Featured on Beautylish!

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Darling Girl Cosmetics swatches!

I have finally swatched all of my Darling Girl samples, and I am so excited to show you these gorgeous shadows! Well, eleven of them are eyeshadows, and one's a blush ;)

Darling Girl Cosmetics is one of my absolute favorite makeup companies - their products are amazing, and the owner, Susan, is so sweet and helpful. I've ordered from her several times already, and I will definitely be getting more of her makeup. I seriously love every single Darling Girl product I own.

I would describe Susan's makeup as wearable with a twist. She somehow manages to make even the most neutral shades anything but boring. Her Jeweled Taupe shadow might just be the most beautiful taupe I've ever seen - and that says a lot considering that I'm pretty much obsessed with taupes. As usual, the pictures don't do the eyeshadows justice - they are so much more complex in real life! You really need to see them to understand just how beautiful they are ♥

I've swatched these shadows dry over e.l.f.'s Mineral Eyeshadow Primer, and I've borrowed the color descriptions from Darling Girl Cosmetics' website.

From left - right: Babylon, Liberty & Jeweled Taupe

• Babylon is a gorgeous pinkish bronze taupe pearl.
• Liberty is is a light golden tan luster.
• Jeweled Taupe is an amazing metallic bronzey taupe with amazing multi-colored shimmers like tiny little jewels ribbon-ed through it.

From left - right: Mercurial, Shangri-la & Chaos

• Mercurial is a plummy bronze taupe.
• Shangri-la is a shimmering plummy brown with iridescent multi dimensional shimmers.
• Chaos is a coppery brown pearl with purple undertones and subtle blue shimmers.

From left - right: Rainbow Brite, Tragic Romance & Dark Ember

• Rainbow Brite is a pale baby pink with red shift and a rainbow of star sprinkles.
• Tragic Romance is a gorgeous warm purple with loads of gold interference.
• Dark Ember is a deep metallic smoked burgundy with flashes of pink shimmer and a coppery rubdown.

From left - right: Uprising, Sparklers at Dusk & Orange You Glad To See Me? (blush)

• Uprising a gorgeous color shifting copper laid over a black base.
• Sparklers at Dusk is a stunning smoked out silvery blue with lot's of metallic shmmers.
• Orange You Glad To See Me? is a bright matte carrot orange Soft Focus Blush.

Nails of the day - Argentum by String Theory

Today I'm wearing another awesome nail polish by String Theory - Argentum. 

I began by applying one coat of Sally Hansen's Hard as Wraps and two coats of Kicks' Lady Blue, because I didn't expect Argentum to go on as opaque as it did. I pretty much thought that a couple of coats of Lady Blue with Argentum on top would create a night sky type of look... but that's not really what I ended up with. Argentum pretty much covered the blue, even though I only applied one coat, which I think is pretty impressive! I mean, if I just want some silver glitter here and there I can pick up any old glitter polish from the drugstore... but if I want silver glitter bonanza - Argentum is the way to go!

 

Some more Madison Street Beauty swatches!

Madison Street Beauty had a 70% sale starting on the 4th of Novermber, and I couldn't resist getting some more of her shadows since I was so happy with the ones I already had. So, I placed an order for a bunch of samples (some for me and some for my mom), and you'll see the shadows I got for myself in the pictures below.

Gold Leaf, Enchanted Forest, Pumpkin, Desert Sands and Plum all feel pretty much the same - they're all very finely milled and very easy to work with. I love it when shadows go on beautifully opaque on the first try, and you don't have to pack them on in order for them to show up.

Mossy Mauve is full of big sparkles, and will therefore work best over a sticky base. In the third picture below, I have swatched Mossy Mauve over my e.l.f. Mineral Eyeshadow Primer, which is anything but sticky, so the glitter particles didn't really have anything to stick to and it went on rather sheer. I then swatched it over two of my NYX Jumbo Eye Pencils, which are a bit more sticky, and it went on a lot more opaque over those. I'm guessing that Mossy Mauve will work brilliantly with Fyrinnae's Pixie Epoxy... I'm gonna have to try that soon ;)

I can't wait to actually try these on my eyes! Especially Gold Leaf... I'm really into colors like that at the moment ♥

Gold Leaf and Enchanted Forest

Pumpkin and Desert Sands

Plum and Mossy Mauve 

Mossy Mauve over NYX Jumbo Eye Pencils in Milk (left), and Black Bean (right)

Nails of the day - Webinarmy by String Theory

I am ridiculously excited about my new nail polishes by String Theory! I ordered them on the 3rd of Novermber, and just got them in the post today. Naturally, I had to try one of them straight away, and the one I chose to try first is called Webinarmy. 

I absolutely love it! 

The New New York Collection by Black Rose Minerals

Black Rose Minerals recently released a collection of eyeshadows inspired by Futurama characters. The collection is called The New New York Collection, and contains 8 eyeshadows - and I purchased samples of the entire collection for only $4.80!

Now, I usually don't go for bright eyeshadows, but I must say that I couldn't be more impressed with the ones in this collections! The colors are beautiful, and I love the texture and finish of these shadows. Unlike the BBC shadows in my previous post, these are incredibly easy to work with. They pretty much go on like butter.

The samples baggies I got

Fry & Zoidberg

Fry & Zoidberg in different lighting

Amy & Leela

Amy & Leela in different lighting

Scruffy & Bender

Scruffy & Bender in different lighting

Farnsworth & Hermes

Farnsworth & Hermes in different lighting

I'm not surprised that I love these; I love every single one of Rosa's eyeshadows (the ones I've tried so far). I'm generally not a fan of blue eyeshadows (well, I'm generally not a fan of anything blue since it's my least favorite color), but I really like my blue Black Rose Minerals shadows. I don't know what it is about her shadows, but I seriously can't point out a single flaw in any one of them. They're amazing. 

Bad Bitch Cosmetics: first impressions and swatches!

I recently placed an order with an indie makeup company called Bad Bitch Cosmetics. They don't have that many products to choose from, but the ones the do have look gorgeous on the site so I decided to give their eyeshadows a try. You can buy 3 full size eyeshadows of your choice for $10.25, which I thought was a good deal, so I placed an order for Barracuda, Hotaru and Vianne. And I also bought their eyeshadow primer.

I got my order pretty quickly. I don't remember exactly how long it took for my package to arrive, but I'm sure it was under two weeks, so I'm pleased with that. 

Now, I was so sure that I was going to love these shadows - the colors I got are amazing! Looking at them in the jars, they are some of the most beautiful eyeshadows I own. So, imagine my disappointment when I swatched them and noticed that I couldn't get them to swatch nicely for the life of me.

I swatched these shadows in exactly the same way as all the others on my blog - dry over my e.l.f. Mineral Eyeshadow Primer. And I spent a long time trying to get these swatches to look as nice as possible. While it might look as though I've applied them very lightly in some places, I swear that I haven't. I really packed the color on, and I still couldn't get these shadows to look as opaque as I would like them.

Out of these three, Vianne is definitely the easiest to work with. I'm almost happy with it, even though it came out a little bit uneven. Barracuda is an absolutely stunning color, but, unfortunately, it's a nightmare to work with. I mean, just look at the pictures below - does that middle swatch look good to you? I'm guessing not. It just would not go on evenly, regardless of how much I blended and how much shadow I added, which is really frustrating!

Hotaru actually went on pretty evenly. My only problem with it is how sheer it is. Like I said, I packed on as much shadow as I could, and I could still see my skin through it. And I do not want a color that dark to go on that sheer.  

So, to sum it up, I absolutely love the colors of these shadows, but I'm very disappointed with the way they look once I've applied them. Unless I can find a way to make these shadows work, I doubt that I will be buying more. I will say though, that I am willing to try a lot of things to make them work for me, cause I really am amazed at how gorgeous these colors are...

From left - right: Vianne, Barracuda & Hotaru

In different lighting :)

I will review the primer another time... I still have to make up my mind about that one ;)

FOTD using The Chequered Lily

Today I got a package in the post (well, an envelope) from The Chequered Lily. I ordered these samples about a week ago, so I got them really quickly! 

I will post swatches of all of the shadows soon, but for now I just thought I'd show you a look that I created using some of them today. I've used Pulsar on the inner part of my lid, Fragile on the outer part, and Jareth in the crease :) 

Have you tried anything from The Chequered Lily? If you have, I'd love to know what you think about their products!

FOTD using Madison Street Beauty & Urban Decay

I thought I'd show you some pictures of a look I just filmed a tutorial on. I don't have time to edit the tutorial tonight, but if it turns out good you'll find it on my youtube channel tomorrow ;) Update: link to the tutorial.

This whole look is centered around one of the eyeshadows from Madison Street Beauty that I mentioned in my last blog post - Champagne. Unfortunately, the pictures don't do it justice... it's so much more sparkly and gorgeous in real life ♥

Products used:

♥ Urban Decay Primer Potion

♥ Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy

♥ Madison Street Beauty eyeshadow in Champagne (lid)

♥ Urban Decay eyeshadow in Twice Baked (crease)

♥ Urban Decay eyeshadow in Vigin (brow bone highlight)

♥ Urban Decay eyeshadow in Half Baked (used to blend out the crease colour) 

♥ Covergirl Perfect Point Plus eyeliner pencil in Black Onyx

♥ Urban Decay Eyeshadow in Darkhorse (under eye & over top of the black eyeliner)

♥ e.l.f. Regular & Waterproof Mascara Duo (the waterproof one)

♥ L'Oréal Telescopic mascara (bottom lashes)

♥ Ulta blush in Afternoon Delight

♥ Sleek highlighter from their Face Contour Kit in Light

♥ NYX lipliner pencil in Natural

♥ NYX lipstick in Darling

♥ NYX lip gloss in Whipped

Madison Street Beauty: first impressions & swatches!

Today I'm going to tell you about my experience with Madison Street Beauty. I want to start off with a little bit of background info...

I had been on MSB's website plenty of times, but I hadn't bought anything from them. Then one day I saw that they were having a sale on Heartsy, and I couldn't resist the offer ($21 worth of products for $10), so I decided to finally try their products. Before I placed my order, I looked for swatches of the shadows, like I always do, and came across a couple of reviews.

Now these reviews made me worried. The swatches were not impressive, and apparently, both these girls had received jars that were sealed with electrical tape, which gave me a bad impression. Also, both of them claimed that these products were repackaged pigments with little to no base.  Needless to say, I wasn't as excited about trying their products anymore. But since I had already bought that voucher, I ordered some of their shadows anyway.

The things I ordered arrived really quickly - it only took a week for me to get them, which is very quick considering that they were sent from the US to Sweden. So, I opened the package, expecting to find jars sealed with black tape. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were shrink wrapped - looking just as professional as I'd like them to look:  

Now, to be honest, I'm not sure if I could tell the difference between a hand made eyeshadow and a repackaged pigment - I'm very new to mineral makeup and, as far as I know, I've never seen/used a straight up pigment without a base before, so I don't know what signs to look for. What I can say though it that the MSB eyeshadows that I bought are very beautiful, and in my opinion they swatch really nicely! Here are all of them, swatched over e.l.f.'s Mineral Eyeshadow Primer (just like all the other swatches on my blog):

From left - right: Emerald, Carnation & Parisian Pink

In different lighting :) 

From left - right: Champagne, Antique Rose & Chestnut

In different lighting :) 

I can only speak for myself, and my experience with Madison Street Beauty has been very positive. I think the shadows are beautiful (I love the colors!), and the TAT was really good. I don't know if she's made any changes to her products, or if I just happened to choose colors that look a lot better swatched than the ones I've seen in other reviews, and I'm not going to speculate. I just wanted to tell you about my experience with this company, and I would love to know about your experiences! 

Have you bought/tried anything from Madison Street Beauty? If so, were you happy with the quality of those products? I wanna know everything, so please leave me a comment if you've tried them :)