So a couple of packages arrived while I was in hospital - a very, very old order from Insomnia Cosmetics (as in, I purchased it on the 31st of December) came as well as a purchase I got in a destash on the the Indie Makeup and More reddit (which is one of the best internet communities I am a part of, everyone is so lovely) from a user called pure_violet. I made that purchase high out of my mind on painkillers because I was really sick, so opening it up was a lot of fun because I’d kind of forgotten what was in it.

Here are the goods, ft. the dining room table and my mum’s head in the blurry background:

Insomnia Cosmetics lipsticks in Minx and Lucid, Darling Clandestine’s Pyrotechnik, Arcana’s Comfort 2013, Hot Apple Pie perfume oil not available yet for wider sale

Below the jump I’ll break it up - scents, and then the lipsticks, because my lipstick order had a few more kinks (all of which the company have been wonderful about so I harbor no hard feelings). I forgot to arm swatch the lipsticks but do have lip swatches so…I hope you like lip swatches?

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Perfumes

When I see a destash post on reddit by a fellow Australian, my heart flutters. Buying from an Australian means I get faster shipping, cheaper shipping, and someone else has done all of the heartbreaking bits for me. I also don’t mind purchasing slightly used products when it comes to things like perfume oils which don’t have the same sanitary issues as a lot of makeup, as it means generally I get a better price on something I’ll never use up (I’ve used up two rollerballs of perfume in my entire life). This cost me $24 in total including postage, which took less than a week and I’m not sure on wear time yet because new babies. Let’s assess!

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Darling Clandestine Pyrotechnik (not currently available for purchase; DC are very seasonal) - This was really the reason I made the order, as I’ve been super keen to try out Darling Clandestine perfumes and I didn’t recheck the notes but I remember being intrigued by Pyrotechnik, so I grabbed it. The brand itself I have always been equal parts capitvated by and turned off of - I love conceptual perfumes and evocative fragrances, but something about the sheer obscurity of some of the descriptions made me flag. Admittedly, this perfume probably wasn’t the best intro to them - this scent is lovely but it’s not amazing. On cold sniff there’s a tartness and a tanginess but it’s an overall sweet, vaguely fruity scent, and when it dries down on skin I’m getting a weird herbal note? Crosschecking this with the description is hard because DC descriptions are almost as rambly as I am, but the main points are “this fragrance is a sangria-spicy concoction with bold notes of cantaloupe and raw sandalwood darkened with smoke and earth“ which, I mean, I kind of get - I feel like there’s more fruit in there than just ‘cantaloupe’ but I do get the spicy tart sangria comparrison, and the ‘earth’ must be the herbiness that’s amping up on my skin - not quite to patchouli levels, but still. It’s nice a subtle and sweet with a minimal throw, but I’m glad I tried it.

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Arcana Comfort 2013 - so obviously this is not a new scent to the arcana family, but the description of it had me set to buy mode. I’ve also been super curious to try some Arcana (Apples Crave Vanilla is calling to me) and at first I was skeptical about this perfume but after I let it sit on my skin I fell a little in love. My notes mention warmth - this is a really warm scent - and fruity sweetness that I can’t make out more specifically, and something with a slight tang. It smells a bit like the fruit tisane section in a T2 store which may not be a universal thing but just imagine. The official description, per the Rhinestone Housewife (one day I’ll gain the courage to make an order and ask her to ship it to Aus which I know she does but I’m just not ready yet) is “The sugarcoated balm of holiday solace. Bright pomegranate and fluffy snow lift the soul while splashes of citrus, tonka, and rum warm the heart.” and I’m pretty happy with how I picked that - pomegranate is definitely the fruitiness and the citrus and tonka are really fun and lovely with it. The throw on this one is wicked - with arms by my side, this was the one I kept sniffing in the air, and it smells safe and comfortable (as the name would imply) and reminds me of something just beyond my memory’s reach.

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Hot Apple Pie - it feels a shame to review this knowing it’s not available online or even out and about, but my lovely destasher threw this in as a bonus - it was made by her friend who sells soap at an Adelaide market to test the perfumes for the soaps (you can follow her on twitter at @CandidaVirgo and try and beg her to make it for you? I might do that when this runs out) and oh my god you guys. Oh my god. It’s like if SS Kitchen and SS Corvin’s Apple Fest ran away together and had a beautiful apple pie baby. It smells like a fresh out of the oven pie and I get all of the warm spices and heat with the stewed apples and just wow. It wears close to the skin but it lasts and as it goes fades into a just kind of generic warm apple scent but I don’t care it’s so good Also, it’s in a rollerball! Rollerballs are probably the reason I’m such a big Solstice Scents fan. I would buy this perfume hardcore.

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Insomnia Cosmetics Lipsticks

So my Insomnia Cosmetics order was a little different, but everything’s great now it’s mostly all said and done. As I ordered in the New Year’s Eve flurry (in order to use a discount code), I knew it would be a very long shipping journey. It may not be as bad if you’re in the States, and I didn’t mind the shipping time because I am Australian and used to opening the post box every day and crying, but some people might be turned off by that? However if you want lovely lipsticks, you might want to push past that. I had previously made an Insomnia order, sort-of-reviewed over here, and loved absolutely everything. And then new colours were released and a new formula and knowing I loved their lipsticks, I went a bit loopy and bought two full sized colours, including a light blue/purple I was super psyched for. Unfortunately, when it arrived today (10th of Feb if you’re counting), one of the lipsticks was pretty damaged. And naturally, it was the blue one. Curse you, cruel gods.

Minx arrived in perfect condition and it’s lovely, but Lucid is…a lost cause.

Thankfully, the lovely ladies at Insomnia Cosmetics responded to my query (read: desperate plea) almost immediately asking for my address to send a replacement right away. It’s one of the things I love about indie cosmetics - if there’s a problem, you’re dealing with a person rather than a corporation, you know? So hopefully a replacement Lucid will arrive soon, but seeing as shipping from Insomnia isn’t the quickest, in the mean time I will endeavour to use Lucid through some weird combinations of finger, brush and bullet.



If you haven’t read my yapping about the insomnia formula for lipsticks, you’ve missed one crucial point: they’re really good. They’re opaque and creamy but not slippy and a lovely semi-matte finish to them that’s anything but flat but still lacks slip. They feel like they adhere well to the lips and they’re easy to touch up, and lack any major scent or taste. Lucid is in that formula, while Minx is in their then-newly-released matte formula, which is the same but…matte.



Minx

(Blogger’s note: I’ve been really sick for about two weeks and had literally just arrived home from hospital when I slapped this on, so my brows are WILD and my selfie skills were subpar, many apologies)



Minx is described as a “deep plum wine shade” and I’d agree, except on my lips it pulls less plummy and more red/mahogany brown and stains/fades purpley. I like the matte formula for this - it applies easy and though it isn’t fully opaque in one go, it builds quickly and easily into this super dark beautiful rich colour.



Here’s an awkward close up - after this it settled into a far more matte finish, but not a true matte - like a Colourpop matte equivalent.



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Lucid

I have done my sad little dance about Lucid but I thought I’d show you the swatches I pulled from it anyway.

(post shower, attempting to find non-awful lighting but failing, eyebrows back under control)

That photo does it no true justice, I just thought it was a nice selfie, not going to lie. The close up says more about the colour, except it’s blurrier:

Insomnia describe it as “a wicked indigo. This shade looks blue on some, and purple on others.” and I can see how it would do that, because on me it’s a definite blue but has lavender undertones. It’s not a pastel blue, but it is what would happen if you mixed together Fierce Magenta’s Marina and Permafrost lipsticks (you can dig around in my Fierce Magenta tag to see swatches, as it probably ties with Fyrinnae and Insomnia for my favourite indie lipsticks). I love this kind of colour on me and am very excited to get better so I can go back to wearing the hell out of all of my lipsticks.

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So that’s today’s mail! Amazingly, I still have more in the post - I caved on those amazing looking LA Splash Smitten Lip Tints and on another Alkemia perfume order and um another Fyrinnae order (they brought out new colours! I had to!), so I’ll have posts on those up whenever they arrive, and I’m going to try and re-regulate my posting on here to make up for illness induced radio silence. Right now I’m off to go and bury my head in my arms that smell like apple pie and write about my Chi Chi Viva La Diva lipstick collection a la my Sportsgirl lipstick collection posts (if there’s any of my collections, by brand or by type, that you’d like to see full swatches of, hit me up - I have a lot of Australis Velourlips, for instance, that I’ll get to doing a post on, and I also will probably eventually do the same with most of the brands and collections I have hoards of).



That was lengthier than you’d expect for someone who hasn’t eaten in about two weeks.

