Turning my photography into nail art

So recently, I discovered Inni after seeing the Style Blazer feature. I haven't mentioned this much on this blog, but I'm really, really into photography (IG: @corakore, 500px: FrancescaT), so the idea of turning my photography into nail art sounds AWESOME. I just ordered and I'm waiting for it to arrive, but I'm so excited, I thought I'd share. This is one of the designs I made:

This is the original photo I took in India:

Please don't steal my photos, and credit me if you use it. Thanks :)

If anyone's interested in using any of my photos for nail art, let me know. I'll gladly upload them for you!

Review & Recommendation: Darling Clandestine

I got my Darling Clandestine order ages ago but procrastinated on reviewing them because they're hard to review. The scents are so complex, I don't know wtf I'm smelling, and the only thing I know is that I like it. While I may not have found too many scents I went crazy over, the qualities of her oils are superb and there are definitely some of the most creative and unexpected (in a good way) scents I've ever encountered.

If you're considering getting purchasing these oils, my tip is not to be worried if you see a note you think you won't like, because Evonne somehow makes them work. Give it a try! Her store just reopened!

When I first apply this I could smell it two-strangers-in-an-elevator distance away. The sillage then calms down to passing-a-message-to-your-boss-during-a-meeting distance. This usually lasts for about 1.5-2.5h. The scent lingers on your skin for about 12h though!

So on to scent reviews for these ten scents I got:

• Blue Valentine
• Circassian
• Falchion
• Gram Negative
• Harpy
• Pyrotechnik
• Serpentina
• Step Right Up
• Supernova Sway
• Tapadero

As usual, I wrote the review blind and only checked the  scent description for the overview.

Blue Valentine

"A moody bouquet of hyacinth and violet and poppies and figs, washed down with shots of real whiskey and bitters and delicate musks and mint. Very potent, very heady."

I think I smell roses and violets in this, I'm not too sure. This is such a sweet, velvety floral scent thank makes me think of soft, silky smooth flower petals. There's also a honey sweetness to it that makes me think of candied flowers.  While most warm, heavy floral smells make me think of old ladies, this is a smell that a young woman would wear. Not a young girl, a young woman. A sweet, demure young woman who's no longer an awkward teenager and growing up to be graceful young woman, but still blushes easily like a girl. 

It's a scent I imagine Aurora would wear in Maleficent.
Image courtesy of: smcinema.com

Overview: Huh..this scent does not strike me as heady at all. Yes, the florals are heavy, but somehow, Evonne keeps it light and young. I don't smell any bitterness in the scent, but maybe that's what's stopping this scent from becoming an explosion of florals. I definitely love this scent!

Circassian

"Circassian is a warm chocolaty fragrance with intriguing notes of black coffee and amber and blossoms."

Initially, all I got was a sour chocolate smell. I'm not too worried since chocolate usually morphs into this beautiful sweet wood scent on me after about an hour. Looking forward to it, actually!  Sure enough in just 15 min, the sweet wood smell emerges. The thing that makes this scent unique is that it's a more cool sort of scent. Usually, chocolate scents becomes very warm, sensual sweet wood scents, which makes me think of being inside a traditional Indonesian wood cabin lit by a flickering candlelight. This makes me think of being outside the wood cabin with the Indonesian greenery around me and the faint scent of tropical flowers blowing in the breeze.

This is part of the Green Village in Bali. If you guys ever go to Bali, check it out. The woman behind it, Elora Hardy, is  really sweet and so passionate about sustainable architecture. I highly recommend it.
Image courtesy of: karmatrendz.files.wordpress.com

There's something that's somehow reminiscent of moss and dirt in this scent.  I got the faintest hint of that metallic scent I get from gourmands, but it's carefully hidden in the background. It's definitely a unique scent that's so wearable!

I got my sister to sniff it and she immediately went, "It smells like Christmas! In Bali!"

Apparently the sweet wood makes her think of how you imagine Santa's traditional workshop (none of the modern stuff they have now in Christmas movies) would smell like -tons of wood resin and a cup of hot chocolate. There's also a hint of floral that reminds her of the essential oils we used to buy in Bali. On her, the sweet wood scent is less pronounced and we agreed it smells like musky, floral chocolate.

Overview: The smell is less gourmand than what you'd expect from the description. The smell is close to Falchion but less smoky and more floral. I love this!

Falchion

"A deep, sultry, intense, earthy unisex fragrance with a hint of dark chocolate. There’s a smack of cinammony, dusky, almost fruity spice out of the bottle, but roll it onto the skin and give it a minute—the drydown is superbly sexy."

This smells like chocolate patchouli to me at first, then got spicier until it smells like chocolate with chilli flakes (there's such thing and they're delicious!). Oh gods it smells so amazing! I love, love it. Then I start smelling something that smells like gunpowder. I swear. There's that burnt smell you get leftover after the fireworks explode. After about 15 minutes, there's a soft, cotton-ish smell that enters. It starts smelling like spiked candy -sweet, soft and cotton-ish, spiked with sexy spiciness, coffee and smoke. At the expense of sounding really creepy, this just smells like corrupted innocence. Any picture I post here will just be creepy so nope, no pics for this.

Overview: I definitely agree it's a very sexy scent. The smokiness got a bit too much for me towards the end and somehow there's a bit of dark chocolate sourness, but it smells so incredible in the beginning! Definitely worth trying out.

Since this is unisex, I made my guy friend wear it. His skin amps up the gunpowder smell and he didn't like it. I smell something sweet in the background, but it's mostly just smells like the remnants of 4th of July fireworks.

Gram Negative

"Gram-Negative is deep, damp, earthy essential moss; sticky green leaf resin; a whisper of black tea; and a rare, rich, mellow, buttery orchid essential oil that is just divine. It's incredibly smooth, unisex, and one of my new personal favorites."



There's definitely tobacco in this. There's also that heavy, musky, floral smell that reminds me of old ladies, but somehow this doesn't smell old lady-ish at all. It smells more like an expensive mistress than an old lady. I also smell a bit of leather somewhere. This scent makes me think of a suave, older gentleman enjoying a smoke in his leather chair after a...hug...from his mistress. And it's a mistress that looks like this:

Monica Bellucci is the hottest woman ever. I swear.
Image courtesy of: embelezzia.com/

Overview: I guess there's no tobacco in it, but there's definitely a burnt, bitter smell. Maybe it's the tea. I'm not sure if the bitterness came from the orchid too. I always found orchids bitter smelling. I'm not sure if this scent is unisex though. There's definitely a masculine scent, but I think the musky floral smell on guys would make them smell like they just had..fun..with a mistress.

And unisex, you say? I guess my little brother has to wear this!

On him, it smells very, very smoky and he hated it. The heavy, musky, floral scent also became a bit lighter and more powdery, and it struck both of us as a tad too feminine for him.

Harpy

"Harpy is a sailor's delight, with notes of sea salt and dark bay rum, milk and coconut and a twist of lime."

It smells like milky ginger candies but then got way more complex. It's all cottony and soft, but there's a bit of a wet (not blue, wet), metallic smell to it. As crazy as this sounds, it smells like fluffy, yellow lightning clouds. I told my friend this and she was going "wat.", until she sniffed it. She then went, "Oh yeah, I know what you mean."

The metallic smell is what gets left behind on my skin. Definitely a scent I'm thinking of getting in full size!

This is another example of why it's so hard to describe DC scents!

Overview: I wonder if it's the sea salt that makes this scent smell so extraordinary! A mix of rum, milk, coconut and lime notes are fairly common, and nothing has ever smelled like this before. This is just so amazing!

Pyrotechnik

"Pyrotechnik is a sangria-spicy concoction with bold notes of cantaloupe and raw sandalwood darkened with earth."

Melons! I'm not sure if I got the wrong scent since I'm expecting something incense-y and smoky from the name. This smells mostly of melons –it's the melon candy sort of melons that you either love or hate, and I personally love it. Sure, there's a bit of spicy smoked wood scent at first, but that disappeared and mixed into the melon smell to produce absolute deliciousness. There's other tart fruits in this to make this smell more complex, but they're so well-blended, I can't figure out what they are.  This sweet scent is more creamy and rounded than sharp and sweet. There's also a dirty smell grounding it to stop it from smelling like a candy. Oh gods, it smells so good, I need more of this. This is a grown up melon that smells so delicious yet sophisticated at the same time! The wood resin smell is what's left behind when this scent dries down.

Overview: Oh it is supposed to smell like cantaloupes! I always mix melons and cantaloupes up. This is a scent I'm so in love with! I need it in full size!

Serpentina

"A crisp, green, ethereal tea fragrance with a little opium bite. More than a dozen different scent elements and several days of methodical alchemy make Serpentina no ordinary scented oil mix—it's a truly inimitable fragrance. Just for tart little kicks, this batch is laced with tiny beads of blood-red wine."

There's a sweet greenness and wood resin to it, but at the same time, it also has a  bitterness that just makes the scent more dangerous. A tartness enters this scent as it dries down, but it's slight enough that this doesn't turn fruity. This scent makes me think of a romanticized,  opulent "Middle Eastern" harem, filled with perfumed smoke, beautiful, enticing women, and an air of treason and intrigue.

It's how I imagine this scene would smell like.
Harem Dancers by Fabio Fabi, image courtesy of: artilim.com

Overview: This was the hardest scent for me to describe. I tried it so many times to figure out what I like about it. From the description, you'll expect this to smell more green, but I found this more of a light yet heady, seductive and slightly incense-ish scent instead. 

Step Right Up

"Step Right Up is a clean, oceanic, very unisex fragrance with notes of vanilla and tea and wood and spice."


I don't understand why I don't hate this smell. It has that minty, "old" herbal smell that makes me think of musty rooms and muscle salves, but there's a clean, sweet, powdery scent that brings all this together and make it actually work. It smells more like your grandparents' room, cleaned up after a long vacation. It smells clean, but their scent still lingers. And it lingers so faintly so all you get is that smell that makes you miss them, but not enough to make you want to choke on all the medicated balms smell. It also makes me feel like I'm working in a traditional apothecary with their own herb garden. Maybe in one of those cute stone cottages that look like this:

This is actually a dollhouse! Check out the process behind making this gorgeous creation here, and the Etsy store here.

Overview: This scent is definitely hard to imagine from the description. It's definitely a clean scent, but there's still a bit of that medicated herbal smell that I'm guessing comes from the tea and spices.

Supernova sway

"Dark and bright and dark and bright again, deep musks streaked with mint, black resins with subtle flashes of orchid and buttery honeysuckle."

On initial application, it smells like vanilla toothpaste. It's not just the mintiness, there's that toothpaste scent that all toothpastes, even unflavoured ones, seem to have. After about a minute, I smell a floral musk smell. An anise/absinthe sort of smell enters and now it smells like vanilla liquorice. I know vanilla liquorice doesn't sound particularly great, and I would've balked if I just read that description, but this really works. It's like a grown-up, wearable vanilla scent .

Overview: Orchid usually just smells like fertilizers, or bitter and kinda sour-ish, to me so I'm glad I didn't smell that scent. This scent definitely morphs around a bit before it settles, and it chose to settle on grown up vanilla on my skin.

Tapadero

"A sharp, clean fragrance bright with roses and sage, with a sweet smoky leather finish."

I smell that same "sweet grass" scent I've associated with Midsummer Dreams' Apothecary's Rapunzel, only this one has smokey mint in it. I'm pretty sure they have honeysuckle & rose in here because it's the such a similar scent. While every scent with this "sweet grass" scent tend to remind me of spas, fresh sheets & clean hotel rooms, the mintiness and hint of smokey bitterness in this makes me think more of those classy 50's movie stars who smokes like a chimney since they haven't figured out how bad smoking is back then, sipping a cocktail in a resort in Baden Baden. The best description I can think of is that this is how I picture Audrey Tautou's signature scent while she's portraying a rich woman from the French countryside in Thérèse:

I can't find a nice picture of her lounging in a resort in Baden Baden, but she actually does that in the movie.
Image courtesy of scenecreek.com/

This is kinda weird, but there's a bit of a fried seaweed smell when this dries down. I still love this scent, I just thought it's weird.

Overview: I love this scent! I'm surprised there's no honeysuckle in this, since it smells so similar to two other scents I have, and the one thing both those scents have in common is rose & honeysuckle. The smokiness is pretty strong in this, so watch out for that. My friends were asking if I picked up smoking or got stuck in a smoky café.

Review: 7 More Scents from Lou Lou's Soaps, Scrubs, & Scents

I finally decided to sniff the rest of my Lou Lou's perfumes after taking a long break from them. I finally found a couple of scents that work out of the remaining batch, but they still morph like crazy on my skin and end up becoming very, very sweet. I wish I can find more to like since Evelyn's really nice and even messaged me to apologize about the scents not working out on me after reading my reviews.

Evelyn mentioned she's planning to branch out to floral scents, but I've seen a number of reviews where people do like the very sweet gourmand scents. I think carving out a niche as the creator of extremely sweet gourmands can work out for her.

Anyway, here are my reviews for 7 more scents:

Sweet Darkness is left out since it kept toppling the pyramid.

Bunny

"Carrot cake, bakery spices, vanilla bean, buttercream frosting, marshmallow fluff, strawberries, cocoa, amber, and green grass"

Very sweet as usual, and in the beginning, there was an egg yolk smell that freaked me out. The egg yolk scent mellowed out to a sweet egg tart scent that's a bit cloying to me, mixed with something that smells like fruity candy. This dries down to a very sweet fruit candy smell, but there's still hints of that egg smell. 

Post Description: Hmm...no idea which note morphed into an egg yolk scent. Maybe it's the buttercream frosting?

Cake & Cassia

"Cassia (cassia cinnamon essential oil), strawberry, cake, chocolate, sandalwood, patchouli, jasmine, amber, vanilla, and cocoa bean"

Initially, this smells like a very sweet cough syrup (complete with the hint of bitterness buried under a lot of sugar), but a wet flour smells enter. The cough syrup & wet flour smell fortunately gets buried under all the sweetness after this dries down. It becomes a sweet berries smell, mixed with play-doh. The final smell reminds me a bit of a car perfume my parents once used, and I'm not too crazy over it.

Post Description: Is it the patchouli? I swear patchouli always smells medicinal on me. I wonder if it's the cake scents that turn play-doh-ish on me. I know HoG's cake scents smell like play-doh on me too.

Good Morning

"Sugar crusted blueberry muffins with butter, a bowl of maple syrup drizzled oatmeal, sugar cookies, and a warm mug of vanilla bean infused milk"

Very, very sweet breakfast syrup, with what smells like baby cereal. I like the cereal smell, but there's a cloying milkiness that I associate with baby food. Mostly it's just extremely sweet syrup though. There's an oatmeal smell I like in this, but it's definitely buried in the extreme sweetness and cloying milkiness. My nose hurts from the sweetness, so if you're sensitive to sharp, sweet scents, watch out.

Post Description: Oh it does have oatmeal! There may be blueberries somewhere, but it's definitely drowned out by the sharp sweetness.

Green Chamomile

"Chamomile tea infused coconut oil (carrier oil), chamomile tea, Roman chamomile essential oil, green grass, and green amber"

Finally found a scent I like! It starts of with a very sour chilli smell, which really worried me. Luckily, the sour chilli smell disappeared into a green fragrance that has the slight hint of white florals that vaguely smells like jasmines. I can't really smell chamomile in this. I may have caught a brief whiff of it, but it's so brief, I'm not sure if I was imagining it because I expect a chamomile scent. Like a lot of green scents, this smells slightly like a room scent, and it does smell a lot like a diffuser scent I once had. It smells pretty good on me, but I'll definitely prefer this smell on my pillow.

Post Description: I'm not sure how green amber is supposed to smell like, but this scent is definitely not warm and heavy like what I expect from amber smells. By the way, while trying to look up what "green amber" is supposed to be, I stumbled on this interesting article from a blog called Sorcery of Scent about what perfumers are talking about when they list "amber" as a note:

Contrary to popular belief, however, amber - when used in perfumery - is not of this vegetal variety. It is considered almost impossible to extract a scented oil from this ancient resource, and attempts at doing so are highly destructive and yield minimal results. It would be much like trying to extract the odour of a stone. So, why do so many perfume houses reference amber as a key component of a new scent? Well, basically, the term 'amber' is loosely used to describe a quality in perfume that is warm, rich and honeylike, and also somewhat powdery, oriental and earthy. In perfume, synthetic ambers are often created and patented by the large manufacturing houses to emulate the opulent golden warmth of the fossil. Otherwise, oils taken from modern resins and tree gums such as benzoin and labdanum are obtained for their warm spicy qualities, and are often cut with other oils such as vanilla, clove or patchouli to further enhance their aroma. Fragrance companies that claim they have created a "true amber" perfume are simply writing a poem to lull and entice the consumer.

Princesses and Playtime

"This is a fruity, feminine blend of fresh raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, pomegranate, mandarin, grapefruit, lime, and fresh cut green grass with a touch of bamboo over a base of vanilla musk."

Extremely sweet as usual. I got a fleeting smell of something that I can only describe as play-doh-ish, but fortunately, it disappeared fast. There's definitely a vaguely berry & floral smell, but it's extremely sweet. The scent sort of reminds me of a febreze spray I once had. It's a pretty pleasant smell, but works better in my room than on my skin. Like all Lou Lou's scents, this is very strong, so if you sniff it too close, your nose gets overwhelmed and hurts the same way it does when you stand too close to someone spraying room spray.

Post Description: Oh wow, that's a lot of fruits. I honestly can't smell any pomegranate or the citruses. I wonder if the berries are just stronger. I can smell a bit of green scent that may be "bamboo", but it's the "bamboo" scent that I get from "bamboo"-scented bath products -a scent that I can only interprest as very green with a bit of yellow. Actual bamboo smells a bit like dirt & wet grass to me, and I definitely can't smell it in here either.

Spiced Pear Cake

"Anjou pear, warm vanilla bean, nutmeg, clove, apple, amber, and musk"

This one finally has a cake smell that doesn't turn play-doh-ish on me! I'm trying to sniff out a pear scent, but I just get a sweet room spray-ish scent that smells a tad more floral than fruity. Unfortunately, that sweet room spray-ish scent is giving me a bit of a headache, but the cake smell smells like a freshly baked cinnamon cupcake! For me, this scent is more of a freshly baked cinnamon cupcake in a newly cleaned kitchen after someone went berserk with the room spray.

About 10 min in, the room spray scent finally disappeared, but so did the delicious cake scent. It now just smells like very sweet Fall spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves). When most of the notes has gone, this scent leaves a lingering metallic smell that I get from HoG products. I wonder if they use the same cake scents.


Post Description: I wish the cinnamon cupcake scent stayed a bit longer! The sweet spices scent is nice enough, but it's very ordinary.

Sweet Darkness

"Black leather, dark mahogany, black licorice, burnt caramel, black coconut, black musk, blackberries, black currants, black raspberry"

This initially smells of a very, very sweet liquorice. The sweetness disappears to become a very bitter, Chinese traditional medicine mixed with dry instant noodles smell on me. This, unfortunately, is a very strong scent, and you can smell it from a formal job interview distance.

Post Description: What turned into the dry instant noodles smell? I'm guessing all the black notes is what makes this so bitter.

Princess & Playtime Solid Perfume Review

First of all, I have to say, the free sample size is extremely generous. Here it is with a HoG mini & a tub of eyeshadow for scale:

The eyeshadow's a Dawn Eyes' customized colour! Will post swatches soon, but definitely check out the amazing thing Dawn is doing for her sister here.

These melt easily on your skin, but is oily as it melts. One thing I like about the solid perfumes is that it takes of the sharp, straight to your head feeling you get when you sniff the perfume oils. It definitely has less throw (you need to smell close to your skin), but it's worth it for me. The sugary scent is also less sharp and intense, but it still smells too much like a room spray to me. I guess this isn't for me.

Review: Notoriously Morbid Swatches!

UPDATE Nov 2014: So someone has pointed out to me that some colours from Notoriously Morbid do not contain any binders at all:

Neno
Screenshot taken on Nov 16, 2014

However, I did a random check of 20 colours and only found 1 colour that didn't contain any binders. For my check, what I did was open 20 colours in a row without looking at the colour/name/description and then reading the ingredients. It's not the most perfect method but it gives you a rough idea. So for most part, I think it's safe to purchase from them as long as you check the ingredients. For a guide to ingredients, you can check out my previous post here.

_____________________________

I recently got my Notoriously Morbid haul and this is what I ordered:

I replaced the full sizes in my blogger pack with more samples! I ended up with 19 colours to swatch! (two of the minis are the same colour)

TAT

I'm not sure if I can comment on the TAT. I ordered on May 17 during a sale, and since there was no news by May 27, I tracked my order on the Notoriously Morbid site. I realized I didn't put the link to my blog, so I messaged the company via facebook, and also tossed in another order. I finally got both orders shipped out on June 5. This was during a sale, and she may be verifying my blog, so I'm not sure if my experience counts.

What I think was really nice was that I ended up getting two of the Tea Tosh, the gift with purchase, for the two orders even though I combined them into one shipment. I gave my spare Tea Tosh to the wonderful Ms Minkishly (her blog here) so I can't wait to see what she thinks of it!

Coffin Kissers Review

These are amaaaazing! They melt so easily on your lips and are so moisturizing. And even though they melt like butter on your lips, I can carry them around in my bag in a hot, humid tropical country without having them melt all over my bag. I've only the Sam's Strawberry Mousse flavour and flavour-wise, it's pretty good -it tastes like creamy strawberries. It's the typical lip balm artificial flavouring, but I don't expect make up companies to be gourmet chefs on top of making amazing lip balms.

Eyeshadow Review and Swatches

Packaging-wise, the mini sizes doesn't come with a sifter seal, and the labels are not waterproof. So packaging-wise, they're just functional. But I can ignore that since I love these colours! The colours are great, even on bare skin. Of course, like almost all non-matte loose powder shadows, they look best with glitter glue. As always, the swatches on the right is under natural light, the one on the left is under artificial light to show off the shift.

Over Darling Girl's Glitter Glue:

The Grand Empress actually turns blue as you blend it out!

Over NYX's HD Eye Primer

Applied with a wet brush (like all pigmented loose powder shadows, this method can be staining):

There's no mistake. Melancholy One turns blue when applied wet, I was surprised too.

 Now this is where I'm impressed...over bare skin:

They're definitely not as nice on bare skin, but the pigmentation is better than what I get from some commercial eyeshadows on primer!

Tutorial: Aqua, Gold & Purple Cut Crease on Monolids

This is a look I did for the night:

Just an example of the before pic:

Tutorial:

Tip: Keep your eyes open while applying eyeshadow so you get the placements right. With monolids, a lot of our work disappears when we open our eyes, so keep them open while applying your eye make up to make sure your work doesn't vanish. 

1. Prime lids & apply tape to get the edges crisp. I like using a white eyeliner as a guide to figure out where to create the "crease". For primer, I'm using UD Primer Potion, and for the white eyeliner, I'm using NYX's Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk. All eyeshadows used are Müse.

2. Apply a light purple shadow above & on the outer corner of your "crease". To make it look more natural, apply it only to the outer 2/3 of your eye, going thicker towards the outer corner.

3. Blend it out.

4. Apply a dark purple shadow above your "crease" for only the outer 1/3 of the crease, going thicker towards the outer edge. Blend it out.

5. Apply the aqua shadow on you "crease".

6. To make the crease more defined, create a very thin line using black eyeshadow above the crease. I use the thinnest brush possible, and dampened it with water before dipping it in the eyeshadow. This makes the line more crisp and avoid flyaways.

7. Apply gold shadow in the middle of the crease. Blend it out. Apply it again, blend it out, and repeat until you get a good gradient effect. This makes the "crease" look more 3D.

8. Remove tape. I like to apply my liner now so I get a good idea of where to place the shadows for my lower lashline

9. Apply the aqua shadow on the inner half of your lower lashline.

10. Apply the purple shadow on the outer half of your lower lashline and blend.

11. Tightline your lower lashline with a gold eyeliner. I'm using UD's Goldmine.

12. Apply lashes and done! Bonus pic to show how thick I was drawing my line to make sure it shows up.

Review: Black Violet

UPDATE: I unfortunately cannot recommend this company anymore. It has come to my attention that Black Violet uses stock bases for their body lotion and several scents may be stock scents.  Leilani has come forward to state that she does not use any stock scents, but I still have my suspicions since Red Lotus smells exactly like Orange Thyme's Lychee & Red Tea, as well as Rainbow Honey's Sakura Matsuri cuticle balm. As a nail polish company, I expect Rainbow Honey to scent their balms with stock scents. Here is a list of her questionable scents. 

I've seen Black Violet before and have been drawn to them because, well, their site is gorgeous! So when Leilani posted on Reddit with a discount code, I obviously had to buy from her. I have to say, I'm blown away. First, check out how my stuff arrived:

Pretty packaging!

I thought it was a clutch! I was so confused since I was pretty sure I never ordered a handbag despite my many late night shopping sprees. I can't have gotten that sleep deprived. Then I saw it was from Black Violet and realized that it was just her wrapping. Wow.

Here's what I got:

• Red Lotus mini perfume oil
• Pattiserie mini perfume oil 
• Sugar Clouds perfume oil sample (free)
• Yuzu Cookie perfume balm
• Lilikoi Creme Soap
• Affogato Hydra Conditioner
• Sample size of Steel Petals Body Butter (free)

Leilani truly has an eye for design and she knows how to pay attention to the smallest details to create a really beautiful experience. Opening her package is like opening a Christmas gift, and gives you the same amount of excitement.

Customer Service

Leilani is amazing and replies to messages almost immediately. I actually got a bit worried once when she replied to my message until past midnight her time! As soon as we settled all the messiness with international shipping, she sent me my order within a day so the TAT is awesome.

Now I'm used to waiting for long international delivery, so I learnt never to keep checking the mail tracking since you'll just get worried when there's no news on your order. She was the one who constantly updated me on the delivery. I'm so impressed by her customer service and she's genuinely warm and sweet. She's awesome!

I still have to finish my current bath products, so I've only tried out the perfumes for now. As usual, reviews are done blind, and I only check the description before writing my overall impression.

Perfume Oil General Review

The sillage is amazing. I can smell it wafting all over my cubicle as I type. The sillage for Red Lotus is definitely the strongest out of the scents I tried. Longevity-wise, you can smell them wafting around for about 1 1/2h and last about 6 hours on your skin. I definitely like the quality!

Sugar Clouds

"Playful and sweet~ sugar crystals, dreams of candy floss, vanilla and musk. (Valentine's Day stock fragrance request)"

Initially, this was the perfect sugar cookies scent. Only the sugar got stronger and sweeter until it's a super sweet and sharp sugary vanilla scent. The sweetness toned down after about 30 min, but the scent stayed at a sugary, musky vanila.

Overall impression: This scent smells pretty plain to me, and I wonder if it's because it's a stock scent.

Red Lotus

UPDATE Dec 8, 2014: I've recently sniffed this same exact scent in 2 other products –Rainbow Honey's cuticle balm in Sakura Matsuri & Orange Thyme's Lychee & Red Tea. I'm now a bit suspicious about whether or not this is a stock scent.

"With vermillion red beauty & hairlike spines, rambutans are unforgettable fruits from Southeast Asia which bring a tart aroma. Exotic lychee radiates a sweet note thru red rooibos tea. Red Lotus is complete with floating lilies and wild geranium. (limited edition)"

This is amazing! It's like floral lychee (sorry, this is how I was taught to spell it where I grew up, and I'm sticking to it). There's a fresh, watery coolness to this scent that keeps this scent from going too sweet with the lychee or too heavy with the florals. I'm trying to place the florals but it's buried by the strong, lychee smell. This sounds weird, but it smells like one of those flowers with very thick petals that has a slight green-ness to their scent. There's definitely tea in this. This smell makes me think of a very pretty, lychee tea mocktail, that'll be decorated by flower petals. This scent is amazing as a perfume!

Post description review: Woww....the description is spot on. I guess I get lychee and rambutan mixed up, whoops! I'm so getting this in full size.

Pattiserie

"Petit fours of eclairs covered in powdered sugar filled with vanilla custard, lemon meringue tarts in a buttery short dough shell brimming with lemon curd, a swirl of baked meringue & finished in a light dusting of confectioners sugar."

This smells like creamy shortcake crossed with lemon cakes initially, but the lemon got stronger to the point where it's just lemon cakes. Towards the end, the lemon mellowed down and I'm left with a cake smell that smells delicious enough, but still a tad artificial. I think this may be awesome in body butter form though, so I plan on grabbing some body butters in this scent.

Post description review: The scent is more creamy and milky than buttery. The description makes this sound like it's going to be insanely sweet, but it's not. Even on my skin that loves amping up sweet smells! This is a great scent, but I just wish the smell doesn't morph into a slightly artificial cake scent at the end. To be fair, it's not a cloying, play-doh type of artificial and still smells delicious, so I'm still impressed.

Yuzu Cookies Solid Perfume

"For hundreds of years, yuzu has been placed in Japanese baths, releasing a grapefruit and mandarin orange-like aroma. The citrus fruit is found in many exquisite dishes & drinks. Enjoy it paired with butter cookies!"

The freshness of yuzu mixed with the creamy, buttery scent of cookies produce a heavenly smell of...cheesecake. It's really weird. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, really, since cookies usually smell heavy and buttery, while yuzu smells fresh, light and tart. Guess cheesecake's what you get. The yuzu disappears faster than the cookies smell, abd you'll be left with the lingering scent of absolutely divine cake. This is more of a beautifully decorated, heavily frosted white cake displayed in a cake shop rather than a freshly baked cake smell. It's delicious for sure and I'm definitely interested in getting more of this!  

As for how the perfume balm is, this has a great throw for a solid perfume! You can smell it from an intimate whisper away, which is the throw I've gotten from some perfume oils, so I'm impressed. 

Longevity-wise, the smell wafts for slightly under an hour and you can smell it for up to 3h. Not too bad for a solid perfume. 

This has an oily, melty texture that's similar to Notoriously Morbid's lip balms. It takes a while for your skin to absorb the oil if you just let it sit there, so you end up with a scary oil patch like this for a while:

It sits like that for a long time so you just have to rub it in

It doesn't bother me much though, since I love everything else about this.

By the way, I just did something really stupid. I'll start by putting this picture here:

You can guess what happened...

Yes. I accidentally mixed it up with my Coffin Kissers lip balm. In case you're wondering, it tastes and feels exactly like lip balm. No bitterness or weird texture or anything. Pretty sure it's not lip-safe, but I really couldn't tell the difference between the two balms if it weren't for the different scents. I didn't even realize my mistake for the first few seconds before the scent registered, and when it finally did, I looked down and realized the balm I was holding was yellow instead of white. After that, it was a frantic rush to the bathroom to rinse it off my lips. I'm carrying these two items separately from now on.

Turning Indie Eyeshadows Into Nail Art..ish.

I've been trying to create a splattered effect on my nails and I got an idea about experimenting with my indie eyeshadows.  So this is what happened:

I sprinkled eyeshadow into a tub of water and jabbed my finger repeatedly into it.

Kinda splatter-ish

Then I got another idea I tried out:

I let the eyeshadow float on the water, then dip my nail in face down.

Looks like crumpled tissue

The green nail polish is a mini OPI I got as a gift, there's no name on it. The green eyeshadow is Hello Waffle's Wonderland!