NYX I Dream Of St Lucia Look

EYES:
NYX I Dream of St. Lucia palette: all colors
NYX Team Spirit Trio: Perrywinkle shade to outline light blue from IDOSL to deepen crease
Random black eyeshadow to line eyes
Maybelline the Falsies: Blackest Black

FACE:
Physician's Formula Color Correcting Primer in Green
Revlon Colorstay liquid in Ivory
Revlon Cool Hydrating Powder in Fair
Physician's Formula Color Correcting Mineral Powder in Translucent

CHEEKS:
NYX "Pinky" blush

LIPS:
NYX Mega Shine Gloss in "Salsa"

---X---

Then, here is my look from the second day when I repeated the look, but didn't make the colors as bold (which irritated me) and added some glitter liner (NYX Liquid Crystal - Gold). I only did one quick coat, which is what I can reccomend, because two or more can be uncomfortable as hell! I'll tell you about that in another LOTD later. :p Narcissus is on the lips in these pics below, too.

NYX 12 Year Anniversary Sale Haul, Swatch and Review

My package from Nyx from the sale from hell came yesterday (5/26). I've got some swatches for you and a review of the PRODUCTS, no mention of the company itself. Nope, I'm not going to bring it up... if you want to read my thoughts and experience, go here.

Eyeshadow trios in: Beanie/Red Bean/Red Bronze, Shangri La, Team Spirit, Perpetual
Cupcake/Chocolate/Fruit Basket Gloss Sets, Desert Rose and Pinky blushes, and Caribbean 5 color palette in I Dream of St. Lucia

Round lipsticks in Snow White/Narcissus/Louisiana, Mega Shine gloss in Salsa/African Queen, Candy Glitter Liners in Lavander/Disco Queen/Red/Hot Candy
Liquid Crystal Liners in Pink/Jade/Aqua/Pewter/Gold, Liquid Liners in Bronze/Aqua/Blue/Silver/Black

I Dream of St. Lucia palette (Out of order, lol), assorted liners
Louisiana, Narcissus, Snow White, African Queen, Salsa
Desert Rose, Pinky

Perpetual
Team Spirit
Shangri La
Beanie/Red Bean/Bronze, which I'm going to call BRB :)

Snow White

Louisiana

Narcissus

African Queen

Salsa

Overall, I'm very pleased with all of the stuff I got. Great color payoff, everything has had great wear (I wore a whole bunch of shit today in a look - and got tons of compliments. I'll post the look tomorrow), and is pretty cheap even at "regular" price, but DO NOT buy from the direct website, buy from Cherryculture, Ulta or Beautyjoint... please!

Final Thoughts:

Shipping: 5/5
Price: 5/5
Product: 5/5
Customer Service: 0/5

Overall: 15/20

Where to find:

Beautyjoint
Ulta
Cherryculture

Ps, Cherryculture is having a Memorial Day sale, 20% off your entire purchase now through 5/31/11 with coupon code MDS20, plus you get free shipping if you have $40 or more merchandise in your cart! :)

Meow Holiday Collection Swatches

L-R First Row: Eggnog, Prancer, Comet, Blitzen
L-R Second Row: Nightfall, Howl, Woodlands, Sexual Misconduct (sample)
Bottom: Blush - Radiance (Sample)

Another order I placed around Xmas time, these were from Meow Cosmetics' holiday collections. All are awesome colors and I use them on a daily basis, I just wish Meow was a little cheaper, more around the $6 regular indie market. :/ These are worth it though, imo. Pick them up when this year's collections come out again! :)

Evil Shades Haul, Swatch and Review

Yep, I've had these items since around Xmas. I know... shame on me for never posting about them. :p Well, I'll be changing that now! :) Today I have an Evil Shades haul, swatch and review on eyeshadows, a blush, and several forms of lippies.

L-R First Row: Twinkle Twinkle, Mad People, Whoo R U, Steele Green
L-R Second Row: Wanderflower, Phyrra's Fantasy, Lucia, Whisper
Bottom: Skon Blush

Skon - Blush

L-R First Row: Hardcore Lips - Doom, Wicked Gloss - Deadly, Suffocation
L-R Second Row: Lipstick - Stiletto, Evince, Fateful

Hardcore Lips - Doom

Wicked Gloss - Suffocation

Wicked Gloss - Deadly

Lipstick - Evince

Lipstick - Stiletto

Lipstick - Fateful

The blush, $6.50 each for sull size (10 gram jars):
Wow... this is so awesome! At first it scared the shit out of me, but be warned, if you're as pale as I am use a light hand with this shade! It's really super pigmented, and it will give you a ghoulish look (in a bad way). :p The shade is a duochrome and is so beautiful and multidimensional, something I never thought I'd like on my cheeks as I'm normally a "matte" kind of gal. This lasted all day on my face over top my normal foundation routine. I will be buying more of these!

The eyeshadows, $5 each & up for full size (5 gram jars):
They're all highly pigmented and give great payoff and wear. Lucia does stain like a bitch, and Steele Green and Whoo R U are pretty similar other than the fact Steele Green (omg I'm just drooling over that name, yum Peter Steele!) has shimmer where as Whoo R U is more matte. My swatches did not seem to be too keen on showing the shimmer that's in these shades, but I promise you, it's there. The price is right and there are always new/limited collections and shades being added, so check these babies out.

The lipstick, $4.25 each:
Seriously cannot believe how affordable these are. However, the shades are kinf of hit and miss. Two of the three I got were awesome, but Evince was really hard to get any saturation out of. :( It does show up, but I have to apply about three or more coats to get it to show. There are a ton of new shades up though, and I would love to get more in the future to try. They're super smooth and to tell you the truth I can hardly feel them on my lips at all, but yet they last about 6-7 hours, which fucking rocks.

The wicked gloss, $5 each:
The price and packaging has changed on these since I bought them, which is a HUGE plus seeing as how the little pots that I have in my old ones... are a nasty, sloppy pain in the ass. These smell like coconut and taste so damn yummy, and they are so moisturizing. The color payoff isn't too great, but they're supposed to be sheer almost like a balm so I was expecting that.

The hardcore lips, $5.75 each:
Umm, this was the one and only thing I'm kinda on the fence about. Although the shade is okay... it's just too "meh" and the formula is a little gritty to me, but maybe I just got a bad tube because I got the when they were first released and I think she may have changed the formula? The one I got though, I don't really use too much because it's a little uncomfortable on my lips, but the color is very nice.

Shipping was fast, it arrived 4 days after my 3 day process time (if I remember correctly, it was so damn long ago), and pretty cheap too, and everything arrived perfectly handled in a nice bubble mailer.

Customer service is one of the top three of the indie cosmetics in my book, right next to Morgana and High Voltage.

Overall:

Shipping: 5/5
Price: 5/5
Product: 4/5
Customer Service: 5/5

Overall: 19/20

Where to find:

Website
Andrea's Twitter

Have you tried/would like to try Evil Shades? What are your thoughts?

Covergirl Lip Perfection Swatches and Review

Divine

Fairytale

Embrace

So, these lovely little lippies came into my life about three months ago. I've had them for a while and I can honestly say they are SO AWESOME. These are the only Covergirl products I own besides an old eyeshadow quad, because I don't really like anything from this brand. At all. These, however, are an exception.

The formula is very smooth and opaque, all of the swatches above are done on bare lips with one coat each. They stay pretty much all day and hardly fade or transfer, and they have never once feathered or bled on me. Embrace does stain a little which sucks, but it's a nice hot pink which I don't mind... I actually kinda like the look of it to be honest. It's just SO pigmented it doesn't want to come off. :p

There is a nice and soft fruity scent to these, which is really enjoyable.

Packaging is very solid and sturdy, in a nice sleek purple square case. They are a little large though so be warned if you're going to think these will fit in a vanity organizer at all. No biggie to me, because they look beautiful standing up inside my drawer with the rest of my lipsticks.

I paid $5.49 at Walmart for one, and then $7.99 at Rite Aid for the other two, but they were buy one get one free at one point a while ago. Just check around because they seem to be different prices everywhere I've been. :)

Final thoughts:

Packaging: 4/5
Price: 5/5
Pigmentation: 5/5
Staying Power: 5/5

Overall: 19/20

NYX Sale Drama

So, I'm sure everyone knows what I'm about to talk about. If not, let me give you a quick fill-in:

Nyx was having a 12 year anniversary sale on their USA website, which was supposed to be for 12 hours starting at 12 noon PST. That didn't work out 'cuz, well, they got flooded, like sites always do, and crashed. No one really got orders in, so they extended the sale. Then extended it again, and it ended up being 24 hours long... twice what it was initially planned to be.

If you're a crazy bitch like me, and you have competitive issues, or you just like good stuff cheap and have a heart of gold... you don't give up. I was awake... and trying... for ALL 24 MOTHER FUCKING HOURS. The site was so glitchy, loading items at first was the main issue, then that issue was resolved where you got into the main clusterfuck that became the never-ending battle of the masses... the checkout page. You could not, by any means, get past it.

Some people where even spreading false rumors at one point on the Nyx Facebook page saying their credit card info had been hacked and was being transferred from their cart into other customer's carts, but I, along with many other facebook fans, quickly brought down these trolls. It got sickening how people were going at each other's throats on Facebook and Twitter, but I ignored it as I could give a shit less. :) I just want my goodies. Hehe. :D

So, I kept trying. For hours and hours, until it was getting down to the wire and Nyx's office was supposed to be opening at 9 AM, EST. We all waited for statements and the traffic to slow down or the servers to open up, but... nothing. Then, alas, then make-up gods spoke. With a lot of bullshit!

Via Twitter:

"If you have any questions and concerns we have our devoted NYX team in the headquarters today working extra hard on our difficulties that we have been experiencing. We apologize for this occurrence and we assure you that we are doing everything in our power to alleviate the situation. Thank you!"
"We are extremely grateful to have our fans try to shop with us! We are apologetic to the fact that a lot of you cannot get through . We are trying to alleviate the problem with all our power! Thank you!"

Okay, that was all we heard, after thousands of us being up all night long just trying to get past the server errors. Then came this, at about 1/2 an hour before the sale was supposed to end, again via Twitter:

"We will not be extending the sale. If you email feedback[at]nyxcosmetics[dot]com we will be able to reward you with your 50% off discount. Thank you!"

The 50% off discount they speak of is a discount that applies if you live in the main 48 USA states, and you need to email Nyx with your "full name and information" as they stated on Facebook in a post. What that means, they have not clarified. You also get free shipping. They also have not answered my questions as to if it applies to only certain items or the entire site, and if those who placed orders during the anniversary sale are ineligable or not. Those who have called have mainly all gotten hung up on, gotten the run around, or have gotten no answers at all.

Nyx has displaced extremely poor customer service through all of this, and I for one cannot believe that after 12 years and having such a large business they couldn't have been more prepared for this, and beefed up their servers.

HOWEVER, the floodgates opened, and a whole new class of fuckery began.

At 12:44 PM PST, 44 minutes after the sale "ended", I was still trying to get my order to go through, as it seemed like something had changed with their proxy. Oh, and hey, guess what? It went through. With the discount. I then screencapped my order summary and posted it to the Nyx Facebook wall, only to have my picture, along with several others who also were able to get orders in and screencapped for proof, removed. Nyx had deleted the pictures and removed the posts we were all making on their page about being able to get orders in. How lovely, right?!

I will still continue to stand by Nyx's product, however, I will NOT stand by their service. They can go fuck themselves with something hard and sandpapery.