FOTD: Purple Blush Featuring Daisy Bird Cosmetics

There's still another item I had to try from Daisy Bird -lilac blush! So here it is:

Eye close up:

FOTD: Trying on an Orange Blush, Featuring Daisy Bird Cosmetics

While swatching Daisy Bird's colours, there were several colours outside my comfort zone and I wanted to challenge myself to wear them. 

So here's my look with the incredibly orange You Bet I'm Blushin' blush, Mean Bean Green, Germinate or Die Trying and Dandy Dandelion.

Side view for contour:

You Bet I'm Blushin' is very, very orange. It may work on darker skinned girls, but on me, it' looks like a really bad spray tan gone wrong. Luckily it's very blendable, and makes a nice contouring blush.

To give you an idea of how scary the blush looked like at first, here's the swatch against bare skin, with no primer whatsoever:

Left indoors, right under natural light

It's even more vibrant in real life. When I first put it on, it was really striking orange streaks on my face. Extremely scary! But with a lot of blending, wow! Perfect for contouring!

Eye close up:

Dandy Dandelion on inner corners, Germinate or Die Trying as a base (gets rid of redness too!) and Mean Bean Green as the accent colour. Germinate or Die Trying ends up blending well with yellow-toned skin and makes a great base colour!

Front view:

Front view. With monolids, everything disappears from certain angles T.T

Also featuring:

• Biore Perfect Face Milk
• Dior Hydralife BB Cream (Luminous Beige)
• Make Up Store Cover All
• Make Up Store Wonder Powder (Kalahari)
• Clio Kill Black Liner

I forgot to wear mascara since you often don't see your lashes with monolids T.T

Mascara still makes a difference even though most of your lashes look invisible. It makes your eyes look darker and pop more. 

Review & Recommendation: Daisy Bird Cosmetics

Guess what came in the mail?

Love the sticker! And candy!

Yay!

My Daisy Bird order!

Last month Alice made a post about her new store, Daisy Bird Cosmetics on reddit. I have a soft spot for entrepreneurs, so of course I had to help her out!

So here's my review:

TAT

I decided to do it off Etsy so it's easier to figure out international shipping and stuff.

Paid: May 22
Sent: June 1
Received: June 13

The 10 day processing time is a bit long, but I wasn't too worried since she was figuring out international shipping all the way to Indonesia. Alice was the one who followed up with me, was really apologetic about it, and made no excuses. I'm very impressed with her customer service. And she must have picked a really awesome shipping option, because getting the goods in just 12 days is freaking amazing for Indonesia! Either that or customs decided the package doesn't look like it's worth extorting money for.

Packaging

Sifter seal. YES.

So, so pretty! I love the artwork! And yes, they have sifter seals. The labels are not waterproof, so be careful about that. I'm now so careful with this eyeshadow just because I don't want to get the label wet and ruin it. It's too pretty!

Is this brand legit?

Yes! These are definitely legit and not repackaged micas. The ingredients lists are great, and there's definitely consistency in what she uses for binders (carnauba wax, magnesium myristate).

This is how I check if an indie company is selling legit products or just repackaged stuff. If there's no binders, it's almost certainly repackaged micas. Yes, the colours may look unique, but TKB Trading has a large selection of really unique micas. If the type of binders they use keep changing, either the company is still experimenting on the right formula (and using customers as guinea pigs) or have added some TKB Trading's ready made eyeshadows into their collection of mostly repackaged micas.

I've once decided not to buy from a certain company after I noticed inconsistencies in the ingredients lists and a lack of binders for certain shadows. Sure enough, there are reviews that mentioned the colours are streaky and patchy.

Quality

These are very pigmented and applies very evenly. Any patchiness on the swatches is due to my skin getting all wrinkled in the morning. I definitely like the quality! As swatches below will show, they still show up on your bare skin. I'm very impressed with that! They're definitely best applied over primer though.

2 colours are a bit patchy when applied wet, but there's an awesome explanation for it below.

Swatches!

Right is under natural light, left is indoors, under yellow-toned artificial light.

On bare skin:

Impressive!
Right: Under natural light
Left: Indoors, under yellow-toned artificial light

On NYX's HD Primer:

Right: Under natural light
Left: Indoors, under yellow-toned artificial light

Applied with a wet brush:

Right: Under natural light
Left: Indoors, under yellow-toned artificial light

I really don't recommend this method since these are really pigmented and will stain your skin this way. This is my arm even after I washed it with my oil-based make up cleanser:

I didn't bother glitter glueing the mattes, but here's the glitter glue swatches for the shimmers:

April Showers, Grand Maitre Crocus, Hello Hyacinth
Right: Under natural light
Left: Indoors, under yellow-toned artificial light

April Showers is a shimmery white, that somehow goes blue if applied against a primer or when it's applied wet. At first i thought my brush was dirty and caused the blue-ish stains on April Showers while doing the primer swatches, so I kept layering on more eyeshadow. Turns out it was the eyeshadow because it went completely blue when I applied it with a wet brush (I made sure it was the first colour I swatch so there's no colour transfer too).

Grand Maitre Crocus is a colour I'd typically get for myself -a gorgeous, shimmery violet.

I thought Hello Hyacinth was an ordinary shimmery purple until I applied it over glitter glue. Hello blue duochrome! Check that blue shift out!

Dandy Dandelion is the colour that got my interest when I first visited the Etsy page. It's a buttery, shimmery, pastel yellow that's just so pretty! It's very low shimmer, and looks almost matte. It pairs up so beautifully with any colour!

Germinate or Die Trying is a soft, pastel mint green. I noticed this colour & Dandy Dandelion are both pretty hydrophobic and that's why they were hard to apply with a wet brush. Hence, the slightly patchy swatches.

My theory is that it's probably because they contained higher quantities of titanium dioxide, and the titanium dioxide in this formula is oil, not water, dispersible. That means that the titanium dioxide dissolves better in oil than water, and that'll make the colour relatively waterproof. To test out this theory, I conducted an experiment. I applied the two colours over NYX's HD eyeshadow primer:

Dandy Dandelion blended with Germinate or Die Trying

Then I ran them through water. And I'm not talking about just dipping my hand into a tub of water. I ran the colours through running water like this:

For at least 10 seconds. And guess what? They are waterproof! Notice how the water initially tries to avoid the patch of colour?

They repel water.

Mean Bean Green is definitely a colour I normally wouldn't consider. It's a dark matte green. The greens I normally go for are darker, or are more blue/emerald toned. I'm going to challenge myself to wear this. 

It's not the camera, You Bet I'm Blushin' is a very dark orange blush. I'm a bit scared of the colour since it looks like a spray tan gone wrong, but I think this is a good way of challenging myself to get out of my comfort zone. 

Not So Loud Lilac blush is a gorgeous lilac colour in the packet, but on me, it turns into this bright, blueish-toned cotton-candy pink. Also another colour I need to challenge myself to try.