FOTD: Creamed Sparkle Rose Mica!

A look featuring creamed Sparkle Rose mica! Will post the recipes soon!

Full face with Limnit's Goodness Graycious:

Review: 6 Ten Three Labs Scents

I've been procrastinating on my Ten Three Labs scent reviews since my schedule's been a bit crazy lately. I finally did it! For my past Ten Three Labs reviews, you can go to the Ten Three Labs tag on the right or click here.

After looking at the scent notes (I do my reviews blind until the TL;DRs are written), I realized I should've put my review for Always Carry Roses & In The Kingdom of Shades and Silence (review here) in this review, because all of them except for Brother Sestra contains osmanthus.

I'm not sure if Cara is trying to get me to like osmanthus after I mentioned I didn't like osmanthus from trying it in Conjure Oils scents. I realized Ten Three Labs' osmanthus note doesn't really agree with me and smells kind of like calcium supplement fruit flavours on me. The osmanthus bit is unfortunately going to colour my perceptions of these scents.

Also, I do notice that lately, I'm running into more longevity problems with Ten Three Labs. In my previous review, I stated:

1 1/2-2h, before getting to intimate whispering distance until about 3-4h since initial application. I usually smell faint traces for over 10+h.

Now, several scents don't even get to an hour before fading into faded, faint traces on my skin. Two scents (Chocolate Mint, Miror Twin) even fades from my skin within minutes.

Without further ado, here are the scent reviews:

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324B21

"Amber, patchouli, nag champa, osmanthus."

This is a gorgeous honey scent! It's like honey and tea, with touches of clean, powdery, baby blue soap. It's such a comforting scent in a way. It's a scent I can see on a very elegant, serene young mom. It's beautiful, elegant and yet feels like you're being hugged by your mom again when you were a kid (or nanny if you're Indonesian with an Indonesian mom like me). Unfortunately, it gets cloyingly sweet on me at times, but my skin does tend to amp up sugary scents. The cloyingly sweet part is that chemical sort of sweetness like the smell of markers.

TL;DR: Markers, honey & powdery baby blue soap.

Overview: The patchouli & nag champa may be adding to the bitter bit that makes the sweet part smells like markers.

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Brother Sestra

"Labdanum absolute, petitgrain, smoke, peppered poppies, bergamot."

This is a cross between orange creamsicle and Chinese preserved orange peels. Chinese orange peels are different from how "Western" cooking does it. It looks like this:

Image found on aliexpress

It has this acrid, dusty, salty & sour smell on top of that dried old orange smell. There's also a Chinese medicine bitterness in it, so it kinda smells like the kind of Chinese medicine that someone attempted to sweeten with Chinese dried orange peels and sour plums. After about 5 min or so, there's a sort of cool, soapy scent like the smell of unscented soap suds. Unfortunately, it adds to the medicinal feel of the scent.  This isn't for me.

TL;DR: Chinese medicine sweetened with traditional Chinese dried orange peels & sour plums.

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Corporate Clone 

"Hinoki wood, green tea, cucumber, blackberry, osmanthus."

There's a room spray blue that does remind me of corporate waiting rooms, and tart, melon flavoured bubblegum. I personally like the melon bubblegum scent, but I know it's not for everyone. This is another scent that fades into faint traces in under 1h.

TL;DR: Melon bubblegum with a blue note.

Overview: I think the blackberry mixed with cucumber ends up turning into melon bubblegum.

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Homicidal Soccer Mom

"Merlot, chardonnay, petitgrain, orange blossom, osmanthus."

It starts off smelling like a boozy, spritzy lemonade with something that smells like a cloying artificial grape musk underneath. After about 5-8 min, it starts smelling like a fruity black tea with just hints of that cloying grape hiding in the background.

Luckily after 15 min into the scent, the cloying part goes away and it becomes this gorgeous, fresh fruit tea scent. It's hard to figure out what fruits are in the fruit tea bit, but I'd guess it's a peach-apricot sort of medley.

The scent fades to faint traces on my skin in less than an hour though, and the traces it leaves is back to that artificial grape.

TL;DR: Fresh peach-apricot medley tea.

Overview: The merlot or chardonnay may be behind the grape scent, and I guess mixed with everything, they end up smelling like a peach-apricot medley?

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Mirror Twin

"Almond, oleander, osmanthus, a small dose of dirt, a hint of blood."

Ooooh almond pudding! The Chinese-style that's usually decorated with maraschino cherries and other canned fruits.

And it tastes delicious!
Image courtesy of tokyo5.wordpress

The almond with maraschino cherries bit reminds me of Lathers & Lights' shampoo in Almond Rum Cake, only this scent has hints of other canned fruits.

Unfortunately, this scent has a very low throw on me and within 2 min into the scent, it faded to the point where I have to get up to kissing distance to the spot where I applied it to catch a faint whiff. By  10-15 min, I can only catch lingering traces of the scent, and the lingering traces is Chinese pickled fruits in chilli. The kind that looks like this:

They're sweet & sour with an almost metallic tang.

TL;DR: Chinese almond pudding turning into Chinese pickled fruits in chili.

Overview: I'm guessing it's the blood and dirt creating the pickled in chilli scent, and the osmanthus is behind the artificial fruits scent again.

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Not Beth

"Leather, tobacco, smoke, blood orange, osmanthus."

This takes a while to settle. At first I got Chinese medicine and acrid, dried orange peels. When it settles, there's that cloying grape again, the one I got from Homicidal Soccer Mom. There's smoke, preserved prunes & Chinese medicine. This scent hates me.

TL;DR: Smoke, preserved prunes & Chinese medicine

I Creamed My Duochrome Eyeshadow

I recently may have stumbled on the recipe for cream eyeshadows! I'm still waiting a few more days to see if the formula holds up to the test of time, but so far, I'm liking the results! Here's a look I did with a single duochrome eyeshadow that I "creamed". This is done over bare skin with no primers at all!

Over bare skin! Without any primers!

 Full face with Fyrinnae's Masala on my lips:

Oh yes, and this lasts on me as long as an eyeshadow with primer lasts on me –12+h!

Swatches: Eccentric Cosmetics Eyeshadow Swatches (4 Colours)

Eccentric Cosmetics includes 2 free samples whenever you order from them, so now I have 4 eyeshadow samples from the last two times I ordered from them (for past Eccentric Cosmetics posts, you can click on the Eccentric Cosmetics tag on the right or here). Here are quick swatches, left is under yellow-toned artificial light, right is under natural light:

Done over Darling Girl's Glitter Glue

ie. Foiled with water

Done over UDPP. I was thinking of doing it over Eccentric Cosmetics' primer, but I put on UDPP on auto-pilot and didn't want to waste it.

Here are two looks I did with these colours:

Ted, Peachy & Autumnal Crush over EC's primer. Unfortunately, the only picture that's in focus is one where I look high.

Altered Ego & Peachy over NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk

Beauty Trick: How To Create Crisp Lines On Glitter Adhesives

As you guys know, I think glitter adhesives are awesome. The problem is that you can't blend out the edges of it at all:

....and erasing mistakes lead to an eraser dust-like remains like this:

Now the 2nd one is a bit of a problem for me, since my favourite look is the lazy ombré where I blend messily & erase everything to create the line:

Tutorial for this look here.

Some time ago, /u/seashells15 mentioned this one weird trick to help erase glitter adhesives cleanly:

I have more experimentation to do before I can call this a true success, but I think I might have a lead on blending out that sharp line of demarcation you sometimes get at the edge of your Pixie Epoxy. I recently tried rubbing over that line with a damp, dense brush (I think it was a smudge brush) and actually got some results. My completely unsubstantiated theory is the damp brush diluted the Pixie Epoxy enough to smooth out the edge, but who knows! Has anyone else tried this before?

I decided to give it a try and guess what? It works!

I just dampened my brush and swiped!

Check out how neat my wings are now!

Unfortunately, no, this trick doesn't work for blending out the edges.

TL;DR: Use water to erase glitter glue cleanly to create crisp lines, but this trick doesn't work for blending out edges.

Getting Flawless, Dewy Skin in Photos...

I decided to try that trick where you buff your skin with a finishing powder after your make up sets. I used Make Up Store's Wonder Powder in Kalahari and check out how glowy my skin looks!

 Omg, seriously....it's so radiant!

.....until you see the close up:

My bf was freaked out.

Conclusion: Will do again to look hot in pictures, but will carry a broom to make sure everyone keeps their distance IRL so they can't see the cakey mask that's on my face.

Eye close up:

Just a simple brown smokey eye

Ombré Lips featuring Eccentric Cosmetics' liquid matte lipsticks in Uluru & Aurora Australis

I did ombré lips today using Eccentric Cosmetics' liquid matte lipsticks in Aurora Australis & Uluru! I love the result!

Full face:

Sorry about the patchiness, using Glory Boon's foundation and the formula's a nightmare.

Eye close up:

Review: Glory Boon Highlighter, Concealer, Foundation & Lip Scrub

Some time ago, I ordered from Glory Boon, and while I swatched them ages ago, I've been procrastinating on compiling everything into a post. I finally did it. So proud.

Here's what I got from them:

• Natural Liquid Foundation samples: Fair/Light, Luna ($2 each)
• Heal & Conceal Concealer ($12)
• Howdy Highlighter ($12)
• Popcorn Lip Scrub ($8.99)

International shipping was $11.74.

This is how my order arrived:

Yup, something exploded.

Most of it is gone.

Not sure if you can see it, but this leaked too and the whole tub is oily. This frequently happens with scrubs though, so it's nothing new for me.

As you can see, everything came leaking. I love the fact that all the products except for the foundation samples came shrinkwrapped, though!

Everything's shrinkwrapped so that's a plus.

Customer Service

I contacted Glory Boon about the leaking products and Alexandra gave me a coupon code for free shipping on the next purchase.

Here's the TAT:

• Ordered: 26 July
• Shipped: 30 July

For reviews, let's start with the good parts first...

 Popcorn Lip Scrub Review

I love this scrub. It tastes like buttered popcorn and is so delicious! It comes shrinkwrapped, and as you can see from the previous photos, it's pretty generous in size. I do notice a waxy aftertaste in the scrub, but I'm not sure if it's from the flavouring or the scrub formula.

So on to swatches:

The formula melts easily, so this is just 1-2 swipes with minimal pressure. 

None of the foundation shades were a match :(

Foundation Formula Review

I didn't find my match, but mixing both colours together gets me relatively close to my skin tone. I noticed a lot of separation in the formula when I first got it:

And yes, it's very oily.

The foundation is pretty oily so it hates the oily parts of my combination skin. I had a hard time applying it, because it just slips around on my face and ends up like this when I applied it with a foundation brush the way I usually apply my liquid foundations/BB creams:

See my gross face.

I find that the best application is to dab it on with a sponge, and patiently wait until the first layer is dry if you want to build it up. As you can see from the previous pictures, the coverage is pretty sheer and streaky, so you do need to build it up a bit to get even coverage. Here's the result with dabbing:

I'm personally a bit impatient, and way prefer my Dior Hydralife BB cream that has smooth & even coverage even when applied with my fingers, so I'm not a fan of the work I have to put into making this foundation work.

After a few months, it dries to this cakey texture:

It's cakey.

It actually becomes easier to apply when it's cakey. I tried it out again at the cakey stage and it's definitely far less streaky. I compared it side-by-side with my usual Dior Hydralife BB Cream by using Glory Boon's foundation on half my face and the BB cream on the other half. Left is before, right is after:

Sorry about the different lighting, I only realized there's better lighting available after I was done putting on make up.

From afar, it's hard to tell which side is which, but zoomed in, you can really see a difference:

The Glory Boon part is 3-4 layers, dabbed on using a sponge (took 5 min). The Dior Hydralife part is one fast swipe applied with my fingers (took less than 30 seconds). 

Despite my slapstick application of Dior's Hydralife BB cream, it ends up with a much better coverage than Glory Boon's. Honestly, I can't see a different IRL in my complexion using Glory Boon, and my red veins are still just as prominent. The only difference is that my face is now more cakey.

Heal & Conceal Concealer Formula Review

So here's what Glory Boon says about their Heal & Conceal concealers:

Screenshot taken on Apr 20, 2015

As you can see from the swatches above, it's so not true. It's much darker than my skin tone and as a result it doesn't conceal much for me. The formula is also really oily, so it ends up sliding around and being hard to build up on my oily face. When I do build it up, it ends up getting cakey on me. This is the foundation dabbed on top of a concealer used in an attempt to cover up some pimples:

Ok, so maybe that pimple was really bumpy and makes concealing harder, and the oils on my face didn't help either. So I tried concealing a light brown discolouration I have on my upper thigh (0 oil!) and  here's the result:

Closely cropped to prevent accidental porn.

Yup, it doesn't cover much.

Howdy Highlighter Formula Review

As you can see from the swatches, the colour is pure white, so it may not be suitable for all skin tones. Again, the formula is really oily & melty, so it ends up really streaky on me:

 It's a bit better after I pat it down with a sponge:

Troubleshooting Advice

If you want Glory Boon's highlighter + foundation to look really smooth, I suggest dipping a kabuki brush in finishing powder & really buffing your face. Here's the result of buffing with a finishing powder:

Oooohh...smooooth...

So, final B&A!

The before pic is with eye make up done...I prefer doing my eye make up before foundation and stuff.
The after pic is with Glory Boon's foundation, concealer & highlighter, and Tarte's Park Ave Princess Bronzer.

And here's my finished look:

Using my fringe to hide most of my break out XD