Candii Blossom Cosmetics Review

Halo & Purple Rain

Hello loves, I am back today with a review of another fab indie cosmetics line known as Candii Blossom cosmetics . Candii Blossom Cosmetics is a cute little Etsy shop run by owner Brenda Ortiz, who first began making her own products as a more economical way of simply enjoying make-up; because lets face it make-up is an expensive love (am I right!). Located out of Ephrata, PA,  Brenda has been gradually growing her business to ship worldwide.

Brenda was kind enough to allow me to review a few of her gorgeous shadows, and was excited to have me be her first shipment to the Hawaiian islands as well! I was able to choose four shadows from her collection to conduct my review, which she shipped to my hot little hands within about a week and a half roughly :)

My picks:

1. Halo
2. Purple Rain
3. Fairyland Green
4. Radioactive

Shipment: The package arrived in a small sealed plastic envelope with all of the clamshell samples wrapped up snuggly in bubble wrap. Brenda also included a thoughtful note for me as well :)


The contents of my review pack: 4 sample sized shadows, adorable business card and very thoughtful note (love personal touches!!)

Here we have a shadow shot prior to digging in for swatches, Top left is Purple rain, top right is fairyland green, bottom left is Halo, and bottom right is Radioactive.

Swatch of Halo applied over too faced glitter glue. I absolutely love this shade of gold, for me this is the perfect shade of gold, that tarnished color!! Agh perfection, ohh and it pairs beautifully with Purple rain ;)

This stunner is Purple Rain Aka the most beautiful purple in all the land! You see all that going on, ohh yeah ;)

Fairyland green!! This is a heavy swatch of fairyland applied over too faced glitter glue just to show how the color can be built up however you can totally layer this color over other bases to get different effects from it! It is such a unique and amazing color

Last up we have Radioactive which is so very pretty! I absolutely love duo chrome shades because you are getting so much more than one simple color. This shade goes from a golden green in one light to a reddish brown similar to Mac club in another light. It is so stunning

Affordability: Sample sizes of each shadow will run you $1 each, collections range between $10-$18 and individual full sized shadows (5gram jars) run at $4

Customer service: My experience with customer service has been great, Brenda makes a great effort in maintaining communication; and even kept track of my package as it made its way out to me :)

Product rating: of the shadows I was able to test out I give them a 10, each had great pigmentation good blend ability and they weren't fussy at all which is a huge plus in my book

Would I recommend? Yes, yes I would! This little shop is slowly growing and if what I was able to test out is any indication of its potential you are in for a very pleasant surprise because I really enjoyed these goodies

Where to buy: Candii Blossom shop
Where to like: Candii Blossom Facebook


Jewel toned Spring look using Glamour doll eyes and Catrice

Yesterdays EOTD was a jewel toned spring look inspired by a photo I had of an amazing purple daisy I came across while in Germany.
For this look I used a combination of :

1. glamour doll eyes sex appeal shadow
2. nyx jumbo pencil in purple
3. Catrice Pretty little lilacs quad

My inspiration photo

Full FOTD, for foundation I have been using the Revlon whipped in shade 300 I believe. I really love the coverage of this foundation! I apply that with a real techniques buffing brush. For my under eye area I apply Bare minerals well rested luminizer under both eyes and buff that out, then set with Bare minerals well rested powder. That is my go to eye routine!! HG products ;) Eye brows are benefit gimmie brow

For blush I went with a Tarte cosmetics 12 hour blush, I wish I knew which one it was but it isn't from their normal collection it is a small one that came from a holiday kit which I absolutely adore! This color is a bit of a dusty rose. For lips I went with a Nars gloss in the shade Chihuahua, you can't go wrong with Nars gloss! I love the formula and the shades they are just amazing 

The Chequered Lily Apothecary review

The Chequered Lily Apothecary is a hidden gem in the indie beauty world. Based out of California, this amazing Etsy shop creates some of the most stunning and unique shadows I have ever seen. I first learned about this shop while browsing another beauty bloggers (Makeup Zombie) reviews of various indie cosmetic companies. When I stumbled upon her review I was instantly in love with the shade "Hearts on Ice" which is one of the most amazing purples that I have ever laid eyes on! All the swatches I saw were amazing and spoke to the quality of this shop but this single amazing shade sealed the deal for me.

I checked out the Chequered Lily's shop online and found out that there was a blogger review kit available for purchase, all together I paid about 6 dollars which includes shipping for a set of 7 sample baggie shadows of my choosing. I was actually sent one extra shadow as well which was a nice surprise. It took about a week and a half to receive my order which arrived via mail in a bright green envelope.

Review shades: the seven shades I picked to review were Hearts on Ice, Hearts on Fire, Ring master, Invocation, Milky Way, Storm Bringer and Ginger Sushi. The extra shade I was sent was Captain Jack.

 Swatches:

The Ring Master

 

 

Hearts on Ice



Hearts on Ice

Invocation
Top to bottom: bare skin, over nyx purple, over nyx black bean



Milky way

Storm Bringer

 

Captain Jack

 

Affordability: a full size 5 gram jar of shadow runs $6.50, there are also options for stackers of up to three shades which cost $16.50. It isn't the cheapest, but what you have to keep in mind when it comes to these matters is what you are getting as far as quality and uniqueness. These are two factors I take into consideration when it comes to whether or not I will purchase from any shop.

Customer service: I wish I had more to say in this area because I hold any companies customer service to a high standard and with me it is a huge make or break thing. Unfortunately I honestly just didn't have a lot of interaction with this vendor. Again this is not to say I had a bad experience, there just wasn't anything to talk about lol.

Would I recommend: Yes, I would recommend this shop. I feel that there are some very unique and beautiful shades worth checking out here! I absolutely loved the texture of these shadows as well, and I thought that it was really interesting how none of them seemed to need any extra help (primer, foiling etc) all that they needed was to be patted on and they were good to go!

Where can I find this product?
The Chequered Lily Etsy
Facebook fan page

Goodies from the beautiful Loliloooo!!

Not long ago beauty guru  Loliloooo hosted a giveaway via youtube which I entered and was fortunate enough to win :) Some of you might already know Loliloooo , but for those of you who do not let me just say she is fab! She is much more than the just the average beauty junkie, she is passionate about causes, positive about life, and a supporter within the beauty community; all in all this girl has an amazing heart and a great personality which she shares with all not to mention some great talent as well! So all that being said, if you haven't checked her out stop by her Facebook or Instagram and show her some love (links to all her media sites will be at the bottom)!!

As I previously mentioned, I was fortunate enough to be able to win a giveaway for all of Loliloooo's favorite things! Most of the items I received are actually things that I had never tried before so I was super excited to give all these babies a go!  I was sent a pretty big box in the mail, full of goodies and the cutest letter inside congratulating me on winning her contest, as well as breaking down the contents of the box. I thought that was a very nice touch :)

This is a photo of all the contents of my prize box, an amazing smelling Bath and Body Works perfume, some Elf brow gel, L'Oreal mascara, UD primer (huge!!), a nyx mosaic blush, three sally girl glitters with adhesive, a black eye pencil, an EOS lip balm (love these) some Olay facial wipes (have never tried but I am excited to!), and an Elf HD blush (ohh, I have never seen these)

Here is a swatch of the elf HD blush, I will have to figure out the best way to use the pump because as you can see it did come out a bit heavy. But that's okay. Gorgeous color huh, very highly pigmented!



This is the elf HD blush blended out, can you see it has some micro shimmer in it, I was not expecting that. I actually couldn't detect it really with my eyes and the unblended swatch you couldn't see it at all..Pretty cool huh

This is a swatch of the blue sally girl glitter that I was sent. I have never used or seen this brand prior to Loliloooo sending me these in this prize package but I have to say this is gorgeous! I though the glitter would have felt very gritty or something, but it didn't really when I touched it. I think this is a beautiful kind of unexpected blue as well, as you can tell it isn't just all one shade of blue, there is blue and then an almost teal or light blue mixed in there as well..

 

A huge thank you to Loliloooo for sending me these amazing goodies, I love and appreciate them all, I really love getting introduced to products I haven't found before it is a lot of fun! I am def going to have to track down more of these Elf HD blushes now!

 

Check out Loliloooo:

Facebook

Youtube

Instagram

Darling Girl Cosmetics review

Darling Girl cosmetics is an indie brand that I have been dying to try out for awhile now especially after discovering that DGC had created a Beetlejuice themed collection, which is one of my all time favorite movies! Finding out Miss Argentina was an eye shadow sealed the deal for me and naturally I had to dive right into all that :)

I placed my order for a blogger review package which was approximately $4 plus shipping and included a total of 4 sample baggies and one petite size jar sample in the shades of my choice. I also received a few extra goodies as well with my shipment, an adorable sticker, a GWP shade and one of the new fabulous Easter shades.

 

The shades that I requested to review are: Inferno Room, King Kong, The Count, Miss Argentina, and Frankenstein. The additional goodies I was sent were my peeps from the soon to be released Easter collection, and a previous GWP shade called Tonight, Tonight.

Inferno Room

King Kong

The Count

Miss Argentina

Frankenstein

My peeps

Tonight, tonight

Quality: I think that the quality if these shadows is fantastic! They have superb color payoff and excellent bendability, not to mention the colors themselves are unique

Customer service: From my experience the customer service provided by DGC has been great, the owner even aided me in setting up a private listing in order to complete my transaction

TAT: The turn around time is a bit long (I am so impatient lol), but its not too bad on site it is listed as an average of 14 to 16 days not to include weekend or holidays. I would say that is pretty average for most indie brands though and I think most of us are willing to wait that kind of TAT for a great quality product such as this anyhow :)

Where can I purchase this awesomeness?
Darling Girl Cosmetics

Would I recommend?
In a heartbeat! What's not to love, amazing makeup at an affordable price with an owner who provides good customer service?!? Jump on it my friends

Spring Chic tutorial with Dark heart Designs!!

Spring is officially here and Easter is just around the corner, and while it may not feel warm and sunny in most places that doesn't mean we can't make our makeup spring chic right?!?
Dark Heart designs has some beautiful bright colors that are sure to chase away the winter blues, so if you want to know how to recreate this vivid spring look keep reading!

Spring Chic

Products you will need:

1. eye primer
2. Nyx jumbo pencil in the shade milk, or a white eyeliner pencil (preferably a soft one, we don't want to hurt those delicate eyelids by dragging a hard pencil across!)
3. Dark Heart Design shadows in the shades: Samantha (tangerine), Totally bonkers (shimmery vivid yellow, don't be scared!), bone daddy( shimmery beige with orange undertone), and ghost dog (shimmery white with red and orange undertone).
4. flat brush, and fluffy blending brush
5. water, fix plus, eye drops or whatever your preferred method of foiling is ;)

Steps:

1. First we want to apply some eye primer to our entire lid up to the brow. You want to do this before you apply the jumbo pencil in order to keep it from creasing on you an ruining your look ;) so go ahead and apply whatever your preferred primer is (mine happens to be too faced shadow insurance)
2. Once your primer has been applied, take your nyx jumbo pencil or your white eye liner and apply that starting at the lash line up to the brow bone. you don't need to go heavy on this just enough to give you a base that will make the shadow pop! you want to take either a brush or your finger whichever and blend that white base out so that its nice and even. Once you have that done we will move on to shadow
3. Now that our bases are down we will be taking the shadow Samantha which is a gorgeous tangerine duo chrome shade and apply that on a flat brush all over our lid in a patting motion to get the most color pay off and concentration. to amp up the color even more we will take our brush with color on it and either spritz it with a bit of fix plus or mix up a bit of water or visine into the cap with our shadow and apply that all over the lid. Take Samantha wet along the lower lash as well.
4. Next we want to take the shade Totally Bonkers which is a vivid shimmery yellow, don't be afraid of this color it looks gorgeous with Samantha! Get some of totally bonkers on that same flat brush and starting on your inner corner apply it wet in a sweeping motion to blend the two colors together. Take the color down along your lower lash line as well beginning at the inner corner coming to the middle.
5. Take a fluffy brush and blend out the crease up towards the brow, it will softly blend away to nothing
6. The final step, mix ghost dog and bone daddy on the same fluffy brush and apply to your brow bone for a highlight, sweep some down towards the crease and tada you are done! Seems line a ton of steps but really it is a super simple look to achieve!

Where can I purchase these products?

http://darkheartdesigns.storenvy.com/

Eye's on Fire: Notoriously Morbid tutorial/how to

Hi loves!

Today I bring you a tutorial/mini how to on how I created my most recent Notoriously Morbid look which I called "Eye's on Fire", yes like the song because I was listening to it and I let it inspire me (yay).. Anyhow if you would like to know how to re-create this look keep reading :)


"Eyes on Fire"

 

Products you will need:

1. glitter glue primer, or tacky base
2. Notoriously Morbid shadows: Shoes to kill for, Boe, and hallowed ground (LE) however NM does have a gorgeous gold shade called Belles Bounty in the scary tales collection ;)
3. Make up wipes to cleanup any fallout!

Steps:

1.  First apply a layer of your glitter glue, or sticky primer base on the lid to the crease. Be careful not to go above the crease because we will be picking up a very highly pigmented red shade and applying that all over the base we just laid down. Take a flat brush, dip it into Shoes to kill for, tap off any excess and for good measure press that brush into the top of the lid of the jar to really pack the color onto the flat brush (this will help lessen the amount of fallout from any pigment). Now pat that color onto your base all over the lid, note the word pat ;) if you make a mess or take it above the crease just take a make up wipe and clean it up, no worries. Once you have that shade on there to your liking take a fluffy brush and blend the harsh crease line out a bit.
2. Take the shade Boe dry onto a pencil typ brush (be sure to tap off excess) and place in outer corner, now work that shade from the outer corner slightly into the crease and build  it up a bit. Take that fluffy brush and feather just above the crease so the two colors blend away. Now take that same pencil brush we first applied Boe dry with and pick up just a bit more and spritz a bit of water on the brush (foil it) you can also mix the color in the cap it doesn't matter as long as we get the color wet ;) what we want to do is apply Boe wet to that outer corner now then blend a bit into the actual crease itself. Boe wet will mix with shoes to kill for and form an awesome shade!
3. Take whatever is left on your wet brush and run that along your lower lash line, you can add a little extra Boe if you like or just leave it be
4. The final step, take Hallowed ground (LE) or any similar warm gold shade with your finger or brush doesn't matter and apply that shade to your tear duct area..

Where can I purchase these lovely shadows?

http://www.notoriouslymorbid.com/category_31/Home.htm