Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Sixteen92 Winter Collection Review

**Disclaimer that I get these at a discount because I am a part of The Circle subscription and that perfume is deeply personal and vary from nose to nose and skin to skin**



This season's collection is inspired by 20th century poetry, each perfume is going to be linked to its corresponding poem, in case you're interested in reading them. I found that my interpretation of the scent and its relationship to its name changed when I went and read the poem where the name came from.

I am always unexpectedly surprised by Sixteen92's ability to wow me with the perfumes that I would never imagine liking. However, their perfumes that incorporate a lot of sweet notes without being a true gourmand never smell very good to me.



Candy Cane Mocha ★★
This is technically from their holiday sample set, but it made a guest appearance in the box, and is therefore getting reviewed for you. The scent is amazing, but the quality of the perfume itself is a little disappointing. Good news though, I think it will make great bath and body products. 

In the Bottle: Peppermint hot cocoa

On the skin: It really does smell like a peppermint mocha, but then it fades to only being candy cane, and then it fades off into a sort of marshmallow scent. 

Sillage: 

Lasting Time: 1 hour



This smells warm. I don't even know how to explain it. It is feminine leaning unisex and earthy and warm, this would be a four star perfume if I liked these sorts of scents more. 

Company Description: sweet sandalwood, texas cedar heartwood, patchouli coeur, black vanilla, grey musk

In the Bottle: florals, and patchouli, and the warmth of liquor as is pours down your throat

On the skin: The florals become more distant, as does the patchouli. There is wood and sweetness, and mostly I get menthol and warmth. It fades into sweet wood and warmth. 

Sillage: 

Lasting Time: 3-4 hours



Domination of Black ★★

This is a unisex, masculine leaning sort of scent, I like it, but I don't think I personally want to smell like it. I think Domination of Black and And The Days Are Not Full Enough would be a great His and Hers perfume set, actually. 

Company Description: orris root, soft suede, white santal, nutmeg, oakwood, lichen, chilled soil

In the Bottle: liquor and sandalwoody esque scent. 

On the skin: alcohol, herby spices,  that same warmth as And The Days Are Not Full Enough, pine trees, its a warm earthy scent. 

Sillage: 

Lasting Time: 3-4 hours



Her Kind ★★
I can really see this scent being loved by a lot of people, it is well done despite seeming like an entirely different perfume in the bottle vs. on the skin. If you like fruity scents, I think this would be awesome in bath and body products,and if you like floral scents I would see if you can snatch up a sample to try this out for yourself.

Company Description: tart cherry, sweet almond, bergamot, sandalwood, ambrette, camellia blossom, tonka, sweet myrrh
In the Bottle: sweet almonds (not marzipan like usual, but actual sweet almonds), maraschino cherries, and a little bit of lemon? 

On the skin: Mostly a floral, and vaguely sweet almond, but mostly a floral. Just a hint of spice once its dried down
Sillage: 

Lasting Time: 3 hours



This is Just to Say 
This is one of the only Sixteen92 perfumes that disappointed me almost completely in every way. It was artificial and abrasive and the notes didn't seem to belong together at all. 


Company Description: cake flour, cocoa powder, osmanthus, plum and apricot jam, tonka bean, dried fruits, tangled vines. 
In the Bottle: Dark fruity unisex scent. Thinking like plums and artificial "mixed berry" sort of scent. 

On the skin: Cough syrup. Like, if I decided to mix cherry and grape cough syrup together this would be it. 

Sillage: 

Lasting Time: 3-4 hours



Waking In Winter ★★

Honestly, I was looking forward to this scent, and mostly ended up being disappointed. 

Company Description: fir needle, hemlock, soft snow, pale woods, delicate mint, frost-blanketed leaves, cold metal, distant hearthsmoke

In the Bottle: Pine trees and mouth wash

On the skin: Sweet foresty mouth wash. 

Sillage: 

Lasting Time: 3 hours





Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Whish Hair Inhibiting Gel Review


So, I saw this product at Ulta the other day and was immediately fascinated by it. I couldn't find a lot of reviews of it, but it looked interesting so I went ahead and bought it.


Long story short, Whish is a natural organic good-for-you type of brand, and this product is supposed to replace your moisturizer and naturally inhibit hair growth. It's geared toward people who own a mountain of Bath and Body Works type products and actually use them in a reasonable amount of time (a.k.a. not me).

















I have provided images of the ingredients of the product, and the side of the box that explains which ingredients are intended for what purpose. If you can't read them you can double click on the image for a higher resolution view. I take most of my pictures with my DSLR camera now, so you can effectively do that with most of the pictures on my blog.












A bottle of the stuff costs 26$, which is pricey, but it is a pretty large bottle. It took only one pump do my lower leg (where I always test my hair removal products for safety reasons). If this actually does its job of inhibiting hair growth this will last you a while. You can also get this on the Birchbox shop using your points if you have any and they have all the scents BUT I highly recommend going to an Ulta and smelling them all first. The base of this product is really strong, so you want to make sure you are okay with the scent first. I liked almond the best. Coconut was okay too if you are into tropical scents, more like a pina colada sort of smell.














**I did these tests in April because I am a terrible blogger. Hence the references to spring. 


My left leg is using some VIVO lotion I have around, and my right leg is using the inhibiting gel. I couldn't leave my other leg without any lotion at all, so I chose a thin lotion that I've been trying to use up.

I epilated my legs on Saturday, and tomorrow or Monday I will be shaving them. Basically my current spring routine involves me epilating my legs on Saturday or Sunday, shaving them later to get off the surface hair, and then basically not shaving for a week unless I have an event or a date because I usually get to the point of wanting to shave again by Thursday.

First Impressions

After epilating I applied my products, inhibiting gel on the right leg and lotion on the left. The gel sank in really fast but did feel moisturizing. After I epilate anything I put on my legs for the next 30 minutes or so stings (which is probably why they tell you not to apply product to your legs for at least 30 minutes after), but both products stung equally. The lotion definitely feels more moisturizing at first, but the gel does moisturize and also sinks in super quickly. A few minutes later my left leg was itchy while my right leg still feels fine

Test #1

Day 1-  I applied the inhibiting gel and VIVO lotion after shaving as I would normally. I have to say that my right leg currently does feel a little smoother than my left leg. However, it is possible that this is due to other factors and not the hair inhibiting gel.

Day 2- Both legs are feeling pretty good still but, while I might be biased because I want this to work, I think my right leg is still actually smoother. I applied sunscreen today, but no lotions.

Day 3- No products were put on my legs today, both legs are still okay. They feel smooth enough that I would wear shorts, and they still look smooth.

Day 4-  My legs are looking a little scaley, but I do genuinely think the hairs on my right leg are shorter and fewer than the ones on my left, but they are still there. I am reapplying the moisturizers, but I will be ending the test tomorrow evening because I'm going out on Saturday.

Day 5- I got really excited because I have a date on Saturday and epilated my legs this morning.Now its time for test two!

Test #2

So in an effort to keep these tests accurate I decided to switch legs just to make sure that one of my legs isn't  just magically smoother than the other. I epilated my legs today and applied the Whish gel to my left leg, and the VIVO lotion to my right leg. Having used this product for a little over a week now I am impressed by the moisturizing ability of it, but the scent it SO STRONG. I don't know if I will be able to take this college.

Day 1- Shaved and applied my moisturizers. Both legs feel equally smooth.

Day 2- Still my legs are equally smooth, and I'm wondering if my left leg is just hairier than my right leg. In which case, the last test would be completely invalid.

Day 3- I'm noticing that there are little hairs cropping up on my left leg, my right leg still has no visible hairs. I reapplied the moisturizers to their respective legs.

Day 4- Both have visible hairs on them, I can't tell a difference between them so I'm ending the test now.


Verdict

It's an okay moisturizer, it works much better than most lightweight lotions I've used. If it does work for slowing the growth of hair, the function is minimal. I'm not willing to do more tests because of how strong the scent is. This won't be coming with me to college, but I will pass it on to my mom because she said she wanted to try it. It might work better for people who apply body lotion daily or multiple times per day, but if you're like me in either your aversion to strong fragrances or your lack of routine when it comes to self care don't bother with this. 


Thursday, June 18, 2015

Julep Maven June Box Review

For more information on what the Julep Maven is I wrote an explanation of it late last year. This month though I customized the box so only one item is a surprise. Instead, I'll be doing reviews on the contents of my box.



Here are the promotional cards and extras from the box. If you can't read the 30% off code it is GOWILD.

Candy is always appreciated by me, so these fun lollipops will be eaten at some point.

Finally, they reformulated the Luxe Lip Conditioner, and so I'm interested to see how exactly I feel about it.








Konjac sponges are made from the fibrous root of
the Japanese konjac plant. One of their big boasts is
that these sponges are biodegradable. 




First (because it was the first thing I saw when I opened the box) was an extra I paid for. I've heard a lot of stuff about konjac sponges and I decided I might as well try it.

For non-mavens this sponge costs 12$

For mavens as an individual purchase this sponge costs 9.60$

For mavens as a box extra I think I paid (they won't give me the exact prices of each item in my box history)  7$.

This particular sponge is infused with charcoal. I am a huge fan of the recent activated charcoal movement and I recently had my wisdom teeth out so my cheeks aren't quite up for my Clarisonic yet.

This sponge comes on a string with a suction cup, which is really convenient but means you ultimately create more waste because the string and the suction cup aren't compostable while the sponge is, and you can't buy this particular sponge in any sort of refill pack. It is also wet when you receive it. I tried to get some of moisture droplets off the film plastic for the photo, but they actually wet the sponge and stick it in a sealed container. I don't know about you, but that just sounds like a recipe for mold and mildew.

The sponge itself is an incredibly gentle exfoliant, my skin isn't particularly sensitive, and I don't usually wash my face more than once a day but this would probably be great for people who do. I've used it a few times and it keeps my face clean but I wouldn't say it magically clears up any of my breakouts or clogged pores.

Ultimately, I probably wouldn't recommend that you buy this from Julep. From Ulta you can get alternative sponges that are cheaper (5$ per sponge), including ones that contain charcoal. However I would recommend a konjac sponge to people with very sensitive skin, people who wash their face several times a day, and people who are trying to cut down on waste in their lives.

The next time I decide to pay 12$ for a face sponge that will last me a little more than a month with frequent usage I will probably get it from here because they specialize in konjac sponges, package them dry so the sponges have an unopened shelf life of 3 years, have free USA shipping, and cater to a lot more skin types.



These are the Ta Da! Quick Dry Drops. I have no idea how much I paid for this as an extra. I would say 8-10$ for a full ounce of product.

For non-mavens this costs 14$
For mavens this product costs 11.20$

This product smells very lavendery, so if you don't like lavender this may be an issue for you.

My only other dry drops product I own is the Drip Dry by OPI because upon doing my research they were the most consistently loved drops out of the 5 or 6 options available to me. I am almost out of my Drip Dry because I only got the .3oz version, but I had enough to test my new Julep drops against the OPI version.

The OPI dry drops have little to no scent, and would likely be suitable to people sensitive to fragrance (or who don't like lavender because nail polish is one of the strongest scents ever, lets be real).

Ultimately I would say that OPI dry drops are marginally better. For me its not really enough to pay 26.50$ per ounce though.  Not to mention there are tons of other cheaper drug store options. One of them will probably work just as well for you.




This was one of my box items. I chose higher price items this month so I only got to pick two products meaning I paid 12.50$ to get this brush.

For non-mavens this brush costs 24$

For mavens who are purchasing this brush on its own the cost is 19.20$

I chose this because I didn't own a fan brush, and my first brush experience with Julep was pretty good. I chose the shader brush and while it is really well made I haven't quite worked out the best way to use it yet. I didn't want to go out and get an elf shader brush because so many of their products are hit or miss that I didn't want to be turned off from fan brushes forever because of a poor quality product.

Anyway, this brush hasn't really grown on me much, but that may just be me as the brush itself seems very nice. Ultimately, the bristles are soft, I haven't noticed any shedding and the curved shape helps keep me from putting highlight too close to my nose (there is a fine line between glowing skin and going to the bathroom to powder my nose).


Luxe Up Your LIps in Blushing Rose
The new luxe lip conditioning treatment in blushing rose. This cost me 12.50$ as a part of my box this month.

For mavens and non-mavens it costs 19.20$

So, something that should be noted is that Julep still kept around the clear luxe lip conditioning treatment, but reformulated the colored versions and marketed them out as Luxe Up Your Lips

I have what is technically the original sheer pink Luxe Lip Conditioning treatment (which is now a part of the Luxe Up Your Lips line) and now own blushing rose which is part of the line with more pigmentation.


I am loving the new fuller coverage formula. It is a little thicker, and more pigmented but still not sticky. This is truly the lipgloss for people who hate lip gloss. My only regret is that I like this more as a fall/winter color which means I will likely be sticking with the sheer pink for most of summer.



My final extra that I chose was the Julep Gel Eye Glider in Rich Brown. Basically, I needed a third extra to get a free polish and only have half of a brown eyeliner left.

For non-mavens gel eyegliders cost 16$ each
For mavens the cost is 12.80$ each
As an extra I think it ended up being less than 10$

These are pretty good. They set in 30 seconds which gives you a lot of time to smudge out your eyeliner or whatever else you want to do, goes on smoothly, and is moderately affordable if you happen to be a maven.


Top is Rich Brown swatched (I know its a terrible swatch, I don't even know what happened there), and the bottom swatch is a hand swatch of the Blushing Rose lip treatment.



When you add three extras Julep will throw in another extra for you. I rarely have the need or desire to add three more Julep products to my box so this has only happened twice for me but you can get just about anything. Last time my extra was a lip plumping primer. This time, it was a silk finish polish in Marcy.
I hate this polish, but I am ultimately glad I got it (you know, for free, as an extra).

Silk finish is a fancy name for satin or demi-matte.  The formula is horrendous. It is not good at self leveling, and this photo was taken after three coats of polish. Also, while I know many people love polishes that have matte or satin finishes I personally don't. It's not that I adore shine that much, but I just feel like I could invest in a good top coat

However, I do love the color. The all-white nail isn't for everyone and I think this is a very elegant way to rock a white nail. I will be on the look out for similar colors.

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Doctor Lacquer- A Review From a Polish Newb


**Disclaimer that I am not cool enough to be a nail polish swatcher/blogger. All of these opinions are my own, and all of these polishes were purchased with my own money.**



I don't believe I have ever been so excited to polish my nails in my entire life. I stepped on a sewing needle the day these arrived at my house and still chose to limp out of the mailbox to get them anyway.

 Doctor Lacquer is an indie nail polish company based on space and medical themes, they have good reviews that I have seen and do quite a lot of thermal polishes. Instead of mini bottles they have medium bottles, which are referred to as meds (<3 p="">

Price

I got 5 bottles of polish, they were all medium size, but they look like traditional polish sizes to me. In total it cost me about 40$, shipping included which averages out to being 8$ per bottle. Not too bad, given the spike in drugstore nail polish costs and the uniqueness of the polish. It's affordable.

According to science and math and not my anecdotal evidence, MEDS which are 10.5 mL are 6.99$ a bottle, and full size bottles which are 16.5 mL are 9.99$.

Shipping and Packaging

0 Shipping was on time, but towards the end of her TAT (1-7 business days, which is pretty dang fast). She gave me a coupon code for it which means that she is aware of her TAT and didn't "lose" my order, which means a lot to me. I didn't have to contact her, but I think that sort of attention to detail says a lot about the kind of customer service an indie company has to offer.

Packaging was very secure and included candy.

As a side note, I love seeing a short nail on a polish company's logo. I make jewelry and polymer clay figurines as a hobby, so its nice to have "working girl" (or "nail-biting girl") nails represented.
 Each polish bottle came in its own organza baggie that best matched the color of the polish.

I actually use the exact same bags she does, and I have the same problem with them being just a little too small for my needs.




Some Personal Polish Background

I am a lazy, lazy human being. Particularly when it comes to nails, even though in general I am not a sticky person, I somehow expect my beauty products to be applied and then magically preform at full power without maintenance. That is not a realistic expectation, and I am aware of that, but I am announcing this because my review will still somewhat reflect this. I was doing some base and top coat research today and came across wrapping your tips and before even knowing what it was I thought "ain't nobody got time for that". 

I don't wrap my tips, I haven't gotten into the habit of regularly applying base and top coat. So, this will be an actual review of the formula. Also, I would like to formally apologize for the terrible swatches ahead. I am horrendous at painting my nails.

Swatches and Review


Viking

Excuse this swatch, I was lazy.
This is from the Something Spatial: Missions collection, which are holographic polishes based off of space exploration missions. It is a green based polish, so that is something I feel like I didn't fully comprehend when I bought it. I'm not saying it is just a green polish, but when I look at my nails from the side without anything underneath it, the polish looks green. That is fine, and its growing on me, but it is something to be aware of when buying holos because they aren't always going to be sparkly color-changing magic from every angle. They are just sparkly color-changing magic from most angles.

As for the formula, it has good grip, is opaque in two or three coats, dries incredibly quickly, and is gorgeous beyond what my swatches can show.


Betelgeuse


This is from the Something Spatial:Stars collection. They are tri-color thermal flakie polishes and I had to limit myself to one. I am a sucker for pink, and so I bought it against my better judgement. It is a wonderful polish, but I should have known better and chosen a better color for my skin tone. Regardless, the color shifts in this one are absolutely to die for.

On the left you can see what the polish looks like warm/on nails. The middle finger show show sheer the product is on the first coat. The other two nails are three or four coats of polish.

This is the thermal change when the polish is cold. The middle finger is two coats of polish held on an icecream thin mint, the pink and ring finger are again three or four coats of polish also held on an icecream thin mint.




The polish is extremely sheer, it requires a lot of coats, but it dries super fast and also super hard so if you like to poke at squishy polishes this is safe from your wrath. I find it is difficult to see the color change in the bottle on this one but it works beautifully on the nails. I don't feel like I need a top coat for this polish, but it might benefit from a shiny topcoat to add dimension and bring out the flakies a little more.



I'm Lavender Rain

This is from a pastel duo on the website. It is still up, but its on sale, so I'm not sure if it will continue to be that way.  The polish is a sheer white polish filled with pastel circular glitter. The glitter goes on well, I don't have to dig it out or use tweezers to get it on my nails, the glitter also stays pretty well with just the polish itself, I don't feel like I need to use a top coat. This dries very quickly between coats (30 seconds and you can add another layer), but it does need like 4 or 5 coats to get to opacity. 

 It is not particularly flexible though,there are times where I have done something that pressed down on my nail and I've gotten a big crack in it and it peeled right off. Another thing is that it grips the nail decently, but I need like super woman nail grip and it doesn't have that, though that also means that I don't damage my nail when I pull it off. 

You can see from the swatches that this doesn't do edges very well, for best results I would probably get a thinner textured white polish and use it as an under layer with this on top.



Dopamine

Dopamine is a thermal crellie from the Hormonal Efficiency collection. It is warm sensitive, but not in the way I expected. It doesn't have a color shift at any point above body temperature. So, it does change color when warm, but your nail is warm, so it only changes color on your hands when it is exposed to cold. I wear Dopamine often on my hands. You can really easily change the color of only one part of the nail polish, unlike Adrenaline below. However, it can be difficult to get on because the larger glitters are just a little too large. They sink to the bottom, and like to come off of the nail leaving huge dents in your manicure.
 I love the colors of this polish though, it even looks gorgeous applied sheerly.
Accomplished with an icepack

Just on its own the polish went three days without chipping during my rock climbing trip, I also used it as proof that it was cold outside. By the end of the week I had one of my climbing partners look at my hands and announce that my polish was too dark of a purple not to be wearing gloves. 





Adrenaline 

Also accomplished with an icepack
 Adrenaline is a thermal crellie from the Hormonal Efficiency collection.  The formula is squishy but not too squishy, and the glitter goes on super smooth and evenly. It takes at least 4-5 coats to get this opaque though, and I personally don't like how it looks when it is sheer.



The color shift of the polish is a little odd. It takes a lot in order to change the color of this polish, and I can't seem to get it to re-color only one part at a time. Also the color shift isn't super noticeable most of the time either, so even though it is a summer colored polish, you would get the most use out of this in the winter.  

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Relatively Small Nyx Soft Matte Lip Cream Review

I know these are old, but as they have persevered through the ages (there are vlogs about the soft mattes going back to at least 2010) I figured there must be something good about them.

I had originally tried Nyx's matte lipstick and I hated it. It was incredibly drying and patchy, I'm already on the fence about traditional lipstick tubes and this was a terrible combination of two things I'm rather wary of.


At first I was completely enamored with the soft matte lip creams because they were less drying, in a packaging I preferred, and had a similar scent to the butter glosses (I also hate lip glosses). However, as the novelty of them wore off and I went about trying the thousands of other lipstick options in the world I realized they really weren't that great.

Swatches

 The hand swatches are just one swipe, the lip swatches were 2-3 swipes on bare lips, no primer or liner.


Sydney- supposed to be lavender but it looks more pink to me. Not that that is a bad thing because it makes it more wearable but I love the idea of pastels and not just vampy lip colors. This color looks beautiful on the hand swatch but I just don't like how it turned out on my lips.


Istanbul- the color on the tube does not match the color of the actual product. I expected this to be the color of Milan.  You know how if you make a line with a white board marker and then go back over it the color comes up? Well, Istanbul did exactly that which is why my edges suck particularly bad.



Milan- Yet another color inconsistency, this is a hot pink and I expected it to be the color of Istanbul. It feathered and bled quite a bit.

 Ibiza- An orange red, true to color. Very pretty but also bleeds like no other.
 Copenhagen- A gorgeous color, but its semi-sheer so the color of your natural lips will change how it looks on your lips. In this case the other creams stained, which is why Copenhagen looks more red or maroon.

Product Break-Down

Advantages
- Affordable at <6 a="" p="" piece="">- Come in a HUGE variety of colors
- A little more moisturizing because of its cream form
- doe foot applicator is a little more precise than your traditional tube

Disadvantages
- Shade discrepancies (tube does not always match actual product color
- Bleeds
- The smudgery of this lip product should be illegal. I am super clumsy, and this product just likes to get all up in your business. Nyx Soft Matte lip cream is that one friend you give your phone to so that they can look at a single picture who then feels like they can just keep on scrolling.

Notes
- Darker shades tend to stain
- Smells sweet like a decent artificial cupcake scent, only slightly different from the Butter Glosses
- Lighter shades especially last like 3 hours at the most (not counting residual stain)
- Never really sets up, it is very much a lipstick, it transfers though it does dry down some so that it transfers less.

Final Thoughts

If I were to give this a star rating, it would get 3 of 5. It's not a bad product, and if you think it looks interesting go ahead and pick one up, but at least for me personally it isn't worth all the hype its getting. I can see how there are people out there who would love it though, because it is an affordable, less drying matte lip color and if you are willing to keep up with the maintenance, these might be a great option.



Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Innocent and Twisted Alchemy March 2015 Subscription

This is a little late in being posted because I forgot my nice camera at school (we were turning two years worth of independent art study). I was however rather impatient, so a few of these photos are just cell phone quality, sorry about that.

 To the left is the little bag which everything came packed in. It is adorable and sealed with bear tape and says "Especially for you". On the other side, it is pink stripes! Pink is my favorite color, so I was very pleased.



Also, if you were wondering why I didn't review last month's its because I forgot I hadn't purchased a recurring subscription so I was waiting for weeks all excited about getting my bag only to realize I wasn't going to because user error.  I have remedied that now.



 Above is everything laid out all together to show you the contents of the previously displayed bag. This month's collection was based on Mirror's Edge, which is a game I do not play so I can't tell you much more than that. This month includes samples from My Pretty Zombie, Corvus Cosmetics, Brija Cosmetics, Darling Girl and Detrivore Cosmetics. I had a ridiculous amount of trouble photographing the other side of the full colored drawing of Faith (the game's main character) which explains all of these things and tells you what you get in better depth.

Apparently Corvus Cosmetics and Darling Girl Cosmetics created special shades just for the Alchemist's box, and Linda has a speed drawing video of her making this month's image here.


First I thought I would show off the shadows from this month's collection, and then do the samples. The jars came packed full and sealed with colorful tape that matched the color that were supposed to be represented in the game (apparently minus red).










This is the yellow jar, but as you can see, the color is not yellow, so that was a bit confusing as the others matched. This color is called Leap of Faith. It's a gorgeous silver though, it has a very slight green shift to it and it applies nicely even without a primer.





This is the orange (Critical Objective), it is a carrot shimmery orange color. I was worried about how this would turn out, but it looks really pretty.






The blue shadow is labeled Runner Vision. It looks like a royal blue matte base with some interspersed shimmer. This is the only shadow I have a legitimate complaint about as it had a rather patchy application.




Finally, all three of them are swatched on one hand. I was trying to redeem the blue a little bit, and so I ended up not grabbing all the shimmer in the orange, and not showing off the prettiness of the silver.


 The top left swatch is The Shard by Corvus Cosmetics. I am in love with how complex and beautiful it is.

The Boy Who Lived by Brija Cosmetics is the far right swatch, it is a very pretty antiqued gold. It is not only a part of their permanent line, but also Harry Potter themed. I am actually slightly disappointed I did not get a sticker with their logo on it, because they have the prettiest company logo I have ever seen.

 The bottom swatch is Celery and Bile by My Pretty Zombie (more on it below). It is a pale green with a gold sheen.

Celery and Bile by My Pretty Zombie. It is a very pretty pale green with a golden shimmer, but the name kind of skeezes me out. Now to be fair, all things bodily, unpleasant and questionable is the entire premise of the company, and if they had an eyeshadow named Anxiety or ADD a package would already be on its way to my house. My mental illness struggles are a part of me and help to define me but they are not all of me, and makeup and beauty follows in the same vein.

Anyway, the left swatch is with primer, and the right swatch is one bare skin. I'm going to actually play with this as a highlight.






Finally, Nymph and Adorned. Nymph is the top swatch and is a matte and slightly purple red. Adorned though, which I initially thought was purple is more of a sparkly old brick color.







Cost, Value, and Personal Value 

The Subscription itself costs 12$ including shipping for the Deluxe Size subscription (which I have). Each jar of the month's collection is labeled with an exclusive monthly label that was hand drawn by the shop owner herself. It includes samples from various indie companies which vary from month to month. 

This also came with a 30% of i+ta cupon code, a 15% DG code (I have been considering a purchase for a long time and took this as a sign from the universe I needed to purchase from them), and a 15% off code from Brija Cosmetics. So keep that in mind as well. These are price estimates based ONLY on the amount of product you get from each company, this does not consider that some shades are LE or come with discount codes or come in special packaging

3 eyeshadow samples from i+ta cost 3$ each (we get jars in the subscription, which are more expensive). That means these three shades would cost 9$ at least.

A petite jar from DG costs 2.50$ 

The sample baggie of The Boy Who Lived costs 1.25$

A sample baggie from Corvus cost 1.50$

Finally the samples from Detrivore costs 1$

Total value: 15.25$ which is 3.25$ more than what you paid for, not including shipping. 

For me personally, I won't use Runner Vision, and I probably wouldn't have bought Adorned or Nymph, but we'll count Adorned because of the coupon code. That works out to being a personal value of  11.25$ which is .75$ less than the cost of the box, and I didn't have to pay shipping which would have cost more than seventy-five cents. 

The value is there, the quality is there, I get to try indies from several different companies for even cheaper than they already are, I love the themes of this brand even if I can't personally relate to this one, and it's not nearly as competitive as other indie subs. This month I think all the subs sold out in 12 hours, but I came in 7 hours after release time and still managed to get one. A lot of subs sell out in under ten minutes.