Entries for Thursday August 30

Morgana Cryptoria’s LE 111

• Vendor: Morgana Cryptoria
• Availability: part of the Frankenshadows collection
• Color Range: faded soft emerald shimmer
• Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$5.50 for 1.2 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

My photos aren’t tweaked or washed out - this color does apply very soft! The shimmer is there, but minimal, so you’ve got a nice “toned down” green that’s not a complete matte. I think this is a fairly neutral green, not overtly warm or cool. It almost reminds me of Bare Escentuals’ Key Lime eyeshadow. It can work as a standalone color, but I don’t know if I’d have much luck using this on its own as a liner.

This particular color actually came about kind of last-minute. I emailed the owner saying that I originally kept looking for a description listing for LE 111 from this collection, but did a few recounts and realized that even though there was an LE 126, there were actually only 25 colors in the collection. So she mixed up a custom shade for the three jars I wanted to purchase. I’m such an awful completist… :)

Love Hues’ Gold-Spun Peach

• Manufacturer: Love Hues
• Availability: part of the regular line
• Color Range: pale gilded-peach shimmer
• Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$5.99 for 1 gram
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

I first heard of this company - and this color - on Sirvinya’s site. I liked the neutral color with a nice, strong gold shimmer, nearly a metallic look to it. I see a bit more gold in this shade than I did in Aromaleigh v2’s Amandier, which is similar. The orange tones in Gold-Spun Peach soften a lot when it’s applied to my lids, but it’s still there. The color isn’t as opaque as some, but it looks great over a cream-shadow base. It also looks good on the browbone, at least for me - it’s a good neutral that also acts as a highlight color.

Silk Naturals’ Propinquity

• Manufacturer: Silk Naturals
• Availability: part of the regular line; released in Fall 2010
• Color Range: dusty lilac with faint gold shimmer
• Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$4 for 0.75 teaspoon
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

Paired up with Defenestrate - which is a nice color, but really, I had to get these two just for the names! Propinquity is a soft dusty lilac with the barest gold shimmer. The gold barely shows up even when the color is foiled. It’s more of a faint suggestion than a definite silver or gold shimmer effect. I like these greyed colors - I look better in greyed or muted shades than in straight-up pastels.

The base color is somewhat similar to Aromaleigh v1’s Sea Glass, but Propinquity has more mauve tones.

Entries for Wednesday August 29

OPI’s My Personal Serpent

• Manufacturer: OPI
• Availability: part of the Sephora by OPI Good vs. Evil collection
• Color Range: deep dark teal creme
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$9 for 14 ml / .5 fl oz
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

This color is what I had hoped Zoya’s Cynthia would be. That color ended up being a little too dark, it read more as a blue-black than a blackened teal. This one is just a tiny bit brighter, and is an excellent color: smooth, high-shine finish dark teal creme that applies smoothly and just might be the right consistency to use in occasional bits of nail stamping. (I almost can’t believe that I passed a few bottles of this by, when it was on the “super-discount-sale” shelf in Sephora. For a mere $3 I could have had two more full bottles. But no, I was trying to control my spending that day…)

Entries for Tuesday August 28

China Glaze’s Magnetix II collection

• Manufacturer: China Glaze
• Availability: beginning summer 2012 from etailers and retailers
• Contains: 6 nail colors and a magnet (3 designs)
• Cost/Amount: USD$10 for one .15 oz / .5 gram bottle
• Would you purchase again: yes

I don’t know why the second China Glaze Magnetix collection didn’t get any love. I actually like the colors better, even if I haven’t used them yet. (Maybe it just flew so low on the radar that everyone was looking at the fall collections and looking forward to those?) The magnet is the same style as the first collection - three new designs on a U-shaped magnet. I had some trouble getting used to that one, getting the designs to display; but hopefully now that I’ve had some practice I’ll do a little better with the second set.

Aromaleigh v2’s Sylph collection

• Manufacturer: Aromaleigh v2
• Availability: limited edition; available beginning in July 2012 through the webstore
• Contains: 16 blushes
• Cost/Amount: USD$14 for 7 grams; $2 for a sample baggie
• Would you purchase again: some of the colors, yes

Aromaleigh v2’s first blush collection. Most of these are near-matte finishes with barely any glow - and I tend to like my blushes with a little bit of glow, so initially I only picked up one color. The range of shades is about as broad as the former Pure Rouges collection, but there aren’t as many colors in this collection as there were in that one. I like the colors and the coverage, but I’ve found that I’m happier with the end result if I lightly brush an AOFC or one of Meow’s Wildcat glow powsers over these.

BareMinerals’ Pink Diamonds kit

• Manufacturer: bareMinerals/Bare Escentuals
• Availability: beginning spring 2009 through boutiques, webstore, and all channel partners
• Contains: two eyecolors, one blush, one face powder, one dual-ended lip gloss and three brushes (and a vanity box)
• Cost/Amount: USD$54
• Would you purchase again: yes

One of the kits in the QVC diamond-infused AD series (Champagne Diamonds, Black Diamonds, this kit, and Canary Diamonds). I had bought one of the eyecolors earlier, but soon added the other two eyecolors and the blush. The feather-light mineral veil was once of some passing interest to me, but it quickly fell out of favor simply because I never really used it. The brushes were relatively standard, and since I’m Most Definitely Not A Huge Lipgloss Fan, I didn’t ever even consider buying the entire kit. I was more than content to buy my bitzenpiecen.

Entries for Monday August 27

Victorian Disco’s Rowena

• Manufacturer: Victorian Disco Cosmetics
• Availability: part of the House Points collection
• Color Range: bright turquoise-blue shimmer
• Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: forget the price; but quantity was 1 gram
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

The coverage of this color is actually a bit better when it’s applied dry. Foiling this shade didn’t do good things! The shadow ended up looking a bit…clumpy. I don’t know if a different adhesive or medium would have given me different results. I like the color, and as soon as I got my first set of the House Points collection I knew I wanted backups - chiefly for Rowena and Salazar. Sadly, Victorian Disco closed up before my order was processed.

The color reminds me slightly of TKB Trading’s Peacock Blue mica, but just a tiny bit lighter.

Aromaleigh v2’s Just Be-Clause

• Manufacturer: Aromaleigh v2
• Availability: released as part of Aromaleigh v2's Holly Days collection
• Color Range: warm medium-light brown shimmer
• Staying Power: 3 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:

Shiro Cosmetics’ Dunsparce / Shiro Cosmetics’ Shield-Eater

• Manufacturer: Shiro Cosmetics
• Availability: originally released in the Super Effective collection; renamed in early 2012 and moved to the Legends collection
• Color Range: semisheer soft yellow shimmer
• Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$5 for 1.8 - 2.0 grams
• Would you purchase again: no
• Similar shades: My Pretty Zombie's Drunken Toast

A softer yellow, with low color payoff. Since most of the rest of Shiro’s colors have very solid pigmentation levels, and since this color’s been around for a while (and wasn’t outright removed when the new collection lineups were announced) I can only guess that this is intentional. It’s a little heavy to use as a browbone or inner-vee highlighter, but is a bit sheer for use as a regular-weight yellow. I have used this a few times as a “blending” or transitional color, with mixed results. There must be a trick to using this color effectively, except as “over colored shadow bases” but I haven’t found it just yet.