Help me find a dupe!

When Aromaleigh announced they were closing, and then shortly after that announced they were no longer shipping internationally, I was left with a couple of samples I would have liked to buy the full-sized version of.

Serenade I was actually able to mix my own dupe of, and Dulcinea I discovered was not actually as uncommon a colour as I'd thought.

Now the only sample I have left of that I'm loathe to hit 'pan' on is Champagne Toast (see it in action here and here). I haven't been able to find anybody swapping or selling this, and as it was a colour from an older collection, the 'new' Aromaleigh didn't have any left-over stock of it. So I'm hunting down dupes! I ordered three samples from Sassy Minerals (now sadly closed and amalgamated into the Lauress website, which I find ridiculous to navigate [the way they categorise their eyeshadows does my head in] plus the Sassy colours aren't available from them yet) to start off with. HOLY BRACKETS BATMAN. Sorry about that.

The official description for Champagne toast was "A nude pinkish fawn/champagne tone with bright aqua shimmer sparkles dancing in the light."

The three shades I got from Sassy were:
Gaining Ground "Pale rosy beige with flashes of green and pink shimmer "

Salt & Sand "Sandy beige with aqua and gold sparkle "

Pixie Sprinkles "Neutral peachy beige with copper, green and purple sparkles"

You can see from the jar shots that they're all fairly similar, but none of them look like real dupes for each other. Time for the swatch test! All done over PE since that's pretty much the only way I'd wear them.

This is Champagne Toast:

Eye-brightening, peachy-champagne, lovely sheen without being over the top. The aqua sparkles I sadly couldn't get to show up, but rest assured they are there.

Gaining Ground:

Pearly, pale pink. Slight green flash from certain angles.

Very different to Champagne Toast. NEXT!

Salt & Sand:

Peachy pink with a scattering of aqua sparkles. Promising!

But it doesn't quite have that champagne quality. Close though! I can definitely see myself reaching for this if I can't find a proper dupe. Let's go on to the last contender.

Pixie Sprinkles:

Rose gold with superfine pink and green glitters. Quite a bit more pink in real life, it kept wanting to blend into my skintone in these photos. It's the exact colour of rose gold, not nearly as yellow-toned as it is here. I tried lots of different settings and light sources and could not get it to photograph well!

A beautiful, flattering colour, but again, very different to Champagne Toast. This photo is a much better indication of its pinky-ness.

On the list as possible contenders:
Alyk's Twinkle from Persephone Minerals
Deco and Vapor from Silk Naturals
Taupiary, Tickled Pink and Vanilla Skies from Sobe Botanicals
Sexy in Suspenders from Geek Chic
Selene from Morgana Cryptoria

Any suggestions? Or better yet, if you have any of these shades, would you be able to swatch them for me?

Womanthology (cross-post)

**This was originally posted on my writing blog, but I wanted as many people as possible to see it so I'm posting it here as well.**


I'm feeling so many emotions right now. I'm elated, triumphant, hopeful and awed.

Womanthology is an anthology graphic novel created entirely by women for Charity. The purpose of the book is to showcase the works of female creators of every age and experience levels.

The Graphic Novel will majorly consist of many short stories interpreting our theme for this volume; "Heroic". We'll also have interviews and how-to's with some of the industry's top female pros, as well as talks with young girls who someday want a career in comics. Womanthology is an anthology graphic novel created entirely by women for Charity. The purpose of the book is to showcase the works of female creators of every age and experience levels.

The Graphic Novel will majorly consist of many short stories interpreting our theme for this volume; "Heroic". We'll also have interviews and how-to's with some of the industry's top female pros, as well as talks with young girls who someday want a career in comics.

I can't remember how I stumbled onto this project but I'm SO excited about it. They've gotten on board a bunch of new/indie comic book creators, but they've also had some big names join in. Two that I'm super duper excited about are Gail Simone (famous for a buttload of things but my favourite work of hers is Welcome To Tranquility) and Fiona Staples (who worked on Mystery Society, which I have to review soon because it's a seriously great comic book that ticks nearly all my boxes). I plan to check out the works of the other contributors when I can.   

Not only will this be an amazing book, but it's giving to charity and showcasing the talent of female creators! They've paired some newcomers with the seasoned pros, to give the new ladies some more experience, which will (fingers crossed) lead to more industry opportunities for them.

Their Kickstarter  (a website dedicated to helping fun creative projects) opened yesterday, with the goal of $25,000 for a print run of 1500 books. I logged onto Twitter this morning and a little over 24 hours later... $36,000 has been pledged. This is more than I, and those involved, could ever have hoped for. When I sat down to work out how much I could pledge, I had imagined that in the final days of July, I'd be anxiously watching the numbers crawl up to the final goal.

But it's not over. More money = more books and maybe even a second anthology. Even if you don't care about that, the rewards being offered for pledges are AMAZING and Renee is adding more as more pledges come in. Even if you don't give a shit about women in comic books, the profits are going to charity.

I urge you to check out their website and learn more about this project. If this stirs you, even just a little, go over to the Kickstarter page. Even $5 will help this amazing cause, and if you want a guaranteed copy of the anthology, pledging is the way to do that.

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.

Welcome to the Sparkledex!

In light of all the recent indie make-up dramas, scandals, and the ever-increasing pressure on bloggers to be able to identify repackagers and shady business practises, the lovely Tempest in a Teapot came up with the great idea to start an indie make-up wiki. She was kind enough to let me join her in starting this mammoth task, but now it's time for more people to get on board!

We've got a basic structure settled. The idea of the wiki is to de-mystify a lot of issues to do with ingredients and legislation. We would like to have a full ingredients breakdown to clear up the use of carmine, bismuth, vegan and non-vegan components and which bases and fillers do what. 


We do not want to stir up drama. We'd prefer to use positive re-inforcement and the power of information; instead of blacklisting companies (and let's face it, most of us know which websites not to set, er, mouse on anyway) we will be providing lots of links to useful information and reviews, so that you as a customer have full knowledge of what you're getting into. This means that we will be providing, we hope, a balanced mix of reviews, from a variety of bloggers.

We need more contributors! If you don't know what to add or don't have time to write stuff for the Wiki, that is no problemo. Links to reviews on blogs, like yours, and forums are totally welcome! We want to make it easy for indie make-up newbies to find you, and thus feel safer in placing their first order.

At the moment we only have a few company pages up, so if you've just reviewed or read a really helpful review of a company, feel free to create the page and whack it on there. I'm procrastinating by writing this post and after it's done I have to go do some reading for uni.

So, this weather, huh?