-gfc/members

PS. You can still follow Pleasureflush with GFC, for now anyway. 

Last Month I...

I've decided that instead of doing yet another boring post about the products I finished last month, I would do a bit of a different post this time. So I called it "Last Month I..." and I will share a few beauty related things that I did/bought/used/loved/hated, etc. over the past month.

So last month I...

• finished 8 products (not bad) out of which the most expensive one was my beloved Guerlain Meteorites Radiant Butterfly Voyage Powder. I bought this in 2008 and in fact this was one of my first ever Guerlain purchases. It was the gorgeous Midnight Butterfly collection of holiday 2008 that sucked me in completely, I bought almost everything from it, including this beauty. It cost around £100 in shops (although I paid quite a bit less on eBay), so it's one of the most expensive make up items I own. So it was actually a bit sad to finish it, but you won't be surprised to hear that I have a back up. Plus the gorgeous compact is refillable, so I can just pop a regular Voyage Powder refill in it. Just how pretty is this?

Keep reading to find out what else I did last month!