Darling Girl Darling Deer Christmas 2011

I just recently tried out Darling Girl Cosmetics for the first time about a month ago with their adorable Darling Ghoul Halloween collection, and their Christmas collection Darling Deer is dragging me in despite my no-buy too! This collection is super cute, and exactly what I envision Christmas to be, yet it is really really unique at the same time! These are the preview pictures Susan of Darling Girl cosmetics has posted and I'm sure you all will be as blown away as I am!

Aren't they all awesome!? I'm totally loving White Christmas, Vixen, Rudolph, Holly Jolly, Dancer, Cupid, Cookies For Claus, Comet and Blitzen. If I had to choose just one it would be Comet, look how complex it is! 

Which ones are you interested in? Excited for Christmas/ Holiday of Choice?

New Years Manicure!

Not the greatest picture in the world with crappy cuticles and a large area where a hangnail caught, but the colour is nice yes? The last couple of days have been super hectic for me, we had family visit with my cousins two young children followed by catching my father's cold. Bleh for sore throats!
This colour is pretty darn awesome though for New Years don't you think? I used two of the Wet n' Wild Vixen Mitten holiday polishes The gold with silver holographic bars Donner and the small dainty mini silver holographic glitter Dasher! Plus it's held up so well, show is the morning of day three and no tip wear (to my eyes at least!) and no chips! Pretty good for drugstore polish doncha think?

Hope everyone's New Years rocked! Hopefully the new year will bring wonderful things to all of us!

Shopper's Drug Mart Holiday Special Gifts

I was just a Shopper's Drug Mart (SDM) the other day and they had a bunch of really neat holiday special items out on display. The Quo ones were great especially!

The two shadows by Quo on display

My favourite were the two Holiday palettes of eyeshadows. Though I'm betting they're overspray the detail work is so stunning in gold and of course the underlying colours are lovely looking too! These cost around $13 CND each if I remember correctly. 

Earth Quo Holiday

Mauve Quo Holiday

Top of the eyeshadow cases (with a light reflect from overhead lamp *hand forehead*)

Isn't this awesome!? Magnetic travel brushes you just pull off and switch without having to bring the entirety of your brushes with you on vacation! All a lovely royal blue colour. I'm fairly sure they're all synthetic bristles but I'm not positive so check yourself at the store if you're interested and that's important to you. Cute and practical for $35 CND. And from previous Quo brushes I can say they are decent quality for sure. 

Isn't this kit awesome!? Nail Dryer, Nail buffer/shaper, 9 nail polishes, hand and cuticle cream, and a couple nail brushes as well as a random white pencil. Overall for $20 CND an awesome deal if you're interested at all (though I know nothing about the company and their animal testing status- sorry!)

That's all the cosmetics for now but I saw a bunch of other cute holiday things so I felt I had to include them as well. Enjoy!

The Abominable Snowman and the Dentist Elf

Form the Classic Rudolph movie as a kid there was stuffed toys of a bunch of the characters so cute!

Rudolph and Clairice

Giant Rudolph and the Snowman Narrator

Adorable little Swarovski Crystal Reindeer (Not SDM)

Swarovski Crystal Stockings and Holly

More Swarovski Crystal only Snow people and a Poinsettia 

Wet n' Wild Holiday Palette Swatches~ Review

L-R: Sugar Plum Fairy, Golden Goddess, Night Elf, Snow Sprite

I recently received all four of these palettes as a gift from a lovely woman I met on a chat! Thank-you so so so so much! All four of these palettes are just lovely! Although hard to find and some variation in pigmentation all are great palettes with buttery soft eyeshadow that is either shimmery, metallic or with fine glitter.

Eye Pencils that came with the Swatches

The pencils are kind of hard but are very pigmented and lasted quite well for me. I especially liked the gold in the bronze shade and the purple. 

Snow Sprite

Snow Sprite

This is my favourite palette! And the photos don't do it justice! The lightest beige colour has the smallest sheen of green and the dark blue is really deep and not nearly as black as it looks.

Sugar Plum Fairy

Sugar Plum Fairy

This palette is amazing! A silver-purple, a rose, a rose beige, and a dark-brown that is supposed to be a dupe for Nars Mekong. So pretty!

Night Elf

The red in this is stunning. It's red with red shimmer that isn't noticeable in this picture (or any of the others I took), but it's amazing. And of course the silver is fantastic and the Mac Club dupe is great too! (See down below to see my Night Elf Look!)

Golden Goddess

Golden Goddess

Golden Goddess is stunning in it's intensity but I'm fairly sure its only going to work for warmer skinner women. Some of the coppers in this blow me away in this.

Night Elf Look

Sugar Plum Fairy

Snow Sprite

Night Elf

Golden Goddess

For the price of these and the quality I think they're most certainly worth the hunt to find them! Great pigmentation on the majority of these shades though some of them can be less so and some are kind of powdery and produce fall-out. Overall, really impressed!

Sprite Rating: 8/10- for hard to find and the fallout while applying.

Mac A Tartan Tale Sneak Peak

So for the last couple months, ever since I saw the promo picture for this collection, I've been collecting photos and information like a magpie with shiny things. You've probably already guessed but it's: A Tartan Tale for this Holiday season.

Yep, thats the largest image of the Promo picture I can find. Bleh.
From Prettyaspeaches.blogspot.com

However, being a die-hard lover of my Scottish background, Scottish history and tartan in general (particularly my family one), I feel I have an excuse. 


Here's some of the product names:
Dazzleglass Cream- Radiant Jewels, Soft Dazzle, Gone Romancin', Passing Fancy, Lightly Prancing
Lipstick- Cut a Caper, Deepest Wish, The Faerie Glen, Courting Lilac, Full Fuschia
Pigment- Later, The Family Crest, Moonlight Night
Powder Blush- Her Blooming Cheek (bright medium pink), My Highland Honey (Peach)

A photo of another Promo image (so its bad quality) at the Venomous Villains debut in Taiwan.  This image is to give you a better idea of the actual colours of the palettes a bit as they differ between images.  From http://blog.fashionguide.com.tw/BlogD.asp?Num=25385&from=sn2

From Specktra.net member iheartmakeup. L: Moonlight Night, R: The Family Crest

From Specktra.net member Hergreyness, the centre hot pink colour is called Irish Red.

All three of the above pigments are described as having a smooth texture and a golden shimmer to them. Here are some swatches of them (same source for images as above):

Of these pigments they've been described by Hergreyness as a Glimmery Fuschia (Named Irish Red), a Bronze with gold shimmer and a black base, and a Purple with gold shimmer and a black base. There was another red mentioned as well that wasn't shown.

The blushes (note, I'm fairly positive the dates on these pictures are wrong, these are the correct items):

From Specktra.net member bbgillian. Her Highland Honey Blush.

Her Highland Honey Blush swatched.

Her Highland Honey blush is swatched above on NC25 skin, bbgillian mentions that it gives a lovely peachy glow but would be best on quite pale skin.

Also from Specktra.net member bbgillian, Her Blooming Cheek.

On the other hand, Her Blooming cheek is said to be the brightest hot pink blush we've seen to date from Mac, well pigmented and bright enough for any skin tone.

bbgillian swatch (NC25 skin)

bbgillian swatch of Her Blooming Cheek on hand, blended slightly.

Lip Products:

Gone Romancin' Dazzleglass Cream (Image from bbgillian)

Swatch of Gone Romancin' Dazzleglass Cream (bbgillian)

Cut A Caper Lipstick (bbgillian)

Cut a Caper is described as a candy pink, between this picture and the next you can tell that lighting plays a big part in how this colour appears (I'm quite excited to see it in real life!)

bbgillian's Cut A Caper in daylight.

UK Vogue shows The Faerie Glen lipstick off beside similar colours of other brands.

I'm thinking The Faerie Glen might be a nice Fall neutral colour but that all depends on how brown it appears on me in life.

The Sets (All from Musings of a Muse Blog):

From Specktra.net (Sorry I can't remember who translated/found this information) here's some more information on the sets.  All prices are estimates based off last years holiday sets. The main colours are pink, and tan for these.

• Each Pigment set has four pigments and one glitter vial, last year the price for a pigment set was $32.50 USD.
• Each Lipgloss set has 5 inside, they previously were sold for $29.50 USD
• Each eyeshadow palette has 6 shadows, the only name I can remember is the bottom left one which is called Tartan. They will also have a mini 213 brush with them. Cost should be around $36 USD
• Each Lip Bag will have a Tartan patterned bag, a full size dazzleglass lip gloss and a full size lipstick. Costs are estimated between $22.50 and $36 USD
• Mineral sets will come in the cute tins and contain a full size paint pot, a full sized mineralize eyeshadow, a full sized lip glass and a sample size zoom lash. $59.50 USD
• Each Blush palette has three blushes, a sheertone shimmer, a beauty powder, and a normal blush. $38 USD
• One brush set comes in a cross shoulder strap bag containing a small 275, 212, 227, 190 and 129 brush.
• The other brush set is in a similar tartan cross-shoulder strap bag with a small 209, 219, 252, 168, and 187 brush.
• The eye bag includes, a mini 209 brush, of course the neat tartan bag, a full size fluidline, a full size pigment jar and a sample Zoom lash mascara.

So, I hope you benefited from this, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm truly excited to see more swatches and I'd love to see more photos of some of the lip products (like Courting Lilac). What are you thoughts? Digging the Tartan look?