The Big Barry M London Bash!

So FINALLY I get to do a blog post! The last couple of weeks have been unbelievably busy! Normal service can now resume however - The Most Boring Essay In The World (TM) has now been handed in, work is settling down a bit and my social life has returned to its normal 'meh' level, (well till next weekend anyway, when I hit they dreaded big-30! Scream!)

So as I'm sure you have heard, Barry M invited a load of us bloggers down to Madame JoJo's - a burlesque club in London's Soho. I was fortunate enough to be on the same train as Kirsten (Better known as Sakia the Salsa Fairy!). Having a lovely catch up, made what would have been a long and dull journey, really enjoyable, and before I knew it we'd arrived at Euston!

At the station, we met up with some other lovely bloggers/you-tubers - Gemsmaquillage; OliviaCosmetics; VocalTest and Dolly Is Glitter - all of whom were just as lovely in real life as you'd imagine!

So finally, we arrived at Madame JoJo's. There I met up with Laura and Kelly again, as well as loads of other bloggers, such as Panda does Makeup, Sirvinya, Oxford Jasmine, Me Love Makeup, WSITN, FilthyGorgeousMakeup, DressJunkie, I would go out tonight... , and even Samantha Chapman from Pixiwoo! There were so many people there! (Sorry if I forgot to mention you - this would be the longest blog post ever otherwise!). The venue was fab and we were greeted by a healthy spread of cupcakes and sweeties - perfect! We were treated to some amazing perfomances by the fab drag artists there;
Then we had a couple of speeches to tell us all about the company and it's beginnings (this speech given by Barry M himself!). We were told all about the "M Club" which is going to be a new social networking sight combining facebook, video/photo uploads and tutorials, twitter, email - it looked and sounded like it was going to be great - like you tube but better and specifically focussed on makeup lovers! I am hoping that the launch of this will mean we can upload longer videos lol - I can finally start to do some tutorials then! I am not a fan of the 10 minute YT limit!

We also had a special sneak preview of the fab new Barry M advert, which has been on channel 4 a few times this week during "Hollyoaks". I think the ad represents the brand really well - you can watch it on you-tube here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAxtN5qjScM

One of the many highlights of the day for me was meeting Mister Barry M himself! Him and his son were there and made a point to say hello to everyone and make sure we were having a good time - they both seemed such lovely guys and were really friendly and approachable. It was lovely that they made such an effort to speak to everyone!

Myself and Kelly (Happy1234) with the lovely Mr Barry M.

The next part of the afternoon was the "Colour Chaos" contest - five pairs of models and makeup artists got to play with Barry M cosmetics to create a colourful bright look...

"Colour Chaos" in full swing! Models included Laura, Natalya and Natalia, MeLoveMakeup and Arlene(DressJunkie)

Samantha Chapman from Pixiwoo working her magic on Natalia, who looked fab!

The Winning Look - Apparently this will be appearing soon in an issue of "Now" magazine, so keep your eyes peeled for that one!

While all this was going on I was really chuffed to finally meet the lovely lady who writes BritishBeautyBlogger - she is a beauty journalist and we wrote guest blogspots for each other a few weeks back - she was just as lovely in real life as I hoped!

Before leaving the venue, we were all given another lovely treat by the company - a fab bag of goodies to try out;

The goody bag included a cute t-shirt, a makeup bag, a natural dazzle bronzer a mirror and a glitter "eye candy" set. We also got these little beauties; Nail polishes in Block Orange, Fuchsia, Mint Green (My heart skipped a little beat when I saw this one!), Bright Purple, and Acid Yellow (Summer toenail colour me thinks!). These are a welcome addition to my current nail paint collection!

Lip Paints in 144 (Cerise Pink - a lovely berry shade); 145 (Punky Pink - reminds me of MAC's Show Orchid!), and 146 (Dolly pink - a lovely bubblegum barbie pink shade, which puts me in mind of MAC Saint Germain), as well as glossy tube number four, a nude peach shade. I am looking forward to trying these, as I know the lip paints are great - 132 is one of my fave lipcolours and I love vibrant shades like these pinks. I've never tried the glossy tubes before, so I can't wait to try that!

We also got all these eye goodies - A green mascara, an intense black 3 in 1 mascara, which I can't wait to try after reading Kirsten's review -(http://saskiathesalsafairy.blogspot.com/2009/05/barry-m-3-in-1-intense-black-mascara.html) as it sounds fab! Also various liners including kohl, liquid and glitter... I also got fine glitter dusts in numbers 22 and 24, as well as Dazzle dusts in numbers 96 (a gorgeous yellow gold), 97 and 98 (an amazing color which reminds me of when you see oil stains and all the colours reflecting out of it... I hope you get what I mean lol!) as well as a special VIP colour made specially for the day (a blue and lilac one were made - I recieved the lilac).

After the event we headed to the MAC store in Covent Garden - I don't think they knew what hit them as about thirty people descended complete with pink goody bags! I decided to wait outside and get some fresh air as there was nothing I majorly wanted... we were planning to go to Selfridges after that, but by the time everyone finished their MAC hauling, I had to leave as I had arranged to meet my BF who happened to be in London at the same time doing some training for his shiny new job... I should have known to give the shopping more time lol!

I was really sad to say goodbye to everyone - there were loads of people I wanted to chat with but never got to speak to as there were just so many people there - I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did! If I did get to speak to you then hello again! If I didn't get to say hello, then I hope we get to meet again so I can say hello properly!

Thanks Barry M for a great day of colour, cupcakes and fun - it was a really fun day in a great venue and it was lovely to meet Barry M himself as well as his son, and so many lovely lovely bloggers and you-tubers. I really hope we all get to meet again , and next time, I'm definately going to speak to more people!

Violetta and CCO MAC Haul! Includes Swatches...

Hello everyone!

So I mentioned to a couple of people on twitter that I was thrilled yesterday to discover a CCO in Cheshire Oaks, which is a designer outlet place about a twenty minute drive away from where I live... I was very happy to see that they sold loads of past season limited edition stuff from prescripives, Estee Lauder, Bobbi Brown and MAC!


I honed in on the MAC and was really surprised to see Fafi eye palettes and beauty powders, Emanuel Ungaro eye shadows and CCB's and there were also a few bits from the Christmas collections. I was very good though (for once!) and I bought a few bits I thought I'd get the most use out of!



First up I got a spiced chocolate quad (I'm sorry, I have no idea what collection it was from, but I've heard a lot of people talking about it!). I have to admit that I doubt I would have paid full price for this, but I thought it would be a great everyday work palette - I love my brights, but they are not really suitable for work! This palette cost £19.86, which I thought was great value.

Top left - Nanogold (Lustre finish) - light and subtle - perfect for a highlight

Top right - Brash (Veluxe Pearl) - a lush warm copper brown

Bottom Left - Sweet Chestnut (Frost) - a really gorgeous reddish brown rich shade - this is the colour that attracted me to the palette!

Bottom Right - Spiced Chocolate (Matte) - I'm thinking crease/liner and maybe even brows?

So onto the swatches (Nano gold just refused to show up, but it is a very pretty pale sheen in real life...)

l. Spiced Chocolate, m. Brash, r. Sweet Chestnut...

The next product that caught my eye was a single shadow in the shade Submarine, which is a lovely bright blue frost finish shade... I have never actually bought a blue shadow before as I have a lingering fear of looking reminiscent of Pat Butcher (Notorious soap character famed for nasty blue shimmery eye shadow and naff earings from UK soap 'Eastenders'...), however, my recent makeover at the Body Shop event made me realise I can wear some (very carefully selected) shades of blue, and decided that I liked this one enough to give it a whirl lol... This cost me £6.85, which if memory serves me correctly is less than the price of a pro pan shadow!

I was SUPER CHUFFED to discover my next purchase lurking on the shelves - a mineralize eye shadow duo in "Fresh Green Mix" - I have seen this on the MAC website but I think it's an old LE colour and no longer available... This cost me £9.59 as opposed to the full price of £13.70!

As the swatches show, the solid colour comes out as a gorgeous golden chartreuse type of green, while the marble side is a lovely darker sage green - I am sooooo pleased with this!

I was then amazed when I was paying to see a big bowl full of discontinued pigments and glitters, which I hastily rooted through, and found a colour I've loved the sound of for a while - reflects blackened red, which is actually my first ever glitter from MAC. I am loving the sound of using this as a liner or layering over carbon to create some really dramatic looks... This was a total BARGAIN at £8.90!

And finally, by popular demand, here a couple of quick picks of me wearing "Violetta" a pro colour I picked up in London... It's an amplified creme finish lipstick by the way, and as expected is really well pigmented, and feels lovely and creamy on...

Excuse the ghostly palor and rough looking skin please too by the way - it's been a loooonnnng day!

A slightly happier look!

Let me know what you think!

Oh and if anyone else has the blackened red glitter pigment, and uses it for any other purposes, I'd love some more ideas!

Love MizzWorthy

xxx