Review: Alchimia Apothecary Makeup Products

I'll try to be as neutral as possible with this review despite my misgivings about this company. I'm not going to tell anyone to avoid it, but I know publicly stating that a company is in your personal blacklist is controversial and people would want my reasons, so I'll just leave screenshots of my reasons here and here, and people can make up their minds as they want. 

I personally would prefer not reviewing these since I didn't like the products, but I got a blogger pack and it makes me feel obligated to do a blog post on what I got. I took some time reviewing since it came with skin care too, and I wanted to review everything at once. But looks like it's just make up now. For the skin care, I think it's going to take a long time since I'm still trying to decide if I had an allergic reaction, something was up with the products, or my skin just decided to break out & clear up at the right (or wrong) time coincidentally. So screw skin care, here are swatches for  the eyeshadows:

EDIT: Just to clarify, I paid for the blogger bundle. It was heavily discounted at $5 for a bunch of samples but it's not free. 

Against UDPP:

Left: Under artificial light
Right: Under natural light

Against bare skin:

Left: Under artificial light
Right: Under natural light

I didn't bother glitter glueing the mattes but here's Penny Loafer under natural light:

I can honestly say I like Penny Loafer a lot. The colour's gorgeous.

Formula-wise, these shadows seem..well, normal. I was kinda curious what "plant derived ingredients, skin specific butters and oils, and bio-ferments" would do, but I honestly can't tell the difference with other indie eyeshadows I've tried. The only difference is that they stain. Like really badly. Even on bare skin.

I'm used to pigmented indie shadows staining when you apply them with a wet brush or over primer, but staining my bare skin is rare. These are the stains left after my bare skin application.

Even Shu Umera can't do anything

The left is after washing and scrubbing with soap, the right is after I used my Shu Umera oil cleanser, which usually removes everything.

I usually do a look with the eyeshadows I'm swatching, but I noped and decided not to do a look with these. My eyes are very sensitive and anything that can stain it that badly freaks me out.

Here's a swatch of Coil on my lips:

I'm not a fan of the formula. It feels like rubbing eyeshadow on my lips and feels kinda dry.

Oh and a minor annoying detail, Alchimia's sample sizes are ridiculously packaged:

Someone on reddit mentioned they're "postage stamp sized"..it's true.

It feels a bit petty to whine about packaging, but these super tiny ziplock bags were so hard to work with. I'm ok with a tiny amount of product, since I'm getting these at a discount, but I really prefer the reasonably sized ziplock bags other companies use for their samples. First, these bags were hard to open since I have fat fingers. Next, it's hard for you to get the product out neatly. So you're really stuck depotting them. I normally keep all my samples in their original bags so I can travel with them, and have no problems with using eyeshadows out of little sample bags, but these I can't. 

Review: Backstreets Makeup Co

I was asked by Backstreets Makeup Co to help the with swatches and got a bunch of free samples. Honest opinion, they're good. One thing I noticed is that I found the formula of their shimmers silkier than the formula of their mattes, but they're both still good. Anyway, I'll let the swatches speak for themselves.


First, macros of the colours over Darling Girl's Glitter Glue:

All under natural light, though the light changed while I was swatching the blues. I tried putting similar colours close to each other to make it easier to see subtle differences. 

Now glitter glue swatches next to each other:

Over Urban Decay Primer Potion:

Applied with a wet brush:

On bare skin:

Review: 5 of Alkemia's Soon to be Discontinued Scents

Some time ago, I got a sample set of all of Alkemia's perfumes. Since some scents are getting discontinued, I thought I better try them out before they're gone in case I'm in love with any of them.

As usual, these are all done blind until right before I write my overview. Unless otherwise noted, sillage and longevity are still the same as my previous review. Oh, and I have to add...dang! I forgot how strong Alkemia's scents are. I put a different perfume on each wrist and had to restart since the scents are so strong, they mingle. I smell them even as I type and they're definitely strong enough for someone within casual conversation distance to catch a whiff.

Ambre III: Naiad

"An exquisitely alluring blend of dew soaked orris roots and pale irises bathed in cool rivulets of aquatic amber with a whisper of Japanese incense."

This starts off smelling like a powdery yet clean florals leaning towards blue-scented soap bar. It's definitely a very clean smell. I smell something almost berry-ish in the background but it's very faint. As this wears on, the scent gets more musky and powdery, but it's still mostly a very clean, blue scent that teeters between floral and soapy. It's kinda how you imagine this room would smell like:

Gorgeous, elegant and clean. Obviously, a baby doesn't live in here.
Image courtesy of projectnursery.com

Overview: Not sure what all that would smell like, but if you're scared of incense, don't worry, you can't smell the incense. It may exist as a quiet note somewhere, but it mostly just smells clean and powdery blue.

Offering

"Fir & resinous woods, offertory fruits, spiced ale, beeswax candles, a whisper of ritual incense, and freshly baked cakes dripping with wild honey."

Thanksgiving desserts, just without the cinnamon. Gods, this smells so delicious. There's an actual baked smell to this, instead of the artificial "cake" scents that just smells nauseating to me. It makes me want to eat my arm.

How I see my arm now...
Image courtesy of thekitchn.com

There's a hint of a woody smell that makes me think a wooden table piled high with Thanksgiving desserts (minus cinnamon). There's also that slightly bready smell of beer, but there's no alcoholic smell. If you're a gourmand lover, you need to get this before it's gone. Unfortunately, on me, this dies down to a metallic smell after about an hour.

If you're familiar with BathSabbath's Once Sent From The Golden Hall, I think this is a better version of it. Once Sent From The Golden Hall is a balance of wood, honeyed mead and bread and kinda made my brain confused about whether it's a scent of something I can eat or use as a brawling weapon. Offering's gourmand bit is stronger so there's no confusion there.

Overview: really can't smell any incense here, so if you're worried about incense notes, this is fine. This is definitely a delicious gourmand smell. They're definitely right about the freshly baked cakes bit, though you'll struggle to identify the cakes are.

Silvern 

"An ethereally illuminating blend of white sandalwood, cool aquatics, crystalline blue musk, and ice flowers threaded with faint memories of white blossoms."

The only way I can describe this is crystal musk. There's a bit of a musky smell, but it's very light, airy and sharp. The smell practically sparkles. It makes me think of silver bells tinkling on an intricately crafted sleigh in winter, and snowflakes on thick, pure white flower petals. This is a gorgeous smell and smells like a high end perfume. It's very clean, pure and fresh. Gets a bit soapy as it dries down. It's a perfume you imagine on a woman who looks like this:

"Snow Queen" by Jessica Drossin

Overview: Oh wow. Holy crap, they really captured all that. If you read those notes, you'd probably go, "Um, that sounds more like an imagination than what it'll smell like."

They actually captured all that. I'm freaking impressed with this scent.

Tronada

"An homage to the Gods of Thunder - the scent of crackling ozone and wildly lashing rain tearing across a summer night."

This scent dries down really fast on me and I'm a bit confused. Typically Alkemia's scents take 1-2h to dry down on me, but this dried down in about 40-50 min. This scent smells like a typical, cool & citrus men's cologne that's a bit more velvety, with some spiciness in the background. The spiciness starts of smelling like actual chilli, but finally settled to a bit of a masculine, resinous type of spiciness.

My boyfriend describes it as "classy wet wipes". He's not a fan of it since it's "classy, but still wet wipes". It gets heavier as time goes on, and after I heard my boyfriend's scent description, it starts smelling a lot like fancy wet wipes to me. Definitely the fancy ones though, the ones you get in the dimly lit restrooms of fancy restaurants. The kind with rich, dark wood panels and comes with a butler.

Like this, just more dimly lit. So dimly lit that you'll need night-vision goggles if it goes any darker.
Image courtesy of lonny.com

Overview: If you're looking for a safe, cool citrus cologne, this is it. Personally, I find it a bit boring compared to the other perfume oil scents I've tried.

Tried it again and nope. No idea where the ozone is. Maybe it's causing the spiciness I smell, but it's less of that electric/metallic sort of spiciness I've associated with ozone and more of a chilli then wood resin sort of spiciness. It's also a slightly heavy, musky type of cool citrus cologne instead the light and wild cologne I'd expect from the description.

Tryst of Grey

"An utterly beguiling blend of Earl Grey Tea, lightly brewed Black Assam Tea, Scarlet Monarda (also known as Wild Bergamot), a fresh twist of Bergamot citrus peel, and golden skin musk teased with long, slow kisses of orange blossom honey."

It's a very smooth, creamy, musky citrus with a hint of coolness. I can only describe this scent as "citrus suede". It doesn't smell like suede but once you sniff this, you'll definitely think of suede. Smooth, rich, cool to touch but keeps you warm. After about 20 minutes, this turns into a rich, lemon vanilla candy, with the candy-ish scent dominating as this dries down.

I've been trying to find an excuse to use this pic...
"Hunger Games" by Giorgo Paulon

Overview: Where the hell are the teas? I tried it on again and yes, I got a whiff of Earl Grey which quickly switched to Assam Tea on first application. But it literally only lasted moments. After that, the citrus dominates and I guess the teas are what creates that suede smell. Definitely still rich, lemon vanilla candy at the end, though now I can smell hints of earl grey tea in the background. I'm still not sure how wild bergamot is, but I'm still impressed that this scent takes me through those notes exactly in that order.

Review: Common Brimstone's Raw Brimstone Perfumes

After I got into indie perfumes, I found out about "natural' perfumes that apparently have no synthetic ingredients. I decided to try it out and the first brand I tried out was Common Brimstone. So here's a description of their Raw Brimstone line in their own words:

"Raw Brimstone is my 100% natural line of perfumes - just pure essential oils, absolutes, and CO2 extracts blended in fractionated coconut oil for a long shelf-life, a skin-nourishing perfume, and a wonderful, vivid scent!"

Customer Service Review 

The TAT's not too bad. I ordered on June 21, and it was shipped 7 days later on June 28. I didn't have much interaction with the shop owner so I don't really have anything else to comment about the customer service.

Perfume Oil General Review

Ok, I've heard people mention that Common Brimstone has a very short wear time, but I thought I won't have that problem since I live in a humid, tropical country where smells just linger on and on. Well...it's really short. I even started timing it with my iPhone stopwatch just to make sure I'm not biased. The sillage of the oils aren't that strong and I have to sniff it close to the skin even when I first put it on. After 1h, I practically have to press my nose against my skin to smell it. In less than 2h, the smell's almost completely gone from my skin. I have no idea what's going on. Maybe it's just natural perfumes in general? I definitely have to try out their normal perfumes and other natural perfumes.

One thing I do like about these samples is that they came with reducers:

So cool!

Scent Reviews

As always, done blind until I write the overview.

Aurora

"Aurora is a cool and unique blend of rose de mai (cabbage rose) and lavender, with a background of silver fir, peru balsam, and cedarwood. Sniff carefully and you might detect a finishing touch of peppermint."

This is a very faint smell and I struggled to identify what it is since it's so hard to catch a whiff. It's a slightly icy smell with a cottony, yellow scent that makes me think of those minyak telon, a sort of baby oil with eucalyptus essential oils to add a bit of iciness. I think I smell ginger in it too. I can't think of auroras when I smell this. It just smells like an old, Indonesian nanny - a mixture of minyak telon, ginger tea (teh jahe), and and Indonesian jahe (herbs) smells.

Obviously, she'll be wearing batik...which belongs to Indonesia, not Malaysia
Image courtesy of arumsekartaji.files.wordpress.com

Overview: I can't smell anything floral in here and it just smells more herbal. The balsam is definitely dominant.

Encelado

"My take on Enceladus is an icy touch of spearmint glazing a pale floral body of gardenia, geranium, and hyacinth, finishing on a base of vanilla-like benzoin."

This smells like lemon-spearmint sugarcane juice! I love the scent! This has the best throw I've encountered so far, and I can smell it from whispering distance (usually I have to smell it with my nose very, very close to the skin). Unfortunately, the drydown starts getting herbal. Like Indonesian jahe (herbs) sort of herbal.

Overview: Where is the herbal smell coming from? Is it the benzoin?

Equinox

"Equinox is a fresh, green fragrance with a base of tomato leaf and coriander, with hints of lemon and linden blossom and just a touch of vanilla to tie it all together."

This smells like freshly made Indonesian sambal (chilli). With a touch of lemongrass. Indonesian chilli has fresh chopped up chilli, and it's very different from the bean stew dish Americans call "chilli". Here's a picture of Indonesian chilli:

So hungry...
Image courtesy of Wikipedia

It's a fresh, delicious scent, and it definitely makes me hungry...but it's not exactly the edible smell I'm going for. After about 5-10 minutes, I smell something vaguely floral trying to get out, but it's drowned by the chilli smell. After 29 minutes, it's pretty faint and I have to smell very close to the skin. The smell finally settles to a sweet lemongrass smell with a hint of fresh chillies. Not bad, but still not for me. I can barely smell this by 47 minutes :(

Overview: Well, the first half of the notes does sound like it can be in the recipe for Indonesian chilli. No surprise there.

Starlight

"A pure, clean blend of white amber, jasmine, and tuberose, with bright top notes of lemon, bergamot, and sweet orange."

This starts smelling like a cool, preserved lemon. The coolness is a herbal sort of iciness. The preserved lemon part got stronger and stronger and now it smells like a massage oil from a cheap Indonesian massage place (I'm not even calling them spas since they're really just an old mattress in a room...totally not sketchy, I promise) - slightly herbal, with a lemon scent that smells more like acrid, preserved lemons.

Overview: I would expect something a bit more floral from the description, but the lemon's definitely overwhelming. I guess the preserved lemon smell came from the combination of lemon, orange & bergamot?

Vespertine

"A twilight concoction of Bulgarian lavender and jasmine, laced with touches of black pepper and nutmeg, with a soft violet leaf base."

I smell a eucalyptus sort of coolness in this again, there's also a jasmine smell to it. It's a pretty nice cool, icy jasmines scent, and somehow makes me think of walking along the Arno in Florence.

The pic's mine, one of the few pictures that I still have after my external hard drive got stolen from my luggage.  T.T

I think it's because the smell is so similar to Tocca's Florence, which I wore a lot while I was in Florence (I thought it was appropriate).  It smells like cool, clean jasmines with a sophisticated blue type of scent that makes you think of calm rivers. This is a bit more herbal than Tocca's Florence though. I love this scent but it's almost gone by 36 minutes. I have the exact time since I had my stopwatch on.

I looked up the notes in Tocca's Florence and this is what's listed:

Top Notes: Italian Bergamot, Grapefruit Leaves, Green Pear, Apple
Middle Notes: Ivory Gardenia, Crushed Violet Petals, Jasmine, Tuberose, Blue Iris
Bottom Notes: Blonde Wood, White Musk

Wonder which ones they'll have in common?

Overview: I guess it's the violet and jasmines? While this is more herbal than the Tocca scent, they're similar enough for me to consider buying this instead of the Tocca scent next time. I initially thought this would be a much cheaper option, but this is where I found something a bit surprising. Tocca's Florence is $68 for 50ml while Vespertine is $28.13 for 10ml, which makes it $140.65 for 50ml. I didn't realize it was that much more expensive. Maybe the quality of ingredients is better, but Tocca's perfume honestly lasted longer on me and I didn't have any adverse reaction to it. So I guess it's more worth it to fork out the money for Tocca.

Pretty & Polished July 2014 Box

My Pretty & Polished July 2014 subscription box arrived! 

The blue stuff is a salt soak.

Close up of nail art

Here's swatches of the nail polishes:

Sorry about the cuticles!
From left to right: Bioluminescence, Hubble Trouble, Nova Say Nova, Mintable

Bioluminescence is supposed to glow-in-the dark, but I can't get it to glow at all. Any tips? Maybe working in an office means I don't get enough UV rays to make it glow?

Hubble Trouble was really hard to build up & a bit streaky, so my swatch is a bit messy. I only needed 2 coats for the other polishes, but needed 5 to get that opacity. Maybe it's meant to be worn over another colour. Here's a swatch of one coat over white:

Nova Say Nova is my favourite. This multichrome polish goes from purple, maroon to copper! Gorgeous!

Wow...

Holy shift!

More shiftiness..

Anyway, these boxes are amazing and so definitely worth it (view June's box here). The problem I have now is that I have too many nail polishes. XD

Review & Recommendation: Eccentric Cosmetics

Recently I purchased some sample eyeshadows and a sample primer from from Eccentric Cosmetics. I purchased a set of 5 eyeshadow samples and got 2 free samples!

I didn't have much interaction with Anna, the owner, so I can't comment on the customer service except to point out my AWESOME turnaround time:

• Ordered: June 26
• Shipped: June 27
• Received: July 4

 So on to swatches!

These are pigmented even on bare skin! I'm impressed!

Yes, as you can see from the swatch, Time to Dream is pretty patchy. That colour gave me a lot of trouble and had a noticeably different formula than the rest. While the rest applied smoothly, Time to Dream is a bit streaky, patchy and hard to apply. It's just one out of seven, so I'm chalking it up to a bad batch. 

Isn't Swimming Elephant to die for?? Freaking gorgeous! I'm not sure why they named a colour Balinese Monkey Chant. If you've ever gone to the monkey temple in Uluwatu, Bali, you'll know that monkeys are vicious creatures and the sound of Balinese monkey chants should send you running in terror.

As with all very pigmented eyeshadows, this method may lead to staining for some colours.

Now I just have to go on a huge rave about their primer. It's amazing. It's honestly the same quality as my Urban Decay Primer Potion. The only difference I saw in quality is that certain colours stain with UDPP but NOT with Eccentric's primer. I was impressed! Here are swatches with both primers as comparison. As usual, the left half is under artificial light, the right half is under natural light.

Any subtle differences is due to lighting. IRL, I really can't see a difference between the two.

Ok, so that looks good. But what if that works well only for Eccentric's eyeshadows? So I tried other brands too.  Left half is under artificial light, the right half is under natural light. Can you guess which swatches are over UDPP and which are over Eccentric's primer?

Top swatch is the Eccentric Primer!

So far the colour pay off looks great. But does it help my eyeshadows stay? So I decided to wear it out. This is after 5h of use:

I stupidly took the before pic (left) in natural light, and there was no more light by the time I took the after pic (right. They're the same look, just different lightings. The colours I used were Nomad and Swimming Elephants.

Ok, that's impressive, but that's only 5 hours of use. So I tried it for 14h of use:

Left: initial application
Right: 14h after initial application

Yes, it was still going on strong with just the slightest hint of fading (the inner corner's my fault...I rubbed my eye). I live in a hot, humid, tropical country and have oily skin. So the primer went through a LOT. I think it could probably last longer, only I was stinky and had to go shower.

How much is this jar of amazingness? Just $8 for 8g! UDPP is $20 for 11ml/0.37 US fl oz (roughly 10-11g). As you can probably guess, yes, I'm switching to Eccentric's primer as soon as I'm done with my tub of UDPP!

Review: Lather & Lights Hair Products

In my quest to convert my entire beauty regiment to almost all indies, I decided to dive into indie hair care. The first company I tried was Lather & Lights (L&L), and I got a shampoo, conditioner & leave-in conditioner sampler set in the Banana Cream Pie scent. 

Customer Service

I had this sent to my brother so I have no idea about the exact TAT since he didn't pay attention to when packages arrive. All I can say is that I ordered on May 26 and my brother got it before he left for Indonesia on June 15. 

My order came with a lot of free samples of their body lotions (I er..spent quite a bit..), so I was pretty excited about that. Melissa from L&L was also nice enough to prioritize my order when I told her I needed my order to get to my brother before he leaves, so definitely impressed with the customer service.

So here's the review for the hair products...

Should've taken a picture before I used them...

Banana Cream Pie Olive & Honey Shampoo

Scent: This smells delicious! It smells like creamy bananas. A tad artificial, but still pleasant enough. As it rubs on, the banana smell goes and it ends up smelling like sweetened water (my sister says it smells like dates). I like it enough. My sister fell in love with this and says it feels and smell amazing.
Texture: The texture of the shampoo is like aloe vera gel -kinda stiff and slightly bouncy to the touch, but rubs in easily. It creates a nice low to medium lather. 

Does it work? It keeps my hair oil-free for about 2 days, which is the best any shampoo can do for my incredibly oily scalp. Some shampoos can't even keep my hair oil-free in a day! There's a bit of that squeaky clean feeling that makes me worry about the shampoo being drying. It's just very slightly squeaky though, and not enough to make my hair feel plasticky the way Clairol shampoos do.  My 2oz bottle only lasts me about 2 weeks since I was sharing it with my siblings. After those 2 weeks, I don't see/feel a difference. It's completely like my usual shampoo, only with a more awesome and wider scent selection..I'll definitely buy it again when I have the budget! 

Before I comment on the conditioners, I should mention that I have colour treated hair, and my hair has been bleached twice in 11 months. My ends have been dyed 6 times thanks to maintaining an ombré hair. My current hair care routine is also kind of intense.


Banana Cream Pie Brilliantine Cream

Scent: Ok, I don't know what the hell happened, but this smells like melted lipstick as soon as you rub it in. 

Texture: It's very thick in texture and apparently can be used as shaving cream. I used it as a shaving cream and well, it works. Like a normal shaving cream. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever encountered a bad shaving cream. What would a bad shaving cream be like? So thick your razor can't hack through it? Or so drying you have enough razor burns to fit into the cast of a gore movie?

Does it work? Well...while washing off, my hair didn't feel as silky as it does after I use my L'Oreal hair masks, even though this conditioner is just as thick (or even thicker). When I first switched my conditioning routine to this conditioner & the L&L leave-in conditioner, my hair felt dry and plasticky afterwards. 

After just one wash. 

I freaked out and decided to reintroduce my argan oil & CV Water Matrix leave-in conditioner the next wash. My hair felt soft again immediately, but that made it hard to figure out how effective this conditioner is. So I got my sister to try it since she's the perfect control subject -her hair has never been colour-treated, is short, and gets only normal conditioner and nothing else. She used it for about 1 week and quit. Even from day 1, she was complaining her hair doesn't feel silky afterwards and gets tangled a lot. I guess it's a nay from both of us.

Banana Cream Pie Leave-In Conditioner

Scent: This smells like a more plasticky version of the shampoo.

Texture: It's very light and reminds me of a runny hair gel. Disappears completely into your hair and only leaves a slightly sticky feeling on your palms.

Does it work? Unfortunately, I don't think so. After my disastrous first day of switching completely to L&L, I continued using this with my argan oil + CV Water Matrix combo. I don't really feel a difference. I tried using this with the L'Oreal hair mask, and my hair still feels significantly drier than when I used my usual after-shower care. My sister wasn't a fan either. This was the first time she started using leave-in conditioner, and this leave-in conditioner + the L&L conditioner wasn't moisturizing enough for her. Both of us agreed her hair ended up more dry and tangled.

I really wish I can like the conditioners, but unfortunately, they just don't work for me or my sister. I like the shampoo though!