New brushes and new mail.

I super duper like to get new brushes. It may be one of my favorite things. Do I need new brushes? No, not exactly!! However, that doesn't stop me. My second most latest purchase (my most recent purchase probably won't make its way to my house for a couple more weeks) was unplanned--and thus I don't feel as guilty about it as I should. Also--the trip the to art supplies store was for another purpose entirely...and that makes it all okay (somehow). AND. Artist brushes are MUCH cheaper than brushes you'll get that are actually "make-up" brushes. So in the end, I WIN.

So. While going to the art store to pick up acrylic paints (my husband and I want to try messing around with them), I found a neato package of brushes that will totally be awesome for liner. And a fan brush--which is so small that it isn't really useful. But 5 out of 6 ain't bad (I think the pack cost $11.99)! The flat topped ones and the angled one are especially exciting to me because their ends are SO very thin. To the left of the pack is a single 000 sized teeny tiny brush (I think it cost...$2 something). I had been doing my eyeliner with a size 00 up to now. The 000 one is awwwwesome though.


I used the 000 to achieve the liner in this look (featuring Madd Style Cosmetics pigments, of course!):

(See how thin the liner is?!! Gah! Awesome. MSC colours used: Blister in the Sun on 2/3rds of the lid. Kick Ass in the outer 1/3rd and then blended into BitS to make that orange colour. The Up in Smoke matte Black was used as my liner. And I used a dab of Rocky (from the Rocky Horror Picture inspired collection) in my duct. Lastly, Xray Spex lightly dusted on as my brow highlight.)

So far I haven't had a chance to play with the brushes from the 6-pack. Hopefully I'll break at least one of them in on Sunday!!

Then, when arriving back home from the art store, I had mail too!! My package from The All Natural Face had arrived! I ordered their primers when I was anxiously awaiting my primer from SoBe--and after a friend recommended the ANF primer, I just had to find out what they were all about. The package contained:

(Liquid Eyeliner, Eyelid primer in "Buff" and in "Black," a business card and two samples)

The samples look neat.

(The one on the left is a "Face Food Fruit Facial Wash--Strawberries and Cream" made of strawberries and coconut milk. The one on the right is a "Softening Mud Mask." I rarely do much "fancy" stuff with my facial cleaning routine, but I'll try these out and see what I think!)

The primers were what I expected. The texture on them is nice enough, but I definitely experienced creasing after not too long when using them.

The pigmentation on the black one is especially nice. I used it as a base to this look:

(This is MSC in Jive Talk on the lid. Blended out with some Star Gazer and UiS White as the brow highlight. I also used some UiS Black in my water line overtop of UD 24/7 Glide Pencil in Zero. Putting the loose pigment over the pencil REALLY makes it stick. I mean, really really stick.)

For the picture taking and for about an hour, the lids looked good--but then the creasing set in and I was one sad vegan Canadian make-up obsessed girl.

So all in all, I am not too impressed with the primers I received from The All Natural Face. I am going to try using less and see what happens. Likewise, I was not very happy with the eyeliner. I tried to take a swatch picture:

(The lower smudged liner was just me testing out the staying power. The top line (right under the scar my sister gave me with a mechanical pencil back when we were younger and hated each other) is the product after two swipes. This colour is called "Black Pearl" but I don't find it to be nearly as pigmented as I want it to be/thought it would be. At least it didn't cost too much $.)

Thus concludes my new brushes and mail show-and-tell! I am hoping to work on my next pictutorial on Sunday--so if you're dying to see me try out a specific colour combo--let me know!! :)