Swatches, Tests and a Sneak Peek!! :D

So I am very sad to say half of my lovely package with my supplies got lost in the mail... YAYYYYY... not really. About $100 worth of ingredients, labels and containers went POOF apparently... sigh.

Either way! I started testing these a few weeks ago, and I'm happy to say about 75% of them are fully finished, some need a bit more tweaking, but I felt like I'd give a small sneak peek of what I have been working on ;) I'm still no Fyrinnae, but it's not too bad as far as I can tell. I also have named most of them.

From Bottom to Top:
Linkshell
Antoinette
Pills Here!
Archduchess
20 Sides
Karwee
Droids
And Unnamed! I need to fix that one!

Not toooo bad, but some need a little more work to be less... boring in my personal opinion. They're nice... but they're not amazing :) I want amazing, or at least unique! But I still have time, I think the only two that are fully done are Karwee and Antoinette, Pills Here!, as well possibly :) Linkshell could use a bit more work and the unnamed one is far too similar to Droids to be any sort of use to me. 20 Sides in the picture looks so lame... but in real life @_@ It's my favvvvvvvvvve.

ANYWAYS! So, a small test. I used UDPP for the day to see how well Karwee would hold up, since it's my last venture on this one.

This is Karwee on the lid with Droids on the outside blended into the crease, I did it pretty quick since I was running late for work. From here to the end result is about... 12 hours, 10 of work and 2 of driving. Twas also rainy and grossly humid outside, which is PERFECT weather to test.

And this is when I got home, not too bad I have to say. It looks a little creased in the middle where my lid kinda closes, but other than that it was pretty damn good for a 12 hour day! :D I give it a 7/10! Everything can always be improved!

Victorian Disco Cosmetics - My Venture.

For too long have I looked and bought from different indie companies around the internet, from personal sites to Etsy to just people in my own town, and every time I bought... I seemed to buy from different companies for different reasons. Oh... this product is complex and gorgeous, this product is named after some geeky awesome stuff, this product is girly and gorgeous, this product is neutral and nice for work, etc etc etc etc ETC. It's always something that reels me in and keeps me there. Well... why not do all of that in ONE store?

That's what I've been working on for the past year, slowly building up to this... opening my own shop. A shop where you can look on one page, find bright colors, another page, find neutrals, one page indulge in your nerdy fantasies (girls, we know you play, don't lie.), one page to indulge in your love for girly lace and frills. Sparkly funtimes with extra awesome pushed into each product. It's taken me a LONG time to get to this moment... and I can't say I've ever been more excited or proud of myself. I have no idea how well I'll do... but I've got my foot in the door already on some sites, which will help. My friends have been constantly helping me improve my formulas, and they are just as critical as any customer will be to me, I've made sure to ask them to be. I don't plan on sponsoring YouTube gurus or anything, seems silly to me. I'd rather have my product loved for itself and not for one person liking it, though it would help business, for me it's not about the money and never has been.

That being said... I WILL be doing trials. Which means for the first few weeks it's opened, people who would like to be trials will be sent some products I pick out based on the trial's answered questions, all I ask in return is a review via either YouTube or their blog, linking back to my Etsy profile/Facebook page. This will help the product get it's foot in the door, and would help me greatly as a business woman and shop owner. I expect every review to be HONEST, I want to know where I can improve, where my weaknesses are, as well as my strengths. Now, after the initial review, I will send you a product evaluation to send back to me, and as well after the review if you feel you would like to try more products, feel free to at a discounted price as a thank you for helping me out. I will provide a coupon code when you message me back with the evaluation sheet, not bad eh?

Now, that being said from November 1st, 2011 to November 10th, 2011 I will be looking for trials to get email addresses and once the products are ready and the shop is opened (looking at around December 1st - December 10th as of right now) you will be sent a DC# to your email address you signed up with, and you will be sent a small package filled with some trial samples to try and review for me.

Interested in being a trial?

;) Darn straight you are.

Please fill out this questionnaire, and send it to VictorianDiscoCosmetics@gmail.com, from there you will be sent a confirmation and if you have any other questions feel free to ask. International girls are welcome to trial as well!

-Name:

-Street Address:

-City:

-State:

-Zip Code:

-What color eyeshadows do you normally wear (neutrals, brights, earth tones, etc):

-What color eyeshadows are you interested in the most when you buy from Indie Companies?:

-Do you prefer complex/simple/glittery/matte eyeshadows?

-Do you use a base with your eyeshadows?

-Do you pat/rub/blend your shadows in?

-Victorian Disco... sounds like a crazy disco Marine Antoinette doesn't it?

-What other Indie companies do you buy from?

-Do you have any allergies to mica/glitter/ultramarines/dyes/waxes?

-Do you believe in Vegan/Cruelty Free products?

If you have any questions to ask me you can throw them in the questionnaire.

Disclaimer: ALL products are made in a smoke-free, pet-free environment, by myself with non-latex plastic gloves, eyewear, hairnet AND respiratory mask on a clean wax paper surface with sterilized stainless steel tools. ALL products that are vegan are stated, and ALL product are cruelty free... unless you count me as a cute kitten, because then... yes, I do test all my products on myself before they are mass produced by myself. Please if a product is stated as not lip safe, do NOT spread it on your lips, I will not be viable for your reaction, all products that are lip safe or not WILL be written on the label.

Thank you girls! You're my inspiration and my friends!

Death Note Collection by Shiro Cosmetics!

I apologize for the larger photos... but blogger would not upload these for some reason.. kept giving me internal errors.

Yay! My Shiro Cosmetics order came in :) And as you can tell... I'm super duper excited in my video. The colors are absolutely gorgeous, and everytime I look at them I keep kicking myself for not knowing about this brand sooner!

I mentioned in the video about how I can be a very big prude when it comes to buying eyeshadows online, mostly because I can never truly know what they look like in my eyes until I see them swatched on MY skin. So having the option for samples like Shiro Cosmetics has is an amazing quality, especially since they are only $1. This way, I can choose my favorites depending on how well they wear and how vibrant they are on my eyes. So far I've picked out three I will be ordering full sizes of from this collection and I'm still working on the Super Effective collection!

Absolutely amazing, keep up the great work Caitlin!

My Rendition of Zipper Face

I saw this awesome video awhile ago while searching through latex videos and found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ju9MGtbRu4

Needless to say... I knew exactly what I was being for Halloween this year, but sadly... I work on Halloween... so I decided to dress up for my friend's costume/birthday party!

Totally digging my hawk btw.

Basically... what I did was I painted a zipper with liquid latex that was close to my skin color, I used some Ben Nye Liquid Latex and some Halloween store junk... which btw if you're going to do this... try to use the Ben Nye stuff, or any better latex, the Halloween store stuff was very thin and hard to use. Then I let the latex sit, and then did my hair, I just used Big Sexy Hair hairspray and teased up the middle then pinned the sides up and teased those as well so they would stick up like a mohawk. I didn't do the back part though, I just kind of let it lay down to make kind of a Native American Mohawk type hawk since the bottom part of my hair is VERY long compared to the top part of my head.

Then I applied the latex zipper from my forehead, to my chest with Spirit Gum, then I applied my regular foundation all over the zipped and latex with some concealer too on darker parts of the latex. I then shaded in my nose with MAC Carbon and near where shadows would be for my face. Then I applied Carbon to my eyes, well.. around my eyes, then I applied some purple shadow from my 88 palette onto my dark circles to enhance them and make me look tired and icky. I also applied those colors to the zipper and some parts of the latex and under my lips and such. Just played around with the colors a lot to make it look dark and icky. I then used Ben Nye blood and spread it pretty much anywhere I could think of.

I also spread the blood onto my shirt, because I'm supposed to be zipped all the way down. Loved this and I'm looking forward to doing more :3

Drag Night!

Went out to Drag Night with some friends, let me tell you... gay men know how to party @_@ A lot harder than I ever have... haha, by the end of it I felt like mush and was all sweaty and gross and of course they all looked amazing! So anyways, in honor of bright makeup and fun times, I ended up doing this look: which I took the idea from my plugs which on one side are a gold/blue and the other is a teal/copper with a orange/red gradient lip look using Shiro cosmetics.

See the plugs?! Aren't they just divine? :3

Anyways, so basically what I used on the lid was I primed with Urban Decay Primer Potion, then I used Half Baked (Urban Decay) on the lid and in the crease, then I cut the crease with Carbon (MAC) and shaded it up into the brow bone. Then I applied Electric Eel (MAC) to the spot where the shading met the brow bone, and then used Deep Truth (MAC) underneath, and then a teal color from my 88 CS Prisim Palette. Blendblendblend, and then Gesso (MAC) right under my brow bone with some NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk under the Gesso. Then I used Fyrinnae's Pixie Epoxy over Half Baked, and applied MAC Reflects Antique Gold Glitter, and Reflects Transparent Gold over that. Under the eye I used the same shadows I used for the top of the brow bone and in the eye duct I used some random highlight gold color from the 88 palette. THENNNNNNN, I made my cheeks up with Dollymix and the 10pan Blush Palette from CS and used Lightscapade (MAC) to highlight my cheekbones.

For the lips I used NYX's Plush Red Lip Liner all around my lips and went just above my line to give the appearance that my top lip is fuller than it really is. Then I applied NYX's round lipstick in Red to the side and Morange by MAC in the middle. I blended that together then applied Charmander by Shiro Cosmetics to the center and blended that out with a shader brush, then I applied a tiny bit of Pikachu by Shiro Cosmetics to the exact middle.

SIMPLE! I had a lot of fun with this and I'm hoping I get a chance to do something like this again sooooooon, I work far too much :/

Holy Fyrinnae Batman!

Did some major haulage over the past few days, at one of my favorite sites to buy from: fyrinnae.com, and I have more from the Halloween collection on the way.

Now, if you don't know much about Fyrinnae you should know that they're notorious for their website being down and slow processing times, which is fine because the colors are so amazing, and their staff is very small for the amount of orders they put through.

On to the pretties!

Just... looooook!! My favorites are Sugar Skulls, Darling Misfit, Pyromanic Erotica, Electro-Koi, and Anemone (rest it's soul... it was so gorgeous). The only other sad thing about these colors are most are limited edition... which makes me a sad panda... because I wish I had bought more Anemone before it got discontinued. I haven't seen it on the site since I got it :/

I officially need to stop being so lazy...

I've been getting back into makeup like crazy... it really seems video games can just eat away at my soul. So I've quit WoW for good, have gotten back into eating healthy and looking better :) I will be trying out this blog thing once again!