Recently, Revlon have dumped their 12-hour eyeshadow line in favour of a bigger, better, badassier collection of quads that last sixteen – count them – sixteen hours. The quads come in a fairly boring range of shades, with one exception being the “Inspired” quad, which is a mix of greens and blues. I initially picked up “Inspired”, as I love me some greens and blues, but something told me to just hold the phone and try something different. I heard on the Internets that taupe is all the rage, so with that in mind, I picked up “Siren” instead, which is a mix of grays and a hearty taupe.

As soon as I saw these quads, I wondered just what they meant by 16 hours. Are they suggesting that the shadows themselves, with no primer or base, will stay in put that long? Or are they counting on the fact that people use primers? Because if it’s the former, colour me impressed. To really test their words, I applied the quad as directed by their handy dandy diagram on one eye with primer, and the other eye without primer. Jump below the cut for more.
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In addition to pondering the wonder and beauty of music, I sat down to consider what I loved most in the beauty world this past year. Not all of these products will be new to this year – many of them are just new to me. And in some cases, we have old tried and true favourites. Either way, this is a list of things that have found a permanent place in my 2011 routine.

BEST BRAND

In any makeup brand, there are going to be things that are phenomenal, and things that just leave you feeling heartbroken and confused. I love e.l.f., but some of the products are utter crap. I love MAC, but the collections this year have been extremely boring and, I’ve heard, lacking in quality. Wet n’ Wild make fantastic polishes, but I just cannot understand the obsession with their eyeshadows (save for the Comfort Zone palette, which is ten kinds of awesome). But the one brand that I can purchase anything in and pretty much know that I’ll love it is Urban Decay. Primers, shadows, glosses, you name it. The only thing that I’ll hold against this brand is the lipsticks. I’ve yet to find one that I really love. I’ll leave the lipsticks to MAC, I guess.

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Happy 2012, y’all! Hope your new year’s celebrations went well. We spent ours indoors, making merry and playing Monopoly, as seems to have become something of a tradition for us. I don’t know about you, but I rather enjoy being boring. It’s very restful.

With the new year, I bring you something new. Or, at least, it’s new to me. A while back, I was searching Etsy for some good whipped soaps with a woodsy fragrance for Kev. The winter months tend to play hell on our skin, and while I can easily nab some good moisturizing body washes from work, his fragrance options are really quite limited. He’s been stuck using Bath & Body Works Sea Island Cotton Creamy Body Wash, the poor chap. He likes it just fine, but it’s not exactly masculine.

My search ended at PurplecatCreatives. Initially, I was drawn by the beautiful amber packaging with whimsical product labels. I’m a sucker for great packaging. Then, when I saw PurplecatCreatives is based right here in Kentucky, I committed myself to make a purchase. I browsed their fragrance library, and decide to make a small sampler purchase to test the fragrances. I purchased mini sampler body butter jars in Dragon Butter, Raven’s Blend, Pumpkin Macchiato, Twilight Gypsy, Woodland Amber, and Redwood Grove.

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Hey all! How we livin’? I’ve been keeping an eye on the Happy HAULidays Giveaway, and I must say, I’m mondo-impressed at the dedication some of y’all have! There’s still plenty of time to enter if you haven’t already, so hop on over and give it a look-see!

Lots of silence on my part here on the ol’ blag, but you know I have the same old excuses. Work, school, etc-a-blah. Don’t feel bad, though. I haven’t even had the time to do my laundry, much less blog anything. Stanky. I do have quite a pile of things to swatch and review, and I expect I’ll be able to start working on that once the semester is over, in a few weeks. But for now, as I have a little bit of time before work and nothing major to do beyond put some uniform-like clothing on, I’ll show you my mini-collection of Revlon Lip Butters!

Read more and view swatches below the cut!
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Sweet merciful something, I’ve been a bit absent. Classes started back on Tuesday, and I have been clocking quite a few hours at work, which means I don’t have much time to spare for blogging. This isn’t going to ease up until after the new year, but I’ll still try and pop in as much as possible.

So we have something new to talk about at Bath & Body Works. C. O. Bigelow have unrolled a new line of Lip Butters in Mango, Shea, Cocoa, and Coconut. Though I only own one (Mango Butter), I have managed to try all four, and I can tell you, I love these.

These lip butters come in round, plastic screw-top containers. I think the packaging feels somewhat cheap, but it’s not a big turn-off if the product inside is good. Each container weighs in at 0.3 oz of product, costing $7.50 per piece (or $5 each if you B2G1 free at Bath & Body Works). Each lip butter contains shea butter, mango seed butter, coconut oil, and cocoa seed butter as their primary moisturizing ingredients, but are flavoured differently to highlight each beneficial ingredient.

The butter itself is mildly waxy, but applies smoothly with a very mild stickiness. The stickiness subsides within minutes, and settles into your average balm consistency. One application of lip balm lasts about two hours – very good time, considering how much I have to talk at work.

Each of the butters are sweet and fragrant, which is fantastic for all but the cocoa butter, which smells rather… rotten. It tastes fantastic, but I can’t get beyond the smell of that particular butter. I will most likely wind up buying the Shea and Cocnut butters later on – so I have to figure out what to pick up as my B2G1 freebie! Maybe an upcoming giveaway item? Hmm!!