Purple blush!

Purple blush isn't exactly common - especially if you're trying to find it in mainstream cosmetics - Illamasqua, MAC are the only brands that make almost purple blushes, but even those are really just variations of magenta, fuchsia and plum: cool toned pinks and berry reds.

There are also brands like Shu Umera and YSL that have recently come out with blushes that resembles the colour purple in the pan but when swatched sheer out to yet another boring cool pink.

Raspberry, plum, magenta, fuchsia, burgundy... NONE OF THESE COLOURS ARE PURPLE
[photo credit linked at the bottom of this post]

I mean, technically MUFE makes a purple eyeshadow that they advertise can also be used as a blush, and Illamasqua makes purple cream pigments that can again also be used a blush... but come on now, is it really hard to just produce a classic blush formula in the colour purple?!

This is the reason that I'm now a die-hard indie cosmetics fan:

Awww yissss

Reading left to right the blushes are as follows:

• My Pretty Zombie - Drugs Like Me Blush: 6-MAM
• My Pretty Zombie - Drugs Like Me Blush: THC
• My Pretty Zombie - Drugs Like Me Blush: LSD
• Little Sparrow Cosmetics - Bluebell
• Little Sparrow Cosmetics - Lavender
• Little Sparrow Cosmetics - Lilac
• Fyrinnae - Seduce
• Fyrinnae - Temptation

These blushes may look similar in tone and colour but their nature and finish varies strongly between brands:

My Pretty Zombie's blushes are duochromes, they have a matte base that provides their primary colour and a very fine sparkle colour shift which makes them truly unique and utterly gorgeous.

Little Sparrow Cosmetic's blushes are near matte, incredibly soft and finely milled - essentially a pure colour staple.

Fyrinnae's blushes are on the metallic side of satin - they have a strong light reflecting sheen like a highlighter would - they reflect back the same colour light as the base.

MPZ sample baggies, LSC full sized pots, Fyrinnae minis - one depotted

I originally wrote this as one huge long review of all the above blushes and their respective indie companies, but for the sake of neatness and organisation I've split the reviews into their respective brands:

Click here for My Pretty Zombie Drugs Like Me blush collection review

Click here for Little Sparrow Cosmetics blush review

Click here for Fyrinnae blush review

[Sorry to be a tease, obviously none of those links work now but I'll update them asap when I've published the respective separate complete reviews]

All I can see is joy and excitement in her eyes about being turned such a delicious shade of violet

Saskia X

PrettyTrivialities@gmail.com
@aiksasarual


Photo credit for the 'not purple' collage:
http://www.illamasqua.com/
http://www.maccosmetics.com/index.tmpl
http://www.temptalia.com/mac-give-me-liberty-of-london-blush-reviews-photos-swatches
http://www.sephora.com/blush-radiance-radiant-blush-P294816?skuId=1430438&om_mmc=oth-bt-richlinks-2013

Stiletto Nails

I compulsively bite my nails and it's disgusting. What's equally disgusting though is that anti-biting polish that always manages to ruin the taste and my enjoyment of finger food, so what's a girl to do?

Glue tiny pieces of plastic to her fingers apparently. Normally this is a pretty expensive solution as on the high street a pack of fake nails is between £5-10, but while googling 'Stiletto Nails' to decide which side of the line between 'LOVE' and 'HATE' they lie for me (spoiler, I love them in all their Disney Villain gloriousness) I discovered eBay.

A pack of 600 assorted sized nails came to the grand total of £4.50, so of course I impulse bought them.

Louboutin Stiletto nails - black with gold glitter on top, red underneath 

They came unpainted in an opaque off white colour (although I could've opted for clear), and being ludicrously excited to finally have nails to paint I chose a moderately ambitious Christian Louboutin inspired manicure. The loose gold glitter that gorgeously adorns my nails now also coats my furniture. C'est la vie.

As well as being pointy they are also ridiculously long

The reason there's a hammer in the above two photos is because I don't plan ahead: giving myself a manicure before assembling my new Ikea furniture. I wanted to remember them in all their freshly painted glory before I destroyed them with my ill-informed carpentry. Surprisingly my new nails were not nearly as impractical as I'd imagined them to be as both my manicure, the furniture and my sanity were all still intact at the end of my first ever DIY house project.

Also, they matched my eyeshadow perfectly

And here's the manicure I gave myself yesterday morning: metallic duo-chrome gold and green, I keep catching glimpses of my nails out of the corner of my eye and mistake them for those beautifully iridescent beetles.

Yes, that is a hand made Bedouin bangle

I then realised my nails were a  near perfect colour match for my eyes when I was struggling not to impale myself while putting in and removing contact lenses. I have iridescent beetle eyes apparently; that's sexy right?

#instagrammingthis

So all in all what's the verdict for Stiletto nails? Personally I love them as they are strangely high fashion in a James-Bond-female-antagonist way,  not nearly as impractical as they look nor in the least bit fragile. They also taking scratching itchy skin and scalp massages to a whole new level.

However things I would not recommend doing with these nails:

• Inebriated contact lens removal
• Boxing (or just punching anything really)
• Rock climbing

So essentially there goes my social and sporting life for the sake of some bad-ass nails. But I'm OK with that since I'm still partially crippled from the knee surgery that inspired me to start this blog.


Saskia X

PrettyTrivialities@gmail.com