Darling Girl Cosmetics : Swatches

Hello again! I meant to have this post up yesterday, but I got a lovely soccer related injury and spent the rest of my night resting (and icing and compression and elevation) and attempting to find a pair of crutches. Crutches have been acquired, so now I can finally get this post up! The next in my indie obsession month is Darling Girl Cosmetics. Darling Girl is an indie shop that is based out of Houston, TX and can lay claim to having an extremely popular item: The Darling Girl Glitter Glue. I did not get that in my order, but it's basically just as popular as Fyrinnae's Pixie Epoxy (which I will actually get around to writing about one of these days, I have so many more blog posts to do for Indie month... it's kind of ridiculous). 

For this order, I picked up their offering of the blogger pack. The blogger pack comes with one petite eye shadow and four sample baggies, but I believe that I also got a GWP and another little free sample baggie (and stickers!). The shades that I ordered were Persuasion, Beast, Frankenstein, Ruby Soho, and Blue Flame; the shades that were free were Wackadoodle and Mischievous. 

Now, as I've stated with the other indie reviews, shipping times really vary from company to company. However, every good company should have a stated TAT (turn around time) on their home page or on the order page. Darling Girl has a TAT of 18-20 days and my order took those 18-20 days, but it's a one woman show over there, so it's not something of concern for me. 

Now, on to the swatches!

The shadows all apply very nicely and the only one that isn't extremely pigmented is Wackadoodle, but I'm 99% sure that it is meant to be a sheer (or at least, MORE sheer) shade. When I applied it to my eyes, I put it over a sticky bronze base and it look fantastic over that. I don't know if you guys are as in love with Blue Flame as I am, but I kind of want to drown myself in the color. I mean really, how gorgeous is that?? 

The only thing that is a bit irritating to me is that Beast and Frankenstein look almost identical. It's probably not as obvious in the photos, but in real life, I can't tell the samples apart and when I put them on my arm, I wasn't completely sure that I hadn't swatched the same thing twice. I had to go back and swatch them on my other arm just to make sure... Their descriptions don't sound that similar online either; Beast: Midtonal grey brown with red sheen and gold iridescence and Frankenstein: Murky greyish green with strong copper shift. I don't mind all that much since these are samples, but I just found it odd that they are so similar.

I am going to leave you guys with some out of focus snaps so that you can truly see the amazing sparkle in these shadows!

Questions, comments? Leave them for me down below!

Hello Waffle : Swatches and Review

The full sized goods pt. 1

And the month of indies will continue on! I had an insane Fourth of July weekend and as such (and some seriously cloudy days beforehand), I did not get this out as soon as I was planning. However, with great pleasure, I bring you another indie company: Hello Waffle. I do feel a bit bad with the timing of this post since Christine, the owner, has had to close down her shop due to an upcoming move. However, she will be open again in mid August and I will post about her company again then so as to keep you all aware of it.

So, Hello Waffle... If you're wondering where the name comes from, Waffle is the name of Christine's cat and she has a cute little description on her website about it, "This shop is named after my amazing cat Waffle whom I've had since he was 9 weeks old. The phrase 'Hello Waffle' is commonly said around my household as he likes to lurk around corners and scare you when you least expect it. I specialize in making collections based off fairytales because everyone loves a great story. " Hello Waffle is based out of Canada, which is fairly unique for the indie community. Alas, Christine manages to get orders sent out incredibly quickly and they're well (and cutely) packed. I placed my order on June 6th, during one of her flash sales, and it still managed to arrive by June 21st.... from Canada. That's pretty damn speedy if you ask me!

The full sized goods pt. 2

For your sake, and mine, I ordered the Blogger Pack, which has slightly changed since the time that I ordered. When I ordered, the blogger pack included two full sized shadows, ten sample packs, one full sized blush, one sample blush, two sample lip balms, and one full sized lip balm. I will explain why there's a difference later on in this post, but currently Christine is not offering the lip balms. There was also a free GWP when I placed my order, a choice of two shades, and I picked up Corgi Butts! The shades that I got for my blogger pack were as follows: Kai, Hot Cross Bunnies, Mad, Dormouse, Gryphon, Cravings, Enchantress, Escape, Ethereal, Fey, Golden Stairs, and Wastelands (all eye shadows); Golden Veil Highlighter, Bubblegum blush, and Ginger Kitties, Orchid, and Vamp lip balms.

The Full Size Shadows (and Corgi Butts)

Christine included a note on my order letting me know that she was out of several of the sample sizes, so she threw in a few full sizes instead (which was awesome!). Along with my blogger pack, I also ordered samples of Snow Bees, Arendelle, and Sloth... because one can never have enough eye shadow. If I had really been thinking, I would have ordered more blush samples, but I think I got too excited and forgot.  If I haven't already mentioned how much of a love affair I have going on with Hello Waffle and, more explicitly, Christine, she wrote a really sweet little note on my order form for me! 

Golden Veil

Vamp, Orchid, and Ginger Kitties

The backside of the clamshells

Sample-y goodness, drool....

Now, without further ado, let's get to the damn swatches. Just like last time, I shot the swatches in three different types of light so that you can see how they translate. I'm roughly a NC15 skin tone (maybe more like NC13 in winter), so keep that in mind as well. All of the swatches, aside from the blush and highlighter were done on top of Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy.

All of these colors swatched so beautifully! It's a shame that Snow Bees kinds of disappears into my skin in these pictures, but in real life, it was a wonderful highly shimmery highlight shade with a bit of gold to it. With all of these shadows, and with almost all indies, they do work better with a slightly sticky base underneath them. They will show up without the base, but you aren't going to get the full spectrum of awesome.

And last, but not least, the swatches of the lip balms. I have no idea where I have placed Ginger Kitties, which makes me incredibly sad since it is such a pretty color, but that's also the reason why there is no swatch of it. I was wearing it in my last FOTD if you want to check that out. I said that I would explain later why Christine is not carrying her lip balms right now. There were some reviews that stated that the lip balms were feeling very gritty and not satisfied with that, Christine decided to pull them until she can come up with a better formula. I do have to say that my balms a bit gritty, but Orchid and Ginger Kitties aren't that bad. Vamp is much gritter than the other two and as a result, didn't apply nearly as evenly. All of the colors are gorgeous though, so I'm excited for them to become available again.

So what do I think of Hello Waffle? I'm kind of, moderately, ok... emphatically, in love with Hello Waffle. I love the products, I love the names of the products, I love Christine's customer service, and I love that she's incredibly active on Facebook and (...more importantly, let's face it) Reddit. She is always answering questions and offering little peeks into the life of an indie creator. Long story short, Hello Waffle is amazing and I definitely encourage all of you to place an order when she reopens in August!

Questions or comments? Let me know!

xx,

Bisous

Bonus Pictures

Because these pictures captured the awesome sparkle so well, I had to include them as well!

Seriously, the sparkle on that highlighter tho...

FOTD : 6.27.14

I didn't post this look yesterday so that I wasn't spamming you guys with too much on one day. However, I wanted to show you a look I did using some indies that I've acquired recently! (excuse my hair in these pictures, I didn't have time to snap any pictures after I dried my hair...)

Face

• bareMinerals bareMinerals Original Foundation Broad Spectrum SPF 15 Fairly Light
• bareMinerals Prime Time™ Neutralizing Foundation Primer 1 oz
• Hourglass Ambient Lighting Palette (using Dim as a light contour and Radiant to bronze!)
• Hello Waffle Golden Veil Highlighter
• Milani Baked Blush in Luminoso

Eyes

• Maybelline Color Tattoo in Just Beige (this was LE, sorry!)
• Unnamed Too Faced Shadows in the crease
• Scaredy Cat Cosmetics in Bacchus (outer & inside corner) and Rose Gold (middle)
• Stila Eye Shadow Kitten (brow highlight and tear duct)
• Urban Decay Perversion Mascara (not yet release, I'll have a review coming soon)
• Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Wiz Medium Brown (formerly Medium Ash Brown)
• ELF Clear Brow Gel

Lips

• Hello Waffle Lip Balm in Ginger Kitties - Christine is reformulating her lip products, so they are currently unavailable!

Hope you guys are having a great weekend!

(post contains affiliate links)

Scaredy Cat Cosmetics : Overview, Swatches, and more

Hello everyone! I know, it's been a bit since my last post, but I'm back. Over the past few weeks, I've been getting really interested in indie brands of cosmetics and places a whole bunch of orders to try some things out. If you've been a reader since last year, then you may remember that I've already dabbled in the indie realm when I placed a large order of Shiro Cosmetics samples. I don't know what sparked my interest in indies again, but I'm so glad that it happened! 

I've already received products from three companies and I have four more orders on their way (one of which is from Shiro :D). One of the best things about the indie community is that the store owners realize that their customers may want to sample a product before buying a full size, so most companies offer sample or trial sizes of their products. For the majority of my orders, I only ordered sample sizes or did a "blogger pack" so that I was able to inform you guys about the products. 

First up on the chopping block is Scaredy Cat Cosmetics which is actually based out of Kansas City (and I am too), so I got my order incredibly quickly. That is actually something to note about indie makeup; most of the companies are owned by people who work another job; this means that you might have to wait a few weeks for an order. Regardless, Scaredy Cat is literally about 15 minutes from my house, so it was like next day shipping on my order. I ordered a ten pack of the trial vials and got the colors below.

There was a slight problem with my first order due to a printer mishap, so Kelly, the owner, sent me the correct items with some extra vials!

In the indie industry, you see a lot of product measurements; things like a sample being an eighth of a teaspoon or a mini jar having a fourth, etc, etc. Scaredy Cat's trial vials don't have any exact measurements, but they are filled to the brim with product and considering that they're a buck a piece, it's pretty generous. The vials, while amazingly cute, do prove to be a bit inconvenient since you can't get a brush in them. This is perfectly fine by me since I do plan on pressing these into solid shadows, but for those of you who prefer loose will need to get a bigger mouthed container to transfer these into.

The shadows are all gorgeous, but vary a bit in their opacity. I applied these all over a matte Maybelline Color Tattoo (I can never remember the name of it) but will continue to experiment with bases for these. As I'm diving deeper into this crazy world of indie makeup and the beautiful sparkly shades that are created, I have begun to realize that I need to buy a full size Pixie Epoxy from Fyrinnae or something similar from E.L.F.

All of the following swatches are done over the Maybelline Color Tattoo.

Natural Light

L to R: Phoenix Tears, Rose Gold, Amanita, Sanguine

Natural Light

L to R: Nouveau, Dee's Nuts, Phoenix Tears

Flash

L to R: Dee's Nuts, Phoenix Tears, Rose Gold, Amanita, Sanguine

Flash

L to R: Nouveau, Dee's Nuts, Phoenix Tears, Rose Gold

Direct Sun

L to R: Phoenix Tears, Rose Gold, Amanita, Sanguine 

Direct Sun

L to R: Nouveau, Dee's Nuts, Phoenix Tears, Rose Gold

Flash

L to R: Hera, Smooze, Sakura, Bear Necessities

Flash

L to R: Bacchus, Nevermore, Keltoi

Natural Light

L to R: Hera, Smooze, Sakura

Natural Light:

L to R: Bear Necessities, Bacchus, Nevermore, Keltoi

Direct Sun

L to R: Bear Necessities, Bacchus, Nevermore, Keltoi

Direct Sun

L to R: Hera, Smooze, Sakura

The colors that needed the most help getting up to a full pigmentation were Hera and Smooze, everything else got fairly opaque very easily. I think that Hera would really benefit from a stickier base like Pixie Epoxy or Darling Girl's Glitter Glue. My favorite shades out of the all of them are Bacchus, Rose Gold, Phoenix Tears, and Sakura but don't let that fool you into thinking that I don't like the rest; I've got a pretty big hard on for all of the shades.

And there you have it. I have used these shadows on my eyes which is also what swayed my "favorites" :) If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask!