Entries for Tuesday July 31

China Glaze’s Magnetix collection

• Manufacturer: China Glaze
• Availability: beginning spring 2012 from etailers and retailers
• Contains: 12 nail colors
• Cost/Amount: USD$10 for one .15 oz / .5 gram bottle
• Would you purchase again: yes

I had cautiously stayed out of the whole “magnetic polish” craze, but once China Glaze entered the market I bought their entire collection. I like that the magnet has multiple designs, and is separate from the bottles. The colors in this collection are cooler shades: khaki green, blue, two purples, charcoal, and a gold-brown. I wasn’t initially thrilled with the colors, but I really wanted to get the whole collection on pre-order. (I also bought myself a backup magnet, because I just know that I’ll lose one. It looks like a lot of others did too, as the magnet was out of stock at just about every vendor for quite a while!!)

Stila’s Live from the Red Carpet Smudge Stick Duo kit

• Manufacturer: Stila Cosmetics
• Availability: through the web store and channel partners
• Contains: 2 eyeliners and 1 mascara
• Cost/Amount: USD$30
• Would you purchase again: yes

This “Live from the Red Carpet” collection apparently held several other items at one point: convertible color (which is still available), this set, a lipgloss trio (which I think I bought and quickly rehomed, at one point, me not being a huge fan of lipglosses,) and a couple of eyeshadow palettes. I only was interested in this set, though. When I first saw it I thought - what? Brown and black are not special colors, they must have just named them special for this kit…which, effectively, they did. Stingray and Lionfish got renamed and enhanced slightly. Then again, the smudge stick liners are normally $22 each - and this set was $30, for two full-size smudge sticks and a half-size tube of mascara. So even if the colors weren’t truly as special as one might hope, the set was still a good deal. (Especially since I hadn’t bought either Stingray or Lionfish, simply because they were straight black and brown and therefore not really a priority-purchase. I had lots of other black and brown eyeliners. Blue, khaki, and silver? Not so much.)

Entries for Monday July 30

elf’s Golden

• Manufacturer: elf
• Availability: released as part of elf's Mineral Eyeshadow collection
• Color Range: soft gold-brown shimmer
• Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$3 for 0.05 oz / 1.5 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

A soft golden-brown with a medium shimmer. The color payoff is a bit slight…but it’s about on par with Bare Escentuals’ “glimpse” colors, and costs significantly less, so it’s a decent value. The color depth and intensity is about the same applied wet as dry - there’s more apparent shimmer when it’s applied wet. This could be a contour or liner shade in a softer look with either pale or nearly-sheer shades accompanying it.

MAC’s Desert Cloud pigment

• Manufacturer: M*A*C
• Availability: from their webstore or their boutiques and MAC shops; part of the Butterfly Party Crushed Pigment Stack, from the Vera collection
• Color Range: muted blue-violet shimmer
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4
• Cost/Amount: USD$19.50 for 4.5 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades: Bare Escentuals' Gigi (similar base color, different finish)

This has a similar issue as Moss Garden: it looks like the pigment may have dried out a little bit, it has its coloring but the metallic finish is nearly gone and it doesn’t apply as smoothly as other MAC pigments (non-metallic ones, most notably.) The color itself is nice. It just seems to have suffered being stored in a jar other than the one MAC packaged it in. (Or that would have happened over a longer period of time regardless of which container was used to store the metallic pigment, I honestly don’t know which.)

Wet application brightens the color a bit. I like the way this pigment looks when applied wet, versus dry application. I think that BE’s Gigi might be a similar shade of violet-blue, but Gigi will have a different finish.

Shiro Cosmetics’ Baker’s Boy

• Manufacturer: Shiro Cosmetics
• Availability: originally released in the Tributes collection
• Color Range: light tan shimmer
• Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$5 for 1.8 - 2.0 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

A lighter color payoff than expected, unless I make a conscious effort to apply more. It’s warmer, but not so yellow that I have problems wearing it with my cool undertones. There’s a good shimmer finish that doesn’t disappear when the color’s applied dry, and a nice underlying brown to the color. I don’t know that I’d be able to use this as a contouring shade, unless I was going for a very soft look. I haven’t tried it, but I imagine it wouldn’t darken too too much over a dark colored base - the dark base would probably set off the color well, and let the gold tones be more prominent.

Aromaleigh v2’s Down the Chimney

• Manufacturer: Aromaleigh v2
• Availability: released as part of Aromaleigh v2's Holly Days collection
• Color Range: medium-deep slate grey shimmer
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$7 for 1.2 grams; $1.00 for a sample baggie
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

Almost-but-not-quite a color changer. It changes color (for me, at least) depending on application, not light angle. Foiled, you see the faded-denim blue. Applied dry, the primary color is a cool slate grey. There’s a bit more shimmer in this color than in some of Aromaleigh’s more recent “shimmer” shades, which I like. The color payoff is also very good.

At the time of its release, the Holly Days collection was the best collection from Aromaleigh v2 in terms of color pigmentation and finish. The two previous LE collections were just a bit softer in terms of color intensity, and the shimmer (or sparkle) didn’t show up quite as well on application as it did in the pan, unless I packed on a lot over wet primer (wet, as opposed to still-damp.)

Entries for Saturday July 28

Saturday Soundtrack: Dead Man’s Party (Oingo Boingo)

So last week I went to Chris Nolan's final Batman film, and Dad and I were talking about Tim Burton's versions...which lead me to start thinking about Danny Elfman, who wrote the orchestral score for the first movie (you didn't know that? Yep, he did) which in turn got me remembering my Oingo Boingo CDs that I hadn't listened to in a while. The video below isn't the version that's on the two CDs that I have (both Dead Man's Party and Best Of), and it's been watched a lot so the quality isn't the best in the world.

But...Oingo Boingo? Synched to Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride? Perfection!

(I'll go see if I can't find some of the 1989 Batman score videos on YouTube. Some of them are kind of meh, but there was one fairly short bit that I really liked. The music is all rather signature "Danny Elfman", too - which suits, because the 1989 Batman film with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson was fairly well stamped with Tim Burton's visual signature as well.)

Entries for Friday July 27

NYX Cosmetics’ Twinkle Star Black Label Lipstick (193)

• Manufacturer: NYX Cosmetics
• Availability: part of the Black Label Lipstick collection
• Color Range: medium rose-mauve creme
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4
• Cost/Amount: USD$7.00 for .14 ounces / 4 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes - but only from etailers, because the tubes aren't sealed

There isn’t any twinkle, just a softer shade. It’s a little lighter than Tea in the Afternoon, but not so light that it’s a pink or a pastel.

Entries for Thursday July 26

MAC’s Moss Garden pigment

• Manufacturer: M*A*C
• Availability: from their webstore or their boutiques and MAC shops; part of the Butterfly Party Crushed Pigment Stack, from the Vera collection
• Color Range: medium-light sage-green sheen
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4
• Cost/Amount: USD$19.50 for 4.5 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

I don’t know why this applied the way it did, so patchy even when applied wet. Maybe these metallic pigments don’t like sitting in my standard 10-gram jars for long periods of time? I know that most other MAC pigments don’t have a problem…but these seem to be a little tetchier.

All of the Butterfly Party pigments were cool-toned, and had similar levels of saturation.

BareMinerals’ Glamtastic

• Manufacturer: bareMinerals/Bare Escentuals
• Availability: released as part of the Putting On The Glitz kit
• Color Range: semisheer peachy gold shimmer
• Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$13 for .02 ounces / .57 grams
• Would you purchase again: no
• Similar shades:

For a color named “Glamtastic”, there isn’t much “glam” in this shade. The shimmer finish is very sparse and scattered. In older BE parlance, this color might have been named a “glimpse,” it has such a low-sheen finish and a low color payoff. The finish isn’t even enough for pearl or frost, and there’s just not much to it. The color is nice enough - a pale peach-gold, rather than a pale yellow, so it’s more wearable (to me, at least.)