Glossier Pink

Hey guys, long time, no see. It's been a while since I posted, but I though that it would be fun to get back to blogging; so here I am. I'm posting today because one of my (more recent) favorite brands created a #glossierpink Pinterest board.

First and foremost, for 100% complete transparency, I want to let you guys know that I'm not being paid for this post and I'm receiving absolutely no compensation; I just really love Glossier and I thought it would be fun to participate. Why do I love Glossier? Because they have a huge focus on skin care and creating the most amazing base (our own skin) to elevate your own beauty. I own several Glossier products and when my current face wash runs out, I plan on picking up their new Milky Jelly Cleanser. The whole idea and philosophy behind Glossier aligns with my view on skin care and it doesn't hurt that their products are cute and great quality.

It was a bit of a challenge at first, trying to figure out how to incorporate #glossierpink into my look because, quite honestly, I am not a pale pink kind of girl. I thought about a lipstick or a blush, but both look horrible on my pale, warm skin; I thought about pink hair (honestly) but I didn't want to commit to that. Then I figured it out; a manicure!

I found the Wet N Wild 1 Step Wonder Gel nail polish in the shade Pinky Swear (review to come on these nail polishes later) was the perfect shade of pink to match Glossier and looked nice on my nails.

And it turned out it was pretty much a dead match for the pink on my Smoothing Face Mist bottle (this stuff is great for before/after makeup or a refresher during the day - just make sure that you don't mind the smell of roses).

And because I haven't shown my face on here in a while, here I am! Yes. I bleached the shit out of my hair and I love it.

Where the hell have you been?

Great question! For those of you who have been following me or have just started to follow this blog (there are quite a few who have subbed recently on Bloglovin), you may have been wondering if I was ever going to post again. Well, here I am. 

Things were getting hectic last year in December strictly due to the time of year, but then I also broke up with my boyfriend which was pretty gut wrenching, my job was slowly killing me, and then, surprisingly, my company decided to shut down my photo studio... leaving me jobless. It was a rough couple of months and blogging was the last thing on my mind. I simply took a break. I've been unemployed the last two or so months, which seems like a great time to blog, but I had just kind of lost interest. Now, ironically enough, I've just gotten a new job and it made me want to start blogging again! Because blogging when I had nothing to do would have just made way too much sense.

Anyhow, that's where I've been the last few months; just dealing with my own life and that sort of boring nonsense. Since I'm trying to get back into the blogosphere now, I feel like I should inform those of you who may not know, that Sephora is having their annual spring sale! Here are the details (because obviously, if I'm getting back into blogging, I should also be enabling, right?):

The sale started today (4/12) for VIB Rouge members, who receive 15% off any purchase in store and online, and will only be active for Rouge until 4/16/15. On that date, the sale becomes active for VIB members, who will also receive 15% off all purchases in store and online. On 4/17/15, the sale becomes active for all Beauty Insider members (membership is free, just sign up, dammit) and BI members will receive 10% off all purchases in store and online. The sale ends for VIB/VIB Rouge on 4/21/15 and for BI members on 4/20/15. Have I thoroughly confused you with all of these dates? Ok, well, let me list it out for you all nice like.

Our annual event is back in April! For a limited time we're celebrating our clients with a special, limited-time offer. See details and dates below. 
4/12/2015 - 4/21/2015: VIB Rouge 15% off

 4/16/2015 - 4/21/2015: VIB 15%  

4/17/2015 - 4/20/2015: BI 10%

You may think to yourself, "I wonder what Bisous Darling bought at the Sephora sale..." Well, let me tell you what I purchased this morning at the Beauty Before Brunch even for VIB Rouge members.




Shiseido Facial Cottons

These are a bit pricey, but my god, after I started using them, I could never go back to normal cotton rounds. These feel like pillows on your face and I can use ONE to remove an entire face of makeup.




Clinique Lash Power Mascara

I've honestly never used this mascara before, but I saw Sharon Farrell talk about it on her YouTube channel and I was instantly intrigued. I've really been loving mascaras with tiny brushes recently, so I picked this up to try out/add to my massive pile of mascaras that I need to use.




Sephora Honey Eye Mask

Ok, ok, this was an impulse purchase. I had my birthday celebration last night and I may have gotten home fairly close to 4 a.m. and then gotten up at 8:30 a.m. to go to the Sephora event. My eyes hurt, I needed something... so I bought these. They were $5! And they'll be fun.




Sephora Pearl Mask

I've been meaning to pick up a Sephora brand sheet mask to see how they fare against some of the my Korean sheet masks. I liked the sound of "perfecting and brightening", so I picked up this one. I'll definitely do a review on this to let you guys know what I think of it.




Hourglass Modernist Eyeshadow Palette in Infinity

Y'all. That picture above just doesn't do the product justice. I have heard a ton of mixed reviews on these palettes, but Infinity is amazing. It swatches amazingly, it doesn't seem to have a lot of fall out (or maybe it's just how I apply shadow?), and it's 4 matte shades and one beautiful shimmer. There will definitely be an entire post about this bad boy, don't you worry.

I also picked up my free birthday gift with the two NARS lip pencils and one NARS eye pencil. Are you guys picking anything up from the Sephora sale? Or want to get an opinion on something? Feel free to leave a comment below! I've missed my blog and am so happy to be back!!

Colour Pop : Review & Swatches

So, have you guys heard of Colour Pop? If you follow any beauty folks on Instagram/are active on Reddit, I feel like you probably have. They seem to be taking over the world of social media and with good reason; they're an LA based company offering lipsticks, lip pencils, and eye shadows for a whopping price of $5/each. They also offer free shipping on orders over $30, which is pretty easy to hit, so they've got that going for them, too. I can't remember where I first found out about Colour Pop, but I think it was on Reddit and the first colour (haha, get it?) I saw was the shade "Creature". It was this glorious dark burgundy shade and after that, I knew I had to order some things.

The Colour Pop website is incredibly easy to navigate and really well built which is awesome considering how new they are. You can search, there are categories, and the photos are great... which I'm usually highly critical of since I'm a product photographer. They also swatch their lip colors on light, medium, and dark skin tones. Now, they don't swatch each shade on all three, but it looks like they're working on that. I placed an order on November 14th, it shipped November 19th (two weekend days in there), and it arrived on November 22nd. Not bad for a company that is still fairly small (I assume).

I don't have a picture of it, because I forgot, but I did receive a little personalized note from them that said "Hi Allison, We're going to call you dandelion. Love, Colour Pop" The order was packed well in an interior box, stuffed with paper (thank god, I can recycle this!), and then in a larger box. Each lipstick, lip pencil, and eye shadow comes in its own little box. I am not going to talk about the eye shadows in this post, I'm going to do a separate post for those, so today will be all about the Lippie Stix and Lip Pencils.

a little dirty... it's been used.

I got the following lip items:

• Creature Lippie Stix
• Creature Lip Pencil
• Brink Lippie Stix
• Brink Lip Pencil
• Fetch Lippie Stix

Creature is "A deepened blackened burgundy red in a matte finish aka 'a sultry, fierce red for the world dominator' ". For these swatches, I used the lip pencil and the lippie stix together. I need to sharpen the lip pencil... which is why it looks a bit soft on the outlining. Whoops.

The pencil and the lippie stix in Creature apply amazingly and are opaque immediately. I am love with this color and this texture. My lips were slightly chapped when I applied this product for the photo, but you can barely see it! It doesn't cling to the dry patches badly, at all, and it looks lovely on the lips. 

A+

Brink is "a warm dusty taupe in a matte finish. Curated by @brittanysuleiman. Inspired by the insta-famous Kylie lip". I won't lie, I bought this specifically for that last line "Kylie lip". I cannot stand the Kardashian clan, but fuck, does Kylie Jenner has great lip colors! This shade turns a little too warm on me to make it a true dusty taupe, but it's still a fantastic color. This was obviously swatched the same day as Creature (all of these swatches were done the same day), so my lips were still slightly chapped when taking these photos. Can you see any flaky skin in these photos? I can't. Amazing. Brink is creamier to apply than Creature, but dries down to a true matte. This shade is also completely opaque upon first swipe, which is fantastic. The only thing that I noticed that miiiight annoy some people is that the lip pencil is slightly darker than the lippie stix; to me this is no big deal for a nude shade and is actually what I prefer, but I realize that some people might not be into that.

A+

Fetch is a "perfect mid- tone warm true pink in a satin finish. Cuz this shade is like so like o.m.g, totally fetch". Ok, I'm going to be completely honest and say that I bought this is because it is called Fetch and I am a HUGE Mean Girls fan. Case in point:

yeah... this happened

I don't own a lot of true pink lipsticks because I don't feel like they look amazing on me. I bought this mostly because of the name, but also because it was a $5 investment into something that I wasn't sure about. This is a satin shade, which is different than Brink and Creature, which are both mattes. This color definitely has a slip to it when applying and it isn't nearly as opaque as the other two. It can easily be built to be opaque, but it takes a bit more effort. This shade, which is a tiny bit milky (meaning that the base is somewhat white), can be a bit patchy. Rubbing your lips together takes care of this issue, but it can still be a pain. I actually do like the color quite a bit, so yay! However... this shade broke when I opened it. Not in a major way, the tip of the stick broke off and not wanting to have to return it and replace it, I just picked it up off the counter and stuck it back on. 

B+

So there you go! If I'm being 100% honest with you, I not only will be ordering from Colour Pop again, I already have. I placed another order this morning and got Lumière, their newest shade, along with a few gifts. If you guys are interested, check out their website and scroll around, see if you find anything you like.

Questions, comments? Let me know down below!

Limnit Lipstick : Swatches

Another day, another indie to tell you guys about... or more accurately, remind you about. A few months back, I posted a review and some lip swatches from Limnit and I finally got around to ordering a few other colors that I had wanted to get my hands on. Trina had closed for a bit in the early fall but when she reopened, I jumped on the opportunity to get these shades. I only ordered Bewitching Hour and Ms. President, but she threw in Deepest Taupes and Dreams to thank me for my previous review! How sweet? Seriously, this is why I love the indie scene.

Onto reviews and swatches!

Ms. President is, as Limnit describes it, a "bold, semi-matte, opaque, vegan, brick orange-red" shade. It is definitely the most opaque out of the three that I got in the sense that it is just completely opaque in one swipe of the lip brush. This shade was soft and applied super easily and left behind very little, if any stain on the lips.

Bewitching Hour is a "bold, semi-matte, opaque, vegan, dark midnight blue" shade. This was actually the third shade that I applied, which is why my line work is a little shoddy on this... I found this to be fairly opaque on the first swipe, but it did take the tiniest amount of work to get even all over the lips. I actually bought this shade so that I can mix it with Goodness Graycious and make all types of fun colors, but I think I'll probably be busting it out on its own as well. Word to the wise, this shade will stain your lips, so don't think that you can just casually wear it and then wipe it off half way through the day.

Deepest Taupes and Dreams is a "bold, semi-matte, opaque, vegan, dark brown" shade. This was my free shade and it isn't something that I would have picked up on my own. In real life, the shade is definitely more grey, but the lighting here is making the shade look much warmer. This is also extremely dark brown and if you aren't looking closely, can really look black from a distance. I had the most trouble with patchiness with DTAD, but simply blotting and going over the shade takes care of the issue. I'm not sure if I'll be wearing this one as often (OH MY GOD, A COLOR THAT I'M NOT COMPLETELY CONFIDENT IN????), but I might try to keep pushing myself to wear it. 

And there you have it! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to ask!

Aromaleigh Sol Invictus Swatches : Part 2

I really should never say "I'll have the rest of this up tomorrow" when I don't have the follow up post completely done. However, after a few more days, here is part 2 of the Aromaleigh Sol Invictus swatches!

My opinions on these six shadows are pretty much the same as the first six that I posted with one exception. The shade Opalia was a bit funky for me and after searching on Google, it looks like it was an issue for other people as well. I'll talk about it more below, so keep scrolling to see the swatches!

All swatches done over Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy and shot with daylight bulbs

Aureum: "A richly shimmering soft warm gold with color traveling sparkles of gold/green and red/violet."

Luxuriae Maniae: "An imperial purplish mauve with chestnut tones and a strong and sparkling color traveling duochrome effect that ranges from gold, bronze and copper." 

I do have to say that I wore this to Ulta the other day and the cashier asked me all about it because she thought that the shadow was so amazing...

Munera: "A rich taupe-y shade with brilliant aqua/gold/copper sparkles. If you foil this color, or rub it in to your lips or cheeks, it also leans to the rosy side!"

Opalia: "A delicate opalescent pink with bountiful pink to blue color shift. This color would be a perfect shade for highlighting the brow, or even on the cheeks or to add shimmer to the lips!"

Ok, now for more info on this shade. I've read other's opinions on this shade as well and it seems like we all feel the same way about it. This shade is mostly glitter and not a lot of base, so it applies a bit patchy on its own. If it were layered over something, it would look much, much better.

Unchained Revelry: "A gorgeous berry shade that shifts to a softly metallic copper, with brilliant iridescent fuchsia and blue sparkles and copper iridescence."

Um. Hai. Gorgeous.

Sigillaria: "A gorgeously rich amber which is slightly metallic and having a spectacular amount of strong aqua and fuchsia sparklies."

My overall opinion on the collection is wow. If you like metallic and glittery shadows, this collection is definitely something for you to look into. I have a fairly healthy love affair for all things matte, but I also love shadows that catch the eye and are special... which is exactly what these are. The colors are incredibly unique and I think it's safe to say that I don't have anything like these in my collection. Every shade is multifaceted and aside from Opalia, they apply smoothly and opaquely. Definitely a collection to pick up!

Questions? Comments? Let me know down below!

(these samples were provided to me by Aromaleigh, but this fact has, in now way, altered my thoughts. all opinions are my own and no compensation has been provided)