On Monday morning, having reached 50,000 likes on Facebook over the weekend, MUA posted an offer of 50% off their products (make-up case excluded) and free P&P with the code MUA50. (This code is live until Thursday evening, so if you see this before then, go and treat yourself). With so much traffic, the website slowed, crashed, ran out of lots of stock despite assurances, and generally was far from ideal. However, the onslaught of Facebook going beyond an objective report of justified disappointment and into the rude or categories were unreal: lots of people seem to forget that it's real people reading their posts on the other end, not just a faceless company. People, that no doubt have been working earnestly and frantically to get things done, with little support at all were being subjected to hundreds of horrible comments. I never jumped on that bandwagon when there were issues in the 35% sale for 35K likes, and I certainly wasn't going to start this time. Besides, there's a time an a place: morning one of a four day deal is not the time to cry about the offer being impossible, when there was so much time to still make the most of it.
I have however, had a dream of a transaction with MUA. I got onto the site on Monday morning just as the offer had opened, ordered everything I wanted (it was all in stock), placed my order successfully, and had my confirmation email within 5 minutes. Not only that, but it later was revealed that the technicians had posted the wrong minimum spend that morning: rather than £30-worth of products needed to qualify (so a £15 spend after discount), £15-worth was the maximum. So, my full-price £19.95 order seemed in many ways to be lucky, given that other people couldn't even log on!
The confirmation email had said it could take up to 5days to process and dispatch my order. The MUA50 promotion ends on Thursday, so I didn't expect my order to be dealth with until Friday when things had calmed down, and thought I'd be doing well if it arrived the following Monday (28th).
Much to my surprise, I tear open a parcel this morning, 48hrs after my 'shouldn't have worked' order, and this little package of beauties arrived!
For the measley sum of £9.97, I received the MUA Artiste palette, Glitterball palette, brow kit, Leo Nail Constellation, eyeliner brush E4 (with a lid, so it's handbag-friendly) and concealer brush F3. What a glorious haul, all delivered directly to my front door! My only regret is now buying more, especially a couple more palettes, another brush, and a coloured mascara that I've now seen reviewed online. If I can get good enough photos, I'll even post a few looks using this lot!
MUA are professionals at re-stocking. With the exception of brand new products lines eg some brushes that won't arrive again until February, most items are being replaced daily. So please, go and treat yourself and don't believe all the bullsh*t about service - they are trying their best, and they are succeeding! Thank you Mr MUA and all the busy bees at MUA Towers :D I'm off to have some fun...
UPDATE: the eyeliner brush is wonderful. Normally, I can't get any degree of accuracy with a gel liner unless I'm using an angled brush. MUA's is the first straight brush I've ever used where the accuracy is still wonderful, and I've never found flicks as easy to control or to get as symetrical between the two eyes! Plus, when you go out for the night or even to work, you don't have to live with worn off liner - the cap on this means it's portable, without ruining the bristles or making a mess of your bag. The cap's also wide enough to easily get over without pushing bristles in the wrong direction. I'm in love after my first try!
The only point I would make, and it's an avoidable downside, is the brush itself needs careful dipping in your liner - it can stab it like a rod, going too deep into the liner and overloading the brush. If you watch what you're doing as you dip it in and only cover the ends, it's wonderful though :)
(This is on my completely product-free skin: am having a 'free' week as I
often do, so I'm not wearing a BB cream or foundation all the time). The waterline and inner corner are both fine lines, but thickening it out towards the outer corner and flicking were easy. Collection's Lasting Colour Gel Liner is a beautiful consistency for the job, as always! :)
Day 2, and I still love the eyeliner brush: I was even brave enough to try my first double flick, and it was so easy! This eye look was also created using the peach, pink and purple shades of the Glitterball pallette, with the pearly white as brown bone highlighter and the brow kit to darken my eyebrows. I used Fyrannae's epoxy to bring out the shimmer and give a foiled look. I really notice the difference in my brows using the kit, but will get around to doing a before and after comparison to show how good the colour is. (I do hate the brush though, but I always hate free brushes, and use my own). The palette colours are lovely and shimmery, blend beautifully and have good pigement; it's the fault of my camera that the purple in my crease and outer corner hasn't come out well, as it is both noticable and lovely in real life!
Achieved with shades 2 (coral), 7 (pink) & 12 (purple), running left-right, top then bottom row:
Shades 1-6:
Shades 7-12
Today I went back to one of my favourite sets of colours, greens, and made a lovely eye with the shimmering black (shade 1), forest green (shade 3) and spearmint shades (no. 5) from the Glitterball palette above. I also put the darkest of the brow kit shades, as the eye look was strong. With my landscape camera, it hasn't photographed as well as it looks, but it still looks fairly good here I reckon! I did use Fyrannae's epoxy for that extra shimmer. The only complaint I have is that highlighter in the brow kit - it just seems to add shine, whereas I prefer colour. I'll be sticking to pearly whites and nudes as appropriate, but I'm not complaining for the price! :)
Here's a before and after brow comparison, using the top left shade. The effect is stronger, darker and prettier in real life, but you get the idea with my sparse, pale brown brows:
