Patience is Not My Forte

So I've been quiet on the blogging front for a bit, I was on vacation all of last week and got back this past Sunday and my much awaited Victorian Disco Cosmetics order was not in my mailbox.

Now admittedly my tie fighter argyle socks were waiting for me (http://ianleino.com/shop/argyle-fighters-socks), but that wasn't my long awaited largest purchase of indie eyeshadows yet. So Monday I contacted Ashley again (now that she has also returned from vacation) and let her know my order still hadn't arrived and the tracking still showed USPS had only received the notification for shipping. She quickly let me know she had contacted USPS last week about it and had gotten absolutely no response from them and reassured me she would be contacting them again, but in the meantime would repackage my order and get it out the following day (now yesterday). I hate being in the situation where she did ship the order, but USPS has just lost it, and now she'll be out another order because of them. It really stinks for all parties involved. This order in particular was placed on May 9th, I got my shipping notification on May 28th and obviously still haven't received it.

Well, to console myself, I placed my large order of Shiro products. I scoured the website and just ordered every single eyeshadow that I wanted. I also picked up the color of the months that I wanted and obviously missed out on when they first came out since I've only been aware of the indie cosmetic scene since April.

The shadows I grabbed are:

Full sizes:
Butts (COTM)
Doge (COTM)
Still No Oscar for Leo DiCaprio (COTM)
What Does the Fox Say? (COTM)
You Snow Nothing (COTM)
Jareth's Tight Pants (COTM)
Yzma's Essence of Llama (COTM)

Samples:
The Complete Seven Kingdoms Collection
When the Thrush Knocks
War of Five Armies
King Under the Mountain
Lingered in Twilight
Farewell, Wherever You Fare
Attercop, Attercop
An Unexpected Party
A Regular Bears' Meeting
A Push in the Right Direction
Burdened with Glorious Purpose
Genius Billionaire Playboy Philanthropist
Enormous Green Rage Monster
Glowstick of Destiny
He Loves His Hammer
I Understood That Reference
That Man is Playing Galaga
Kraken
You Dropped Your Rod
I'll Move That For You
A Terrible Fate
Epona
Ganondorf
Kokiri Emerald
Hero of Ages
Zora Sapphire
Triforce
Ditto
Flamethrower
Baker's Boy
Star-Crossed

So yeah, that was a pretty big/pricey order. I'll also need to pick up some more empty jars before all of it arrives (luckily Michaels has a big sale going on this weekend, 40% off your entire purchase on Sunday from 4 pm to 7 pm).

I also purchased samples from a fellow reddit user that was a mish mash of eyeshadow samples that I haven't swatched properly yet that I need to post (hopefully this weekend I'll be able to catch up).

I'll probably continue to be a bit silent on the swatching front for the rest of the week as I'm working on a painting for my father-in-law's birthday which is approaching a bit fast, so I need to get it in the mail to him soon. I'm also going try and post a couple of my paintings on here soon for CC. I'm a relatively new painter, used to draw all the time from elementary school through high school, then just fell out of it and never had really painted much. So I'm still learning and figuring out techniques and whatnot, but critiques are definitely welcome. I'm also thinking of moving from acrylics to oils (dat blending), but have been spending all my spare money on cosmetics... so yeah.

Let me know what you think of the eyeshadows I've ordered from Shiro, if you happen to have some of them, feel free to share swatches! Thanks for reading this wordy post!

I'll end this post with one of my earlier paintings:

Small Shiro Haul/Swatches!

Sorry for the blogging break, the husband and I are trying to wrap everything up at home with our various projects and whatnot before we head to Indiana for a week to visit family for a much needed vacation (yay!).

So Shiro was the very first indie order I purchased because I had read so many rave reviews. I've already got a much larger order planned out to place before the end of this month (grabbing some COTM's and most likely the Seven Kingdoms and Hobbit Collection) but wanted to start with a smaller order for my first so I placed an order on May 5th for full sizes of Legendary, Missingno, The Fourth Be With You and Plausible Walrus. The order was placed right after the anniversary sale, so the TAT was quite long due to the huge amount of orders placed then. The order shipped May 30th and I received it on June 3rd.

The package came with candy and two free samples (Steve and Snake). I was very excited to receive Steve because that one happened to be on my wishlist already.

Onwards with the swatches!

Here's all of them together, they were swatched over NYX Milk and bare skin.

Steve is such a gorgeous blue, fantastic pigmentation, lovely application.

I'm not too sure how much I will end of using this one actually, but it has some great pigmentation, and applied very smoothly, definitely not an everyday color.

I'm sure most people already own this shade as it was the freebie gift for most anniversary sale orders, but I swatched it anyway. Gorgeous green, just as pigmented as the other shadows and the label is just fantastic! This is another one that wouldn't be an everyday type shadow, but still lovely.

This is a gorgeous bright pink/coral-ish color. I can see why so many people are getting the custom lip gloss from Shiro in this shade. Lovely shimmer to it, beautifully pigmented and goes on like a dream. I might have to jump on the lip gloss bandwagon with this one.

Missingno and Legendary were both being discontinued so I had to pick them up. This is a fantastic black eyeshadow with awesome sparkles throughout it. Goes on smoothly and I'll probably get a lot of use out of this one.

As mentioned before, this one has been discontinued so I had to buy it and am so glad I did. Look at that swatch, it's gorgeous, even over bare skin. Love this one, wearing it today and it just looks lovely.

That's the end of my Shiro swatches. I still need to post about my larger Notoriously Morbid order, and I also have a Victorian Disco order I'm anxiously waiting on. Ended up messaging back and forth with the owner about the status of my order as it still hasn't arrived and it shipped before all of my other orders. I know she had issues with tracking numbers for a few orders, so I contacted her wondering if mine was one of the ones messed up. Looks like it hasn't been and either it's still accidentally sitting around her shop or USPS is just dropping the ball (which I think is way more likely). She has assured me she's looking into it and is being very helpful about the whole situation. It was my largest order ever placed though, hence me being so excited to get it. Plus, I was really hoping to get it before leaving for Indiana this Saturday.

I guess we'll just see how that goes.

Thanks for reading!

*Disclaimer: These products were purchased by me and these opinions are solely my own.

Darling Clandestine Haul/First Impressions!

So my Darling Clandestine (https://www.etsy.com/shop/darlingclandestine) order was one of the five packages that arrived yesterday and I did the usual first impressions/review thing where I get the husband to participate and let me know what he smells.

Now, when I was working on placing my order, I wasn't sure what all scents I would like and I was curious if she offered samples, so I messaged her on Etsy and got a very quick response from her. She created a reserved listing of 3 samples for me and helped me pick out scent choices for those and the 3 pack of bitsies I ordered. Evonne was absolutely fantastic on helping me out and I highly recommend buying from her if you haven't yet.

I placed the order on May 14th, and she doesn't send shipping notifications, but I checked my Etsy order details page pretty much everyday to see if it had shipped. It shipped on May 27th (within her TAT) and I received it June 2nd. The envelope it was shipped in had a little shark stamped on it (AWESOME) and the vials were wrapped in paper and the bitsies were in one bag and the samples in the another. Also, there was candy (squeeee)! The samples had little tickets on them for labels (adooorable), but I realize the problem with them when I took the below photo:

I had taken the labels off so I could get photos of them easily... and then I went to grab up the samples... and what did I do!? That's right, this girl right here, *points thumbs at self,* proceeded to pick up the samples without putting the tags on and put them in one of the little baggies... So yeah, that happened. I tried to get them out of the bag in the order I put them in and put the tags on them, but I'm pretty sure I did it wrong :/ so I tried to figure out when smelling them which was which (spoiler alert: not sure if I matched them up with the right labels, uuuugh).

So onwards to the first impression/cold sniffs!

First up, the samples! I ordered samples in Inked, Morderteile Kelah and Small Saga.

Inked: A sting of sea salt and leather, splashes of communion wine, the essence of raw skin. Inked is one of my favorite little sex machines. Unisex---smells amazing on gents and bold ladies.

My First Impression: Sharp, outside? Can't put my finger on it.

His First Impression: Good soap, maybe leather?

Other Notes: I don't hate this one, it's a beautifully complex scent (honestly all of these are) and it's lovely. It's very interesting. Will hopefully have more of an opinion after a test wear.

Morderteile Kelah: A magnificent perfume inspired by a magnificent lady with magnificent knockers. Notes of amber, hyacinth, milk and strawberry jam. Spicy and sweet.

My First Impression: Sharp, green? Fresh, salt?

His First Impression: Potpourri, hint of sandalwood? flowers?

Other Notes: I'm really pissed that I mixed up the labels, I mean come on, how was I silly enough to do that?! This one is nice, I tried this one on one arm last night and Small Saga on the other, and really enjoyed them both. They both have similar spiciness to them and surprisingly I really do like them both. Now if I only knew which was actually which.

Small Saga: With notes of green figs and tea and cream and apricot wine, this scent opens deceptively sweet and creamy but then unfolds its complex layers and settles in a mellow, woody finish.

My First Impression: Delicious and spicy, kind of creamy?

His First Impression: Cream/Orange?

Other Notes: This one I think edges out "Morderteile Kelah" as it has more sweetness to it. It's absolutely lovely, the spice and the sweetness mixes so nicely.

On to the bitsies!






I got bitsies in Carny Wedding, Circassian and Falchion. Luckily these aren't mixed up so no worries on that front! (sidenote, I love the little stamped labels).

Carny Wedding: Opens with butter and sugar, unfolds to a tangy, charred wood resin, ends in a puff of sweet smoke.

My First Impression: Caramel, smoke and butter

His First Impression: Manly, wood smoke and leather

Other Notes: This one is lovely, the smoke doesn't seem too overpowering on first sniff, the butter and sweetness is at the forefront. I like this one a lot and can't wait to see how it does on a drydown.

Circassian: Bitter black coffee, spiced chocolate, ceremonial resins, with an intriguing floral note.

My First Impression: Coffee, spice and chocolate

His First Impression: Chocolate syrup

Other Notes: This is another great scent. The coffee and chocolate are very strong and at the forefront.

Falchion: Described as “sex in a bottle,” and often. Unisex---smells amazing on gents and bold ladies. Dark, earthy, sultry, musky, with a bit of chocolate. Best loved in the fall, when there’s that electric charge in the air and you want to run off and do exciting things with exciting ghouls. Contains cinnamon leaf, and does open with a cinnamony kick.

My First Impression: Manly, dark, chocolate?

His First Impression: Caramel and chocolate syrup

Other Notes: This one is really really nice. It does just smell dark and sultry. The description for this one is just spot on.

Final Comments: Overall, very very satisfied with this purchase! I didn't hate any of the scents! And actually on the edge of loving them all, but won't know for sure until I wear them. It was a fantastic ordering experience and can't wait to wear them all and see about placing another order!

*Disclaimer: I bought these products with my own money and the above opinions are mine.*

Geekton Abbey Haul/Swatches!

Getting home from work yesterday and finding 5 little packages shoved into my little mailbox was awesome! Only had tracking on three of those items and only two of those said they were out for delivery that day. All of my major indie eyeshadow and perfume purchases have now shown up (except for my largest order, Victorian Disco Cosmetics, which should be showing up any day now). I received orders from Geekton Abbey (a very new store on Etsy by a fellow redditor), Darling Clandestine, Shiro, Notoriously Morbid and a purchase of a perfume from a redditor looking to destash. I was so excited I started opening them right away and took basic product photos of all I received and will be (hopefully) splitting up my swatches/reviews of them over the next few days.

This particular post is focused on a brand new entry into the indie cosmetics scene by redditor GeektonAbbey. She posted on r/indiemakeupandmore about her new Etsy shop (https://www.etsy.com/shop/GeektonAbbey) which featured a collection inspired by MST3K, which of course I purchased samples of right away and received two free samples for her latest yet unreleased Breaking Bad collection. I placed the order on May 28th, got a response from her thanking me for the order and letting me know she would be in touch through every step of the ordering process (which was very awesome of her to do). The order shipped on May 30th (awesome 2 day TAT) and I received it yesterday, June 2nd. 

The samples were nicely wrapped in this tissue paper and included a lovely handwritten note thanking me for my purchase and explaining the free samples.

Her samples are stated as being 1/2 tsp and as you can see, these baggies are very full, and now typing this out, I should take a photo of the jars I decanted them into to compare them to my Shiro and Notoriously Morbid samples. I may tack that onto this post later.

Onward to the swatches! The top of each swatch is over Darling Girl Primped and Primed Eye Primer.

The shadows are gorgeous, very pigmented and go on like a dream! I got a little over excited about swatching Yeah Science so I fumbled the brush a bit and ended up with some fallout landing in various spots in the other swatches, ooops.

Individual photos:

The Breaking Bad reference is spot on for this one, absolutely perfect. This one was the least pigmented of the set, it took several swipes to get it this way, but it's still lovely.

I've got a soft spot for blues, so this is easily tied for my favorite. I'm wearing this one today alongside Crow (which is next) and it is just so vibrant. 

I love me some coppery/gold eyeshadow and this one is so vibrant and went on like a dream! Even over the bareskin is was so pigmented. Absolutely love this one.

I'm not the biggest fan of purples, but I'm slowly realizing they growing on me, and I will end up ordering more purples in my future orders. This one is such a lovely purple-pink and just like the others, had a very smooth application.

This one is gorgeous! Very fiery and looks like it performs best over primer. This one took only one swipe to look like his.

I was expecting a bit more green from this one because of how it appeared in the baggie, despite knowing it's silver from the description on the Etsy page. This one took 2 swipes and really shines over the primer the most, but is still a great silvery shade. This one will get a lot of use from me.

So that was the last of the swatches from that order. I will be adding this Etsy store to my watch list to keep an eye on for new shadows. It was a pleasure to purchase from her and I am beyond satisfied with the beautiful shadows.

*Disclaimer: These were bought with my own money and these opinions are mine.*