Makeup Withdrawal

Oopsie Daisies Friends and Fans Collection

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Hi folks! Today I have a collection of really pretty indie glitters to show you! I've been following Cathryn's blog Hot Pink Aurora for the longest time now, and thought it was awesome when she started to make her own line of polishes, Oopsie Daisies. The Friends and Fans Collection consists of five shades inspired by, you guessed it, friends and fans.

Strawberry Tall Cake. Satin/matte red, orange and yellow hexes in various sizes in a white creme base. Three coats. This one reminded me of fall maple leaves changing!

Springtime Spumoni. A soft minty crelly loaded with silver, light green, pink and yellow glitter, as well as ultra fine metallic green glitter. Three coats. Super squishy.

Scrunchies & Slumber Parties. Hot pink, red, square iridescent and fine silver glitter in a magenta creme base. Two coats. I put this on and instantly reverted back into a 9 year old in the late '90s. Seriously, this polish completely embodies sleepovers!

Fairy Tale Wishes. Pale purple an dark purple hexes and stars with tiny little sparkly flecks in a translucent base. Here, I'm wearing one coat over Essie Butler Please. I like that there was a lot of star glitter in this bottle, I didn't have to fish at all to get at least one star per nail.

Blueberry Muffins. Three coats. White crelly with light blue, sapphire, caramel and brown glitter. My absolute FAVORITE! I have never seen any other polish like it. I mean, if you had listed those colors of glitter to me, I don't know if I would have thought that it worked together. But it does! So, so pretty. This instantly goes in my top 10 favorites indies.

Overall, really nicely dense glitters, no fishing or anything. Some formulas were a little better than others (Strawberry Tall Cake and Scrunchies & Slumber Parties were a tiny bit lumpier than the others, more topcoat). One thing to note, the glitter in those same two polishes likes to stick to the walls of the bottle the more you use it. However, it doesn't seem to have any effect on how much glitter ends up on the nail, just an observation.

Side note- I really like the new labels! Though I thought the original labels with the cutout flowers were also really cute. Cute is the perfect word to describe Oopsie Daisies Nail Polishes; really nice glitter combinations, downright adorable names and labels.

Oopsie Daisies Nail Polishes are $8.50 and can be found here at Cathryn's Etsy shop. Also check out the Hot Pink Aurora blog, to see the newest summer polishes! They are really quite pretty.

Products featured were sent to me for review. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.

Mundane Mondays, Vol. IX: Engaged!

Monday, June 10, 2013

So I have some pretty exciting personal news, which you might have seen if you follow me on Instagram. Morgan and I are now "officially" engaged!

I used quotations because we've pretty much spent the last six months just waiting on my ring to be made for it to all proper and what not. I don't have a romantic proposal because well, there wasn't one. Altogether, it was definitely more of a pragmatic event than romantic (also Morgan's ability to keep secrets is... hilariously non existent). I went ahead with plans for a courthouse wedding in the mean time because I had no idea when the ring would finally be done.

It was kinda nuts, we bought the stone separately in November. We both really love antique cuts (ones that were used pre-1920s when the mathematically modern cuts were derived), at first I was set on an Old Mine Cut but I'm color sensitive and a little picky about quality, so we didn't end up finding an OMC with the right speccs or dimensions (and more importantly, cost!) for us. I did get an Old European Cut (the precursor to today's modern brilliant cut) though, which I really love because I am head over heals with chunky facets, it has the perfect size culet, and if I stare really hard at it I can see the kozibe effect.

Originally I had a custom ring in the works from Tacori but my experience was not a happy one. Both times our CAD renderings came back vastly different from what we wanted (and I had a specific list, not like I was vague). Basically I would recommend that if anyone is looking for a custom ring to use a local customer jeweler. Though Tacori does fantastic details, they do not communicate directly with the customer so communication (which is always key!) can get warbled when you have to talk to the jeweler who then talks to the Tacori designers.

I did get a Tacori setting though, the HT2299! I love the basket that looks like a crown from the side. I toyed with the idea of getting a ring with a halo because I love how they look on others, but in the end I went with something a touch more subtle. I loved that this setting had a "bloom" or "blossom" (have heard it called both) where the side diamonds in the basket are set a little lower and in my case, at a slight angle so that when viewed from the top it looks like a delicate, partial halo. My wedding band doesn't really match, since I probably won't wear the two together all that often after we're married. I'll wear this ring most of the time, my band by itself when we're camping or on our frequent mini trips. I'm thinking about buying a moissanite three stone set to wear as my "body double" for when and if we go overseas on vacation.

I'm excited to marry my best friend. This sounds weird, but my excitement isn't new. I always wanted to marry Morgan since the first time I saw him smile (and every smile since). My best friend, my closest confidante, my biggest supporter and at the same time, the one person who always challenges me constantly be a better me.

Anyways, I'm back from my beach trip now, so more regular posts in the future!

Shimmer Jennifer

Saturday, June 8, 2013

I'm still at the beach, but wanted to show you Shimmer Jennifer while I was gone! Out of all the Shimmer Polish shades I was sent, this is definitely one of my favorites. It is crazy busy with all sorts of lighter hued glitter, but what really stands out to me are the orange hexes and iridescent yellow/green/blue. Other colors of glitter include soft teal and pink.

Again, as with all Shimmer Polishes, wonderfully dense glitter but in a very fluid base. I used it on my ring finger as a accent (with topcoat) and sponged some on top of black, then used a matte top coat. The glitters look really pastel and pretty when matte!

Pretty, right?

Shimmer Polish can be purchased here at the Shimmer Etsy shop. Polishes are $12 each. Follow the Shimmer Polish blog for beautiful swatches of all the shades!

Products featured were sent to me for review. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.

Ecotools Face & Body Sculpting Brush

So I'm on this huge brush kick right now. I've got it pretty bad. I was buying brushes for a friend (this means I can blame her, right?) when I saw one of the newer Ecotools brushes was in stock. It had a really unusal shape (in terms of drug store finds), it reminded me of both the NARS Botan and Ita #28 brushes at the same time. A rectangular shape like the Ita #28, but full and large like the Botan.Well that interesting and positively soft looking Face & Body Sculpting Brush promptly came home with me.

The handle is roughly three inches long, one and a half inches tall and three quarters of an inch wide. It is made of spliced bamboo and the bristles are Ecotool's well known soft synthetic. The brush is really wonderfully soft with a flat cut, so soft that I kind of want to keep stroking it like a cat.

I don't think that it makes a good contouring brush, like the packaging suggests. It is simply too large, too wide to sculpt areas on the face other than perhaps the jawline. I also found it too bad and fluffy to sculpt collar bones and the base of the neck like I had planned on doing. However, this brush is marvelous as depositing an even application of powders over large areas. I've been using the Face & Body Sculpting Brush to lightly dust my décolletage with a tiny bit of golden shimmery bronzer, as well as flat areas like my forehead.

Wait, I haven't told you the BEST use for this brush yet. Inspired by a review I read for the NARS Botan, I've been using this brush to blend blush, contour, highlighter after applying all three products. Since the brush is so long, it covers my entire cheek, I simply use it (clean, of course) to stroke upwards and outwards at the same time. A couple strokes ensures that all face products are blended together, giving your makeup a cohesive look rather than separate components.

Priced at $11.97, this brush was definitely the most expensive single brush Ecotools offers. Heck, it's more expensive than most of their brush sets, bit still cheap compared to other quality brushes out there. It is however a truly nice brush, and I am very glad that I purchased it.

Have you purchased any Ecotools brushes lately?

Products featured were purchased by me. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.

La Femme Blush on Rouge Swatches

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Hi folks, I'm actually on another mini vacation (the beach! Oh how I love the beach!) so I'm posting a few older posts that for some reason I never published. I have a huge backlog of posts, believe it or not! These are five La Femme blushes that I recently ordered, all in the refill pan sans packaging.

I took a chance and ordered from MakeupMania and I'm happy to report that customer service was excellent this time, greatly improved from my first order. They actually called to let me know that one of my items was going to be out of stock for another few days and that they were shipping me what was available ahead in another package. I'll probably order from them in the future because their La Femme prices are definitely the cheapest around.

Left to right: Red, Orange, Heather, Mauve Sparkle and Bordeaux.

Red is a matte red with glitter in the pan that shows up on heavy swatches like on my arm, but not really on the cheeks. Orange is a true matte orange. Heather looks is a lighter peachy matte. Mauve Sparkle is a mauve shade, there is shimmer but it is very subtle making it look much more satin. Bordeaux is a dark matte brownish wine color with glitter.

The pigmentation is quite good, especially with the darker colors. I find the formula to be a little on the dry side, not particularly silky or buttery feeling. They apply without a problem though, I use a duo fiber brush for the more pigmented shades and regular blush brush for the lighter ones. However, La Femme's color range and pricing makes it easier for me to look past that. $2.87 per pan! The ones packaged in an actual pot are only a dollar or so more.

Have you tried out any of La Femme's blushes? I think that they are by far LF's most popular item, especially since they've been heavily featured on YouTube.

Products featured were purchased by me. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.