Today I have swatches and a review of my first order from the indie company My Pretty Zombie. MPZ is a long-standing brand, known for their eyeshadows and blushes that often have rather morbid and unorthodox names. Names notwithstanding, the shadows themselves are quite lovely. I placed my order on Black Friday during MPZ's 30% sale. I believe I received my order around the 2-week mark. Their current TAT is only a week so they're a nice option for short-notice gifts or earlier arrival gratification ;)
Eyeshadows are available as full sizes for $5.00 while samples are available in packs for $1 each. If you plan on purchasing more than 5 full size shadows at once, there are bundle listings available at slight discount.
Just a note on these swatches, I've switched over to swatching half on primer, half on Brija's Adhesive Wax. It gives a similar foiled finish to my old standby of Darling Girl Glitter Glue but a lot less hassle.
Left to right: Anthrax, Thundernuts, Trepanation, Brisket, and Static.
Hi! Hope everyone is having a nice weekend. I'm still fighting a persistent cold that doesn't seem to want to quit. For those who were affected by storm Jonas I hope you all made it through okay. Today I have my review on the rest of the DG Friends Central collection. Here's part 1 in case you missed it. This collection is actually being released tomorrow along with another small collection and their Ka-Pow brow powders. As per usual, petits will retail for $2.50 and full sizes for $6.00.
Products were provided as press samples. All thoughts and opinions are my own. For reference, my skin tone is slightly lighter than an NC15, fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information. Swatches are done half on Urban Decay Primer Potion, half over Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue.
Hello! Today I have swatches of half of the upcoming Darling Girl Friends Collection. I've only ever watched a couple of episodes but I know there are a lot of diehard Friends fans out there. If you're one of these people, DG has delivered! Luckily you don't have to be an avid watcher of the show to appreciate these products. There are 17 eyeshadows, 1 Spectral Shift, 2 inner glow blushes, and 2 Pucker Paint liquid lipsticks in this collection. It's set to make it's debut on January 25 along with the All The Men You Can't Have mini collection.
As an aside, DG also plans to release their brow powders that day which is based off the recipe used by Chinovi Cosmetics, a company that unfortunately closed last year. I have been looking for an indie alternative to products like Anastasia Beverly Hill's brow powder so I'll definitely be picking up a jar.
Products were provided as press samples. All thoughts and opinions are my own. For reference, my skin tone is slightly lighter than an NC15, fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information. Swatches are done half on Urban Decay Primer Potion, half over Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue.
Happy Friday readers! I'm back with the second installment of swatches from the Corvus Nevermore collection. Here's the link to yesterday's post on the cooler shades in case you missed it. I'm so glad the sun decided to cooperate during swatching today to do these warm tones justice.
Products were provided as press samples. All thoughts and opinions are my own. For reference, my skin tone is slightly lighter than an NC15, fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information. Swatches are done half on Urban Decay Primer Potion, half over Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue.
I have a review on the first half of the Corvus Nevermore collection today! This collection is inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's stories. There are 16 shadows in total. In this post, you'll be seeing the cooler half of the collection.
Formula on these are on par with other Corvus shades, pigmented and blendable. There's a lot of different looks you could do with this collection, although you'll probably need to borrow a blending color or two for transition shades. Corvus has recently discontinued their individual samples but have left them available as full collections. They've also introduced mini jars which retail for $3.50.
Products were provided as press samples. All thoughts and opinions are my own. For reference, my skin tone is slightly lighter than an NC15, fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information. Swatches are done half on Urban Decay Primer Potion, half over Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue.
Good afternoon! Darling Girl Cosmetics does a holiday collection each year and the theme for this year's release is Edward Scissorhands. Although you wouldn't necessarily think of the film as Christmas-related, there are a lot of winter-esque qualities to it and I think it's a really unique approach for a holiday collection. There are 12 eyeshadows, 2 pucker paints (DG's version of a matte liquid lipstick), 2 creme blush/lip colors, and a lip conditioning treatment in this set.
On an unrelated note, Theindiemakeupblog reached 100,000 views this week! December 13 will be the one-year anniversary of this site so it couldn't have come at a better time. I want to take a second to thank each and every one of you who have taken a moment of their day to read my posts. Blogging has been an awesome experience and I truly appreciate all of the sweet comments I've received in the last year. I ordered the ring light I've been drooling over finally and I'm excited to be bringing you better quality eye looks and hopefully more tutorials as well!
Getting back to today's post, I have swatches of 11 of the 12 shadows. Unfortunately I cannot for the life of me find the 12th shade, I'm Not Finished. I used it in one of the looks below and it's nowhere to be found now. If/when it shows up, I'll edit this post to include a swatch of it as well!
Products were provided as press samples. All thoughts and opinions are my own. For reference, my skin tone is slightly lighter than an NC15, fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information. Swatches are done half on Urban Decay Primer Potion, half over Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue.
One of my favorite brands Femme Fatale Cosmetics recently released the second installment of their "You Choose the Scare" collection inspired by Goosebumps. I saw some interesting brights in there so I decided to pick up their sampler pack. Femme Fatale only offers the sample set during the first weekend of the collection launch but the products are available here individually. There are a total of 14 shades (11 eyeshadows, 2 blushes, 1 highlighter) in this collection. Since there are a lot of duochromes here, I did some video swatches as well.
All thoughts and opinions are my own. Photos were taken in direct light. For reference, my skin tone is fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information. Swatches are done half on Urban Decay Primer Potion, half over Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue.
Hi readers, today I have swatches of the Corvus Cosmetics Roses collection. It is made up of 5 eyeshadows that are mostly satin finishes. This is part of a permanent range comprised of different color groups. The Bronzes is another one, and The Reds will be released on November 19. Although I applied these in my usual method of half UDPP, half Glitter Glue, none of them actually needed it.
Products purchased using a blogger discount. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Photos were taken in natural light. For reference, my skin tone is slightly lighter than an NC15, fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information.
I'm back with swatches on the rest of the Uponaworld seasonal collections! Here is my review of the fall and winter sets in case you missed it. For sake of not sounding repetitive, the formula on these is good - They perform similarly over regular primer and Darling Girl Glitter Glue. They also blend out nicely on the eye.
Products were provided as press samples. All thoughts and opinions are my own. For reference, my skin tone is slightly lighter than an NC15, fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information. Swatches are done half on Urban Decay Primer Potion, half over Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue.
Happy Friday everyone! I have a rather large backlog of products to review but I received the latest installment of Darling Girl's Once Upon a Time collection and it immediately got pushed up to the front of the line. This is a continuously expanding collection and is permanent. This release includes three new eyeshadows and a new lip product, DG's matte balm. The balm retails for $7.00 and the shadows are available as petits for $2.50 or full sizes for $6.00. I have part 1 and 2 swatched here.
Products were provided as press samples. All thoughts and opinions are my own. For reference, my skin tone is slightly lighter than an NC15, fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information. Swatches are done half on Urban Decay Primer Potion, half over Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue.
Hello guys! Today I have an eye look using some of the colors from Hello Waffle's 2015 Halloween collection as well as swatches of the eyeshadows. I purchased three of the five eyeshadows and a couple of lip colors. It looks like the collection is sold out at the moment but I believe there's supposed to be a restock on the shadows next week. All of the lip colors minus Outstretched are currently in stock.
For the look below, I started by applying my Nars primer. I used Urban Decay Foxy as a base shade to help my colors blend easier. Blackbird Dog Days and HW Chopin were my transitional crease colors. I used HW Burlap Sack on the inner lid, HW Static on the middle portion, and HW Photo-Negative on the outer corner. Photo-Negative was also used foiled as my liner (new favorite foiled liner!) The lid shades were applied over Notoriously Morbid's Shadow Bind. I love how glowy this turned out. The duochrome effect from these colors went very well together.
All thoughts and opinions are my own. Photos were taken in direct light. For reference, my skin tone is fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information. Swatches are done half on Urban Decay Primer Potion, half over Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue.
I''m wearing HW Staircases on my lips with a little bit of HW Outstretched in the middle.
Burlap Sack (vegan, lip safe) is a peachy beige with sparkly green shimmer. This makes a lovely neutral wash on the lid over regular primer. Over a sticky base, the green shift comes out.
Static (vegan, lip safe) is a light mauve with red specks and a green shift. This color looks different on the eye than on the swatch. It's much greyer and has an intense aqua green shift over a sticky base. I really love the addition of the red, I didn't think I'd like them since they're matte but it actually makes the color more interesting.
Photo-Negative (vegan, not lip safe) is a gorgeous eggplant purple base with a copper shift. Colors like this that appear to be lit from within are a serious weakness of mine. I'll have to compare this to Femme Fatale's Nightmare in Werewolf Woods and see how close they are. I can say for sure I prefer the formula of this one, it's a little smoother and pigmented. It makes a lovely liner when foiled too!
I made a little snippit video of the duochrome in action! Please let me know if you find these helpful and would like to see these in future posts.
Happy Friday guys! I've been on a roll getting posts up this week. This is the last one for now since I work weekends. I recently changed up where I do my swatches and take photos at so I can get better natural light and I've been so happy with it. My next goal is to start making some basic makeup tutorials in addition to my regular postings. Fingers crossed that it works out!
Today I have my review and swatches of the Uponaworld Cosmetics Autumn and Winter Palettes. I also have the Summer and Spring palettes that will be reviewed soon. This was my first experience with Uponaworld. It's a relatively new brand that offers eyeshadows as well as handmade soaps. Uponaworld is cruelty-free and vegan friendly. Eyeshadow samples are available for $1.00 and full size jars run $6.00. These palettes were originally available as a pressed palette but the owner, Manuela has let me know that she won't be offering her pressed shadows anymore as part of her regular lineup. The ones that I received were loose.
Products were provided as press samples. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Photos were taken in indirect light. For reference, my skin tone is slightly lighter than an NC15, fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information. Swatches are done half on Urban Decay Primer Potion, half over Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue.
Hey everyone! Today I have a post on dupe comparisons of my shadows. I've been wanting to do this post for a long time and it was a lot of fun testing out colors I suspected to be dupes. Some turned out to be right on and others not as much! Nothing is better than discovering that you already have a similar color to a shade you've been wanting. This is only half of the possible dupes, stay turned for a part 2 soon. All of these shades are shown over Urban Decay Primer Potion (left) and Darling Girl Glitter Glue (right).
For Halloween, Darling Girl Cosmetics has released a collection of 12 eyeshadows and a 2 lip colors in honor of the famous scream-queens from classic horror films. I've had this collection waiting to be swatched for an embarassingly long amount of time but it's given me time to try out a couple of looks so stay tuned for that at the bottom of the post.
Queens of Horror is a limited edition collection and will be going away after Halloween permanent collection. Petit sizes are available for $2.50 and full sizes are $5.90. Full sizes come with custom label artwork but there is a separate listing here for label art stickers if you want petit sizes. The lip colors are available as full size only. The collection is heavy on the greens and purples, with a couple of other shades thrown in the mix for variety.
Products were provided as press samples. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Photos were taken in indirect light. For reference, my skin tone is slightly lighter than an NC15, fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information. Swatches are done half on Urban Decay Primer Potion, half over Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue.
Happy Friday guys! Today I have part 2 of my Corvus Cosmetics Cryptozoology review. Click here to see part 1 if you missed it. Like the first half of the collection, most of the shades are in the neutral family. So I don't sound repetitive, all shades were smooth and pigmented. At the bottom of this post you'll find an eye look incorporating all of the shadows mentioned.
Products were provided as press samples. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Photos were taken in direct light. For reference, my skin tone is slightly lighter than an NC15, fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information. Swatches are done half on Urban Decay Primer Potion, half over Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue.
Corvus Cosmetics recently released a new collection based on Cryptids tales. The collection is comprised of 14 eyeshadows, ranging from light to dark neutrals with a few pops of subdued color. Cryptozoology will have a limited run and is available August through February. Most of the shadows in this half of the collection have a satin or matte finish. I'll be reviewing the next half later this week. Like with their other collections, Corvus has provided a detailed description of the inspiration behind each color so I encourage you to read through them! I didn't know many of these stories and it's always cool to learn about different urban legends.
To show some of these eyeshadows in action, I created this eye look using Dover Demon on the lid, Goat Man as a transitional shade, and Loch Ness Monster in the crease. The colors blended out fairly easily and lasted all day without fading or creasing.
Products were provided as press samples. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Photos were taken in direct light. For reference, my skin tone is slightly lighter than an NC15, fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information. Swatches are done half on Urban Decay Primer Potion, half over Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue.
Like many of you guys, I found my way to indie cosmetics by way of the indie communities on Reddit. One of the side effects of primarily experiencing indies through there is that I'm well versed in the longstanding, more popular shops a la Shiro or Femme Fatale but haven't really ventured outside to the more obscure Etsy-based shops. When I participated in a makeup exchange earlier this year, my exchange partner gifted me with six shadows from Chameleon Eye Cosmetics. I admit I was a little skeptical at first because I had never heard of the brand but I figured it was high time I started delving into the lesser-known shops to review. I can't comment on CS or shipping policies with the shop as I didn't order them myself so I'll be focusing on the qualities of the shadows themselves. Let's get started!
All thoughts and opinions are my own. Photos were taken in direct light. For reference, my skin tone is slightly lighter than an NC15, fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information. Swatches are done half on Urban Decay Primer Potion, half over Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue.
Welcome back everyone! Today I have some more swatches of my Femme Fatale Cosmetics collection to share with you all. For those who are unfamiliar with the brand, Femme Fatale is based out of Australia and is a supplier for various other indie companies. In addition to their eyeshadows, they also make some amazing polishes. You can find my previous swatches here and here. This is the last batch of shadows left to be swatched but I plan on making an order in September for some new ones!
All thoughts and opinions are my own. Photos were taken in direct light. For reference, my skin tone is slightly lighter than an NC15, fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information. Swatches are done half on Urban Decay Primer Potion, half over Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue.
Mood Ring (not vegan, lip safe) is a deep purple berry with a blue shift. This shade is part of The Mysterious Fortune collection. This is the color that's made me rethink my stance on pink. It's really beautiful worn on the lid or blended in the crease. The deeper plum tones helps make it more wearable if you're afraid of pink.
Alpine Skies (vegan, lip safe) is a taupey beige with a strong turquoise shift. Alpine Skies is one of those ethereal-looking light shades that Femme Fatale is known for. This one reminds me a lot of Perspecto-Illusion but I suspect this one leans peachier.
The Wayward Prince (vegan, lip-safe) is a mauve-rose base with a copper-gold overlay. We see a lot of purples with gold shimmer but I think this one stands apart from the rest since the shimmer is bronzey. This was originally a LE CoTM but was added to the catalog permanently because it was so popular.
Choose Wisely (vegan, not lip-safe) is a champagne gold with a subtle olive green undertone. I couldn't get the green to show up in pictures but the effect is noticeable in person. This is one of my favorite golds as it doesn't lean too terribly warm.
Goldwater Island is a taupey grey base with loads of gold and green shimmer. The cool base with the warm shimmer is an interesting juxtaposition but I like it. This shade was created as an exclusive for the Femme Fatale Facebook group and is unfortunately not available anymore. I have seen it pop up on makeup destashes though!
Straw To Gold is another shade with a taupey grey base but has a copper overlay and gold/silver shimmer. This one is less intense and bronzier than Glasswater Island but they're pretty similar overall so I'd say you don't need both. This shade was part of the Visage subscription box from Hello Waffle and is no longer available.
Ten Three Labs (TTL) is a brand I reviewed early in my blog days. If you're a longtime reader, you may remember their Bob's Burgers collection. In addition to eyeshadows, TTL also offers perfumes, liquid lipsticks, and lip balms. Most of the products are available in sample size or full size. The shop is based out of Tennessee and is completely vegan. The collection will be launching July 1st (tomorrow!).
Today's review will be all about the upcoming K-Pop collection. This is a rather large collection in it's entirety, comprised of nine eyeshadows, 3 perfumes, 2 liquid lipsticks (known as Saucebox Sheens), and a new flavor of Salve Stick. Admittedly I know next to nothing about Korean music in general so I don't get the name references but I think the colors speak for themselves! I also received a sample of Love Me Right, June's COTM so that's also swatched in here.
Products were provided as press samples. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Photos were taken in direct light. For reference, my skin tone is slightly lighter than an NC15, fair with warm undertones. Please view my disclosure policy for more information. Swatches are done half on Urban Decay Primer Potion, half over Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue.
Hi readers! Today's post kicks off a new series here on my blog. Lately I've been gravitating less towards constantly purchasing new products and more towards rediscovering loved products in my collection. I think that as indie makeup lovers, we can easily get carried with consumerism and the "more, more more!" mentality and neglect the stuff we already own. The Product Showcase series will allow me to share some of my most beloved indies with you while also helping me utilize items I already have.
