Indie Weekends: AFK Cosmetics Christmas in July Advent Calendar Review

AFK Cosmetics announced they would be doing another Advent Calendar this summer for Christmas in July, and that all of the products would be exclusive to the box. And there would be a sample size and a full size option. Once I saw that the full size was only $60 ($5 per item!), I knew I had to grab it! You may remember my review of last year's Christmas 12 Days of IMAM Advent Calendar, I wasn't thrilled with it only because I had quite a few of the items already. But this year everything was exclusive, and the theme was Summer Lovin' inspired by beach days of the 1950's.

About - AFK Cosmetics is an indie cosmetics company specializing in eyeshadow and lip products that are mostly video game themed! Dena is the owner, and she is based in Washington. She recently introduced a few other kinds of products, including mascara and face primer.

Indie Subscription: Innocent+Twisted Alchemy June 2015 Review

I've decided to delay my Hello Waffle Visage review until probably next week. My skin has been on the fritz and I really want to let it clear up before putting makeup on for my look. My Innocent+Twisted Alchemy subscription arrived this month, and I was pretty excited to see another Angelic Powder! And I just loved how the eyeshadow colors matched the label artwork colors on the jars.

About - Innocent+Twisted Alchemy is based in California, owned by Linda, and specializes in eyeshadow and blush. Many of their collections are inspired by anime, but they also have the "Live Or Die" collection which is inspired by the Saw films. IT+A also has a monthly subscription, that comes in sample or full size form.

Indie Subscription: Innocent+Twisted Alchemy May 2015 Review

This month's Innocent+Twisted Alchemy subscription was inspired by the movie Alien, and had quite a few extras I was excited about! It's also I+TA's 4th anniversary! This month's colors were all pretty neutral, but Linda has promised more colors next month.

About - Innocent+Twisted Alchemy is based in California, owned by Linda, and specializes in eyeshadow and blush. Many of their collections are inspired by anime, but they also have the "Live Or Die" collection which is inspired by the Saw films. IT+A also has a monthly subscription, that comes in sample or full size form.

April 2015 Favorites

I'm finally doing my favorites post in the month it's for! I never got around to doing last month's video, but I'm hoping I can get up a combined March/April video this week. April...ah, one of my favorite months. Not only because it's my birthday month, but also because there's still a bit of rain, it's not too hot, it's not too cold, at least here in California. And my favorites this month felt so appropriate for spring.

Indie Subscription: Innocent+Twisted Alchemy April 2015 Review

I couldn't wait to swatch this month's Innocent+Twisted Alchemy subscription after seeing the colors we got! And I love that there were two exclusive bonus samples for the subscribers. I think everything could easily be used in a look together. I can't wait to try that out to see how it goes.

About - Innocent+Twisted Alchemy is based in California, owned by Linda, and specializes in eyeshadow and blush. Many of their collections are inspired by anime, but they also have the "Live Or Die" collection which is inspired by the Saw films. IT+A also has a monthly subscription, that comes in sample or full size form.

Indie Subscription: Innocent+Twisted Alchemy March 2015 Review

My March Innocent+Twisted Alchemy subscription arrived a while ago, but I just got a chance to swatch it all. There were a lot of bonus extras this month, a few from companies I've been meaning to try!

About - Innocent+Twisted Alchemy is based in California, owned by Linda, and specializes in eyeshadow and blush. Many of their collections are inspired by anime, but they also have the "Live Or Die" collection which is inspired by the Saw films. IT+A also has a monthly subscription, that comes in sample or full size form.

Indie Subscription: Innocent+Twisted Alchemy February 2015 Review

The one thing I can always count on my Innocent+Twisted Alchemy subscription to do, is to introduce me to new indie brands. This month, I actually had either tried or heard of every single brand, but it's always nice to get to try before you buy. Plus, the subscription shades this month were so beautiful, and I loved some of my bonus samples as well! And of course the artwork was so cute!

About - Innocent+Twisted Alchemy is based in California, owned by Linda, and specializes in eyeshadow and blush. Many of their collections are inspired by anime, but they also have the "Live Or Die" collection which is inspired by the Saw films. IT+A also has a monthly subscription, that comes in sample or full size form.

Indie Subscription: Innocent+Twisted Alchemy January 2015 Subscription Review

Innocent+Twisted Alchemy's subscription makes a triumphant return for January, after a brief break for the holidays. I was really looking forward to seeing what we would be getting this month, especially after the craziness of the holidays, and sort of checking back in to this subscription, to see how I still liked it. Turns out I love this subscription for a few very particular reasons...

About - Innocent+Twisted Alchemy is based in California, owned by Linda, and specializes in eyeshadow and blush. Many of their collections are inspired by anime, but they also have the "Live Or Die" collection which is inspired by the Saw films. IT+A also has a monthly subscription, that comes in sample or full size form.

Indie Weekends: AFK Cosmetics' 12 Days of IMAM Advent Calendar Review

SPOILERS! I have posted all 12 days of items! Don't scroll if you don't want to be spoiled!

AFK Cosmetics had a brilliant idea along with some of the Redditors over on the Indiemakeupandmore (IMAM) subreddit to create an indie advent calendar that would include little wrapped gifts for 12 days of Christmas! Dena made it happen, but it was so last minute that she could only have 30 of these calendars made. And I snagged one!

AFK Cosmetics is an indie cosmetics company specializing in eyeshadow and lip products that are mostly video game themed! Dena is the owner, and she is based in Washington.

In the rush to get one of 30 of these, I think I and a few others assumed the products would all be exclusive to this calendar. But, the listing for it clearly states that some of the colors would be exclusive, and it would include samples, minis, and some full size items.

Indie Weekends: Innocent+Twisted Alchemy October 2014 Subscription Review

The October Innocent+Twisted Alchemy subscription arrived! It was wrapped so cutely I almost didn't want to open it! If you read my review for this sub last month, I mentioned that October will be the last month of this subscription until 2015. If you missed it, Linda the owner, works retail so she is putting it on hold for November and December, and it will recommence in January.

This subscription is sent via USPS only about 30 minutes from me, but this one took 3 days to arrive because of the long holiday weekend.

Indie Weekends: The Great Indie Potluck Package of Pretties Review and Swatches

This is a very special edition of Indie Weekends, as I received a jam-packed package of indie pretties in the mail, and I'm here to review and swatch everything I received! And I even managed to do a few looks with some of the shadows! I revealed it all in an earlier post which you can find here, and it also includes some more information about our indie potluck.

Warning! Extremely picture heavy post!

Indie Weekends: The Great Indie Potluck Package of Pretties Reveal

This is a very special edition of Indie Weekends, as I received a jam-packed package of indie pretties in the mail, and I'm here to reveal everything I received! I will do swatches and a full review of everything hopefully by next weekend. Let me give you a little back story about this. A few of the indie cosmetics enthusiasts over on Makeuptalk and I, got together and decided to do an Indie Potluck, specifically The Great Indie Potluck!

Our Facebook group banner I made :)

Basically the rules were to spend $5-6/person on indie products, send them to the designated coordinator, coordinator packaged them all up for everyone, and sent them out to us. For instance, there were 9 of us, I contributed my products, and bought 8 of an item I already had, and 9 of other items I didn't already have. It didn't have to be one item for $5-6 either, it was just total. I think a lot of us used that as a way to maximize the awesome! It was free range for what you wanted to buy, but we told our coordinator before we purchased it, just to make sure we weren't all buying the same thing, and we made a Google doc before hand of the products we already had, so that everyone could buy new products for everyone. We decided the rules as we went, and just communicated with each other in our Facebook group we made. It was also decided that any samples that came with the purchase someone made, would go back to that same person.

It took a little longer than expected to purchase everything and receive it all, but I think it was worth the wait! We were missing one of our group members items, because of some unforeseen circumstances, but hopefully I can just include them in the swatch and review post. Our coordinator was awesome enough to send us our packages 2-day Priority, and we just Paypaled her our packages shipping cost. It just arrived yesterday, and I am ecstatic! Buckle in, this will be a long post!

Indie Weekends: Innocent+Twisted Alchemy September 2014 Subscription Review

In my quest to try more Indie subscriptions, I signed up for the Innocent+Twisted Alchemy sample size subscription, and wow does this thing come with a lot of products! There are always three eyeshadows from Innocent+Twisted Alchemy, a coupon code for your next purchase, and then bonuses from other indie companies. There is a sample sized sub ($12/month), and a full size sub ($18/month). It's a recurring subscription, so once you're in, you're in, no having to sign up every month or every few months.

Linda, the owner, only lives 30 minutes from me! Shout out to Linda, who has said she will be putting her subscription on hiatus for November and December because she works retail! I know how it goes, I worked retail for over 3 years, and it's a huge time suck (and even worse now that most places make their employees work on Thanksgiving...). She has said current subscribers can either cancel, or do nothing, and their subscription will just be put on hiatus for those two months. No charge and no subscription, but it should start back up in January. 

And since it was only a 30 minute journey, my subscription only took 1 day to arrive within California, via USPS.

Glamour Doll Eyes June 2014 OTM Review

Glamour Doll Eyes is an Indie pigment company that offers all kinds of beautiful shades of eye, lip, and cheek pigments. They also offer a monthly subscription service, called OTM, or "Of The Month" that includes a limited shadow that's only offered in the OTM. It also includes some extras, usually candy and a few other goodies! I'll include some more details on this at the bottom of this post if you're interested in signing up.

The Glamour Doll Eyes OTM is shipped via USPS, and it arrived in 3 days from Nevada to California.