Treats Box - Epic June 2015

Treats Box is a Canadian Candy subscription that makes my daughter very happy! Until I don't let her indulge :P 

There she is helping me open. 

This is my last epic box - twice the candy of the regular box. I think it retails for about $50, and you can save on mult-month subscriptions. You can gift or order for yourself this monthly candy delight.

Here's my box in full. I'll detail what is in it below.

This is my last Treats Box for the summer. Overall, I think I would recommend them as a gift service. It's fun to get surprise candy! Last month was pretty bad, and most of the candies were not suitable for my family - but that's part of the mystery box game. This month was pretty good and if I have time I'll try to do a cost breakdown to see who came out ahead. 

Have you ordered from Treats Box? How do you get your candy fix? Are you able to balance sweet treats and weight loss?

Five Favorite Collections

I've been pondering what collections would I suggest to someone wanted to expand to something new. These are some of my favorites.

1. Darling Girl Cosmetics: Who Ya Gonna Call?

I love the purples and I was surprised how much I loved the light shades and even the "out of my comfort norm" There is No Dana. It's a great mix of highlight, crease, lid, nuetral and bright. I bought the sample size and wish I would have opted for full. Worth the wait.

2. Glamour Doll Eyes: That's Awkward 

Maybe it's because I still get to be a teenage watching the show, and I can pretend it's clever as it's written by and stares members of MENSA, but I love to get my Awkward on. Some of these are already on the best sellers list. My favorite is of course, New Girl with an honorable mention to Outie 5000.

3. Shiro Cosmetics: Seven Kingdoms
Again, fan girl may have bought the collection (the lid art is divine!) but the girl who wants to be good at makeup loves the colours. Mother of Dragons is an internet favorite, but I'm partial to Salt and Stone, No Men Like Me, Master of Whispers and Maiden Queen. It's a great collection of neutrals with just a touch of brights. This is a collection I would highly recommend even if you choose samples/minis and don't get the artwork.

4. Brija Cosmetics Glamour To Go. This is a super cute, easy to wear "welcome to make-up!" set. I would recommend this to someone who just wants to try wearing something new. The colours are simple, but classic. 

5. Innocent and Twisted Endless Rain. This was the first set that I bought in completion so it hold a spot close to my heart. I love how light these shades are and how well they all fit together. My favorites are 1000 Cherry Trees, and Needs More Lace. The lid art on this set is also beautiful. I want to go back and try several of these again using some of the nicer sticky bases I have.

Honorary Mentions:

Honorable Mentions:

Femme Fatale Cosmetics Spell Weaver. My love for WoW goes to as much depth as these colours. I only have select shades from these (medal for self-control please :P). Any of the five World of Warcraft collections are welcomed gifts. *hint hint*

Hello Waffle Catssic Literature Collection. Just look at that lid art! I have a couple shades from this collection, and I giggle a tiny bit every time I use Call Me Ish-meow. Also check out the seductive Hisster Pryne.

TL;DR I like neutrals, purples, greens and sparkles. Add some cute artwork and you'll hear me squee! In all honestly, I think a great starting set includes a range of complemntary colours, something special and lots of love.

What are your favorite sets? Do you like to amass collections? 

FoTD Friday!

This is a look where I think my liner worked out! :D 

Everything used today.

Inside. Nerdvana all over lid, gryphon in crease (note this didn't stay as well as I would have liked), deep moss on lower lash line. I foiled girl who cried monster and lined/tight lined and water lined. The rest of the products you can probably figure out. I've been using the balm fit to blend out my crease as it's right there and I'm really feeling that tad bit of blending actually gives an overall improvement. I will also use fade to fall for this when I remember. 

And outside. Look at that wing! Almost there. I also want to note in some angles I didn't get that wing at all. 

And there's my face. I'm hoping by forcing myself to post these every so often I can keep a record of my progress and maybe get over feeling disgusted when I see myself; I'm not fond of the extra baby weigh that is still hanging around, and I know that I'm just not a face that anyone would want to look at. 

But what do they say? Something like you have to love yourself before anyone else can?

Aromaleigh order - improved Hydra swatches

Lots of sparkle calls for special primers. Hello glitter adhesive! 

I wanted to see what my aromaleigh looked like with a bit more love. I've swatched my full and mini jars from my first order. Also, I dig the Innocent and Twisted limited edition shade, Quarentine. I forgot to add it to this party.

Jars and sparkles. Karkinos, ekhidna, kraken, gryphon and hydra.

The order you will see left to right/bottom to top.

Glitter fix, primer and bare skin. Karkinos, ekhidna, kraken, gryphon and hydra

Second angle to show the dynamic beauty that is hydra. Karkinos, ekhidna, kraken, gryphon and hydra.

Lastly, blurry for the sparkles. Karkinos, ekhidna, kraken, gryphon and hydra.

Tilt / Shift I want to Believe Collection

I was playing around with my phone the other day, and saw I might be able to add sound to my videos.

This is a test to see if it works (and if it is compatible with blogger).

Shiro Badger Mushroom Snake

Years ago, Shiro Cosmetics came out with a collection based on this. The Badger, Mushroom, Snake consists of three shadows based around the catchy meme. This set is currently on mark-down as it will be discontinued at the end of this month. I know if you read about indies, you have already seen these swatched. But this is for me.

Did you see the lid art? So darn adorable! I've been wondering about these for atleast half a year, maybe more.

Stacked on the side. Colours matching the name of the shade perfectly.

All three are lip safe! :)

Badger, mushroom and snake. Snake was the shade I was most looking forward to. Despite being more sheer than I expected, I do like it. 

The colours tend towards matte, but do work best over this sticky base. On bare skin, the micas were gone almost as soon as my arm touched the counter. 

Here they are a tad blurry. I'm not really getting much for sparkles in Mushroom and Snake. Badger has some nice red particles in it. 

I picked these up as I felt I needed to see them before they were gone (and I needed full size before samples  in case the samples didn't get to my door soon enough). I think Caitlin and Shiro have improved vastly beyond these shades, and I can't wait to see what replaces them. Speaking of that, has anyone checked out the animal crossing trio yet?

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?