Pretty Serious lip gloss review

While Pretty Serious Cosmetics were having their 50% off sale, I decided to grab a few of their lip glosses to try. 

Swatches and a review under the cut!

Green/teal EOTD

Just a quick one today!

Max Factor Mini Nail Polish: Diva Violet

Max Factor Mini Nail Polish: Elegant Mauve (??)

So first we had Ivory which was actually a pale gold glitter, and now we have Elegant Mauve. Guess what? It's not mauve.

Review: Australis MegaLash Mascara (Electric Blue!)

I had a bit of cash to spare and wandered into Price Attack to get a new mascara. They didn't have either of the two that I like (one is Covergirl and one is Maybelline), but when I saw this baby I decided it was definitely worth $10ish to try a coloured mascara. I grabbed a plain black Australis as well, which I'll review later on. It's in the same family as this mascara (MegaLash).

Max Factor Mini Nail Polish: Ivory

I snagged 6 Max Factor minis from Kelly's blog sale :) the bottles are ridiculously adorable

First shade I tried is a neutral gold foil/microglitter polish with the odd name of Ivory. It required three (thin) coats for full opacity but you can easily wear this as a sparkly sheer. It dried really fast. I'm not a big gold person but I really liked how elegant and pretty this polish looked! I'm going to try layering it over some neutral cremes next, I don't really want to be applying 3 coats every time I use this polish or very soon the bottle will be empty!

Ivory? For serious?!

Teeny adora-bottle!

The brush was really easy to use, it was short but fairly wide and although not completely flat like CND brushes, it wasn't totally round either. Ivory dried quite smooth, but I used topcoat anyway.

Silk Naturals eyeliner, eyeshadow and lipstain

I posted about some Silk Naturals skincare quite a while ago, and I have swatched my collection of Kisser Slicker, but I've since ordered a few other things and realised I haven't swatched any of my eyeshadows, so here goes!

Eyeshadows (these are all part of the permanent line, I actually have a lot more than this through SN's GWP program, but those eyeshadows aren't available for purchase, so I didn't see any point in swatching them).

Swatcharama! The results of my teal eyeshadow hunt

The problem with ordering from indie companies when you live in Australia is that orders tend to take forever to arrive, so you kind of forget what you ordered, and if you're obsessed with a certain colour which is not currently in your collection... fast forward a month and this happens:

Swatch: Illamasqua Bacterium

I cannot TELL you how excited I am about Illamasqua lowering their prices in Australia. But let me put it in perspective for you: there's no counter in Perth, so I'd have to order from Myer interstate. To order from Illamasqua in the U.K. AND pay for shipping would have still been cheaper than ordering from Myer in Australia. And that's without shipping included in the Aussie price!

Eotd/Lotd: Berry Wine

Actually managing to get out of bed in time to do makeup for uni is quite an accomplishment these days. The fact I had time to photograph this look was an even bigger bonus!

Femme Fatale Cosmetics: Glittering Lodestone polish!

Sophie posted this on the Femme Fatale Cosmetics Facebook page a fortnight or so ago:

I wasn't 100% sure on all of them but I KNEW I wanted Glittering Lodestone, so as soon as they were available, I bought the 15ml version.

Detrivore Cosmetics: eyeshadows

I made my first order from Detrivore a few months ago. Review and swatch of the lip glosses is here. This post is about the eyeshadows!

I have heard lots of good things about Distorria's matte eyeshadows, and owning none apart from my Sugarpill palettes, I was very excited to receive two samples in my order (besides the full-size teal one that I ordered). I also purchased samples of two of the highlighters.

 

Detrivore Cosmetics! Lip products

I finally ordered from Detrivore Cosmetics! They were having a summer sale, so I decided to take advantage of that and try a few of their products. I got two Lip Glosses, one matte shadows and two highlighters. Distorria very kindly added two samples of her infamous matte eyeshadow shades to my order. This post will be about the lip glosses, and I will cover the eyeshadows seperately.

Femme Fatale Cosmetics: Quivering Heart Glitter Polish!

Quivering Heart

The polish I nearly didn't get!

Femme Fatale Cosmetics: Star's Lament Glitter Polish

Star's Lament

Femme Fatale Cosmetics: A tisket, a tasket Glitter polish

When my beloved FFC announced the arrival of glitter polishes, I was only just able to restrain myself and wait until I actually had money to spare to buy them. I got the mini 5ml size, which should be back in stock by now (Soph had a supplier issue). Next time I think I'll just go for the large size, these are SO GORGEOUS. I got a sample of one of the new eyeshadow shades with my order, which will be swatched in an upcoming post.

Site description: "semi-opaque white polish with green shimmers and various glitter in pink, teal and green."

My take:
Square teal glitter, tiny mint green hex glitter, larger lime green and bright pink hex glitter. Very cute! The white base is sheer enough that I think you could experiment with base colours - though I'd probably keep it to the pastel family. 

Swatched over Kit Cosmetics: New Attitude

You can absolutely get away with just your normal topcoat over this, it feels quite smooth when it dries. However if you're rough with your hands, glitter on the edges MAY get flicked off, so I would suggest either a few coats of thick topcoat, or a non-fast drying one before a finishing coat of a fast-drying one.

The large bottles are 15ml for $10.50, small bottles are 5ml for $4.

To give you an idea of size, here's a 5ml Femme Fatale polish as compared to a 15ml Colour Club:

Sneak preview ;)

Strictly speaking (i.e dollar per ml) the larger bottles are better value, but if you're a nail polish fanatic the smaller bottles are probably going to have less of an impact on your stash! My own polish collection is pretty modest (for blogger standards, anyway) so when Sophie releases more polishes, I'll go ahead and get the 15ml bottles straight away. Compared to other indie polish companies, Femme Fatale's 15ml bottles are very competitively priced, and for Aussies they have fast, inexpensive shipping. Non-Aussies, Sophie's working hard on getting international shipping set up!

Most importantly, the polishes are 3-free, and they don't smell like horrible chemical death!

Swatches of Quivering Heart and Star's Lament coming up soon :)

Yet more Mode swatches!

YOU GUYS YOU GUYS. Remember how I lost my favourite purple Mode Cosmetics polish during the move, and haven't been able to find a new bottle anywhere?

YAAAY!

Review: Neutrogena Sunscreen Lotion SPF30

The full name of this product is Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-touch Sunscreen Lotion SPF30+, and then under that it says with helioplex broad spectrum UVA-UVB.

NotD: Teal Paisley

After the reverse ladybug manicure, I wanted something that wouldn't show tip-wear as much, and I wanted to pull out my very neglected Konad plates.

Review: Scaredy Cat Cosmetics

Scaredy Cat Cosmetics is an Etsy-based store which has some of the most amazing packaging around - especially when you consider their prices! Although the sample vials look simply adorable, I've hear they're not especially practical, and I wanted to see the full sizes in person, so I just settled on one shade. I was still searching for teal shadows at this point, so I purchased Koi-eurism. It was $5 US and the shipping was an additional $5 US.

My order did not come with a sample, but no-where on the website or listing are samples written as being included with the order, and considering the intricacy and uniqueness of the packaging, I didn't mind at all.

Over Pixie Epoxy on left, dry and on bare skin on right.

Koi-eurism was a lot lighter than I thought it would be, and it's a very blue teal. On bare skin it goes on quite sheer. See it here next to Aromaleigh Giacinta:

Giacinta left, Koi-eurism right.

As beautiful as the bottle is, it's not hugely practical. I'm going to try and pop the sifter off after I've used it a couple of times - I don't want to risk spilling too much product.

Here's a reference picture to give you an idea of the size:

Aromaleigh full-size, Scaredy Cat, Sugarpill loose shadow

I definitely recommend Scaredy Cat Cosmetics, not only for beautifully unique jars, but because they have stellar customer service. My order actually went missing and Kelly so kindly sent me a replacement, which arrived safely. I'll definitely be ordering from them again. I have my eye on Orbital for my next purchase - not that I actually need any more taupes!

NoTD: Reverse Ladybug

I decided to pull out my dotting tools. I purposely didn't try for an even/neat arrangement and I think that worked out a LOT better than trying to emulate my work with my uncoordinated left hand.

Base: Manicare Glam Nails Paint It Black
Dots: Illamasqua Throb

LaurEss: Review & Swatches

It was quite a sad day when one of my staple indie companies Sassy Minerals announced that they would be closing and merging with an unknown-to-me company called LaurEss. The migration was supposed to take place pretty swiftly, but it was about a month until the Sassy products were actually available from the LaurEss website.

Sassy was one of my favourite companies because not only did they sell a variety of great products (eyeshadows, blush, face powder and foundation) but because they sold samples in JARS and orders always came so darn fast, even though they're in the U.S and I'm in Australia.

When the Sassy shades finally came up on the LaurEss website, I was really disappointed to see that they were no longer offering eyeshadow samples, just blush and face product samples. Having ordered a lot of Sassy eyeshadows, I did have a few shades I was interested in purchasing a full size of. After a lot of deliberation I decided to order one of my favourite shades from them, a matte grey called Thunderstruck. The eyeshadows are $5.25 US.

The order arrived in a fairly timely fashion. Sassy pack the shadows in a mesh bag and then an organza one over that. LaurEss just went with the organza - possibly because my order was so small. It did include a sample of a blush/highlighter.

The sample packaging was the same jar as the Sassy samples used, with the same type of sticker and font. However, I find LaurEss's product categories and listings to be a bit confusing. I didn't know what exactly they'd sent me until I looked it up on the website, and even then, I only realised it was a blush-type product because of the pricing and the fact you could purchase a sample.

 The full-size shadow packaging is very different as well. The jar is a lot nicer-looking, but unlike the old Sassy jars, does not have the ingredients list anywhere.

I have several Sassy blushes, so I was definitely interested to try out Effervescent. But what I was most interested in was comparing my Sassy sample of Thunderstruck to the LaurEss full-sized jar... once I could get it open. Unfortunately, the full-sized jars come with those paper sifter stickers that have no pull-tab. That was the case on all of the old full-sized Sassy products as well. I opted to remove the sifter altogether.

LaurEss on the left, Sassy on the right. Swatched dry on bare skin.

The Sassy version looks a little bit lighter to my eye, though they show up almost identically in the pictures. They seem to have the same texture as well.

Verdict? I will probably be ordering a few full-sizes from LaurEss, but I think that the lack of samples will work against them being able to pull in a lot of new fans/customers.

Did your order from Sassy before they closed? Have/will you order from LaurEss in the future?