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.

Work franken and Konad!

I frankened myself a greige-taupe! It's so on-trend and bland and work-safe I should hate it, but it applies like a dream, and it means I don't have to go searching and spending more money on nail polish I don't absolutely love. I poured a bit of Messed Up from Mode (an awesome cocoa-taupe which is just too dark for my work) into Natio Brandy, a lovely nude creme I swore by until finding Oslo, which is part of the Bloom for Target collection.

I pulled out my unloved Konad set (I only own one plate at the moment) and grabbed China Glaze Millenium. I'm hoping this will be subtle enough that I won't get in trouble for it at work ;)

My nails are extremely short at the moment because they're in such horrible condition. Sorry 'bout that.

I'm trying to resist the urge to do some gold stars over the top of the silver ones... also I'm going to slather my hands in OHWTO's rose balm before bed. My fingers don't look that awful in real life, it's just the unforgiving macro lens!

I'm going to get some more plates and some white stamping polish soon.
EDIT: I broke the cardinal Konad rule, "know when to stop". My right finger looks a bit better than my left, but of course I couldn't manage to get any good photos of it.

 THIS IS WHY THEY SAY 'LESS IS MORE', KIDS.

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!)

Review: Lost in Makeupland Finishing Powder for Oily Skin

Review of pressed shadows here and loose ones here.

*disclaimer: I did receive this as a free product, but it has not influenced my review in any way. If I didn't like it, I'd say so!*

Pixie Epoxy was the first foiling medium I ever used, so I'd never experienced finding a HG beauty item that blew the previous ones out of the water... until now.

I have skin that I classify as "SWAMPTHING" oily. Even if I'm going barefaced for the day I need some sort of powder to keep my face from becoming shinier than a disco ball. I gave up on liquid foundation for the longest time, because I couldn't find a good match or anything that wouldn't slide off my face! I started using powdered foundation, which helped, and tried a few different oil control powders. These various combinations would usually look ok for 3-4 hours, but then I'd find my make-up had become blotchy and my face was grossly shiny.

After testing the LiM powder for a few days, over:

• Primer and foundation
• Just foundation
• Bare, moisurised skin
• And oh, the horror - unwashed skin!

I can safely conclude that this is my HG finishing powder. It is white in the jar but applies truly translucent for me; it doesn't make my olive-tan skin look ashy, whether its applied over foundation or not. Darker skintones may find a bit of ashiness, I'm not sure. I seriously do not have to apply a second round of powder for the whole day, even with sweating, rain and SWAMPTHING skin!

This powder isn't an official part of the LiM line yet, but I can't imagine any reason why it wouldn't be available soon. I ran out of blotting sheets last week, and I don't forsee myself buying any more, ever. Also my mum's requested a jar of this - her exact words were, "What do you have on your face now? Does it come in my colour, can I have some?" If you don't have oily skin, Belen does have other finishing powders for Dry and Normal/Combination skin which I would absolutely encourage you to sample. Samples are $2 US and the full-size powders $8 for 10g, which I think is extremely reasonable! Unfortunately they're not vegan, so keep that in mind.

Blush and palette posts will be delayed for a week or so, I have to fly to Sydney for work training and unfortunately I don't have time to do the posts before then :(

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!

Work EoTD with Shiro & Fyrinnae

At the moment my nails are incredibly short, I broke half of them off and they're just terrible looking. I bought some CND Effects polishes from eBay to keep them subtle but manicured for work until they grow out a bit. Right now picking things up from flat surfaces is nearly impossible!

The weather has gone suddenly wintery so unfortunately all attempts at photographing CND Emerald Shimmer on my nails didn't show the gorgeous pale green shimmer. Suffice to say I'll be getting more of these polishes soon, they're stunning.

I got a sample of Spinarak from Shiro, hoping it would be a lovely pastel-y green I might be able to wear to work... and it is. Here's today's look I did with Spinarak on the lid over P.E, brushed lightly on the browbone to highlight, and Fyrinnae's Beholder blended into the crease. Spinarak does look a bit more green in person.

Eyeliner is Covergirl Liquiline Blast, and mascara is Covergirl LashBlast Volume in Waterproof Black. I did curl my lashes beforehand, but it's still a testament to how awesome this mascara is! I'm so glad I bought this before I splurged on Lancome instead.