Antoinette's Revolution Cosmetics

Yay! I finally received Marie and Liasons from ARC! Racheal was out of those two particular colors when I first placed my order with her so she said she'd send them out to me when they were available again. In addition to my full sizes of Liasons and Marie I received a free sample of Guillotine. So without further ado here are the swatches. All are swatched over MAC Painterly Paint Pot and photographed in natural light.

L-R: Liasons, Marie and Guillotine

Liasons -  This is a gorgeous bright pink with bright pink sparkle.

Marie -  One of the most beautiful baby blue colors with a slight gold shift and pink sparkle. This is a very light blue which unfortunately looks almost white in this particular picture. The pink sparkle also was hard to capture in pictures or at least in the lighting I had available to me.

Guillotine -  Extremely bright red with red glitter. If it weren't for the red glitter I think this would a true matte red.  It's probably the brightest red I have ever seen!

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Anderson Soap Company

Whipped Soaps and Lip Balm

I decided to order from Anderson Soap Co. (ASC) because of a deal they had on Heartsy.com. I paid $15 for a $35 voucher for ASC. Lately I've been in love with the whipped soaps from Savor so I decided to give the whipped soaps from ASC a try. My order arrived wrapped in bubble wrap in a flat rate priority envelope. I was a bit surprised that the whipped soaps themselves weren't shrink wrapped but the lip balm tube was. I ordered 4 whipped soaps in Cotton Candy, Peppermint Patty, Waterfall and Intimate Romance. I also ordered their luscious lip balm in Watermelon Patch. My order total ended up being exactly $35.75 and ASC was kind enough to waive the remaining 75 cents for me! =)

Cotton Candy Whipped Soap texture

The texture of the soap itself was amazing! They are really soft and creamy and feels almost like a lotion. The scents are also really nice and light. The candy scented ones were a bit stronger and really sweet. I really liked Peppermint Patty because it smelled exactly like a York peppermint patty. Cotton Candy was too sweet for me and I wasn't a big fan of it. Waterfall has a really light clean scent and is perfect for the guys as well. My favorite out of all of them was Intimate Romance. It smells very similar to Victoria's Secret Love Spell and that particular scent is one of my VS faves so having it as a whipped soap is awesome!

Luscious Lip Balm in Watermelon Patch

I already know the lip balm is going to be one of my absolute favorite lip balms after having tried it a few times. The scent reminds me of Watermelon Jolly Ranchers! The best part though is how this balm feels on your lips. It has a really soft texture which glides on your lips like a dream. It might be slightly too shiny/glossy on the lips for a guy to wear but for me it is perfect. This balm has pretty good staying power on the lips as well and doesn't disappear completely for a couple hours even through eating and drinking. I'm beginning to wish I had ordered more of the lip balms instead of all the whipped soaps!

Customer service in my case was non-existent. It would have been nice to receive a shipping confirmation email but my etsy status was updated to "shipped". I do understand that at this time things might be a little crazy for the people over at ASC due to the high volume of sales from the Heartsy.com sale. TAT was pretty quick all things considered and I think I received everything in about a week to a week and a half . Overall I highly recommend this company and checking out their products!

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.

PS Sorry if this review sounds a bit rushed! I have a large backlog of items I want to finish reviews for at the moment. =)

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Persephone Minerals Review

Persephone Minerals Haul

I decided to purchase from Persephone Minerals thanks to the review and swatches by Phyrra on the Sailor Senshi collections. I really loved the swatches of the crystal power shades so I ordered all the crystal power shades plus Moon Prism Power and Sailor Moon.

Pretty little packaging

I placed my order on March 29 and my order was marked shipped April 4 which falls exactly in her TAT of 5-10 business days. I received my package on April 7 so it took slightly over a week to receive my order which is not bad at all. My package was shipped to me in a standard bubble mailer and my shadows were enclosed in a pretty gold organza bag with 2 samples, the ingredients list for all the shadows I ordered as well as my invoice.

Product packaging was very simple and plain. The jar lids had a silver sticker with "Persephone Minerals" on the top and the bottom of the jar had the shade name and collection it was from. All the jars were shrink wrapped which is definitely a good thing in this case since there were no sifters in these jars.

Shrink wrapped jar

One thing I didn't like was that the ingredients are not printed on the labels on the jars. Instead I received a half sheet of paper with the shade names and the ingredients in each one. While I am glad that I received a list of ingredients, I would rather see this type of information printed on the product labels because I will probably end up losing this piece of paper in the near future. The samples did not have any ingredients listed.

Ingredients list

I also was not a fan of no sifters in the jars. I personally prefer sifters as it just helps to prevent product loss especially when I have butter fingers. I do however understand that not having sifters in these jars allows for more product to be packed into them and these babies are definitely packed full. I am debating whether or not I want to repot these into my own 5g jars with sifters.

3g jar packed full

Ok so on to the swatches. I have to tell you right off the bat, these babies are hard to photograph. I must have taken like a million pics and these were the best I could come up with. I will have to try photographing them again later in direct and indirect sunlight outside sometime as these I took in the evening in my bathroom because generally that's the only time I have to play with makeup. All are swatched over MAC painterly paint pot. None of these pics do ANY justice to these shades which is so sad because these are super amazing in person. I'll repost swatches when I have the chance to redo them but at this point I really need to get this review up since I have a rather large backlog at the moment.

L-R: Jupiter Crystal Power, Venus Crystal Power, Moon Prism Power

Jupiter Crystal Power - light green with a gold shift.

Venus Crystal Power - orangey yellow with a gold shift

Moon Prism Power - off-white shade with a pink/violet shift

L-R: Mercury Crystal Power, Moon Crystal Power, Sailor Moon

Mercury Crystal Power - light baby blue with a gold shift.

Moon Crystal Power - gorgeous medium pink with an orange/gold shift. So much brighter in person than in this photo...ugh. This is seriously an amazing shade. One of my faves.

Sailor Moon -  Lovely coppery/gold shade with green, blue and red glitter. Again, freaking amazing and not done any justice by this photo.

L-R: Free Samples of Chara Mystical Highlight and Toffee Iced Coffee

Chara - a light peachy pink shimmer meant to be used as a highlight. Personally it seems a tad too light for my skin tone to be used as a highlight.

Toffee Iced Coffee - an almost matte coffee brown shade. I personally did not like this shade as it did not seem to blend very well. I had a hard time getting a clean looking swatch with it. Also it's not a color I could wear very well either.

Gorgeous shimmery goodness

This gives a better idea of the gold shifts in the shadows

A better idea of the true shadow colors

Hopefully my bad pictures do not deter you from purchasing from Persephone Minerals because seriously they are some of the most beautiful and unique shadows I own and that is saying quite a bit considering the current size of my collection. I will definitely purchasing from Persephone Minerals again in the future and hope to one day own the entire Sailor Senshi collection!

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. All opinions are my own.

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Epically Epic Soap Company

I saw a couple other beauty bloggers rave about Epically Epic Soap Company's solid lotions so I thought I would give them a try. I ordered their sampler set of 5 mini solid lotions. The CS was pretty good I thought. Allison, the owner, sent me a convo letting me know she had received my order. I did not receive a shipping notice but the Etsy status was updated as soon as it was shipped. I placed my order on April 1 and received it April 7 which I thought was pretty quick as the stated TAT on her website is 2-4 days to create and package and then an additional 3-7 business days for shipping.

I really liked the packaging of the products. They arrived in a plain brown box tied with a raffia bow and their business card tucked under the bow. It would be the perfect little gift for someone! The sample tins of solid lotion were also really adorable. The scents I ordered were Blue Bell Knoll, Summer Nights, Married to the Sea, Lily of the Valley and Mango Lychee. My faves are Married to the Sea and Mango Lychee.

I have never used a solid lotion before so I wasn't really sure what to expect when it came to the texture of these lotions. I sort of expected the texture to be similar to potted lip balm or MAC paint pots but that wasn't the case at all. This was really solid and I had to really work my finger in it to get a decent amount. This is not something that would work well for using on large areas of your body. The initial feel is a bit greasier than I usually like in my lotions but once it's absorbed it's great! This is the PERFECT moisturizer for your cuticles.. I've been putting this on my cuticles before going to bed and they have never looked better. =) It's also great to use as a spot treatment if you have dry patches anywhere.

3.5 out of 5 Glittery Bubbles

** All products are 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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Darling Girl Cosmetics Holo-Glosses

Darling Girl Cosmetics Mini Haul

I have previously ordered from Darling Girl Cosmetics so this is not my first purchase from Susan.  She reopened her shop on April 1 after having been closed for about a month because she was moving. I definitely jumped at the chance to order again as I had had my eye on a few things she released while her shop was closed.

Nicely packaged order

I placed my order on April 1 and received my package on April 6 so the TAT and shipping was pretty quick. My order was shipped in a standard yellow bubble mailer with the invoice which I always appreciate. In addition to the 3 lip glosses I ordered I also received 2 samples and her free gift with purchase (GWP) 3g eye shadow which she includes with all orders over $10.

Ingredients list on a sample

Her product packaging is simple and cute. The samples had full ingredients lists on them and from past purchase I know that the full size jars also have the ingredients listed on them also. I was a bit surprised that the lip glosses didn't have the ingredients listed on their labels. However, each and every item she lists in her shop have the ingredients in the listings so you know exactly what is in them before buying. The GWP also did not have any ingredients listed on the packaging.

Free Gift With Purchase of $10 or more

I ended up purchased three of the holo-gloses; Goldfinger, Peaches and Wish You Were Here. These glosses come in little 3.5mL tubes with doe foot applicators and are the perfect size to throw in your purse. All of these glosses have a sheer,  lightly tinted base and are filled with amazing multi-dimensional glitter. I posted a picture of my bare lips to start as reference.

Bare Lips

Goldfinger - nude base with iridescent gold and copper glitter

Goldfinger

Wish You Were Here - medium pink base with pink and gold glitter

Wish You Were Here

Peaches - frosty peach base with red and copper glitter

Peaches

In real life, there is more of a difference in the colors of these glosses than I could capture on camera.  I love the feel of these glosses on my lips. They are not sticky at all and are pretty long lasting on your lips. It's also nice that these glosses don't really feel gritty considering the amount of glitter that is in them.

L-R: New Beginnings, Dapple, Azalea

New Beginnings - Deep royal purple with red and gold glitter

Dapple - Silvery beige with silver shimmer

Azalea - Bright pink bush with a hint of shimmer. This can be rubbed down to a beautiful pale pink on your cheeks.

I really love Darling Girl Cosmetics and would recommend them to anyone. Susan is a doll and her customer service is excellent! She has a pretty large range of beautiful eye shadow and lip gloss colors. I also like the super cute ideas she has for her different collections (Hello Kitty and All the Pretty Little Horses to be specific). I just placed an order for 3 more of her holo-glosses (yes I do like them that much!) as well as the petite sizes of the entire Hello Kitty collection so stay tuned for those swatches!

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 a point not to disclose I will be writing a review for a company to anyone until after I have received what I ordered. All opinions are my own.

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My First Blog Award!

Yay! I received my first blog award last night! Melly over at Cracked Nails and Black Eyes gave me The Versatile Blogger Award!

7 things about myself:

1. I'm getting married May 14, 2011 to the love of my life!

2. I have been a ballroom dancer, tanguera and dance instructor for about 4.5 years and I LOVE it!

3. I love love love getting packages in my mailbox and sharing them with you. (like the two I got today!)

4. I have a B.S. in Biology/Chemistry with a minor in Forensic Science. I have worked in a crime lab as well as for a county coroner's office...CSI does NOT come close to real life.

5. I am a gamer. I have logged over 1000 hours on my account in Guild Wars. Sorry I won't go over to the dark side of WoW. =P

6. After my wedding I'm planning on going to school to become a licensed esthetician and professional MUA

7. I was a gymnast for about 10 years until I grew too tall (I am now 5'7").

Tagging!

The three beauty bloggers I'm passing this on are:

1. Amanda at The Eyes Have It
2. Sara at World of a Different Color
3. Amanda at Glitter and Toucans

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Not Makeup Related

The cute shoe box my shoes arrived in!

 Ok so this post has nothing to do with makeup but I just had to share! I'm getting married on May 14, 2011 and I found a woman named Deborah Thomson who owns a company called Figgie Shoes in Canada. She custom designs and hand paints shoes for weddings and special events. I saw her work on a wedding blog and I HAD to have a pair for my own wedding.

My amazing shoes!

 I started the process of having my shoes custom designed by her in mid January and I finally received the finished product in the mail yesterday! I was absolutely blown away by the stunning work she did for me. Every single piece of artwork on these shoes is meaningful to my future husband and I right down to the embellishments and scroll work. P.S. these are shoes I bought and sent to her to be painted. You do have the option of purchasing the shoes from her or shipping her shoes you purchase yourself. Anyways, enjoy my pictures!

Our names... <3 All the flowers that are drawn on these shoes will be incorporated in the wedding decor.

Our wedding rings

Lily of the Valley - his birth month flower

CSU Chico seal/mascot representing the place we first met. The phrase "Dance With Me Forever" is engraved in our wedding bands.

The Forever Friends bear he gave me on our first Valentine's Day together.

This caricature is taken directly from a photo that a friend took of us on the night we were engaged.

On our first date we went to Red Lobster and Starbucks. The date of our first date is written on the coffee mug.

Gir, from our favorite cartoon Invader Zim. He was also featured in our engagement shoot.

I had to sneak Hello Kitty in there somewhere =P Plus she is prominently displayed on my garter.

Gladiolus - my birth month flower

Tango shoes I wore the night we were engaged.

Our wedding date. The scroll flowers around the date are present on our invitations.

Caricature of us and our dog Gromit taken directly from one of our engagement photos.

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