My birthday was this past Monday, and I celebrated in usual low-key style: painted my nails, did the quarterly metrics for work, picked up my mail, ordered pizza, and rewatched the final five episodes of Caprica on DVD…and one broadcast episode of House.

I know. I lead such a wild life. Well, it's not glam, but it works for me.

I received my orders from Helix Elemental. Some items were much more liked than others - as is pretty much always the case, when ordering from a new online shop - but they've got some lovely items. I'm hoping to have pictures and reviews up later today. For folks who are interested, they're having a 50% off sale (with the code HELIXHALFOFF) through February 24th 2011. My quick recommendation: unless you're a fan of pendants - and a fan of larger pendants, at that - look at the earrings. (I have three pair, and these are my favorites. The dichroic / duochrome glass is really much more apparent in these earrings than in the other two pairs that I bought.) Nickle-free hooks available on any earrings upon request. (In fact, if you prefer surgical steel or silver plated or gold plated, just ask the seller if you can have those instead.)

Several new shades have hit the Buxom Lip Sticks line at Sephora, including Fresno and Vienna (from the recent City Slickers kit) and London (introduced in the Laura Does London kit.) I don't know that Athens will work for me - it looks too orange - and Acapulco might be too purple for me; but I'm interested in swatching Nantucket and Sydney. Tokyo might work for me as well, I don't know. I've got plenty of Buxom Lip Sticks right now, though, so I won't be trying any of these Real Soon Now. (Possibly I'll get them when I go to Atlanta for the Great Shopping Expedition? It's in just over 200 days! I've got my plane ticket, the hotel's all but paid for, I've got the time off from work, I've started saving spending cash…) Any of these catch your eye?

Aromaleigh has opened its grab-bag pre-orders for US customers. She does note that if you're an established international customer and would like to pre-order a grab bag or two, they can manually accept your order via email. Check the blog post for full details. I will be sitting these out because almost all of the Aromaleigh colors that I wanted, I got - with the striking exception of Drama Violet. It was never ever listed on the clearance page. I don't know if that means that it was completely out because everyone else ordered it, or if it was there but wasn't displaying as an option because of tweaked programming; but…well, I got some more Angels colors during the Clearance days, and I did get five other Pure Drama shades, so when looked at that way, I did pretty good. (I also have that “gotta have multiples” compulsion yanking at me, and since these are grab bags, there's no guarantee that I'd even get one duplicate if I ordered multiple grab bags from the same color family.) If you were newer to Aromaleigh, these grab bags represent a good way to get several colors. (And if anyone happens to find Drama Violet in their grab bag and wants to sell…contact me!!)

Shiro Cosmetics is closed...for a brief while. The owner started getting busier, and rather than build up a huge backlog of orders and drastically slow turnaround times, she's opted to put the shop in “vacation mode” until she can get order turnaround time back under five days. Don't freak, though - you'll still be able to get everything when she re-opens the shop. There's an option at the Etsy store to receive an email notification when she does re-open.

Makeup Zombie has paired with Morgana Cryptoria to put on a great giveaway - and there are still a few days (literally, a few days!!) to enter! The winner gets to choose five eyeshadow samples and one vegan lipstick. Head on over and enter before February 1st. I've entered, and if I win, I think I'll get samples of Isis, AspBite, Brew HaHa, and Shallow Grave - and Cocoa lipstick.

Morgana will be discontinuing a handful of their vegan lipstick shades, and the remaining tubes are 50% off while supplies last. Serenity's already sold out, but you can still get Cauldron, Valentine, Azalea, Burnt Sienna, and Snowstorm. (Azalea's a near-dupe for MAC's Strayin' lipstick.) Azalea Blue will be staying with the line…but these other colors will be discontinued. So if you've been curious about Morgana's lipsticks, this can be a good time to try the formulation. (I'm keeping my eye out for the Shifty Eyed color shifting shadows, due out mid-February.)

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