My First Blog Award

This is my first blog award and this is from Jiya of Confessions of a Shoppaholic fame. I'm really happy to have gotten this award from her. Jiya is a beautiful and stylish blogger. And her posts are always a delight to read. She truly is a shoppaholic and her hauls are always interesting. Head on over to her blog right now.

So, to accept this award, I have to

1. thank the person who gave you this award. Thank you so much, Jiya.

2. tell 7 facts about yourself.

3. pay it forward to 7 bloggers you adore and contact them to let them know they've been chosen.

So, 7 facts about me

1. I am an extremely clumsy person. I can literally trip on flat surfaces. And I can't remember the last time I got out of bed without hurting myself. Everytime I see a great pair of heels in a store and want to buy it, my mom jokes about having to hire someone just to keep me from falling flat on my face. 

2. I used to play rugby in school. And i'm not ashamed to say I loved being rough on the field.

3. I'm an engineering graduate and will soon be an employee of one of my dream companies. 

4. I have a mortal fear of public speaking. 

5. My mom is my best friend. I can tell her absolutely anything. 

6. I wear glasses all the time. I've been wearing them for 10 years now. I tried wearing contact lenses. But every time I buy a new pair, I lose them in about a week. 

7. I own over 400 books that I've been collecting since I was 13. 

If you want to know more about me, go here.

And the 7 bloggers I tag are:

Classy&Fabulous of Fashion Ph.D

Sandhya of 5 Wall

Deeptima of Beauty Unleashed With Deeptima

Bhumika of New Love

Poohkie of Poohkie's Place

Mehak of Peaches and Blush

Srishti of Style Fashion Etc

Thank you again for the award Jiya.

Online Shopping – I (CherryCulture, CoastalScents, ShopCraze)

I have been doing a lot of online shopping recently. And Anamika suggested I do a post on the sites I’ve been using. So, here goes.

1. CHERRYCULTURE.COM

This was the first online store I shopped from. I had heard so much about NYX that I really wanted to try it out. But the prices in India were so ridiculously high, I just couldn’t bring myself to do so. So, I checked a few online options, and came across this site. I’ve ordered from them twice now. And I’m really impressed.


Good:

1. Website Navigation is great. You can shop brand wise, category wise. It’s extremely easy to find what you want.

2. Apart from NYX, they have a whole lot of other brands available. I personally have shopped only NYX, Jordana and Wild n Crazy.

3. They have year long discounts running on almost all products. During holidays, they have additional discounts too. Recently, they had halloween & thanksgiving 20% off over existing discounts. Christmas is coming, so I’m sure they’ll have on for that too.

4. Returns policy (subject to terms and conditions).

5. Packaging is good. Each of the individual products were separately bubble wrapped and packed in a cardboard box.

6. They have a variety of shipping options.

7. Customer service is prompt.


Bad:

1. I find the shipping cost a little high. Especially when you buy nail colors and palettes, the shipping costs sky rocket.

2. The swatches on their site are definitely not reliable.

3. They took over a week to ship the order. Its annoying.

4. I wasn’t very satisfied with their direct credit card payment. They only asked for card no and validity. No CVV no. Cashiers at stores I visit could have that information. I trust only Paypal.


2. COASTAL SCENTS

I have ordered from Coastal Scents thrice now. One order never arrived. But they said they’d shipped it some 3 days after I placed my order. So, I think its mostly the fault of Indian Postal Service.


Good:

1. They have a decent collection of products. And the prices are pretty good too. The brushes are the cheapest I’ve seen and the quality is pretty good for the price.

2. Well packaged in bubble wrap and pink paper.

3. Delivery time was pretty good. It reached me in about 10-14 days.

4. They have links to other websites (only for certain products) which have actual swatches which is quite helpful.

5. They have some discount or the other at all times.

6. The customer service was prompt.

7. Shipping costs are pretty decent.

8. They give a free eyeshadow sample with every purchase.

9. Returns policy (for false or broken items)


Bad:

1. When I informed them about my missing package 20 days from payment, they just told me to wait for it and no other response. But its mostly the Indian post’s fault. But their site says that they will reship missing orders (if not received within 42 days). I just mailed them. Yet to hear from them. Will update when I hear back.

Overall, except for the missing package (not their fault), it was a good shopping experience. I’ve been dying to buy their new Eyelash Curler.

UPDATE: I just got a mail from Coastal Scents and they said that if my package doesn't arrive by Dec 6, they'll either reship or refund the item. Now, I don't how long they'll take for that. But this is the first time an online store has taken responsibility for a missing package. I'm really impressed.

3. SHOPCRAZE.COM


I’ve only ordered from them once. But I was quite satisfied. This was actually started by a YouTube makeup guru MakeupSquare.


GOOD:

1. The prices are the cheapest I’ve seen anywhere.

2. They have fixed shipping costs for specific price ranges. And the shipping costs are quite low.

3. They ship it out in about 2-3 days and delivery was quite fast. Reached me in a week.

4. Packaging is very good. Comes in a bubble wrap envelope wrapped in those foam packets.

5. Safe checkout through Paypal.


BAD:

1. They currently only have MAC pigment samples, NYX and TrueFace and LA Colors Nail Art products.

2. The site design is quite basic.

3. No returns policy.

4. They don’t have all the shades available for a given product.

5. Unreliable swatches.

I would personally have preferred ShopCraze over CherryCulture. But the lack of brands and shades makes me gravitate more towards CherryCulture.

Since this post is already getting too long, I’ll continue this in the next post. Hope this information helped.

NYX Slim Eye Pencil

I’ve always been more of a liquid liner person, the main reason being I’m a dud at applying pencil ones. I can never get a decent line, and if the pencil is not soft enough, all the tugging irritates my eye. Hence, for me liquid eyeliners have always been a safer bet.

But, I decided to experiment a little, and bought these NYX ones. And am I glad I did. These are the best eye pencils I’ve ever had.

So, here’s the review. And I’m going to keep it small.

Price: Rs. 100/ $1.99 (on cherryculture.com).
Buy in bulk here: http://stores.ebay.com/JOYs-cosmetics/slim-eye-pencil-/_i.html?_fsub=1160936016&_sid=91711236&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322. They have some amazing prices.
Also available at Hypercity and Empire Stores in Bangalore (Rs. 295/$6.50)





  

It doesn’t look as vibrant because I’m using it over the NYX jumbo pencil in iced mocha which kind of dilutes the color. But used over a matte base, looks as vibrant as in the swatch.


The Good:

1. Super pigmented. Applies without any effort. Glides like a dream.
   
2. Great price. Cheaper than so many of the other drugstore eye pencils.
   
3. Amazing range of colors. I think they have about 40 shades. And I love how vibrant the colors are.
   
4. Great staying power.  I’ve had it on the whole day with just a tiny amount of fading. But they’re quite creamy. So, I’m not sure how they’ll fare on oily lids. But nothing a primer can’t fix.
   
5. You can smudge it to create a smoky look.
   
6. It actually stays on my waterline. Something no other color eye pencil has ever done.

The Bad:

1. The size of the pencil is quite small. And since they are so creamy, you need to sharpen more often. But for the price, I think its hardly a complaint.
   
2. I don’t have a habit of rubbing my eyes. But if you do, its going to smudge like crazy.

 Final Verdict: I currently have it in Emarald City and Sapphire. I definitely want to buy more shades. I’m in love with these pencils.

Another Book Tag

I saw this tag at Ginger & Cardomom,  Weaving the Web and Someplace Else and I couldn’t resist, so I picked it up.

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
27. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
28. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
29. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
30. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
31. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
32. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
33. Emma -Jane Austen
34. Persuasion – Jane Austen
35. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis
36. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
37. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
38. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
39. Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
40. Animal Farm – George Orwell
41. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
42. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
44. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
45. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
46. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
47. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
48. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
49. Atonement – Ian McEwan
50. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
51. Dune – Frank Herbert
52. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
53. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
54. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth (I’ve been wanting to read this, but always skips my mind)
55. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
56. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
57. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
59. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
60. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
61. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
62. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
63. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
64. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
65. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
66. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
67. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
68. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
69. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
70. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
71. Dracula – Bram Stoker
72. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
73. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
74. Ulysses – James Joyce
75. The Inferno – Dante
76. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
77. Germinal – Emile Zola
78. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
79. Possession – AS Byatt
80. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
81. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
82. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
83. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
84. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
85. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
86. Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White
87. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
89. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
90. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
91. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
92. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
93. Watership Down – Richard Adams
94. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
95. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
96. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
97. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Score 23/100

For someone who prides herself on reading a lot, that’s a terrible score. I guess I have a lot of catching up to do.

Sony Ericsson Giveaway

The lovely Shreya of 'For the love of fashion and other things' is having a Sony Ericsson giveaway at her blog. Do check it out.