When we last left our hero, she had confessed to quickly exchanging coin with Fyrinnae once again upon the unexpected appearance of a wild Loose Mephisto Shadow in their lands. What could be the result of such a venture? Will our hero come out unscathed?

AHERM. Needless to say, my second little Fyrinnae order arrived today! (Exercising self control to not include additional exclamation points). The gods have smiled upon me and allowed both of my orders to arrive on days when I have time to dick around with my spoils.

Here we see Meerkat, Jade Ghost, Snow Leopard, Mephisto, and a full size Pygmy Hippo lip lustre! This beautiful little bundle was sitting in my mailbox when I got home from a dog jog, so I didn’t even have to pretend I wasn’t intending to ambush my mailman when he arrived…since I never had the chance to. I feel pretty charmed with my Fyrinnae shipping, because both of my packages have arrived to me not TWO DAYS after they were dropped in the mail. Two days!! For all of the impatience I am having to adjust to with ordering indies, my present balm is that I live only a couple of states away from Fyrinnae, so I get it about as quickly as I would my Sephora VIB Rouge two-day shipping.

Onward!

SWATCHES!!

Ah, extra exclamation point, there you are…

Here they are in all their glory! Top row is over Pixie Epoxy, middle line is bare skin, lower row is over NARS smudge-proof primer. The lesson to be learned here is this: Friends don’t let friends not use primers. Good friends make sure their friends are using glitter adhesives with their loose shinies.

Look at how Jade Ghost jumps out at you!

Jade Ghost applied entirely true to color from the jar, EXCEPT it has the most incredible radiance, especially when applied over PE. It honestly seems to have this sort of luminous inner glow when the light catches it, and the very slight mint green tinge is a bit other-worldly. This shade really exceeded my expectations, and after someone suggested it to me I already expected good things. You’ll see in the look at the end of this post that it is an incredible inner eye highlighter, so much glow, so wow.

I think that Snow Leopard looks a lot darker and more brown in the jar than when it is applied. It is a very silky, warm taupe. I really love taupes. Like, a lot. And I particularly love this taupe. I have seen some swatches that make this shadow look slightly more pink toned, but I didn’t personally see that. It was a more neutral taupe for me, maybe leaning ever so slightly gold-toned gray, which is where the warmth comes from. Can you see it in the eyes and cheek bones of this snow leopard?

I’m an animal nerd, and am slowly realizing that I love really well done animal and nature-themed makeup. It’s probably important we realize our fatal flaws before they entirely drain our bank accounts, no?

Speaking of more animal themed shadows, Meerkat most certainly does NOT look like a meerkat’s coloring, but instead is pink-leaning purple sparkly magic. I really like the shiny gold sparkles in it (I’m not usually a flat out sparkles girl either), and this particular shade of purple is both wearable and really fun. Maybe it’s because I don’t wear glittery shadows much, but the gold flecks in this really jump out at you as you move, and it gives a lot of life and movement to it.

I totally understand why people lose their minds over Mephisto. When I opened up the lid, it looked like it had tiny little embers burning in it. The experience of seeing it as a loose shadow really tops seeing it pressed into the pan. Because I now own both the pressed and loose Mephisto, I wanted to compare them head to head to see if there are any noticeable differences between them. Let’s take a look!

Pressed vs. Loose Mephisto

In their respective containers, the blue of the loose Mephisto jumps out at me more, whereas the pinky-copper tones of the pressed one seem more evident.

Two things stood out to me. First, the blue tones in Mephisto show up a bit better with the loose shadow over either base. I don’t think the pressed performs poorly by any means, but I saw more copper tones in it than a balanced blend of the two colors when compared to the loose shadow. Over primer this difference is subtle, but I noticed just a titch more depth to the loose shadow. Second, Mephisto in either form performs better over a primer rather than Pixie Epoxy. The PE seemed to overwhelm the blue with the copper/gold color, whereas the primer seems to allow the shadow to be more equally blended between the two colors of the shift. I think the stickiness of the PE adheres to the coppery pigment and intensifies it.

If I were looking to decide between the two shadows, I would likely make my decision based on how comfortable I felt with using loose shadows. The pressed Mephisto is beautiful and performs wonderfully. I am a bit of a perfectionist, and because of that I do think that the color of the loose shadow is a hair more dynamic, but not in a way that would make me feel disappointed if I purchased the pressed shadow instead. The pressed shadow certainly the reduces possibility of fallout as well, which could go a long way for a shadow with such a pigmented blue base.

Pygmy Hippo!

With my first Fyrinnae order I picked up a mini of the Pygmy Hippo lip lustre and went ass over heels for it. I’ve been wearing it almost daily since I got it, and find that my love of the color and the formula hasn’t faded. I still find that I need to re-apply after 2-3 hours of wear (sometimes 4 hours if I’m not doing much), but it does leave my lips a bit stained and I personally find a little goes a long way.

This is where I would really like to give Fyrinnae a shout out for looking out for their customers. I placed my eye shadow order and forgot to order a full size of the Pygmy Hippo. I didn’t realize my mistake until two days later and sent them an e-mail to see if I could add in a Pygmy Hippo onto my order, because I love it and didn’t want to run out. They responded quickly and while unfortunately they aren’t able to add onto orders and make additional charges, they very generously added in a gratis Pygmy Hippo because they had seen how much I loved it in my review (and made the connection between the blog post and my e-mail because I had mentioned that I contacted when while their payment page was down in my blog, and was the only person to e-mail them about the issue that day… Sherlock shit there!). And now all of my other lip products are going to be crying in the corner for a while, because I can wear it all the time now! Mwahaha!

Also, look how adorable the mini looks next to the full:

I’ve used the mini probably five times since I got it (including one or two applications per use) and still have product left. I’ll continue to use it until it’s out, and expect I can probably get about 10 applications out of it?

Turn Around Time

Like my first Fyrinnae order, this order took exactly 7 days to arrive at my house from when I placed it with Fyrinnae. TAT is just a reality of indie companies, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed that in the span of time it has taken me to order from Shiro, Darling Girl, Darling Clandestine, and Hello Waffle, I have received and been able to use two Fyrinnae orders. This is no criticism at all of any other companies– they are terrific indies and are honest about their TAT, which I accept and support, but I’m really pleased with Fyrinnae’s particular TAT.

The Look

What do we do when we get new shadows in? Wipe off all of our other makeup and re-do it! Jade Ghost looked so glow-y on my arm that I wanted to see what it would look like applied, so let’s give it a look-see!

Oooo, so luminous…

Snow Leopard is on the outer portion of the lid, and blended into Jade Ghost on the inside of the lid. Meerkat is lightly blended into the crease and slightly onto the brow bone, and then applied to the bottom lid as well.

As a side note, I typically use the Anastasia brow powder in Strawburn (changed to Caramel now), but have had recommendations for the NYX Auburn powder duo. I’ll do a comparison post soon, but I’m using the lighter powder of the NYX Auburn powder duo here, and I like it! The color is slightly darker than the lighter shade of Strawburn, and is quite pigmented.

I’m playing around with my use of Pixie Epoxy and loose shadows. As I have been experimenting, I have had some trouble evenly blending the loose shadows into one another when applying directly over PE. I did find, though, that I could apply a layer of PE over shadow that has been applied over a primer. So what I did here to have a better blended shadow gradient was first to apply the shadows over the NARS primer to be able to blend the way I wanted, and then apply PE over the areas where I wanted the epoxied look and pat the shadows onto those areas for a brighter look that allows the depth of the shadows to really show.

Products!

MUFE HD Foundation in 110

Palladio herbal foundation primer

NARS smudge-proof eye primer

Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy

Laura Mercier Secret Concealer in 01 and Secret Brightening Powder

Fyrinnae Jade Ghost on inner lid, Snow Leopard on outer lid, Meerkat in crease and on lower lid, Laura Mercier Vanilla Nuts above brow bone

Kat Von D tattoo liner

L’oreal Voluminous Butterfly Lashes

Ardelle Demi lashes

Pixi Subtly Suntouched Bronzer

NARS Exhibit A blush

NYX taupe blush

Anastasia Brow Wiz pencil in Caramel and NYX brow powder in Auburn (lighter shade)

The Makeup Store lipstick in Maria Montazami Pink

Final Thoughts

I’m still new to this indie thing, and I am so pleased with my experiences with Fyrinnae so far! Their shadows are incredibly pigmented and the colors and shifts are really unique and dynamic. The formula of the loose shadows is quite blendable over primer, though I do find blending over Pixie Epoxy to be a little bit challenging at times, just because of how sticky it is. There are certainly ways around this, though! It is really hard to pick favorites out of this bunch, because I love them all. Jade Ghost was a real front runner for me, however, because it surprised me how luminous and creamy it was. I’m really really excited to integrate all of these shadows into future looks. I also am RIDICULOUSLY excited to wear the crap out of my new Pygmy Hippo, and strongly recommend giving at least a mini of Fyrinnae’s lip lustres a try. I have chronically dry lips and really like the texture and application of this lip product, as well as how pigmented it is. It dries down a bit after application, but doesn’t actually dry your lips out, which I often experience with lip products, especially ones that dry down after I apply them. I am also always impressed with companies that go out of their way to be generous with their customers; it’s not something they have to do, especially when they have excellent products, but I think it puts them a cut above. Fyrinnae is definitely in this tier, in my mind.

Things I am Looking Forward To

I now have a page for the hauls I am waiting for, if you are interested in taking a look, jaunt off here! My Dawn Eyes order that I just placed yesterday shipped this morning (!! talking about TAT!), so I expect to have that, along with swatches, at the end of this week. Woohoo! I also have ongoing machinations to get another YSL Kiss & Blush. I have 02, and absolutely love it, and would love to try one of their darker colors.

Your Turn!

What shipments are you waiting for right now? And do you have any particular shades that you love to use as inner corner colors?

It should be noted that I purchased these products completely on my own and am reviewing them independently, without affiliation to anything or anyone other than my mild (ahem) addiction to makeup. The exception to this is the full-sized Pygmy Hippo lip lustre, which was very generously provided gratis by Fyrinnae, however my review of this item (found here) was done before this very nice gesture of customer service.