Entries for Sunday July 31
Concrete Minerals’ Deviant
- Manufacturer: Concrete Minerals
- Availability: part of the regular eyeshadow line; also available in the Color Stacks kit
- Color Range: cool medium-deep brown shimmer
- Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
- Cost/Amount: USD$7 for 1.5 grams
- Would you purchase again: yes
- Similar shades:
Brown with cool dusty purple undertones. Not deep enough to be easily used as a liner shade, though you could probably get some interesting liner effects if you layered this over a dark liquid or gel liner.
Concrete Minerals’ Detox
- Manufacturer: Concrete Minerals
- Availability: part of the regular eyeshadow line
- Color Range: semisheer mint green shimmer
- Staying Power:3 out of 4 stars
- Cost/Amount: USD$7 for 1.5 grams
- Would you purchase again: yes
- Similar shades: Bare Escentuals' Mint
Low color payoff and rather sparse sparkle-particles (similar to the gold sparkle in Unity.) This isn’t as sheer as Bare Escentuals’ Faith - which is so very sheer that, once applied, you have to take it on faith that the color is actually there - but it doesn’t have much pigmentation.
Concrete Minerals’ Lolita
- Manufacturer: Concrete Minerals
- Availability: part of the regular eyeshadow line; also available in the Color Stacks kit
- Color Range: silvered taupe shimmer
- Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
- Cost/Amount: USD$7 for 1.5 grams
- Would you purchase again: yes
- Similar shades:
This almost seems to have a metallic finish to it. The main color is a soft taupe (PinkSith, if you don’t already have this color, you might want to check it out…) that’s a very slightly cool shade - so people with overtly warm skintones might not like how this looks with their coloring. It’s got a good level of pigmentation, it applies just as it appears in the pot with the cool undertones showing a little more when foiled.
Concrete Minerals’ Bruised
- Manufacturer: Concrete Minerals
- Availability: part of the regular eyeshadow line
- Color Range: deep red-brown shimmer
- Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
- Cost/Amount: USD$7 for 1.5 grams
- Would you purchase again: yes
- Similar shades:
Applies a little lighter than expected, based on how this color looks in the pot. It applies with more overtly visible brown than red. It’s almost a counterpoint to Blood and Guts, from the Zombie Girl collection. (Though wearing both at the same time…I don’t know that it would work too well on paler-skinned folks, unless they were balanced with white or neutral shades. You might end up with a faux-consumptive look…)
Concrete Minerals’ Vanity
- Manufacturer: Concrete Minerals
- Availability: part of the regular eyeshadow line
- Color Range: metallic antique gold shimmer
- Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
- Cost/Amount: USD$7 for 1.5 grams
- Would you purchase again: yes
- Similar shades:
Concrete Minerals’ Lithium
- Manufacturer: Concrete Minerals
- Availability: part of the regular eyeshadow line; also available in the Deathly Sexy kit
- Color Range: metallic silver shimmer
- Staying Power: 4 out of 4 stars
- Cost/Amount: USD$7 for 1.5 grams
- Would you purchase again: yes
- Similar shades: Aromaleigh's Fume
Entries for Saturday July 30
Saturday Soundtrack: Cally Descends (Bear McCreary - Battlestar Galactica sdtk)
I'm a soundtrack junkie. Instrumental music, or even songs not sung in a language that I know, allow me to build my own mental soundscapes based on what I hear. Sometimes they do match up with what the composer intended. Other times they're a bit off base. But that's okay with me: my brain gets to play, and I'm happy. (Solipsistic as hell, but there you go.) The soundtrack to the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica is amazing. I got my parents a copy, because Mom heard the music one day when she called me and said, "Oooooh, what's that? It's pretty!" And it is. The series covered the range of human emotion and experiences, and so does the soundtrack.
- Buy this song on iTunes: MP3: Cally Descends - Bear McCreary
- Buy this album on iTunes: Album: Battlestar Galactica Season 4 (Original Soundtrack from the TV Series) - Bear McCreary
- Buy this CD on Amazon: CD: Battlestar Galactica Season 4 soundtrack
Entries for Thursday July 28
Sleek Makeup’s Sunset i-Divine Palette
- Manufacturer: Sleek Makeup
- Availability: part of the permanent line; available through the webstore, UK midrange and stores (Superdrug et al)
- Contains: 12 eye colors
- Cost/Amount: USD$10.00
- Would you purchase again: yes
Sirvinya sent me my first Sleek palettes as gifts. Then I hit the site and bought myself several...and this was one of them :)
Most of these colors are shimmers rather than mattes, and the color payoff is fairly good. This palette was released before Sleek got into the habit of naming their colors, so I'll just go in order from left to right, upper row then lower:
- Upper-1: the matte black that's in so many of the Sleek palettes. It's a completely matte black, not as dark as some liner shades I've seen but it has good color payoff.
- Upper-2: is a berry-red shimmer. Cool deep red, kind of similar to Shiro's Hearts
- Upper-3: cardinal-red shimmer. The warm counterpart to Upper-2.
- Upper-4: orange shimmer. Almost bright pumpkin orange, or deep citrus-rind orange. Bright without being garish.
- Upper-5: bright yellow shimmer.
- Upper-6: turquoise-sky shimmer. That utterly perfect blue-sky shade that the sky so rarely actually is.
- Lower-1: burgundy shimmer. Similar to Concrete Minerals' Mad Hatter, but deeper and with a more metallic finish.
- Lower-2: plum-red shimmer.
- Lower-3: spiced orange shimmer. Not quite "rust" - it's a bit brighter than that - and not quite "russet" - not enough brown.
- Lower-4: golden brown shimmer. I'm not quite sure, but I think this shade (or its close cousin) was in the Paraguaya palette.
- Lower-5: pinked golden-tan duochrome shimmer.
- Lower-6: pink-gold shimmer. Reminds me of Make Up For Ever's Star Powder 916, but with a lighter softer pink.
Concrete Minerals’ Alice Collection kit
- Manufacturer: Concrete Minerals
- Availability: beginning 2011, from the webstore
- Contains: 4 eyeshadows
- Cost/Amount: USD$24.00
- Would you purchase again: yes
The last “kit” introduced on the Etsy store before the entire outfit relaunched on its own domain. I think this was in the second order I placed with Concrete Minerals. I wasn’t too sure about the pale blue shade (Daydream); but the red (Hearts) and the brown (Mad Hatter) definitely looked interesting! By buying these four colors together in a kit I saved a bit of money, so that didn’t hurt at all. (Saving money is always good. Doubly so when a new addiction appears on the horizon…)
Daydream turned out to be a silvered baby blue with a mild shimmer. Mad Hatter is a browned purple - definitely neither a brown nor a purple. I don’t know that I’ve run across a color quite like this one. I’d like to see if Concrete Minerals has a ruddy deep brown, because I think that would make a good addition to my collection; but I’m really glad that I got Mad Hatter. I think it’s going to make an excellent color for smudge-lining or smokey eyes (especially with my lighter hair and blue eyes!)
Be aware that two of the colors in this kit (Hearts and White Rabbit) are available in other kits - so don’t accidentally double up on your colors.
Zoya’s Mirrors collection
- Vendor: Zoya/Art of Beauty
- Availability: beginning July 2011 through the webstore and salon retailers
- Contains: 6 nail colors
- Cost/Amount: USD$48.00
- Would you purchase again: not the whole kit; but individual colors, yes
Zoya describes all of these colors as "metallic". I think that some of the colors, Tao and Marina in particular, look very much like some metals - but I don't know that I'd call all of these polishes metallic. They're a high-shine quasi-shimmer, but not what I generally think of as metallics. (It's one of my less favorite quirks of Zoya's copy. They love describing polishes as "metallic" or "duochrome" when the polish...isn't. They have their own internal dictionary that's just a bit special.)
As soon as I saw the colors previewed, I knew I'd be getting Nimue, Tao, and Marina. I've already worn Marina and love it! I think I may circle back for Neeka, now that I've seen several manicures with that shade. I'm undecided about Jem - it's a gorgeous, multilayered purple, but I've got enough dark "vampy" purple polishes. I think that Yara is a no-go for me. I just don't love the color.