Entries for Tuesday August 07

Aromaleigh v1’s Imperio

• Manufacturer: Aromaleigh v2
• Availability: released as part of Aromaleigh v1's Spells collection
• Color Range: dusty indigo 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:

I got this color fairly recently - as the Spells collection was on final-final-deep-discount clearance. I received a sample in one of the orders I had placed, and liked the way the color looked. (I’d never gotten the Spells collection in sample form - for whatever reason, the color grouping didn’t visually grab me, so I passed everything by. Though I did end up getting one more shade from this collection before everything was done.)

Aromaleigh v2’s Earth Sea Sky collection

• Manufacturer: Aromaleigh v2
• Availability: limited edition; available beginning in July 2012 through the webstore
• Contains: 20 eyeshadows
• Cost/Amount: USD$7 for 1.2 grams; $1 for a sample baggie
• Would you purchase again: some of the colors, yes

A collection of shades inspired by Aromaleigh v1’s En Pointe shadows. This means that the finishes are mostly satin or low-shimmer, there are several duotone shadows, and if you want more color opacity you’ll do best to stipple the shadows on when applying dry over primer, and use just a little bit less water (or whatever foiling agent you use) when applying wet. Some of the shades didn’t appeal to me, mostly the browns. (I also need to curb my enthusiasm for blues and purples, but I’ve done fairly good about not buying every fourth brown eyeshadow I see just because it has a pink or gold interference-finish, or blue or purple tones in the color itself.)

Honestly, though, these colors did surprise me when I swatched them. The ones that I initially thought I wouldn’t be too interested in, pretty much held; while a few of the colors turned out to be more interesting than I anticipated. Skylark is a nice shade of white with a very faint pink iridescence, but I’m less fond of white eyeshadows unless they’ve got something incredibly special about them - and this isn’t special enough for me. Petalsweet is a nice enough gilded baby-pink…but I prefer pinks with more of an edge. Solaraura and Shadowbrook are a bit too warm for my preferences; and Moonless is nice, but I already own Elegie and while I like the color, I don’t like it enough to get two variations that are so similar.

I had thought that Spiritmist and Gildedoak would be something I’d want in full size. Turns out Gildedoak didn’t impress me as much when swatched and viewed under indoor lighting (which, since the Puget Sound region doesn’t get very much sun, would be the eyeshadow’s native environment.) Spiritmist did look as interesting! Cloudburst was a last-minute “buy it full-size” decision: a faded periwinkle blue with a faint pink overlay. I don’t really have anything like Morningashes in my collection. Duskscream looks a bit more rust-orange than red-brown, and has a very faint gold shimmer besides. Fleurvervain reminds me of Aromaleigh’s Cupid: a cool pinked lilac with lavender tones, not the medium-lilac it appears to be in the Aromaleigh swatch photos. Holyground is a really nice red-brown that kind of reminds me of Eos. And I’m still debating about Indigoapex: on the one hand, I like how the color looks. On the other hand, I have enough blues, even deeper blues like this shade! (Now watch. In about a week I’ll cave.)

Stila’s Winter Blues kit

• Manufacturer: Stila Cosmetics
• Availability: through the web store and channel partners
• Contains: 2 eyeliners and one mascara
• Cost/Amount: USD$40
• Would you purchase again: yes

I already owned Silver Dollar when I first saw this kit; but since companies rarely release silver eyeliner (or it seems that way, at any rate) I was happy to get my hands on another. Plus I’d get Blue Ribbon, which I didn’t own; and a tube of mascara to try out. All of this as part of the Friends and Family sale, so I was saving a bit of money on it.

The eyeliners are both from the same line, and while the silver has a tendency to skip a bit, the blue applies nicely. I like the color: a muted softer blue with grey undertones. The mascara’s not all that fantastic. I think the idea was that the blue effects-stuff would mix nicely with the black mascara, and give one a nice black with blue-shimmer effects topcoat. How it actually works is that some lashes get coated in the black, some get smeared with the semitransparent blue stuff, and on a second pass everything just gets smeared unrecognizably. It is not specifically good. The mascara looks pretty in its tube. Just don’t try to actually use it, because it’s rubbish.

Still…with the F&F discount, I paid $25 for two full-sized retractable eyeliners, both of which I’ll actually use. At full price for this, I would not have felt like I got much of a deal: $40 for two items that normally would have cost $40, and a tube of crap mascara thrown in free. And by the time I bought this kit, Koi and Silver Dollar were both in the Last Chance section, and going for $10 apiece. I’m not sorry that I got the kit during the F&F sale, but had I paid full price for this kit, I’d be less than perfectly delighted.