Evil Shades Review!

Anyone here a fan of Evil Shades Cosmetics? I just made my second order and realized that I'd never properly reviewed my first, which I made last fall. Whoops!

In the first order, I got full sizes of ceylon and ravishing blushes, and a sample of skön. Here are some better swatches! I love the full sizes I got, they go on nicely and the texture and staying power is good. Skön's texture is equally lovely, but the color makes me look like I bruised my cheeks. I can see this color looking great on a cooler-toned or darker skinned woman.  Evil Shades blushes might be my favorite thing on their whole site. I like how the colors she offers are bright and fun - there are absolutely no "universally flattering" pinky-brown shades here, just bright, clear colors that have a bit of an unexpected twist. Even Curiosity, which looks at first glance to have the most neutral appearance, has blue shimmer in the description! Ceylon has a green flash, and Ravishing shifts purple. This is about my favorite kind of product - things that look "normal" enough but contain sly winks at ideas like "professionalism" and "workplace acceptability."

I also ordered a blogger sample pack, and got a bunch of samples of lip stuff. To the left - More Synth Deviant Lipstick. It's pretty much a balm packed with rainbow glitter. I can't wait for the full size to get here! It's great on its own because it's one of those unassuming-from-afar-yet-edgy-up-close shades. I think it's best for a daytime casual look.

I also got samples of Primrose Path Deviant Lipstick and Féline's Kyss Hardcore Lips gloss. Primrose Path is pretty, and so is Féline's Kyss, but I did not get full sizes of these. Primrose Path is pretty, but I'm extremely picky about pinks, and this wasn't the best I'd ever worn. Féline's Kyss is also gorgeous, swatched on my hand, but on my face comes off as just a smidge too light for me.

The quality of the lipsticks is great, and the gloss is nice as well, though it can separate over time. In this same order, I got some limited edition lipglosses with a different formula that I did not like as much, and I have the same problem with them. The glosses are not sticky at all, which I both like and dislike. In my next order, I requested a sample of another gloss, and a larger size of her new black lipgloss so I'll better be able to form my opinion on them then. I don't know why I ordered black lipgloss, exactly, except that I don't have any and it seemed like a fun addition to my stash. All in all, Andrea offers a pretty wide selection of lip products, none of which contain my archenemy, beeswax! I hate to say it, but I definitely like Evil Shades lip products better than Silk Naturals, which were my first "OMG I can actually wear these!" lip things. The Evil Shades products come in more fun colors (some of which are a bit, um, adventurous for me!), and they stay on longer. My personal pickiness with shades of pink aside, a lot of what Andrea has is a winner here.

Let's also talk about eyeshadow, which is something you all know I love! I don't have swatches of the sample I got that is getting upgraded to full size, Eplefe, because it's such a stunning color I'm working on a separate post for it. So here's two pics of the other four I got. They're all swatched over Vitrum Spectrum Pot (also from Evil Shades!) which is a waxy white cream base.

I don't think this was intentional, but Wyvern and Whooo Are You? look like fraternal twins of the eyeshadow world. Whooo Are You? shifts yellow and warm while Wyvern shifts cool and blue, but they seem to have a similar base green. Twinkle Twinkle is a badass yellow, and Zombie is a rich oxblood color that looks like it would fit right in this fall. I did a look with Wyvern, Zombie, and Eplefe that I think shows the colors' versatility.

I like the texture of the shadows, and there's some fun stuff going on with them. They just work well and look nice, and I can't complain about that!

I'd definitely recommend Evil Shades Cosmetics, but recommend that you order two weeks or so before you think you'll want to use the products because turnaround time is in that range. Pricing is reasonable, and she offers generous samples in clamshells, full sizes, and enormous sizes for mega-fans and makeup artists. You know I like the company alright because I ordered another pile of stuff from them!

Look forward to my thoughts on her new Morbidly Beautiful collection, her black eyeshadow primer, and the peachy color corrector in a month or so!

Wet'N'Wild swatches for your viewing pleasure

Nothing you haven't already seen, probably, but I wanted to play with my cheapie shadow collection. If you're trying to decide whether to buy these, I'd probably only wholeheartedly recommend the 8-pan palettes. Also, I tried something a little different with some of the swatches - faking the "look" the company recommends for their shadows.

Evil Shades Haul and Swatch Pics! Finally!

Something is wrong with my computer. Maybe age or a lack of RAM. And also I blew out my Internet and spent an inordinate amount of time monkeying with wires and resetting things before finally unplugging everything and letting it take a nap before I tried again. So here, finally, are the pictures! You may want to click on them for full effect - they're a little small on this page.

My haul. Mmm. Hauley goodness.


The lip swatches. I wrote the shade name on my hand before taking the picture. I think I NEED a full size of More Synth (the glitter one on the top).


The blush swatches. From left to right: Skon, Ravishing, Ceylon, Gossamer. I bought the middle two in full size, and I'm glad I did. I'm such a blush addict!


Eyeshadow swatches part 1. I think it's awesome that they have a shade named Wyvern. Wyvern is one of my favorite SyFy Original Movies.
Before I did these, I put a big stripe of the Vitrum spectrum pot I ordered on the left and a big strip of the Opal eye primer sample I also got on the right. So that's what these babies are swatched over.


The purples. Same deal on the primers as the first batch.


What do you think? Review to come.

Morgana Cryptoria Lipsticks!

Before I went on my no-buy, I ordered three lipsticks from Morgana Cryptoria because they were on sale, and I couldn't resist. Or chose not to. Or whatever. I was feeling celebratory over my new job starting. This is my fourth order from them, and it won't be my last. The new ones in this order are starred in the bottom pic.


The first time I ordered, I got a full size of Azalea Blue and samples of Coraline's Kiss and Watermelon. Turned out that Azalea Blue just did not work for me - the texture was much drier than I expected, and it was too cool-toned for my skin. So I swapped it. I emailed Melissa, the owner, about the texture because I thought something was wrong with it. She told me that different colors have different textures due to the colorants varying from shade to shade, and offered me a store credit to keep my happy. Since I fell in love with the other samples, on my second try, I ordered those in full size. Love. Neither color is available anymore - but there's a similar color to Coraline's Kiss in the new lip balm formula, which I haven't tried. It's called Coraline's Doppelganger.

My third order was for Peach Daiquiri, Very Strawberry, and Roses and Violets. I have a bit of a struggle making Peach Daiquiri work for me as it's really, really pale, and my lips are fairly pigmented on their own. It's good for lightening other colors or using over a dark lip crayon. But, the other two are great. Anyone could wear Roses and Violets in even a very conservative office. Along with that order, I also got samples of Tangerine Twist, Gilded Lime, and Fire in the Sky. I instantly wished I'd gotten a full size of the TT, and had a bit of fun trying out green and blue around the apartment - then working them into frankens I'd wear outside the house.

Then, I won Just Peachy from Jill, at The Peach. Just Peachy is darker enough from Peach Daiquiri that I can wear it for a "nude" look.

A few weeks ago, I ordered the last three members of my Morgana collection: Violet Banana, Tangerine Twist, and Speakeasy (from the 1920s collection). Speakeasy was cooler and darker than I expected, but it ended up working really well. I'll be using a sheer wash of this as a stain. I'm thrilled to own Tangerine Twist, and even more thrilled to have gotten it on sale.

Violet Banana; however, is my surprise favorite. I knew ordering yellow was a big risk, but it seemed to come off more gold in other bloggers' swatches. So, I took the plunge, and I'm glad I did. On me, it's a multi-dimensional golden nude effect. Since my lips are so pink to begin with, the pink and the yellow make an orangey gold. It's also sheer enough that it can be worn really subtly. Nude lipsticks usually look somewhere between odd and awful on me, but this could cancel out some of my natural lipcolor without erasing them entirely. I have small lips, and a big face. I don't like it when my lips disappear.

Since anything with beeswax in it will cause blisters within minutes, it's really nice to have an option of fun colors of excellent quality that are vegan and safe. They really are worth the wait. I'm still waiting for an opportunity to order Plumeria, Dianthus, Gilded Cerise, Very Cherry (which has returned! Dang no buy!), and all of the sheer lip balms (they would be great for work!). I'm also sitting on my hands waiting for the gel lipsticks, which seem really interesting. Melissa has also just put out a bunch of lipglosses, and I think I want to try one - only thing putting me off it is that I detest wand style lip stuff.

She's back open tonight or tomorrow, so check her out.

All UDPP and all TFSI - comparison!

I have a full size TFSI, a mini size UDPP Greed, sample decants from Sephora of UDPP Sin and Eden and TFSI candlelight, and I had a sample card of UDPP. So, I did some swatches. On top is Silk Naturals Lime, a matte shade, and on the bottom is Hi-Fi The Hydra, a shimmery blue.

Left to right:
1. Bare skin
2. UDPP
3. UDPP Eden
4. UDPP Sin
5. UDPP Greed
6. TFSI Candlelight
7. TFSI

Out of the "clear" primers, I like TFSI better - I think it does a better job enhancing the shimmer shade.

I do not like Eden too much - it leaves a much too yellowish cast for my taste. I'd like it better if it were a very pale peach.

Out of the "gold" primers, I like UD Greed better. Candlelight seems to wash out the shimmer shade too much, and even if it does make mattes a little sparklier, it also makes them paler.

Sin is a unique shade, and I like it. It washes out the colors more than Greed, but I like it on its own as a quick and easy work cream shadow. I have the shadow pencil in the same color, but that creases on me a little - but if I had the primer for my lids and the pencil for the lower lashline, I'd look a lot more awake in not a lot of time.

Out of the six of them, TFSI, Greed, and Sin are the ones I think are worth having.

So there's my thoughts on the eye primer leaders.

Darling Girl Haul!

So, as you may know, I broke my no-buy with a Darling Girl haul, made twice as large by the generosity of Just Peachy's Jill, my no-buy buddy. Here's pics of (almost) everything, plus the three items I had from my first Darling Girl mini-haul last fall.

Last fall, I ordered two eyeshadows and a blush - Wicked, Chocolate Cosmos, and Impetuous. All wonderful. A month or so ago, I got a sample pod of Midnight Train Aqua Liner in a swap. I ordered four shadows (petit size), a cream blush (sweet coron), two lip balms (chocolate orange truffle and caramelized mango), a dry oil spray (citrus green), a lip scrub (chocolate orange truffle), the glitter glue, and Mermaid Tails aqua liner.


All - left to right
Top: Mermaid Tails Aqua Liner; Midnight Train
Middle: Wicked; Chocolate Cosmos; Chimera; Belle
Bottom: Clusterfluff; Magic Dragon; My Little Pony; Polaris


Left: Impetuous blush. Right: Sweet Coron Sweet Cheeks Cream blush.

The shadows are beautiful and creamy. The texture is wonderful, and everybody needs My Little Pony, especially if you're a fan of Urban Decay's Asphyxia - this is a paler, less pink version of that - lavender with a pale green sheen.

The lip balms are flavored, but not in an overpowering sort of way. I like the two I picked. I'm undecided on the lip scrub - I think I like it, but the grains are super huge.

I haven't had a chance to use Sweet Coron or the glitter glue yet.

Mermaid Tails is BEAUTIFUL. I love it. Flat out.

The dry oil is harder to use than I wanted it to be - you really can only get a nice, fine mist out of an aerosol can, and an indie company just can't do that. The oil itself is very moisturizing and sinks in fast.

Have you tried Darling Girl? What did you think?

Mini-haulettes!

Recently, I made two of the world's tiniest makeup orders ever. Like, seriously tiny.

I wanted to double check my foundation shade at adorned with Grace, pick up some clearance eyeshadow, and try out their new Merciful color corrector in Apricot.



Franchesca threw in samples of Merciful corrector in yellow and pink, too! The eyeshadow, Enthralling, was a free sample in my last order. I didn't have much in the way of yellow, so I snapped up five sample baggies for 1.63 - when decanted into a 3g jar, you end up with slightly more than a Fyrinnae sample.



I also wanted to find out what all the fuss about Sassy Minerals, a new player to the game, was about. So I ordered Warm Fair foundation and a sample of Gasoline Rainbow eyeshadow. They threw in samples of Warm Light foundation and Apparition eyeshadow. Good thing, too, because Warm Light is a much better match for me, and Apparition is pretty nice. Haul pictured below with two Fyrinnae colors that looked similar.


As you can see, Gasoline Rainbow and Fyrinnae Immortality are pretty similar - GR has more brightly colored shimmer, and I think I like it better. Apparition, on the other hand, is a very different beast from Fyrinnae Equality. Apparition looks lavender in some light, is more metallic than sparkly, and doesn't have Equality's rainbow shimmer. They are both really nice colors, though I have to quit with the gray shades, because they're not the best on me (but I love them anyway!).

Physicians Formula Shimmer Strips Gel Liners!

So you all know how I got the blue eyes cream liners in return for some tinted moisturizers. I have another good story about how I got the green eyes ones!

I shop at CVS a lot - I like that I can return things that I buy there if I don't like them, and I like the savings you can get with the card.

I had five Extra Bucks burning a hole in my pocket. I wanted something new! So, I wandered over to the PF display, and saw the green liners I wanted so much. Now, getting those for half price would normally be good enough - but then I saw the new BambooWear compact. It also earned the buyer five Extra Bucks. AND it had a try me free rebate sticker!

So, I went up the register, bought the compact with my debit card, tore off the new Extra Bucks coupon, went back to the display, got the liners, and handed over the two coupons plus $1.41, and left the store with both products. I am good at the deals!

Here are all the jars open, so you can compare the colors.


I also did new swatch photos - these are all done with a Q-tip, so they aren't as precise as you'd get from the brush, but they do give a good idea about the color. The blue eyes ones are on the right, the green eyes ones on the left. All the colors are different! Even the black colors have different color sparkles - notice how the green eyes one has green shimmer, and the blue eyes one has blue shimmer?


I am probably not going to get the other colors, because I'd just end up with slightly different shades of purple and brown - but if they came out with new colors and included a white liner, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

Have I mentioned that these are my favorite liners ever? I only wish they'd stay a little better on the lower lashline.

Aromaleigh mini-haul swatch pics!

As promised earlier today - pics!!

I got some Gothic Lolita eye samples, and requested HiFi mattes as my freebies.





I also got the entire Spring Solstice 2009 collection in samples. Love!!! :)



Sadly, I either forgot to take or deleted my swatches of this from the camera. :( They are lovely, though. Take my word for it.


Then today, in resolution of a customer service issue, I got all of this, plus a full size lookinforakiss shadow (not pictured). I had only asked for one of the Nocture Lite and the Gothic Lolita shimmers. This is people who want their customers to be happy!!!





Lookinforakiss

Physican's Formula Shimmer Strips Cream Liner - Blue Eyes

I recently acquired the new Shimmer Strips Cream Liner for Blue Eyes from Physician's Formula - Here are some swatch pictures!



The set comes with three liners in cube-shaped jars that snap together like Legos. There's a matte blue purple shade, a pearly brown, and a black with blue shimmers in it. I was not really excited about the black, as I usually avoid it in favor of brown, but the blue shimmer makes it a lot softer and more interesting. You also get a liner brush with the kit.

I've tried all of them, and I really like them so far. The brush they come with works pretty well, and the product itself stays where I put it for the most part, and shows up nice and crisp. There isn't a lot of product in the individual jars, but I don't really mind that - you don't need a whole lot of it, and I might actually use something this small up.

I like these a lot - I might save up for the green eyes one after I get another job. I'm hoping that the sparkles in the black match the intended eye color, because that would be awesome - having a bunch of identical black liners isn't the neatest thing in the world.

Only problem is that you really need an oil-based remover or cleanser to get these things off, and they have a tendency to stain.

Aromaleigh mini-haul plus BONUS EOTD

I got my Aromaleigh micro-mini-haul the other day and finally have the pics uploaded!

I also did a very neutral eye look with some EDM stuff and a Meow sample.

So, the haul!


And, the swatches!
Top row: Gothic Lolita Burnt Roses; Gothic Lolita Divine Intervention; Rocks! Sonic planetearth.
Bottom row: Opulent Lustres Jasmine; Opulent Lustres Ginger; Opulent Lustres Tea; Rocks! Sonic lookingforakiss.



I also took pics of an eye look I did the other day. It's not flashy or anything, but it's the first eye look I've ever gotten good macros of. I did take care of the brows right after - they were a little overgrown.

Anyway, on the lid I have my mix of EDM's Opening Day blush and Pure Luxe's Awakening (a sparkly light green) shadow. Then, I used EDM's Shopping Spree in the crease, Meow's ScandalEyes Traci L. to highlight, lined with Wet n Wild creme liner in eggplant (probably returning to the store - I reacted to it a little), and Gabriel Color mascara in Black Brown. The crease color was darker than it looks.

adorned with Grace mini-haul plus bonus SN/Meow swatch pics

So, I got my awG mini-haul the other day. Here's pics!

Eye stuff in one pic, plus face stuff in the other pic.



Swatch pics! All eye swatches over ELF mineral eye primer. Blush swatches on bare skin.



Top row: Steadfast (d/c), Capricious (d/c), Enthralling.
Bottom row: Forebearing (d/c), Remarkable, Enigmatic.

The full sizes were a clearance trio, which I'm glad I bought, and the samples were a surprise. I can see myself using up the samples and buying full sizes.



Top: awG Wonderful.
Middle: EDM Nick Nack. (like, but would like a non-EDM replacement when I run out)
Bottom: awG Beautiful.

I wanted to find something similar to a few EDM blushes I liked and keep finding that the texture of other brands is better.


Bonus swatches!

Left four are Silk Naturals, right four are Meow Cosmetics.
Top row: 9:59 (GWP), Satin (freebie sample baggie), VandalEyes Breaking and Entering (sample), VandalEyes Grand Larceny (sample).
Bottom row: Lime (full size), Sonic (freebie sample - getting a full size soon), ScandalEyes Traci L (freebie sample baggie), Egyptian Treasures Sand Dune (full size).