Dulcissime

I spent my weekend figuring out how Wordpress works. I migrated the Sihaya Designs work blog over there:

http://sihayadesigns.wordpress.com/

I also set up a makeup blog:

http://enchantedmirrorbeauty.wordpress.com/

The first week or so will be repeats for people who follow my blog here, but overall, I think it will be a better platform for those types of posts than LJ. You can keep up with it through FB, Twitter, or RSS if you don't want to visit it directly. I will probably link to posts there over here, but considering I have a posting queue set up there, there will be a delay.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to curl up with hot tea and ibuprofen.

I didn't meant to spend $125 at Ikea. Looking back on it, it was bound to happen. I was starting to have too much stuff in my studio, and not enough ways to organize it, so piles were forming. I ended up getting a white box shelf and lots of small organizers to fill it. Now my art supplies are neatly stacked on their shelves, and my makeup collection/nail polishes are sorted in their organizers in the box shelf, with two bamboo bins that hold scarves and hairbands and dance odds and ends. The printer has a place to be other than the dining room table. SO much cleaner. Happy Virgo is Happy.

Saturday morning, I was supposed to deliver a wholesale order to a boutique who'd requested one, but when we got there, the shop was closed due to flu. Poop. Turned lemons in to lemonade and struck out to scout out other boutiques to carry my work. I found two potentially interested in Ellicott City. I have two weeks to throw together sample kits that work for their aesthetic.

Missed out on Kallisti dancing at Moonlight Tribal, and was sad about that.

Today, I have resin projects to finish for custom orders. Having a hard time getting warm, though, so I might treat myself to a hot bath tonight.

So I have decided that I *am* going to start a beauty blog. I'm going to transfer a couple of more recent makeup posts from here over to there, and I have a post of drugstore beauty favorites post ready to go when I do. The only thing that's holding me up is the name. I want something that evokes illumination, or glitter, or glow, or iridescence. So far, I've had little luck coming up with something I'm satisfied with. Ironically "Addicted To Glitter" is already taken by someone named Christina, and there's a beauty blog that uses Sihaya, as well. I keep waiting for inspiration to hit, but so far no dice.

I am also growing far past impatient for Sephora to offer a 500 pt reward item that is actually interesting. Right now, all they have is a Josie Maran argan oil kit, and I AM GETTING SO TIRED OF THE OIL TREND. Like, I get it. Useful product. But one can only try so many hair oils. There has been no new 500 point reward for about three weeks now, and I am one of those people who will hold off on a purchase until I can get the most bang for my buck. And right now, I am eyeing one of the Urban Decay build your own palette kits. As much as I love my Stila In The Light Kit, I am out of the color I use most (a matte ivory), almost out of my preferred crease shade (matte fawn brown), and running low on the other two neutrals I use a lot-- but half the palette remains mostly untouched. I thought about Urban Decay's Naked palette, but it has no matte ivory, and their Naked Basics, but three of the six shades look damn near identical. So I think I'm going to build my own. At the very least, if I run out of something, I can just replace that shade rather than buying a whole new palette.

For Palette 1, I am thinking basic neutrals. The stuff I use every day. The palette I want already comes with an ivory matte, so I was thinking of adding Buck (a warm matte medium brown), Blunt (light metallic gold, my go-to shade for my lids), Half Baked (golden bronze), Twice Baked (a dark brown with gold highlight), and Snatch (light golden peach). There are a ton of other colors I love in the more theatrical range, but the need to have them isn't as burning as it is a good compact neutrals kit.

But that's like, $60 more than just getting the Naked palette and a plain matte neutral ivory, so I don't know. INDECISION.

Aaaaaanywho. Got stuff to do. Back to it!

Just a bit.
( There is a serious crap-ton of nail polish under this cut. )

And there you have it: my monster nail polish collection. However! I can honestly say I have worn EACH of these polishes in some way (alone or layered) in the last year. I work with metal and have to change my polish on average every three days.

Favorite Brands: Essie's cremes. Zoya's shimmers. Nicole by OPI for glitter.

Overrated Brands: I can't say overrated per se, but I find that Butter London's polishes chip quickly on me. I know that's not a common sentiment. But they are very expensive, so I only purchase them when there's truly unique color I want to try.

Favorite Polishes: Ozotic 505, Essie A-List, Essie Eternal Optimist, Essie Go Overboard, Zoya Adina, Zoya Faye, Nicole by OPI Nicole's Nickel

Polishes On My Wishlist: ( Wishlist. )

So, like rat bastards, Sephora decided not to have an open Friends and Family sale this year. For non beauty-junkies, every year prior, they'd had a 20% off coupon available to pretty much everyone on their mailing list. People save and wait for this sale every year. Well, this year it was for employees and VIBs (shorthand for 'people who spend more than me at Sephora') only. Now, I qualify as a "Beauty Insider," and they've said not a word about whether or not we'd get any sales this year.

There was outrage. Much outrage. People are pissed.

FORTUNATELY, they gave each VIB a 20% coupon to share with a friend. And marinatempest? She is something of a Sephora addict, and also a kind soul.

I had a very short shopping list. One was for a new foundation. I've used Makeup For Ever's HD one and liked it before in winter (as I wear full-coverage in winter and either light or medium coverage in the summer). However, when I saw this review for Kat Von D's new Lock-It Tattoo foundation, I knew I wanted to try it. It's not that I have heavy blemishes or anything. It's that my skin gets super oily in the winter (it apparently thinks we live south of the equator), and this pink hair pulls out every single red/pink tone in my skin. As I do have pigmentation issues around my nose, unless I have full coverage there, I tend to look like I've been sniffling and sneezing. So I went ahead and ordered shade #48, and I'm praying it was the right one.

#2 on my shopping list was sadly sold out. I wanted the Lorac Pro Palette for its fabulous mix of mattes and shimmers, and for its neutrals and stage colors. SAD TROMBONE. Now, I am picky picky picky about my palettes. I'm pale, and I don't like to wear a lot of dark eyeshadow. I know that in any given palette, I'm really going to only be able to wear about half of the colors. As much as I ADORE Stila's In The Light Palette, I only use 5 of the ten shades regularly.

I thought about Urban Decay's Naked I, but honestly, I would only use half those shades, and it's missing a truly matte light color. Part of the appeal of the Lorac palette was the matte white and cream... you don't use matte white a lot in regular makeup, but it comes in very handy for photoshoot and stage makeup. The closest I could find to the two specific shades I was looking for was the NARS Portobello duo, but crapballs! $34 for TWO EYESHADOWS. DAMN.

#3 on my list was a little splurge. MakeUp Forever Holodiam Powder in Plum. Why did I splurge? Because it's really a multi-tasking product. Primarily, it's a glittery eyeshadow that will rock on stage. But beyond that? It's a powder. Which means you can use it to make highlighting lotion, nail polish (mix some in with some top-coat), and I have even used pigment powders in jewelry applications before.

Also? ( Lookit. JUST LOOKIT. )

So... foundation and super sparkly stuffs. 20% off. Like rat bastards, though, I couldn't use both the coupon AND my coupon code for a deluxe samples kit. HUMBUG. On a positive note, I *FINALLY* reached 500 points on my account, after YEARS of points-hoarding, so now I get something potentially awesome for free just as soon as I see something I want (points rewards rotate).

I may get a few specific matte neutral shades from MakeupGeek, or I might give Inglot a try, or I may just wait until the Lorac Pro Palette comes back in stock. It really does look like the most bang for your buck.

Also? I now have a jar of MarketSpice tea as big as my head. Life is good.

Today started out really slow. Woke up to a power outage. No electricity = can't pack orders, can't work on custom orders (as I keep all info in Google doc file). Couldn't even make coffee. Sat around idly twiddling my thumbs and trying to read, but I kept getting distracted and feeling guilty because I have so much to do, dammit. Relaxing, it's not my strong suit. At least not at home. When I'm on vacation, I am content to sleep in and laze about and read for hours and go out into the world and let my hair down. When I'm home, I always feel like there's something I ought to be doing.

But now that I've packaged 20 orders, most of which are from the Anniversary Sale, I am taking a bit of a breather. For me, a breather means trawling my suppliers for the best labradorite (labradorite purchased today: 11 pieces-- blue, rainbow, rose, purple), giving a tricky spot in a choreography edit a second look (verdict: still stuck), and posting to LJ about trivialities.

So. Trivialities. It's that time of year-- almost July means that my body is already daydreaming about Autumn. Happens every year, like clockwork. Though this has been a regular occurrence since my teens, it's been stronger in recent years-- now is about the time I start brainstorming my Fall & Halloween jewelry collections, so I already have warm tones on the brain.

I decided that this Autumn will be the Autumn in which I dress like Stevie Nicks. Long tiered skirts, velvet jackets. I had hoped to buy a few more wardrobe pieces last fall, but money was tight, so this time I'm planning ahead. Also stalking ebay. Another thing I want to add to my wardrobe? Granny boots. But not calf-high ones-- they always look funny on me. I'm looking for knee-high, and I can be very particular. These are pretty much perfect:




(Note: I am crying on the inside that the second pair are one size too small for me. If you're a size six, they're only $88. Attack!)

I am also contemplating the next hair color I want. It's been a light auburn-y copper since March, and somewhere in the red spectrum for longer than that. If I keep with the red, I think I'm going to switch to Adore brand. My friend Jane Wynn swears by them, and she always gets the most bright, vibrant orange-reds, so I trust her recommendation. But I am also really wanting to go back to pink-- well, not the hot pink I've done in the past, more of a deep, moody magenta. Like so:





I think my skin tone is neutral enough that I could pull it off, if I don't go too cool-toned. Also woe that my natural hair isn't dark, or there is no force on this earth that could keep me from doing this-- with my natural dirty blonde, it'd just be way too much fuss and hair damage-- plus brown looks weird on me.



Also, in the final trivial-but-sparkly note: I was in Ulta this past weekend and splurged on a Lorac Multiplex Lipgloss in 3D. It's a bronzey color with pink to gold duochrome shimmer. It is AMAZING. And I say this as someone who generally detests lip gloss. But once I'd swatched it, I had to have it. OMG. Plus apparently Vivid is a pink-to-green duochrome? Aaaagh, my wallet.

Ok, back to the grindstone.

Dancing: The big thing in my world this week was the Art of the Belly festival in Ocean City. I was there to dance with Transcendence & also to shop and watch others dance. I had planned on a superchill day. Flissy & I left at around 5:30am to get down to Carousel in time for her morning workshop-- we were greeted at the door by Naimah, who asked us to dance a fill-in slot because one of her students had to drop out. The cool thing about improv: it makes filling in SO easy, because I can dance to literally any ATS-able song I know at a moment's notice. So we performed twice: once as Transcendence and once as Verve. We were sandwiched between some of the best dancers around, too-- I was too busy watching from the wings to get real stage fright. So that was awesome.

Here's Transcendence's set:

Transcendence Tribal at Art of the Belly from Spiral on Vimeo.

( Other highlights & dance bits. )

Hair: My hair is now suuuuper bright. I let Jason pick out my haircolor-- a true red-- that, once on my hair, looked like a $5 Bozo the clown wig, no lie. It a flat ketchup red that made my skin look yellow. I went over it with an auburn demipermanent and now I have a still super bright red, but more of an orangey red-- kind of like the little girl in the Brave trailer. This I can live with.

Cats: ( Mim is ridiculous. )

The Hunger Games: I saw it! I mostly loved it! Discussion in another post, probably tomorrow.

Retail stuffs:

-- After I saw it on Vampy Varnish, I decided to give the Physician's Formula Youthful Wear Foundation a try. Touted as sort of a BB cream, with SPF and a lightweight formula, it's definitely appealing for warm weather. I don't really need it for the youthful aspects, as I don't have many wrinkles, but I have to say: I love it. It blends in velvety smooth and then you can't feel it at all. It looks very natural, and evened my color out with a minimum of additional concealer needed. It's sheer so it blends with your natural coloring, but unfortunately (as usual, sadly) darker skintones are SOL here.

-- I also tried Revlon's new Falsies Flared mascara formula, because I was out of my regular mascara and ready to try something else. Another winner! Apparently, this is a definite improvement over the original Falsies formula, because I didn't get spider lashes-- just very long and defined but still natural ones. Very happy.

-- Oh Beautyblender, how much do I love you? Let me count the ways. It makes my face look airbrushed. Amazeballs. Other big rec? Orofluido hair elixir. Makes my hair smell amazing, and delivers on shine big-time without looking greasy. And volume! Overall I love it. I just acquired some of the conditioner by the same brand & will report back. Both of those, by the way, were Birchbox finds. This month's Birchbox had Essie nail polish, a full sized Tarte lippie, another hair oil, and a few other things. I am seriously digging my Birchbox subscription, dude. For $10 a month, I've gotten to sample some pretty awesome stuff.

-- I got a Soapbox Co order today! All of the soaps in my soap pantry are winter leftovers, and I am so ready for light, fresh, spring-y. Went with Villainess's Sol Baccio, Arcana's Ambrosia, Sweet Olive's Satsuma & Mint salt bar, and Paintbox Soapworks' The Olive Branch. Will report back. Also tried a Wicked Soaps rollerbar of Morgana Le Fay perfume... I can't tell if I mildly like it or not. When first applied, it smells weird, like shampoo or something, but after a moment there's a strong hit of citrus. Which is nice, it's just not at all what I'd pictured. Three hours later, it's almost gone. Meh. I do have one big soap rec for you though: Paintbox Soapworks' The Englishman. Soft leathery deliciousness, omg. I love it.

-- Also, I need to rave about a peacock feather headband I bought from The Faerie Market on Etsy. It's iridescent, which I did not expect but LOVE. It is also SO well made, and the packaging was nothing short of stunning. A+++.

-- To finish up, The Fable Tribe (formerly Glamourkin) did an Etsy update today. Go forth and browse!

Work: I estimate that the next update will be sometime around the end of next week. January was custom orders galore, lots of repair orders (for local people; I've been getting a lot of referrals through Terra Firma & Pikesville Jewelers for tricky repairs on vintage jewelry. Some true head-scratchers in the bunch, but I think of it like a puzzle), and then sporadically fighting insane burnout and fatigue in order to work on my own collection. While shoe-horning trunk show prep in there in my spare time. So while you might assume I was taking a break because there was no January update, I have actually been quite busy. I have done 30 wings in the last 2 days!



Dancing: Verve will be performing at the Serenity Speakeasy event in DC on Feb 24th. Very exciting. While the theme is a bit challenging to translate into our flavor of bellydance (even for a Browncoat like me!), Flissy & I are working on something fun and elegant. We plan to make Inara proud. Transcendence is getting together our performance for Art of the Belly in March, and then we launch into Spoutwood Faerie Fest prep. After a very warm reception last year, we will be reprising "The Fairy Ring Dance Collective" and doing two stage shows and one 'wandering' show. It sounds very much like the Spoutwood folk are very happy to have us back. Makes me all glowy inside.

Makeup: I went ahead and picked up the Stila Convertible Color in Gerbera after my last post. It's love! It's the perfect sheer coral for my cheeks, sans sparkle or glimmer. It gives a nice, buildable flush without looking too 'done.' I also shelled out for NARS Tzigane & Christina lipsticks, but they have not yet arrived. The Transcendence ladies have also been raving about Lipstick Queen, so 2012 may in fact be the year in which I embrace lipstick for occurrences other than photoshoots.

Books & Reading: I have been trying to eke out a little time for reading lately. Mostly silly, light reading because right now does not seem to be the right time for me to take on heavy, complicated things. My two most recent were The White Cat by Holly Black, & Nine Rules To Break When Romancing A Rake by Sarah McLean.

The White Cat was interesting as far as world-building goes-- loved the sort of alternate-history that the story springs from. In the novel, Curse Workers are basically people with psychic gifts who can work magic. Society knows about them and has banned them-- everyone wears gloves to prevent being worked-- but a black market of Curse Working still thrives. Black's definition of "heebiejeebies" is nothing short of brilliant. I was less than enthralled with the story itself, though. I guessed the 'twist' about two chapters in, so it felt like a chore to wait for all the rest of the characters to get with it. That and... well, I didn't really like any of the characters all that much. Cassel is clever, and that is fun to read, but while no character is a stock character, few others sparked any interest in me. And the ending was way overcomplicated and lacked a real emotional connection to the rest of the story, IMO. Am contemplating reading the other two books in the trilogy for the worldbuilding stuff, but haven't felt terribly compelled.

Nine Rules... is a fairly well-written romance novel set in Jane Austenland. The characters are funny and well-realized for romance novel characters, the history is pretty decent despite a few anachronisms, and overall the book doesn't take itself seriously, but it also cares about being a good read. It centers on Callie Hartwell, a spinster at 28, who decides one day that having a spotless reputation isn't really all that it's cracked up to be, so she writes a bucket list of naughty things Regency ladies should not do, and decides to have some fun for a change. Naturally, after trying one item on the list (drinking scotch), she ends up on the doorstep of the dude she's been crushing on for ten years. Zaniness ensues. I have a couple of chapters left-- towards the middle of the book, it becomes increasingly clear that many of the items on the list just serve to bring the two main characters together for sexytimes, but considering it's hitting a lot of my ravishment fantasy buttons, I'm not complaining. Terrible euphemisms score: 5/10. Super cheesy nickname alert. Also, there's a lot of "her sex" instead of more explicit terms for genitalia, and I actually laughed aloud at "sweet rain," but overall, it could be so, so much worse. There are two more books in this series and unless there's a big downshift in the writing, I'll probably read them. I have a tendency to consume words wantonly.

Movies: So I saw the Guillermo Del Toro written & produced movie, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark last night. GENUINELY CREEPY, OMG. I can't believe it got such low ratings. The sets are full of little easter-eggs-- "Be Afraid" written over creepy grates in runic code, tons of Pan's Labyrinth artistic touches. It's Del Toro's dark fairytale aesthetic, through and through. As you might expect, all quickly turns to horror. It's not nearly as disturbing as Pan's Labyrinth (Thank god! That movie scared the bejeesus outta me!), but was very effective nonetheless.

Stuff & Things: It has been a tough week. In the last month, most of my posts have been either under lock or filter. Things have been heavy with regards to birthfamily goings-on. I'm okay and things are going to be okay, but it's been a lot of anxiety and processing nonetheless. Thank you, f-list/filter people for your comments on my most recent locked entries. I know I've been bad about commenting back, but I have a finite & limited amount of emotional energy right now. I just wanted to say thank you, very, very much for listening.

Today is the first day of feeling well and rested in about a week. Which is funny considering the cats kept me up a lot last night. Jason was staying in DC for work stuff, so I was home alone, and it threw their entire existence off, which meant they were trying to get my attention to tell me so ALL NIGHT LONG.

The internet also broke yesterday, so today was wrangling a Comcast visit, then Verve rehearsal. Comcast fixed the problem, so I'm pretty pleased with that. Rehearsal went well-- we're working on a choreographed piece that's pretty different from what we usually do, so we're stretching our brains both conceptually and stylistically.

I need to pack a gobjillion orders. But first I need to eat something and cuddle with my husband when he gets home because OMG I MISS HIM. Between me being basically comatose with The Sick this weekend and our work schedules totally mis-aligning this week, I feel like I've not really seen him much at all. PS, my lump is still here, if a little smaller. I've named it Bob. Bob is my lovely lady lump. Check it out.

I did participate in some mild retail therapy today. I have not placed a Sephora order since Oct 2009 (!!!), and though I have lots of really bright colors and stage makeup, I was running REALLY low on everyday normal person makeup. I was using a palette that I got for Christmas two years ago. So, I caved. I got the Stila In The Light palette, which photographs much better on Stila's website. I also got Benefit's luminizer set, Finding Mr. Bright, because I *love* High Beam but wanted to test it against Girl Meets Pearl. And I got the mini-lipstick set, Painted Love, from Kat Von D. I rarely wear lipstick-- I'm much more of a tinted balm gal-- but I really wanted to try some of the more neutral-y shades in her line. To boot, I got about a BAJILLION free samples, all for under $100. Score. Next on my list are some new brushes, but that will have to wait.

Also, re: my Retail Therapy conquests-- I got a Yule Log candle from Magickal Cupboard for the holiday season, and am ordering an FCBD hoodie, finally. Because in Winter, you cannot part me from my hoodies.

Now, I have to start tackling emails that need responses. I am so behind. But at least I feel like a real live human being again.

The Great Makeup Experiment, Days 3 and 4:

Day 3: Sparkling Neutrals. Aromaleigh eyeshadow in Gilt, Stila eyeshadow in Sun and Venus. Black liquid liner (rather hastily applied), and black mascara. Nothing else. Literally. I was fresh from the shower and still in my birthday suit.



( Day 3. )

Day 4: Purple Haze. Aromaleigh eyeshadow in Lavande and Penelope, Urban Decay eyeshadow in Last Call. The usual black eyeliner/mascara. Sorry, no full face, as I was running very very late! Instead, I give you a bonus shot of Jason's new haircut.



( Day 4. )

I dyed my roots last night, as I had quite the skunk stripe going on. Behold the super-blonde:



On one hand... I like that it makes my eyes look SUPER DUPER BLUE. With other shades, I get more of a hazel look. But on the other... I am very, very bored with blonde. I think I might do red soon. Or something. I am still being indecisive about it.

I'm pleased that the eating better plan is starting to show some in my face. I still have a little tummy going on, and I think that working the abdominals is really the only way to get the shape I'd like. So, I need to buy myself a yoga mat and get to it.

( The Great Makeup Experiment, Day 1. )