ScaredyCat Sample Vial Swatches

Now that I've been able to transfer the pigments from my sample vials to 5g jars I can finally do the swatches from my 10 ScaredyCat samples. So without further ado here they are! All are swatched over MAC Painterly Paint Pot and photographed under a mix of natural light and a day bulb. My camera washed out the colors a bit so these are slightly more vibrant in real life than it shows in the pics.

L-R: Caged Canary, Eire, Sakura

Caged Canary: Bright vibrant yellow with yellow sparkle

Eire: Bright vibrant green with gold shimmer

Sakura: Light burgundy red shimmer

L-R: Smooze, Love Stinks, Don't Be Koi

Smooze: Lilac with pink and aqua sparkle

Love Stinks: Bubble gum pink shimmer

Don't be Koi: Shimmering gold with gold sparkle

L-R: Teal Dear, Pink Elephants, Muertos

Teal Dear: Light baby blue duochrome with a gold shift and blue sparkle

L-R: Pink Elephants, Muertos, Dysphoria

Pink Elephant: Pinky purple with tons of pink glitter

Muertos: Rich smokey gray/black with rainbow sparkle

Dysphoria: Bright vibrant blue with aqua sparkle

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Linnaeus Cosmetics

Of all the cosmetics companies I have ordered from, Marin owner of Linnaeus Cosmetics, by far has the highest standard of customer service I have ever seen. From the moment I ordered from her, she made sure I knew exactly what was going on with my order, when it would ship and then letting me know it had shipped. I only wish other cosmetic companies had such a high customer service standard.

Stamped animal on the back of the envelope

I was super excited to receive my order from Linnaeus Cosmetics. I had heard good things about it from various blogger reviews and I didn't wait long to actually order from them. The TAT was excellent. I ordered on Tuesday March 22 and my order was received on Monday March 28 so it took a total of 4 business days.

Inside the mailer

 The outside packaging was the standard yellow bubble mailer but on the back was a not so standard stamped image of what I think is a white-tailed deer. Inside my package was a handwritten thank you note (<3 this!) and a little cotton bag stamped with a jack rabbit and tied with raffia bows and a tag with the company's logo on the front and tips and tricks on the back. I am a sucker for awesome packaging and this is definitely awesome! =)

Ingredients Labels

Stamped lids

I ordered 2 full-size collections from Marin; Lovely Cotinga collection and Green Mantella collection. The Lovely Cotinga collection consisted of 3 eye shadows in Astute, Show Off and Flutter. The Green Mantella collection consisted of 3 eye shadows as well; Brigand, Cavort and Pollywog. When I ordered, Marin was running a special deal of buy 4 shadows and get 1 free so I chose and received Tough Stuff. Also, I received a free sample baggie of Kalahari. All shadows were swatched over MAC Painterly Paint Pot and photographed under a mixture of daybulb and natural light with no flash.

L-R: Flutter, Show Off, Astute

Flutter: Bright blue shimmer

Show Off: Deep dusty purple with red glitter

Astute: Deep purple/red shimmer. To me this shade looks almost the same as Show Off minus the red glitter. Astute is slightly more red than Show Off. I personally would have liked to see a bigger difference between the shades.

L-R: Brigand, Cavort, Pollywog

Brigand: Beautiful emerald green shimmer with aqua undertones

Cavort: Lime green with strong yellow undertones. This seems to be a somewhat pressure sensitive shade as I noticed the harder I pressed the more green it became.

Pollywog: Medium satiny green. If spring were a color this would be it!

L-R: Tough Stuff, Kalahari

Tough Stuff: Dark smokey grey

Kalahari: Gorgeous shimmery champagne with gold glitter

My very colorful arm!

I love all the pigments I received! Each one is incredibly smooth and very blendable. Marin has a very nice range of colors in her shop and it is definitely worth taking a look. Again I cannot say enough about Marin's customer service! I wish all MMUC owners were as amazing to work with! I will definitely be back later to shop with her more!

5 out of 5 Glittery Bubbles

**All products were purchased by me with my own money. I was not compensated in any way shape or form for this review. All opinions are my own. I make it a point not to reveal to the MMUC that I will be reviewing their product so as not to receive any undue favors.

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ScaredyCat Sample Vials

5g jars filled about 3/4 full from the ScaredyCat Sample Vials!

I received my 5g jars from TKB trading yesterday so I decided to pot my 10 samples vials from ScaredyCat so I could finally swatch them all. As I started doing so, I was shocked by the amount of product coming out of the tiny little sample vials! I couldn't believe that those little vials held so much product. Hats off to Kelly because I have no idea how you pack all that pigment in those vials!

Empty vial next to a filled 5g jar!

I don't think I know of any other MMUC that gives such generous samples. So I would definitely say that her samples vials at $1 each are a huge deal! I am now thoroughly convinced that even her 4g full size jars probably contain more than what you could fit in your average 5g jars if you tried potting them in a regular jar. So what are you waiting for? Go check out her shop!

5g jar without the sifter

Can you believe this?!? AMAZING!

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Shiro Cosmetics

Shiro haul!

 Shiro Cosmetics is one of those companies I had again heard about sometime last year but didn't actually get around to ordering from them till now (can you see the pattern here? lol). What I like about this company is their dedication to geekery! Both of their main eye shadow collections are named after hugely popular video games Pokemon and The Legend of Zelda.

Packaging

My package arrived in a small brown box filled with tissue paper and my invoice sitting on top of everything.
My 15 eyeshadows were neatly packaged in a pretty plastic bag with a swirly design on it. I also received a smaller packet in a ziploc bag that contained 4 eye shadow samples, 2 chocolates and a business card.

Samples and chocolate!

I love the cute little labels that Caitlin designed for the Super Effective and Legends collections. The Super Effective labels make the jars look like cute little poke balls while the Legends labels have the triforce symbol. I think this just shows a lot of attention to small details and for me the little details are what make me a return customer. Also, if you have read my previous reviews you'll know that I like when both samples and full sizes have ingredients listed on them and Caitlin has done that with all her products.

Super Effective Collection label

Now, on to the swatches. I'll start with the Super Effective Collection since I purchased 12 eye shadows from this collection. I ordered S.S. Anne, Pikachu, Acid, Wobbuffet, Squirtle, Lance the Dragon Trainer, Mew, Poliwrath, Spiritomb, Manectric, and Clefairy. By accident I ordered two Spiritomb but I guess I can always keep it for a future giveaway.. ;). I also received samples of Zubat, Porygon and Gyrados.

Legends Collection label

I only ended up choosing 3 eye shadows from the Legends collection and now I wish I had purchased more.  I ended up liking the shadows from the Legends collection better than the Super Effective collection. I bought Farore's Wind, Zelda and Zora and received a free sample baggie of Naryu's Love. All swatches are done over MAC Painterly Paint Pot and photographed under a day bulb with no flash.

L-R: Manectric, Poliwrath, Wobbuffet

  Manectric: Sheer baby blue with gold sparkle

Poliwrath: Steel grey/blue with a coppery duochrome

Wobbuffet: Cornflower blue with aqua sparkle

L-R: Squirtle, Gyrados, Spiritomb

Squirtle: Bright aqua with aqua sparkle

Gyrados (free sample): Vivid electric blue with rainbow sparkle

Spiritomb: Purple with reddish undertones and gold/aqua duochrome

L-R: Zubat, Lance the Dragon Trainer, S.S. Anne

Zubat (free sample): Steel blue/purple with rainbow sparkle

Lance the Dragon Trainer: Periwinkle blue/purple with gold sparkle

S.S. Anne: Gorgeous champagne with gold sparkle

L-R: S.S. Anne, Acid, Pikachu

Acid: Bright green with green sparkle

Pikachu: Primary yellow with red sparkle

L-R: Clefairy, Mew, Porygon

Clefairy: Light glittery pink with silver sparkle

Mew: Peachy pink with gold sparkle

Porygon (free sample): Bright pink with a shimmer finish

L-R: Naryu's Love, Farore's Wind, Zelda, Zora

Naryu's Love (free sample): Bright baby blue shimmer

Farore's Wind: Pastel green with gold shimmer

Zelda: Perfect peach color with gold shimmer

Zora: Deep turquoise with aqua/green shimmer

Overall the eye shadows were really good and very blendable. A few of them like Clefairy and Manectric were more sheer than I thought they would be but they are still beautiful. Also I really liked Pikachu but the glitter in them seems a bit too large and and tends to clump around the edges of my swatches. My personal faves are Farore's Wind, Zora, Clefairy, Spiritomb, Squirtle and Lance the Dragon Trainer.

The only complaint I really have was the turnaround time. Caitlin states a TAT of 2 weeks on her Etsy shop but it took over 3 weeks to receive my order. Communication is a bit lacking and my order status was never updated to "shipped" nor was I ever emailed a tracking number so I had no idea when she actually shipped my order.

I do like the eye shadows I received and I will probably order from Shiro Cosmetics again in the future. Just know that their TAT is a bit longer than most other companies I shop with and that you will have to be patient when it comes to receiving your order.

4.5 out of 5 Glittery Bubbles

**All products were purchased by me with my own money. I was not compensated in any way, shape or form for this review. I make it my policy not to reveal to the company I am ordering from that I will be reviewing their product until after I have received my order. All opinions are my own.

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BFTE Cosmetics

BFTE haul

I found BFTE Cosmetics through Facebook sometime last year but never got around to trying them until recently. They were having a spring break sale on their 16 piece sample set last week so I snagged that along with the COTW Sweet N' Spicy and the Peacock Gel Liner I had had my eye on for awhile.

Neon Pink shipping label!

My order was packed in a standard yellow bubble mailer with a hot pink shipping label. An invoice was included with my order and the eye shadows and gel liner were also wrapped in hot pink tissue paper. Inside the pink tissue, the eye shadows were packed in another plastic bag which made for a really pretty rainbow of colors. =)

All 17 eye shadows

One thing I noticed right away that concerned me was that some of the screw top lids were not on very tightly which if they had come off completely would have resulted in complete product loss. The full size shadow  I received had some leakage around the edges. Another thing I was not really fond of was that none of the sample jars had ingredient labels on them. They only had the name of the shadow and the company website one them. Thankfully the full size jar did have an ingredients list on it.

Ingredients label on full size jar

The full size jars from BFTE are 5g jars filled with 1-3 grams of pigment. Personally, 1-3 grams seems like a large weight variation. Every week a new COTW is chosen and full size jars are sold for the price of a sample jar which is $2. I did receive one free sample in a small 2x2 baggie that was stapled to the business card. The sample amount is smaller than most freebie samples I've received from other companies as it was barely enough to swatch. Below are the swatches for all the colors I received. All are swatched over MAC Painterly Paint Pot under a day bulb with no flash.

L-R: Walking On Water, Prissy, Celtic Charms, Emerald City

Walking On Water: Gorgeous light teal with rainbow twinkle. I will definitely be purchasing this in a full size later.


Prissy: Almost matte pink with a hint of shimmer.


Celtic Charms: Dark brown with copper twinkle. I really liked this one as well and would consider getting a full size.


Emerald City: Beautiful light green with gold shimmer. I LOVE this shade! A full size must buy.

L-R: Crystal, Passion, Sour, Iced Violets

Crystal: Opaque shimmery white with rainbow twinkle. Such a beautiful white but I don't know if I need another one...lol

Passion: Medium pink with a violet sheen


Sour: Vivid shimmery green


Iced Violets: Medium violet with purple and aqua twinkle. Another full size must buy.

L-R: Hype, Cornflower, Aloha, Illusion

Hype: Almost matte buttery yellow with satin finish


Cornflower: Almost matte medium blue with satin finish


Aloha: Light pink with gold and rainbow twinkle. I super love this one and definitely getting full size.


Illusion: Black based deep teal with satin finish. Almost reminds me of Hi-Fi Cosmetics Suicide Trees without the sparkle but Suicide Trees is much more black.

L-R: Beautiful, Ying Yang, Karma, Tickle Me

Beautiful:Very light yellow with a coppery pink sheen. Unfortunately it almost matches my skin color.


Ying Yang: Yellow based lime green


Karma: Bright fuchsia with a satin finish.


Tickle Me: Bright turquoise with a satin finish

L-R: Sweet N' Spicy, Luck Me

Sweet N' Spicy: Light peachy pink with low shimmer


Luck Me: Light lime green (free sample)

In addition to the purchased eye shadows I also bought the Indelible Gel Liner in Peacock. I knew that this was a private label product when I purchased it since I have seen other companies carry the exact same thing. This product is not paraben free which you can see by the ingredients label below.

Gel Liner Ingredients Label

I would also consider this a cream liner and not a gel liner. The consistency of this liner is too thick in my opinion to be considered a gel. I have this same liner in 3 other colors so I already knew what it would be like. I just really love colored liners. =)

Peacock Gel Liner

Overall, I do like this company. They are more expensive than some of the other companies I like to buy from. They sell their full size 5g jars for $6.50. At first glance it didn't seem like their colors were very unique but some of them did surprise me. Their shadows are definitely very blendable and the have a very large selection of shades. I also like that their shades (at least the ones I tried, I know they also have the more glittery shades but mine were not like that at all) aren't as glittery and are more "grown up". Don't get me wrong, I love my super glittery shades but I also like those satin finish shades for more subtle looks. I would definitely purchase from them again. If you're looking for a really large color selection and a really large range of finishes I'd highly recommend!

4 out of 5 Glittery Bubbles

**All products were purchased by me with my own money. I was not compensated in any way shape or form for this review. All opinions are my own.

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Antoinette's Revolution Cosmetics

My first ARC order!

I found Antoinette's Revolution Cosmetics (ARC) through several other friends who did reviews and blogged about them. This company is run by Racheal Hels who is very pleasant to work with. ARC has an official launch date of May 1st but they have opened up pre-launch ordering in order to help them finance their official launch.

The back of my cute little Thank-You card.

My order was shipped in a yellow bubble mailer and  the shadows were in a ziploc bag wrapped in blue tissue. I also received a handwritten Thank-You card which I thought was a really nice personal touch! All the jars were individually shrink wrapped and with sealed sifters which again I really appreciated.

My order excluding Marie and Liasons

I ended up ordering 10 of their fulls size jars; von Forsen, Damask, Icing Collection Pink, Liasons, Icing Collection Purple, Majesty, Gardens, Dauphin, Marie and Musket. At the time I ordered, Racheal was out of Liasons and Marie and she had stated they would not be back in stock for a few weeks. I told her I was fine with waiting till she had everything in stock even though she offered to send out what she had available first and the other two later when she had them again. A week later she emailed me again letting me know that due to a screw up with her suppliers, Marie and Liasons would be another few weeks later than originally stated. She was generous enough to go ahead and ship the in stock items along with another freebie full size jar for all the trouble and would ship me Marie and Liasons as soon as they came in. 5 gold stars for customer service!!

LOVE these labels!

All of the eyeshadow jars had these cute company labels on the top and an ingredients label on the bottom. What I really like is the ingredient labels tell you specifically if they are not safe for lips. With the amount of eye shadows I own I would never be able to remember which were lip safe or not.

Ingredients Label

 So without further ado, here are the swatches for my ARC collection. All shadows are swatched over MAC Painterly Paint Pot and photographed under a day bulb with no flash.

L-R: Icing Coll Pink, Majesty, von Forsen

Icing Collection Pink: light pink shimmer. I think this is similar to MAC shadows with satin finishes.


 Majesty: an almost matte deep plum base with a hint of purple glitter.


von Forsen: navy blue with blue twinkle. This is seriously the most gorgeous navy I currently have in my collection. LOVE IT!

L-R: le Dauphin, Musket, Icing Coll Purple

le Dauphin: rich mustard yellow shimmer.


Musket: steel blue/grey with blue twinkle. Very unique color.


Icing Collection Purple: light lilac shimmer. Again similar to MAC shadows with satin finishes. Another fave.

L-R: Gardens, Damask, Pomp

Gardens: almost matte grass green base with green twinkle



Damask: medium teal with aqua twinkle.




Pomp (my freebie): bright orange with orange twinkle



Final thoughts:

• Superb customer service
• Great concepts for company and product names
• Very smooth almost creamy feel to the eye shadows
• Very highly pigmented
• I recommend!

I will post swatches of Marie and Liasons when I receive them in a few weeks as well!


5 out of 5 Glittery Bubbles


**All products were purchased by me with my own money. I was not paid in any way, shape or form for this review. All opinions are my own.

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ScaredyCat Cosmetics Review

ScaredyCat Cosmetics Haul!

I found this company through a FB fan page "The Eyes Have It". I saw people on there discussing ScaredyCat Cosmetics and decided to check them out. I checked out their Etsy shop and HAD to order based purely on the look of their product. I have never seen another makeup company with such unique packaging. The full sizes come in triangle shaped 3g jars and the samples come in cute little vials. I ended up ordering their 10 sample vials for $10 as well as their 6 full size jars for $25.

The packaging was very well done

Right off the bat I have to say I am SUPER impressed by the TAT. I placed my order on March 18, it was marked shipped on March 21 and I received it on March 23! The packaging of the order was also quite impressive. My order was shipped to me in a plain oblong white box which was stuffed basically to the brim with tissue paper and paper shreds. My 6 full size jars were nestled in the paper shreds and the samples were each in an individual ziploc bag and all 10 placed in a larger ziploc.

Top-Bottom L-R: Draconia, Rose Gold, Nevermore, Chakra, Unicorn Breath, Keltoi

For the 6 full sizes I ordered; Draconia, Chakra, Unicorn Breath, Nevermore, Keltoi, Rose Gold. Some of these I chose purely for the sticker designs on the jars... =P Each color has it's own unique label design which I believe was designed by the owner Kelly! I really love how much thought is put into each label design. All of the jars had their individual ingredients labels on the bottom.

Top-Bottom L-R: Keltoi, Chakra, Unicorn Breath, Rose Gold, Draconia, Nevermore

All of the swatches were done over MAC Painterly Paint Pot and photos were taken under a day bulb with no flash.

L-R: Draconia, Chakra, Keltoi

Draconia: This is a beautiful aqua green with aqua sparkle. I had expected this one to be more towards the blue side than the green side though.

Chakra: Very vivid bright purple with aqua sparkle. It looks really blue in the picture for some reason but it's actually a true purple. I couldn't capture it correctly.

Keltoi: Awesome olive green-gold. I LOVE this color it's one of my faves.

L-R: Rose Gold, Nevermore, Unicorn Breath

Rose Gold: Lovely rose color with a golden sheen. This is also another one of my faves. An absolutely gorgeous color.


Nevermore: Deep navy with blue twinkles. This reminds me a star-filled night.


Unicorn Breath: Opaque pearly white. It's the perfect shimmery white.

L-R: Draconia, Chakra, Keltoi, Rose Gold, Nevermore, Unicorn Breath 

A one major thing that I noticed right away about the full size pigments was the size. These things are pretty small. I know that the listing states a 3g jar but I guess I had expected the jar to be somewhat larger than it was.  One thing I had read from a few other reviewers is that they didn't like the salt shaker sifters on these jars. I personally am ok with them as long as I don't sift too much of it out but I understand why others may not like it compared to regular sifters. These sifters can be removed in any event.

For comparison, the pink jar is a 10g jar.

Salt shaker sifters

For the 10 sample sizes I ordered; Pink Elephant, Eire, Teal Dear, Caged Canary, Sakura, Don't Be Koi, Dysphoria, Smooze, Muertos, Love Stinks. Each vial came in its own plastic baggie and each baggie was labeled with the color name and list of ingredients (gold star for ingredients on samples!). I'd definitely recommend dumping the samples either into the baggies they came in or small pots because the vials are too tiny to fit a brush. I will post swatches of all these samples at a later time in a separate post as I am waiting for my pots to be shipped to me to make it easier for swatching.

All my little sample vials!

Vial in the baggie with the name and ingredients label

Customer service in my case was non-existent but that was mainly because I did not feel the need to contact Kelly on any particular issue. All general questions can probably be answered by checking out her Etsy shop and policies. I would have liked to receive a shipping notice email but the Etsy status was updated promptly when my order was shipped so it wasn't that big a deal.

Overall I do like the pigments as all of them are really smooth and highly pigmented. I do think they're a tad more expensive than most other MMUCs as their full size 3g jars are $5 where most MMUCs sell their full size 5g jars for $5. I guess partly what you're paying for is the super cute packaging! I do recommend this company and would buy from them again!

**Edit 3/25/2011 11:30am I received this information from Kelly regarding the amount of product in the jars. "A note about the sifter volume: When deciding on my price point I based it on the weight rather than the volume. I use a shaker table to settle and pack the powder into the cylinders. This causes the product to be very densely packed. The r...esulting weight is usually 1.8-1.9 grams (some slightly lighter and some heavier depending on the ingredients). When researching prices, other companies' flat 5g sifters contained between 1-2.2 grams by weight.

Thank you for pointing out this concern. I should probably emphasize the weight and density in my listings... maybe put together some other photos so people have a better idea of what they are getting. :)"

4.5 out of 5 Glittery Bubbles

** All products were purchased with my own money. I was not compensated in any way, shape or form for this review. All opinions are my own.

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