Darling Girl Giveaway! - Closed

October brought us Breast Cancer Awareness month. Along with that, was a collective beauty blogger effort called Team Pink Eye to help raise funds for Susan B. Komen for the Cure.  Many companies graciously offered their products to be used in weekly giveaways.  One of the donors was, Susan from Darling Girl Cosmetics.  She created a limited edition shadow that could be purchased, or won.  I had the amazing luck to have won her giveaway two weeks in a row.  I talked with Susan about doing a giveaway to bestow the LE shadow onto someone who perhaps missed the opportunity. 

Below is a swatch of "Twin Peaks" LE 2011 BCA shadow by Darling Girl Cosmetics.  It is an absolutely beautiful shade.  A low-sheen plush shadow with glitter and a slight gold sheen.  The glitter looks like a very fine periwinkle color to my eyes.  The shadow looks very lavender like in the jar, but the character comes out depending on how you apply it. First is a light application blended, the second is bare but much heavier and the last is over Pixy Epoxy.

In addition, Susan offered up five deluxe samples of her spectral shifts. From her webstore "Spectral Shifts are silky, sheer multipurpose shades that can be used as eye shadow, face highlighters or depending on your complexion blush. Don't let the colors fool you. Most of a shift that makes them very wearable."

Mystique is a gorgeous robins egg blue with a delicate pink shift.
Morbid Angel is an oddly pretty highlight shade. It's a smokey lilac taupe with a just the barest hint of green iridescence.
Haze - Beautiful taupe with violet shift and purple and red iridescence.
Ramblin' Rose is a gorgeous ecru with a delicate red shift.
Little Miss Sunshine is a gorgeous buttery yellow with the loveliest red shift.

I recently found these cute little lipstick rounds from Jane Cosmetics.  There seem to be about 4 varieties of them.  Taffeta (warm corals/peach), Satin (cool pinks), Brocade (reds) and Leather (mixed).  I picked up a couple extra of the Satin and Leather to toss in with this giveaway.  I really love these little things.  They make it easy and quite inexpensive to try different shades.  I am still trying to hone my lip selections - and these are just great - plus they have that cool compartment underneath them to store the brush with mirror.

On the left is the Satin collection, the right is the Leather. I swatched the Leather collection first on bare skin, it didn't turn out as well  The Satin which is swatched over Rock A Betty's  "Stay Put, Already" color-locking lip serum. I intend to reswatch Leather over the RABB lip serum. The Leather collection is now swatched over RABB's serum.

That leads us to the most exciting part of this post.  All of these items are up for grabs. This giveaway is open to participants in the US and internationally, unless prohibited by law.  The approximate value of the prizes is $20.00 US.

This contest is open from November 30, 2011 - December 23, 2011 at 11:59pm EDT.

Feel free to leave more than one memory/comment.  All these special memories remind me of many I cherish - I'd love to hear any and all of yours.

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Review: Psyche Minerals

Several months ago I ordered a voucher from Heartsy, for Psyche Minerals. This was the second order I had placed with her. The first several months prior. I received my package perhaps two to three weeks after placing the order. This is not unusual when you order from a Heartsy voucher. I received New Age Glamour, Enterprise, Hopper, Arrowhead and Mochi. The items arrived, well sealed in a bubble package.

Mundane Details:

• Eye shadows come in 5gr jars with a false bottom - this results in less product than a conventional 5gr jar (some say about the same as a 3gr jar), with sifter for $6.00, samples are $1.00 and hold at least 1/8 tsp in a baggie.
•  I received a business card, all product was placed securely in a muslin bag.
• My jars did not have the ingredients listed, They were listed on a business card. The shadows have handwritten labels. 
• Shipping is a base of $2.60 US and .05 for each additional item. It is unclear if she does any international shipping.

Originally her Etsy listings said "full size" for the shadow size, but did not reveal the amount of product.  I noticed tonight that her listings now say 5gr jar, but do not mention the amount of product.  The jars that she used for my first two orders are essentially the same size as a 5gr jar, but the false bottom limits the amount of product that it holds.  Overwhelmingly, the standard is a 5gr jar (no false bottom) with about 1gr of product.  This translates to about 1/2 tsp of product, US.

Her Etsy store has many swatches as the product picture, but I have come to find out, many of those colors are no longer available.  I was told due to an unfortunate flood in her basement, which resulted in the loss of the recipes.  Frankly, I can't imagine why anyone would leave photos of colors that are no longer available.  If the issue is photography, there are several competent swatchers out there who could fit the bill.  

She has been in business now for about 1 year.  That is plenty of time to create a logo and to start using printed labels.  I think that it looks amateurish - using handwritten labels and handwriting the ingredients on the back of your business card.

She is really very nice, and after realizing that she was going to discontinue one of my favorite shades, she agreed to hold onto the remaining product for me.  I have never had any issue getting an answer from her via a convo.  Her customer service seems fine.

I really like the product.  All of her colors adhere to bare skin, and really come alive when applied over  primer.  New Age Glamour is one of my favorites. Arrowhead is a dream shade for The Ohio State University Buckeye fans.  A silvery gray with red glitter - it doesn't get much better than that.  She seems to discontinue shades for a variety of reasons, there's something unsettling about loving a shade and wondering if it will disappear with little notice.  I'm not really sure if that is even a rational fear, but it is a bit worrisome.

The golden question, will I purchase again?  Yes, I need to get more of a few colors.  I would like to see some of these anomalies addressed and to have her move into a more professional arena.  

The teeny tiny fine print: All opinions are my own, no matter how ridiculous. I did not beg, borrow or steal the products that I reviewed. I purchased them with my own lunch money. Honest and semi-coherent reviews are the way to make a distinction between great companies who hand-formulate their products and those who take mica - repackage it, slap an organic/all natural tag on their products and call themselves a mineral make-up company.  Honesty is my policy, even if I hurt a few feelings along the way.

Have you purchased from Psyche?  What are your experiences?

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Chrome LE Collection - Dawn Eyes Cosmetics

Recently, I was given the opportunity to swatch and review the newest LE Collection from Dawn Eyes Cosmetics.  I really love this company.  My heart is where all the glittery goodies live, and nothing is more beautiful to me than an eye shadow full of sparkle.  The Chrome LE Collection is a set of 15 metallic shades that start out with a silver base and come to life thereafter with various shifts and color combos.  These shades are frosty and shiny, no glitter. They have excellent adhesion with or without primer.  


As you can imagine, their bold pigmentation lends them more as a full color shadow and not so much for highlights.  You can apply anything lightly to use as a highlight, but these shades are anything but sheer.  Capturing the color shifts is difficult, but I hope that you are able to get a feel for each shade with the picture along with their description.

#1 - Blue to gold to green.

#2 - Pink to Lavender to blue to green.

#3 - Green to pink to lavender.

#4 - Coral to lavender to bright green.

#5 - Lavender to pale orange to blue.

#6 - Light blue with traces of lavender.

#7 - Medium blue undertone, purple mid-tone, pink/gold overtone.

#8 - Bright pink overtone, deep fuschia undertone.

#9 Bright Copper (much more coppery than photo shows)

 with a rose overtone and a green/gold undertone.

#10 - Fawn undertone with brilliant blue/teal overtone.

#11 - Fawn undertone with brilliant green overtone.

#12 - Medium blue undertone with golden overtone.

#13 - Light blue to lavender to bright pink.

#14 - Light bright pink/lavender to copper/orange to coral.

My favorite is #12, it's a really beautiful shade of blue, not sky blue and not navy - more of a steel blue but more blue than gray.


The 15th shade was developed after the samples were sent out.  Black Chrome which is a bonus shade added to the collection.

Disclosure: Samples were provided for consideration.  Please see my policy on disclosure.

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