Incoming!

Seeing as I'm back to blogging and everything, I think it's only fair to warn all you readers that someone better take my wallet away fast, because I'm going on a spreeeeeee!
Fyrinnae's new Halloween 2011 collection is out, and from all the swatches I've seen I knew I had to get everything! Well, I'm missing some of the lip lustres I've wanted since forever, but I added Coffin Velvet (it's such a gorgeous purple, if it doesn't fit my complexion I'll just paint my whole face), Visual Kei, Romantique, and Lollipop-pop to my order. Sweetest Poison was sold out :( and so was Fanservice, which I want so bad I'm about to turn inside out.
So I placed that order earlier today. Just a tip: I couldn't find the lip lustres on the Fyrinnae website, so I just Googled it, and there was a link to the page. Sneaky.
In addition to that order, I'm totally salivating over my order of Shiro Intertubes, which I think (hope) should be arriving some time late next week. 40 Cakes looks so gorgeous! I'm not ususally a pink person, but when I saw that lippie I felt like I'd been posessed by the good faerie Flora from Sleeping Beauty. "Make it pink!"
I also got Shoop da Whoop (which I can already tell is going to become a very good friend of mine), Numa Numa, NyanCat, and Rickrolled.
I think that's everything, so I'll keep you posted on when it arrives! Til then, Happy Halloween!
Edit: The larger sizes of the Lip Lustres restocked when I checked back, so I went ahead and nabbed Fanservice, Sweetest Poison, and Meloncholy. Yay!

The yummy stuff that's good for you! Glowing skin and rambles.

Hello all! In my last post, I talked about an oil-based face mask I'd made. After using it, I noticed a drastic increase in the softness of my skin (and not because I don't usually exfoliate. I do!) and a lot of the redness on my skin was reduced to a barely-noticeable level. I'd had a bad breakout recently and my trusty face wash did nothing to help it. In fact, it turns out it only irritated my skin more.
I've been using the same type of face wash for about five years now and it's never failed me. So, as you can imagine, I was pretty surprised. But at a helpful tip, I reluctantly used a regular bar of soap to wash my face with. In about a week, the old blemishes were retreating and nothing new had sprung up. This doesn't have so much to do with my aforementioned face mask, but I feel like it's worth talking about because I've tried scrubs and frothy washes and I always use moisturizer, but somehow it wasn't helping much. So here's what I discovered:
I've been stripping too many of the natural oils from my skin. In reaction to seeing a spot I'd often wash more attentively and obsessively. Which, of course, only made matters worse. So, after several weeks now of using bar soap and nothing else to wash my face off, I can happily say taking the more laid-back approach is working! I'm so pleased... and I have the prospect of not having to spend a pile of money every few months on  another tube of face wash!
So that's taken care of my breakout, but I've always had fairly dull skin. Being quite pale anyway, my skin just seems to take on this ashen look when I'm tired or stressed, and the rest of the time I'd say it's pleasantly matte, at it's most remarkable. The use of my newly invented face mask has really helped my skin become clearer and softer, but I can't say I noticed much in the way of a new dewy glow.
But a few days ago I began using honey on my face for a minute or so before washing. Now just so you know I'm not just leaping off into the deep end, I actually used to use honey on my nose and lips because it seemed to help with these wonky mini-spots I used to get. Still don't know what they were, but they'd stay for weeks when I didn't use honey and aloe. So anyway, after this recent honeying I rolled out of bed this morning and I look dewy! Sure, it's probably a minor-dew in comparison to some, but for me it's pretty exceptional and even though my hair's like a haystack in the mornings, my skin really stood out. For only a few days of honeying I'd say that's pretty good news to me! So I figured I'd share the discovery. Has anyone else tried this? Or used honey or another raw natural ingredient in their skincare regime? Til next time!

Hello! and new things

Hello all, I am back from an extended absence! Not to worry, I'm alive and well. SO much has been going on, but I promise new looks and reviews soon and I have to say I'm absolutely drooling over the new Shiro Intertubes collection, so I'll be swatching those as soon as I can lay my hands on them.
Hope everyone had a lovely summer. Mine was fabulous and filled with new discoveries... I've been looking into the ingredients behind skincare products recently. You know, things like Prunus amygdalus dulics and Linum usitatissimum and actually looking at their properties and purposes instead of just going 'Eh, whassat?' and putting the product back down.
So I recently purchased several different oils to experiment with, and I'm so happy that I did!
I made a face mask last week with green tea, flax and hemp oils, sweet almond oil, and finely ground turbinado sugar for exfoliating purposes. I leave it on for maybe ten minutes before I wash my face in the mornings (though I haven't repeated the process daily... don't want to get too oily) and then put a moisturizer on after, and I'm good to go. I have persnickety combination skin that doesn't react too well to changes in my skin regime, so I'm beyond thrilled to see that my skin is loving this new approach.
I don't think my face has been this soft in years and I've gotten several compliments already on how nice and even my skin looks.
I'll keep you posted on these experiments with natural organic ingredients and in the meantime thank you to all my readers who stayed subscribed while I was away!

Silly Ode to April - EOTD

The saying says "april showers" and where I live that is currently very true! But without the showers, no May flowers so I guess I'm paying it a tribute. Either way, I'm happier with this rain than the gross incessant ice and slush that came before!
But, this is me we're talking about. So am I really going to do some kind of rainy blue look, or grey like stormclouds to dedicate to this month? Of course not! That would be too sensible! Instead, I'd like to introduce my friend the snail, who devours my plants every year without fail as soon as they start to grow again. I don't actually have a huge problem with snails nomming on plants.... unless it's lettuce, because who wants to eat the leafy leftovers of someone else, really? Other than that, I don't really mind them. In fact, I think the little critters are kinda cute. I have a weakness for cute things. And unfortunately I find a lot of things to be cute... including little garden pests :) But sorry, I'll stop burbling and get straight to it!
Here's the look I've created!! Yes, it's a snail. So the paragraph above wasn't just me losing my mind. Or maybe it was, but there is method in my madness. That's right, I just quoted Hamlet, in a garbled sort of way. Oh dear -.-
AHEM!
I used the following:
Nijiro - Fyrinnae
Aztec Gold - Fyrinnae
Chrome - Fyrinnae
Atomic Afterglow - Fyrinnae
Chronos - Aromaleigh
Hollywood - Glamour Doll Eyes
And I'm a bit lazy right now, so I won't specify what I used on which part, but if you'd like to know then feel free to ask in the comments and I'll tell you :)
On to the (many) pictures! As always, click to zoooooom!

That's about it. Don't you love the glittery snail trail? Hehehe. Comment please :D and thanks for reading. Have a wondrous April!

FunnyFace's Dare To Wear Charity Challenge, For Japan!

This is an excellent cause, so I couldn't pass it up. It's from the wonderful FunnyFace Beauty Blog, and you can find the link right here! Unfortunately, I don't know all that much about Japan. I spent a little while racking my brain for something clever and then realized that the top thing I know and love about Japan is their food! So here's my Japan post. It's wonky and funny and I'm not really a pro so I look goofy, but here's a pretty little shrimp roll in honor of Japan!
I used Hi Fi Cosmetics' Sugar for the white, and the rest of the look is primarily The Chequered Lily's "Sushi Ginger" which I thought was fairly fitting ^.^
And here's how it looked:

 Hehehe, so that's my post! Comments encouraged. I won't take it personally if you have a bit of a giggle :)

Oh my! A blog award!

The stunning Samantha from Give Me Samantha tagged me for a blog award! I'm so excited and honored! Thank you Samantha! (For the record, Samantha has been with me from the beginning of my leap into indie makeup and she's always been so nice to read my ramblings and drop comments. I'm very grateful to her!)
Here's the award I recieved :) It's green!

And I'm just going to copy the rules/requirements straight from Samantha's page. I think that's what I'm supposed to do!

The Requirements:

-Thank the person who gave you the award, and link back to them on your blog
-Tell us 7 things about yourself
-Tag some more bloggers for the award
-Contact these bloggers to let them know they've been tagged

Seven things about me:
1. Like Samantha, I've never tried MAC. How shocking! I plan to at some point... after I purchase every single Fyrinnae shadow and have a better-paying job!
2. I pierced my own ears! It didn't hurt and they healed fine. I was very hygienic about it.
3. When I am retired, a long time from now, I dream of having an enormous library filled with all my favorite books so that when I'm crazy and forgetful I can pick up something off any shelf and reread the same page for the first time over and over again and adore every word.
4. I have freelance edited a book, which then got published in the UK :) Very proud!
5. If I had to pick one person in the world to girlcrush over, it would be Kate Winslet.
6. I collect Pac Man merchandise! Hehe :D
7. When I was little, I memorized a Beowulf passage in Old English.

Now, on to the tagging and awards!

The Versatile Blogger I choose to tag is Sophie from Ethereal Beauty! Not only does she create the most stunning EOTDs in a wide range of colors, of which I am super in awe, but she also plays WoW ^.^ and I tend to geek out when writing comments to her. 

And as for the Stylish Blogger Award, I nominate Tomi / my tiger lily! Her style is so above and beyond description. She inspires me to push the limits of makeup application to create truly fantastic looks. I'm super jealous of her skills. The way she writes makes me giggle, too!

So there are my awards. And a special thank-you to everyone who reads this blog and/or inspires me. You guys are the best!

Autumn EOTD and Evil Shades Lipstick Raving

For me, this Spring has been somewhat miserable (excluding pretty makeup and my lovely readers of course!) Lots of illness, lots of disgusting soggy weather. My conclusion? I want autumn back! So here is my Autumn-themed EOTD. I may do the other seasons, I may not. Haven't decided yet.
Here's what I used:
1. Rapunzel Had Extensions - Fyrinnae
2. Fire Opal - Fyrinnae
3. Polar Bear - Fyrinnae
4. Physician's Formula 2-in-1 Ultra Black liner
5. Fire Opal - Fyrinnae
6 a. Painted Roses - Fyrinnae
6 b. Fire Opal - Fyrinnae
7. Golden Fair matte base - Everyday Minerals
Mascara: Sephora Lash Plumper in Black
And here's how it looked:

And to show off the shimmer:

I was really happy with the way this turned out and remembered I had a sample of Evil Shades lipstick in Ardour in my makeup stash. I'd dared to wear it out once before, a long time ago. And I wasn't very careful about applying it I guess because it feathered and stained a kind of orangey hot pink under whatever lip gloss I used. I felt a little like a clown. So this time I made sure to be precise in my application and I didn't use a gloss. It's very moisturizing on its own! And OH MY GOD it's sooooo pretty!
Hours later, it still hadn't come off and hadn't feathered or anything. In fact, it wore like a charm. I'm so happy with it that I ran back to Andrea's Evil Shades store and bought a full size! And then I returned to my stash and played around with other samples I'd recieved. In short, I now have Ardour and Primrose Path on order, as well as two of the super-intense looking Hardcore glosses in Not Your Barbie and Roué. I'm really excited! I usually stick to a normal-looking gloss on a daily basis because all of my lipsticks are a bit too... zealous for work. But it looks like Primrose Path is going to turn into a staple for me. I'm really liking the color.
So here are (dun dun dun!) lip swatches of Ardour. Obviously this is the first time I've ever provided a lip swatch for anything. And I'm not used to it yet. So be nice!

Thanks for reading! Please leave comments! Have a happy Friday :)