Well hello there

Scroll to bolded bits for important beauty questions! Go and read about my geeky adventures during Supanova weekend!

I’m waiting on several packages and trying to figure out how to best swatch Fyrinnae Arcane Magic and Sobe’s new duochrome blushes. It’s bloody hard! Also I’m much more reluctant to get out of bed during winter, so I haven’t found any time to photograph EoTDs L

I should have some reviews over at the comics/books blog soon, and I’ll be chronicling my JulNoWriMo adventures since I had a brainwave. On the 30^th of June. For a graphic novel script (pretty much the only format I don’t know how to write in…)

Before I forget – PLEASE ADVISE ME! I’ve been getting dry patches on my face (since its winter and there are heaters turned up high everywhere) and have reluctantly decided I need to find a nice tinted moisturiser. Any suggestions for olive-y, oily skin? I'm thinking about the new Illamasqua Skin Base stuff, but there isn't a counter in Perth yet, so finding a match will be very tricky.

Those ladies who don’t use Seche Vite top coat, what do you use? I need to find an alternative L between shrinkage and how rough I am on my hands, my polish is only lasting 1-2 days before I get obvious tipwear. I don’t like applying work-safe polish 3-4 times a week! IT IS NOT FUN.

Review which is definitely upcoming because photographing it is easy: Lanolips review. I couponed. TWICE. IT WAS GREAT. 

Crappy phone picture because I can now connect 

my laptop to my phone via Bluetooth. ALSO VERY GREAT.

Swatches: Fyrinnae at work

Fyrinnae are best known for their beautiful, unusual colours, especially the colour-changing Arcane Magic range. Oh, and Pixie Epoxy. BUT, they make some gorgeous neutrals too!

Njiro

"Ivory with rainbow sparkles."

 Over P.E.

 On bare skin

Beholder

"Sparkling, somewhat silvery deep taupe." 

 Over P.E (the bumpy bit in the middle is a hair)

On bare skin 

This shade is an amazing crease colour, and because I'm somewhat darker-skinned, I find I can get away with this as a lid shade, too.

Damn Paladins

"Soft, satiny taupe with a gentle light blue highlight" 

 Over P.E

 On bare skin

Obviously I used a lot of P.E in my first swatch! With the correct amount of P.E/over primer, the taupe base is more visible, and the blue highlight is more of a subtle duochrome. I love this shade so much.

Koala

"A medium rosy taupe, this shade has a satin finish, but gives off a little more shine when applied wet. " 

 Over P.E

 On bare skin

This looks ashy and matte in the jar but has this amazing silvery-white sheen to it when applied.

These four shadows definitely help spice up my work make-up routune. I also have three Arcane Magic neutrals, but obviously these are a lot harder to photograph. Expect those after I've finished my Lost in Makeupland series (palette write-up next!)

Lost in Makeupland part 2: loose shadows

Part 1, with pressed shadows and highlights is here. These are all my loose shadow sample swatches.

Yeah Yeah Yeah 

(Rock My Look collection)

"dark greenish black"
 I swatched this and I went, "Well crap, I obviously am developing an obsession with emerald green".
This is a ridiculously gorgeous colour. You can sheer it on for a deep, almost-black green, or use a sticky base to make it a stunning, metallic emerald.

Bioshock

 "deep, dark [green] but flashes with silver and purple"
Lighter than Yeah Yeah Yeah, and you can see the silver and purple glitter, but it's very fine and subtle. A really pretty, unusual shade! If you blend it out it has these purplish undertones. This was really hard to photograph, the lighting dulled it a bit.

Tan

"bright bronze" 

Well... erm... I swatched this, and then swatched Expensive! next to it, and then looked at it again... and somehow, either because of the base I used or because of my skinton, this pulls mauve on me. Metallic, and bronzey at some angles, but it's definitely mauve! Ana's swatch is definitely more of a bronze/tan colour. So odd! 

Psychedelic Mushroom 

(Lifestyle collection)

This is a smoky plum with an iridescent violet highlight and silver shimmer. Blended out like so:

 It creates a soft smoky, shimmery, iridescent haze.

Purrrple

 This just looked like Psychedelic Mushroom with gold shimmer to me. Which is nice if you're one of those people who can't mix their metals *coughMEcough* 

Party

"Electric blue mixes with multicolor glitter"
I can only see silver glitter in this, but it's so pretty and sparkly I don't care! I don't think I own any other blues quite this shade. I was really not excited about this in the bag but I cannot wait to wear it, probably with a silver inner corner and a neutral highlight.

Not Too Much

"Brick red with subtle silver sparkle"
This is the exact colour of a red brick! That deep brownish red, and matte - I think my swatch is a lot more brown, so look at Ana's for a more colour accurate one. The silver sparkle isn't really subtle, but it's not huge chunky glitter either. I'm really at a loss with this one, I like it but it's so unusual I'm not entirely sure how to wear it! I think I'll have to do some experimenting.

Mustard 

(Lifestyle collection), 

with Expensive on the left.

"almost metallic greenish gold"

Ink Bubbles

 Lovely cheerful, shiny fuschia.

Espensive!

 Beautiful bright gold, which takes on a bronzey cast when put near Mustard. I'm going to have to do a look with those two, and a comparison between Expensive and Ra from Meow.

Good Morning

"bright, beautiful orange with subtle pink and turquoise shimmer"
This isn't bright as Would (swatched in part 1), in fact I'd describe this as more tangerine, as I envision tangerine as lighter than orange (though if you look at the fruits themselves, they're the same darn colour). That being said, I LOVE this shade! Soft almost pastel orange, with beautiful pink and blue shimmer. I know it looks yellow-ish here but trust me, it's definitely orange in person. 

SO MUCH PRETTY! Swatching these took a bit longer than expected, as well - some of the colours were particularly difficult to photograph, and I wanted to do them justice. Also because Blogger was being a poo and taking forever to upload photos, and then when I uploaded them to Photobucket instead, it kept telling me the URLs were wrong.

Soon, an in-depth palette discussion, some blush swatches, and the finishing powder review (I've been using it for the last two days)!

Review: Lost in Makeupland (part 1)

If you haven't read Ana's post over at Lipsticks and Lightsabers about this company yet, go do so now. And then read the follow-up which has more swatches.

Done? Ok. We all know Ana's the queen of lemming creation, so of course I started looking at the selection and planning a wishlist. My big thing at that time was the lack of neutrals in my life, and also of pressed shadows. So when Belen started offering pressed palettes, and released the Alice's Chains collection, I finally got off my butt and (mostly) decided what to get.

I got myself a palette with two 15mm pans and two 26mm pans (since discontinued, now only the 26mm pans are available). I wanted to grab some more fun colours in sample form as well, so I picked 5 samples and asked Belen to pick some more for me. Since I spent over $15AU I got a free gift - actually, Belen was ridiculously generous! She split my order in half so the postage was less, and threw in lots of goodies for me.

My actual order:

My freebies:

Also my order was a bit late getting out, as Belen had trouble getting to the post office, so she gave me a coupon for a whole 20% off my next order. It was only a few days past the TAT!

I'm going to swatch all the pressed eyeshadows and highlights for this post. Part 2 will be all the loose eyeshadow swatches. In part 3, I'll talk about blushes and the palette, and by then I'll have had time to test the Finishing Powder for oily skin that I was gifted, and I'll do a Part 4! I've heard great things about it though :) and in Part 4, fingers crossed I'll have been able to do some EoTD photos.

Since I purchased, Belen has come out with new product  photography which is really beautiful and much more accurate than her older stuff. Anyway, onto the eyeshadow swatches! Left-hand swatch is over Pixie Epoxy, and the right is dry, over primer.

Bruised (pressed)

"It's not purple, it's not burgundy, not brown, full of golden and purple sparkle"
Beautiful plummy brown colour. I have the pressed version so the sparkle doesn't come through much - which is GOOD because it means I can use it as a crease colour for work, which is the entire reason I got the 15mm pressed version of this. The right-hand swatch is blended out a little and you can see it doesn't get dusty and still retains its pretty plummy tones.

Glow (pressed, highlighter)

 "sheer golden"
This one is like Fyrinnae's Nijiro without the pastel rainbow sparkle, and not as shiny. It gives my skin this lovely luminescent glow - obviously hard to capture on camera! It's definitely a highlight shade and not a full-on eye 'shadow'. It would probably show up a bit more on paler and darker skintones, it really melds with my olive-toned skin.

Them Bones (pressed)

"light yellowy peach/salmon with a subtle golden shine"
The original swatches of this featured a soft beige-white matte that I thought would make a great work-safe lid shade. Unfortunately now that the official description and new product photos are up, I know that's not the case! This is a nice, unassuming peachy yellow. Not what I was after but pretty nonetheless. Don't be fooled by the swatch on the right either, my skin tends to do weird things to most yellows and oranges and make them sort of blend in, when really they're beautifully pigmented. Seriously, I can make bright orange lipstick look as neutral as pink!

Would (pressed)

"tangerine with a bit of a yellowy/golden shift"
Another 'pretty but not really me' shade. Would look more vibrant on a different skintone. I need richer, deeper oranges so they actually stand out on my weird skin - you can see how pigmented this is, there's almost no difference between the PE and the primer swatches.

Faerie (highlighter)

"sheer pinkish shade"
I thought this would look ridiculous on me since it's for cool/pink-toned skin, but... it's really soft and pretty! Right-hand swatch is over a Nyx pencil which makes it look much more opaque. I've actually swept it all around the primer and PE as well, and you can see it gives bare skin a soft glow. Since I have a giant jar of this I can absolutely see myself using it to give matte blushes a bit of glisten. It's not sparkly, or really even shimmery, it just... glows! I can see why Ana loved these highlighters so much, the formula is absolutely amazing. It definitely has a pinkish cast though, so if you're going for something a bit more versatile, Glow might be more your thing.

Phew! Those were all the pressed and highlight shadows. Keep in mind that the formula for the pressed shadows is a little different from the loose; for this reason, Belen won't press any of the Rock My Look shadows, because they don't take to pressing well. I think it's great when a seller recognises that there's an issue with a product and does something productive about it. Not to mention I attempted swatching one of the Rock My Look shadows tonight... freaking gorgeous colour, so hard to photograph, and it does become dark and dusky if it's blended out too much or applied over bare skin. Over a sticky base... well, you'll just have to wait and see ;)

Part 2 will be up hopefully tomorrow-ish, 11 loose shadow swatches!

Tubes of WIN

I finally got off my butt and ordered from Shiro Cosmetics! I was mostly interested in the Intertubes, since I already have zillions of eyeshadows (not really). I ordered 4 eyeshadow samples, some stickers for depotting them, and all the Intertube samples.

I won't bother talking about the shadows since there are swatches and reviews everywhere about them, and they totally live up to the hype! Also the samples are ridiculously generous, they very nearly overflowed the 3g jars I keep arouund for samples. Since the Intertubes are going to look quite different on different skintones and sized/shaped lips however, I thought it'd be a bit useful to swatch those. Since I did get ALL of them :)

I don't have a great lip brush at the moment, so these are all done with my finger.

Three Wolf Moon

Gorgeous muted red with cinnamon scent/flavor. This did sting my lips a bit but died down after a minute. I'm getting a full-size of this for sure. I love it!

Longcat

 Barely visible on my lips (applied over a lip stain here) but it's really zingy and minty. Gives a hint of silvery sparkle without becoming frosty. I don't usually like minty anything, but... I think I'll be getting this in a full-size! Gives a lovely intense cooling sensation.

Over 9000

 Really pretty soft bubblegum pink. Bright but still really flattering. I don't own a lot of pink-y lip colours, and this can be built up or sheered down, so... I think I'll have to get a full-size of this too.

Rickrolled

 Love the meme, gorgeous colour... EW. I had to photograph this quickly and take it off. The smell of ginger doesn't agree with me. I might see how Caitlin feels about doing unscented tubes.

Numa Numa

Sheer, frosty gold with an orangey base. Wish it looked better on me, it's very pretty and smells like creme caramels! They're one of my favourite desserts. The frostiness just settled into my liplines and accentuated all my dry bits :(

Leeroy Jenkins

 Smells like... toothpaste?! I wanted to love this colour but it's pinker on me than I'd hoped. Also it's quite streaky. Maybe a full-sized version would be a bit more even, but overall, I think I'll pass on this one.

Yo Dawg

Smells a bit like Ribena. Muted, purplish-fuschia colour. A bit meh for me since I don't really like pinky-berry-fuschia type colours.

Chocolate Rain

 This smells like Chicos... heh. Probably one that could have benefitted from lip brush application. It was quite patchy. Brown is probably the ONLY colour I don't like on my lips, so for that reason I won't be purchasing this in full-size. That and I'm not a huge fan of Chicos either. I mean, if they're there, I'll eat some, but I'd rather have real chocolate/real jelly babies.

Sad Keanu

 Deep violet. Another one that just wouldn't even out on me! I think applying this from the tube, to exfoliated lips, would have produced a much nicer result. I already have lots of purple lip products though, so I'll probably give this a miss anyway.

Robe and Wizard Hat

 I thought I'd have the same application problems with this as with the other more pigmented shades, but as you can see, I actually managed to get it quite smooth and opaque. Love this one, but if I wanted dark blue lips I've got my beloved Blueberry lipstick from Morgana :) if you missed out on that, however, this is a seriously gorgeous alternative. It's also a much lighter texture, given that Blueberry is a lipstick and this is an Intertube.

Phew!

Do you have any Intertubes? Are you planning on getting some? I reccommend samples, they're $1.80US each and good for several applications.

INCOMING!

This is mostly for my make-up oriented readers: just letting you know I've been staring at my stash lately and going "Ehh, I hardly use most of this."

So early April I will be having a blog sale. It will pretty much be eyeshadows and nail polish only. ALL of it has been used, or at least swatched. I will try and be really accurate with the descriptions and take good photos so you know what you're getting into.

Eyeshadow brands will include:
Aromaleigh (some full sizes)
Evil Shades (some glitters)
Sobe Botanicals (some OOAKs)
Concrete Minerals
Sassy Minerals
Morgana Cryptoria (these will mostly be large samples in unstickered jars, I'm going to share out some of my fullsizes)
Sassy Minerals
Meow Cosmetics

Nail polish brands will include:
BYS
Mode (lots of it, heh)
China Glaze
Orly (minis)
Rokk 96
The Face Shop
Bloom

I'm going to spend the rest of the month A) deciding what to get rid of, B) photographing stuff and C) trying to figure out some ballpark postage costs. All stuff WILL be available internationally, but I'll have to be careful with the nail polishes as international regs are a bit tricky, and they may be pretty pricey to ship because I'm totally paranoid about bottles breaking in transit.

Please comment to register your interest! If there's no interest, well... not much point in having it :P

Review and Swatches: Persephone Minerals

I ordered from Persephone Minerals after seeing Annamax's review and swatches. I had previously been a bit hesitant to order from Persephone as the product photos are... well, quite bad, to be blunt! I was really excited about two things: duochrome shadows and a SAILOR MOON collection! I used to love Sailor Moon when I was little. I'm seriously considering buying a DVD box set so I can indulge in some nostalgia :P

Victoria put together a custom order for me. I wanted to get all of the Sailor Senshi Crystal Power eyeshadows and a few other things too. I ordered sample jars as I find it hard to work with baggies. Victoria's response was prompt, the listing was up right away, my order was posted quickly and I got my package within about 14 days - super fast for international shipping!

HOW CUTE ARE THESE JARS?!

They're slightly smaller in circumference than your usual 5g eyeshadow jars (that's a Fyrinnae mini on the left and a Persephone sample on the right) so they just made me AWWW when I opened the package. They're very clearly labelled on the bottom. Stickers are NOT waterproof and may get smeary if you're not careful with them.

Victoria very generously included a free sample jar of a new colour, Rampid. It's a bright fuschia, I didn't swatch it here because I gave it to a friend. I hardly ever wear pink, I actually doubled  my pink shadow collection just with this order!

The shadows are smooth, a little translucent (though they can be patted/layered on for complete opacity) and the Crystal Powers are amazingly duochrome. I didn't have a lot of pinks or golds in my collection before now. I would reccommend using Pixie Epoxy or a similar sticky base with these to get lasting power and the full effect of the colour shift. If you want the gold to stay a little more subtle, these work just fine without PE. I've done my swatches over Concrete Minerals primer.

Mercury Crystal Power: "amazing duochrome shift from gold to bright blue. It is chock full of sparkles of gold and pink."

This is ridiculously duochrome - the gold does tend to show a bit more than the blue, though. The pink sparkles are very subtle, which I like because I'm not a big fan of pink, and I think this colour is lovely just as a duochrome..

Jupiter Crystal Power: "a duochrome shift from bright green to gold complete with sparkles of gold and pink."

 
Goldy-lime green and gold duochrome. The pink sparkles do show up in this one, but it's a nice touch. I'd definitely reccommend PE for this, so the pink glitter stays the whole day.

Jupiter Oak Evolution: bold green overtaken by green and gold sparkle.

Not so sure I'd call this a 'bold' green. It's more of a deep foresty green, and has a slightly lighter sheen. I really love this one - I admit I was a lot more excited for the duochromes, but this is seriously beautiful - you could easily use it as a liner with PE. The glitter is very present in this one.

Mars Crystal Power: "this is one hell of a duochrome shift from bright red to gold, chock full of pink and gold sparkle! It looks like a pinkish color in the jar, but do not let that fool you!"
The disclaimer here is GOOD, because here's the jar:

The swatch:

I don't know if it was a disagreement with the primer, or if I rubbed it with the brush too much, but I ended up with a red streak that had a gold halo, rather than a proper duochrome like the other Crystal Power shades. I guess I'll need to experiment with this a bit more. I don't wear a lot of red shadow anyway, it's one of the colours I'm not really confident with unless it's on my lips/fingernails.

Mars Flame Sniper: "nice deep red, overloaded with red, orange, and gold microfine glitters." 

This is such a nice deep, almost maroon red and seems to have a slight pinkish sheen in some lights. I can actually see myself wearing this! The glitter is fabulous. Again, you'd probably want to use PE to get it to stay on your lids. I love this so much, I had to make myself put it away and keep swatching! I wanted to put it on and play with it.

Moon Prism Power: "A striking duochrome of blue and pink with the palest possible touch of blue so that the pink dominates. Topped off with lavish gold shimmer!"

Well, this is embarassing... the shadow is white in the jar, and then as soon as it is applied becomes a sparkly, iridescent fuschia sheen with a hint of gold glitter. I don't get any blue out of it. Could I get it to show up on camera? NO. I tried every light setting I could think of, tried flash, tried artificial lighting, tried natural lighting... no matter WHAT I did, the pics showed the shadow as a soft, shimmery white. I did a swatch over PE. I broke out my Nyx Jumbo pencils and swatched over Milk and Black Bean (it goes almost purple over Black Bean). More settings, lighting... and nada. Every picture it shows up plain white. I stuck my SD card in my computer and stared in disbelief at the sea of white swatches. Then suddenly...

It's a bit brighter and glowier in person, but it's NOT WHITE!

This is not the Pixie Epoxy shot. Or Nyx pencil, or flash or tungsten. It's the first shot I took, dry, in natural light with the macro setting. I just couldn't see it was pinkish til I looked at it on the computer. /facepalm.


Moon Crystal Power: "A shift from pink to gold, leaning more on the pink side when foiled."

Pretty, soft, girly. I will probably do a super-soft wash of this as a work look.

Venus Crystal Power: "this is a slight shift from orange to gold, chock full of pink and gold sparkle!"

This isn't really a duochrome to me, more like a slightly orangey gold. The pink glitter shows up really nicely in this swatch, but from a distance it's barely visible.

After all the crap that's been happening in the MMU world recently, it's refreshing to find a new company that makes quality products, has good customer service and takes criticism well. There are lots of positive reviews of Persephone Minerals just a Google search away, if you're wanting more opinions and swatches. Her prices are very fair as well, she does full-sized sets, sample sets both in bags and in jars.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to put the pretties away and do some studying. SIGH.