I got the loveliest package in the mail that just made me squeal, much to the amusement of the Fox. Yes, my Hello Waffle Blogger’s Pack has finally arrived! In fact, it arrived a week ago, but I’ve been busy as a bee and am only getting down to the review now. I’m kinda ashamed, especially since the amount of goodies that I received from Christine is astounding. It’s just that I’ve been preparing for a trip to Taiwan, so I haven’t been able to dedicate as much time to swatches and reviews as much as I’d like. For this reason, I’ve decided to break up this review into two parts: 1. Eye shadows and 2. Blushes and Lip Balms.

I know what you’re thinking as you look at my haul picture. That’s an awesome amount of full sized products for a blogger pack. I have the ever so lovely Christine to thank for that! She up-sized some of my samples and included a full size of Corgi Butts as a special surprise. I honestly wasn’t expecting to get many freebies out of this since I ordered during the sale and already enjoyed a nifty discount, so this was a really lovely surprise.

Here’s a tally of my gorgeous haul:

Full sized eye shadows in: Bach, Bartok, Corgi Butts and Mendelssohn

in: Bach, Bartok, Corgi Butts and Mendelssohn Full sized blushes in: Belle and Rose Tinted Glasses

in: Belle and Rose Tinted Glasses Full sized lip balm in Original

in Original Eye Shadow samples in: Dormouse, Einaudi, Eternity, Fey, Gryphon, Mozart, Rule 42, Schubert and Tower

in: Dormouse, Einaudi, Eternity, Fey, Gryphon, Mozart, Rule 42, Schubert and Tower Blush sample in June Bug

sample in June Bug Lip Balm samples in Ginger Kitties and Roses of the Vale

Christine is so amazingly generous that I really managed to get a lot of product out of this blogger’s package. I feel bad that I’ve dallied this long in writing up this review because this is really quite the star-studded cast that I have received.

♥



A quick company overview

Hello Waffle is an adorable Canadian-based cosmetics e-tailer owned by Christine, and offers a wide range of gorgeous eye shadows, tinted lip balms and mineral blushes. The store gets its namesake from Waffle, who, apart from being Christine’s pampered pet cat, is the much loved mascot featured on most of the store’s product labels. The aesthetic of this shop is cute, minimalist and feminine all at the same time and each product is packaged so well that it’s as gorgeous on the outside as it is on the inside.

Offering a selection ranging from striking duochromes to iridescent glitter, each collection is inspired by a unifying theme that revolves around fairytales, musical composers and other lovely aspects of life. With great customer service, high quality products and incredibly reasonable worldwide shipping charges, it’s no wonder that Hello Waffle has become a beloved staple in any indie make up addict’s collection.

What I love about indies…

Before I get into the review proper, I just had to rave about what a wonderful experience it was to discover my Hello Waffle haul. I was greeted by this most adorable sight when I attempted to rip into my package:

Penguin duct tape! I don’t even have the words to describe how cute it is. It’s little thoughtful things like this that really showcase how much heart and effort an indie owner puts into her store. The lovely surprises continued after I opened the package (as carefully as I could to avoid tearing the faces of the cute penguins), I saw this sweet little handwritten message on my invoice.

Mind you, I placed my order during the sale period and I cannot imagine how swamped with orders Christine must have been. The fact that she actually takes the time to include a handwritten message for her customers (with cute little kitty stamps, no less!) is really heartwarming. While ordering my blogger’s package, I made a request to swap out the full sized blush for two sample blushes so that I could try out both Belle and Rose Tinted Glasses. Instead of doing that, Christine very generously threw in a full size of Belle. She even upgraded Bartok to a full size. I’ve had experiences with some cosmetics shop where they simply swap in a similar product to replace a sample that has gone out of stock so this was really a very pleasant surprise for me. She is so generous and thoughtful and honestly, I feel so pampered. ♥

Turnaround Time

I placed my order on June 6th, 2014 and the order was completed on June 24th, 2014, which fell right within the stated turnaround time. It wasn’t really a short wait, but considering that I ordered pretty late into the sale, this is totally within my expectations. I received my package within two weeks of shipping, which is the standard delivery time for international packages.

Eye Shadows

Ingredients: Mica, Titanium Dioxide, Iron Oxide, Boron Nitride, Carmine, Kaolin Clay, Magnesium Stearate, Zinc Stearate

I have been eyeing Hello Waffle’s eye shadows for the longest time but I’ve been procrastinating because I just couldn’t decide which shades to get. This is actually one of the few stores where I face the dilemma of being in love with practically every available shade. It took all the discipline in me to round it down to the 12 included in the blogger’s package. I’ve been playing the piano since I was a little girl, so I absolutely had to snag a couple of full sizes of the Composer’s Collection. The artwork is stunning and I feel tempted to eventually get the entire collection just for the adorable labels.

I was fortunate enough to receive an upgraded jar of Bartok and a free jar of Corgi Butts. It almost feels as though Christine is psychic because I regretted not ordering Corgi Butts the moment I submitted my order. You can imagine how delighted I was to discover it in the package. The shades are so beautiful even in the jars. I have been searching for the perfect shade of brown so I’m really glad to have all of these in my collection.

I obviously had a certain color palette in mind when I ordered my samples. I really am more of a smokey eye / neutral colors kind of girl which can seem boring and unadventurous to some, but I assure you this. There is nothing boring about these gorgeous Hello Waffle shades. These are all so wonderfully pigmented and they really spring into life the moment they come into contact with your skin. I did my swatches over Glitter Glue and Nyx Milk and I love how they appeared over the two respective primers.

Over Glitter Glue

Over Nyx Milk

I’ll definitely do more detailed swatches of each individual shade when I have more time and when I acquire more primers. I do want to eventually have Darling Girl’s Primped & Primed and Fyrinnae’s Pixie Epoxy in my collection. As it is, I’m really happy with the shadows. I didn’t do the glitter glue swatches very well since I’m still trying to climb the learning curve of glitter adhesives. /shamefaced. These are amazingly easy to apply over a creamy primer like Nyx Milk though and the color payoff is perfect.

To be honest, my swatches do no justice to these gorgeous eye shadows. They are so vibrant and intricate in real life that I couldn’t stop staring at them. It was actually quite heart breaking to wash them off because it felt like such sacrilege to remove something to beautiful from my skin. I’m definitely lemming to try out some of the pressed eye shadows when Christine reopens the shop in August. Until then, I just might try my hand at pressing some of the samples myself. Fingers crossed about how that’s going to turn out!

♥

Keep your eyes peeled for part 2 of my Hello Waffle review

I’m still in the process of doing the swatches of my blushes and lip balms so this is the end of my first Hello Waffle review. So far, I am head over heels in love with this company, both for their amazingly high quality eye shadows and for Christine’s impeccable customer service.