The latest line of gel liners and cream shadows is in over at Morgana Cryptoria. Initially I'm liking Twilight, Eerie, Bubblegum, Dreamscape, Bathory, and Glowin' - and there are six more shades that don't yet have pics or descriptions. I don't know whether or not they're indelible, as neither the names nor descriptions say anything definitive. However, Melissa is going to be coming out with her own line of cream shadows and liners soon (hopefully those will be ‘indelible'!) She's going to stop carrying the Lady Burd indelible cream shadows and gel liners soon, too - and she's reduced prices on her remaining inventory. Get them while supplies last! (She has the best prices on these I've seen from any MMU vendor, hands down.)

More companies are starting to release information about their holiday collections: Morgana has two winter-holiday collections which will be released in November; Aromaleigh is going to bring back the limited edition collections for one last go-round before releasing a “best of 2009” collection; Meow Cosmetics' Halloween collections are going away at the end of this month (but based on last year, I'm going to guess that there will be a Christmas collection sometime before the end of 2009); and I'm waiting for my sample-order of Pure Luxe's latest additions to the permanent color line.

After the latest round of indignant protesting by LimeCrime, the backlash against non-value-adding resellers is peaking again. And there's the critical phrase: “non-value-adding”. The way the world works now, more than 3/4 the companies in existence are resellers of some kind. The big kicker isn't companies reselling products, but reselling them without adding any kind of extra value (like specially mixing the base colors, or packaging original and resold products in a way that benefits the buyer). Even worse are those companies who resell, don't add any value beyond flashy branding, and add enough markup to choke a roc. Folks, folks, folks…this is the age of the internet. Do you think we don't know about TKB Trading? Do you think we won't start trading photos, noticing similarities, and tell all our friends when we spot a company with its backside showing? We know that folks resell. We don't begrudge them for it. And it's human nature to want to get the most while doing the least. But don't think that just because we're color queens and sparklecrackheads who are easily distracted by bright colorful things - that we're stupid. Or forgiving. You mean we spent $100 on your product when we could have gotten the exact same damn thing at this other company, and gotten more of it for less money? And thus would have had more money to spend on other bright colorful things? Yes, we'll be just a tiny bit vexed.

I've finished tweaking the color gallery entries to point to the full entries for each product, and I'm slowly creating entries for all of my colors - placeholders initially, to be expanded later with my impressions/reviews of the color, similar shades from other vendors (even same shade/different finish from the same vendor), and comparison-swatch photos. The placeholders are going rather well - I've got my Aromaleigh colors about 70% entered. Next I'll do TSS, then Meow, then Pure Luxe, then Everyday Minerals, and last I'll tackle the task that is cataloging my BE shades. (It's easier for me to enter the other vendors' colors because I can enter colors by collection - so I've got a clear plan of attack, and a relatively simple stopping point. BE doesn't do collections so much as kits…much smaller chunks, less easy to get into a posting groove and stay there for a while.) I still also want to redo the site template…but I'd prefer to get a larger portion of the content into one place.

Last year, I started this site - initially it started as a forum, in response to a brand-restriction crackdown on another forum I frequented, and then when another more popular member started up their own forum I changed the focus to posting swatches of all my colors, comparing between the brands, and showing people how to find dupes and / or close substitutes. (My favorite, and most unexpected, discovery was finding that Aromaleigh v1's Angelique is a near-exact match for my much-loved, discontinued Define Beauty from TSS.) I had half-formed hopes to post more of my daily looks, but that kind of fell by the wayside in all the work of building the site itself and getting my backlog of colors listed. This coming year, I'm challenging myself to use each of my eye colors at least once in a 365-day period. It's not utterly impossible, since I currently have about 850 eye colors. If I use an all-over color, a contour shade, and a liner each day, I won't have too many duplicates. (Actually, I have the feeling that I'll need to see how long it takes me to use each of my colors at least once - because there will be some days when I'm ill, some days when I'm too busy to do more than just a fast look, and some days - especially toward the “end” of the year - when I might find that I can't make good combinations of my remaining unused colors. Plus…this is me. As the year progresses, I'll acquire more colors. (We all know that I will. Let's just concede the point and move on.)

I'm going to try posting more looks, including nail looks, in the coming year. I'm also going to attempt to get more comparison-photos between the colors, so that folks have another way to judge the substitution-selections. If any fans of other non-MMU lines (MAC, Illamasqua, et cetera) would be willing to post their best comparisons to some of the MMU colors I have on my site, I'll add the note and credit the author.

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