in which our heroine returns from sabbatical

Maybe it was not so much a sabbatical, which makes it sound like I was making macaroni jewelry with impoverished Costa Rican toddlers or surveying the world from a mountain peak in Tibet, as my coming undone, like a slow motion dive through a glass window.

On the upside, it could always be worse.  It could be 200 years ago where the only possible outcome was ending up in an opium den smelling of sweat and desperation, but it is not, and for this, I am grateful.

On a somewhat happier note, my medication regimen has been stabilized and Sephora partnered with color industry leader (yeah, I didn't know color was an actual industry, either) Pantone, first sometime in late 2011 to bring us the, in my never humble, never sorry opinion, poorly thought out Color of the Year product line.  Tangerine Tango is a nice color, but orange eyeliner is not a trend because it looks horrible, not because it is groundbreaking.

Pantone started in the 1950s as a commercial printing company and by the early 1960s (the Wonder Years, if you will) Hofstra University graduate Lawrence Herbert has simplified the company's pigments and production of colored ink into a solitary color system.  The colored ink production side of the company was booming while the printing side had become a financial drain, so Herbert bought all of the technology from the company and renamed the entire gig Pantone.  They are most well known for the Pantone Matching System, which is a "proprietary color space" (when you figure out the actual meaning behind that phrase, holler at me, because I haven't a clue and haven't any real fucks to give, either).  The Pantone Matching System essentially standardizes colors and color production so that, theoretically, it can be ensured that color is uniform even though manufacturers may never have direct contact with each other.  Product-wise, they are most well known for the Pantone Guides, which come in booklets that you can fan out so they look a little something like this:

photo credit: 123rf.com Royalty Free Stock Photos

They bring back memories of spending approximately 57 percent of my childhood in paint stores, stealing as many color cards as we could just to get home and dump them on the floor and be yelled at for our privileged wastelessness.  Company profiles and childhood anecdotes aside, Pantone has made Sephora palettes something actually worth buying.

Sleek packaging makes you feel like Rodeo Drive and palm trees.  Or maybe the Amazon rainforest.  Or maybe a praying mantis.  We could do this all day.

Makeup brushes deserving of their own plastic covers for holidays and dinner parties.  That is why the photo is blurry, after all.  Emulating your New York Eye-talian grandmother since...forever.

It is like a Sherwin Williams color card display...for your face.  The 8 year old in me rejoices minus the parental reprimands.

They are highly pigmented and while the color payoff isn't as good as say, Urban Decay, I think the colors are much bolder than the normal UD selections, and I often have the problem with UD of what is in the pot never actually transferring to my face as the same color (while they are highly pigmented, even when applying UD eyeshadows wet, they always seem to appear much more muted on my face, though I am more than willing to admit it could be something I am doing wrong.)  These don't wear as long as UD, but I can't think of many occasions I need 24 hour eyeshadow for, anyway.  I have Sephora's Blockbuster palette from last year, and the shadow formulation seems to have been changed, or they are using an entirely different formulation for their Pantone Universe palettes in an attempt to step it up.  I'm not sure, exactly.

Brush set and shadow palette for 100 dollars, people.  That's all I'm saying.  

On that note, my not-so-gentle readers! What do you want me to write about? What makeup product has you completely stumped? What makeup blog entry do you want to see?  I tend to overwhelm myself with all the makeup talk and not know what to write about, so help a girl out.

In which I learn that sometimes, you don't get what you pay for.

Honest to Papa Diós, I have been meaning to update more often, and with more substantial (or, dare I say...MEATY) posts, but I am at a very strange place in my life, so you will have to forgive me.

Last week, I was browsing the brush collections at Sephora because...well, mostly because I wanted new brushes.  The set I had does what I need it to do well enough, but there were some more brushes I could use, and...in short, I am the queen of justification.  So my good friend Erica pointed me to the Real Techniques brushes (available at Ulta) and said I would love them.  When I saw the price tag ($17.99 for the starter kit!!), I was like.  Hell, I can't even buy 2 packs of cigarettes with that (because, clearly, life is measured in packs of cigarettes).  It can't hurt to try them because of minimal financial investment when compared with other brush sets and worst case scenario, they become back up brushes.  So I got my order and...

look!! Brushes:

So then I did this:

and close up:

Skimp on the lid, Gravity on the crease, and Zephyr on the browbone (all from Urban Decay BoS IV)

And holy shit.  I feel like Sephora has been sort of ripping me off all these years after using the Real Techniques brushes.  They are soft but firmer than Sephora's, which is what I generally have used in the past, and I felt like I had more control when it came to blending, which is one of my stumbling blocks, however minor it may be. The construction of the brushes also seems pretty sturdy, like the brush won't fall apart in a week or two (last drugstore blush brush, I am looking at you) Also, you really cannot beat the quality for the price, .  $17.99!! Can't get over it.

I also tried out this:

bareMinerals Marvelous Moxie in Party Starter (a coral shade)

which I liked enough.  It is a thicker gloss, infused with botanicals and antioxidants and tingled when I put it on.  It gives enough color, though I am not big into lip products because of having to reapply and I lose everything that isn't a vital appendage.  This product gets compared to the polishes by Buxom (of which bareMinerals is the parent company) a lot due the shared stock and price tag, and if given the option of only buying one of these lines ever again, I would chose Buxom's lip polish.  Overall, I don't find this product to be earth-shattering, but I don't feel that I wasted my money, either.

And in keeping with the theme; NOTD:

Essie Lilacism and China Glaze Prism

The glitter is from China Glaze's new Prismatic Chroma glitters line.  I have seen a big deal being made all over the internet about these, and while I like it, it, like the lip gloss, is not earth shattering.  It is a sparkly multi glitter.  Not a waste, but not something I would rush out and stand in line to buy. I will be angry when I try to remove all that glitter, all I AM NEVERRRR USING GLITTER AGAIN WOOOOOOEEEEEE.  Until a day or so later, because I am sparkly and simply cannot help it.