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| 1x Wet'n'Wild Ebony Hates Chris, 1x Revlon Facets of Fuchsia |
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| stock image from Space NK |
MissHavisham from MakeupAlley graciously allowed me to share her recipe, and I attempted it myself. 
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| Left two nails: gold foil, right nails: silver foil Dark color is Wet'n'Wild Nocturnal |
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| MAC Fix+, 3.4oz for $18 |
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| Heritage Products Rosewater, 8oz for around $5 |
First, the blush. I've experienced good things with Hard Candy's blushes, and I thought Pin Up and Living Doll were getting lonely in my blush drawer, so I wanted to buy them a friend. I grabbed the last Honeymoon and was a bit apprehensive about it, because it looks light neon orange with lavender veins. But then, I remembered how I'd been proven wrong about Pin Up (which looks dark orange with black veins, but shows up as a lovely peachy shimmer flush) and decided to give it a go. Now, I've been reading reviews about it on MUA, and here's what irks me: people confusing the terms opaque/sheer and pigmented/nonpigmented. It seems to me that pigmentation refers to how dense the coloring of the product is (more of a term I'd use to describe the quality), and opaque/sheer describes how see-through it is. That being said, a product can be both pigmented and sheer. This would be the case with Honeymoon, it's light and shimmery, but you'll only need a little bit of it. Also, I wouldn't really call this a blush because it's so light in color (and once blended, almost exactly my skin tone) that it actually ends up being a glowy highlighter. I'm surprised that it doesn't make me look orange at all (I honestly thought I'd end up looking like a sparkly Oompa Loompa ). Hooray, another member of my Hard Candy family.
Now, the brushes. First up, we have this nice skunk for which I paid about $6 after taxes. I bought it because Target discontinued my favorite duo fibre brush (Studio Tools skunk, which is a dupe of the MAC 187, so in essence I bought a dupe of a dupe of a brush, whose price I couldn't justify). I'm feeling rather ambivalent about it. I don't think it's as nice as the ST one, the black fibers are not as stiff or hardy so the brush head is overall more malleable. It shed a couple hairs when I washed it, and under warm water some of the bristles went haywire and curled. However, it's as dense as the ST skunk, but slightly bigger so I don't mind having it in my arsenal of brushes, especially for the price I paid for it. I do wish that the handle was longer, because it's too short for my brush holder and dwarfed by my other brushes. Great for travel though, fits nicely into my makeup bag. Edit: After using this brush a few more times, it appears that it sheds quite a bit. I wouldn't recommend it. 
This brush, excuse my language- is badass. It really is. I paid about $7, and it's most definitely worth every penny. It's so soft, and has the densest bristles I've ever had the pleasure to have held in my hands. It's great for powder foundation, setting powder, bronzer, mineral makeup (though with mineral makeup I feel like there's some waste) pretty much anything where you want to cover a lot of area with a soft, light hand. Hmm, you know what this reminds me of? Pictured on the left, is the Professionnel Platinum Bronzer Brush #48, which costs $35 at Sephora. Gee, $7 or $35? Thanks, Walmart. One thing to note, when washing this brush, you HAVE to dry it upside down. Why? If you don't, water will collect right under the bristles, in the metal cap where it's glued to the handle and after sitting there for a while, it'll smell awful. Learn from my mistake- I had stinky water leaking all of my hands when I tried to use it a couple hours after washing. Now, I tie a string around the handle and hang it from a clothes hanger. 
Let's start with the first item, the BB Cream. This was a brand new product that I had never tried the likes of. This is what it's supposed to be primer, foundation, concealer, acne medication, wrinkle reducer, SPF moisturizer and whitener all rolled into one. Mind blowing, isn't it? When I first read about bb creams (blemish balm creams) my jaw literally dropped. I wondered why we didn't have a United States counterpart. But then I realized, a by product of capitalism is that maximizing products was a must- the cosmetic corporations probably would make considerably less if all they had was one miracle product. However, I did manage to get a pretty good deal on this cream. If you buy it directly from the Missha site, it'll run you $25 plus s/h. I bought it from a seller on eBay (based also out of Korea, I believe) and paid about $11 total, free shipping. I've been told that it's quite cheap overseas, and the company that makes it jacks up the price for U.S. customers. Based on the reviews, I picked the shade No. 21 which though matched my wrist perfectly, is a little light on my face. The consistency is like that of tinted moisturizer, but it's much more opaque and offers more coverage. I had hoped that I wouldn't have to wear a primer with it (the ingredients include quite a bit of silicones) but it definitely looks better with a layer of primer. I would definitely also wear lots of moisturizer underneath if I had dry skin. I wouldn't say that it takes the place of all the products that it claims to, more like it's a super foundation with added bonuses. Now, I have only used it a few days, so I'm not yet sure what the effects are like, but I'll be sure to update about it.
On to product number two! Step right up, pixi, let's see what you have to offer. I saw this Eye Bright kit (No. 2) on eBay with free shipping and bid on it. I ended up wining and got it for less than $6. That's certainly a steal, because it's $24 at Target. No. 2 is supposed to be for Medium/Tanned shades, I believe but matches my NW/NC20 skin very well. 
It contains 2 concealer shades, one salmon pink correcting shade and a highlighter. The concealer colors are very sheer, but I'll be honest- you have to moisturize like a madman or else the concealer will cake up and emphasize fine lines, wrinkles and dry skin. Also, you want to use a synthetic concealer brush (like this one) and use light brush strokes. 80% of the time, I find that people don't use concealer correctly and blame it on the product instead of their technique. My favorite part of this wheel is the highlighting color. Some highlighters have a lot of pearly sheen (Boots No7 High Lights and BeneFit High Beam, for example). But this highlighter is just softly luminous with very understated shimmer. I wish I could buy the highlighter alone! I don't think I would shell out $24 for this, but under $10? I'd grab more in a heartbeat. 
I also bought a bottle of EZ Prez Pressing Medium from Coastal Scents to press all my creations. I liked the formulation, it left my homemade mineral shadows very smooth. It's important to use a medium with silicone to bind mineral makeup together, or else it ends up dull and flakes easily. However, with pigments such as those from MAC, you can just use rubbing alcohol. What I didn't like is that when I got the pressing medium, it had spilled quite a bit out of the bottle (about 1/4 of the product) and into the bag it was in and quite messy. The spilled medium even dissolved the lettering on the label of the bottle, pretty freaky. The bottle is also hard to use, you end up spilling and leaking more of the fluid than you actually end up using. Crappy. I'll buy some from a different company next time. Here's the colors I made (the photo with the named colors) and some of my old MAC and Chanel colors that I depotted/mixed/pressed.
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