Review & swatches: Sayuri Nail Lacquer #116 (Horsea!)

Finally onto the Sayuri portion of the Pokemon collection! Only two from this side.

Horsea is a baby blue crelly with tiny aqua and matte yellow glitter, larger round aqua glitter, medium matte yellow and white glitter, and large matte white hex glitter. A very glittery one!

Swatches: Detrivore eyeshadows, green and grey

Detrivore Cosmetics had a customer appreciation sale a while ago, a very generous 50% off! I got some colours I'd been eyeing, as well as a jar of their Translucent Powder, primer and Embalming tubes (lip balm). I'll be reviewing everything, but thought I should start with some eyeshadow swatches.

Review and swatch: Arcane Lacquer Vast & Vague

All the Australian indies bursting onto the scenes with nail polish certainly make ME happy. My wallet not so much. Sometimes it's hard to keep up! I ummed and ahhed for ages when it came to ordering from Arcane Lacquer - this brand is extra special because it's made by Nail Gun XS, a blogger whose stunning swatches are used by many other indie brands. In the end I went with Vast & Vague for my first purchase, as tiny neon squares in a dusty pastel base wasn't something I had in my collection.

Review & swatches: Mckfresh #41 (Zubat!)

Mckfresh Nail Attire is a new Australian indie polish company that I've had my eye on for a while. They started out with a Labrynth-inspired collection, but it was their limited edition Pokemon polishes that really caught my eye (pun intended).

Left to right, top to bottom: 001 - Bulbasaur, 004 - Charmander, 039 - Jigglypuff, 032 - Nidoran, 054 - Psyduck, 041 - Zubat.

Review: Vice and Velvet Body Mousse

Most of the great and popular indie B&B companies are located in the U.S, Canada or the U.K. Due to the long TAT associated with products like soap, perfume etc., for us Australian indie B&B fans, it means it can take anywhere from 3-8 weeks to receive our goodies from companies. So when I found Vice and Velvet, an Australian company, I was cautiously optimistic.

If you've ever bought makeup online

You need to read this, NOW.

If you haven't heard about the Glittersniffer Cosmetics scandal, thank your lucky stars.

This is why independant beauty bloggers are important. Wasting your money on repackaged products is one thing, being scammed into buying UNSAFE products, having money stolen and being suckered into supporting a lying, amoral seller with NO business ethics is another. Beauty bloggers like Grey, Ana, and Phyrra put their wallets and now apparently their skins on the line to make sure that when we click that 'buy' button, we know what we're getting into.

I hope that anybody who has ever read a review of mine - be it of cosmetics, a comic or anything else - knows that while I don't keep up with current releases, or do hours of research into ingredients and FDA regulations like Ana does, that I will ALWAYS be honest in my reviews.

Madeit

On my quest for indie prettiness, and supporting local artists, I discovered Madeit. It basically amounts to an Australian version of Etsy, which I think is fantastic. Obviously, it's a bit smaller than Etsy, being exclusively Aussie. I do recognise a few sellers from there, mainly being Rhasalda who's bath stuff I've been umming and ahhing over for a while, especially her Barista soap (that's the Madeit link, here's an Etsy one). There is just as much skill, passion and creativity to be seen on Madeit. There's loads of stuff want, and loads of sellers I admire on Etsy, but I'm definitely interested in purchasing from Madeit. It's faster, the prices are a bit better, and I love the idea of supporting Australian artisans and creators. When I finally actually purchase something from there, I will be making an in-detail comparison of the two websites, and reviewing whatever product I get. I think it's a great and little-known resource, both for artists and artisans, and for those who like to shop indie.

On a related note, Etsy have started showing prices in Australian dollars! Woo! It's based on, as far as I can tell, the same tech that eBay uses, meaning it's loosely based on as much of the current exchange rate data as they can grab online while you browse. It's not always 100% accurate, but it's damn handy.

What I am most interested in - besides the Aussie exclusivity, which means faster and cheaper shipping for me - is the standard and enforcing of the 'handmade-only' clause. I have seen and heard a lot on Etsy about the seeming laxity of their standards. This means that it's really easy for make-up repackers, poor quality (to the point of being unusable) items, and things that are obviously not handmade or vintage. I'm hoping Madeit might be better.

On an unrelated note... I emailed off my first submissions to a magazine last night!!! Very exciting :)