After much anticipation and fighting with myself not to open this all at once, I can finally share my take on the Indie Advent Calender from AFK Cosmetics featuring guest brands! This was truely lovely to recieve and open everyday, so a huge round of applause for Dena! (Owner of AFK) who put this all together and everyone who took part!. Dena has really excelled with this and I really do hope we see more of these in the future (maybe a Valentines one?) For now I’ll happily day dream and wait till it becomes a reality though.

As you can see, these were all wrapped up beautifully and came in all different sorts of shapes and sizes. I’ve added numbers so you can see which one was which. So, lets begin!

Present 1 – Pretty cute ay? adorably wrapped and inside was a lovely sample of Dawn Eyes Cosmetics eyeshadow in ‘Luxurious’. So far a good start! I really love this colour and I’m going to be purchasing it soon in a full size as its just perfect for highlighting my eyes with.

Swatch/Review – This is a really beautiful pale gold that glimmers in the light. I love using this in my inner eye area and for highlighting my eyes. Easy to apply and wipe of with no fall out.



Present 2 – A perfume sample! Sweet! I recieved ‘My Lady Ser’ by Darling Clandestine and its very nice.

Review – This is one of those things that I wouldn’t purchase myself because reading the notes, it should be something I hate. It’s not though, I love it. From sniffing the bottle I can smell fresh things and a slight green moss scent. Once I lay it onto my skin I’m transported to a field of flowers in spring. I can smell earth, grass, moss and a hint of sweet flowers. This captures the scent of a favourite memory of mine, Walking down Groudle Glenn hand in hand with my boyfriend after it had just been raining. The smell of wet earth and green leaves surrounding us. After an hour you begin to smell soft leather and the distant reminder of moss. 2 hours + and it turns kinda metal? It’s really hard to explain but it smells the way blood tastes? that kinda metallic feel to it but its not bad, its good. 4hours+ and this has blended all together into a powdery feminine scent that is beautiful.

Present 3 – A Blackbird eyeshadow sample in ‘Fire Pledge’. A truly beautiful matte orange.

Swatch/Review – I was a little skeptical at first because I usually don’t go for oranges but I was happily surprised with this. This is a really beautiful matte that can be blended out or layered for a deeper colour. It went nicely with my skin tone and was easy to apply and remove with no fall out.



Present 4 – A lip gloss sample! This is a super sparkly red (great for Christmas).

Swatch/Review – I’ve never really been into lip gloss that much so please excuse the little knowledge I have regarding this. From what I’ve used before, lip gloss looked wet but hella dried my lips out. This lip gloss is surprisingly moisturising and doesn’t make my lips feel dried out. The colour is nice and thick and hot damn there’s a lot of sparkle. Application is easy as is removal. Thankfully there was no staining as I’m a noob at applying lip products so this has opened the world of lip gloss for me!









Present 5 – An eyeshadow mini from HelloWaffle! This was a beautiful purple with blue duochrome called ‘Ho Ho Hodor’.

Swatch/Review – In the jar it looked like a dusty purple, but on application it transformed into this beautiful petrol kinda colour. What’s really awesome about this though is it looks like I’ve used at least 3 different eyeshadows, but really I’ve only used the one. The light can really change the colour so its a super easy ‘im in a rush’ eyeshadow to use. The application was pretty easy and there was the smallest amount of fall out but you gotta be careful with it. if you swipe it off your face then it’ll streak blurple, so you gotta pat it off. Removal was pretty easy with no staining. I absolutely adore this eyeshadow, my favourite colours and character all in one :3





Present 6 – Sweeeeeeet! A full size AFK Eyeshadow in ‘Let it Snow’. I really like this winter icy mint/blue combo going on so this is perfect!

Swatch/Review – This is a very easy product to apply and wipe off with minimal fall out. I feel like the product in jar is pretty true to the product on skin and light doesn’t really change the colour of this. I find its a very cool toned icy blue/mint with what seems like silver sparkles. This is a great all over colour and blends out easy.



Present 7 – A perfume sample from SmellyYeti! This is ‘Proserpine’.

Review – Sniffing from the bottle, you get a very soft sweet scent scent that gentle dies down to a musky kinda scent. Applying to the skin I get the scent of cold dark woods and the same sweet scent from earlier. After 10 minutes the wood smell dies down and a faint I think plum scent comes alive. Pomegranate gentle dances around in between all of this until after 2 hours it becomes a soft feminine musky scent with the slightest sweet tease.



Present 8 – a huuuuge sample of ‘Ex Tenebris Lux’ from SIXTEEN92!

Review – From the bottle I can smell what I think is patchouli and maybe a citrus scent? It’s a touch of Orange to me with it being a sweet sharp scent. After the initial citrus scent it becomes almost like a dusty old room kinda smell which is pretty cool. On application I’m lucky enough that my skin chemistry is kind today, the orange comes alive and is gorgeous. This may sound odd but its a kind, gentle and warm scent to me. after 10 minutes a delicate hint of vanilla makes it way through while the Orange is still prominent. 1 hour into wear and this whole new dimension comes into the mix. it’s like a gentle bunch of flowers mixing in with everything to finally die down after 3 hours into a gentle floral scent for me of oranges and flowers with no heavy base. I love this as an evening spring scent.

Present 9 – A beautiful dark green sample of ‘Douglas Firs’ by Notoriously Morbid.

Swatch/Review – One of my most favourite colours of eyeshadow to wear is dark green so I was so happy when I opened this. A really beautiful matte dark green that if you apply enough blending can turn into a kinda of blue/green. Awesome! While this didnt suit me as an eyeshadow to apply all over the eye, I luckily wiped it off in a way for it to look like eyeliner. This is definately going to be an awesome eyeliner.







Present 10 – YES. For ages I wanted to buy a smudge stick because I’d heard so much good things about them. This is ‘Party Hop’ by Ten Three Labs.

Swatch/Review – A full sized product of tinted lipbalm. This is a lovely orange/red that I can’t put my finger on the scent for. It smells like licorice and sweets to me but I’m not entirely sure. This applies easily and really moisturises my lips. You can layer it up for a darker colour or just one layer for a sheer colour.

Present 11 – A sample size of “MERRY IMAM-NESS” from AFK Cosmetics!

Swatch/Review – I’m gonna beg and plead for a full size of this. Its a beautiful dark red colour that is just amazing for me to apply and wear all day. I’m a huge fan of lipbalms but this one could possibly be my all time favourite. I wore it Christmas Eve and Christmas day without any problems and only had to touch up after eating and drinking too many sweets and cocktails.





Present 12 – I am LOVING this colour. I never knew I wanted a cool blue before, look at the colour! A sample of ‘WinterTide’ by Innocent + Twisted Alchemy.

Swatch/Review – I usually stay away from blue because its a colour I’m not great with but holy moly that all changed now. This is super easy to apply with no fall out and I use it as an all over colour blended out. It really brightens my eyes and brings out the white. A light bright blue with blue and silver sparkles that can be softened or layered to a stronger colour.



All the things together!

Over all I really liked this calendar. I think its an excellent Idea for international people like myself who would like to try more brands out without spending loads of money and waiting around. The variety of products was fantastic and I feel like for me there was a great selection of colours.

I’d say 5 of the products I received I normally wouldn’t have gone near with a barge pole, However. I actually learnt a little bit about colours and scents that do in fact work with me and it’s opened up more choices of places to buy from, products and ways of using the products.

I would love to see more calendars in the future, I think what made this special is the variety of brands instead of it being all one brand.

This would be an absolute dream to receive if you’re new to indies and wanting to get a taste of great products and how diverse they can be. If you’re a seasoned veteran though and you know what you like, this could kinda not be so great for you so having an open mind about products and colours is advised.

If you’ve read this and seen some things you’re interested in I’ve included links for you to go check them out! Some places aren’t open at the minute with it being a busy time of year but they will be soon!

Present 1 – Dawn Eyes Cosmetics

Present 2 – Darling Clandestine

Present 3 – Blackbird Cosmetics

Present 4 – BeautyBarBay Mineral Makeup

Present 5 – Hello Waffle Cosmetics

Present 6 – AFK Cosmetics

Present 7- Smelly Yeti

Present 8 – SIXTEEN92

Present 9 – Notoriously Morbid

Present 10 – Ten Three Labs

Present 11 – AFK Cosmetics

Present 12 – Innocent + Twisted Alchemy

Thanks for reading, I hope you found the information and pictures helpful!

> ‘ . ‘ <

-Atlassararity