Entries for Monday January 31

Meow Cosmetics’ Thalia

• Manufacturer: Meow Cosmetics
• Availability: available as part of the Sunless Sea collection
• Color Range: pale tea-rose sheen
• Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$8 for 1.2 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

Meow Cosmetics’ Terpsichore

• Manufacturer: Meow Cosmetics
• Availability: available as part of the Sunless Sea collection
• Color Range: soft coral sheen
• Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$8 for 1.2 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

So many of the other coral-oranges I have are either matte, or dark, or faint. This is a nice medium coral-peach with a slight shimmer. It’s a good non-neutral shade that works for softer contouring or as a counterpoint to darker colors like Fashionista Femme, or even Melopomene.

Eyeshadow Swatch Project: Blues

On December 30th, I was sounding off that I needed to get back to work because I was creating too many blog projects for myself...and CydonianMU (she did purples) said that I could join her, KimmieKarmaLove (she did blues), jadecarver (she did blacks/greys), RobynHeartsSlap (she did greens), and Raerae (she did reds and oranges) in an eyeshadow swatching collaboration. ("Oh, I'm not helping, am I?" LOL) The general plan was that to start off, each person would pick a color and would make a list of their 10/15/20 favorite shades of that color...and then swatch them all. Since I was planning to do this for my entire collection anyway, this seemed a good way to get started! I've already begun adding the montages to some of my colors - several older, and some of the newer ones that I bought this winter but hadn't catalogued yet. I started with yellows and golds...and then just continued slowly swatching my way through my collection.

Going through my own collection, I've done:

• My favorite yellows and golds
• My favorite reds
• My favorite oranges
• My favorite greens
• My favorite blues
• My favorite purples
• My favorite blacks/greys/whites
• My favorite browns

My favorite blue eyeshadow colors, alphabetically by manufacturer and then by color name, are:

1. Aromaleigh v1's Abyss — Is it blue? Is it gold? Is it green-ish? Who gives a damn, it's metallic and it's beautiful. It's a deep blue background color with metallic gold topcolor - it reminds me of Zoya's Edyta, except more blue than green.
2. Aromaleigh v1's Bluespark
3. Aromaleigh v1's Cloud
4. Aromaleigh v1's Frigid Gloom — the blue's gorgeous, but for some reason, the added pink shimmer makes the overall color look icy. (Don't ask me why. It makes no sense: pink? ice? This is just how my brain works.)
5. Aromaleigh v1's Loretha — I was kicking myself for missing out on this color when the Angels were first released...but it was brought back during Aromaleigh v1's final inventory-clearance sale
6. Aromaleigh v1's Ocean — I chose this not only because I love the color, but because it was the color that made me begin buying Aromaleigh. And then I fell in love with the products. A lot.
7. Aromaleigh v1's Ruth-Ann
8. Aromaleigh v1's Serenade
9. Bare Escentuals' Dragonfly
10. Bare Escentuals' Exotic Tara
11. Bare Escentuals' Gigi
12. Morgana Cryptoria's Chameleon Sea
13. Pure Luxe's Love Spell
14. Pure Luxe's Mirage
15. Shiro Cosmetics' Zora
16. The SheSpace's Flirty Flirt Flirt
17. The SheSpace's Managed Mania
18. The SheSpace's Spectral Light

More duochromes...of course!! Though only three true duochromes in this batch (Serenade, Love Spell, Mirage) and a duotone (Abyss)

Entries for Saturday January 29

Zoya’s Caitlin

• Manufacturer: Zoya/Art of Beauty
• Availability: originally released as part of Zoya's Intimate collection
• Color Range: cool light blue-grey creme with periwinkle undertones
• Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$7 for 14 ml / .5 fl oz
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

The slightly lighter, paler version of Zoya’s Kelly. This formula is a little thicker than the polishes in the Wonderful collection (and on the thicker end of the spectrum of all Zoya polishes that I’ve used), but not so thick that it would clot up. One coat gave good coverage, but was a bit uneven. 2 coats was perfect. It’s got good spreadability, so even though this manicure was done on nails that really really really needed buffing - can you say ridges, folks? - the imperfections in my nails don’t show up. (Except on my thumbnails, which are just weird mutant things that no amount of buffing will clean up completely.)

Entries for Friday January 28

Meow Cosmetics’ Melopomene

• Manufacturer: Meow Cosmetics
• Availability: available as part of the Sunless Sea collection
• Color Range: denim blue sheen
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$8 for 1.2 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

This is the darkest shade in the Sunless Sea collection. It’s a medium-rich denim blue that can work as a liner shade (about on par with BE’s Ocean, in terms of pigmentation level). Foiling does deepen the color somewhat, but even patted dry over primer it’s fairly well pigmented.

Meow Cosmetics’ Calliope

• Manufacturer: Meow Cosmetics
• Availability: available as part of the Sunless Sea collection
• Color Range: warm rose-fawn shimmer
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$8 for 1.2 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

A softer red-brown with gold shimmer. It does apply much softer than it appears in the pot, and foiling intensifies the shimmer but doesn’t darken the color noticeably. This shade is good for softening or transitioning from a darker neutral to a softer shade.

Eyeshadow Swatch Project: Greens

On December 30th, I was sounding off that I needed to get back to work because I was creating too many blog projects for myself...and CydonianMU (she did purples) said that I could join her, KimmieKarmaLove (she did blues), jadecarver (she did blacks/greys), RobynHeartsSlap (she did greens), and Raerae (she did reds and oranges) in an eyeshadow swatching collaboration. ("Oh, I'm not helping, am I?" LOL) The general plan was that to start off, each person would pick a color and would make a list of their 10/15/20 favorite shades of that color...and then swatch them all. Since I was planning to do this for my entire collection anyway, this seemed a good way to get started! I've already begun adding the montages to some of my colors - several older, and some of the newer ones that I bought this winter but hadn't catalogued yet. I started with yellows and golds...and then just continued slowly swatching my way through my collection.

Going through my own collection, I've done:

• My favorite yellows and golds
• My favorite reds
• My favorite oranges
• My favorite greens
• My favorite blues
• My favorite purples
• My favorite blacks/greys/whites
• My favorite browns

My favorite green eyeshadow colors, alphabetically by manufacturer and then by color name, are:

1. Aromaleigh v1's Avalon — I was looking for a good greyed green...and found this one. I wanted something that was actually fairly well pigmented, and most companies that make an eyeshadow this shade make it a bit less pigmented. (I also ended up getting the matte version of this color, Swampthing, when the manufacturer was discontinuing this line.)
2. Aromaleigh v1's Dragonfly — The green in this color isn't as fronted as I thought it might be, because of the metallic finish...but it's a gorgeous shade!
3. Aromaleigh v1's Elysia — it's a pastel blue-green, but it's not near-invisible like lighter, softer colors from other companies sometimes are. This comes from one of Aromaleigh v1's final collections, so the colors weren't as pigmented as some of her older stock collections; but that doesn't mean it's whisper-sheer, either. This color is somewhat similar to Spectral Light, but a bit more towards the green end of the spectrum.
4. Aromaleigh v1's Jigsawfeeling
5. Aromaleigh v1's Oceanrain —
6. Aromaleigh v1's Twinkling Lights — for some reason, people either love this shadow or hate it. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of middle ground - at least, not among the people I've spoken with. It caught my attention when I first started buying from Aromaleigh, but I waited too long and the collection was no longer available. I was thrilled when the Holiday Blast collection was brought back out of the vaults. Another color from this same collection, Champagne Toast, is one of my favorite brown colors.)
7. Bare Escentuals' Jade — I snagged several jars of this color - and given that it came out into open stock just under a year later, I paid too much for the jars (one of the downsides of Ebay: when you truly know that something's HTF and you love it, you don't blink at paying twice retail.) But at that time, there was no other teal-blue-green color like this, with this much pigmentation and depth, in BE's inventory. Indie companies didn't have an exact match, either, so I just bought myself (and my mom) as many jars as I could. If you've been looking for That Perfect Deep Teal matte liner shade, and want something that deep but not blackened, this is the color to check out. While my various indie companies have close matches, none of them have yet come out with an exact match. (I could send a sample to Caitlin of Shiro Cosmetics, but she's busier than a one-legged man in an asskicking contest, and I think it would just add to her mental load. I'll wait until she expands enough to eat and breathe and occasionally sleep more than two hours a night, and -=then=- I'll send her a sample of this color for duping.)
8. Bare Escentuals' Olive Mist — a faded green that looks like a washed-out version of Avalon, in the pot...but it's got a slight silver sheen when applied wet.
9. Bare Escentuals' Oz — there's a slight blackening to this color that's only really prominent when it's foiled. Applied dry, it's a well-pigmented, lush deep emerald shimmer. I've caught hints of a prior formulation of this color, but I'm very happy with this one!
10. Meow Cosmetics' Commercialism — an instant favorite almost as soon as I saw it.
11. Pure Luxe's Luster — this is one of the amazing colorshifting duochromes (or possibly a trichrome?) that makes use of the TKB Trading Planetary Traveller micas. I was almost able to capture the green/gold/red colorshift on the "dry over primer" swatch photo for this color!!
12. Shiro Cosmetics' Bulbasaur
13. The SheSpace's Broken Mind
14. The SheSpace's Dragon Breathe — when I first saw photos of this color, I thought: eh, it's a yellow-green, that's most definitely not up my alley. But then I saw several people use it in looks...and fell in love! It's a yellow green in the pot, a greenish-gold on the skin, and surprisingly...it works pretty well with my coloring. I like using this over black liner pencil or gel liner to get a black-gold iridescence.
15. The SheSpace's Happy Hour Hazards
16. The SheSpace's Moral Enemy
17. The SheSpace's Savor the Psychosis — This color is about halfway between Bare Escentuals' Oz and Bare Escentuals' Black Emerald: there's more green shimmer than Black Emerald, but a bit more blackening than in Oz.
18. The SheSpace's Tall Drink of Water

Entries for Thursday January 27

China Glaze’s Anchors Away collection

• Manufacturer: China Glaze
• Availability: beginning January 2011 through etailers and retailers
• Contains: 12 nail colors
• Cost/Amount: USD$6 for one .15 oz / .5 gram bottle
• Would you purchase again: yes

Like many China Glaze collections, this one was divided into two subgroups: the brighter primaries (Knotty Nauticals), and the softer pastels (Sand and Sea). When this collection was originally announced, I had my eyes on Lighthouse, Sea Spray, Sunset Sail, and Knotty. I wanted a golden-yellow for stamping, and saw the perfect shade in Lighthouse. Then the descriptions appeared on beauty blogs…and Lighthouse was described as a glass fleck. Gorgeous color, but not really all that usable for nail stamping!! I dropped Lighthouse and added Starboard to my list. Then the swatches hit beauty blogs, and I rearranged the list -=again=-! I ended up getting Below Deck, even though I hadn’t ever seen or lusted after Channelesque, because I liked the color. I decided to add Pelican Grey bcause I didn’t have a good pale grey nail stamping polish, and First Mate because it was a navy that didn’t almost appear black in certain lights - good for manicures and nail stamping. I went back and forth on Knotty, because I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted it after I saw the swatches. It looked semisheer, and I really wanted a beige polish with gold shimmer (similar to Sally Hansen’s Fedora, but with a better formula.)

Entries for Wednesday January 26

Sally Hansen’s Precious Pearl

• Manufacturer: Sally Hansen
• Availability: originally released in winter 2011 as part of the Nailgrowth Miracle polish collection
• Color Range: sheer pink-white pearl
• Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$5.99 for 13.3 ml / .45 fl oz
• Would you purchase again: haven't decided yet
• Similar shades: Zoya's Amminah

I’ve cut all my nails to uniform…ittybitty stubs. The nails were a bit stained still, from my series of green manicures about two months ago, and while most of that had grown out the top 1/5 is still a bit discolored (even after The Trimming.) I was going to use my Nail Envy for a week or so and see if I could keep my nails from splitting. I wasn’t looking forward to a week with no nail color. Lucky me, a trip to the drugstore coincided with a sale on Sally Hansen’s Nailgrowth Miracle polishes, so I picked up a pair.

This is a newer line. The bottles are a different shape, flatter bottles with a slightly tapered lid (it’s like Sally’s experimenting with which bottle shape appeals to consumers most or something. Very irritating), but they’ve got the same “pro” brush that the Salon Manicure polishes have. I like this brush because it’s wider, flatter, and the flattened tip is rounded so it’s easier to get the color right up to your cuticles without actually painting your cuticles. I can usually cover my entire nail with two strokes.

China Glaze’s Rated Holographic

• Manufacturer: China Glaze
• Availability: originally released in spring 2006 as part of China Glaze's Kaleidescope collection
• Color Range: peach holographic shimmer
• Staying Power: 3 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$6 for 14 ml / .5 fl oz
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades: China Glaze's TTYL (same base color, less dense holographic effects)

Two coats gave me full opaque coverage, but three coats deepened the color from a pink-peach to a peach-rose. It also smoothed out the holographic effect slightly - there wasn’t quite the rainbow effect I get with even two coats of any of the OMG colors, but it was a faint version of it. (I didn’t want to go to four coats because this collection has been discontinued, and unless you want to pay upwards of $16 a bottle for them, you can’t get them any more. I also have three bottles of TTYL, the corresponding color in the OMG collection. So when I really want that rainbow-holographic goodness, I have backups of backups!)