Sonnetarium Polish

I don't care that it's after Christmas. I finally got my hands on this polish, so I'm gonna put this polish on my hands!

Sonnetarium's Peppermint Kiss. You might remember it from this post about my favourite holiday polishes. Well after it being sold out for a while, me checking their website repeatedly paid off! It didn't take long to arrive despite it being the holidays, and it got here bubble wrapped, in packing peanuts, in a little box, with a hand signed business card.

It's everything I hoped it would be, looks like you could eat it, and I got a compliment at work today about my nails when I just painted them this morning ;) awe yeah!

(Please forgive my crappy pictures...)

Sonnetarium polishes are big 3 free (no formaldehyde or the other icky harmful things). You can check out their polishes on their website, and their facebook to see when things are getting restocked.

Favourite Things: Winter Edition

Okay, it's cold out. Officially. I have switched out of my moto jacket and into my winter coat. Scarves, hats and gloves are now not only fashionable but necessary.  My favourite things this season?

Cozy winter tights in all sorts of colours and patterns. I'm waiting on this pair to come in the mail. (Ebay, if you're wondering)

Cranberry scented everything! My collection of cranberry scents includes parfume, hand lotion, lipgloss, and this home fragrance oil. Mmmmm.

Cute outfits with cozy sweaters.

This insane sweater! Now I normally don't like this style of sweater much (people make a lot of bad color choices with them I find, neon pink and purple and floor length? Guh!) but the colors in this one are gorgeous. So much so that I am planning a trip to Value Village on their sale day (Nov 19th for Canadians) to get as many brown sweaters as I can to make this. 

The Body Shops new highlighter pencils. I have the palest one, it's a beautiful creamy shimmery highlight that is going to be a regular in my makeup collection this season.

My Purple Urchin mango body butter. It smells amazing and feels just as nice. Support local, make healthy choices with your skin care, and check these ladies out!

And an awesome tutorial I have coming up for you for some super cute holiday jewelry! But you won't see that until after the craft fair when I have everything done. ;)

Happy Halloween!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!
Since I couldn't be anything 'scary' for work, the decision was made to be a sugar skull. Queue me sewing hair flowers last night and getting up early this morning to do this before work. Not too scary I don't think, but got a lot of looks, and compliments.

I snapped a couple pictures this morning before heading out, and the Mr grabbed a couple quick shots just now, but after having this on my face for 12 hours, I'm looking a little less than perfect. Oh well!!!

Now to watch the most recent episode of The Walking Dead, and eat all this candy I bought today until I'm sick. Fun Dip, Pop Rocks, Popeye candy sticks, Nerds, and a bunch of bulk including chocolate covered gummi bears. Om nom nom!

I hope you all have happy, safe and delicious evenings.

Mani Monday: Saran Wrap

Have you seen this kind of nail yet? You put your base coat down (2 coats of black) then add a top coat of whatever color (this strange beetle green) and while its when you pat your nail with scrunched up saran wrap. It's kind of cool, I must say, and super easy to do, though I did pat a couple nails on my right hand too soon and it took off a bit of the black as well.. Not really noticeable though.

Mani Monday: Sponge Gradient

So I decided to finally try the sponge gradient for nails, where you rip off a little piece of a makeup sponge, paint your polish on it and then dab it on your nail. I must say its virtually fool-proof, I thought it would take a few tries to get the hang of it but each nail came out perfectly. 2 layers of silver base coat, plus 2 coats of gold sponged on.. Though, since subtle is not my forté, I decided to add a little more bling with silver glitter on the silver part, and gold glitter the same shape and sizes on the gold part. Sally beauty makes my favourite glitter, multi sized hex glitters, and I buy it everytime I see a new color. So far I've got 3 :).

I still find it a little too subtle for my nails but I really wanted to try out the gold polish and I didn't want to end up wearing black polish twice in a row. Next time though, go bold or go home!

Tutorial: Cross-hatched Nails

I think this mani is so fun! It was surprisingly easy to do, if you have a stamping kit and a little patience. Best part is you can do this with any stamp and get all sorts of different looks :).

How to:
Add a base coat if you so choose (I left mine blank)
Choose your colors! I used lilac, sky blue, soft red, navy blue and mint colored polishes, all creams.
Using your stamping kit (mine is Konad's m57) I added spots all over my nails one color at a time.
Clean up any polish that gets on your nails, add a top coat and you're done!

It's also a great way to use the stamps because they're not big enough to cover my whole nail.

Plase ignore all my cuts and scrapes :P

I also finally made myself another banner for my blog, and I quite like it. What do you think??

Edit: I ended up repainting them because my old topcoat sucks and the whole thing peeled right off, so this time I did it over black. I like this one way more.

Sticks N Stones

Indie polishes have become more and more popular as time goes on, understandably. Many are made without the harsh chemicals that some people like to avoid, they're different from anything you see in stores, and its got a pokemon-esque feeling of gotta catch 'em all. I only own one, and I must say I love it! I had to sign up to a mailing list so I would know when it was in stock again, but it was worth the (slight) wait and didn't cost anymore than a regular polish. 

Sticks N Stones over Madame X

Sticks N Stones is a black and white matte glitter of all sizes and shapes, and looks great over any bold color. Now considering that I'm freely able to paint my nails for work again, this is the first one I cracked out.

Sticks N Stones can be purchased here. :)

Providence and Grace Makeup Review

I bought a few eyeshadows from P&G back when they were under another name on etsy. I don't have all the eyeshadows anymore but I will show you the swatches that I have. The samples came in clamshells in a bubble envelope.

First set: Coven, Gypsy, Black Gold and Dark Seas.

Their photo for example.

These looked beautiful in the containers (blacks with various colors of glitter in each) but I found the black was very weak with very little payoff. I had to layer it over another black eyeshadow and the glitter didn't pop. If I had owned a primer or a Nyx pencil when I had these, I might have liked them a lot more, but I got rid of them because they were taking up space. I kind of wish I didn't so I could try them again because seriously, the sparkle when you looked in the jar was so pretty.

Color Shower, Starlet, Mint, Emerald, Midnight Sky, on bare skin (top) and over primer (bottom).

Even though it doesn't show up well in the photos, color shower is the finest, prettiest rainbow glitter ever. I don't use it with makeup often, but I've been known to mix it into epoxy because of how light it is, so it doesn't settle.

Starlet is an almost bluish toned pink, but is more of a glitter texture than a shadow texture so there isn't much color payoff.

Mint and Emerald are two great greens that I think go very nicely together, and I do wear these on occasion. They're very frosty though, and I'm not a big fan so they don't get much use anymore. I did wear them a lot when I first bought these shadows though.

Midnight Sky is a very dark blue shadow that's almost black, and highly pigmented. Exactly as described. It's a great eyeshadow, but I've come to realize I do not like dark blues of this tone.

Would I buy from them again? A full sized 'Color Shower' is something that I need to own, but other than that, no. Some of their shadows are of good quality but the colors and color payoff aren't enough for me to want a second order.

Spectrum Cosmetics Review

Spectrum Cosmetics is one of the first indie makeup company I ever bought from. They sell a wide range of products (eyeshadows, perfumes, lip stuff..). Samples come in baggies (with the option to get them in jars for an extra fee)

The colors:

Natural light.

With flash.

Foiled: My go to gold. This color is amazing, and the name is perfect. Whether its wet or dry, its the same level of shine, and it's easy to control.
Crest: A bonus sample that I received, a really amazing blue that I can't really describe. Sadly, I lost half of it when I first got it from not closing the baggy right..
Robin's egg: a wonderful bright blue color, foiled in my Hunger Games look.
Wicked: A matte deep green.
Shamrock: One of my favourite colors, a shimmery green gold color, a dup for Bad Bitch Cosmetic's 'B Kiddo'.

Ferric: A deep dark matte blue that is almost too pigmented. Just gorgeous but I don't wear it often because of the fallout being dangerously messy.

Seriously, I barely touched the shadow with my brush.

Pros:
The sample size is amazing. I used a baggy to completely fill a standard clamshell container, and have the better part of a second container leftover.

Backlit so you can see the amount through the bags. 

Great pigmentation.
Pictures on the website all include swatches and are extremely similar to what you're getting (all mine look exactly like what they show)

Cons:
Ferric is insane. (Not really a con, but you have to be careful with it. As I'm typing this my fingertips and the other side of my arm from the swatches are blue, and my soap bar is blue from washing the swatches off my arm..)
High shipping fees for samples ($18 for (20) samples yet $15 for shipping. Unless they ship with tracking, I would prefer to have it sent regular mail though in that case.)

Would I buy from them again? Yes, but I'm holding off hoping for the day they ever have a free shipping deal or something of the sort. They have so many shades I'd like to try (their iridescent shadows look wonderful, as well has their wide range of glitters and blues/greens) but I don't want to pay double what the order is just to get it mailed to me. I hate paying shipping.

Yeah, I don't know what's going on with my face either. Ferric over Crest.

Note: If you want to see anything specific in my makeup reviews, please let me know and I'll be sure to include them from now on. Secondly, if you have your own indie makeup and are looking for someone to do reviews, let me know.

Capital Makeup (The Hunger Games)

I decided to wear some capital inspired makeup to The Hunger Games movie when I went to see it the other day. I'm a big fan of the book, I'm happy to say I was not disappointed. I would never say a movie was better than its book (such foolishness!) and I've long since given up on the hopes that it will be as good as, now I really just hope that they do a fair interpretation for moviegoers. And I feel that they did that. It was a great movie, and the Mr really enjoyed it, who didn't know anything about the books besides what I told him.

If anyone wants to see some amazing youtube videos that feature each district's makeup look, check out xsparkage. She's done a whole series. Here's district one.

Products are a combination of Milani, Bad Bitch Cosmetics, an old ardene's eyeshadow I've had for like.. 10 years (seriously, I haven't found another red that I can replace it with yet) and Spectrum Cosmetics, which I've been meaning to do a review on for a while. They were the first indie company I bought from. Maybe I'll get this done tomorrow..

Bad Bitch Cosmetics Review

So it seems I'm not the only person interested in indie makeup brands, and want to know what they're like before buying them. I figured I would do another review of a makeup brand I've been using for a while now, Bad Bitch Cosmetics.

This is the whole lot, besides 2 I have that I bought twice.. whoops! And Onika, the blush I used to color my hair temporarily, here.

All their colors are named after/inspired by strong, fierce females, real and fictional. They're very pigmented and super shimmery/glittery/metallic. I don't think they have any matte eyeshadows. The samples are pricier than most etsy shop samples I've seen ($14+s&h for 10, certainly not expensive but more than normal) but I think it's well worth it.

I haven't used much of this eyeshadow, so this is the fairest picture I can give on the amount you get.

I didn't swatch all the colors, but the ones that I found very exceptional/the ones that surprised me the most. 

Over black and over primer. L-R Missy, Nut Cutter, Lafayette, Ms Grier (so much more impressive IRL), B Kiddo (my absolute fave!), Trina, Yuki-onna, Barracuda.

Their foiling medium works fairly nicely, though I haven't used anything besides eyedrops to compare it to. You get a huge amount in the bottle (I doubt I'll ever use it all).

Used the foiling medium for the black eyeshadow, which without it would go on streaky and weak.

Nut Cutter, Lafayette, Ligeia, and Yuki-onna in the inner corner.

I do plan to buy from them again (they have an Andy Warhol series and a Hunger Games series that have some fabulous colors in them!) I would highly suggest you give them a chance.

B Kiddo with (another brand's) gold, foiled with their medium.

How gorgeous is B Kiddo?! Ugh. Amazing.

It's been a sci-fi kinda week.

So, I think I may need to go out and buy a watermelon asap, after seeing this picture.

Watermelon strawberry lemonade, does that not sound delish or what? Recipe here. 

It's my day off today, and it was nice to get to sleep in a little bit for once (I say a little bit because I probably slept until 8..). The last few days off I've had, for one reason or another, I've had to get up super early. I ended up going to explore the Rideau Centre mall and see what's what. I ended up giddily roaming around Sephora and MAC for far too long looking at all the fun makeup. What do you expect?? 

Speaking of makeup, I have seriously been enjoying My Beauty Addiction's eyeshadows. I finally have a brown shadow that I like for natural looks! ("Natural looks" is something I don't hear myself say often). Actually, 3 colors. Swiss Chocolate, Moonstruck, and Sand Dollar for highlighting. What a gorgeous set of colors. And what a cool company. They just had a games night on their facebook with a bunch of giveaways and such, and if I hadn't completely forgotten about it, I would have been there for it all. 

Hello uneven hair bump, how are you doing?

I also picked up Mass Effect 3 today, not for myself but for Mark, so I'm sure after we get back from supper that's what I'll be seeing and hearing in the background from now until it's done. :P. That's alright though, since we've just started watching Battlestar (he's seen it, I haven't) from the beginning, and just finished the show Firefly. So many spaceships. I was never a big sci-fi person but it really was one of the best shows I've ever seen. 

Besides that, not much new in my little corner of the universe. I still feel like I'm slacking with my posts, despite the tutorial I put up the other day. What can you do though? When you're busy you're busy, and when I haven't touched my sewing machine in what seems like ages, I've nothing to show you. Though I did get a great new slew of stuff from the fabric store, and oodles of zippers, so hopefully soon inspiration will hit :).

Now I'll leave you with a few pictures from exploring Qc the other evening.

I don't know why I like photographing trees so much. I just do.