Month: July 2020

eco-friendly, Feature, Giveaway, Haul, skincare

HoYo Botanicals haul + giveaway!

rhubarbandburble

Whilst promoting our blog, I was aware that I have a few friends who work in the creative industries. Amanda Muddimer has recently set up her own candle and skincare company called HoYo Botanicals. She makes and sells eco-friendly soy candles made with 100% natural soy wax, a range of olive soaps made with organic olive oil from the Qadisha Valley (UNESCO World Heritage Site) in the Lebanon, as well as a range of other goodies.

I asked Amanda if she would be happy for me to purchase some items in order to review them. She offered to gift me a hand salve instead, but the more I looked at her website, the more I realised her products were my vibe and the more I wanted! I ended up ordering a few items and she hand delivered them to me the following day, along with the promised hand salve plus a couple of extra soaps. (Thanks Manda!)

You can watch me reveal the haul on our first-ever ‘on camera’ YouTube video where there is a giveaway (UK only) which is free to enter. The rules are listed in the video description.

Click on the images from my haul below to enlarge.

  • Hand salve RRP £7.00
  • Hug-a-gram RRP £2.25
  • Lip balm RRP £4.00
  • Cotton scrubbies
    RRP from £4.95
  • Olive soap
    RRP from £2.50

The soy wax candles are presented in jute bags.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, HoYo means ‘hug’ in Japanese.

Please visit HoYo Botanicals to discover the whole range (there is currently a sale on!) and help support a North Devon business. I’m really looking forward to fully testing these products, so as yet I can’t give a full opinion on them, but they sure look and smell great!

[Disclaimer: HoYo Botanicals is not sponsoring this post or our related YouTube video and any opinions are my own.]

Louisa

By clicking submit, you agree to share your e-mail address with Rhubarb and Burble via MailChimp to receive marketing, updates, and other e-mails from Rhubarb and Burble. Use the unsubscribe link in those e-mails to opt out at any time.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.
Makeup

#EyeshadowPaletteTag

rhubarbandburble

Those of you who know me well will have realised that I love makeup! Since a teenager, I have always worn makeup, but I really caught the beauty bug a few years ago and have built up quite the collection, particularly eyeshadow palettes.

A current trend on YouTube is to allocate your eyeshadow palettes to certain categories and use the ‘EyeshadowPaletteTag’ hashtag. The trend (as far as I’m able to ascertain) started with a collaboration between YouTubers Samantha March and Allie Glines in May 2020.
I have been inspired to jump on the bandwagon!

You can watch our first YouTube video below!
I have swatched three colours from each palette on my arm so you can get a feel for the pigmentation and sparkle.

I will attempt to go into more detail about my palette choices here:

  • Newest – 24A artist pass by Morphe.
    This palette spoke to me because it is a palette which satisfies a lot of looks in one. It has neutrals, brights, neons and glitters. I had to buy it! It’s not too big and has a good-sized mirror.
  • Oldest – Cat eyes by Too Faced.
    I have decluttered all of my really old palettes, even my first ever Rimmel palette which my mum bought me for my 14th birthday! The cat eyes palette is the oldest I currently own. It was the first I purchased from this brand. I found it in TK Maxx at about a third of the original price! I love the leopard print tin and three of the shades can be applied wet which creates an intense eyeliner.
  • Most expensive – Born to run by Urban Decay.
    This is one of my favourite palettes. Although powdery, the shadows are extremely pigmented and a lot of looks can be created from the broad spectrum of mattes and shimmers. The packaging is luxurious and the travel theme is inspiring. The RRP for this palette is £43, but I managed to snag it online at TK Maxx for £29.99. Still nowhere near Natasha Denona prices, whose 15 pan pallettes can cost £110.00!
  • Most affordable – Re-loaded visionary by Revolution.
    Not much to say about this palette other than it only cost £5.00! I love purples and this was a bargain too good to miss!
  • Everyday – Chocolate bon bons by Too Faced.
    If you want a palette which isn’t overly pigmented to achieve a subtle look, then this one is great. The cute heart-shaped pans give it a twist and the palette smells of chocolate. The shimmers are soft and appropriate for daytime looks.
  • Most colourful – 24A artist pass by Morphe.
    The second spot for this palette. This is by far the brightest palette I own, particularly because of the neon shades. I’m not planning to go to any festivals, but you never know!

  • Smallest – Devil by STYLondon.
    This measures just 7.5cm2 and I received it in a ‘Glossybox’ subscription box. The shadows are very creamy and pigmented and are surprisingly good quality.
  • Biggest – Colour spectrum by Revolution.
    This measures 32.5cm x 26cm and dwarfs the James Charles palette which many YouTubers have selected as their biggest palette. There are 196 mattes and shimmers altogether and is a great fallback when struggling to find just the right shade!
  • Best memory – Sweet Peach by Too Faced.
    This is actually my favourite palette of all time, but because it’s not my favourite brand, it didn’t make the penultimate category. I have nothing bad to say about this pallet. The tin design is so cute and the palette has the most beautiful peach fragrance. It’s on my desk right next to me now. I can smell it as I type this. Hang on a minute… sniff, sniff, ahh, that’s so heavenly! It’s so well-used, that I’ve almost hit pan on a few shades. My favourite shade of all time, ‘Luscious’, is in this palette. It is a warm-toned, light-medium copper with a metallic finish. I use my finger to swipe it onto my eyelids and it is, quite literally, luscious!
  • Worth the hype – Naked honey by Urban Decay.
    Urban Decay have released several ‘naked’ palettes recently. I have cherry and honey. Honey is just perfect for everyday or evening wear. The shades are universally flattering and the formula is incredibly pigmented. When I realised they also brought out a mini palette, I had to grab it to increase the flexibility of the original palette. The double-ended brush, which is incuded, is incredibly high quality which makes packing on and blending shadows a breeze.
  • Not worth the hype – White chocolate bar by Too Faced.
    Unfortunately, Too Faced product quality is inconsistent. This one lured me in with the beautiful ‘lavender cake’ shade. The shadows are mostly light in tone and take some building up. There is, however, one stand out shade, ‘sugared raisin’, which is a silver metallic with a lilac undertone. Packaged in a hard wearing tin with their signature chocolate bar styling, it’s too cute to not keep!
  • Favourite palette from a favourite brand – 39S Such a gem – Morphe.
    This brand has recently become my new favourite. YouTube community dramas aside, Morphe have really upped their game. The shadows are creamy and rich and blend effortlessly. The shimmers are intense and the glitters add that extra sparkle needed for an ultra-glam look. As I said earlier, I love purples and this palette is devoted to them. They compliment my green eyes and there are a number of neutral browns to create the perfect transition or to deepen up the outer corner of the eyelid.
  • Most used – Sweet Peach by Too Faced.
    For the reasons I gave in the ‘Best memory’ category, this is my most used (and loved) palette.

If you want to buy any of these palettes, the links are in the video description. However, some of them are not available, unless you want to risk buying them from ebay!
(Beware, many palettes sold this way are copies and cheaply made in China with ingredients which may be toxic and/or cause iritation to the delicate eye area. Always buy from a reputable stockist.)

Which palettes do you own and which would you choose for the 13 categories? Please comment below and share your hidden gems with me.

Louisa

PLEASE JOIN OUR MAILING LIST –
You wouldn’t want to miss out on any content!

By clicking submit, you agree to share your e-mail address with Rhubarb and Burble via MailChimp to receive marketing, updates, and other e-mails from Rhubarb and Burble. Use the unsubscribe link in those e-mails to opt out at any time.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

If you fancy setting up your own wordpress.com blog, use this referral link and we can both earn credits.

Opinion

Clickbait suckered me in…

rhubarbandburble
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Scrolling through Facebook the other day, I noticed a friend had shared a quiz entitled: “Only people with IQ range 140-149 know the meaning of these 17 words.” And yes, like a schmuck, I clicked. Like a fish lured by the sight of a fat, juicy lugworm, I bit.

Needless to say, the quiz was childishly simple and I aced it. However, my smug satisfaction at proving my erudition lasted for about as long as a snowball survives in a blast furnace. I’d fallen for the old clickbait ploy. They had coaxed me in with flattery, with the chance to stroke and massage my frail ego and now they had me. As they used to say in the old-time detective stories: “They’d played me for a sap!”

Of course the quiz was simple! Of course I could kid myself that I could prove my genius with a few easy questions that wouldn’t make the grade in the Reader’s Digest’s “It Pays to Improve Your Word Power” column. Now they had me. They’d bombarded me with advertisements and the cookies were lodged in my phone. Job done!

All this goes to prove that as much as we might like to imagine we’re immune to clickbait, we all have our weak spots.
I detest clickbait. I abhor its obviousness, its transparency. Do any of these phrases have a ring of familiarity?:

  • …you won’t believe what happens next.
  • 17 secrets [xxxxx] don’t want you to know
  • [xxxxx] Companies/Professionals hate this trick
  • How one woman made £££ in her bedroom
  • The 15 fakest/worst/most terrifying…
  • Lose 15 kg in 3 months with this natural product
  • The hot new [xxxxx] everyone is talking about
  • 20 Signs You’re actually a [xxxxx]

Just to run through this list:

  • I will believe it but I won’t care.
  • They’re not secrets and nobody gives a stuff if you know them.
  • Ditto Companies/Professionals
  • If anyone, ever made more than loose change doing this probably phoney thing, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. (As far as I know, only one kind of woman makes £££ in her bedroom!!!)
  • Says you…
  • Ooh! It says natural, it must be good! (I would add that wasp stings, gum boils and snot are also quite natural)
  • It may be hot. It may be new but nobody is talking about it.
  • Or, 20 piles of piffle we dreamt up during a fag break.

Have you ever clicked on something you were told would “amaze you” or “change the way you see the World” or “restore your faith in humanity” (always presuming you had lost it to begin with) to find that the pretty mundane content did none of the above? Then yes, you, like me, have been suckered in by clickbait.

“Here’s ten things you never knew about toenail clippings. (number 8 will amaze you!!)”

“Here’s what the kid from a 1980s soap powder commercial looks like now!” (Basically, a middle-aged version of themselves!)

As a footnote, people on YouTube are always “owning” or “schooling” other people by offering a slightly different opinion to them, as if they’d skewered them with a sort of verbal harpoon!

However, whilst I wish I could say I never fall for clickbait, actually it turns out that I’m just as likely as anyone to be inveigled by all the sweeties and shiny things the Internet has to offer.

Anyway, I must wrap up there. It seems that single women in my vicinity are just itching to meet me!

Keith

By clicking submit, you agree to share your e-mail address with Rhubarb and Burble via MailChimp to receive marketing, updates, and other e-mails from Rhubarb and Burble. Use the unsubscribe link in those e-mails to opt out at any time.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

If you fancy setting up your own wordpress.com blog, use this referral link and we can both earn credits.

Comedy

Flushed grollings: the amusingly befuddling world of spare parts

rhubarbandburble
Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com

Comedians Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie gifted the world a plethora of amusing terms for fictional spare parts and tools in their hardware store sketch. Frotting pencils, parping couplets, cock-grip shafting sleeves and bevelled spill-trunions, to name but a few of their handyman essentials, have worked their way into the vernacular in our house!

Although the words used in the sketch sound extreme, they are not so ridiculous, it seems. Just the other day, my tumble dryer was squeaking and the technician who came to repair it reeled off a list of required part names.

I can only now remember the term ‘jockey wheel’ being uttered. I tried to look like I knew what he was talking about, although inside, I was losing it!

Ultimately, this made me curious as to how many more amusing, real spare part names I could find.

I failed to identify a comprehensive list of funny names so I had to search through several websites to find some which related to cars and other machines. I also came across a list of tools with questionable names.

So here it is, my list of 20 amusingly named, and equally befuddling, spare parts and tools:

Photo by Shane Aldendorff on Pexels.com
  • Actuator rod
  • Bastard file
  • Cat’s paw
  • Crank pin
  • Crimping wheel
  • Gripper plug
  • Idler gear stud
  • Jacking screw
  • Lap lubricator bracket
  • Lenker rod
  • Lug bolt/nut
  • Macaroni tool
  • Mortar hawk
  • Muffler
  • Pinion shaft
  • Plugging chisel
  • Scrub plane
  • Spindle knob
  • Spud wrench
  • Worm wheel

So tell me honestly, for how many of these did you know their precise purpose? How many made you smirk? Did I miss any?

Louisa

By clicking submit, you agree to share your e-mail address with Rhubarb and Burble via MailChimp to receive marketing, updates, and other e-mails from Rhubarb and Burble. Use the unsubscribe link in those e-mails to opt out at any time.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

If you fancy setting up your own wordpress.com blog, use this referral link and we can both earn credits.

Blogging, New

We suppose we must start somewhere…

rhubarbandburble
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

The time has come for us to strike out with a new venture. Blogging has been something Louisa has had a stab at in the past, but with minimal effort and not much in the way of reach beyond friends and family.

Why now?

  • The Covid-19 crisis has given us a new perspective on our life. We run a childcare business which had to temporarily close, and income, well, you can probably guess the rest!
  • Louisa is a local councillor and happily helps the residents in her ward for a small allowance. However, she finds herself putting her hand up for jobs, e.g. within her political party, which takes up hours of her time for, yes you guessed it, no financial recompense!
  • Louisa watches a lot of YouTube videos on channels about makeup, skincare, house decor, DIY… the list goes on. She reads a lot of online articles about the same and realises that all of these content creators started somewhere.
  • Keith is an experienced journalist and video editor with many years of experience working for a major television broadcaster. His skills can be utilised to create professionally edited and well-lit productions for our YouTube channel.
  • Neither of us are getting any younger! In fact, we are around 50 years old (shhh!). We don’t want to regret not trying!

So here we are, ready to cultivate something which we can grow into a worthwhile career.

What do you want to see?
Here are some vague ideas we’ve had…

  • Beauty products that flatter mature women
  • Weight loss journey
  • Personal history, e,g, how Louisa developed Bell’s Palsy and how she lives with a facial disfigurement
  • Arts and crafts makes for children and adults
  • Organising and decluttering
  • Cooking and baking
  • Environmentally friendly living
  • Disability awareness
  • How to create digital content
  • Stationery, journaling and designing
  • Styling and interior decor
  • Self care and living your best life
  • Random content, e.g. funny stories, creative writing

We want to improve our creative skills, not just in writing but also by creating great visual content. We want to finally face our fear of filming our first YouTube video. Between us, we can do this!

So forgive our ramblings and let’s get this show on the road. Will you comment if you are here for us? Please let us know if there is any content which you would be interested in. We would very much appreciate it if you supported us on our journey to creative success!

Louisa and Keith

By clicking submit, you agree to share your e-mail address with Rhubarb and Burble via MailChimp to receive marketing, updates, and other e-mails from Rhubarb and Burble. Use the unsubscribe link in those e-mails to opt out at any time.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

If you fancy setting up your own wordpress.com blog, use this referral link and we can both earn credits.