As the Year Winds Down..

Greetings lovely ladies,

It's the end of the year and as the new year approaches it means one blindingly glaring thing for me beauty-wise; a strict no-internet-buy/swap period for me until stash pictures are complete (Unless UD AIW BOS is released, as it was NOT released yesterday as previously rumored. The exact release date is unknown...though my guess is that at the very least it'll be after UD's wonderful free shipping offer ends..it'd be too kind of them to let us have it with free shipping...now wouldn't it? But I digress...)

Anyways..I slipped up just a bit this weekend and made a couple of orders online (some Korres...due to arrive Jan 6) and a possible order for the Px Holiday Eye and Cheek palette in Warm from Nordies. I ordered the 2nd one by phone from a store and by the time I asked the SA to place this order, it had already been removed online, so we'll see if I get this (I hope so, but if not, whatever..I saved some money). So stash pictures will be somewhat later than expected. Unlike last year's photos I plan on labeling everything too..so this will be a pretty big project...let's hope I'm lucky enough to have some non-overcast days.

On to other news...What's everyone's beauty resolution for the new year? And what was it for this year? How did you do?
For the new year, my resolution is to finish at least ONE of my face powders. (It shouldn't be too hard as the middle of my Chanel pressed powder gave out in the middle and I lost maybe 1/3 of the product (I have two like this...the first one I thought it was just because I depotted it to put in the compact but the 2nd time it wasn't a depot so I'm wondering if the middles of these are just weak?)

My resolution for this year was to start wearing sunblock on a daily basis.
How I did: I stopped wearing sunblock maybe around July of this year altogether, and was irregular about it starting in maybe April. Altogether it failed miserably...I couldn't stand the itching anymore (I have some bad sensitivity to sunblock...Shiseido's is the only one I've found so far that I can wear without breaking out badly or getting rashes..and even then I don't particularly like the feel of having sunblock on..I prefer keeping my skin bare). I'm thinking of possiby trying again this year, but it won't be my main focus beauty-wise. I'll probably post a couple of NOTDs before the new year, but for the most part I think that my next makeup related post will be stash pics. I guess the question is... Do you guys want me just to post makeup stash pics or do you want makeup AND nail polish? (Either way it'll be massively pic heavy. Leave a comment below with your opinion.

Anyways, that's the scoop on what's up here...I hope you guys have a great deal of fun at whatever you guys decide for NYE!

Much Love,
ESA

Sleek Palettes-- Storm, Original, and Safari

For the last few months I've had these Sleek palettes sitting around waiting to get swatched. I was lucky enough to get a CP of these. Sleek palettes are decently priced palettes available at Superdrug in the UK. I don't actually remember what they retailed for, but I think I paid under $10 each for them. They're all super pigmented and soft.

The Originals palette is a nice, colorful palette full of colors that all work on me for the most part. The colors don't lose to Urban Decay's and I think are actually more vibrant without all the chunky glitter that UD loves putting in. They are all shimmery though except for the black shade.



Sleek Storm is a gorgeous palette capable of creating a variety of neutral or smokey looks.


Safari was a LE palette released over the summer I believe. It's actually my least favorite out of the 3 I own, but only because the colors in it aren't as nice as the other two to me.



I really don't have much to say about these except that they're a good buy for the price. I like them, but they sort of sit around unused in my stash..mostly because I'm a brand whore. My only gripe about them is that there's a black shade in every one of the palettes. I don't need multiples of the same black shadow. Past that, they're great

NARS Day and Night Palette

Today's post is another short one; it's for the NARS Day and Night palette. The Day and Night palette was released with NARS's 15th anniversary collection and comes in the same packaging that the 6 pan palettes have all come in; except that the NARS lettering on the palette is in red instead of white. As usual, the palette contains 6 eyeshadow shades from the permanent line and retails for $50 at Sephora or on NARS's webpage. I forgot to mention this in my last post, but there's currently a 20% off code on NARS's site with $60 purchase or more. (CP9H1211) which expires 12/31/2009.

Here are the shades:
Abyssinia- This shade is also in the Pleasures of Paris palette. It's a nice shimmery beige color. For some reason I feel like the Abyssinia in my Day and Night palette is smoother than the one in the Pleasures of Paris palette
Sugarland-I'd describe this as a sparkling bronzed peach I guess. The texture's slightly gritty, but it applies just fine
Fathom- light pink with silver microglitter. This has a drier texture and the payoff is kind of poor. It makes a good base though I think.
Cleo- shimmering seafoam green in the pan, this one shows up nearly white on my skin with a green tinge.
Underworld- shimmery deep blue with some grey tones in it. Passable as a crease color, works nicely as a liner shade
Night Breed- Black with silver glitter. Unlike the majority of the Night Series shades, this one isn't chalky. I'll still probably never use it.

My overall thoughts on the palette are that it isn't bad, but it isn't great. I don't feel it's worth the $50 really. It's not a particularly versatile palette and I bought it when I was in my nude wash of color + colored liner phase so I'm okay with keeping it as I can find a couple of looks to do with it..unlike Modern Love which I couldn't work with that well. I do recommend Abyssinia as a single though..it's nice

NARS Doucers de Paris (Pleasures of Paris) palette and Christmas NOTD

Merry Xmas everyone! Today I have swatches of the NARS Doucers de Paris palette or the Pleasures of Paris palette. This palette contains 6 shades (Nepal, and retails for $50 on NARS's site or at Saks. Of the 3 6 pan eyeshadow palettes NARS put out this year, this one's my favorite.

Nepal is a bronzed peach shade
Violetta is a very nice smooth matte grayed light purple
Demon Lover is a dark matte purple
Fez is a beautiful bronze
Abyssinia is a smooth beige color
Cordura is a deep brown with gold shimmer


I also did my nails for the holidays. I woke up after the sun had gone down yesterday, so here's my mani on day 2 yet again. It's China Glaze 2030 over Zoya Isla (3 coats)

Urban Decay Alice in Wonderland Book of Shadows?!

I spend a lot of time on the makeup board so when this baby was posted I could not conceal my excitement. Urban Decay is releasing a 3rd Book of Shadows in collaboration with Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland. This comes with 16 (renamed? Midnight Tea Party looks suspiciously like Midnight Cowboy) shades and 2 eyeliners (Zero and Flipside?) as well as a UDPP mini (I swear I'll never run out of UDPP now). Pricing is currently unknown, but the palette is supposed to be released on 12/28 on UD's site. I will definitely be snagging one of these if only for the packaging itself.

China Glaze Wizard of Ooh Ahz: NOTDs China Glaze C-C-Courage and Good Witch?

Today is a quick post with the other two colors I picked up from the Wizard of Ooh Ahz collection; Good Witch? and C-C-Courage. (other than Ruby pumps, which is perm) Good Witch is a warm pink with pink glitter dispersed throughout (I think the glitter's really hard to see in my picture...sorry) I did actually manage to get good lighting for once though. This is on the 2nd day of wear, with what I believe is 4 coats (I had a power outage in my room for a few days)
C-C-Courage is a frosty purple with glitter, but despite the glitter in the polish, this one just doesn't shine for me and looks rather dull on my hands. For that reason I don't really like it despite it being purple (I love purple polishes usually). This is 3 coats, topcoated, warm indoor lighting on 2nd day of wear. I decided to snap a pic right before removing this.

So out of the 4 polishes I have from this collection I like Dorothy Who? the best, though I'm not in love with any of them.

Korres Lip Butters and NOTD Dorothy Who?

Today I have some swatches of my Korres lip butters for you guys. Korres lip butters are tinted lip balms with decent pigmentation. Color-wise, they remind me more of glosses instead of balms, but the texture is definitely that of a light balm.
Here are the usual arm swatches:
I'm also going to show you guys some lip swatches this time. Here are my bare lips for reference, since my lips are decently pigmented. All the swatches are a bit more vibrant rl than in photographs, but they still came out okay, so I'll show them to you guys. All lip swatches were done in warm indoor lightingJasmine is a very light milky pink. It's good for muting down pigmented lips. It has a scent to it, but it doesn't smell like jasmine. It's a somewhat sweet scent that I can't put my finger on, but it's not unpleasant.

Mango is kind of scarily orange in the pot, but it's not nearly as bad on the lips as it sheers out. The result is a peachy tint on my lips. The scent is mango-ish, but not quite mango. There's a perfumed quality to it.
Pomegranate is my favorite of the Korres lip butters. It has a light, kind of fruity scent to it (though I still can't place the scent, I think it smells the best). It's a nice warm pink
Quince is cooler toned pink than Pomegranate. I think it also lends a bit more pigmentation than Pomegranate as well. The scent is probably the lightest of the lip butters I own and is slightly floral.
A plummy-red in the pot, Plum swatches a fuschia-plum on my lips. The scent is similar to that of my Pomegranate lip butter.

NOTD is China Glaze Dorothy Who? from the Wizard of Ooh Ahz Collex (did I spell that right? probably not) This didn't photograph all that well..the blue is more vibrant in real life, though the frosty silver glitter is definitely still apparent. This is 4 coats, with topcoat.Anyways, now I'd like your opinions on something, so I'd appreciate a quick comment below if you can spare it. Are lip swatches helpful? Should I try to include them in future posts with lip products?

Some Stila duos and singles I guess (with Stila grey look palette)

I've been sitting by somewhat idly the last few days since, as I mentioned a few days ago that there hasn't been any sun at all (or much light for that matter) which has made swatching difficult (my room generally just doesn't get bright enough with all the lights on for me to make good swatches on my arm) However, since my sister's home and finally got around to bugging me for some of the stuff on my portable hard drive, I got around to taking a look at what was inside...and there were some unposted Stila swatches that I had made over the summer but never got around to posting...so I figured that this was a good opportunity to do so while I wait for clearer days. First up is my Stila Grey look palette. This palette was available at Costco last year for some ridiculously good deal price. It came with 2 brushes and a mascara. The mascara was complete crap and went straight into the garbage after 1 use, while the brushes are still around (though I seem to have misplaced one lately...or the purrball lying next to me carried it off at some point when I wasn't home). It's made up of permanent colors, so I'm posting it anyways. It's actually almost identical to the Korean version of Stila's Smoky eye palette except the Smoky eye palette contains Kitten instead of Starlight
Chinois-matte beige
Starlight- shimmery champagne color similar to kitten but much less frosty and slightly pinker
Slate- a nice satiny grey
Ebony- probably the best matte black I own (I probably have a lot since a lot of brands are fond of putting blacks in palettes) This black is definitely pigmented and lacks any chalkiness that is common in a lot of black shadows.

The other palette I found swatches of is the palette containing 6 of Stila's duo eyeshadow shades and 3 single e/s that I picked up along the way. The duos also came in a set at Costco for what I believe was $17.99. The duos are slightly larger than the singles due to the split pan shape (each color comes in a half pan shape). The palette I have these in is what I believe to be a Japonesque palette (obtained from makeupmania.com) It's a simple black cardboard palette with a magnetic base.
Salome- This duo contains a light peach shade with silvery gold sparkle and a very warm brown shade
Mara Simba- was the entire reason I bought this set; it's a buo of two taupes.
Fandango- contains a lime green shade and another warm brown
Lilly- contains a peach shade and a pink shade. I really don't care for this duo much due to personal preference, so it's barely been touched (I think I've only ever swatched it, come to think of it)
Vieux Carre- contains a warm violet with gold shimmer and a warm brown with gold sparkle.
Kajiki- is a duo with two blues in it
Coco- a warmish matte brown. I think I only own this shade because I got it for $1 at last year's warehouse sale
Kitten- Supposedly Stila's bestselling shade, it's a very frosty champagne color. I really have to wonder if this sells the best because it's in practically half the sets Stila sells, because this shade is frosty hell. The only way I can get this shade to work on me is to sheer it out as much as possible with the fluffiest eye brush I can find. It's definitely less frosty looking on really pale skin, but still frosty nonetheless.
Cassis- kind of a satiny purple. I like the color in the pan, but I really don't care for it on my lids. I feel like it lacks a certain oomph.

Review: Kirkland by Borghese 15 Piece Premium Cosmetic Brush Set

Good morning ladies. Has everyone finished their Holiday shopping yet? It's 4:30 AM and I'm taking a quick break from playing Zelda Spirit Tracks to bring you a quick review of this year's Kirkland brush set from Costco. This 15 piece set contains a 8 piece full sized brush set, a 4 piece mini travel brush set, and an eyelash curler and retails for $19.99 at your local Costco store (unfortunately, they don't appear to carry this online. I bought this set a few days ago after obsessing over it for a couple of weeks, and I'm really glad I caved and got this set; it's the nicest synthetic brush set I've come across (I like them better than ecoTools) All of the brushes are super soft, and both the full size set and the mini set come with really great quilted brush cases that remind me a bit of Trish McEvoy's packaging.

The full sized set comes with 8 super soft brushes;

The Powder brush is a nice fluffy brush that isn't too densely packed, but is excellent for depositing a thin layer of powder all over the face

Flat-Top Bronzer brush- this brush is small enough to fit well on my cheeks and can be used for buffing in a powder or applying blush or bronzer. It's not nearly as dense as my Every Day Minerals flat top brush, but it's still really nice and super soft

Angled Foundation brush- a densely packed angled brush for applying foundation. I'm pretty sure you could easily get away with using this for blush.

Eyeshadow brush- good, somewhat fluffy basic brush for applying eyeshadow. I was pleasantly surprised with this one since I wasn't expecting too much out of this since my ecoTools synthetic eyeshadow brush is pretty awful for applying powder eyeshadow, but this one is actually pretty decent at applying powders as well as creams

Eye blending brush-decent for applying shadows into the crease

Flat Eyeliner Brush-nice, soft flat liner brush

Eye Smudger- the one super boring "brush" in the set..it's a typical foam smudgy thing

Angled brow brush and Brow Spoolie- a very nice angled brush with a small spoolie on the other end. It's thicker than what I would prefer to use for a liner brush, but it'd be soft enough if you wanted to use it for such a purpose. It's also a good size to use to apply brow powder

The travel set comes with

Powder brush- the head of this is a lot smaller than the full sized powder brush...making it good for apply blush. It's also good for light powder touch ups, but I prefer the larger brush for all-over
Concealer brush- this also has a smaller head than the eyeshadow brush in the full sized set. I'll probably just be using it for eyeshadow since I like using stick concealers and blending with my fingers.
Eye Blending Brush- again, this has a smaller diameter than the full sized brush..making it better for my tiny creases. I also feel like it's just a bit stiffer than the full sized one
Flat Eyeliner brush- a bit smaller/thinner than the larger version

The brush case for this mini set is ingenious; at first glance it's a regular envelope style case that flips open with a little band to hold the case shut, but upon a closer look, you'll discover that each brush has it's individual slot to hold it in place.
The last item in the set is the eyelash curler. I didn't have too many expectations for this either, but it's not a bad eyelash curler. It fits easily in my hands and gets the job done, though I have to hold the curler in place longer than I do if I use my Shu Uemura curler, but it's a decent curler that makes it difficult to overcurl or accidentally crimp your lashes. It's great for a beginner. It kind of looks like Shiseido refills would fit this curler so it can last you a nice long time if you don't abuse it.
The set's a steal at about $20 and I think it makes a perfect gift for both newbies and makeup lovers alike...it's a great little gift to pick up for somebody if you haven't finished your shopping yet or just want to add a little something more to an existing gift.

Benefit Bright Lights, Big City Set

It's been really overcast and gloomy here the past few days so I haven't particularly been swatching anything (though I do have some lip swatches I'll post later) so today's post is more of a review post than a swatch post. I absolutely adore my "That Gal" primer, so when these Benefit sets went on sale at Sephora for $35, I picked one up. The set contains 3 full sized products ("That Gal" (retail $28), eye bright (retail $20), and BADgal Blue Mascara (retail $19)) and a cute little mirror with a really nice magnifying side and a regular side.
Anyways, on to the products themselves;

"That Gal" is a peachy pink primer that helps brighten your complexion. The tube that I got in this set is a backup for the one I picked up during the Friends and Family sale back in October, but I am currently on my 2nd tube of this stuff and I absolutely love it. Oddly enough though, in the 1 year that I've had this product I've never once used it under a foundation even though it's a foundation primer. Instead, I've used it mixed with Benefit's Some Kinda Gorgeous to make a nice tinted moisturizer (which isn't too bad, but when I applied it myself it didn't wow me like when the SA did it). Instead, what I love it most for is for a quick fix. My skin isn't too awful, but when I had to continuously wake up at 4 am and be out the door by 5 am for work, I generally wasn't awake enough to apply a full face of makeup, and my complexion was suffering a bit from it. It also didn't help that whatever lit parts of my workplace were lit by bad flourescent lights (the evil kind that makes everyone look more zombielike than they already did..honestly...my lips looked a little purpley and corpselike in that lighting..though part of it may have been due to poor circulation in the mornings) Anyways, one day, I reached for this stuff in my stash and was pleasantly surprised that I could get away with just using this primer with some concealer to cover up scarring and a light dusting of powder on top to set my concealer and be good to go for the day. I actually think it controls oil just a bit too..so no complaints there. It's also got a delightful grape scent to it that fades away quickly.

Eyebright is a light pink pencil with some shimmer to it. The instructions on the back of the box say to apply this product to the inner and outer corners of the eyes and blend lightly. Maybe I'm not doing this right, but it just sort of shows up light and pink on my skin...it does brighten a bit, but the light pinkiness is fairly apparent to me on its own. I lucked out genetically and have barely visible dark circles under my eyes, so I'm not particularly sure how this would work on those. A friend of mine loves this stuff though, so maybe it has some effect on them. She is also a lot lighter skinned than I am so it's possible that it looks better on lighter skin as well. On the flipside, I really like Smashbox's Photo Op, which is a bit darker and more golden, to brighten under the eyes while she hates it so it might really be a skintone thing. The consistency of this is soft and easy to apply; there's no tugging from this whatsoever so that's a plus at least.

BADgal Blue is a blue mascara with a fat brush. It's got a fairly dry formula, but it's not really a bad mascara; it lengthens and thickens nicely, but unfortunately I don't really see any blue on my lashes and it won't hold my curl (I was bless with short, stick straight asian lashes that point downwards, so a waterproof mascara is necessary to hold my curl) so this mascara isn't really for me..but it's definitely a nice mascara if you like drier formulas.

I attempted to swatch the primer and the eyebright, but since the lighting in my room is warm, both turned out peach instead of pink...oh well

Global Goddess eyeshadows

When makeup.com had their sale a few months ago I snagged a few of Global Goddess's single eyeshadows. These retail for $18 and can be found on makeup.com as well as Global Goddess's website. Some of these can be found on Dermstore.com as well.

I got:
Malaika (Boho)- The swatch on makeup.com's site showed a nudeish color, so of course I was totally surprised when I got a yellow one. Malaika is a medium yellow shadow with slight pink duochrome, very low shimmer
Shambala- mattish peach
Darjeeling- mattish taupe
Kumaon-warm, shimmery brown...also the only nonpigmented one with a hard texture
Madhuri (Boho)- dark taupey color with green microshimmer
Aishwarya- Beautiful plummy purple with gold shimmer...this one's my favorite out of the ones I ordered.
Shilpa (Boho line)- website desciption says matte seafoam green..which is totally inaccurate. Shilpa is a pigmented turquise color. It doesn't have any apparent shimmer, but it doesn't seem as flat as matte shadows usually are.
Texture-wise, except for Kumaon, all of these shadows were soft and pigmented and are decent shadows, though online color swatches for these are fairly inaccurate. They were a good buy for $9 each, but I'm not sure I'd buy any of these at full price except maybe Aishwarya.

I HATE LIARS MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE: Swapping with calisurfergrrli

Today is apparently rant day...but I have nowhere else to talk about this sort of thing...So MUA is having a Secret Santa thing, so I have of course checked out my giftee's profile. I had noticed that she was newish and had very few tokens, not all of which was positive, so I looked at them. The only non-positive came from a girl I had more than the acceptable level of trouble with when I was never to the whole swapping thing so I shrugged it off since the girl is a serial liar who retailiates token-wise when you leave her a non-positive. (She did remove mine, thankfully, since it wasn't deserved, and PMed me apologizing it I guess hoping I'd remove the one I left her..for which I removed the negative, but kept the neutral token). Anyways...today I got curious whether or not my giftee had left her a neutral/negative and saw this (click to enlarge) :

WTF?!?! The girl doesn't know when to STOP LYING. Here's what happened. She contacted me about 3 BNIB items (Smashbox Tokidoki stuff) on my list saying she'd love to swap yadda yadda, so I looked at her list and saw a couple things I was kind of interested in and contacted her back. She said no, because she could "get the items off ebay cheaper" than what her items were worth (retail value for the items were all around the same and her items were used while mine were BNIB). I really should have turned away from the swap at this point, but I was really interested in the items she had and asked for the one I wanted more. She replied back saying that she was on the fence on that item and didn't know if she wanted to swap it (again I should have just left it alone), so I ended up agreeing to swap for a Stila Palette (which had some cosmetic damage to the back of the palette) and a pigment sample (1/2 tsp) .

The swap was finalized 6/29/08 at which time she said "ok i will ship monday or tuesday!" Apparently she DIDN'T ship Monday or Tuesday..or the following days after that..and no message came about any delay whatsoever until 7/15/2008. Message reads:

"Hey swappers-

Sorry for the mass email but I am just letting some of you know that I have come across a hard time in my life & have been tied up the past week or so. I shipped most of my packages on July 1st, so I assume you already have received those ones.

If you have not received it yet, please do not worry as I have a few more to send out. I am so incredibly sorry for the delay, I tried putting in a few extras to make up for the delay :)

I am shipping all of these extras tomorrow as it will be the first out of many days I do not need to take my mom down to the hospital :(

Please keep my family in your thoughts/prayers & PLMK once your packages arrive! "

Which at this point is understandable..things happen in life...(btw, my package was not included in the batch she supposedly sent 7/1) One more thing I should add is that at the time I was home for summer vacation from school and had to go back at the end of July before summer school started up, so keeping this in mind, I sent her a message about a week after I received her message that something was up in her life that prevented her from sending out her packages..a day or 2 later I get a message back saying "Yes it was sent yesterday! I hope it arrives before you move! "

And I did...barely...got it like 2 days before I had to drive back down for school...only the sample was missing from the package...so I PM her about it and she says she'll look for it. Apparently she can't find it..

"hey I didnt find that pigment, I am thinking i may have sent it in another package as an extra or something bc its nowhere to be found (my swap stuff is super organized too) but i have a few other things i can send to make up for it, or i have more pigments....i just got an Ultra Marine & Coco 1/4 samples if you want me to send one over.

again i am so sorry! my swaps are usually organized & have no problems i am sorry you experienced an exception :( "

I picked Coco..since it seems very loved...
So on 7/29 she says she'll ship the sample to my school address (which ironically according to her was like 45 minutes away from her house...and was also where her boyfriend went to school).

8/4: "i am sending stuff out tomorrow:)"

8/9: "hey caroline! your end was returned to me with a stamp saying unable to deliver.......i checked postage & addy they seemed fine i am sending out again on monday thru the PO

sorry it took awhile i had to go back to PA for afamily emergency :("

8/23: "i am so sorry between getting kicked out of my home & totaling my car i've been super disorganized & frantic lately this usually never happens i have a great swapping record i apologize for your inconvenience i'll look for my receipt i always keep them"

Wait...what now? I've been through a lot of shit storms in my life, but at this point I'm having a REALLY hard time believing that THIS MUCH crap can happen within 2 months..honestly I would have given her the benefit of the doubt..BUT

The Coco pigment arrived 8/30 in a regular white envelope..the type you send letters in. There was no bubble wrap. THE JAR WAS GRIMY. The return address was the same as the one she gave me when we finalized our swap. (aka parent's house)

Now..moving on to her response to my token...

Did I ask for a reversal? NO. After it took her 2 MONTHS to complete one swap do you think I'd try for a reversal? From what I remember, I think there was someone who had complained about her on swap talk saying that they had tried a reversal with her once, only she had used the swap items before the other party got her end. I wasn't sure I'd get my stuff back in the condition I sent it in.

Did she send me a brand new palette? That's news to me...if she sent it I certainly never got it...and there was no message to me saying she was going to send it...or asking if I ever received it.

Am I complaining about it? HELL YES. Wouldn't you if you saw a response like THAT? I also still have the majority of my messages from her..there's a gap between when she first pmed me and when she sent me her address since I used to delete all my messages until I got swaplifted, but I have EVERYTHING from the PM where she gave me her address up until I left her tokens if anyone finds screenshots necessary :]