Tarts: The Art of Home Fragrance

So............

How many of you know what tarts are?

The Muse indulges in masses and masses and masses of tarts to scent her home and indulge her sweet tooth minus the calories!

Love 'em? Hate 'em? Want to hear more about 'em?

Talk to me!

Bobbi Brown Metallics Swatches

As requested by a lovely reader. Some swatches from the new Bobbi Brown Metallic Palettes:











Sadly, I don't think these will be too helpful! My camera doesn't pick up swatches well on my arm or hand and it doesn't seem to like them on paper either! I guess it gives you a general idea of the colors but isn't all that great a help! These are palettes you have to venture into the store to see, touch, and try out for yourself!

Sorry 'bout the crummy swatches ;) Did my best!

Oh Woe Is Me!

Avon has decided it didn't really want you to have the Cynthia Rowley Collection this soon.

About 5 hours after receiving the email announcement and placing items in my cart I got this message:

Dear AVON Customer,

We experienced technical difficulties on our websites today, which triggered an email informing you that the Cynthia Rowley product you’ve been waiting for was now available. Unfortunately, it will not be available until September 14, 2007. We will send another reminder email at that time.

We’re very sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Sincerely,
AVON Online Customer Care

Alright than tease and torture us and than leave us high and dry! How unclassy Avon!

I personally think it's a publicity stunt! or was it?

Isle of Eden Secret Sale

Best thing to do when sleep eludes you and life has you feeling blue...blog..blog...blog!

Isle of Eden is having a sneaky little sale for the next two days! If you were lemming some Halloween treats now is your time to nab them with a discount of 17%!

Use Discount Code: Labor Day to take 17% off your total order!

Happy Shopping!

Cynthia Rowley Avon Collection

Back in June I was browsing around my favorite blog A Touch of Blusher (See I not only write a blog, I'm also obsessed about reading them too) when I came across an article about Cynthia Rowley cosmetics! Behold something the Muse never heard of! Now as far as Cynthia Rowley fashion and accessories this the Muse has heard of but cosmetics? Never knew she had a line of cosmetics! A Touch of Blusher educated the Muse about some very cute Cynthia Rowley cosmetics and made her lem them rather hard but sadly they are impossible to track down on E-bay, MUA, or anywhere really!

I never really purchase Avon and can't even properly give anything from Avon a review but the Cynthia Rowley collection may just end up in my cart as the packaging is so delightfully cute! This collection is available now from Avon for a limited time! Check it out! The all over face powder is intriguing the Muse!

Vintage Sister After Labor Day Sale

Ahhhh there is nothing I love more than lip balm...well maybe their is...I love lipbalm that's on sale!

Vintage Sister is having an After Labor Day Sale on their summer lip balms and some bath and body goodies!

Head on over to grab a Trio of summer balms for $10, single balms for $2.55 (regularly $3.95 each), Elbow Grease for $8, and much much more!

Bobbi Brown Metallics Collection

Bobbi Brown's Fall Eye Palette Collection are out and available for purchase this week.

I believe that I had sworn myself off Bobbi Brown for the rest of this lifetime and my next one after my fiasco with the Sand and Surf Palette (go on click it you'll see the drama I mean)!

But it seems that I'm a glutton for punishment because I decided that I'd just have a tiny sneaky peek at these new palettes when I was breezing through Nordies, I do that occasionally, breeze through department stores, I'm that fabulous!

Where was I?

Oh ya, Bobbi Brown!

Yours truly wasn't happy enough sneaking a tiny peek! The Muse got a bad case of Limited Edition anxiety and ended up purchasing 3 of the 4 palettes (she wants the fourth by the way).

So the sales girl sold me some gimmick that these are tripled pigmented. I've never heard of anything being tripled pigmented but ok it sounds good to me that must mean I need these right? Obviously that was the case because I walked out out of the store swinging a $150 bag of palettes! Somebody stop me please!

All in all I have to say that these are pretty brilliant. I think this is Bobbi Brown's apology to me for the crummy Sand and Surf. I've come to the conclusion she may have just realized how it truly sucked and decided she must redeem herself in the Muse's eyes thus she created the Metallics Collection.

Ok first of all these may very well be tripled pigmented. These have some heavy duty color going on here. Color so bright, vibrant and eye popping that one swipe of my brush is all I need, no going back for second swipes!

Secondly, if you're insane for shimmer, these are the palettes for you! Highly, intensely shimmer packed! I'm talking fall out all over your cheeks and face! The SA I spoke to said apply the shadow prior to my foundation because I'd need some serious clean up time with these! And she is indeed right! These have to be applied super carefully to avoid a ton of chunky shadow falling all over your face! These are really an interesting texture. Very thick for a shadow but also loose. It's almost as if the shadow was a loose pigment and pressed into the palette. As soon as you swipe a brush across a color it comes away with a ton of loose powder!

I haven't really used these yet on my eyes just swatched them on my hand and all in all I have to say these are a big thumbs up for me! If you're currently looking for the perfect Fall palette I'd totally nab one or two of these.

The good news is the Muse approves and gives them a big fat recommendation for purchase. The bad news is these are costly as hell at $45 per palette!

I personally recommend all four if you have the spare change hanging around but if you don't I recommend going with either Forest Metallics or Burnt Sugar Metallics.

Burnt Sugar is probably the most versatile. It has a really good solid gold in it that can be used with just about anything you currently have. Of course the entire point is to use the palette's three colors but you can easily take any of the three colors and use them with single shadows you may have. This palette is quite interesting to pair up with browns, golds, and even oranges or peaches!

The other two I got were the Forest Metallics and Midnight Metallics. Now the Velvet Plum palette is a mystery to me as it looked almost identical to the Burnt Sugar except darker. I didn't notice any plum in it just brown, brown, and more brown! I'm still tempted to purchase it as that weird Pokemon feeling comes across me with cosmetics. You know the feeling right? Have to collect them all!

Well..I leave you with some pictures and a first impression! I'll get around to doing a deeper review when I used them on a full eye look plus do some FOTD's!










Forest Metallics


Midnight Metallics


Burnt Sugar Metallics

MAC Blue Storm Haul

Finally Blue Storm has arrived!

I went to purchase this color story with Smoke Signals but sadly it wasn't available at the time as the stock hadn't come in! My MA offered to ship it my way as soon as it came and little did I know that it'd take nearly two weeks to arrive! SIGH!

It did get here and I'm happy to have my greedy hands all over it!

I didn't bother getting any of the lipglasses or nail varnish with the collection. I just headed straight for the shadows and liners.

Personally I think the gold was in the shadows and liners but I know a few people were pretty impressed with the polishes!

The liners are quite outstanding colors and I think with both, Smoke Signals, and Blue Storm, they out did themselves in the eyeliner department!

The shadows are all fantastic and the only shadow that I'm iffy on is Cumulus. The rest are really vibrant and perfect for rainy day blues ;)

Cloudburst has to be my favorite of the lot. It reminds me of Black Tied but with a bit of fine blue shimmer too it! Very nice shadow and well worth picking up!

Overall another great collection from MAC!

Your impressions? Did you get anything from Blue Storm? Talk to me! Comment box at the ready!

Tarte EmphasEYES High Definition Eye Pencil Review

I blogged about this previously when I happened across it in the Sephora Fall Catalog.

I was generally curious about it so I decided to take the plunge and purchase this vastly overpriced eye pencil.

Basically this is a nifty little tool for lining your waterline. I haven't tried using it on anything but my waterline as that's basically what this particularly liner is for. I guess if you wanted to get the most bang for your buck you could go ahead and line your entire eye with it but I haven't ventured onto that path. It's super skinny so I'm positive it'll make a wonderfully thin line.

The pencil itself is very slim so it fits right in all the nooks and crannies that you want it to. I struggled with it for about 10 minutes when I originally removed it from the packaging. I couldn't get the pencil to twist it up and just sat there debating whether to return it or fling it out the window as it had me so damn frustrated that it wouldn't rotate up! Finally I got it to twist up! As I said earlier I only used it for lining the waterline of my eye and it works a treat. The slimness of the pencil makes it a snap to work with it and one swipe will have your entire waterline done up quickly and easily.

On the pro side it's a great little tool to add to your beauty arsenal for making lining your delicate and sensitive inner eye area easy as 1, 2, 3. On the con side, at $18 per pencil the price just doesn't sit right.

Indeed it does make lining the waterline really a snap but not so much more than any other pencil you might have laying around such as MAC Technakohl.

So really do you need this?

I'd say no.

Have some spare cash hanging around? Grab one it's kinda sorta a nifty tool!

Overall the Muse likes it but doesn't deem it a must have!