Mail Day and Swatches

This mail day came a week ago but I wasn't able to post it right away and since it's raining very hard now what better thing to do than to blog.  

From Earthen Glow Minerals (BOGO promo):

I got a full size of the Si Vous Plait Radiance Glow...

with my BOGO choice of a full size of the Finishing Powder in Golden tint.

The EG Minerals Radiance Glows are really beautiful and like Dayna's Minerals Glows which are my favorite.  They're not sparkly but give a sheen to the skin.  The more pigmented ones can stand alone as blush.  The finishing powders are like my HG Dreamworld Creme Toppings because of it's good oil control on my face.  The Golden tint is translucent like the other shades but sort of brightens up my face more.

 

I also got samples of the Lightly Tinted Primer and the Soon shade in Cover Me formula.  I match Helena and Yuan Yuan but felt I needed a darker shade for summer and was recommended this shade.  I've tried it and it is a bit too yellow so I mixed it with Yuan Yuan at a 50/50 ratio. It now matches perfectly as a summer shade. 

EGM was kind enough to give a freebie of a pigment since all packages were delayed in shipping out due to the high volume of orders during the sale.  I just don't know the shade since there was no name indicated, just a "thank you" sticker.

From Adorned with Grace:

All prettily wrapped and sealed with a note from the owner:

A full sized Hope 4.2 to mix with my Hope 3.8 (stupid me didn't get the duo of 2 foundations earlier to get the discount because I thought I was a straight 3.8).

 

I only ordered these 2 blushes...

and got these feebies included: 

This full sized eye shadow was a Blog Only special at that time I ordered - when you order a FS foundation you get a full sized shadow of your choice for FREE!

SWATCHES:

*Amar is from Makeup Masala Minerals which I posted here. 

Adorned With Grace Foundation

I thought I've already posted this before but it seems that I've forgotten and left it in draft form.

My Adorned with Grace foundation match is a 50/50 mix of Hope 3.8 and 4.2.  Either of them used alone is off on me so the mix was inevitable.  I like their foundation now that I've tried it and I always thought I was the last one to because I only recently ordered when they've been around since last year.

Foundation ingredients: 

Mica, Titanium Dioxide, Zinc, Magnesium Stearate, & Iron Oxides.

The Hope range of shades is for those with Olive Yellow skin tones like me.  Turns out I do have olive tones contrary to what I thought of as having just pure yellow tones.  It offers medium coverage which is just right for our tropical climate without giving a flat matte look.  The foundation lasts on me the whole day with a good primer  and not making my face an oil slick later on.   Topped with the Divine Oil Control Powder, the effect is much better with good oil control.

I don't break out with the foundation blend and it feels light on the skin.  The full sizes are much cheaper compared with other mineral makeup companies and ordering their Duo foundation set gives a bigger discount especially if you have to mix foundation shades like me.

It's the blushes that I truly like from their company and the Supreme Smoothing Powder (like MUFE's Hi Definition powder) gives other companies a run for their money.  I'd like to hoard some of these next time.  I'm not much of an eyeshadow ho but other bloggers love the eye shadows because they're pigmented with a wide range of shades.

Here's an FOTD during one sweltering hot day: 

Hope 3.8 & 4.2 mix foundation

Divine Oil Control Powder

Supreme Smoothing Powder in Golden Tint

AwG blush in Vivacious

Earthen Glow minerals Radiance glow in Sil Vous Plait on top of blush

Lips: SN Rare berry lip gloss

Eyes: Eyeko Sexy Eyes Palette

AwG Blush swatches

All the Adorned with Grace samples of blushes I have.  They're very pigmented especially the shimmer blushes or glows.  The shimmers aren't over the top and they can be used for daytime wear.

These were all applied dry, no primer.  I swatched them a bit heavily also especially the shimmer blushes.

With flash:

Radiant and Beautiful are both regular blushes while the rest are shimmers or glows.  You can see the sheen in the Glamorous swatch which is one of my faves.  Lovely can stand alone as a blush.

No flash, in natural light, near window:

You can get these blushes from their website.  If you also subscribe to their blog (can be seen on the blog roll on left hand side of my blog), you can be upto date on current promos of their store. AwG rarely holds sales because they're prices are one of the lowest among the mmu companies.

Mail Day Haul

The packages that brightened up my day last week:

Adorned With Grace:

The items came prettily wrapped in the trademark AwG heart swirled wrapping paper.  

I got full sizes of Hope 3.8 foundation and the Supreme Smoothing Powder in Golden Tint, some blush samples and their limited edition Grab bag.  

The Grab bag contained 26 samples of blushes and eye shadows in a rainbow of colors.  

These were either discontinued or "oops" shades and are not for sale in the website.  Franchesca kindly included samples of some of the glows which were on my lemming list.

Joppa:

I took advantage of Joppa's free international shipping and got a full size refill bag of the Full Coverage foundation in Medium 2.5.  Also in my pkg were Tish's orders (no photo).

And the last package is from Frond who sent me a ton of foundation samples:  

I haven't gone through all the items yet but picked out the ones from Buff'd first because those were the ones I really wanted and needed.

Will post reviews soon for some of the other products.  Also, I've lined up in draft form lots of future entries (in photos) but haven't gotten around to writing the full articles yet since I'm still testing them or about to test them.  Stay tuned for that.

Joppa & AwG swatches

I got my recent sample orders from Joppa and Adorned with Grace minerals.  I have a full size of Joppa full coverage foundation in Medium #3 but noticed that it would turn slightly pink whenever I wore it.  Good thing Joppa came up with a new shade in #2.5 which has a more yellow undertone.  

I've tried it and it does look better with no pink tones in it.  

Here's a swatch comparing the 2:

    

no flash, in natural light

with flash, in natural light

Medium #3 does look a bit more beige while #2.5 has more yellow.  Now I can get my full size before their free shipping ends next week (March 5).

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Adorned with Grace

I have heard so many positive reviews on this relatively new mmu company that I gave in and got some samples to try.  I haven't tried them on my face yet though as I'm still re-sampling Joppa.  Anyway, here are swatches of the foundations I did on white paper, applied dry:

Not sure which one would match me but they all look similar with very slight degrees of darkness.

Haul

My recent haul which I just got this week:

Joppa samples of their new shade Medium #2.5 plus freebies (inbaggies).

Adorned with Grace samples of foundations and powders.  Francesca was kind enough to add samples of e/s and blushes.   The packaging is so cute and the baggies were vacuum sealed.

wrapper

vacuum sealed samples

foundations in Hope 3.8 and 4.2 and Grace 4.0 and 4.2

Celestial and Divine powders

blushes (oops, I forgot to take a photo of the Marvelous e/s)

From my friend E. of Beauty Society, a skin care company: 

skin care samples

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Will post individual posts on them soon.