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    Things are a-changin’ at Annabelle

    Just a quick heads-up for my Canadian gals! Annabelle will be discontinuing some shades, so they’ll be disappearing from your shelves over the next little while… if any of the following perk your interest, make sure to get on that now ;) I’ve been quite happy with Annabelle shadows in the past, so I’d definitely recommend them now. And, I mean, at less than $5 a pop for the singles, these are a bit of coloured goodness that we can actually afford.

    *glares at Alice*

    Clockwise from the left: Vivid Violet, Graffiti, B-Ray, Chlorine, Amazon trio (front), Holy Smoke trio

    Also, keep your eyes peeled for the following in the first week of March! I’m most excited about that Grafix trio, it looks just gorge — perfect for a matte-grey runway smokey eye, no?

    Clockwise from bottom left: Nymphet, Helium, Pinked, Toxic Garden. Trios in the centre are Blue Hue (left) and Grafix (right).
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    The Alice Palette — swatches and descriptions

    Urban Decay has never let us down before, and the Alice in Wonderland palette is no exception! All the shadows (even the glitterbombs, which I personally adore) are just divine — they’re just as vivid with or without primer, foiled or not. I’m looking at the palette from the point of view of an Alice fan, though, and/or from the point of a shadow whore. So if you’re looking for someone to reason with you and tell you that, well, most of these are dupeable… that’s not me. That doesn’t even look a tiny bit like me.


    All of the swatches are on bare skin, one swipe swatched dry. AiW, I love you, and I’m sorry that your series is over! Now the wait is for the film rather than the palette… and I have to say, I’m still just as excited over Alice as ever.

    Please do not hotlink or repost these images. If you’d like to share the Alice goodness, just link back to this post! Thanks ladies :)

    Underland/Flash: Gorgeous, creamy violet. It’s a very “true” violet if you ask me; perhaps a tiny bit more red than blue but otherwise quite balanced. No icky brown undertones here!

    Alice/Painkiller: Likely the most pigmented blue I’ve ever seen — this turquoise/sea blue is honestly just stunning. Quite similar to the blue liner included in the palette, Flipside.
    Oraculum/Baked: Coppery gold, like the rest of the top row, the finish is a creamy, satisfying shimmer with no discernable shimmer/glitter particles.
    Queen/Last Call: Insaaaane cranberry with that same gorgeous finish!



    Chessur/Chopper: Brown-gold running a bit warm, but overall quite versatile if you ask me.
    White Rabbit/Polyester Bride: WHOA! Talk about a glitterbomb! I just love the look of this shadow — a white with large chunks of silver glitter. Prepare for a ton of fallout, but I promise it’ll be worth it! Not even a little bit office-appropriate unless used in VERY small amounts.
    Wonderland/Maui Wowie: Yellow gold, not too warm if you ask me, so it would be suitable for some cool and some warm gals. It’s glittery, but not nearly as glittery as White Rabbit.
    Curiouser/Grifter: Blue-based pink, slightly less pigmented than the others with one swipe, but very layerable. Glittery but not WHOA GLITTERBOMB-y.


    Muchness/X: Peach with strong orange undertones. I can’t see this working on as many people as some of the other shades, but for the people that it does work on — wow.
    Mushroom: Mmm, a brown taupe. Need I say more? Love.
    Midnight Tea Party/Midnight Cowboy Rides Again: Another crazy glitterbomb! I love it, but I can’t see it looking all that great unless it’s layered over another shadow. (The base colour is quite sheer)
    Vorpal/S&M: Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! A true platinum that pulls neither dirty brown nor green nor blue.


    Absolem/Homegrown: A very vivid green, almost like a darkened lime. This would make a great pop of colour with any of the neutrals or gold/peaches in this palette!
    Drink Me, Eat Me/Sin: A peachy champagne in real life, with gorgeous shimmer but no crazy glitter. Very, very versatile!
    Mad Hatter/Twice Baked: This was really the only shade I didn’t totally love; it’s a little warmer than I like my browns, and could easily look “dirty” on cool-toned skin. There’s a bit of glitter in this shimmer finish, but nothing major.
    Jabberwocky/Oil Slick: Very pigmented matte black with great silver shimmer! I always tire of black-with-shimmer shades in palettes, as they’re usually just overdone and boring, but the glitter is chunky enough here to keep it interesting.


    Flipside and Zero: you all know that I love me some 24/7 liners! They’re creamy, stay on quite well, and swatch very true to colour. Flipside in particular is just gorgeous!

    Missed something? Check out the packaging here, and product photos of the shadows and liners here!
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    The Alice Palette — shadows and liners

    Happy Monday, ladies! As promised, more photos of Urban Decay’s Alice in Wonderland palette. Here are the product photos of the shadows, liners, and primer. Make sure to check back tomorrow for your AiW swatch fix, and if you haven’t seen the product photos of the box, click here to see them now :)


    More photos, as well as photos of the insert, liners, and mini UDPP, behind the cut.




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    The Alice Palette — packaging

    Oh, Alice. I don’t care if you’re going by “Urban Decay’s Alice in Wonderland Box of Shadows” or simply “UD AiW BOS,” I love you. But do I love you at $62? No. Not on this no-buy, at least! A friend of mine apparently does, though…

    I’ll stop being the crazy lady talking to my makeup now, I promise! You all asked for them, so here they are… the Alice product photos; many thanks to my dear Katherine. Pan and linerphotos will go up tomorrow, and we will have swatches and mini-reviews for you the next day.


    Check out swatches here, and product photos here!
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    What’s new in the beautysphere; part two

    See part one here.


    Like part one, this is photo and link heavy, so it’s behind the cut! Hide the children (and your wallets,) then feel free to click. I have to admit, I feel a little guilty knowing how many lemmings I’m probably starting. But not *that* guilty ;)

    Note: I noticed the language barrier was causing some difficulties in Part One, so remember that you’re always free to give me a poke! If you’re curious as to what a product is or does, just ask.

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    Make Up For Ever HD Blush

    I thought I’d give you a bit more info on MUFE’s new HD blush, because it’s bound to make it over to Canada/the US eventually… right? RIGHT??! *panics*


    Oh, come on. This is as awesome and sanitary as cream blush gets, of course I’m super interested in it. Unfortunately, I cant provide a review or swatches yet, but at least I can translate that product page and show you images (sourced from the Sephora France site)!

    For starters, the new High Definition Blush is a new release currently only available in French Sephoras, and describes itself as a “Microfinish Cream Blush”. On the site, they’re 25,00€, or $34US… ouch! In each adorable little pump jar, there’s 10ml of product.

    The product page claims, essentially, that the HD Blush is the first creme blush that is easy to apply, sculpting and illuminating in a very natural, “second skin” way. (Oh god oh god oh god WHEN WILL THIS GET HERE?!) And hey, it’s paraben-free and derm-tested!
    They recommend you use it with a 55N brush (a skunk/duo-fibre brush,) applying it lightly in a circular movement and blending it from the temples to the cheeks, or with an HD sponge (marketing PR for a fancy flocked sponge,) with which you’d take a small amount of the blush and apply it very lightly to your skin. They also mention you can use these methods to contour, but rather to apply it from your bone to your temples to create elevated cheekbones, blending and fading it below the bone.

    And that’s it! From the entire internet, this is all the information I can find.

    Is it just me, or does that justify wanting it
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    What’s new in the beautysphere

    No-buy? What no-buy?


    Just kidding… I’ll be sticking to my no (or at least low) buy for a LONG time. That camera wasn’t cheap! In the meantime, these are some more of the new items perking my interest in the beauty world right now. I’m not saying anything about any of them; you’ll have to click on the images to get to the product pages if you’re interested! If you’ve checked out some of these and can either fuel or kill my lemmings, it would be greatly appreciated ;)

    (Just when you thought I couldn’t get any lazier, eh? But in my defence, putting up photo posts takes forever! There’s all that online window-shopping that has to be done first, and of course, the saving of the images…. it’s a hard life.)

    One last thing: this got a bit photo-heavy, so part II will go up tomorrow, and both will be behind cuts!

    Wait. Actually, there are two last things. Some of the links take you to the Sephora France site. Sorry about that, anglophones! They were just too intriguing to pass over; I had to include them!

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    Samples: starting out with fragrances & where to order them!

    There’s one way to start with fragrances that you simply cannot get around: you have to smell things. I have spent countless hours sniffing around the fragrance department, or in some cases, the fragrance wall, but sometimes you just can’t win — certain fragrances will be unavailable to you, but you’ll read about them and lust after them, and contemplate buying “fbs unsniffed,” aka full bottles without smelling the fragrance first.


    There is a page on a makeup site that I cannot mention (the first rule is that you do not talk about it, hint hint — if you know what I’m talking about, you know. If not, you don’t.) about sample sites; I’ve gone through the list and sorted out the ones that are still valid and not obscenely priced. So though I take credit for some of the effort put into this list, I can’t take it all! I am not affiliated with any of these sites, for the record, nor have I ordered from any of them… yet.

    So: here are some sites that sell samples of perfumes. Happy shopping! Just another snippet about that site that cannot be mentioned before we get on with the list; the two most popular place to buy decants for the ladies there are definitely LuckyScent and The Perfumed Court, so take that with a grain of salt!
    Not my image, obviously.
    • Aedes de Venustas — seven 0.1oz glass fragrance samples for $15 shipped, or free with any purchase. Choose the samples yourself from the niche lines that they stock, or they’ll choose them for you.
    • LuckyScent — samples only come in one size, 1/32oz glass vials, and not all fragrances are sampled, but LuckyScent carries many hard to find niche lines. Prices range from about $2-8 per sample, but most are $3-4 not including shipping.
    • Sarah Horowitz Parfums — 1/32oz samples from $1.75 for single-note perfumes (parfum formula) to $3.00 for 1/2oz samples of the Sarah Horowitz crème perfume products. Prices do not include shipping, and I don’t see a limit for the number of samples you can order.
    • Four Seasons — 1/6fl dram fragrance samples; $10 shipped for four samples or free with any order. (They also sample skincare, loose powders, and liquid foundations in 5 gram jars.)
    • Parfums Raffy — glass vials of niche fragrances starting at $1 each, not including shipping. Vials are 1-3ml.
    • The Perfumed Court — various sizes, types of vials, etc, of a ton of fragrances. This is definitely the place to be if you’re looking to buy a large variety of samples! They have everything from tiny glass vials to large rollerball decants.
    • Sage Jewlery — 0.025oz glass sample vials available for $3.25 per scent, shipping additional.
    • BPAL — easily the most popular “natural” fragrance line on the internet, the Black Pheonix Alchemy Lab offers a slew of scents, almost all of which are available in “imps ears,” or simply “imps.” Please see their site for more information!
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    A dove for your skin?

    What it is: Dove’s Sensitive Skin Beauty Bar… is it just me, or does it feel like I haven’t done a review in ages? *sigh*


    The basics: The SS BB (oh yah, acronym me, babyyy) is large, white, and heavy — yes; you read that right! A BB is 120g, but for whatever reason, it feels more dense/heavy than the Pears I grew up with (which is actually 5g heavier per bar.) I’m guessing this is because of the curved shape, which has two other positive effects: it looks pretty, for starters, and it keeps the soap from getting too soggy on the bottom! The SS BB has a light “soapy” scent, which I’ve been informed is from the maltol, an ingredient that is added in very small amounts to conceal the smells of the cleansing agents.

    The important stuff: I know that if I was reading this, I’d only be asking one question: does it live up to that “no soap scum;1/4 moisturisers” PR? The answer is… I honestly don’t know. How the heck am I supposed to see soap scum?! I KNOW I ACT LIKE A GOD, BUT I’M NOT.

    (Oh goodness. I’m sorry — I just can’t seem to stay focused today. This review is 98% hysteria!)

    Anyhow. The BB does feel very moisturising when I use it; it doesn’t give the same stripped-clean feeling that other bar soaps tend to leave behind. (This bugs my sister to no end, though! She just loves that squeaky-clean feeling, no matter how many times I tell her it’s actually bad for your skin.) I’ve used it on my face, hands, and body, and have had no problems with it! The only thing I ask is that a little more lather would be nice — I know, I know, later doesn’t produce cleanliness. But it’s fun!
    The verdict? I’m not going to rave or (excuse my French) shit rainbows about this, because really? It’s a bar of soap, not a gingerbread crêpe. But, for a bar of soap, it’s a good choice for those with sensitive skin. I didn’t experience any irritation or stripping, and it both cleans well and feels lovely. At just under $3 for two bars, I’d definitely pick these up in the grocery store before reaching for something like Ivory! (I personally have never liked Ivory, aside from the fact that it floats. Which is kinda fun.)

    But there’s no way you’d be able to convince someone like my sister, in love with the squeaky-clean feeling, to leave her Pears for a BB!

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    Marc Jacobs Splash 2010

    Each year, the Marc Jacobs fragrance division releases three new “splashes,” available just for the season. Once they’ve sold out, they’re really gone — and I, personally, think it’s a great tactic. Each scent is fresh, simple, and in splash form*; they’re like the super cute t-shirt that you know you’ll only be able to wear for a month before there’s a hole in the thin fabric but buy anyways.

    This year’s releases are Apple, Pommegranite, and… Biscotti!? Needless to say, I’m intrigued and cannot wait to smell these!

    *for those of you who are sane aren’t fragrance junkies: splashes are a very low concentration of parfum extract, made to be “splashed” onto the body (hence the HUGE size of the Splash fragrances; 10oz for about $75CDN.)
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