New Pictures for Archetype, Fyrrinae, and Pure Luxe Cosmetics

I've finally gotten my hands on a better camera. To read some of my review comments go back to my previous post.

Be sure to ENLARGE THE PICS BY CLICKING on them. The details are sometimes worth looking at.

ENLARGE THE PICS BY CLICKING! seriously, you see so much more. And it'd be waste of a good pic if you don't.

First, from Fyrinnae the Lollipop Pop Lip Lustre that smells like little girl's fake makeup. On the bottom is what it looks like when I wiped it off.



I've put together a comparison of the colors. My approach this time is to compare colors from all the brands.


First I just want to list my absolute favorites that I would consider repurchasing. Of course I have to consider if it looks good on me too.
Archetype: Unwrap Me, Angel of Indulgence,
Pure Luxe: Indigo, Magic, Russet, Vogue, Galaxy
Fyrinnae: Fyre&Ice, Nori,

One that I like but won't buy a full size of is Ouch. There's just not much occassion to use that. I also ADORE Archetype's Plastic Pink but it doesn't go well with the skin.

Left to Right
Top row: Archetype Plastic Pink, Integra's Dog II, Red Death
Middle: Pure Luxe Ouch, OMG, and Rave
Bottom: Archetype Frost on the Pumpkin, Pure Luxe Visions

All of the Archetype: Top to bottom, left to Right
Salamungdi, Datura, Conjunction, Papaver Somnifer, Sly
Plastic Pink, Integra's Dog II, Empty Promise (not Archetype; She Space?)
Obsidian Butterfly, Twilight Aeval, Raven's Feather, Ghost Dance, Midnight Aeval

Top: Archetype Obsidian Butterfly, Twilight Aeval, Ghost Dance, Raven's Feather, Midnight Aeval
Bottom: Pure Luxe



Below: Pure Luxe Indigo, Fyrinnae Nori, Fyrinnae Necromatic, Fyrinnae Archmage Mystic


Top: Archetype
Middle: Fyrinnae Nori, Pure Luxe Vogue(?), Pure Luxe Utopia (?), Fyrinnae Sennyo
Bottom: Visions, Russet(?)


The order of these swatches and the jars below are the same.

Top: Pure Luxe Russet, Utopia, Vogue, Fyrinnae Sennyo, Pure Luxe Ouch, OMG, Rave
Middle: Fyrinnae Fyre & Ice, Nori, Pure Luxe Indigo, Fyrinnae Necromatic, Archmage Mystic
Bottom: Pure Luxe Regal, Forest, Archetype Angel of Indulgence, Pure Luxe Pandora, Galaxy

One thing that I want to make note of is that I didn't use ANY base on these. The middle row, of darker colors especially, the black base took 3-4 days to come off! my arm had spots on it for a while. BUT for the glitters and the lighter colors to stay you HAVE TO use some kind of base or before you know it you will blink it away.




Top: Pure Luxe Turquoise Hi-Lite, Violet Hi-Lite, Buff powder foundation, powder eraser, original eraser
Bottom: Illusion, Prismatic, High Society Glitter, Magic Glitter, Mai Tai glitter





Not sure if you can really see, but the eraser does make the fine lines on my hand go away. You can see how the foundation might not quite be my color.




Since I thought these might not show up as well normally, I decided to try them out with the Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy sample. turns out they both show up about the same with or without it. The only thing is that you can see how when I tried to smudge it, the right side without the epoxy smudged more.

The copper toned is Pure Luxe's Visions. It was like liquid metal. The color is absolutely gorgeous. You can see how it turns from dark red, to orange to yellow.

The pink on top is Violet Hi-Lite, then Turquoise is after that. Next I have Prismatic, and Illusions.



Top: Fyrinnae Fool's Gold, Lights of Tel Aviv, Lights of Tokyo
Bottom: Archetype Unwrap Me, Frost on the Pumpkin

These, I have to note, showed up SO MUCH BETTER because I applied them on top of the Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy. If you look at the old pictures, you'll see that the Lights of Tel Aviv and Lights of Tokyo glitters especially were practically non existant.

Getting Robbed: Round II

You might've seen my Getting Robbed post. Well here's round 2. What do I mean by that? I mean that my house got broken into AGAIN!! FML FML FML FML! Seriously.

6 months 1 day after our house got broken into for the first time in 8 years that we've lived there, our house gets broken into again. I've decided that we should put a sign up "Nothing to steal here, move along". WE HAVE NOTHING. I don't even know why these burglars think that there's anything worth taking from my house. What? You think insurance must've replaced everything by now, is that right? Well lemme tell you something. Everything we have is from 20 years ago. The first burglar cleaned everything of value that we've ever had and pawned it all off. We are literally dirt poor, we own no jewelry of value (sure I make stuff, but I sell it for $3, how much are you gonna sell it for?)

This time, it was a more professionally thorough job. They took the extra step to break our motion sensor, cut our phone line (OOOH yea, another tip for you amateurs) and wear ski masks. What they didn't expect was to find my mom under the covers that they ripped off the bed. She had just been through surgery so she was really tired and didn't hear when they busted down the door (yes, I mean busted, since the last intrusion, we installed deadbolts but that doesn't really help when they can just knock the door down with their body weight). Of course they demanded money from her and she burst into tears (You heartless thieving Bast***s). Then there was some walkie talkie action going on (there was another one outside, what a surprise!) and after some communication they decided to leave. What surprised me is that they left the pillowcases that they had started stuffing with items- like a wallet and watch.

Here's a word of warning for those of you who think it won't happen to you. There's been a heck of a lot of robberies this year. 80 in Parsippany NJ alone all within a few months. Police suspect that targets are Asians- Orientals and Indians- because according to profiles, we're supposed to like to hide all our valuables in our house. WELL HERE'S SOME NEWS FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DON'T KNOW YET: Not all of us have anything of value to hide!

Well from a more local approach, seeing as how my neighbors don't get their houses broken into, we suspect it's cuz our house is all dark (the stupid sidewalk lights keep breaking) and we don't have a dog to make noise (everybody on our street has a dog, except for us).

I just really wish these petty things would stop happening. Go make an honest living like the rest of us! You think my parents live where they do because they're rich and get paid a lot? Get real, my parents can barely afford the house (we're in debt now thanks to college tuition) and my dad works 11-15 hours a day in a high stress environment job. Seriously this pisses me off! You think life is easy for the rest of us?! It's mad hard, so hard that I want to pull out my hair take a metal bat and start destroying things. Hope you're proud of yourselves, hope your consciences get to you one day soon.

Fyrinnae Haul

First a sample of Datura that I wore out yesterday. It's a light sheer color.


This is a picture of the eraser and the pore putty that I said it resembled. I have a dab on my finger.


The Fyrinnae package. Inside the cardboard tube is the black plastic bag with the tiger stripes tissue paper.
First, I have this atrocious lip thing to show you. It's the lip Lustre in Lollipop- Pop flavor. The color is a pasty fake looking pink with blue interference. The picture looks ok, but irl, it looks completely like cheap 5 year old girl makeup. They say it's Lychee flavor, but as someone who's eaten hundreds of lychee in her lifetime, I can tell you this smells nothing like it! It just mostly smells like cheap gross lip stuff with a hint of lollipop/ cotton candy flavor. I'm so glad I only bought the mini because I'm about to trash this thing. The tube color is a tidge darker than the website picture.


I bought the full of the Nori and Fyre & Ice. Nori is the one that's more blue and Fyre & Ice is more purple. I noticed that the Arcane Magic Mystic and the Necromatic are VERY similar in color so I tried to show the differences. I wanted to note that I labeled them wrong in the picture! >.< Arcane Magic Mystic is the green tinged one, and Necromatic is the blue tinged one, sorry !!! For the full jars, there's sooo much packed in that when you open the jars, shadow spills out everywhere and it's really messy. part of me likes having so much product, and the other part wishes that there was a sifter on the jars like Archetype Cosmetic's just so it doesn't get everywhere. They also included a small sample of the Pixie Epoxy, but I haven't tried it yet. From the left: Sennyo, Necromatic, Arcane Magic Mystic, the empty looking spot is a very sheer Lights of Tel Aviv City Glam Glitter, Nori, Fyre & Ice, Fools Gold, and the very very slight white blue on the end is City Glam Glitter's Lights of Tokyo.

Pureluxe Cosmetics

When I opened the package, my first thought was, "Did I buy this many?!" But then again, it's $36 worth. Incidentally I want to mention. I bought all this during their Pre-Black Friday sale thing. Has anyone else noticed that they make you add in a $.02 coupon? So when I got my refund, they just refunded back 30% of what I paid, without subtracting the cost of the coupon first. I ended up receiving $0.01 less than I should've for my refund. While that doesn't sound like a lot, imagine, they take 1 cent from everybody, if there are a lot of orders, you can end up making some side money. Well, I guess the general thought is that the discount is bigger, but I just thought it was a little shady.

The colors from left to right:
Top row:
The original powder eraser: This stuff, I just tried a little, but it does really seem to smooth out the appearances of pores and such, it's really like someone photoshopped my face.

Eraser: This stuff,..is suspiciously like my Sana pore putty. As a matter of fact, I think it may very well be the same stuff, just this stuff is colored. I'll up a pic later.

Foundation in Buff: I think this may be too dark for my skin in powder form

Turquois Aura: This isn't very Turquoise at all, just looks like the interference sheen in shadows
Purple Aura: This is more pink-ish purple
Prismatic, Illusion, Vision: i was kind of upset with these as the color change isn't really that obvious
High Society: This...is a ripoff, it's basically green glitter. I bought it thinking the glitters were different sized chunks, but no, it's just green glitter.
Mai Tai: I wished this was more orange..it's like a neon coral glitter
Magic: This was the only glitter I liked, it has a purple look, but can also be blue.
Rave: WOW. This is not how it looks on the site, it's much brighter in real life, looks like a pink highlighter. I tried to ask and see if this was indeed eye safe since so many of these neon colors aren't, but I never got an answer. A lot of places make these neon pigments for decoration of other places. The FDA hasn't listed some of the ingredients often found in these pigments as eye safe. Better safe than sorry...
Ouch: A cool pink that matches the Orly Gorgeous nailpolish in the background of some pics. I'll review those polishes later.
Indigo: A very beautiful color
OMG: red
Russet
Utopia: Kind of purple
Vogue:
Forest: Just a green
Regal: like Forest, but with a tidge more blue
Pandora: A green on the yellow side
Galaxy: Kind of like a gray blue green


This time I switched it, the top row of the color is with water, the middle dry, and the bottom with a NYX jumbo pencil as a base.

The three glitters are in the right corner High Society (green), Mai Tai (orange), Magic (blue)

From left to right:
Glalaxy, Pandora, Regal, Forest, Vogue, Utopia, Russet, OMG, Archetype Cosmetic's Integra's Dog II. I thought that the Integra's Dog II and OMG were very close and when I swatched them, I found that Integra's Dog II is a bit darker.

On some of the pictures, at the top you can see where I swatched the foundation (with water is lighter on top, just powder darker on on the bottom), to the right of that is the purple aura, and then the turquoise aura.

Again, I haven't tried these shadows out in real life, so I haven't made a decision on the comfort/ quality yet.

I would post the Fyrinnae right now, but it's late so I'll do it tomorrow.

Archetype Cosmetics Part II

This is the picture of the sifter that I had meant to upload as well. It's got a sticker over it (with a tab) to keep the shadow from falling out all over the place. Incidentally, this color is Angel of Indulgence.

I slept with my contacts in all night and wore them around all day again today. You can see the red around the contacts. They're so much redder in real life. The contact that I'm wearing are Freshlook Colors Hazel. I don't know if it's the pair or something, but they're less comfortable than my Violets. This color..is not very natural at all. It's pretty much what you see here except maybe even more orange toned (warmer toned).



Under, I actually took some pics using Once Upon a Time, because I plan on giving it away tomorrow and wanted at least a couple bad quality pics (over no pics). I realize that it's actually pink glitter on black. In the pictures I've used water to try and get the color to show. Without a base though, THESE SHADOWS WILL HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO STAYING POWER. Absolutely none. The more you brush, the more it disappears until there's nothing left. Yes I do know that one eye has more on than the other and the makeup is sloppy, but I just wanted to illustrate the general concept of what it will look like. Maybe I'll do a real look post sometime after I get my hands on a camera.




The color below is Salmagundi if I'm not mistaken. In my previous post I said it was a light grey purple. That's not completely true, as you can see, it has green interference that actually shows itself quite well. Although in real life, it's not quite as green as in the picture.



The color of the shadow and contacts totally clash, I know. I'm just too lazy to take out my contacts. I shall pick up my Pureluxe and Fyrinnae tomorrow morning.

Archetype Cosmetics

Yes this is what the package looked like when it arrived. After oogling the pictures on the Archetype Cosmetics website for at least a year, I finally decided to order. I placed my order on November 25th and received it yesterday, December 7th. I've been so busy that I didn't even notice the amount of time it took to arrive.

While people usually complain that it takes a long time for their order to arrive, my order took 12 days to arrive. While that's not a stellar time period, I think you'll agree with me that it's a pretty decent time frame. I was actually expecting it to be my Pure Luxe order since according to the tracking it's already arrived in my town. Too bad, from the poking that I've done online, apparently some people get extra samples just for their order to be late, mine was in no rush.

I've taken pictures of all the eyeshadows, unfortunatly I had to use my phone camera, so the pictures are..you guessed it, blurry and not exactly spot on for the color. Still, it's better than nothing, and can give another view on what the colors look like. I might take better pictures later when I have access to a camera.

As far as texture goes, I haven't exactly tried it on my eyes (they don't give a whole lot) but some shadows are coarser than others. It's not the same melt on texture that I got from the shadow sample from the She Space (is that what it was?).

I've given a quick overview of the colors. Instead of telling you all the different colored sparkles, I've chosen to give what the color overall looks like. To be honest, when you apply it, people aren't going to see the little bits of interference, so my aim is just to show what they would see. Sometimes on the swatches they'll show you all these colors and glitters that never actually really show up.

Now for the fun part (pictures). CLICK ON THE PICTURES TO MAKE THEM BIGGER (SO YOU CAN SEE THE COLORS BETTER).


The bag that the shadows were contained in, kind of cute.

15 samples, 3 small jars = $16. They're a bit tinier than I imagined. The bags are 2" x2" and the jars are about 1" in diameter.

Left to right:
1st row: Plastic Pink, Integra's Dog II, Red Death, Once Upon a Time, Dirty Blonde
2nd row: Conjunction, Datura, Sly, Papaver Somniferum, Salmagundi
3rd row: Obsidian Butterfly, Twilight Aeval, Ghost Dance, Raven's Feather, Midnight Aeval

I've taken a picture of all of them with the picture from the site so you can compare colors.



The jars from left to right, Angel of Indulgence, Frost on the Pumpkin, Unwrap Me. I also have a picture of a jar compared with the L'oreal HIP jar to compare sizes.

Left to right: The top row are with a NYX jumbo eye pencil as a base, you'll notice that without the base the color doesn't show as well. The middle row is dry, and the bottom is with water. I noticed that with these, the water brings out more of the sparkle, and the base I used brings out a darker tone of color.

Plastic Pink screams Barbie, there's no other way to put it. I like the color best when applied with water because they sparkles just glisten in a beautiful way.

Integra's Dog II, I thought would be brighter, it looks like paint in the bag, but when you put it on, it's a darker red.

Red Death when applied with water actually has a purple sheen to it. It's very similar to Once Upon a Time, but purpleish. I like it better than Once Upon a time which I really don't have much liking for.

Dirty Blonde pretty much looks like the picture on the site. It goes on a lighter pale gold.

Conjunction has the same bright intensity as Plastic Pink

Datura is a lighter version of conjunction and more blue

Sly is pretty much the same as the site swatch
The middle brightest purple is Conjunction and the one next to the right is Datura, then Sly.
After Sly is is Papaver Somniferum a darker greyish purple
Salmagundi (The next one) is a lighter version of Papaver Somniferum


The first is Obsidian Butterfly

The second Twilight Aeval.

Ghost dance has a slight purple sheen from an angle.

Raven's Feather and Midnight Aeval are next. I was going to get the small of the

Midnight Aeval, but was afraid it would turn out near black like Deep Sunless Sea, so I only got a sample. Turns out it's just a dark teal.

The last three are Angel of Indulgence, which turned out more lime green than I imagined.

Frost on the Pumpkin was very upsetting. From the swatch I expected more pink, but instead it just looks orange. It could've been the other pumpkin cat or whatever one for all I know.

Unwrap Me I was happy about. It was just like it's description, black with red sparkles.

I like how the jars also have a sticker over the sifter to keep the shadow from getting everywhere. I have a picture around but am at the moment pressed for time, so I'll upload it another day.

Once I get in my Pureluxe and Fyrinnae stuff, I'll also post pics and a brief review of those. Maybe I'll even do a comparison post if I find something to compare or contrast.

Does God Laugh at Us?

It's a funny sounding title isn't it? But have you ever truly thought about the answer? Look at yourself and your life from somebody else's point of view. What does it look like?

When I look back and see myself and how proud of myself I was then thinking, "Oh look at me, I'm totally ahead of the game," and then see myself fall flat on my face and fail miserably, I want to laugh out loud. Who are you to think that you're so great? You're like no one. God must be laughing at me. He's so great, perfect, and has the power and ability to do anything- to execute it with perfection. And here I am, unable to do the smallest thing.

When I look back on the things that I've put a lot of emphasis on in this life: good grades, situations that I stressed out over, what I thought I was going to do with my life back then- it all seems so minuscule. Who cares about SATs anymore? They once had the power to half determine which college you got accepted into, if any, (and the younger ones will still freak out about them even now), but now that it's all over, and you've already got into college, graduated even, gotten a job, retired, or whatever, SATs seem really unimportant. And yet, the competition was so high, the stress so real-back then.

Sometimes I feel like my efforts are all for naught. I study so hard, I put in all my effort, and I get nothing. Why do I bother? On the other hand, there are people who study 10x as hard as I do, so who am I to complain? How do they do it?

I know, in my head, that if I "walk with God" then in the end it'll all turn out all right. No matter how many times I fall, it'll be Ok because in the end I will have won. But still, I want to just yell up there, "God, stop laughing at me and help me!" I get the point already. I can't do it, but I want to win; you can win can't you? Why won't you help me then? Why do you just watch me flail and flop around helplessly?

I think I ask Him at least every other day. I need an answer that's so clear it will punch me in the face. I'm pretty stupid so I might not see it otherwise.

Attempt at Coastal Scents Order

So, I guess this is kind of a rant post. I'll make it short. Today I tried to order from Coastal Scents since I've been planning a spree since forever. I got an email saying that they were having their 25% off sale, so that got me really excited. Unfortunantly I'm about a year too late, and they hiked the free shipping up to $75 instead of the original $50. But a sale is better than no sale. So I go to put items in my cart, am annoyed by how every single time I put something in the cart, I'm taken to the cart, and have to refind my original shopping page over again, every single time.

But that's not the dealbreaker- even the exhorbant shipping wasn't (my shipping was calculated to be equivalent to half my purchase amount, woooow)- the dealbreaker was this: EVERY THING I WANTED TO BUY WAS SOLD OUT! How can this be? Seriously, you would think that such a big company would have the good sense to not be out of so many items at once during their discount times, or is that the point?

Basically, a planned $50 spree (not including shipping) was reduced to a mere $12 + $7 shipping. HOW LAME.

So I thought, if I order now, then do a second order later, wouldn't I just be blowing money away on shipping? The little discount I get here doesn't even cover it. Forget That.

Now onto more pleasant things:

I was also interested in their Undercover HD Foundation, despite the shameless plugs on Youtube by the two they sponsor. I mean, come on, at least try to sound a little less like an advertisement even if you are on, thought my ear was gonna fall off. From what I can tell I'm between the 04 and 05, really hard to tell which would be better. I liked how one of the girls showed each of the colors, it gives a slightly better idea than the website. Even better though would be if they swatched all the colors on a sheet of white paper and took a pic with a true to color camera. Seeing as how I don't have the $33 needed to buy both of them at the same time (nor the need- I only need a bit of foundation to cover forehead discolorations) I'll just wait until more reviews/ swatches come out to decide if it's even worth it.

I really do want to like Coastal Scents, despite the feelings that my posts give off, but so far, no dice. Maybe one day when I do successfully pull off a buy and receive my items, I'll be able to post about how much I love them or something.

Revlon Absolutely Fabulous Lipstick : #51 Infatuation

Usually I'm not one to review little "insignificant" things such as drugstore lipsticks- unless I really like it. This one I'm not particularly fond of, but I don't hate it either, so I just thought, what the heck.

The picture I have doesn't do it justice at all. Mostly due to the fact that I have no camera and took it with my phone instead. Edit: I actually took a couple more pics with another camera, it still doesn't do the lipstick justice, but what the heck. Go Here and scroll down.

According to the friend who gave it to me, (it came in a 2 pack and she wanted the other color), these are supposed to be high pigment lipsticks. I will agree with that, you don't need to slather on a bunch to get the color to show, just swipe on and Muah! The color is a bright warm red. Sometimes I look at it and think cool red, since the bright aspect throws me off. You wouldn't be able to tell from looking at the lipstick in the tube, it just looks red. When I mark a napkin, it looks like a true red. Make no mistake, this is a loud color, only to be worn by the non conservatives.

As far as comfort and moisture goes, it doesn't really feel like I'm wearing anything. But then again, I wear L'oreal Colorjuice every day of my life, so I may already be used to the weight. I find that it doesn't dry out my lips at all.

And Pic: Just wanted to note that, in real life it's a bit more intensely red- and not quite as bright.
I actually put a bit of gloss on before this photo.



I wasn't happy with the color, so I took another one with no gloss base. The actual color is actually somewhere between the two and WAY more intensely red. Unhelpful I know. I would say it looks more warm, but sometimes when I wipe it off, it shows pink on the napkin.

Nails: Gitter me Pretty

I came up with a random look using NYC nail polish that I just happened upon. It's gorgeous in real life and the pictures don't do it any justice. For a base (I found it didn't look good without one) I used an old Maybelline polish that I had- White a While from the Forever Strong line. It's like a shiny cream white. On top I put the NYC sparkle polish in Starry Silver Glitter. It's basically clear polish with lots of little silver glitter, and pink and blue glitter chunks.

Piercing Pagoda

So... after a time of long tumultuous debate, I finally decided on getting my cartilage pierced as my first piercing- ever. I chose Piercing Pagoda because, well, it seemed like they might have less cheap quality jewelry over Claire's. Maybe they're the same, I don't know, just the stigma. And for all you people who as soon as you read the title of this post are all going around screaming your heads off about how cartilages should be done with a needle- spare me. Sure, when people ask me, I tell them to go get it done with the needle, but come on, let's be honest. Some of us don't have that kind of money to spend.

So there I was kinda freaked out about all the pain I was hearing about. I decided on this earring that was $16/ pair. A thicker gold heart shaped one. Then the lady told me it was plated and asked if I had any allergies, so of course that freaked me out, and I ended up with the $34 14k one. I asked if I could buy a pair, and come back at a time of my choosing to get another piercing done, but they said no. I figured I'd ask anyways- never know. So thus I paid their little $2 extra fee for only buying one. I also didn't realize at the time that they charge an extra $2 to do cartilage. My total with tax was $22.50 @.@.

And onwards with the actual piercing. You sit in this chair with a light shining uncomfortably on you- it gets hot- I guess it's so they see better. When the lady first put the dot on, my initial reaction was IT'S WAY TOO LOW! So I had her move it up, and down, and up, and down again for about 10 times. When I said up or down i just meant a couple mm, but she would move it .5 cm. In the end I got so flustered that I just said ok because amidst it all I managed to get myself all confused and turned about X_X. The result- I think it ended up right where she suggested to me at first- way too low. I've gotten used to it now, but I think i'll want another one on top of it.

I had been staring at my ear so much when she was dotting it, that when she took the actual piercing thing to it, I felt a little prick (like someone poked you with a .7mm mechanical pencil) then in my head I could just see it- feel it- as it pushed through my ear. And then it was over. Not too much pain at all. For the next 30 min my ear was warm, and occasionally it would have a slight throbbing along with the once in a while tiny sting. Just enough to let you know it's there.

After that, nothing. Only when I actually touched it. It's since been two weeks, and I can touch my piercing without any pain, only when I move the stud funny does it hurt a little.

The one thing they don't do well is teach you how to clean it. It seems straightforward, but if you think about it, are you supposed to drizzle the cleaning solution on? or just simply swipe around the stud trying to get as much as you can? I've decided on a method in between. Load up the Qtip as much as you can, then swipe and try to squeeze out as much of the solution onto the ear. Some people say the cleaning solution isn't good and it'll cause irritation. I bought sea salt in case I needed to do soaks. But an acquaintance tested Claire's solution and said that the stuff's pretty good as far as antiseptics go. I figured I'd test it out on myself first, if I get irritated, then I'd switch. So far so good. No irritation, no bumps.

The staff at Piercing Pagoda are really nice. They're totally willing to help and assist to the best of their ability. They don't know everything, but what they do know, they try to help with. I'll definitely go back there for the other...6 piercings that I'm planning, even if their jewelry seems overpriced.

And pics:

THE BEFORE:


THE AFTER: I thought I imagined that my ear swelled, but from this picture I guess it was for real. It's since gone down though.

Coastal Scents E- Book: Loose Mineral Makeup Secrets Revealed

I've been itching to try and make my own mineral makeup ever since...well I found out that you could. Only thing is, it's kind of hard poking around the internet for little scraps and pieces. So I decided that I'd jump in blindfolded and buy Coastal Scents's Ebook, Loose Mineral Makeup Secrets Revealed. At $30, the book is steep for my limited funding, so I wasn't sure whether to purchase it or not. I searched the internet in hopes of finding some kind of review, good or bad, so I'd at least know what to expect. I found next to nothing. Which is why I decided to write this review.

Still hesitant, I didn't purchase this book until the sale this weekend, which gave 50% off all ebooks. $15 is still too much in my opinion, but I figured, if it truly did contain extremely useful information then it would be worth it. So I bought it.

Unfortunately I found that this book only contains the most basic of information. THE MOST BASIC. Stuff that you can find poking around online. Basically all it does is tell you what micas, oxides, and a handful of fillers are and their uses. Which is all you need I guess, but come on! For the price, I expected some kind of wow factor. While the information on the properties for each of the fillers is useful, and it includes various recipes for veils, shadows (the colors are UGLY), and even lipstick, I can't say the information is worth my $15, or even it's original $30.

If you're really lazy and have money to throw around, then yes, go ahead and purchase this, but if you're a poor person like me, save your money and just poke around online.

For the content, I'd say the book should be at most $7. Seriously, most cookbooks with more recipes come at about that price. $30 is way too much!

What a disappointment. And it's an Ebook, so you can't even resell it as an electronic copy. =/.

Save yourself.

**EDIT**

I noticed that quite a few people have visited so I thought I'd add some additional information. After all, it's not fair for me to not let you make your own decision whether or not to buy this. I've compiled all the colors that are given. Many may very well think that these are worth the money. I wish I had known what I was buying so I'll tell you what you basically get.

There are 2-3 recipes on the bases for foundation, eyeshadow, blush, and a lipstick one along with properties of each additive. The page that says "Eyeliner", HA. It tells you to add water to your eyeshadow. Who didn't know that?

As for these colors, really, you don't need somebody to tell you how much color to add to get what color, experiment! (In small quantities first of course =P).

To be honest, I haven't looked at the book since the day I bought it.
One last note, is that you have to download/ print out the book within a time limit because the link does expire! (to keep people from giving it away I suppose).

Have Fun!