xarata’s Neighborhood

Yipee!

Confetti war is absolutely gorgeous magenta purple with blue n pink shimmer accent!

Only disappointment is that stomp the pixie is not what i intended to get or saw from the pic =( thought the pic looks like its a gorgeous powderblue for a flower kinda.. But still, itself is nice!

buddha kiss is like mint ice cream! Chasing whimsy looks strawberry napoleon ice cream kinda, warm enough and won't make my eye look swollen =D

Contemplating to buy back up jars of confetti war and chasing whimsy, since i'm sharing this jars with pinkapple.

Oh talking abt pinkapple, if i didn't drop her a msg to update the status of tss pkg, i wouldn't know that i will be receiving a half surprise pkg from her tmr! Damn i spoilt the excitement hahaha!

Half surprise cos we've discussed about this a while back, so i am aware of the pkg, just dunno when x)

Nonetheless, i'm so gonna smile to bed tonight with the ice cream look alike tss colors and sweetest pinkapple =D

:: Tss autumn ::
Top left: buddha kiss
Right: stomp the pixie
Bottom left: chasing whimsy
Right: confetti war

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ETA no.2:  egminerals has said that they're working on speeding up the loading.  I really appreciate that they're making an effort to make things better, and hope it happens soon!  I was just trying to open the lippie page and have waited more than 15 min already.

Recently I did a lil packing of my mmu collection.  As I've mentioned, I'm not really an mmu addict, but as I was trying to organise everything, I found I had soooo many samples!  And I'm not even including foundation samples!  So I must at least be an mmu SAMPLE addict lol.  I have many eyeshadow samples and a few full sizes of similar shades/families... blues, purples, taupes/greys/blacks, browns, plums, pinks.  And a ton of blush samples!  I mean how different can blushes be??  Why do I need to keep buying different brands and different (or similar, depends on how u look at it) pinks, peaches etc.?  I'm also happiest merrily buying samples from companies who don't use carmine, silk, pearl, so I can just pick whatever I want without having to check ingredients or email them to ask.  I'm very grateful to those companies who do use carmine/silk/pearl in their blushes, e/s, so I will not buy from them and can save lol.  I have not tried on many of my samples, or even bothered to swatch after receiving them :((  Bad bad girl, I really must stop.  Those samples priced at $1 or so just seem so affordable that I tend to buy too many, but they can still add up to quite a bit of $$$ spent.  I really should clear them out, sell them or raok or something, but I'm just too lazy to do that.

So despite not needing any more makeup, I was looking at eyeliners recently, and kept coming back to pencil me in eye pencils.  I visited the site a while back and their ingredients list was as below:

“Pencil me in” cosmetics has added natural ingredients and blended botanicals like Green Tea Leaf Extract, Pine Bark Extract, Grape Seed Extract, Lecithin, Shea Butter, Cacao Butter, Jojoba Oil, Wheat germ oil, and Safflower seed oil. It also includes Vitamins A (Retinyl Palmitate), B2 (Riboflavin), B3 (Niacin), C (Ascorbic Acid), Vitamin D and Vitamin E (Tocopherol). 

Notation: The formula does contain beeswax.

I noticed it was not a complete list, so I wrote to the owner (Linda) to ask if it contained carmine or had any other animal ingredients apart from beeswax.  Beeswax is still acceptable to me, but not carmine.  It took awhile for her to get back to me, but she did, apologising for the late response as she was a one-woman show.  To my joy and delight, she said there are no animal ingredients in there apart from beeswax, and there's no carmine!  Yay!  Finally I can buy me some pink and purple 'vegetarian' eyeliner without carmine!

I couldn't decide what shades to get, then I noticed they had a link to Enkore's review where he swatched all the shades =D  Note that he said they don't contain beeswax, but they do.  I have read some mixed reviews on CoastalScents site in the past, so I'm not sure how good these pencils are.  I know Moosie has gotten a brown one recently from... is it Beautiful Girl Minerals?

I bought Snow, Pink Lady, and they have a buy two get one free offer, so I got Amethyst!  They're 6.99 each, so it's 3 for 13.98, plus postage for First Class International: 

Within US:

I'm not sure how long this offer will last, but I just checked and it's still on.  When you are on the cart page, click on the first

Enter the user name and password, which is Internet for both.  Then choose your free pencil shade!  I don't think the second offer below this, which is 20% off, is as good a deal, nor do I know the codes for that offer.

Yesterday, I finally placed an order at Earthen Glow Minerals or egminerals.  After being tempted by all the great reviews everywhere, the final thing that got me to order is when I read that once you've sampled foundations from them, they will work with you and send you more foundation samples for free till you find your shade.  How does one resist such an offer?  Their samples are pretty cheap, the Get Acquainted Kit has 3 foundations, 1 blush, 1 finishing powder at $3.50 in baggies or $5 in jars (with a free baby buki, but I recall Inan said it's scratchy??), no limit to the no. of kits you can get, and international shipping is $2.50 for below 32 or 31 or 30 (forgot which).

Gotta complain that their site is so slow it's a pain to order.  And the product photos on their site... I depended completely on recommendations from their CS when choosing foundation shades, and as for the blushes and e/s, I can't really tell what the shades are like and the descriptions are mostly not detailed enough.  I spent a total of $32.50 after discount, using the 20% discount code VOX20.  Nooo, it was not 30 dollars of samples!  I did have two lippies in there.  And I tried to limit my blush and e/s sampling as much as I could already haaaa!

ETA:  Just noticed they have a November special going on:

NOVEMBER EYES

We are pleased to announce the Specials for the Month of November, The November Eyes Month. 

Every order over $25.00 will receive a free eye shadow.  Simply select any single eye shadow from our extensive collection and name it in “customer comments”, we will include it with your order. (The Illusion collection eye shadows are excluded from this promotion).

Every order over $50.00 will receive two free eye shadows.  Simply select any two eye shadow from our extensive collection and name them in “customer comments”, we will include it with your order.  (The Illusion collection eye shadows are excluded from this promotion.)

Every order over $100.00 will receive three (3) free eye shadows including: any kit or from any collection.  Simply select any 3- piece eye kit or any three single eye shadow from our extensive collection and name it in “customer comments”, we will include it with your order. No Exclusions on this offer.

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Late last summer, the SoCal Beauty Bloggers were a-buzz with this new little store in Alhambra, Ca.,called Melody's Makeup Outlet. What made it special is that it carried MAC, Urban Decay, Too Faced, Smashbox and all sorts of prestige brands that you can only find at Sephora or Ulta. What made it even better, is that Melody's is a discount outlet, so prices are considerably cheaper than they would be in any of the finer department stores. That said, please don't expect to find any of the current collections or l/e, it probably won't happen. I first went in probably the first week in August, after they had been open a couple of weeks. I wished then, as I do now, that I had brought my camera with me. It is so pink and cute and girly....all the products set out so nice; just waiting to be played with. ( I should mention that for some of the items, especially the MAC, there aren't testers, since there may be only a few in stock of those particular shades) 

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On that visit, the owner Melody was there, and she helped me find a warm neutral MAC lipstick shade. I also bought a TooFaced pallette. Since I mentioned one of the blogs I heard about Melody's on, I also got a 10% discount.

Well, anyway, I have been wanting to go back for ages, but just haven't had the time/money/company/excuse.....

Thursday morning, one of my new buds and I finally made the half hour trek down to Alhambra, and got there 10 minutes before the store opened. The owner arrived about 10 minutes late, full of apologies, but we were so entranced with all the goodies, we didn't even mind. My girlfriend was just flabbergasted with joy......she found this one Foundie she's been wanting for YEARS, and all sorts of stuff up to nearly a hundred bucks!

I took pics of my entire haul. I got the :MAC 2007 holiday eyes collection......Royal Assets-Metallic Eyes

                                                        MAC lippies :Neo Sci-Fi-Delity

                                                                            :Mellow Flame

I also got Smashbox *The Mini* pallette-it does the *perfect* smoky eye, and nude mouth.

When we got to the register, Melody actually remembered me, and where I had come from. I teasingly asked her if the discount still applied, and she laughed and said it was over, BUT, she went ahead and gave both of us the discount on our purchases! How classy is that!  I told her that I'd be sure to give her a shout out on my blog!   

I know a lot of YouTubers have done some fabu vids about Melodys, so hook us up with some links!

MELODY'S MAKEUP OUTLET

11 SOUTH 2ND ST.

ALHAMBRA, CA. USA

91801

(626)281-7707

TTFN,

Laurie 

Edited to add: my entire haul, including 10%discount and 8.75% Ca. sales tax came out to about $67.85 

I've watched so many youtube videos where they do a rainbow eye look. Always thought to myself... wah... so difficult...

Anyways, got really bored sometime last week I think... can't remember now... so went through my book of colors and pulled out a yellow (Moonlight and Miracles),a pink (Halos and Horns),  a green (Make Believe), a blue (Electric Lust) and a purple (Twisted Psychic).

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Here's what I came up with... all with Monistat as a base. Highlighted with Snowcapped. Tight lined with Enemy Mine. No Mascara

I may just try this again soon ^^

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This is going to be a very short post. The photo to the left is a stock photo of a very pretty kitty that looks just like my kitty Chevy that I had to take to have put to sleep yesterday. She was 12 years old, and very sick, and me, my DH and our vet made the decision it just wasn't fair to let her suffer any longer. We rescued Chevy along with her two females littermates in March of 1997, and we have had the three of them as our beloved housemates since. Lucy and DJ, her sisters, keep wandering around the house meowing, wondering where on earth their sibling is. We know know she is in Kitty Heaven; but it will take a while for the pain to lessen. Thanks for your support, my friends.

I met a local Doctor this summer as I did the Farmer’s Market and now I’m going to do gifts for all her nurses and staff.  I’m excited.  She was here today, blew through like she’s on some kind of “fast forward” but she liked my ideas and my work and she ordered twelve, so I’m tickled.  Plus she paid half down.  Yeah baby!  The cash is a big help right now, let me tall ya!!  And will be as long as I’m the annoyed owner of two houses!

The idea I pitched her was a candleholder with candle from my hand painted art glass collection.  Then three bars of soaps that match, plus a coordinating bag of my herbal spa soak.  So the ladies can light their candle, draw an herbal bath to relax plus three matching bars of soap that will last quite a while.  And they will be in white bags with matching tissue and ribbon!  All for $25, and completely hand made and all matchy-matchy by me.  I think they will be marvelous!  I’ll be making them over the coming days and as I do, I’ll post photos.

She has a running joke with a friend who eats everything in sight – especially chocolate - so she also bought a collection of my gourmet soaps plus the edible fragrance guest bars for that friend.  I wish I could be a bug on the wall when that gift is unwrapped.  LOL!

I did corporate gifts for an office at GE for a few years.  They like to do handmade artisan stuff and I worked that process to get two years out of the deal.  Usually they choose an artist and then a new one the next year but because I work in a variety of media, I was able to do it twice.  They spend $70 each year – KaCHING!  Seriously, I love this kind of thing.  I totally get all jazzed when people like to give my stuff as gifts!  Plus, it was fun to send my art glass to different countries all over the world.  United Arab Emirates, Japan, France, Germany, etc…  yeah baby! 

Anyone else want in on this?  I’ll be happy to make corporate gifts for anyone else who needs them!  The woman at GE that I worked with just made her Christmas cards and sent them to me, picked from images I emailed her, then her assistant gave me the credit card number and that was all she had to do.  Done!  I created the gifts, packaged them along with info about me, included her Christmas card and shipped them out.  Yeah, that was fun!

Check out my website and then email me with your price range and number of folks you want gifts for and I'll email you a list of options to choose from.  It's fun!  And it's another thing off your list!  I love my job! 

I have been working hard on my organizational skills. I have troubles with that because I am both left and right brained. When I take those tests, I get a 50/50 split- so I am not 100% organized Type A personality but also not 100% flighty "artiste" personality either. I've been like this for as long as I can remember. I remember my mom complaining about my room being a mess day to day but then I do this major cleaning/organizing fairly routinely-- just didn't put everything back in it's place every day. LOL.
Now after 40's years I've gotten better-- mostly I think because I buy stuff so that I can be more organized- like the tackle box for my MMU-- it forces me to put my mmu back because otherwise there's a glaring hole. Being married/ gaining "mom" title also forces one to be more organized. Married--- I have to put DH's clean clothes back in the same place or else I'll get "Where's my...? " way too early in the morning. Kids are naturally unorganized so it forced me to be more organized to make up for their chaos... if I'm not organized it could be frantic time right before the bus because one of them can't find something. So as a household manager I've gotten pretty good at that after over 15 years of this added duty.
 So I've spent a lot of time working on organizing my MMU business recently- trying to streamline things. I found that several of the foundations are so very close to each other that it is redundant to have both. M1R, M2R and M1 are so close that I am now only carrying M1. N1R and M2 are also the same-- so I will only carry M2. That way it makes things a little more simple when helping someone find their match. I also found a couple of colors that I have to recreate the recipe for- when I first made some of the colors, I wasn't very good at documenting each dash, pinch and smidgen so some of the recipes are just wrong. *shakes head* Then I've found that I have labels and no colors to go with them *shakes head again* The two sides of my brain definitely battle things out when it's a very artistic endeavor like MMU and yet need to be a bit Type A to make it work as a biz. So I am trying to identify my shortcomings and rectify that. I know some of the "blame" is due to getting a better mixer which made the colors seem very different to the naked eye but in reality was just a matter of mixing process.
Also I have found that I need to update my Dayna's Minerals blog very much so with these deleted (redundant) colors and also add quite a few. Now there are Lori and Cori-- lighter versions of the Tori foundation that was ldlredhen's request for her winter match. There's Deena 1 and Deena 2 that I've added for a friend who needed a darker match. Peeger, a darker version of Peeg was also requested. E (hopefully) a winter match for our FaceFab. Lighter versions of listed foundations by request-- Peeg Lite, LG2 Lite, Lili Lite. Ultra light versions of foundations UDL (ultra Dayna Light) and UNBL (Ultra NBL) per requests. I am also thinking about doing an UPeegL (ultra Peeg Lite) There's also New Sue (which needs a little tweaking) to add for those olive undertones. There's NYL1 color per request-- a darker color along the lines of G2. Because of my issue with mixer change-- D3, D4 and Q have come about-- so I need to add those.
You know on this blog that I've added colors in the blushes-- Purfection, Loca Mocha and Polka Dot but need to swatch/compare for DM blog- I also want to make a few more blushes so I may hold off a bit.
Yesterday I worked on a new product for DD. She was loving the color of this Botanics cream eye concealer (did fabulous job on hiding dark circles) but she didn't like the creamy formula-- her mascara would run/smudge even after she'd powder. So I made her Apricot Dreams- apricot in color with light reflecting aspect to give the look of getting a good night's sleep. She actually only needs it later in the week-- when she gets less sleep due to early school days by about Thurs. the dark circles sometimes appear. I am also thinking of doing a couple more versions of this- one with the light reflecting quality in a yellow version and whatever others I feel like whipping up.
I still have a bit to go to root out all my issues and sort through them but I am working on it. Also in the works are a blond brow color per request, a couple of foundations to tweak and I'd like to expand blushes- I feel some more glows coming on because you know how I love glow. I am also planning on selling samples of blushes. I get loads of requests for samples in blushes even though officially I don't do them so I think it's a good idea to add the blushes in sample size. It's not like I have that many more blushes than glows-- so doing samples for blushes seems reasonable at this time. At first I really was so busy just getting my head around things but it's becoming more second nature on some of the things so I am ready to take that little step towards serving my customers more fully. I am slowly but surely getting my head around all this-- definitely not forgetting to document recipes anymore!

This is just a simple, natural eye with a deep smokey liner-