The Weekend Beauty Shopper Steals and Deals!

Well girls it's the weekend which can only mean one thing....SHOPPING!

Here's some deals you might want to nab during your weekend online sprees!

Select Bath and Beauty Works Temptations 3 in 1 16oz Shower Gels on Sale:

Melon Cooler $6
Ice Tea Twist $6
Orange Freeze $6

Free shipping on your order of $55 or more using coupon code FREESHIP55.

Cherriflip has 20% off your total order cost! Sale ends today so stock up and save on Perfumes, Shower Gels, Haircare, and other Bath and Body goodies! Use coupon code beach to get your 20% discount!

Sephora Collection Make-Up Brushes are discounted up to 75%

The Muse's Favorite Brush Buys:
Contour Eyeshadow Brush $14
Blush Brush $8
Large Eyeshadow Brush $5.60
Flat Blush Brush $10
Crease Brush $5.60

Get these while the getting is good! They are selling out uber fast!

Majolica Majorca Beauty in Black Fall Collection Eyeshadows are $6.49 at BoboDave This offer is good till August 11th! Price is a bit jacked up but you won't find a better deal on any e-bay shop in my opinion!

Have a great weekend and Happy Shopping!

Shu Uemura Edo Komon Fall 2007 Collection

The Edo Komon collection is now available on Shu Uemura's website.

Another ho-hum collection that I probably won't bother any time with! I adore Shu but I can't get excited about navy blue eyeshadow. Sorry Shu the wallet is remaining in the pocket this time around!

Is it me or do none of these colors work together? And by the very way the model on the left hand side is wearing a lovely cranberry color...where is that being offered? Did I miss something? And where's the makeup video?

Is everyone out to disappoint me this Fall Season or am I total grouch?

Sigh.

Sephora Fall Catalog 2007

It's here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sephora's Catalog should be winging it's way into your mailbox shortly but if you can't wait you can hop on over to Sephora's website and see the catalog in all it's glory from first to last page!

Are you excited or what?

Don't be.

Sorry don't mean to burst your bubble there! It appears this year's catalog blows!

This is my "I'm not excited" at all attitude. Sheesh you know the world may very well be coming to an end if I'm not squealing at the prospect of a new Sephora catalog! Best look outside your window and make sure hell hasn't frozen over or large drops of fiery rain are falling from the skies!

Ok..so maybe I'm being dramatic but geez the catalog just stinks! I don't see much of anything that I can remotely get my panties twisted in a bunch over aside from items I have previously mentioned in my blog!

Thanks alot Sephora it's almost as if it's Christmas morning minus the presents! Wasn't it enough to disappoint me with the Summer Catalog? You had to go and ruin the Fall Catalog for me too? It's not fair I tell you! God I'm already in a state of panic about the possibility of the Winter Catalog sucking too! That'd make an entire year of shitty catalogs! That's wrong on so many levels!

Sigh....

I'm going to bed utterly depressed and devastated tonight!

Touches of Fall

As I sit here and type this I can hear the crickets outside my bedroom window. This can sadly mean one thing, Summer is soon coming to an end.

I always get kinda melancholy when the season changes and a new one begins. It's almost as if I am saying goodbye to friend that I won't see for an entire year!

The good news is that soon the weather will get cooler, the leaves will start to fall from the trees, and the nights will become longer. All this adds up to the upcoming holiday that I may very much like more than Christmas. Some of you may guess what Holiday I am speaking of but some of you may well not be familiar with it in your part of the world. Halloween :)

Halloween holds a spot near and dear to my heart not only because it's my birthday but because it's just a generally awesome Holiday! I love everything about it! Candy, costumes, nutty (like me) caramel apples, kids....!

I think one of the best things about Halloween is when the beauty industry takes a step into it and store shelves not only line up with candy and decorations but Halloween themed bath goodies, perfumes, and an assortment of bits that any girl will love!

I'm particularly partial to heading into Bath and Body Works when they start loading their shelves with body lotions, shower gels, and body sprays in an array of funky Halloween blends like Spicy Pumpkin, Apple, etc....! I'm quite curious what they'll be introducing in the Temptations line for Halloween/Fall!

Many smaller shops online take part in the festivities of Halloween and theme many products for the Holiday!

One particular shop that I know and love dedicates an entire line of perfume oil to the Halloween holiday!

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab or BPAL to it's diseased, addicted fans (Hey I can call them diseased because I'm one of the club with a gold membership card!) releases anywhere from 10 to 15 limited edition perfume oils every year for Halloween! This is truly an eagerly anticipated event for fans everywhere!

If you aren't familiar with the Lab let me give you a very brief introduction to it.

The Lab started out as a very small operation that sprung up into a pretty huge full time online shop! It's immensely popular and has an order wait time of 20-45 days!!!!!!!!!!! They sell 5ML bottles of highly concentrated perfume oil in a variety of scents. Perfume Oil is very potent and strong, a dab will last all day and into the evening too! 5ML seems small but it will last you a long time since you'll be applying so sparely. The Lab, sadly, isn't particularly a great place for people like me. Reason being is because they lack fruity, food, and sweet blends. A majority of the catalog are earthy, herbal, dark blends which I can't stand. These have a huge cult following and many girls absolutely love them. Personally they aren't for me. The good news is that if you dig deep enough you'll find quite a few gems in the catalog! They release limited edition scents quite often and with every new moon they release a fragrance dedicated to that particular moon! I find that the limited edition scents are where the real treasures lay! They do Halloweenies during the Fall and Yule blends during the winter and Christmas Holiday! They also have themes for Valentine's Day but those are normally too dark for me! They even went so far as to release some very silly Paris Hilton in Jail themed oils! Now if you are weary and just want to try they offer what they call "imps" of catalog blends. Imps are tiny vials of oil for you to test and see if you'd love a larger bottle! 6 are $19.50 plus shipping! They also include imps with any full size bottle purchase as an extra little gift for purchasing!

Well that's a bit of background info on the lab....

Mostly I'm excited because shortly towards the middle or end of the month (Depending on Beth's, the owner, schedule) the Halloweenies will pop up and be available for purchase!

Each year I really get excited to see which blends will make a come back from the year before and which new blends will be available! If you LOVE Halloween as much as I do you're in for a real treat if you do decide to order from the Lab! The past few years I've collected many a fantastic perfume oil! Spicy Pumpkin, Candy scents, and so many other interesting bits and bobs have popped up! I'm especially a huge fan of the Pumpkin Patch oils which are released in a set of 5 and consist of 5 different blends of pumpkin mixed with different notes such as cocoa, pomegranate, and more!

These are actually a good investment. Sounds weird doesn't it? Perfume Oil an investment. But actually they are. Bottles have ranged, over the course of a few years, from $14 to $17.50 and $20-22 for Limited Edition. Now if you hang onto a particular blend long enough you can fetch triple or more your money back! Not that I'd sell ANY of my rare blends EVER but it's an interesting little fact of information to share! I've seen bottles of Pumpkin King go for $300 on E-bay! I've also seen many bottles from the Carnival Series go for $90-$120! I've even heard rumors of unreleased blends going for $500!!!!!!!

Occasionally with the Limited Edition blends the Lab's Trading Post shop will release special oils that are a bit more costly! Last year they released 4 blends entitled Trick or Treat. It consisted of 4 oils, 2 Trick and 2 Treat. In order to get the oils you had to plea your case of which you wanted and why! It was all in good fun and made your purchase interesting and fun :) I got all 4 of the bottles! They cost $50 each and came with a cute little T-Shirt! The oils are well up in price now on E-bay but I refuse to part with them ;)

Soon the new blends will be released and again the yearning for a new scent will fall upon me and others like me!

If you've never purchased from the Lab before now is a good time as any to start checking it out and see which Halloween blends will pop up that you might be interested in!

If you need any help deciding on a particular scent do let me know as I've tried plenty!!!!

Happy Shopping!

I leave you with some pictures from my collection!

Trick or Treat Oil Blends from Halloween 2006


Pumpkin Patch Oil Blends from Halloween 2005


A few of the Halloweenies from Halloween 2006


A few Halloweenies from Halloween 2005 (As you can Sugar Skull is in both this picture and the one above! Sometimes oils get a reprieve and make a reappearance from year to year! I always buy the reruns because the blend is sometimes slightly different from the year before and it's delightful to pick apart how they differ from year to year!)

Anti-Aging Week

The Muse's lovely mate at A Touch of Blusher has an entire week of Anti-Aging! Some wonderful articles to be had on general skincare, skincare reviews, and great tips and tricks!

Of course the Muse is gorgeous and never aging so she has no need of trivial things such as anti-aging methods (I'm Kidding! I'm Kidding!)!

My favorite so far is Thursday's entry which contained a link for What Makes a State-of-the-Art Moisturizer? Very interesting reading!

And of course when Anti-Aging week is over you can always keep A Touch of Blusher bookmarked for other fantastic blog entries about cosmetics, skincare, and all good things girly!

Excel Mascara Review

The last few weeks I've been hooked on using Opera My Lash Mascara. This was recommended to me by Haru from Rogue Deluxe and I absolutely fell in love with it!

This morning I decided to spice it up a little so I cracked open my Excel Mascara and boy oh boy life is good my dear friends! This is the mascara of the gods! I hate to say this....but....I think....it might...be better than MJ Mascara! Holy cow did those words just leave this mouth??!!! Damn this is some good stuff! I'm impressed! This is some killer mascara folks! Look out MJ I see a replacement on the horizon!



On American shores the curved mascara brush is sorta kinda popping up in some of our brands but it's pretty standard in Europe and Asia at the moment! The curved brush picks up quite a big lump of mascara, so much mascara in fact that you may be slightly panicky upon seeing that big o' clot of it on the brush! But it goes on flawlessly and smoothly. One quick swipe will have your lashes extended to the ceiling (ok, ok maybe not the ceiling!), another swipe will even your look out and create the illusion of falsies, and finally by flipping the brush over and swiping a final time, you'll separate your lashes and complete your look! Texture is really good on this and it applies very well and evenly. This does remind me of a cheaper version of Beaute de Kose Mascara and could possibly be better!



If you have fragile lashes I would avoid this because it is pretty difficult to remove. After many swipes with Oil Based Eye Makeup Remover plus my regular facial cleaner and lots of water later I was finally able to get a majority of it off but my lashes do still feel a bit stiff even after all that! I don't mind so much as in the shower tonight I'm sure it'll wash away and my lashes are full and strong so a bit of tugging to remove won't make a difference to me! However, I can't fully recommend this product to anyone who has tiny lashes or ones that break off easy!

Now Excel also offers a remover which I am now disappointed I didn't order as that appears interesting enough and might very well do the job in getting this off once it's on!



All in all a fine product by Excel! Brilliant Mascara! If it's the illusion of falsies you seek this be the mascara for you! The Muse highly recommends it and dubs it her new favorite mascara of choice!






Showing off my fine lashes thanks to Excel Mascara!

A Flossy Tale

Once upon a time their was a beautiful princess by the name of Lynnderella! Now Lynnderella, like all gorgeous princesses, wanted to smell like the sweet scent of cotton candy.

Now Lynderella is quite a smart princess as she wrote to the Muse telling her tales of the perfect Cotton Candy blend! In turn the Muse felt that she owed the beautiful princess some highly gorgeous Cotton Candy recommendations ;)

So this....is for you Lynn....a highly compiled list of all the Cotton Candy blends the Muse has tried and found true and unique to her little nose ;) I hope it helps you on your quest in finding that perfect cotton candy blend that your little heart seeks! May it put your lemmings to rest!

Now most anyone that hears cotton candy will right away jump up and shout PINK SUGAR! PINK SUGAR! PINK SUGAR! (My lovely soulmate owns a pink shirt that's been properly nicked Pink Sugar as I kept slipping up whenever I typed "pink shirt"...see this is how the mind of a true girl works! "Pink shirt" some how popped out as "pink sugar" almost every single time!)! Now the wonders of Pink Sugar are quite lost on me because I hate it! It makes me positively ill! Pray don't step forward and tell me you love it because I may have to shoot you dead for admitting as such! Ok Ok..I won't shot you...but torture you I may!

So Pink Sugar is officially off the Cotton Candy list! Princess Lynnderella is clever and she has already tried Demeter's version of Cotton Candy but this was not to her liking! Or to mine for that matter! The throw is off, the linger is non existent and it's just not worth it!

In the Muse's travels through cyberspace she has discovered some near perfect blends of Cotton Candy that she hopes might appease our Princess and make her happy and lemming free!

And here they be:

Cotton Candy Blends Offered From Isle of Eden (Shampoos, Conditioners, Scrubs, Perfumes, Etc...available in these blends):

Blood Orange Cotton Candy
This ain't your grandma's cotton candy. For a grown-up treat that still looks good on a paper cone this ultraluxe combo of Cotton Candy and real Italian Blood Orange will make every kid on the Tilt-a-Whirl jealous.


Can't Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me!
You'll smell it all! Pink Cotton Candy, Funnel Cake, and Delicious Candied Red Apple!

Pink Lemonade
The wonderful aroma of fresh-squeezed lemons and sugar, with an added touch of cotton candy.

Cotton Candy Blends Offered From Skindazzles (Shampoos, Conditioners, Scrubs, Perfumes, Etc...available in these blends):

Peep Show
Sweet marshmallow fondant blended with ice cream & cotton candy. Totally pink and fluffy!

Pink Crush
Pink Lemonade mingles with sweet pink cotton candy, pink grapefruit and vanilla.

Framboise Fairy Floss
A delicious fragrance blend consisting of raspberry, cotton candy, amaretto and vanilla.

Candy Carnival
A playful carnival inspired blend of cotton candy, caramel apple and candy corn.


Coral Beach
Breezy ocean notes, bright orange sunshine and sweet cotton candy.

Cotton Candy
Delicious and sweet cotton candy!

Scarlet Pansy
A sweet and sexy mixture of blackberries, sweet cotton candy, pansy & a touch of amber musk.

Cotton Candy Blends Offered From Cherriflip (Shampoos, Conditioners, Scrubs, Perfumes, Etc...available in these blends):

Pretty Paris
Sweet summer strawberries, oodles of marshmallow cream frosting, cotton candy and vanilla cream makes this one sweet treat. This is one of the Muse's signature scents but since she likes Lynn she'll share the secret of it's existence!

Sugared Grapefruit
Pink sparkling grapefruit sprinkled in sweet sugar, with supporting notes of honey, cotton candy, and vanilla.

Pink Sugar Cubes
Sweet cotton candy, caramel are all at this sugary pink carnival!

Cotton Tail
Sweet fluffy very real cotton candy sniff.

Cotton Candy Blends Offered From Suds and Light (Shampoos, Conditioners, Scrubs, Perfumes available in these blends):

Berry Delicious
Blue raspberries, vanilla cream and sugary cotton candy


Blue Cotton Candy
Sweet blue raspberry flavored cotton candy

Creamy Cotton Candy
Pink fluffy cotton candy and creamy vanilla

Cotton Candy Blends Offered From Tickled Pink Scentsations (Shampoos, Conditioners, Scrubs, Perfumes, Etc...available in these blends):

County Fair
Caramel Apples, Cotton Candy, and freshly popped kettle corn.

Sweet Silk
Cotton candy glistening with sprinkles of sweet sugar.

Tres Magnifique
Vanilla, cotton candy, and other sweet candies.

The Muse doesn't share her secrets with everyone but just this once I guess it's ok! Starring Fragrances is one of her FAVORITE (I don't mean favorite I mean FAVORITE) locations to purchase from (I own everything on the site..seriously I do)! Here are some of the fantastic Cotton Candy blends they make:

Lime it Up!
Take a little sprinkle of sweet lime sugar atop that sticky sweet cotton candy! Tart lime, sweet candy floss, a whole lot of smiles!


The Girlfriend
Sneak a cuddle in a floral garden full of sweet fresh buds with a basket of sweet mixed berries and swirls of cotton candy and vanilla kisses.

Pink & Yellow Cake
A new twist! We've added Bathsweets delicious pink cotton candy to her classic yellow cake for a new twist! A rich buttery yellow cake with swirls of puffed pink cotton floss!

Pink Marshmallow
Think about a sweet marshmallow puff kissed with the most perfect bright pink cotton candy

Who Spiked The Cupcakes?
Thick luscious white cupcakes topped with mounds of pure white frosting was secretly spiked with soft spun pink confectionery cotton candy!

Sticky Situations
You won't want to avoid this sweet sticky mess! Fluffy pink cotton candy, sweet cherry cream chews, and white chocolate pistachio bark!

The Family Film
Something everyone can enjoy! Some fair favorites like a refreshing blue raspberry sno-cone, a frothy frozen orange sherbert drink, and sticky sweet pink cotton candy!

Now if you are unable to locate the perfect cotton candy blend from Starring the lovely Ashley will blend, blend, blend until she finds just that right sniff you seek (If you're not familiar with the Peldon sisters just know they are some of the sweetest people I have ever had the chance of knowing. I am not recommending their products because of that! I am recommending them because the quality cannot be beat!)!

All my Cotton Candy secrets are now spilled all over the internet ;) I hope it helps you locate your perfect blend my friend! Happy Hunting!

The Magic of Eyeshadow Application

Last week I had posted a blog about a lovely little lady, Eru, who had posted an awesome youTube video featuring some great Japanese brands!

In particular one item that was featured in the video were some rather interesting press eyeshadows from Eye Majic! At the time I had thought these were a Japanese brand but another lovely lady, Mag (Whom I just found out today has a gorgeous blog of her own! Do check it out as she has some great eye looks up that she's done) pointed out these are from an Aussie based company and were featured on Oprah!

I was quite excited as that meant I wouldn't need to go too crazy trying to locate these interesting little press shadows!

Some quick google searching located the shadows and I was able to purchase them from Mirenesse's website! They don't have all available colors but they do have a nice handful!

Well I guess basically the moral of the story is if you're eyeshadow retarded these are the way to go!

Shadow application is a snap. It's a no brainer obviously. The hard part comes when you are working with 2, 3, 4, 5, or more shadows. Blending is an art form that truly needs to be practiced and perfected! Even those who are trained at it sometimes screw up! Blending is what makes an eye look! If you can't blend, you have nothing to work with. So..if you're using a pink and a blue and you begin the application...you need you be able to blend these colors so they appear to merge together to create one look! You also need to avoid creating an entirely new color while blending ;)

The purpose is to merge the colors while keeping them seperate not merge them so they become an entirely different color!

I know many girls that are unable to accomplish a good shadow look for their eyes and find it extremely difficult to apply. I'm ok with it. I love to dabble and I create some nice looks from my dabbling around. Some people don't do so well in the dabbling department and would love an extra hand. Look no further. Here in lays the solution to your problem!

Eye Majic Eyeshadow Slides! Wahoo! A simple way of applying a highbrow color, a crease color, and a base lid color! Three shadows, one complete look, no difficult blending skills required!

How freaking cool is this? You're excited I can tell!

So I got 7 of these slides and I haven't yet tried them but I did see Eru's nifty little video and they looked cool enough which in turn made me want to try these out! I don't particularly have need of these because my blending skills are pretty good but I wanted to give these a whirl for quick looks!

Basically the general idea of these is slipping the slide onto your eye, sliding the color off, and blending with your fingertip! Done. Perfect eye color!

If you're of Asian descent you'll be happy to know these work perfectly on exotic Asian eyes! My mate tried one and she looked positively adorable! Sadly, she refused me to take her pic! Sorry girls!

She applied it herself and did her own fingertip blending so I can't say how the texture is on these or ease of application but this isn't brain surgery so I think we should be ok!

As I was saying I got 7 slides and the colors are quite interesting! They range from light pastels to some nice darker evening looks! The one she ended up using was a smoky eye one which is in the picture below! All in all for about $2 per a slide it's a bit on the costly side for one look...but if you're not so great with a brush this is your easy escape to an interesting eye look!

I'll follow up with a review after I've used my first slide for now I leave you with some interesting photos of these unique little shadows!

Enjoy!

Babblings About Comments!

One of my main reasons for moving my blog to blogger was because people couldn't comment on mySpace without having an account!

My first week here I didn't get many replies as I slowly moved entries over but I'm so happy and excited to see the overwhelming response I've gotten on youTube, here on blogger, and e-mails as well from people who view my videos!

I just wanted to say thanks! I really am loving all the great questions and comments and I adore interacting with each and every one of you ;)

Kisses and Hugs to you all!

Agent Provocateur Wants You To Strip!

Agent Provocateur has updated it's website with it's newest fragrance Strip! Yours truly couldn't wait to get my greedy, sweaty hands all over it so I've gone and ordered a bottle!

Here's the blurb from the website:


Agent Provocateur Strip has an evocative soul accord made up of exotic Ylang Ylang, Iris Bud and Geranium Bourbon. This is embraced with the heat of Hot Amber oils, Vetivert from Haiti, precious Exotic Woods and musks that react to your body temperature and exudes from your skin to release the sexual attractant within.



Now I guess I really need this because obviously, as advertised, it's going to release my sexual attractant within! If anyone knows me you know that sexy and myself don't actually fit into the same sentence! This fragrance is not only promising to make me smell sexy but also release my special inner sexy minx scent that will have everyone just positively wanting me! How about that for multitasking folks! (I wonder if they make an Eau De Dorky, that would probably work better on me)

In all seriousness I was disappointed by Maîtresse so I'm slightly weary of Strip but we shall see! I was so psyched about Maîtresse release I had purchased two and was utterly devastated it didn't work with my body chemistry! The good news is the second bottle is going to a good home with my boyfriend's mum who I am hopeful will love it more than I did! I guess with all the hype surrounding the original AP I was looking forward to it's sister with much excitement only to have my giddy pleasure dashed upon spraying it on me!

So...here's to hoping Strip is gorgeous! If not...E-bay anyone?

Diorissime Fall Collection 2007

It's that time of the year again kids! Dior has introduced it's newest palette for the Fall collection and I was hyperventilating as I viewed it in all it's glory at Nordies a few nights ago! The good news is it's gorgeous, the bad news is that I didn't buy it!

Oh my god the cries of outrage are so loud! I hear you all now screaming in agonized pain about the unjustness of me not purchasing a Dior palette! But, if you're at all familiar with the Muse's purchasing habits you'd know why!

Remember children.

Buy your Dior broad!

I've called up my very sweet mate in England and asked her to waddle on down to Boots to get my Diorissime palette because for obvious reasons the 001 version is far better than the shit 002 version that has graced the US shores! Our version, as always, is a crummy darker palette which I'm utterly hating. It's gorgeous in the sense that the clutch was beautiful but the colors inside just aren't for me! Thus 001 is the one for this muse! I haven't yet received it but it should be with me any day and I'll take some lovely porn pictures of it for you to drool all over!

I nabbed some pictures from E-bay of both palettes and you can see for yourself why the 001 version is far superior to the crap we get here in the US!

001


002


I'm quite tempted to lick the monitor screen at the moment viewing those pictures! I'll try to refrain!

As with almost all cosmetics, I am tempted to purchase both but really I don't see myself using the US version! The colors are just too blah for lack of a better word!

If for some odd reasons or another you are lemming 002 you can purchase it now from Sephora and other locations that carry Dior! If you're lemming 001, quick, find a mate to purchase it for you! It's available in Singapore, Japan, and of course the lovely UK!

Which do you prefer?

Customizing Your Haircare

The sense of scent is a unusual and unique mystery! Different scents are appealing to different people. Some people find the smell of a baking pie very comforting, some enjoy the sweet scent of a ripe peach, others enjoy the smell of wet glass after a rainfall. The good news about your choice of scent is that you can have it and customize it to suit your haircare! Yes, indeed, I did say haircare! The internet offers wonderful shopping options and some very posh brands of haircare are available, believe me I know, as I've tried them all! But for the last few years I've turned to smaller companies that create a wonderful utopia of haircare products that suit my need for not only a good volumizing shampoo and a deep quenching condition but also a sweet smelling one or a foody scented one!

I've come across some wonderful small shops that offer wonderful customization for shampoos, conditioners, hair sprays, hair gels, hair refreshers, and more! These small shops offer a wide range of scents that will suit any need! Scents range from fresh baked goods like cookies, cakes, and cupcakes, different fruits, and of course wonderful sweet scents to ease your need for sugar!

I guess some people would wonder why I have a need to smell like a cupcake or a peach but hey that's another mystery that's unique...it all comes down to being a girl!

Some scents I've come across in haircare that I've tried, fallen in love with, and stash in my washroom would be the following:

Bunny Hugs-A dreamy and creamy blend of sliced fruit, with oranges, marshmallows and whipped cream.

Cherry Cupcakes-Sweet, frosted vanilla & cherry cupcakes with light notes of almond & toasted coconut.

Island Girl-A cocktail inspired fragrance blending of lemon and lime with cherry and pineapple.

Violet Fairy Cakes-These little vanilla frosted, violet topped petit four cakes are perfect for a fairy tea party.

White Cake-Scrumptious white cake with sweet almond notes!

Banana Split Cupcakes-Chocolate banana cupcakes topped with strawberry cream and a cherry!

Sweetheart Cake-Fluffy mini cream puffs stuffed with a soft strawberry buttercream with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!

Pretty in Paris-Sweet summer strawberries, oodles of marshmallow cream frosting, cotton candy and vanilla cream makes this one sweet treat.

These are just some of the scents that line my bathroom cabinets. The companies I shop from offer a wide range of scents to suit every need, truly when I said wide range I mean it! Scent lists available from most sites go from 100-500 blends or more! Some companies are even willing to blend a custom scent to suit your needs if you happen to not locate one from the huge list they already have!

I find that many of the haircare products linger very long in my hair and give off an amazing throw which means I am constantly asked, "Wow what is that wonderful smell"...! I always love to smell sweet and gorgeous I guess it comes with the girl territory and when someone remarks on how wonderful my hair smells I just glow and feel very tickled they noticed!

These companies offer a wide range of items that can be customized but this blog entry is solely dedicated to the haircare line of items!

Some shops to check out:

Cherriflip An absolute favorite of mine hands down! Wonderful Shampoos, Conditioners, and Other great haircare products! Truly Uniquely blended scents available that cannot be located anywhere else! Cherriflip currently has a sale going on, 20% off your entire order! Take advantage of this great deal!

Skindazzles Another favorite and the home of my very favorite, signature scent, Bunny Hugs! Skindazzles has 10% off select items at the moment!


Make Me Smooth A wide range of different haircare needs with tons of scents to choose from! Ongoing sales change week to week!

The Little Shop of Beauty Little Shop of Beauty is one of the few shops that offers hair gels and hair sprays in custom scents! Free Deluxe Samples with orders!

These are just some of the dozens of shops that offer customized haircare! Have a search and you'll find a million more!

If you aren't familiar with these forms of shops please keep in mind prior to ordering that they make your order upon your submitting it! This means that certain items do take a longer wait time! Some companies have wait times up to one month while others get products out faster! Basically your items are not sitting on a shelf and placed in a box for shipment, they are freshly made and then shipped to you! They are immensely popular as well which causes the wait time to go up accordingly, especially around the Holidays! Prices are affordable but some companies are Canadian which means costly shipping options! On the plus side some companies do run specials with 10%-20% off orders!

Personally I love the option of clicking on a bottle of Shampoo and asking for it in any one of 500 scents! Many of these small shops revolve the scent lists as the seasons change and the holidays come up! I love smelling like sweet, juicy fruits in the summer and gorgeous pies, cakes, and cupcakes in the winter! I like the scent of cool mints or warm cakes and baked goods in my hair during Christmas and possibly the smell of caramel apple or candy corn during Halloween! If that isn't customized haircare I don't know what is!


Some of the many haircare products that overflow from my washroom cabinets!

MuseTV Presents: A Spotlight on Majolica Majorca

I get many fine questions about MJ or MM (short for Majolica Majorca) from many a fine person that wanders onto my youTube page or happens upon my blog! I went ahead and did a little spotlight video on some fantastic MJ products I love!

Enjoy!

MuseTV Presents: A Spotlight on Majolica Majorca

Cargo SmokyEye Kit

I'm not normally tempted by any of Cargo's cosmetics. I do have a few odd pieces and I like it well enough but it's not my brand of choice. I must admit that this year I did indulge in purchasing a huge lot of the cute Christmas cards they do (These say "Santa Gloss Is Coming to Town"! How freaking cute is that???!!!)!



I mean come on! What cosmetic whore do you know that can resist Christmas cards that have a dot of gloss on 'em (that's completely usable by the very way)! Chances are if you're a mate of mine you got one of these last year and chances are my little ass might just be super corny and go right ahead and send these again this year teehee!

Anyway!

I am tempted by this:



The full size SmokyEye Brush has been on my wish list for a while so how cool is it that it's bundled with this kit!? Pretty darn awesome in my opinion! I don't believe this is a full size brush but probably a mini version but I'm still tempted by this kit's price! Quite a bargain to be had here!

Let's see...off the topic of my head....It's about $28 bucks for the cargo smokyeye duo and another $32 for brush so that's $60 bucks for just two items and this kit has them PLUS a mascara and a cute little tin for $39 bucks! What a steal!

Now not only has the brush been on my items to pick up but I've also wanted to try the Smokyeye duo for a while and here in lays the perfect excuse to try both plus get some nice little extras with the purchase!

Overall I'd say this is a great little kit! Nice work Cargo it's on my wish list!

Too Faced Kabuki Brush

Too Faced has decided to grace our presence with a cute little Kabuki Brush!



Do you love it?

It's pink which in my lowly opinion is reason enough to want it! However! Nordstrom decided that they wanted to be special so they introduced one that's exclusive to their Too Faced counters. So now we have a choice we can have cute and pink OR we can have the deluxe version which is cute with flowers! Oh my!



Both are the same price so as far as I'm concerned cute with flowers is the way to go! For my animal lovers this is a cruelty free brush and animal hair free ;) So if cute, flowers, and pink weren't enough for you than the fact it's good to animals has to make you want it!

This one is on my Wish List girls!

Love it? Hate it? Want it?

Givenchy Fall 2007 Eye Palette Cache Cache

I've been shopping around for the newest Givenchy Eye Palette since eyeballing it on the Makeup Bag. I checked around a few places and never did come across it's release so I just gave up and was hopeful come August I'd find it. And this weekend, I did indeed find it.

It's not available online as far as I know or in a majority of shops but if you're somewhere in the vicinity of a Saks Fifth Ave you can hop on over as they do now have it out and available for sale!

When I first seen the photo I was somewhat skeptical of the shades actually working for me. They seemed quite dank and dark, navy blue isn't exactly my first choice for eye color! This one was one of those palettes I just generally wanted to add to my collection but possibly never use (why, yes, I am quite bonkers! So happy you noticed)!

When I walked into Saks I headed for the counter straight away, not because I was hopeful for the palette, but just out of sheer habit as it's always the first counter I hit! Givenchy's such a picky little cosmetic and it's difficult to locate a store that sells it online and off so when I do waltz into Saks it's normally to hit up the counter first thing prior to seeking out anything else! I think I might have been quite shocked that they even had it available, I was thinking somewhere at the end of August for this little guy! I was also vaguely surprised to see how truly workable and lovely the colors are! The pics I've seen don't do it nearly enough justice!

The palette this time around has almost a black onyx inlay to the "G" logo on it's cover! Pretty plain compared to prior palettes that I have but still elegant none the less! It's of course the standard compact that has the applicators hidden on the bottom. This time around they have a little saying inscripted on the mirror which reads "Style for Life"...sigh...I love cute little touches like this, don't you? Ah the colors...you want to know of the colors don't you?

As I was saying the colors are quite workable this time around! Let's see what we have...from top left to bottom right we have the following: sheer pink, black, creamy vanilla white, khaki brownish color, a truly gorgeous gold, navy blue shimmer (this was one I was worried about but it's quite lovely), off white, indian brownish color, and a peachy nude!

All are matte except the middle three colors. Each of these three have a kiss of shimmer and sparkle to them! Overall I think you can create quite a nice eye look with these! Some colors appear a bit sheer and not entirely matching with the theme but with a little hard work and alot of imagination you can create a great fall look!

Givenchy never fails to put out an outstanding palette and I'm sorry I doubted this one! I'm quite pleased! This retails for $50 and is in stores now! I'm positive Sephora will have it shortly so keep your eyes peeled before it sales out! If you're at all familiar with Givenchy palettes you do realize how quickly they become unavailable! It's one of the few make-up lines that does disappear rather quickly!

As I Said Before, I am NOT a Sun Seeker!

I've said it before and I'll say it again! I'm NOT a sun seeker! This weekend the worst possible scenario occurred! My god it was absolutely a nightmare! Horrifying! Terrifying! Drama! Suspense! Action! Sorry about that I got a little carried away.

What was I saying? Oh I remember now...the worst possible scenario occurred, I got caught without my trusty sunblock! Woe is me dear readers, woe is me! I'm naturally fair skinned on my face and a majority of my other body parts are a medium sort of color! I imagine that sounds utterly bonkers but it's true and it actually works quite well as I like my face nice and fair of color. While away this weekend I was unable to locate a single store that didn't carry some sort of dime store brand of sunblock and I was stuck without a little droplet of it! Zip, zero, nada! I normally slather my face in sunblock to avoid getting any sort of tan because I really feel a tan adds about 150lbs to my face! Sadly, the unavoidable occurred, and I ended up with quite a ghastly tan all over a majority of my face, body, and other bits and pieces!

Sigh.

I need a hug.

Until this fades I'll be unable to get away with many bold colors :( I'm somewhat forced to use golds, bronzes, and other colors I am not always up for (golds I don't mind so much).

And here is what could happen to you should you forget your sunblock (you're lucky I'm even sharing these! They are just downright BAD)! This be the baked version of the Muse:





This morning general makeup application was an absolute nightmare as you can see from the pictures I look like I just rolled outta the bed or something the cat may have dragged in and spit out! I did wear a dress and tried really hard to make the tan work by dressing it up with a bit of orange....bad idea...made me look washed up completely!

Remember girls always pack several bottles of sunblock to avoid an awful tan that'll make you look ten times heavier than you really are (I don't believe that urban myth that tans flatter the firgure and make you look slim, lean, and lovely)! Unless of course you're one of the rare few that can get away with being gorgeous AND tan! Lucky you!

By the way that look on my face is one of excruciating pain and agony in the form of some sort of smile as I was quite ready to throw myself on the floor, cry, stamp, and general shout my outrage at the unjustness of my unwanted bronzed flesh!

General Video Improvements

I'm going to attempt using my Sony Mini DV to start doing videos! I'm not entirely sure how well the compression will be in relation to uploading on youTube! Another words quality may very well be too much for little old youTube to handle! But since the vids have gotten so popular I may just serve them from my own server and you can have them in all their beauty and glory minus bad compression from youTube. It's entirely debatable at this point as I'm quite busy lately and haven't much time to fiddle! I've also got a few comments about the videos making you feel slightly like a milkshake as I wriggle it around from here to there and everywhere! Soooooooo..recording using the Mini DV will make life easier as I can set it down and babble about everything and anything where as with the digital camera I have to hold it on my hand while speaking!

Let's see what happens ;)

Stila Fall Fantasy 2007

Stila's Fall Collection, Fall Fantasy, is up on it's website and available for purchase!

Laguna


Madagascar


Moss


It's hard to get into the Fall frame of mine when it's still 90 degrees outside my door but hey I can always be tempted by cosmetics right?

Sadly, this collection isn't really calling my name and I'm not all that excited about it. It truly makes me realize how much I miss the Stila girls and the cute packaging of yesteryear.

The three palettes are kind of cute but too "grown up" for my tastes. Plus the moss palette looks similar, both in color and style, to the palette that was released last fall in the wallet style!



These are something you might want to pick up if you find them on sale at a Cosmetics Company Store, during the Stila Warehouse Sale, or just if they happen to pop up on E-bay for a really good price. Otherwise, you can probably just skip them all together in my humble opinion!

Oh well..bit of money saved here!

Looking Pretty Doesn't Break Bad Habits

I'm a true girly girl in ever sense of the word! I love cosmetics, I love bath products, I love new shoes and gorgeous clothes, I love all girly bits and bobs! Anything that's pink and shimmers is always appealing!

The extent of my girly nature ends when it comes to doing my nails! I'm a big time nail biter! I bite my nails constantly! It's a terrible habit that's difficult to break! Not only is it terrible but it's down right disgusting!

This weekend I went away a few days with some friends and decided that I'd get all glam and do my nails. The good news is that it made my chubby little fingers look long and lean. The bad news is it drove me nuts all weekend trying to relearn how to use my hands with such long nails on the tips!

Last night, after getting home, I began the intricate surgery of removing these bloody things! It obviously wasn't going to be an easy procedure so I went to bed very unhappy!

This morning I came to work with what remained of these nails on and promptly sat in the washroom for the better part of the last 30 minutes popping them off one by one because I am unable to work with these freaking things on!

I give huge kudos and props to those of you who are able to function day to day with long nails! As for me I'll stick to my bad habits and keep chomping away at the bit...!