Posted on Friday, at • 200 views
The site is in mid-migration now (manual migration of over 7,000 entries, so there's a lot to be done.) The entry stubs are created for older content, but for the most part, the actual content isn't there quite yet. I am working on it. Unfortunately I have no ETA. But feel free to link to any page! When the content does get populated, the URL will stay the same.
Just a collection of interesting stuff I read / heard of / found out this past week. Some weeks this may be chock full of stuff, other weeks I may have tumbleweeds blowing across the screen. But I'd like to summarize things that I find interesting and share them on a regular basis. I know several times I've surfed through several successive sidebar links, made a comment on a blog I'd never visited before...and then promptly forget the blog's URL or even its name! (This is what happens when you have far too many browser windows open at a time.) Hopefully by keeping a running weekly log of these sites I find I can find myself some new regular reads as well...
It's spring (officially spring in a week!!!), and that means all the summer collections will be coming out. Meow Cosmetics released their St. Patrick's colors, and I'm guessing that there *might* be one more collection before the Lost Rainforest and Caribbean Escape collections return. Those have previously reappeared in late May / early June, and have previously remained available through September.
Morgana Cryptoria's new eyeshadow collections, which I spoke about last week, are being pushed out to mid-April release.
Zoya's been offering hints about their summer 2011 collections. The first collection (Summertime - cremes) includes Areej, Breezi, Kieko, Mira, Tamsen, and Sooki. The second (Sunshine - shimmers) contains Apple, Faye, Kimmy, Reva, Rica, and Tanzy. The third collection is Mod Mattes: Lolly, Mitzi, and Phoebe. Meanwhile, get over to Zoya.com and create an account (if you haven't already)!! Some ladies had received a catalog that had pictures of these collections (just google "+Zoya +Summertime +Sunshine" to find the images.) While none of those colors look interesting to me personally, they do look pretty. Very bright and summery. Sunshine and Summertime are a little similar to the Smitten and Candy (Summer 2007) collections, respectively. They've teased at a new promo coming up within the next week, and only those who already have accounts will be able to take advantage of it - so hie ye hence to zoya.com and create your account by March 20th!!
And by the way...when did Zoya's polishes increase in price from $7 to $8 a bottle? I can remember the announced price increase from $6 to $7, but I missed this latest bump-up.
What indicates better quality in a makeup brush? Are firmer bristles better for mineral makeup, or do you want to use softer bristles? Do you want synthetic or natural fibers? Renee over at The E-Girl gives a brief writeup on how to shop for makeup brushes. It's pretty brief - but it gave me information I didn't have before, and I know at least one other person who may find this valuable.
KimmieKarmaLove has posted a really great set of swatch / color comparison photos, comparing shades from Cosette's Cosmetics to shades she already had in her collection. This doesn't indicate repackaging, but shows folks where two companies' colors may differ only slightly, or have the same base color but a different finish. This can be useful to know, especially if you've always wanted a certain color that's now discontinued or love Shade XYZ but really wanted a less sparkly version...or if you just wanted to avoid buying Color A again. (It's not all-inclusive, but it's a fairly good set of comparisons.)
Sophie of Ethereal Beauty is holding her first beauty blog giveaway. Head on over and check out her site!! She's only got just over 40 entries thus far (blog started in January) but her writing is excellent, engaging, and fun to read.
Voluntary recall: US-specific not-lip-safe ingredients and a non-vegan ingredient used in lipsticks...because some of the raw materials' ingredients were incorrectly listed. Morgana Cryptoria, who has released nearly two dozen new vegan lipstick shades in the past four months, was using raw ingredients from a certain supplier who, it was later discovered, had inaccurate ingredient lists. These inaccuracies mean that some of Morgana's lipstick shades (and who knows what other products from what other suppliers) will have to be reformulated - some for inadvertent inclusion of carmine (Gilded Ballerina, Nightshade, Otherworldly) which is not specifically harmful or FDA-prohibited but is non-vegan; and others for inadvertent inclusion of ferric ferranocyanide or chromium oxide green (Serenity, Enchanted Sapphire, Turquoise, Ice Queen, Brrr!, Icy Mint) - ingredients which are not FDA-approved for lipstick use, but are approved for use on the lips in Europe. Morgana has posted a full announcement, including how to go about getting an exchange or refund. Please visit the company blog for full details.
With all the negative, vituperative, meretricious crap that floats through society (I could easily name a dozen examples in the past month) it's nice to see companies standing up, admitting a problem, and working to do right by its customers. We're taught - in so many different, insidious ways - that if you're not caught or don't cause physical measurable harm, that you can just get away with anything...or blame it on someone else. That kind of behavior always sets my teeth on edge. It's good to see people standing up and saying, "Oh, this went wrong and there's a problem with something you bought from me; here's how I am willing to work with you to fix the situation." (And in a way that neither imperils the business nor forces the affected consumers to jump through a billion hoops.) Hopefully the supplier is also moving proactively to contact all their customers who had purchased these mismarked products.
Fyrinnae's been going through some changes recently. The chemist is no longer with the company, and according to previous notes left on the site they're down to "one person in the office and the lab". I think this means that they're temporarily a one-person operation...and they're still working on a rather huge order backlog. The site has been up and down for the past week, more down than up; and I've managed to sneak in and add to my wish-list so that when the site next does come up to accept orders, I can easily remember which colors I decided to buy (yay, and thanks to all the mad swatchists out there. That made my life a lot easier.) On Wednesday March 16, the site was up all day until approximately 6pm Pacific, with the 28-business-day turnaround posted on the front. The "eyeshadows" category was not visible, but anyone with an account could log in and use their wishlist to navigate to a given product, and then to the category listing via the breadcrumbs. I don't know why the site keeps going visible for a few hours to a day at a time. But I do know that an order I was able to place on March 8, in between "blackout periods", shipped on March 16th. I had ordered 8 different colors, and duplicates of a few of them. I have no idea how my order size compares to their "average" order size.
TKB officially discontinued their primary-hued Pops micas in early March. The manufacturer discontinued those pigments, and TKB had been looking for an alternate supplier, but as of March 1 they hadn't found one. Darling Girl pointed out an alternative set of colors which are extremely close to the Pop micas (two colors have very slight differences.) Meanwhile, for folks who had wanted the micas themselves, perhaps mixed with a straightforward base, you've still got an option. Simply Naturals, who has a LOT of colors that are extremely similar to TKB micas - same names and everything - is selling the Lollipop collection for $13. That's essentially a sifterless 5-gram jar of all the Pops colors, mixed with a base. This won't do indie cosmetics or soapcrafters much good; but if you've wanted the colors and missed out...here's an alternate chance. Yep, you're paying more than you'd pay if you had just bought samples of these mica colors from TKB. And yep, you could buy those near-dupes and get the straight micas instead (but you've got to meet their order-minimum.) But if all you want is the colors mixed with a fairly straightforward base...here you go. (A note on Simply Naturals: I found them on Ebay back in 2008, selling multipurpose mineral colors for $1.90 a jar, and decided to give them a try. I've actually purchased quite a few colors from them, in their multipaks, which are generally a better deal than purchasing this and that individual pot from their site. A few of their colors are pretty good quality, and don't seem to be outright repackages: Blaze, Gypsy, Sandy. Others...not so much. For a while SN was even using some of TKB's photography on their site - so once I knew about TKB, it was fairly easy to figure out the match-ups. Still...for $1.90 a jar, less if you buy one of their multipaks, you're paying cake-mix prices.)
Back to Zoya-land again...I noticed that there were some colors, specifically older colors, that didn't have the option to order a color spoon. When I asked, I was told that these colors were being discontinued - and that they had stock on hand to sell until they ran out, but not enough to make color spoons with. So using that as an indicator, I used the color finder to view all the shades of Zoya polish available, and made up a list of which ones didn't have the "Order Color Spoon" option:
Priscilla, Naomi, Celine, Jasmine, Jenine, Eve, Fiona, Clover, Simone, Sienna, Milla, Linsay, Daphne, Dovey, Romy, Tabitha, Vivienne, Ellen, Joan, Juanita, Abigail, Kaitlyn, Danielle, Charlotte, Bridgit, Ava, Anne, Ella, Megan, Sadie, Stephanie, Uma, Parker, Skye, Paris, Tori, Nicole, Marilyn, Gigi, Nevaeh, Diem, Uli, Lyric, Bekka, Savita, Veruschka, LA Pop, Manhattan Mixer, OC Cooler, Soho Punch, Vegas Freeze
So if you've ever wanted any of those colors, you might want to get them now before they're gone for good.
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