Bye bye

I'm sure most people interested in the indie or mineral makeup world will already know, but today came the sad news that Aromaleigh (probably the webs oldest MMU supplier at 12) is closing down.
http://www.aromaleigh.com/aromaleighnews.html

Personally i was shocked, while products had been being discontinued recently Miss K had continued making some beautiful new collections of shadows, the most recent 'Lost n Faerie' hasn't even been released properly yet. However i guess it wasn't that shocking if you'd heard things that had happened in her personal life recently.

Some people had problems with Miss K and i'm not going to discount them as some of them were completely valid but she was always incredibly sweet to me and i don't think many people would be able to argue with the fact that she made some amazing products. The samples of the Victoria's Revenge shadows i recieved (and have swatched and photos but hadn't got around to posting them) are absolutely stunning, some of the most complex shadows i've seen.

I'm very sad to see that this is what she feels the need to do, it must have been a very hard decision and i really hope it will be for the best.

If you want to buy any products then there is now 35% off everything (code is in the link i posted above).

Aromaleigh Sonic Rocks Swatches

So as you may have seen from my last post featuring my first Aromaleigh haul i bought a lot of the Sonic Rocks eyeshadows. These differ from Aromaleigh's other eyeshadows as they are not entirely mineral based, as a result you can get some really bright, neon colours in mattes, shimmers and glitters.
The Rocks shadow formula is being reformulated so currently you can get 35% off, also Aromaleigh are having a 20% off everything sale to celebrate the owner, Kristen, finally getting to have her honeymoon (http://blog.aromaleigh.com/blog/2010/02/aromaleigh-is-closing-shop-.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MissKsAromaleighBlog+(Miss+K%27s+Aromaleigh+Blog)) , so in total you can get 55% off Rocks shadows right now :)
Here are swatches of all the colours i currently have. They are all named after songs which meant that as i swatched i kept irritating Claire by singing the namesakes :P Come on everyone! I'm an alligator! I'm a mumma-papa coming for yoooouuuu...


Big Neon Glitter, Atomic, Livewire, Velvet Goldmine, Agent Orange.


Heart of Glass, Helter Skelter, Peekaboo, Suspect Device, Pretty Vacant, Coral Fang


Lady Stardust, Blue Orchid, Boiling Point, Hit Or Miss, Spellbound, Funky Town, Body Electric, Purple Rain


Vive Le Rock, Raspberry Beret, Pretty in Pink, New Rose, Personality Crisis, Teenage Kicks, Psychocandy, Fanclub, I Want Candy, Lookin for a Kiss


Jigsaw Feeling, Lazy Sod, Poison Ivy, Venom, Just like Heaven, Strychnine, Googoomuck, Greenhell, Estranged


Destination Unknown, Planet Earth, Bluespark, Moonage Daydream, Ozone, Ocean Rain, Endless Sea.

A week of Indie Makeup Day 6 - Aromaleigh

http://www.aromaleigh.com/

Ok, here we are, the review of the Big Daddy of the indie mineral makeup world! Aromaleigh have been selling natural beauty products on the internet for over 12 years now! They were founded by Kristen Leigh Bell who remains the company president and creative director. Kristen was also the founder of the Mineral Makeup Mutiny (http://mineralmakeupmutiny.wordpress.com) a group which celebrates small cosmetics companies who create authentic handmade cosmetics. I find this a real hint towards the brands personality, that they are happy to advertise other mineral makeup companies who would be competition. She also only awarded Aromaleigh the Mutiny badge after she had sorted through all the requests from other companies.

Aromaleigh make basically every sort of makeup you could wish for: lip balms, lip sticks (both sheer and opaque), concealers, face lip and eye primers, foundations, finishing powders, blushes, bronzers, cream and powder eyeshadows and eyeliners, glitters, brushes, perfumes and various other bits and bobs. Samples are available on any powder product. Ingredients are included on each product as well as swatches and descriptions to give you a really good idea of the colours. It is easy to get in contact and they also have a forum.

Their prices are fair, they depend on the collection the products are from as well as the products itself. You can expect to pay less than $16 for a full 8g jar of foundation, $15 for a 7g blush, $8 for a 5 gram jar of eyeshadow and $7 for a lip product. These prices might be a bit pricier than some of the other companies i've reviews, but you get more product and a lot of the products are cheaper than what i've cited as well as them having costant sales on various items. International shipping is very fair, you pay a set price, sample orders up to $75 or all orders up to $40 pay $7.40 for insured mail anywhere and $14.40 if your order is over $75 (you can choose to buy non-insured mail and that would be cheaper).
All orders come with 3 free samples which you can choose yourself! With my order i also recieved a free sample of lip balm.

I ordered so many colours i can't swatch everything now, and i only tried eyeshadows but i have another haul coming with some other face products. I didn't try the lip balm either as i didn't like the scent (it was sugar plum fairy which smelled like cinnamon and spices which i don't like. I gave it to Claire who likes the smell but i don't know if she's used it yet) some of the other scents sound delicious. The order came prettily wrapped in tissue with an Aromaleigh sticker and invoice all within a bubble mailer.



I bought tonnes of Sonic Rocks eyeshadows, some samples and some full jars and then a lot of samples of other collections.

The samples are all 1/16 of a teaspoon, which doesn't sound like much but will certainly be enough for several applications no matter how heavilly you apply. The full jars come absolutely packed up to the sifter in fact i had to take the sifter out first because there was so much product it had compacted down and would not come through the holes. The quality of the shadows are absolutely amazing with amazing colours and finishes, great blendability and are really long lasting.
I did have one small problem though, as i said i took the sifters out of a lot of the jars and doing this i discovered that two of the colours were not fully blended. There were some little lumps of unblended pigment.





It was practically impossible to photograph this problem. I haven't actually used either of the colours yet so i'm not sure if they will look so streaky it will be a problem. The blue colour did streak when i swatched them but the coral didn't. However this was 2 colours out of the 30-40 i bought so really not a big problem at all :)

Would i purchase again? Well i already have :) And i really really want to try their foundations and get some more of the Rocks makeup which i love. They have a mind bogglingly large selection of products and colours of great quality and they seem like they really know their stuff. Kristen is a friendly, fun woman, who is fair and friendly to her competition (unlike some people who shall remain nameless), their prices are fair and i was overall really happy with my experience purchasing from them.

Swatches to come soon :)