"Cute Kawaii Deco" Phone Cases and Accessories.

Hey guys! Sorry it's been such a long time since the last review. I've been super busy with moving house and working at my new job! However, I'm back with a review for you to feast your beautiful eyes upon. 

Background Information about the purchase

I came across Sarah (the lovely girl who runs the company) on Tumblr (I'll post links at the end of the review), after a picture she'd taken of herself appeared on my dashboard. I visited her blog and began talking to her. She was really friendly and we got to know one another a little bit. Then I realised she had a shop - and when I told her about my review blog, we decided to collaborate and do something to help one another's endeavours out! She asked me what sort of things I like, and she generously offered to make me three phone cases for free, for me to review! Elated - I agreed. A few weeks later, I received an email asking me for my home address, and the cases arrived safely, just a couple of days later via First Class post :). 

Review time!

Here's what the packaging looked like:

Appropriately labelled - just to make sure!

And this is what the box and soft packet held! The two bundles on the right in the bubble wrap were in the soft packaging. I had no idea what was in them, because the three bundles of the left were my phone cases! More on that later...

 These leaflets were also included! At first, I thought she'd sent me two of the same ones, but after a closer look - I realised they were different. The top one is particularly helpful because it gives you tips on how to keep your cases looking in tip top condition for as long as possible! The leaflets are really lovely, bright, and eye catching. They capture the nature of her store really well and the photos really don't do their prettiness much justice!

And now I'll show you the contents of the packaging! Including the "mystery bundles." Oooh!

All three cases are absolutely gorgeous and I'm so pleased with them. They literally look good enough to eat! 

I told Sarah that I love Rilakkuma, and so she came up with this. Her eye for detail and her ability to match things is impeccable. They're incredibly well made - and there's no doubt that she has an eye for creativity.

Again, I told Sarah that I love Pokemon - and she captured my love for Jigglypuff and Wigglytuff fantastically. They look like they just belong on this case. This case is the heaviest of the three and it does add some significant weight to the phone when it's on. So if you're looking for a fairly lightweight case - then perhaps the "whipped cream" designs aren't for you.

I think Sarah let her imagination run wild with this one. Due to her meeting me through my Tumblr blog - I think she took her inspiration from the content that I tend to post on that blog and turned it into a cute and creepy-based phone case. This case is the lightest of the three in terms of weight, and mainly consists of rhinestones. So this may be a case to consider if you're looking for something that doesn't weigh much relative to the other cases that Sarah offers.

Here's the undersides of the cases - just so you can get a feel for how they sit and what the actual plastic cases look like. 

And here's what the mystery bundles contained! I'm so pleased with these and they were such a lovely surprise. They're gorgeous, and I can't wait to wear them with my outfits! I really appreciate the generosity and thought that went into my packages! Thank you!

More detail:

I'd just like to say that I didn't take any pictures of my phone actually in the cases, because I thought that you wouldn't see anything that you haven't already. However, I'd like to reassure you that my phone does fit in the cases. 

Unfortunately though - the black one (the cute and creepy one) seems slightly ill-fitting. This meant that when I came to take my phone out of the case, I actually struggled to the point of damaging the case a little bit. Furthermore, I was really worried that I was going to scratch my phone during the process (but I didn't - phew)! It was a huge shame that this happened - but luckily, it's just a little crack in the case and you can't see it/tell. I also believe this to be beyond Sarah's control, as the actual cases themselves aren't made by her. I do wonder if perhaps her choice in base cases could be changed to something that's a little bit more consistent in terms of quality - just to reduce the chances of this happening with other customers.

The Rilakkuma and Pokemon cases actually fit really well, and they're very easy to put on and take off. I'm not sure if they're from a different supplier, or whether the black one is just a part of a bad batch - but I think that when I want to use the black one, I'll just have be a little bit more tactful when trying to take it off. So this is perhaps something to bare in mind if your case seems to be a little more "snug" than perhaps you'd like.

As for the designs, and decorations though - they're all absolutely fabulous and seem very well attached, expertly made and fantastically attractive. I'm astounded with how beautiful they are. Especially when in the flesh. The weight of the cases doesn't put me off either. In fact I prefer a slightly weightier case, because it makes it feel a little bit more sturdy. The textures of the two "whipped cream" designs offer a "non-slip" effect, which also feels a little reassuring. And the 3D effect that's achieved on all three of the cases also means that they're easy to hold. I'm also very confident that the different decorations are extremely secure, and with the right amount of care, I don't expect that I'll experience any decoration casualties in the near future. I believe this to be important because I'd be much less likely to use these cases on a daily basis if there was any evidence or doubt to suggest that they won't last for very long.

I'm incredibly grateful that Sarah made these cases for me - and they capture my tastes perfectly. I couldn't have asked for anything more. If you're looking for something quirky, cute and a little bit unusual - then these cases are definitely for you. 

To Conclude:

Sarah was wonderful to work with. Her communication was consistent and I found her to be very reliable. She offered a service that was effective, personal and informative. Her packages arrived quickly, and safely. I have absolutely no doubts in my mind as to whether I'd purchase any of her products in the future. Her prices seem completely reasonable based on the materials, time, effort, skill, imagination - and most importantly - the love that goes in to creating each and every one of her products. And, in an ideal world - I'd buy everything from her shop, because I simply adore it. Thank you so much, Sarah!

Efficiency: 10/10

Packaging: 10/10

Fit: 8/10 (ill fitting black case)

Quality: 8/10 (ill fitting black case)

Service:  10/10

Value: 10/10

Information: 10/10

Communication: 10/10

Imagination: 10/10

And here are Sarah's links:

Website: http://www.cutekawaiideco.com

Tumblr: http://ispysarahxo.tumblr.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cutekawaiishop

Email: sarahhh_xo@hotmail.co.uk

And of course - thank you so much for reading! <3. Have a magical day!

Lostkeys handmade garters by Shelley Busby.

Hooray! It hasn't been an eternity since posting last! How good is that!? And I now bring to you - the review!

Background information about the purchase.

As many of you will probably know - I have a Tumblr blog. On there I have met an array of interesting, quirky, fun and incredible people. One of which was Shelley (her URL is l0stkeys). We've been talking now for quite a few months and over those few months, I've really enjoyed getting to know her and being a part of her Tumblr blogging experience. So imagine my pure excitement and joy when she announced that she was going to start making handmade garters and wanted to send me one for free to review (normal prices range from £5 - £8)! Not only was I completely flattered, but I really wanted to help to do my bit to promote her store and get her the custom she deserves. Some of you might be sat there like "come on now, Lucy. Your review is obviously going to be biased if you're friends with her." However, let me assure you that I fully intend on reviewing this product as if it were any other - because ultimately, I wouldn't be fulfilling the purpose of why I started this blog in the first place! So, after a few text posts on Shelley's blog notifying me/other customers of the status of our orders, my product was sent out on Friday 7th June by second class post. I received it in the post on Monday the 10th June - safe and sound! :)

Review time!

The contents of the package (and the package itself) went like this:

 The packaging looked quite professional. 

 Oh look! A personalised message :)! A lot of you will probably have noticed by now that I love orders that come with personalised messages. It just highlights that someone has taken the time to think about the little details and that you're actually dealing with a person, rather than the package simply being conjured up out of nowhere and being sent to you without a second thought! 

Here's the lovely garter itself!

And there's the contents of the package.

So how does it look when on?

It fits nicely! Before starting to make my product, Shelley asked me for two measurements - the first being where you want the garter to sit on your leg, and the second being a measurement a little higher up on the bigger part of your thigh. 

And here's another picture! I decided to put a pair of tights underneath. The only thing with doing that though - is I found that the smoothness of the tights meant that the garter shifted around a little more than it did against my bare leg. So that might be something to consider when ordering your garter. If you intend on wearing it with tights more often than wearing it without - perhaps adjusting your measurements to make them marginally smaller might be a better course of action. Unless, you'll be wearing thick tights. In which case - that may not be necessary.

To conclude:

I really enjoyed this experience and I'm glad that I was picked to share it with Shelley. I think she has been very brave in starting something like this because I think people can often overlook the commitment, time, thought and effort that goes into operations such as these. Despite only just starting out though, Shelley has done a marvellous job and I'm very pleased with my product. I was very impressed with her attention to detail and willingness to include me in every step (with text posts informing me/her followers that she was making our products, packaging them, and sending them etc). It really added to the novelty of ordering online. The product arrived promptly and safely. And finally, the product itself is well made and very attractive.

Efficiency: 10/10

Packaging: 10/10

Comfort: 10/10

Quality: 10/10

Service:  10/10

Thank you so much to Shelley for allowing me to do this. I wish her all the very best with her online shop endeavour, and I'm really pleased I got to be a part of it.

Oh, and here are Shelley's links: 

Tumblr: http://l0stkeys.tumblr.com/

Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ShelleyBusby

And if you're going to order from Shelley off the back of this review - please let her and I know! I'd be over the moon to hear that my review had inspired people to make purchases! As usual, thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and of course - happy shopping! :).

Pinky Paradise Circle Lenses Review - Geo Princess Mimi Chocolate Brown-Bambi series (bit of a mouthful)!

Hello there! I must once again apologise for my lack of updates! Things have been rather manic here at home and so this blog fell down my list of priorities. However, I'm back now - and I'm armed with a review!

Background information about the purchase.

This purchase was purely for personal reasons. As you may (or may not have noticed), I have a fascination with the Asian - specifically Japanese - fashion scene. It always has appealed to my slightly obscure tastes and after doing a Google search and stumbling across Pinky Paradise - I thought that these lenses would be perfect for achieving the sort of look that I sometimes go for. There isn't much to say in terms of being in contact with the seller, because this is a fairly big website and doesn't fall under the category of "independent sellers" (for me at least). So, it was a fairly generic purchasing process. But it was still exciting nevertheless!

Review time!

So we start off - as usual - with the contents of the package!

As you can see - the bottom right insert is very well protected in nicely coloured foam. Usually that's all you'd get in your package - but I'm "affiliated" with Pinky Paradise and have my own coupon code (which I will tell you at the end of this review) whereby you quote it at the checkout and you get a free gift + animal case, which you can see on the left and top right of this picture! My free gift was hair velcro strips - so that you can keep your hair out of your face (very useful when you have a fringe) whilst doing your make up/putting lenses in/various other aspects to your beauty regime! 

Now for the lens part!

So with this being my first ever pair of contact lenses - (ever!) - I was very excited but also very intrigued... Upon opening the pink foamed package, I was presented with this:

Two tiny little glass vials. Now. I think it was at this point in my contact lens endeavour that I hopped onto the Pinky Paradise website to find out how to handle the situation. I figured that seeing (no pun intended) as these will be going into my eyes - a vital part of my anatomy - I wanted to make sure I got everything right so as not to do any damage to my eyes. Upon reading the website, I saw these instructions (which may be useful for you to take a look at as well). Click here for "wear and care instructions." They're very important if you ask me!

So, after making sure that everything was in perfect working order, and taking pictures as I went along...:

My prescription was set as 0.00 because my eyesight is "good." But they do a wide range of different prescriptions so you can wear these as normal contact lenses/an alternative to your glasses!

Making sure that everything was official, present and correct.

Checking that there was no damage to the lenses, and generally admiring them for their outstanding beauty!

...I finally got round to opening the vials (as instructed after washing my hands thoroughly) and putting them in my ready-prepared lens case with solution, so that I could leave them to soak for the recommended 8 hours. 

IMPORTANT: Now - unless you or someone else in your household wears contact lenses already - I strongly recommend that you go to your local pharmacy/beauty shop (such as Boots or Superdrug etc if you're from the UK) and buy yourself some contact lens solution. It's vital that you have some of this before you start opening your lenses because you can use your already purchased solution to clean out your contact lens case (you might want to buy one of those as well unless you enter a coupon code at the checkout) and to be able to soak your contact lenses in the fresh solution before wearing them.

One vial open and contact lens case is ready (after being cleaned with my contact lens solution).

Both vials opened, as instructed!

One lens in the case. Aww look at the hippo's!

Both lenses are now in the solution!

And now we wait 8 hours... I know that 8 hours is a long time and you REALLY REALLY want to wear your new lenses, but as the website wisely states, don't risk the health of your eyes, simply to satisfy your impatience! I whole-heartedly agree with this. Eyes are important and you want to be able to see the beauty that surrounds you (as well as your beautiful self when you look in the mirror)!

So, after a considerable amount of time, and many practices/days later - I finally got my lenses in!

As someone who's never worn contact lenses before - I found it really very difficult to get the lenses in at first. It took many days of practice and many watches of various Youtube videos. Ultimately you have to prepare yourself for not being able to get them in straight away, first time, if you're new to wearing lenses (unless you're lucky). Personally, my downfall was that I found it a very strange experience and it took a while to overcome the idea of approaching my eye with something foreign with the intent of putting it in my eye. I can't stress enough that you really do have to be patient. 

So, shall we see what they're like once in my eye?

So obviously the lens is in the eye on the left of this picture! 

This is my normal eye.

Eye with lens in.

How the lens looks in daylight.

I must add as well, that once I did get one lens in, it did feel slightly uncomfortable at first and my eye watered a lot. I'd compare it to getting an eyelash in your eye. However, after a minute or two - I couldn't even notice that there was anything there. The same was also true when I got the second lens in. After a few minutes, I'd completely forgotten I was wearing contact lenses at all. They were very comfortable.

And after even more perseverance and applying the technique that I'd found had worked for me on getting the first lens in - I got the second contact lens in!

So, pleased with myself for finally getting the lenses in, I decided to seize the moment and do my make up accordingly. I found that I looked a little bit unusual with the lenses in but no make up on. So I shall now upload pictures of the finished result! These pictures are completely unedited - so that you can get a real sense of how they actually looked.

So there you have it! Time to conclude.

To conclude: Despite being an obviously large company, and therefore not independent at all - I actually really enjoyed my experience when purchasing from Pinky Paradise - and I'll be sure to buy my contact lenses from them in the future. After a fairly extensive Google search and comparison of prices - I found that actually, Pinky Paradise was probably the more reasonable of the choices - as well as being a credible source of items. In total, I paid $29.90 for my product overall ($23.90 + $6.00 shipping) which comes to approximately £19.72. I thought that considering it was coming all the way from China - that was a fairly reasonable sum of money to pay. Next, there's no getting away from the fact that it was a fairly generic online-shopping experience - but I think in terms of purchases such as these, generic tends to be people's preferred option, because it seems "safer" and more professional. That can be something that's quite important to people when they're buying a product as delicate as this. 

Bearing in mind that at the time of purchase, it was Chinese New Year (which I got notified about which was really helpful) the overall review goes as follows:

Efficiency: 9/10 (Took quite a while to arrive)

Packaging: 10/10

Comfort: 9/10 (Can feel a bit weird)

Colour: 10/10

Enlargement: 10/10

Quality: 10/10

Service:  9/10 (Quite generic)
Value: 9/10
Availability of lens information: 10/10

So overall, I was very pleased with my Pink Paradise shopping experience! :)

And finally

If you think you might like to buy from Pinky Paradise, then you can find their online store here: Click

And I mentioned earlier that I was affiliated with Pinky Paradise. That means if you click on the banner below and quote the following code at the checkout (if you decide to buy something), then you'll be eligible for a free animal lens case and a free gift (which is what my lenses came with). 

Code: mermaidkawaii

And if you'd like to go directly to the product that I bought to have a look - then here's the link to that: Click

So now's time to say goodbye and thank you so much for sitting and reading this review - I really appreciate it! I know it's quite long but ultimately it's to try to help you in your various online-shopping trips! 

Have a lovely day/evening/night! Much love.