Geek Chic Cosmetics Power Up Primer

So, I was going to go ahead and just add this onto the end of the previous Geek Chic post, but it got long after doing two rounds of testing, and then I realized that I had only done black based shades,  and then I had questions about what swatches with this primer would look like compared to elf's Lock and Seal. In the end, I decided I would just make it a whole post of its own.



This is their new primer, and the only indie primer I have tried so I can't exactly compare anything else to it,but it has done the job for me.

You can see in the jar on the right that it is solid. It doesn't start out sticky, it feels just like a sort of balm,but as it dries it becomes very sticky. I put this on by itself for experimentation purposes, and when I blinked after a few seconds I could feel my eyelid sticking to itself. That is what you want in a glitter base though, because it will keep the glitter in place.

 For my first round of tests I chose Innocent and Twisted Alchemy's Illusionary Stars because it is dark, has enough glitter and color shift that I said in my review it could benefit from a better primer, and it's in a jar so it was easy to work with.

Left to right swatches of this shadow on bare skin, applied over elf primer, and using Power Up Primer. The bare skin swatch got some light color, no shimmer, and a few sparkles which would most likely fall into your eyes. The elf primer swatch enhanced the color, caught some color shift but lost the sparkles.  Finally, the power up primer brought out the whole shade range and the glitter, expressing the shadow as intended.

I also went ahead and swatched the power up primer against just wet application. The photos don't do the shimmer justice on these. Both applications held onto the glitter well, but you can see the left swatch (using power up primer) lets the back show through a lot more, while the wet application really brings out the blue of the shadow.











For my secondary tests I chose to use Clementine Will Remember because it looked like such a beautiful shade, but also like it could really benefit from a good primer.I transferred it into a jar for this experiment.

So, from right to left, bare skin, over elf primer, applied wet, over the power up primer.

The sticky base really brings out the true beauty of the shade, but I also think that applied wet or over elf primer it is very wearable so you could make multiple looks out of this one shade.

(I don't know what is up with the little black spot, but the red dot is a burn from me not knowing how to use a toaster oven)

This third set of swatches is from Aromaleigh's Sooo Changeable from her Sherlock collection. From left to right, bare skin, over elf primer, over power up primer, applied with Elf's Lock and Seal.

Elf's Lock and Seal is a fixative, but it is also wet, it is like super glue water and so it grabs and exaggerates all the shifting colors until you have no base.





Finally, I swatched Aphrodisiac from Brazen Cosmetics. I never thought it was a shadow particularly in need of a sticky base, and it is a lighter color that I haven't yet tested.

From left to right, bare skin, over elf primer, applied wet, over power up primer.

You can see it went on patchy over the traditional primer, applied wet it is a lavender type shade, while over the power up primer it becomes a deeper purple.

Fortune Cookie Soap Spring 2015

 And this season's theme is Wonderland! I am very excited because I have been meaning to read Through the Looking Glass for quite some time now and expect to be able to get around to it this season.



Upon opening the box you get a waft of floral and fruity fragrances which is my personal favorite of all the boxes I have received. Everything looks very bright and festive and it came with an adorable little butterfly!






Here is the list of all the things we got in the box this time. This was a really interesting box, it was a ton of fun to get some more unique products to try out.

This month, I'm doing blind smell tests of all the products, mostly because it sounded like fun, but partially because I find that I have a hard time picking out the notes in FCS products, the same trouble I have with mainstream perfumes.






 First things first, our hand sanitizer in We're All Mad Here.
I love their hand sanitizer because they don't overload it with fragrance, so even the scents that come off to me as a little too strong turn out alright in this format.

Blind Smell: A heavy floral, maybe honeysuckle?

Description: Playful mint waters and natural leafy green notes perform a masterful balancing act with musky rich cedar wood. 

I failed, but it smells pretty good so I guess that's all that really matters.

 This month we got a new product from FCS- incense cones (in the scent Who Are You?). There are a lot more in the bag. but I pulled out two to show you what they look like. They remind me of little horns. Good news, they give you instructions on how to use these on the card.

Blind smell: Smells like sweet artificial fruit mix, possibly mixed with a floral. I actually quite like it, but its a little strong, I can't imagine increasing the smell.



Description: A mysterious mixture of crisp, ripe, pear twisted with tart limes, vanilla orchid, and a dash of raw cane sugar. 
Maybe my nose isn't a failure after all.

This month's whipped cream is in the scent It's Only a Dream. Oddly enough, we did not get the usual one of four fragrance options, this was the only scent available. I have to say it was a little odd not getting mystery whipped cream, though it did keep me from being disappointed about not getting another fragrance.

Blind Smell: Just flowers.Not sweet, but not bitter. Floral. I am very on the fence about the smell of flowers, I'm not really into this whipped cream.

Description: Calming verbena, lemongrass, calla lily, and citrus blended with leafy greens, ylang-ylang, rose wood, and ozone. 

Not entirely off, it is mainly plant based.

 This product made me wish I took baths. This is a bath tea, kind of like a bath bomb, but in this adorable tea bag looking thing. The scent for this is Twisted Tea Party.

Blind Smell: A little like tea, and a little like soap.

Description: A light refreshing green tea with notes of sweet herbs, vanilla bean, cucumber, golden amber, and hints of neroli and geranium, stirred with a bright sprig of spearmint. 



I got the tea right, though I was personally leaning toward black tea and not green tea. It may have been the cucumber and spearmint that reminded me of soap.

I thought this was a shower steamer at first, but apparently it is a bath bomb in the scent "Off With Their Heads!". I will still be putting this in my shower with the goal of seeing how this works out because
a) it smells like roses and I like roses
b) I don't take baths
I should be doing an empties post sometime in the near future, so I'll make sure to mention how this went over.

Blind Smell: To me it smells mainly like roses, but I do get a little bit of other florals which is probably a strange plant I can't identify and some citrus.

Description: Groves of meyer lemons and succulent oranges mingle with a perfectly manicured garden of wild roses, violets, and star jasmine perfumed with romantic tones of bergamot and Egyptian musk.

I am beginning to suspect that the scent I keep defining as floral and reminiscent of mainstream perfume may in actuality be musk notes. Other than that though, I was spot on.


Almost to the end of our box, and we come upon a bright orange bottle of Futterwacken body wash. I don't go through much shower gel but it looks so bright and fun I might keep it anyway.

Blind Smell: Exactly like orange otter pops. I don't know what that means, but it pleases me.

Description: Sunwarmed lilies brightened with a splash of grapefruit and a breath of fresh air.

 I lost this little perfume oil in the box before, so that's why the background and lighting of this photo don't match up with the others. This box has had the most adorable packaging I have ever seen, the little bottle being my favorite.  It is called Eat Me.

Blind Smell: A friend of mine described it as being like a peachy-o in the bottle, it smells more like a pineapple gummy bear to me though. On the skin from a distance it smells faintly cake like, similar to pineapple upside down cake.


Description: Scrumptious yellow cake with a fresh slathering of rich, creamy vanilla frosting, topped with fresh white pineapple slices and garnished with a sprig of blooming cilantro. 

 Finally, the product this box was named after our fortune cookie soap in the scent Almost Alice. I am in love with the color and eh about the smell- right on par for FCS's soaps

My fortune: "You just go where your high-top sneakers sneak, and don't forget to use your head."

Blind Smell: Old grandma perfume with just a splash of brightness.

Description: Fresh green snap peas and juicy pears brighten this bouquet of sweet pea flowers, and freesia sparkled with ripe berries. 

Blushie Perfume Review

 Blushie is another etsy perfumery that I made an order from. I loved all of these perfumes so much that I wish I had ordered more than three samples from them. This post has been edited to include the reviews of a friend of mine. She has a similar sense of smell but different skin chemistry, and she was aware of only the names on the bottles and not the notes that were supposed to be there.

**Disclaimer that things smell differently to different people and on different people, and that I am exceedingly picky so this is an absolute rave perfume review.

Shipping and Packaging

 So embarrassingly enough, I totally thought that these perfumes took forever to get here but I like to actually check before I mention that in a review. In reality, it took them three business days to ship out my package (when their stated TAT is 3-5 business days), and then it took 4 days to actually get here. Basically, I am a silly impatient person, and their shipping was just fine.






I was nervous again when this one showed up in just a bubble mailer but all the samples were very well secured. Inside the bubble mailer the perfume samples were inside of a pillow box wrapped in another layer of bubble wrap, and the actual samples themselves had been wrapped in another layer of bubble wrap before being placed inside of the pillow box.

 They gave me a free sample of their sweet pumpkin soap, which I will be passing onto a friend but the gesture was sweet and I was very surprised by how agreeable this particular pumpkin smell was. Also, their soap bars are some of the most adorable little things I have ever seen. I highly recommend that you check them out if you are a soap person because not only are the designs pretty, but if their perfumes and the one sample I've tried are any indication, the scents are wonderful.




Also, have you seen these labels? The packaging is beautiful and the samples are generous.

Scent Reviews

The Cake is a Lie ★★★☆☆

Company Description:I made you a cake. Well, it's not actually a cake. But it smells of rich dark chocolate, vanilla extract, and a hint of nutmeg. It has less calories than a real cake, and will last longer too. 
In the Bottle: In the bottle is smells unique, possibly leaning toward the bad side of neutral. I can't pick out a lot of notes with my novice nose from the bottle, it just smells like a mixture of things that aren't sure if they feel like going together.
On the skin: Actually, it reminds me a lot more of the taste of tiramisu (or the Olive Garden variety that I have tried) I think it is because of the nutmeg and the artificial chocolate note, which combined with the vanilla extract lets me imagine there is some coffee in there
Sillage: ✦✧✧✧✧ (very weak, even behind the ears where it is warmer and the scent can be caught and distributed by the movement of my hair)
Lasting Time: Max 3 hours

Susannah: 
(In Bottle) "Very chocolatey"
(On Skin) "Kind of smells like coffee, very sugary coffee"

Amaretto Tiramisu  ★★★☆☆

 Company Description: Rich and intoxicating, imagine layers of ladyfingers, cocoa powder and mascarpone smothered in heavy cream and rich amaretto coffee and you've captured this fragrance.
In the Bottle: Tolerably awful in the bottle, on the wand from a distance though it has an almond extract type of scent.
On the Skin: So, to me this smells exactly like a yellow cake. I get no coffee smell and no anything else, just cake.
Sillage: ✦✧✧✧✧ (very weak, even behind the ears where it is warmer and the scent can be caught and distributed by the movement of my hair)
Lasting Time: Max 3 hours

Susannah: 
(In Bottle) "All almond"
(On Skin) "Sweeter and more sugary, essentially smells like amaretto on my skin"

Raspberry Vanilla ★★★☆☆

 This wasn't within the range of my expectations, I was expecting either a raspberry creamsaver type of scent or a raspberries and whipped cream sort of scent or something soft and feminine. On me at least, it is very girly smelling. I do really like it though and will probably end up using it more in the summer time.

Company Description: Raspberry vanilla is a sweet, fresh blend of raspberries, blackberries, vanilla and a touch of plum. It’s a classic, feminine fragrance that's sweet and fruity without being overwhelming.
In the Bottle:  Same as on the skin
On the skin: Not getting a lot of vanilla, it mostly just smells like raspberry lemonade. That may just be the artificial raspberry berry notes overpowering the vanilla though.

Sillage: ✦✦✦✧✧ (exactly where I like it to be, wears close to the body but not unreasonably so)
Lasting Time:  6-8 hours

Susannah: 
(In Bottle) "Smells like raspberry lemonade. You kind of get the vanilla faintly once you stop smelling the raspberry though"
(On Skin) "Similar on the skin"

Final Thoughts

Overall, while I was disappointed in the sillage and lasting of the gourmands, everything smelled good, the shipping was good, the packaging is adorable. Given how picky I am with perfumes, this is a completely rave review, and I will 100% be ordering from them again. This is one of the best indie perfume experiences I have had. 

Geek Chic Cosmetics Swatches

Not going to lie, I got a huge batch of indie orders in at once, photographed and swatched everything, and then totally forgot to write up this post. Anyway, this is an indie which specializes in- you guessed it- geeky makeup. I ended up trying one blush and a few eyeshadows, but they also have their own lip glosses, lippies, a small shade range of foundations, solid scents, nail polish, finishing powder, and they recently came out with their own eyeshadow primer!  Since having made this order I have already made two more orders as gifts.

On the sample jars there is only the back label with the ingredients, but even the ingredients labels are adorable and themed, which I love. In addition they sent me a sticker and a button as well.

 I tried to swatch by fandom, which I managed to do with all except these two eyeshadows. For the record, this was done over elf eyeshadow primer like always. These are some of the most pigmented and easy to apply indie shadows I have ever seen, and the colors are amazing.

The top one is We Are Coming from their Timey Wimey collection. The swatch catches the base but there is some truly gorgeous red and gold sparks in there.

The bottom is Samwise the Brave, which I got because Samwise is the true hero in Lord of the Rings. Also, this is a beautiful antiqued gold color.

 From the Superneutrals collection, the top color is Rock Salt which is a very heavy-on-the-glitter highlight. This swatch doesn't capture how beautiful the shimmer is though,

Idjits over Power Up Primer

The bottom swatch is Idjits which I expected to like a lot more than I actually do. The green/gold sparkles don't show up very well, even over the appropriate sticky primer. You might as well not be committing to green at all.

The top swatch is Clementine Will Remember. Now, as someone who has never played the Walking Dead game I don't know all of these references, anything having to do with Clementine included. However, the shadow was very pretty. It has a deep black base with tons of gold sparkles (look to the bottom of the swatch). This shade could really benefit from a glitter primer.

Inked in Pink in a vertical swatch,
He's Korean over Stay Don't Stray
horizontally. They intersect in the
upper right corner. 

The bottom swatch is He's Korean, it is gorgeous and sparkly and easy to apply. It reminded me a lot of the inked in pink Maybelline Color Tattoo so I did those swatches for you as well.





This is a terrible swatch of the nerdgasm blush, which according to Geek Chic is supposed to be their take on the Nars Orgasm blush. I don't have the Nars blush to swatch for you, but I've swatched it at Sephora a billion times, and  the Nars blush is so sheerly pink it may as well just be a highlight. Geek Chic has a very orange color to it, I will definitely experiment with it.

Julep February 2015 Unboxing

So, I was originally planning to skip this box. I wanted the free Heartleigh, but wasn't into any of the other colors so I figured I would just swap for it. However, I like a complete idiot missed the secondary "yes I want to skip the month" button and thus got billed and had a box shipped to me and customer service can't help me because I have no email confirmation because technically I didn't skip the month.

What that means for the blog though is that I am reviewing the actual uncustomized box they gave me based on my personality profile. For the record, as stated before, Julep has a completely customizeable box system  I usually end up swapping out multiple items to make a box I'm really excited about getting, I just wasn't that excited about the polish colors this month so I figured I would skip it since I technically need nothing.

This month's theme was afterglow, and I think if I had gone ahead with customizing my box I would have gotten the fan brush or another one of their lip conditioning treatments.




I wasn't all that into the tissue paper that month, not that it is a particularly important thing, I just figured I would comment since I have been in love with the tissue paper other months.

 Here is the box upon initial opening. I ended up with two full size beauty products, one nail polish, and a polish freebie which technically I think isn't possible based on their options. Regardless, lots of products made me feel better about spending 24$ on a box I hadn't planned on getting.

 The first thing I got was a lipgloss in the color lively. It looks like a red in the bottle. If you have been around for a while, you might know I hate lip gloss.

 So, I went ahead and swatched it on my hand and it's a lot sheerer than I was expecting. It's sticky, just like your traditional lip gloss, there is nothing I can say is special about it. There is nothing that would make this worth spending the 16$ (Maven price, it's $20 if you aren't subscribed to the box) from an objective point of view.

 This is London, it is the polish color I got this month. Now, I don't wear purple very often, but I did want to keep one around in case I wanted to do nail art or a themed manicure that needed it, which is why I kept last month's purple actually. So, I did comparison nail swatches and actually ended up choosing this one over last month's purple.

 Here is a very messy nail swatch. This is only one coat, no base coat. It's a nice lavender color. Julep's creams have the same fast surface dry time as all their other polishes, but are very susceptible to smudging for quite a while afterwards and can have a very thick texture if you don't work fast. However, I enjoy the opacity of them enough to deal with the long dry time.






Next, I got a champagne highlighter. I have plenty of highlighters in every color known to man, I don't use them very often and this one is huge but it was still incredibly fun to play with.

The box is pretty, the packaging feels very heavy and luxurious. It isn't ideal for travel (especially given there was powder around the edges of the compact due to kick up during shipping) but it feels very fancy.






Here is the actual product and a swatch on my hand. It is exactly as described, a champagne colored highlighter. The powder itself even feels soft and indulgent.

 

Finally, the product I considered taking the entire box for in the first place, the freebie Heartleigh polish. It is the most gorgeous glitter top coat and I was dying over it.




I swatched it on my thumb for you guys. It should be noted that the heart glitters are so large that you will need a top coat to hold them down. The thumb swatch was done using their Freedom Polymer topcoat for the purpose of brand consistency, I also did other swatches using a gel topcoat, but the freedom polymer top coat worked pretty well.

Personal Value

For 24$ I ended up with three products I am going to get use out of. A lot of their products run about the same price point so I'm just going to average it out. It comes down to $8 per product which honestly is only a little more than the price of a drugstore nail polish right now so I can't say I'm disappointed. If I had customized the box I know I would have gotten even better product value. 

Review of ISmellGood

...and some Haus of Gloi comparisons because I think they must use a lot of the same fragrance oils.

Perfumes are incredibly personal, so what it smells like on me may not be what it smells like on you. I am also quite picky about my perfumes.

They also had a little tag, but I lost it

ISmellGood is an etsy perfume shop I broke down and bought some samples from recently. I honestly am not sure how I feel about the brand. Every fragrance is a one or two note fragrance and I think for me that is odd because usually part of me getting a perfume is that it is already blended for me. Someone has gone through the actual hard work of designing a concept and blending a fragrance to bring out the best in all of the notes.

Shipping and Packaging

 Fast shipping, very cute presentation, but I think the actual packing used for shipping was the sketchiest I've seen. Nothing was broken, but all my vials were in a bubble mailer, and I guess I've gotten used to the corrugated cardboard boxes packed with some sort of padding.

Price

This order was $12.65 for 5 samples and shipping. Full sizes of any of the perfumes are $10 for 6.5 ml of perfume.

Scent Reviews

Chocolate- It smells just like hot chocolate (the kind made from a mix just in case you like to make yours by hand with cocoa powder or emulsified chocolate) AND I did try it side by side with Haus of Gloi's Vice and I like it more than that scent. Also, being able to smell side by side the single note fragrance oil let me pick up the coffee scented oil in Vice finally. I don't like it though, it smells like coffee tastes and not how coffee smells (the only thing I like about coffee). ★★★★☆

Cardamom Chai- This is all spice, and it lacks the dimension of what actual chai tea smells like, but I imagine that is because cardamom and chai are the only two fragrance notes in it. They are good representations of each spice, but I found after wearing it all day (the staying power is lovely) that the spice notes were a little overwhelming. Again, I wish that these were fully composed perfumes. ★★★☆☆

Pumpkin- This perfume is the main note I dislike from Haus of Gloi's Parkin. So, I guess I'm just not into this particular pumpkin scent? Basically, this smells nothing like pumpkin, spiced, raw, in a pie, or otherwise. It's like a bad Pumpkin Waffle. I have no idea if there are different qualities of pumpkin fragrance oils, but I don't like this one. ★☆☆☆☆

Peach- It smells like fake peach. The scent lacks dimension, but I am going to let it age and see if I like it later on.★★☆☆☆

Cake- I don't know what this smells like, but it isn't cake, and it isn't good. It's basically what I'd expect from Bath and Body Works or another mainstream fragrance company. To be completely fair though, I have yet to find a cake scented anything that I like. ★☆☆☆☆

Final Thoughts

There is nothing to surprise you about this brand. You get the quality and the scents you ordered, there is nothing themed and there are very few notes in each perfume. The labels are adorable, and this might be a good way to experiment with layering.

Overall, I am pretty impressed with the sillage and potency of each perfume. The potency seemed consistent throughout and the sillage is exactly where I like it (I don't have to stick my wrist in your face for you to get a wiff, but unless you are standing next to me you won't have my fragrance of choice imposed upon you). On the scents I enjoyed, the staying power was good and lasted all day without much issue. 

ISmellGood has a good selection of scents in their catalog but not so many that you are going to feel completely overwhelmed. While I feel kind of meh about this brand, I'm sure that there are a lot of people who would really love this shop.

December and January Favorites

I was going to do individual favorites for each of these months, but they were rather busy and I was trying to rotate my makeup collection, so I didn't have a chance to figure out what fun products I was reaching for. Also, I initially published this on time, and accidentally reverted it back to a draft.

Old Spice Deodorant Wolfthorn- It really works better for me, and it doesn't smell musky like a lot of male deodorants do. In fact, you could probably find a scent dupe in the ladies section, it's just more difficult than I am willing to do because I 

A) prefer the Old Spice formula to the other deodorants I have tried 

B) Unlike lady deodorants, instead of telling you what it is supposed to smell like- they give it a dumb name like Wolfthorn because apparently men can't handle being told they smell like citrus fruit. 

Still hoping to switch over to a natural deodorant, but that is a problem for another day.

Clinique Moisture Surge Moisturizer-

This is such a good moisturizer, it absorbs quickly and feels very lightweight on the skin but also incredibly hydrating as well. It's one of the products where I put it on and I know it's actually doing something good. That is a good quality to have in a moisturizer because it is important to keep in your routine and having it seem like it works from the moment you put it on is rather motivating to my lazy self.



Maybelline Dream Bouncy Blush-
To be fair I have only tried the one coral colored blush, but I specifically chose it because I use coral blushes regularly. The texture of this is very interesting, I hear a lot of people complain about pigmentation but this particular color at least works great for me, it blends well and doesn't stain so it is the perfect product to apply with just your hands. I no longer apply blushes with my hands as I have a few blush brushes, but when I was first learning about blush having a product I could use my hands with really helped out.

Organic Skin Shop Teeth Whitening Treatment- It is totally terrifying to put this black stuff onto your mouth for the first time, but it really works and it leaves my teeth feeling cleaner than when I usually brush them. Once you realize that your teeth aren't actually ruined forever, it's kind of fun to see the black on your teeth, and it doesn't taste bad at all (coming from a girl who hates 95% of veggies). A++ to Organic Skin Shop for making a $3.75 product that is unique, effective, and all natural.

Geek Chic Cosmetics Power Up Primer- I can tell you it is the best indie primer I have ever tried, but that is because it is currently the only indie primer I have ever tried. Regardless, a little goes a long way and it is a wonderful sticky base for loose pigments. It takes a lot less time to use than the Lock and Seal from Elf which, given my growing collection of indie shadows, is useful for everyday makeup application.






Larenim Pressed Mineral Foundation- Now that I have a buffing brush I cannot tell you how much faster this has made my mornings go. Because it is in a compact it can easily be transported and applied on-the-go without all the mess of a loose foundation, but the buffing brush keeps it from going on too heavy which is a hazard with the included sponge.
 I really like the way Larenim's foundation sits on my skin, and when I'm running late is acts as an oil-absorbing powder and a CC cream. The only downside is that, like all mineral foundations, it really doesn't have a lot of staying power without a primer.