Jaclyn Hill Favorites for Morphe Brushes

If you have been on instagram or anywhere near youtube in the last few days, you might have heard about the frenzy going on over Morphe Brushes and The Jaclyn Hill Favorites. 

Basically there was a cyber breach that was causing some major traffic jams on Morphe's website adding to an already anticipated crazy rush of traffic to pre order Jaclyn Hill's picks of amazing shadows. 

I am blessed and fortunate enough to live about 15 minutes away from the store and decided on a whim to drive over and see if the coveted palette was available. 

Lucky me it was. After waiting about 30 minutes to get in, I decided to pick up 2 palettes, one for me and one to giveaway very soon on my youtube channel. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss it. 

Originally I was stopping in to add to my collection of Morphe shadows, but with the craziness I decide to just pick up 2 of these palettes and go. 

Morphe makes some amazing shadows that compare to mac and makeup geek. Best part is they are $2.99 a pan! Guys this is seriously unbelievable! The quality is very pigmented, we are talking CRAZY. 

I've been a recent fan of Jaclyn Hill and I want to support YouTubers whenever possible. Think of it as karma :-)

I love her choices for this palette, the only thing I feel that is missing is a matte black in the palette, otherwise this is a beautiful set that is very versatile and wearable. While the shadows are very pigmented and blend-able, I urge beginners to remember this and blend, blend, blend!

Some of my favorite Morphe shadows are:

#20 the perfect dupe for mac's woodwink

#62 the perfect dupe for mac's cork

#90 the perfect dupe for mac's honey lust (I think better and more pigmented than mac)

Now there has been a lot of upset over this palette. It was originally suppose to be for pre sale starting January 1st. Starting at midnight the website had been very slow and difficult to get through. There were some cyber issues that Morphe tried to resolve as soon as possible. Then folks were upset over the shipping time. Many orders placed won't ship out to mid- late January. People were also upset that they sold out by the 3rd and were also selling at the store.

Here are my thoughts on the issues. Morphe is a relatively new and small company. They anticipated a huge amount of traffic to their site starting January 1st, but did not realize the evils of those who wanted to sabotage this exciting launch. Most likely Morphe hires someone to handle their website, and had to be at the mercy of their schedule, ability, and man power. If Morphe was Bill Gates or Steve Jobs I'm sure they would have fixed it themselves in 2 minutes, but Morphe makes makeup brushes and makeup products and they are good at that.

With all the madness, Morphe is sending out confirmation emails slower than usual and trying to solve problems as them come. I am sure that if your credit card has been charged YOU WILL get your confirmation email soon! From what I hear it is taking about a day.

January 1st was for pre order, I'm guessing so that Morphe could anticipate orders and prepare to ship out, buying themselves a little buffer time. Remember this is not the first time Jaclyn Hill has caused their site to crash. Expecting your product to reach you today is not realistic. You will be getting your palette within the month, it takes time, but your getting it no later than anyone else who ordered online. Need I mention Morphe is a relatively small shop? I'd also like to point out that shipping labor and costs are pricey for any business. While you the customer pays for shipping, most of the time the business is eating some cost here.

Being upset over Morphe selling the palette in their ONE retail store. Is this even something you should be upset about? Why would they not sell it in their retail store? They only have one small shop in Burbank, CA, that most folks won't be able to get to. If you had a shop would you not sell something that is on your website?

Basically at the end of the day this is a great palette for a great price. Your getting an amazing product curated by a great YouTuber. Let's cut Jaclyn and Morphe some slack. Jaclyn stands behind great products and Morphe is doing their best to get them to you. They are learning from this and I promise you they are loosing sleep trying to fill orders and get more palettes ready for sale because lets face it does any business want to have to turn away customers? NO!

If you ever get the chance, visit the store and see the people that work there. They love what they do and they work very hard. You can even see the shipping folks working in a frenzy out back. Let's also give props to Jaclyn Hill for being so influential and beneficial for a company. It's amazing the power of YouTubers these days. We should be excited, because YouTube is the voice of actual consumers.

So lets all take a breath, hope Morphe gets new palettes in ASAP (which they have promised to) and support a local business in the U.S.A.  as well as Jaclyn and at the end of the day, it's just an eyeshadow palette. We all love makeup, but seriously lets all relax a little.

XOXO
Serein

P.S.
I am not affiliated with Morphe in any way or know anyone personally.

Facebook Is Not a Form Of Communication

Here's a daily rant and personal pet peeve of mine...

Facebook while great for stalking your old classmates, co-workers, and sharing silly photos and quizzes, is not a form of actual dependable communication.

In the days of social media and wonderful life improving technology, we as a society have lost some personal contact with humanity.

I'm a big believer in traditions for special occasions and following some basic etiquette, especially for engagements, weddings, announcements, and major life changing events.

Our Engagement Shoot Photo By Scott Land Photography

For example: If you expect me to take time off work, buy a ticket, buy a present, and come to your wedding, where you or your family has spent considerable amounts of time and money on, I expect something more than an Evite, FB Event,  or E-mail. Don't get mad when you need to remind me to attend your supposed special event.

This also means that if I spent the time and money to pick out paper invitations and personally addressed each invitation and purchased the ridiculous over priced stamp from the post office and included a self addressed return envelope or an "RSVP to and by", I expect a damn response! RSVP is not optional!!!

My Sister Hosted our Engagement Party and did all the food.

As we become more comfortable behind a screen, we loose touch of common decency and consideration for each other and it's truly sad. I see it when I goto the store and I see it more and more on the road. It makes me want to move somewhere far away from everyone and really brings out my anxiety and depression.

Me somewhere far away

I admit I'm the first person to avoid chatting on the phone, I hate it, I rather you text me a place and time and I'll spend my whole day chatting with you in person. That's just me.

Now you might think I sound like a total hypocrite since I have a youtube channel and blog and most of my day is spent on social media of some sort. My argument is not against social media, I think social media is a great form of expression, sharing photos, sharing general life events, and a great business tool for promoting oneself or company. my argument is that if you expect me to be somewhere or to know your trying to get a hold of me, use the fucking phone or at least my e-mail!

Shameless self promotion, but go check out my youtube channel if you haven't already!

I've had many missed events and messages lately and folks are upset with me for not responding, attending, or knowing what is up, well being a blogger I spend so much time responding to comments, e-mail, and maintaining all forms of social media, that I'm not going to be able to maintain my personal life on there as well. In fact I resent it when expected to.

I make it to events when I know about them! Screening of Sleep Away Camp

So next time your throwing a party and I don't know about it or show up, instead of getting mad at me, maybe think about the way you invited people. If your event is truly that important for people to attend I'll give you a hint, Facebook Invite isn't the way to go.

xoxo
Serein

I'm On AOL.COM Today!

So something pretty cool happened today, I found out my intro video from Allure Beauty Blogger Awards is on AOL.COM as well! Check it out!

I was getting my nails done when I took this screen capture on my phone

If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm one of 10 finalist for the Allure Beauty Blogger Awards of 2014. It's all very exciting and surreal to me that it's all happening. I kind of feel like the under dog with the least subscribers and being the newbie among the 10 finalists. Everyone is so talented and offers a lot the the competition. 

It's truly a blessing to be a part of this whole journey, but I really hope I get to stay in the game long enough to share with everyone a few of my challenges I did. I don't think I've ever worked so hard and fast on posting things! 

you can visit the site to view all challenges each week and vote! Voters get a chance to win weekly prizes and a grand prize trip to Mexico!!! So go vote for me! 

I still can't believe it! I'm seriously so grateful to everyone who has supported me near and far. The support has made me continue blogging and vlogging when I doubted myself or thought that my passions where not valid enough. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!

xoxo
Serein

My Hoopla Adventures and Thank You!

Below is a recent newsletter I sent out to my customer list. As many of you know I am a stella dot stylist. This past week was the annual conference for all stylist and the preview for our fall collection. Reflecting on my trip, I sent out this thank you and update to all my customers and thought it was a good post to share with my readers as well :-) Just got back from this year's Hoopla at Paris Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and wanted to share with you my trip and the exciting new fall collection.  View this email in your browser

Lessons Learned and Thank You! Doing something I'm afraid of has payoffs Many of you know me personally, some do not, but attending Hoopla goes against my personality. I usually avoid large crowds and groups, especially alone. My tendency is to shy away from motivational speakers and sales conferences. Well, for some reason or another I signed up for hoopla months ago on a whim not knowing if I would have anyone to attend with or what to expect. All I knew was I wanted to be a part of the experience. It didn't even hit me that just attending the huge annual event was such a big deal for me until my husband who drove out to meet me sat with me at lunch one day and said "I'm really proud of you for doing this. For stepping out of your box and coming here." Holding back tears, I realized just getting to that moment, just showing up was an achievement for me. I won't go into too much details about all the great lessons I learned, mostly that I can do anything I set my mind to, a reminder that I desperately needed and forgotten as I've grown up. I want to thank you to all my customers, mostly my friends or friends of friends for supporting my dreams and helping me build my own business. To you this maybe just a great tote, bracelet, earrings, or necklace, to me it's so much more. It's independence, freedom, growth, and most importantly meeting and learning from each of you. Thank you for your support these last 9 months and thank you for your business, because it is so much more than jewelry for me. Love- Serein P.S. Below are photos from my trip and glances of the new fall line :-) http://www.stelladot.com/sledford

First official day of Hoopla when I've picked up my badge and swag bag! How cute is the new metalic "how does she do it" tote?! Doubles as an adorable diaper bag or mommy bag.  These 2 amazing ladies adopted me and took me under their wings. Here we are enjoying some cocktails from the lounge. Tonya earned the amazing Red Tec Tote that she worked so hard for, which makes the bag even more precious. Can't wait to get the black version for myself :-) Here I was all on my own checking out the fall collection! I took these shots of some of the beautiful statement pieces coming out.  I'll be getting all my fall samples and look books this week, Let me know if you'd like me to send a look book or if you have any questions!