crazylibellule and the poppies

Good name, huh?

Makers of The Crazy Sticks, little solid perfume sticks, which I have just acquired 4 of. They come in very cute, handbag-sized packaging, perfect for carrying about with you.



There are 4 collections; Les Divines Alcóves (love stories), Poule de Luxe (vanilla based foodie scents), Shanghaijava (oriental, exotic scents) and finally Les Garçonnes (paying tribute to free women, apparently). All come in similar styles the same adorable packaging.



The four I chose were:

The Kiss which is sweet vanilla, violet and iris fragrance. I love violet, but not this violet, sadly this one is really not my thing and will be getting passed on, it's too musky and old smelling for me. I found it very clawing and had to wash it off after a couple of hours. Not good.

In Love is rose, berry and sandalwood. It's lovely; powdery, sweet and soft smelling. It smells quite old fashioned to me, but in a good way.

Vanilla Pom d'Amour as the name suggests is vanilla and apple, red apple I think, with a spicy hint to it too. It reminds me a bit of a festive scent as it settles, definitely a warm winter smell. Not something I would say is typically my kind of smell, but nice for a change.

And finally, my absolute favourite, Ananas Impérial smelling of grapefruit, pineapple, peach and lime. It's gorgeous, so fresh and juicy and sweet. It's a proper mouth watering scent and I love it, definitely my favourite.

Of course, now I have tried a few and looked on the website, there are at least another 5 I have to have. Most of them in the foodie range, which all sound delicious.



These dinky little scents are not cheap, mine were £6 each at half price which isn't bad, but normally they are around £12 each, which is quite a lot for such a small amount, especially as they currently only seem available online, it's a lot to spend without being able to try them out first.

They seem to last pretty well, and there are apparently hundreds of applications in each tube, so I guess time will tell on a value for money front, I'm certainly quite content with getting mine at 50% off.

Overall, I would say for the cuteness and delicious scents they are definitely worth a try, provided you avoid The Kiss.

Stila Lip Glaze Sticks

These arrived from eBay the other day and I am really please with them, a good selection of colours presented in a funky and easy to carry packaging. The pencils are really very similar to a highly pigmented gloss but slightly less runny. They go on nice and smoothly and give a good colour.



Whether they are really any better than a million other lip glosses I wouldn't like to say but the pencil style is very cute and easy to carry about and they do look great on, although I found a couple of the darker shades quite dark for me, I'm never really sure about wearing darker colours of lipstick.



Apparently they are supposed to be flavoured and scented similarly to their names but I haven't really found this to be the case, Gingerbread definitely has a cinnamon hint to it but the rest are just generic sweet fruity flavoured like most gloss products, pleasant but not different enough to distinguish.

Overall I'm glad I got them to try out ad I will definitely use them, but I certainly would pay the $16.95 advertised on the box for one!



Colour swatches:


Grapefruit on lips:

Jumbo Eye Pencil Update

I finally received my package form America, containing 10 of these beauties and was desperate to try them out. My first reaction was massive excitement as the colours are fantastic and they feel super creamy and lovely to apply.

Colour swatches:


Now that I have had a chance to try them out in a couple of different ways I have a few reservations. They do go on fantastically well, really smoothly, they are easy to apply, easy to blend and very blend-able. The one small drawback I am finding at the moment is that if I use them too generously in the crease they do tend to crease quite badly after a while, even when applied over a base (UDPP), saying that, it's not really bad creasing and can be re-blended throughout the day with a finger if necessary, it's just that I would rather that wasn't necessary. I also need to try out applying them using a brush as I think that might help.



However, they are fantastic for making the colour of eye shadows or pigments really pop, the colour pay off applying product on top of these is great, almost too great, I have yet to managed anything too subtle yet, they really do make every colour bright.

What I do love them for is as a liner under my eye on the lower lash line, they give a really soft, blended look down there with minimal fuss and look great. I also found them great for a quick splash of colour, apply your chosen colour all over the lid, blend upwards with your finger and then seal in with a similar colour of eyeshadow, I did this look at the weekend, it took 5 minutes and looked really nice, so definitely handy for days when there isn't time to do a proper blended look with shadows.



All in all I am really pleased with them and will continue to use them and see what application technique works best for me, so far it definitely seems that less is more and they have to be well blended to stop immediate creasing.