EOTD: Focus on Fyrinnae's Exquisites in Fantasy Creatures

I normally wait until I do swatches first, but I'm so excited about this, I have to share. Today I did an EOTD with one of Fyrinnae's Exquisite eyeshadows in Fantasy Creatures. Here's what Fyrinnae said about their Exquisites:

"Exquisites are a new variation of our popular Arcane Magic eye shadows.  These shadows have stronger color changes (not a "duochrome", which is usually one hue layered over another) without depending on an opaque base hue, making them stunning alone or over many other colors. The transparency makes them suitable for a wide variety of skintones without compromising color. A sticky base is highly recommended."

This is the description of Fantasy Creatures:

"Vivid lime green sparkle on a sheer tan base turns bright pink at an angle or closer to light. Despite the appearance in product photos of an opaque base hue, this shadow is transparent as shown on the right, comprised mainly of color-changing sparkle, so can easily be applied over other colors. A sticky base is highly recommended."

Sounds too good to be true, right? Ok, so it looks like I need glitter glue to make it look pretty, that's usually a warning sign for me. What if the only way it looks good is if I gently pat in on over thousands of layers of glitter glue & eyeliners, after first performing a ritual dance to the make up gods and offering a sacrificial chicken to the glitter fairies?

Well, screw it! I wanted to see how they look like over primer alone so this happened:

Over Eccentric Cosmetics' primer only!

This is over Eccentric Cosmetics' primer only! On my top lid, I have Fantasy Creatures on at least 2/3rds of the inner corner of my eye. I blended into Fyrinnae's Serendipity in the outer corner, covering only about a third of the outer corner. I further blended Make Up Store's Pollution in the outer corner to add more depth. On my lower lash line, I have Fyrinnae's Crimson Ghost on the inner corner and Fyrinnae's Debonair on the outer corner. 

It's pretty enough, but does it shift? Hell yes.

The pink and green are both Fantasy Creatures! Another angle from the front...you see how the shift shifted on my eye. It's all just one colour on the inner 2/3rds of my eye.

It turns pure gold at certain angles too!

I think this picture gives you an idea of how shiftastic this eyeshadow is:

I didn't do mismatched eyes, I swear!

You can see the shift move again in the eyes closed shot!

Oh, and I know /u/Dorian_Gray_ said several times that the colour shift isn't as dramatic in real life and your eye can't can't all the subtle colour changes but guess what? My camera isn't capturing how dramatic the colour shift is IRL! Maybe it's one of the blessings of having monolids (nice, creaseless but curved plane to work on...pretty much like an arm swatch), but I can't stop shaking my head in front of a mirror and giggling because I can see the colours dance.

Swatches & Recommendation: Fyrinnae's Lip Lustres (11 Colours)

I bought some Fyrinnae lip lustres ages ago, and Cheryl from Midsummer Dreams Apothecary sent me more as part of the IMAM gift exchange. Here's how my stuff arrived:

Shiny...

Bonus pic of Cheryl's gift exchange packet for me!

Lip lustre minis vs full-size:

Hand for scale:

Customer Service Review

Fyrinnae experienced some controversy last year, when an employee went nuts on Twitter and started being rude to customers. There's an entire reddit thread with screenshots of the tweets here. However, Fyrinnae has apologized for the mess, fired the employee behind the crazy tweets, and /u/Dorian_Gray_, the Fyrinnae owner has been a great IMAM contributor. Unlike a lot of brand owners who see the IMAM sub as a marketing/market survey platform, /u/Dorian_Gray_ doesn't push Fyrinnae products nonstop. I actually like having him around since he has given free cosmetic chemistry advice many, many times:

• http://www.reddit.com/r/Indiemakeupandmore/comments/2shj2j/belated_rave_about_how_awesome_udorian_gray_is_a/
• http://www.reddit.com/r/Indiemakeupandmore/comments/2bfqnw/a_thank_you_an_announcement_regarding_fullsized/cj4wn79
• http://www.reddit.com/r/Indiemakeupandmore/comments/2s8swi/safety_question_for_the_scientists_and_chemists/cnnaa16
• http://www.reddit.com/r/Indiemakeupandmore/comments/2uq5vy/cleaning_up_indie_shadow/coanvjk
• http://www.reddit.com/r/Indiemakeupandmore/comments/2rgsgr/i_think_this_is_mold_on_my_morgana_cryptoria/cnfq45s
• http://www.reddit.com/r/Indiemakeupandmore/comments/2otrd3/has_anyone_tried_anything_from_merchant_of/cmqfsjm
• http://www.reddit.com/r/Indiemakeupandmore/comments/29wsd5/pressing_any_luck_with_ultramarines_or_ferric/cipcfr8
• http://www.reddit.com/r/Indiemakeupandmore/comments/29eu6i/i_have_sensitive_eyes_an_awful_nickel_allergy_and/cika4pn

In my eyes, they've definitely redeemed themselves, and I went from wary of the brand to enthusiastically supporting it. With all the cosmetic chemistry knowledge /u/Dorian_Gray_ displays, I also feel reassured that Fyrinnae's products will be solid quality-wise.

Oh, and /u/Dorian_Gray_ is awesome too. He was destashing some Cult Nails nail polishes and I bought them from him. At that time, Fyrinnae's website was closed, so I asked him if I could put an order personally through him for just 1 tub of Pixie Epoxy, Fyrinnae's famous glitter adhesive. He didn't reply for a while so I thought he forgot about it....turns out, he gave me the tub for free. Yup.

Speaking of Fyrinnae's website being closed, some people complain about Fyrinnae often being closed with no news of when they'll reopen. I understand that it can be annoying, but they do it to keep their turnaround time (TAT) from going far too long, and I have a lot of respect for shop owners who prioritize taking care of existing customers instead of sacrificing existing customers for new customers. It's much better than my experience with Victorian Disco, where the owner continued hosting sales even though many people, myself included, were still waiting on orders placed as far back as a year before.

With regards to their TAT, I've purchased from them twice, and this was the TAT for my orders:

• Purchased: June 27
• Shipped: July 3

• Purchased: Sep 28
• Shipped: Oct 5

So it's 6 days & 7 days to ship out orders. Definitely way better than the "8-10 weeks queue time prior to shipment" stated on their website.

Swatches

Anyway, today I'm only swatching the lip lustres. I got 12 of them (1952, Burrowing Owl, Chickadee, Ghost's Kiss, Ghostly Voice, Isis, Masala, Narwhal Nuzzles, Ominous, Saloon Girl & Sexy Nerd) so I ended up procrastinating a LOT on swatches.

Arm swatches:

Lip swatches:

Face swatches:

Formula Review

The texture of the lip lustres is more like a "creamed lipstick" sort of texture...like lipstick mushed up repeatedly until it has the consistency of creamy, but not runny, mashed potato that's still stiff enough for you to sculpt into potato landscapes (I get bored during dinner).

Like most non-sticky glosses, these are not built for longevity. I personally don't mind it, since it's what I expect from non-sticky glosses and would happily trade longevity for comfort. Oh and these are super comfortable. They're not drying at all, and stays non-sticky without going too slippery or feathering like crazy. I noticed I reach for these lip lustres more often than any other lip products because they're just so comfortable to wear.

I do notice some patchiness in the non-traditional colours (Ominous & Burrowing Owl most of all), but as you can see from the swatches, they're easily built up to a smooth & even texture. 

FOTD: Featuring Fyrinnae's Sexy Nerd

This lip colour is so sexy, I can't stop smiling. 

Eye close up!