An open letter to all indie sellers who aren't GlitterSniffer Cosmetics

I was visiting the Glittersniffer Complaints Facebook page today when an exchange unfolded that had me almost literally headdesking. I'm posting it in sections, because my laptop monitor is teeny weeny and the relevant comments were a bit lower down.

It went on, and is probably still going, but I honestly didn't want to read any more. It has become infinitely clear to me that a lot of people don't actually care what goes into the things that they buy, use or even eat. Apparently, customer service is also a negligible part of buying, too!

I don't know about you, but I like to know a bit about companies that I buy from, especially online. I want to make sure that not only am I getting quality product, but that I am supporting good business practices. I dislike the idea of A) throwing my money away, or B) enabling somebody to continue ripping people off, lying to and harming people. Even if I've never had a bad reaction to a seller's products, or had bad CS, or a 'missing' parcel... I want to know about it. I want to ensure I'm encouraging good business practising with my spending habits - the only really effective way to do so, in some cases. Ignoring other people's bad experiences is short-sighted, and in my opinion, incredibly selfish.

In light of this, I wanted to write an open letter of gratitude to all of the honest, genuine, hard-working indie companies out there - more than I could name in this post, as I haven't tried them all yet.

Dear companies:

Thankyou for observing FDA regulations, for always being upfront about your ingredients and giving options to those people who are allergic to common ingredients like talc and bismuth, or those who don't want to use beeswax and carmine.

Thankyou for knowing WHAT is in your products and WHY. Thankyou for all your research and experiments and hard work in making the best and most unique products you can.

Thankyou for wearing gloves, sterilising your instruments and packaging your products carefully.

Thankyou for shipping things on time, and for updating ALL your customers when you can't because of extenuating circumstances.

Thankyou for listening to your customers - combining orders, making new products, altering old ones, making custom listings, giving advice, changing the way you do samples.

Thankyou for taking criticism gracefully and using it to help improve your company, rather than taking it personally and reacting badly.

Thankyou for combining your creativity, vision and skill with sound business sense, ethical practises and a solid understanding of what makes good customer service.

Thankyou for replying to emails, convos, tweets and making us feel like we are important to you.

Thankyou, above all, for being trustworthy.

*    *    *

I'm also going to plug the Sparkledex again. Blogging  has become a vital part of the online community - no matter whether you're buying make-up, bath stuff, embroidered pencil cases or silicone phone cases. You're almost always stepping into the unknown, buying a product you've never seen in person from a complete stranger over the internet. Blogging helps take away that uncertainty, and give you a better idea of what you're getting yourself into. Unfortunately, most bloggers don't have unlimited income or time with which to blaze the trail constantly.

The Sparkledex will allow us to pool our resources when it comes to the indie MMU and B&B sphere. We can collect material, pointing the way to places where potential customers can get the information they need, to make a decision they are happy with. If you've recently reviewed a company, go add your review to their page! Or if they don't yet have a page, make one. Many hands make light work, and a full Sparkledex is a happy and useful Sparkledex (many thanks to VijiiS who edits like a boss and has made all the current Company pages look amazing).

Also I want to shout out to Frances, who runs the GlitterSniffer Complaints blog and Facebook. She is a patient, determined soul who really stood up for all of the GlitterSniffer casualties. It look like (I have my fingers very tightly crossed) that there's some real progress going on there, and that there might at least be some resolution for those who got caught in the mess, if not restitution for everyone who was affected. Please know that for every person still blindly following Lela and supporting GlitterSniffer, there are dozens more who support and sympathise with you.

A bit royal: EOTD/NOTD

A while ago I did a swap with a lovely lady I've been chatting to on Twitter for a while - I'd link you to her blog but she's between, er, topics? Anyway, I wanted to get some fullsize Meow Cosmetics shadows without paying their (frankly exhorbitant) international shipping fees. In return I provided some Aussie bits and pieces. No Vegemite, I wanted her to still talk to me afterwards!

I painted my nails with China Glaze Passion, a new acquisition. Unfortunately the end result was very streaky. I layered some gold-and-pastel glitter over the top to try and disguise it a bit:

I don't really like it, but honestly I don't use/wear gold very often, so I decided to leave it on for a while and  made the most of my Midas-y theme by using Ra, and a bit of purple (Sassy Minerals Cocktail Party in the crease/upper lid, and Neverending on the lower lashline. Nyx Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk is on my waterline. Cocktail Party turned up quite mauve-y in the photos, it's more of a sheer, shimmery pinky-purple in real life).

This is without PE, folks. Just TFSI. Ra is liquid gold in shadow form. I know everyone raves about Goldilux from Sugarpill, but I probably won't ever buy it because to me, Ra is sheer perfection. It's not glittery or shimmery at all, just a smooth, gleaming metallic. It's ridiculously beautiful, and shows up on my medium olive skin, which is great. A lot of yellows and golds just sort of disappear on me. Not this baby.

I realised I didn't have any gold and purple earrings, so I dismantled a bracelet I hadn't ever worn, and made these really quickly before running off to uni:

I have six of the crackle beads left, so I could either make a bracelet with some gold chain between the beads, or I could use more wires to make a wide/long pendant. We shall see!

I ain't doing this for kicks

Lately it seems I've written about a million cover letters. I won't deny the practise has been helpful, but lordy is it depressing! For every application I send, for every half an hour I spend agonising over word choices, I am getting nothing back.

I've heard a lot of people say that Australian employers are by far the worst for getting back to you. I've never tried to get work outside of Aus, but I'm inclined to agree with that assessment. If you don't want to hire me, FINE! Just bloody well let me know! I'm not going to sneak in during the middle of the night and vandalise your shop!

It especially gets me when I drop my resume off at a shop in the city that I walk past often. No emails, no phone calls, and nearly a month later they still have their 'staff wanted' sign up. Doesn't do much for a girl's self-esteem. I've heard back from maybe one out of four places I applied to, and it's all been "Blah blah thankyou for your application we found someone with more experience".

Picture snitched from here.

I pretty much am doing the assistant manager's position at my current job, because we don't HAVE one, and one of the 'co-managers' has been away. I've done rosters, customer orders, banking, returns, opened and closed the store, and tracked the budget. I'm not getting paid extra for it but I don't care. It needs to be done and I'm here pretty often so I just do it. However when I get back to uni, because of our weird shop schedule and overabundance of casuals, I'll be getting 6 hours of work a week. Yup. SIX. HOURS.

Hence why I am looking for another position. New or second job, I'm not fussy. Except that I've been looking since about November.

I have a lot more availability this semester than I did last semester. A lot of places are looking for full-time staff but even more are looking for casuals. I have a ton of experience in a wide range of fields. I learn fast, I'm easy to work with and I'm great with customers. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong! I want to be able to save money while I'm at uni, not just scrape by.

Writing endless cover letters and worrying about money isn't fun. It's sapping my creative energy, hence why I haven't been blogging much. I haven't done any writing for myself lately either, despite having some really great feedback from a magazine.

I've got about a week and a half til I go back to uni, so I'm applying for things left right and center, and trying to muster inspiration to get things started and finished before I get bogged down with studying and assignments. I have been thinking about (thinking about thinking about :P) opening a jewellery shop on Etsy - simple and slightly geeky items, but I don't know if I have the stamina for such an extended creative project! I also don't have the equipment or expertise to do anything beyond beading. I know that some of the stuff I have come up with is really quite pretty and marketable:

The first and last necklaces also have matching earrings. Some of the pieces I can fairly easily re-create... but some of them are really 'one-off' designs that were made out of vintage beads or just took really long to make. I've been working on a gorgeous tiered safety-pin necklace for months now, it keeps falling apart on me! I'm thinking it may need to be soldered. Clamping them works fine for the earrings as there's no strain on them, but the weight of what I want to make usually ends up being too much for a necklace and it just falls to pieces on the third or fourth wear.

I also don't want to just make random junk-y things, I wanted it all to be 'discreet geek': inspired by books, games and TV shows. I don't know if I'm going to be able to come up with enough designs to merit a whole shop... I get inspired by beads, by jewellery and by plain ol' necessity. Most of the pieces in those photos were created because I didn't have a piece with a certain colour scheme, I acquired a piece of jewellery that didn't quite work for me so I altered it, or I saw the beads and just HAD to make something with them. This inspiration process can take anywhere from a day to years.

 I have had these beautiful blue marbled beads for months and still haven't been able to decide what to do with them.

I guess I'm still in a state of indecision, where I'm waiting for things to happen (i.e, uni to start so I know how busy I'll be, and to hear back from some jobs) so that I can figure out what my next move should be.

Same old eyes and nails

I wasn't going to do any sort of New Years' post - I didn't take any pictures of my night, or make any resolutions, but I'm still wearing and loving my manicure 4 days later so I thought I'd share!

New years' nails:

Mode Party Girl under Mode Glitterati under China Glaze Wireless.

Then because I'm a matchy-matchy freakazoid, I dismissed the 20+ purple eyeshadows I own, and mixed up another super-glittery one to go with the polish:

I don't remember exactly what I used, but there's definitely TKB Grape Pop and Fyrinnae's Immortality in there. I think I threw in another purple, and then some red and blue to brighten it up. Excuse the weird lighting - in reality it's a dead match to the deep purple of the polish combo :)

Anybody else not bothered with resolutions? There's lots of stuff I want to do this year, but I just feel like making the new year all about "OMG I WILL DO MORE STUFF" just creates unnecessary pressure. You can't magically break - or make- a habit just because it's January again. Take it one step at a time! It's easier and far more realistic.

Madeit

On my quest for indie prettiness, and supporting local artists, I discovered Madeit. It basically amounts to an Australian version of Etsy, which I think is fantastic. Obviously, it's a bit smaller than Etsy, being exclusively Aussie. I do recognise a few sellers from there, mainly being Rhasalda who's bath stuff I've been umming and ahhing over for a while, especially her Barista soap (that's the Madeit link, here's an Etsy one). There is just as much skill, passion and creativity to be seen on Madeit. There's loads of stuff want, and loads of sellers I admire on Etsy, but I'm definitely interested in purchasing from Madeit. It's faster, the prices are a bit better, and I love the idea of supporting Australian artisans and creators. When I finally actually purchase something from there, I will be making an in-detail comparison of the two websites, and reviewing whatever product I get. I think it's a great and little-known resource, both for artists and artisans, and for those who like to shop indie.

On a related note, Etsy have started showing prices in Australian dollars! Woo! It's based on, as far as I can tell, the same tech that eBay uses, meaning it's loosely based on as much of the current exchange rate data as they can grab online while you browse. It's not always 100% accurate, but it's damn handy.

What I am most interested in - besides the Aussie exclusivity, which means faster and cheaper shipping for me - is the standard and enforcing of the 'handmade-only' clause. I have seen and heard a lot on Etsy about the seeming laxity of their standards. This means that it's really easy for make-up repackers, poor quality (to the point of being unusable) items, and things that are obviously not handmade or vintage. I'm hoping Madeit might be better.

On an unrelated note... I emailed off my first submissions to a magazine last night!!! Very exciting :)

I made stuff part 2

The other day when I sat down at my dressing table, it suddenly occured to be that I now own several packets of TKB pigments, a bunch of empty jars, and a load of samples that I don't really like that I hadn't been able to give away.

Madness ensued.

I have only very basic knowledge of colour theory, so I Googled up a colour wheel to refer to, and found this fantastic art resource. It's meant to be used to mix paint and raw art pigments, but for basic "this is what happens when you mix these colours together", it was perfect. I was totally unhygenic, but since they're only for me I don't think it's a big deal. I literally used this tiny teaspoon to scoop shadows (wiping it off between jars), and mixed things by closing the jar tightly and shaking/rolling it until the pigments were blended. I made quite a mess but it was SO much fun.

I had a few ideas for shadows I wanted to try and make, and a rough idea of how it might be done. I ended up doing a few things that seemed a bit strange since the last time I did art it involved finger-painting. However, I did manage to make some really gorgeous shadows. All of these swatches done over PE.

This is a soft, dusty green with violet interference.

A brighter, shimmery green, I didn't realise until I was swatching is actually pretty darn similar to Sassy Minerals' False Pretenses. My mix is a bit more of a lighter, yellower green, and it looks very different in the jar.

A bright sky blue with pink-y shimmer. I'm pretty sure I used AL Rocks! Planetearth in this which accounts for the pink glittery bits.

A peachy orange-coral-pink with green highlight. This was a beautiful colour, but a great example of "don't believe everything you read on the internet" - I found something that told me to add yellow to purple to darken it, and filled with over-confidence, I did so. To my dismay, the almost-perfect dupe of Dulcinea I'd been working on was now a nearly-white mess. I tried re-purpling and darkening it, but it just didn't want to cooperate. This was the end result! It was really hard to photograph on my skin as it is a very sublte, pretty colour. Not something I would have bought for myself if I'd seen in on a site somewhere, but I do like it.

This is, to my untrained eye, an exact dupe of Aromaleigh's Serenade, from the En Pointe collection. I was amazed at how well this turned out. I had a rapidly dwindling sample of this shade, and I was really sad because I was (almost literally) broke when they announced that they were closing. This was the one shade I have been wanting desperately for a while, and I now have the equivalent of 3/4 of an Aromaleigh full size of it. That's my dupe on the left, and the actual sample of the shade on the right. After swatching it, I poured the sample into the dupe jar. They blended seamlessly, I didn't even have to shake the jar or anything. Also, can I stress how much more amazing this shadow is in real life? The pictures dulled the teal and don't show the rich violet iridescence. I have a feeling I'll be wearing this a lot, so I wrote down my 'recipe' in case I ever needed to make more.

A divine soft dirty mauve-plum with blue sparkle and sheen. I really, really wish I'd written this one down, it's absolutely gorgeous. Amazing complexity. I could see Sassy coming out with a shade like this, who knows, they might have it already!

Bright orange with a hint of pink sheen, which would not show up on-camera! I can't for the life of me remember what I was actually trying to make. I can't see myself wearing this too often. It's very... different!

My first ever two mixes were a navy blue and a metallic, gold-y taupe with silver glitter (these I swatched dry because my camera was running low on battery):

I mixed these ages ago, and as you can tell by how much is in the jar, a LOT of various bits and pieces went into making them (especially in the taupe-y metallic one, I think there's about 7 different products in there!)

This is a great use of those eyeshadow samples you opened, tried and then went "eh". I get a lot of these. Most of them I pass onto friends who I know would like them, and the rest get experimented with. It's loads of fun :)

Lately

Unfortunately I haven't had time to write ANY of the blog posts I've been meaning to, so I thought I'd tell you what I've been doing instead:

• Reading Graceling by Kristin Cashore. Now, my general reading habits include reading all new books twice, so I can get a proper feel of the characters and an understanding of the plot. I haven't done a second reading of Graceling yet, but I'd have to say I sort of agree with my boyfriend's summation of it (I borrow it off him): the story ends before the book does. It's a little... odd. It kind of sets itself up for a sequel, but at the same time it... doesn't.

• Reading Changes by Jim Butcher. Oh em gee, cliffhanger/weirdness at the end of THAT book. I somewhat freaked out because I saw this comic before I read the book. Fortunately, a friend of mine had already bought it, so I didn't have to spend loads of money on express post to get it through eBay. It has probably the most twists in any one book of the Dresden files series. I'm really anxious for the next book, I've no idea where Jim's taking Harry after this!

• Buying and wearing lots of Mode Cosmetics Nail Enamel. I picked up a bottle of this stuff in a local hair/beauty store, not expecting much as it was only $2.45 (that's Australian dollars). I got Party Crasher, which is a beautiful medium purple colour, and WOW. The stuff went on beautifully (they have a long, skinny brush which surprised me, but I quickly got used to it), dried so fast and was totally perfect in two coats. Then it lasted FIVE DAYS. This is five days of work and uni, carrying lots of stuff, doing dishes and typing and other handsy things. It didn't chip. By day five there was a teeny bit of tip-wear; I actually only removed the polish because I wanted to put some red on for a party I was going to. After a fantastic experience with ridiculously cheap polish, (and becoming addicted to Vibrant Point of View's blog which is doing a spotlight on Mode) I went out and bought a whole heap more: Party Girl (shimmery jungle green), Totally Hot (a light, bright red), Diamante (a greeny-gold glitter), So Parisian (white), High Fashion (a shimmery navy-blue), Blackjack (black, duh), Ooh Baby (a soft, peachy-pastel pink) and VIP (a creamy gray). They are better-wearing and faster drying than my $12 Bloom nail polishes! Oh and P.S. - Vibrant Point of View is having a give-away of Mode nail enamels, just head on over to her blog, become a follwer and send her an e-mail if you want to enter!)

• Embarking on a 'get-fit' trip. If I try to tell myself I'm 'going to' do excercise for a certain time, at a certain time every day, it doesn't work. So I've been grabbing it where I can for the last three days - jogging/power-walking around the city on Saturday running errands, ten minutes on the cross-trainer at home on Sunday evening, and today (Monday) I decided to walk the half-hour to the train station instead of waiting for my bus. My shoulders are a little sore from all my books, but apart from that I'm feeling pretty good.  

• Searching for my crimp beads. I have two gorgeous glass spiral beads (I should try and photograph them, they're really gorgeous) and I found my black plastic-coated beading wire. I really want to make a necklace but I've misplaced my crimp beads which are necessary for this kind of project! I think this  is a sign that I need to re-organise my jewelry supplies... I just did my make-up after I got my nice-sized order from Fyrinnae :)  

• Raiding the university library for Emily Dickinson-related books. I'm doing an essay on her. If you haven't read any of her poetry, I reccommend it. She's quite unique, both in writing style and her imagery. My (current) favourite poem by her is "I'm Nobody". Rather, that's what it starts with, she didn't give any of her poems titles. They were numbered in rough chronological order when they were published posthumously. Also, be careful of which edition you are reading - the first publication was very heavily editied to fit with the popular poetic conventions of the time, and isn't the 'true' Dickinson spirit.

My Concrete Minerals Electric Eye Primer review is coming up soon. I wanted to take 'beginning-of-the-day' and 'end-of-the-day' pictures to show it worked as well, but I'm having trouble finding time to do that. Just means that when I do finally get around to it, I'll have made up my mind very definitely on whether or not I like it!