Belated Monday Makeup Madness: NYX Sale + NOTD

In case you didn't know, NYX Cosmetics is having a $1 sale on a few of their items through the 25th...mostly select colors of certain products, but I noticed that the entire range of their Ultimate Pearl Eyeshadows are part of the sale! (See Karla Sugar's swatches here.) No affiliation, I'm just a NYX fan. :)

And here's a picture of my nails from the other week: a coat of $OPI Absinthe Makes the Heart over 2 coats of OPI Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow. Pardon the tipwear as this was taken five days in. Also pardon my really dry hands, ack. But I wanted to show you the color. I initially planned on only wearing Aragon, but I fell asleep before it dried...so I fixed it with Absinthe. I have yet to try Absinthe by itself, but I heard it was on the sheer side. Since this is layered over a dark green, I'm thinking it would look slightly different layered over black. From a distance, this looked like a nice shimmery army green.

Monday Makeup Madness: Friends & Family

In case you haven't already heard about this: the Urban Decay Friends & Family Event is on through November 20th. Use coupon code FNFW1 to get 30% off your entire order. So now would be the time to get UD presents and/or those sets and palettes you've been eyeing. :P I've compared one of the set-exclusive 24/7 Eye Pencils with some similar shades:



Left side is indoors, right side is outdoors. Crash is the exclusive shade in the Stereophonic 24/7 set (regular price $29). I'd say it's just the slightest bit more red than Rockstar, plus it has silver sparkles. Do I think you need Crash if you already have Rockstar? No. That said, I do like Crash. I've found that reddish plums look like crap on me, but this color is purple enough that it works. It makes my green eyes stand out on top of that. Anyway, to recap, if you have Rockstar, you're good here unless you Must. Have. Every. Pencil.


Back to the Friends & Family topic for a bit. I picked up a few things during Sephora's F&F that are due in tomorrow. If I remember, I'll post pictures next week. I looked at a lot of things that I liked but didn't bother to get. A couple of examples:

Kat Von D True Romance Eyeshadow Palette in True Love, $34: I am a fan of this brand (and I picked up the 500-point bonus palette with my order), but I have enough purples that look like those and the brown side looks like it'd be too warm for me.

MAKE UP FOR EVER Aqua Eyes Collectors' Set, $249: My thought when seeing this was "ooh, that's pretty...but no." Even with 20% off I wasn't tempted. I know it's a deal, considering, but I'd use half of those colors at the most. I could see getting this if I had no eyeliner at all and frequently did artsy sorts of looks (and that's a no on both counts, heh).

Monday Makeup Madness: Sephora Reviews Revisited

Previously on Framboise Noire, I wrote about an issue I had with some customers' reviews on the Sephora website. Well...at least that group of people actually wrote about the product in their review. Recently I've been coming across people leaving low reviews of a product not because they didn't like it, but because it wasn't readily available. See, for example, the following "review" left for Sephora by OPI's Dark Room:

"So I love getting Sephora e-mails to get the latest updates on what's new. I was super excited to see this beautiful color and went to the store the same day. To my disappointment our Hawaii store does not carry it and I was told would need to wait 2 weeks! I really think our stores should carry it especially when it is advertised in the e-mail."

Seriously, people? This is not the way to properly complain. How about something like leaving a comment on their facebook page? That makes more sense to me. More recent reviews for this particular color make sense, as it apparently does not match the color displayed on the website. Looking at the bottle there made me think it was slightly darker than OCC's Blackboard nail enamel, but I guess it's even darker than that...hmm. Another color that has had a ton of comments along the same vein as the above quote is 212-Sephora, but those are more, um, "ranty". The color is limited and apparently popular, so when they get stock for it, it's going to go quickly. Everyone needs to chill. :P Here's what I consider a good review:

"I have maybe a hundred nail polishes, and this just made the #1 spot. It's got so many different kinds of sparkle and glitter, but not in a god-awful teenage way. It's a little translucent on its own, so I layered it over a black creme for the best effect. It is also very cute on my boyfriend's toes!"

Okay, the last sentence was a tad TMI for my liking, but hey, to each their own, plus it gave me a good idea of what the color was like and whether or not I'd want it. It sounds really pretty, so if I happen to see it around I might snap it up. Not that OPI's cheap or anything (unless you know where to go, though that doesn't apply to Sephora's colors), but they are a good brand. I have a nice little collection of them, so maybe that'll be next week's post...

Quick Babbling

1) I went to the Giants game tonight (technically last night). What is it with the Giants and first-time All-Stars missing the game? ...I kid! It sucks that Cain got hurt, but fortunately x-rays were negative, it's just a contusion, and he should be fine. It was nice to see the relievers get a win! There was also a light rain at one point, which caused this to happen:



The other rainbow (or perhaps the other half of the rainbow?) is faint, but you can make it out over the left side of the AT&T sign. Oh, and Sandoval homered for the second straight night. Why is he not on the All-Star team again? :P

2) I wore Sephora's Liner Electro in Khaki today and I only wish I had tried it out sooner. I don't use pencils that often (brushes seem easier for me to use for some reason), but this held up well, plus I love the color. See The Next Best Thing to Going Shopping Yourself for detail + swatches of the product...that post was actually what prompted me to get it in the first place, heh.

3) They brought back Metal Orchestra!? I'd passed on it the first time around, but...wow, that's tempting. (I own two Kat Von D palettes and I love them dearly.) Oh, and over on Urban Decay they have an online catalog of their fall products...but a couple of the pictures show future holiday release products. One is the 24/7 pencil in Eldorado (gold...looks nice, so if you're into those...yeah) and the other is Nail Enamel. They're bringing that back? I don't remember when they discontinued it, I just remember not seeing it anymore one day, though this was before I was on mailing lists and all that jazz. I had a couple of colors of this back in the day that I loved, "ID" was one and...what was the other one, "Pipe" might have been in the name? I wanna say the name had something to do with snowboarding. It was a pale iridescent color.

Post Topics

I feel bad that I haven't posted here in a while. There hasn't been a whole lot to babble about...oh sure, I could link to whatever I saw on YouTube any particular day, but that would get old in blog form. That's what sharing on Facebook is for. :P So I'm going to list some things that would be useful to post here other than Random Tuesday Music, seeing as how that was all I was doing for a while there.

Makeup - Oh, how I love makeup. You wouldn't know that from looking at me on any given day since I usually use neutral eyeshadows, etc. I don't consider myself educated enough in the cosmetics realm to give reviews, but there are plenty of blogs devoted to that sort of thing. What I can do is share products I like and occasionally swatch. One thing I'm working on is looking for dupes of shades in the Urban Decay Book of Shadows.

While we're at it, you can get 20% off all orders over $50 at Cherry Culture starting today through the 7th. :D They carry NYX, a brand that has quickly become one of my favorites, and they also carry the beautyblender...with the discount going on I'm seriously thinking about trying out that sponge.

Also, speaking of Urban Decay, their fall products just came out. I'd previously heard about Ink for Eyes and the new various primers (the pore-perfecting primer is tempting...but it's also $30, so I believe it can wait), they also have new colors of lipstick, lip pencil and deluxe eyeshadow. I'm going to have to check this out. Okay, enough about makeup, on with the list! :P

Short Films - I've started watching ImageMakers pretty regularly. I like short films mainly because the plot's out there and done in 10-15 minutes, which works well with my attention span. So I'll share and/or discuss ones I come across that I really like.

Video Games - I used to be a lot more into games than I am now, but it doesn't mean I like it less these days. The consoles I use the most are the DS, Wii and PS2 (in the case of the latter, I'll play Final Fantasy XII and a few different Taiko no Tatsujin games I have). I'm big on the Final Fantasy series for the most part, but I've only played through half of the games.

Sports - I normally write about them elsewhere, but it doesn't mean I can't do it here too. The sports I watch regularly are ice hockey and football, but I also watch a bunch of other stuff (i.e. baseball, fastpitch softball, men's tennis, golf, just about any Olympic event when that time rolls around).

Knitting - I did have a blog dedicated to that craft, but I do it so rarely now that perhaps I'm better off just lumping that in with everything else here. Hmm. Perhaps "arts & crafts" is more the topic. I do want to get into drawing and/or painting, so there you go.

Shamelessly Plugging Urban Decay

(Some of this was paraphrased from my MySpace blog earlier today. Repetitive, yes, but I don't mind.)

I'm a big Urban Decay fan, and I think their Heavy Metal Glitter Eyeliner is some pretty awesome stuff. However, it's normally $18--yikes--so when I found out that the 3-pc. set they put together (regularly priced at $36) was on sale for $22, I snapped that up...as did everyone else because they appear to be out of it now. :P Uses will be found for the silver and purple liners, but I'm most excited about Stagedive, the turquoise one...I love anything turquoise or teal. Going to Sharks games will include glitter next season. :P Though the Three Piece is out of stock, you can still find three different "Best of Urban" sets on sale for $20...they each include a Heavy Metal eyeliner, an eyeshadow ($16 if purchased alone), a mini 24-7 eye pencil and a mini Primer Potion. I highly recommend getting one of those if you're new to the brand, it's a great introduction. :) The XXX Shine Stash looks like a good buy as well, but I did not partake as I have enough lip gloss and no young female relative/friend birthdays coming up. If those glosses had sun protection, though...I'd have been on it, hahaha.

Since I'm playing more of the "look but don't buy" game these days--gotta save as much money as possible for important future plans--I was thrilled to come across the Best Makeup Under $10 article over at Makeup Geek. I'm interested in the eye makeup remover and maybe the foundation. I don't really use much in the way of foundation, especially when the weather's warmer, I just slap on the sunscreen and go--but this might be worth a try.

Makeup Reviews

I was considering heading down to Burlingame Avenue today to poke around various shops, including the Sephora store they have down there. It ended up being too damn hot. Perhaps next weekend. I'll buy stuff online, usually when it's something I've bought before, but sometimes it's just nice to see the stuff first. I like browsing through their website too, it's put together pretty nicely. The only problem I really have is when you're reading reviews on products like eyeshadow or lipstick that come in more than one color...you'll often come across reviews that say something like "love the color, really makes my eyes pop!" Well, crap. That doesn't help me when I don't know what color you tried out. Perhaps I should start rating and reviewing. I can write pretty decently when I know the topic, if I do say so myself. :P

(I'll leave out the emoticons in my reviews, of course.)

the rash that wasn't

I was out shopping earlier tonight. My hands were especially dry and I didn't have any cream on hand, which got annoying after a while. So when I was over at Ulta buying my sister's birthday present, I also got one of the many things of hand cream they had at the counter on sale for 40 cents (they were holiday-scented). I applied it right afterward and felt a little better, then I ran my other errands and went home. Later on, I was watching TV and I looked down at my hands to find that my fingers were really red except for the tips, and mostly on the palm sides of my hands. And I mean REALLY red, like I'm-about-to-blister red. I freaked out, thinking I'd had a bad reaction to the cream...but my hands felt perfectly fine. No burning, no irritation. Then I thought about it and looked over at the shopping bags I had carried earlier. Dark pink plastic. The ink had transferred onto my hands.

Bleh.

Fortunately it washed right off.

Stuff I've been doing, reading

It's been a while. I haven't gone missing, it's just that every time I try to write something here, the words disappear from my head. I'll try to fix this now. Here are some recent points of possible interest:

- I went to the State of the Sharks last Tuesday. See my half-assed account here.

- Travels with Carlo (The Wonderful World of Loser Domi)
I don't know who Carlo Colaiacovo is, but he seems to get injured a lot, and I think his name is awesome. Anyway, Loser Domi writes funny stuff.

- It took me forever to sign up with sports message boards because I couldn't think of a handle to use. (Also, I'm not very witty and never know what to write, but I digress.) On Saturday, I was at the MYFO liveblog for Game 1 and I wanted to comment on something, so I had to come up with a name. The only thing that popped in my head was "insert bad Czech pun here" which got shortened to "Bad Czech Pun". Guess I have a handle now. It's better than the names I've come up with in the past, so I'm fine with it.

- Yesterday I went shopping at the Scrapbook Nook. That place is dangerous. I'm also super-new to scrapbooking, so I was overwhelmed. I was able to pay cash for all the stuff I got, but that's because I only bought travel-related stickers. I should find some kind of primer for scrapbooking to help me organize in my mind how it all works. I can't see myself making actual scrapbooks because I know I'd get tired of it too easily, but I could definitely make gift tags, invitations and other small things like that. I also want to host a party in mid-December with a tropical theme, so it would be awesome if I got the gist of it by the time I need to send out invitations.

And so they have found a home.

Yesterday I received my latest order from Zappos, which included a pair of sand-colored Ugg boots. Taped to the bottom of the Ugg box were a couple of small scraps of wrapping paper.

Know what that means? I now own someone's rejected Christmas present. I find this hilarious for some unknown reason.

Hm, now that I think about it, this should have been a post for fetchez la vache...oh well, this works too.