this is not a makeup blog.

04Nov09

I’ve been somewhat obsessing over makeup lately. Which, if you’ve met me you probably think is funny, considering I don’t even wear it on a day-to-day basis. Don’t get me wrong, I love wearing makeup–some of it anyway. I love eye shadows and glosses and lipsticks. I don’t like foundation. Rather, I have very little experience with it, and find traditional foundations to be too heavy for me, so I rarely wear it. (I am, perhaps, doing it wrong. But then again, I’ve never actually purchased foundation.) If I’m going to apply a base, it’ll most likely be some powder, or perhaps this weird mineral veil thing I have from Urban Decay. (I do, however, moisturize pretty much religiously, and won’t even bother buying a moisturizer that doesn’t have SPF in it anymore.) But I don’t wear it on a day-to-day basis. Mostly because I’m lazy and don’t leave myself enough time to apply it in my morning routine.

I’m starting to give thought to trying to wear makeup on a more regular basis. Like, every day. Or at least more often than I am now. I have a lot of it, so I’d like to get more use out of it. Especially if I’m going to keep buying it. And considering all the gorgeous shades of eye shadow available, I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon.

I’ve begun exploring mineral makeup and checking out some smaller companies who produce mineral makeup the past week or two. I started when I found Aromaleigh (thanks to Emilie Autumn, who wears her colors). I placed an order with this company a week or two ago. When I visited the site, I fell utterly in love with the look featured on the front page, which was luckily available as a kit. So I bought that, as well as a limited edition shadow and a large selection of samples. I love that most of these makeup companies sell samples of their product, for very reasonable prices. It helps take the sting out of purchasing online, where you can never quite tell if your monitor is showing you the truth, even with the swatches many folks feature as well. Seems like almost all of them offer free shipping if you only purchase samples as well. I feel like this is a sound business plan.

I’m thinking about maybe writing some reviews of what I like and don’t like about this new thing I’m doing. I’m not going to turn this into a makeup blog, simply because I plain don’t know enough about it, and because I’ve got too much other crap to write about. That, and there are already a plethora of wonderful makeup blogs out there to peruse; I’d much rather keep my ramblings broader than that. But an occasional review might pop up. Especially of the smaller, less well-known companies.

I love spreading the word, when I feel it’s justified, about little companies that are producing good products. I also like that many of these companies produce very eco-friendly makeup, and several produce almost entirely vegan cosmetics as well. Which is, yanno, cool. And the majority of them seem to place an emphasis on customer service, which is something else I feel is a very good thing. I’ve had too much customer service training in my past to be able to accept shitty customer service as a rule instead of an exception.

So that’s what I’m thinking I might do. Start playing with the makeup I’ve got on a more regular basis, and write about some of the crap I’ve got and what I think about it. Maybe, if I can find decent light in the house, I’ll even take some pictures of what I come up with and post them.

Off the top of my head, in the way of bigger brands, I’ve got lots of Urban Decay, a few MAC eyeshadows, several Too Faced things, a bunch of random drug store brands, and some stuff from Avon and Ulta. Mineral companies wise, I’ve got the Aromaleigh, as well as a number of shadows from Mixology Makeup.

Mixology was my first foray into mineral makeup; I discovered her through Etsy. I really like her stuff. I’ve signed up for a second round of her shadow of the month club. How’s that for awesome—I get a new shadow every month for 9 months! (There are several available levels to the club.)

Maybe I’ll do a look with that stuff and post it soon, do a short review. Is anyone interested in this sort of thing?

Some of the companies I’ve been looking at recently but haven’t ordered from include: Fyrinnae, Dreamworld Cosmetics, Morgana Minerals, Sweet Libertine, and Meow Cosmetics, as well as a couple others I’m probably not thinking of right this second. I haven’t purchased from most of them as of yet, so I can’t give any opinion (yet). I actually just placed orders for a few things from both Morgana and Meow, so I’ll be able to talk about those soon, too.

I’m trying to get more into color. It’s always sort of intimidated me. I tend to go for more muted tones, in general, so I’m trying to branch out, and mineral makeup seems to be a great way to do that. There’s so much variety! I am looking into brighter colors, more interesting colors. Reds and blues and deep purples and things of that nature.

In short, I’m sunk, and I’m taking you with me.

 

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Tags: aromaleigh, Emilie Autumn, makeup, meow cosmetics, mineral makeup, morgana minerals, new stuff, samples