Aromaleigh Cosmetics first order!

Aromaleigh is one of the first independent makeup companies, and they have a strong reputation. I hesitated on ordering last year as I suspect I read something discouraging however, I have not encounted anything like the sort since (there was another two companies that are still in business today I also lumped in the "do not order" list in my head). I honestly have only heard good things, and the owner seems very lovely (yet her talk of limited edition shades not selling out makes me sad she might feel unloved and delighted that I have time to choose).

I had not ordered from Aromaleigh this year as her selection is HUGE! It really is a website has hundreds of options are quick to find. I finally jumped in when I saw the promotional swatch on facebook for the newest monthly collection and needed to break all shopping bans to own.

Hello Hydra!!

Shipping was quick, courteously and beautifully wrapped. I picked 1 full size, 4 minis and 6 sample baggies (after hours of combinations, eliminations and budeting-ions). I like to have an idea of what full/mini/samples look like and I swear I saw what might have been a type-o that said the mini of the monthly choice came with lid art as well (it also said they didn't later on the page). I ... did not get the bonus lid art.

But I did get lots of sparklies. :D 

Ummm, I also picked up two blush minis. One from the Hydra set, one from last month's set, Leeshy.

All swatches below are on dry skin in "oooooo, pretties!" need to see now.

Top to bottom: Gryphon, ekhidna, kraken, karkinos.

In the jars. Gryphon, ekhidna, kraken and karkinos.

The names.

Blueblood, pharmakon and hydra. The two large ones are mini size blushes, and the eyeshadow is full size. The lid art is beautiful. So stinking beautiful I probably will upgrade to full sizes in future orders.

Again, jar descriptions.

Just a note that full sizes (and blush mini sizes) come with shifters. Mini eye shadows do not. There was a note on ordering that the new formula contains binders and may be difficult to get through the shifters and you might want to remove them.

Blueblood actually blends out quite nice. You can see it more distinctly in the photo here than in real life. I also like the Pharmakon blush. And that pretty on the right, hydra.

Sparkle, sparkle.

A different angle on the blushes.

Here are all the full sizes and minis together.

On to the samples!

Pitys, cthulhu, chupacabra, krampus. Some of the samples I ordered varied in price up to $.50 depending on the components.

Krampus, Daphnis, password protected, meter matuta. 

The start of my free samples (four this order!): meter matuta, hildegard, nico.

Nico and alix.

And, just because it happened this way, reverse order left to right.

Krampus, chupucabra, cthulhu, pitys

Password protected, daphnis, krampus, chupucabra, cthulhu.

Nico, hildegard, meter matuta and password protected.

Alix, nico, hildegard and meter matuta (my freebies)

Meter matuta, password protected, daphnis, krampus, chupucabra, cthulhu, pitys (my picks).

And a video!

I did find some the shadows online did not match my expectations but I think that is more of an issue of screen resolution. For example, my Aromaleigh website images has chupacabra and cthulhu look nearly identical despite different descriptions. I'm glad I picked both to compare as I didn't expect to see a noticeable difference.

Have you ordered from Aromaleigh? What are your favorites? Do you find yourself ordering the monthly collections? Do you order once per month, or twice? Or wait until a large order is ready in your mind?