Love and hate, get it wrong, she cut me right back down to size.

I just mentioned that I have a love/hate relationship with LUSH. I really do. It's bizarre.

I discovered LUSH a couple years ago right before Valentine's day. I ordered a Soft Coeur, Chocolate Whipstick, Honey I Washed The Kids soap and a Rock Star soap. I ordered these items a week in advance hoping to get them in time for Valentine's Day. They didn't ship until after Valentine's Day.
This surprised me, one who is used to ordering from online retailers like mad and receiving my products within the week.

My items finally arrived and I soon discovered that Honey I Washed The Kids and Soft Coeur smelled like rancid vomit. Rock Star smelled like that pink antibiotic that I had to take when I was little. Whipstick was okay, but it was hard and tasted a little bitter.

After this experience, I'm not sure why I ordered again. There's just something about LUSH... It draws you in. The pictures are so appealing, and the hype! Oh, the hype.

Well, I must have liked something about LUSH, because I ordered about five times in February alone.

Okay, that was a nice little story.

So what do I love and hate about LUSH?

I have tried almost every product that you can get through mail order. Some things I can't do without now. I have not taken a non-LUSH bath in ages! I can't even remember the last time I have.

There are some products that I can't do without now. Christmas Kisses bubble bar, my favorite bath item of all time. Candy Fluff dusting powder, which I once hated. Blue Skies and Fluffy White Clouds, even though I swear I hated patchouli. Avobath, which killed my last cell phone. Jungle conditioner, which sucks for hair but smells incredible. They really make some great products.

However, they keep raising the prices and discontinuing things! They say that they are this ethical green company that is just so down-to-earth and whatever. They really love to toot their own horn, in a big way. They lack sufficient packaging! Showergel bottles that shatter every time I order one, shitty black pots that leak like mad, deli paper and thin plastic bags on the rest. I know that the packaging is part of their philosophy, but ew, soap in deli paper. It's not that bad if you only consistently use one product at a time, but there's no way to nicely store the products if you like to rotate.

Every single time I order, my order is messed up in some way. Taking a month to ship, missing items, moldy items (!!!), wrong items, broken items, leaking items that ruin the rest, demolished shipping box, no packing material or way too much packing material, the list goes on. It's like mail order can't get it together. Trained monkeys could do a better job of "picking and packing" mail order packages.

Customer service bites ass too. If they mess up and you end up with a moldy massage bar (like me) or a shattered showergel or five (like me) they want you to MAIL IT BACK TO CANADA AT YOUR EXPENSE before they will resolve your problem. What. The. Fuck. So you're telling me that since you messed up, I have to foot the bill? Not happening.

I wish they would make matching products. Their lotion section is disgustingly lacking in good products. They should have matching scent lines- Rock Star soap and Candy Fluff powder? How about a lotion and perfume to go with that. People would LOVE that! American cream lotion! I would LOVE a Blue Skies product line! Are you listening, LUSH?

They also need fewer crappy, drying soaps and more showergels. The soaps are murder on my skin. All I do with them now is keep them around to sniff.


The bubble bars are truly great products. I have tons of them on hand at all times, my favorites being, of course, Christmas Kisses and Blue Skies, but I also love Creamy Candy, Flosty Gritter and The Comforter. Hell, I really like all of them except Hot Milk, which I think may be discontinued. Bubble bars are small and compact, come in a variety of scents, can be used 2-4 times depending on the size and amount of bubbles you want, and I don't see how these could possibly go bad.

The bombs are meh, whatever. They totally lose scent once in the water, with the exception of Avobath. They are pretty and smell nice, and are good for scenting things (car, underwear drawer, closet...) Just not Youki-Hi. I have never had a bath product trigger my gag reflex as violently as that did. *shudder*

Some of the products I used to hate, I now love, or at least like. Honey I Washed The Kids. Smelled more awful than I could describe. Now, on certain days, I kinda like the smell. Snow Fairy/Candy Fluff/Rock Star. It's still weird, but now I'm addicted and I love it. The Soft Touch. I thought it should have been named the disgusting awful rotten fruit touch, but after letting it sit a few months it almost smells like vanilla and I kinda like it.

I've only been to an actual LUSH store twice. Ew. Picture every single item laid out on display with no covering or packaging, and everyone in the store touching, smelling, manhandling, sneezing on, and basically contaminating everything. They then expect you to buy these faded, scentless, broken, manhandled items at full retail price. While you're busy being grossed out by the stack of sticky, lint-covered, fingerprinted massage bars, the pushy salesperson keeps trying to get you to buy shampoo bars and follows you around with a rancid smelling Godiva. No thanks. I'll pass on that one.

So, if you can deal with all the bullshit surrounding LUSH and the headache that is mail order, they have some products worth trying. Just don't get too attached because if you like something, they will discontinue it immediately.

Shiseido Brightening Skincare line rocks.

Ooh, ouch. Haven't written in a while.

Partially because I've been busy and partially because there's really nothing catching my interest in the beauty world at the moment.

I'm not quite as excited about my We Wish You Wealth palette now that I've used it. Frankly, the colors are boring and the lipglosses are UGLY. There's not one color in there that I can wear. Oh well.

I do have to rave about Shiseido's Brightening skincare line. My skin is now perfect. Don't have to wear foundation perfect. It's just amazing. It really does brighten, and I haven't broken out at all since I've used it (it's been about a month now!)

I have the MAC holiday palettes on the way. Yay!

Still have a love-hate relationship with LUSH. I'll go into that in another entry.

That's about it for now.... The next two weeks are going to be insane!

Tarte We Wish You Wealth Palette

My Tarte We Wish You Wealth palette is here! I don't have a camera with me, unfortunately.

This thing is huge. There's so much stuff.

Pros:
Eyeshadows are much better colors than they appeared online.
Eyeshadows are full size and seem to be good quality.
Tons of products!
Cute metallic purple packaging.

Cons:
Stupid design- the three-way folding thing doesn't work so well. You can actually gouge/scrape the liquid products with the corners of the palette. Did they even test this thing before they decided to make it?
All the glosses and lipsticks seem to be really dark. I understand the cheekstains being dark, but brown lipgloss?
No bright colors. All seem pretty bland, with a little shimmer.

I can't bear to use this thing yet. There's just something painful about touching a brand new product. I think I'll stare at it for a while and use it in the morning.

I also got the Shiseido brightening skincare kit. It comes in a very nice leather bag, but for some reason mine was opened and scotch-taped back together?!?! It looks like it was originally wrapped in plastic. The plastic was removed and the paper band describing the products was taped onto the bag. WTF, Sephora?

It doesn't seem like any of the products inside were used, but with skincare it's hard to tell. Only two products have safety seals and one was broken. Ummm....

I got Laura Mercier Secret Camoflauge in the second lightest shade and it looks way too dark. Arg. I guess I can always exchange it, but that's a pain.

Oh well... Off to drool.

Hmm... These google searches are starting to worry me...

This week people have hit me by searching "filthy manicure" and "filthy blackened feet."

I think I preferred the "whipped ass videos" to this new strange dirt fetish.... Oh, last week someone googled "disgusting eye infection pictures" and hit me... Nice...

Anyway.

My Tarte We Wish You Wealth palette should be here today. I still am not sure why I bought it. None of the colors even look interesting. But... it's huge! It has so much stuff! I hope it doesn't end up to be like Sephora's crappy Blockbuster palette.

Speaking of crap, I have to rant.

Becca Jewel Dusts. Utter CRAP. I can't believe someone would pay $22 for this. Of course, being a sucker for a sale, I bought a bunch for $5.50 when Sephora was clearing them out. I got Erzulie, Mazikeen, Feorin and Titania.

Now, here is why I think they are crap. They turn grey! You can't blend them without losing all of the pigmentation. There's really no shimmer at all. The colors are dull. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with these now. They're useless. If I wanted bland, patchy grey eyeshadow, I would have bought bland, patchy grey eyeshadow.

Don't waste your money, even if they are on clearance.

And in the same vein, Fyrinnae.

I ordered a ton of samples from Fyrinnae. They do powdered mineral type eyeshadows and other products. The colors all look really cool on the website and in the jars. Really, really cool actually, until you apply them.

They're all BLACK. Every color I ordered that wasn't metallic or bright purple goes on black. The metallics are great so far, so no complaints there. I'm sorely disappointed by the quality of these. You get what you pay for, I suppose.

Take Fyre and Ice for example. It looks amazing in the jar! But try to put it on and it's black, sooty, streaky, skanky, messy, matte garbage. It doesn't blend, it doesn't stick and the shimmer totally disappears.

Neo Universe looks like a super-glittery vibrant purple. Try to apply it and it fades to nothing. It doesn't blend, it fades and leaves weird streaks and patches. Same with Incubus, Necromantic, Wicked, et cetera... All the same. I can't even use them as liner.

I tried different bases, different brushes, my fingers, a sponge, patting, swiping, stippling, mixing with different mediums and nothing. Nothing makes these things work.

I think I'm going to make nail polish out of them.

My nails are really, really long right now. I can't decide if I like it or not. I used to keep my nails pretty long, but one would always break. I haven't broken a nail in months... I'm actually kind of happy I can grow them this long without them breaking. I will have to file them down when they become claws.

I'm wearing China Glaze Outta Bounds with Out The Door Northern Lights silver topcoat. It looks like Christmas. I'm addicted to this topcoat.

You know what sickens me?

Dove ads. You know the ones.

You know why?

Dove is owned by the company that also owns Axe.

Go watch an Axe ad.

Dove- they're just as bad as anyone else in the industry, but this time they're making you think they're doing something positive in order to get your money. They're not. They just want your money.

My Fyrinnae stuff arrived the other day... Wow, these are cool!

I can't decide if I'm excited or disappointed. The colors are all extremely awesome in the jars, and the sample sizes are more than generous.

I think I need to work with them a little more. They seem to lose something in application, and they don't seem to mix well with Fix+, Visine or Smashbox shadow converter.

Sadly, I don't think the Chrome is exactly what I've been searching for. It's too blue and grey, and only looks smooth if I use my fingers. I layered some Quebec City over it and it looked nice. Nice but not perfect. I need to try a few more times.

What I've noticed: It works better over Too Faced First Base than it does over Urban Decay Primer Potion. I haven't tried it with MAC Paint yet, cause I'm out of Stillife and didn't order any colors that go with the other paints I have.

It also looks better when you apply it wet, wait for it to dry and then brush over it with a very soft brush. Makes the chunky flaky look go away.

I am wearing Shrouded in Gold and Gilded Wings today and they are fantastic. Perfect texture. The shades are a little darker than I was hoping, but I can deal with that. I'm also wearing one of the color changing inks. I like the color, but the brush is funny and it's really watery. It smudges if you touch it, even hours later. As long as you don't touch it you'll be fine, but I hoped the color-change effect would be more noticable, like the old school Physician's Formula liners.

Oh, and by "may temporarily stain skin" they mean "will seriously stain everything in a 10-mile radius, sucks to be you."

What else was I going to say?

Urban Decay 24/7. Zero is the best black eyeliner I have ever used. Sorry, Engraved, you've been replaced. I've tried Lust and I was not impressed with that shade. It's not purple enough. When you apply it, it looks grey. Electric, however, kicks ass. It is VIBRANT and smooth and absolutely perfect. I'll get back to you when I've used the rest of the shades.

I ordered the Tarte We Wish You Wealth palette. I couldn't resist. I don't even like any of the colors in it, but it's just so COOL! It has so much stuff! Shadows, gloss, cheekstains (love those), liner, their crappy shadow base, lipstains... I'm sure I'll like something out of it. Tarte does seem to be a little hit-or-miss but hopefully this will be hit.

My nails are really cool today. Out The Door Northern Lights Silver topcoat over Misa Blueberry Glaze. It looks like the night sky. It's what I hoped Zoya Indigo would be.

Did Bare Escentuals change the foundations colors? I bought a new Fairly Light and it is a LOT darker than my old jar. I have them next to each other and there is no denying the difference.

I've been trying out a lot of different foundations. I love my Bare Minerals, but the color is weird now! Maybe I got a bad batch. I got a sample of Laura Geller foundation in my last Sephora order and I really, really like it. Fantastic Foundation or something like that? I normally don't like Laura Geller stuff, but this and the Wonder Wand are really worth having.

And, for the record, my face and neck ARE two different colors. Even without foundation. My face is sort of cool-toned and my neck is somewhat yellowish. What am I supposed to do about that? My foundation matches my face but not my neck. Should I put foundation on my neck, or match my face to my neck? It's annoying. Oh, my arms are two different colors, too. I'm a freak.

One more quick thing to mention: Neosporin. It's the best skin treatment ever! Normally I don't let vaseline or anything similar anywhere near my body, but something inspired me to try it and now I'm hooked. It heals any sort of blemish without drying your skin, and it's way faster!

My face will probably fall off from using it, but I'm not going to stop. It's cheap, effective and can be purchased anywhere.

I got my Urban Decay Deluxe palette and the mini 24/7 liners yesterday!

I think I've changed my mind about Urban Decay... I'm really impressed!

The shadows are excellent, the colors are great, and those 24/7 liners really mean business.

The liners are pretty big, maybe 2/3 of a full size. They stay put like nobody's business. I put Zero on my waterline this morning, and I just removed it. It's 9:37 pm. How's that for staying power, on the waterline no less?

I highly recommend both.

Not that I'm turning my back on MAC... They just haven't come out with anything really cool lately.