Darling Girl (Ghoul!) Cosmetics: Halloween Haul!

Susan, the owner of Darling Girl Cosmetics, made a Halloween collection based on customer suggestions.  She posted photos of the creations she was coming up with on Twitter (@dgcosmetics - you should follow her!) and it was hard not to fall in love with all of them.  I was especially excited about the unorthodox - though Halloween-esque - colors (black and green glosses, blue lip balm) and the Spectral Shifts, which Susan says are "sheer iridescent multi-purpose colors.  Use them as eye shadow, face highlighter, blush." So naturally, once the limited edition collection went live, I purchased!

These are the things that made it into my cart:

Kiss You Off tinted lip balms in Devil's Dance, Pumpkin King; Holo-glosses in Vampire's Kiss, Poison Apple, Going Batty.  I went for unusual, fun colors!

The Spectral Shifts (petit sizes) with cute special labels, and the goodies that Susan included.  S. ate the candy corn.  He enjoys when candy comes with my cosmetics.

Three Holo-Glosses (Going Batty, Vampire's Kiss, Poison Apple, $4.50 each), two Kiss You Off Color Rich Lip Balms (Pumpkin King, Devil's Dance, $4.75 each), and Petits of all of the Spectral Shifts (Will-O Wisp, Ghost Light, Corpse Candle, $2.25 each).  My eye shadow ban is still firmly in place (going strong since the end of June!) so I passed on all of those - I intend to use the Spectral Shifts primarily as cheek colors.  I think it will be fun!

The total: $32.75 (with shipping).  When I ordered, the TAT was 14-16 business days (which is pretty typical of DGC).  I ordered on September 24th and received a shipping notice and tracking number on September 28th; I received my package on September 30th!  Susan is a super woman :)  The GWP was Monarch, a glittery brown eye shadow, and she included a few samples: Polaris (eye shadow), and the Secret Star blush.  I was excited about that - I've definitely been in a blush collecting mood lately!  I would also like to mention that all of my loose powder pots were sealed, and none of them came loose or spilled all over the place - the DGC packing is quite tight, with most things in little baggies or wrapped tightly in paper, and it's nice to open a package and not get spilled sparkly powder all over your hands.

The samples and the GWP - Monarch.  Plus business cards and a Halloween sticker!

I know there will be tons and tons and tons of swatches of these (and there already are a bunch of posts, too) but I figured what the heck, I'll throw mine out there.  We've all got different skin tones and such so it's always nice to see a variety of swatches, right?

Let's start with the lip stuff.  I've purchased a tinted lip balm before and I really liked it, so I was really looking forward to these new balms.  They did not disappoint.

Kiss You Off Color Rich lip balms.  I know, it's blue.  Am I going to wear blue very often?  Probably not.  But I had to have it.  It's BLUE.

They both go on smoothly, and are definitely deserving of the new "Kiss You Off" label - they're very pigmented.  The labels have the ingredients printed on them, which is very convenient; I really like these clear labels - they let you see through to the color of the product, and they're beautifully printed.  I'm kind of regretting not buying another one - the purples were on my list, but I thought they'd make me look a little too dead.  And I was already buying blue.  Which I do not regret.  It's a fun color, and it made S. do a double take, so it was already worth my money!  I also want to try layering it under reds and pinks, to see what I can come up with.  Here are the lip swatches.

Pumpkin King is more red on my lips, since my lips are fairly pigmented.

Devil's Dance.  Has a rather metallic finish.

Devil's Dance has a purple shift, which is beautiful.  If you forget about the fact that blue isn't a typical lip color, and just look at the color itself - it's a beautiful lip color.  It has a great satiny finish - almost metallic.  Pumpkin King is a lovely orange that pulls redder on my lips, and it's actually quite flattering.  Way to hit the orange lip trend!  I almost wish it wasn't shimmery, though.

Next are the Holo-glosses.  I was very excited about the black gloss, Going Batty, because black seems to be a very useful gloss color.  The other two just seemed really pretty (and green!  Who could pass up green?) so I had to have them, as well.  I'm not a gloss girl, but I thought these would be fun to try.  I did have some trouble applying them over balm or lipstick - the doe foot wand seems to push around the product that's already on my lips.  So I tried just using the wand to apply a gob, and then used my finger to spread it around gently (thanks to a suggestion from Luna).  That seems to work a lot better.  And, if I weren't a complete hack and owned a lip brush, I imagine that might be a good alternative, as well.  I just realized that there is now the option to buy these glosses in pot form, which I think I may prefer in the future.  I wasn't able to get lip swatches that I was happy with, so for now, just an arm swatch of the glosses.  [Update: Lip swatches are here!]

Poison Apple is green with gold glitter.
Going Batty is sheer black with tons of multi-colored glitter.
Vampire's Kiss is a sheer blackened purple with red glitter.

Finally, here are the Spectral Shifts.  They come in little pots, and I usually just tap some out onto a tissue or a business card, and brush them on.

Simple, practical labels - I like.  

I really like these, and I hope they become permanent.  I like the idea of unusual colors on the cheeks and lips (hello, I bought blue lip balm), so I was really looking forward to playing around with these to see what would happen.  If teal turned out not to be so flattering as blush, well, that's nothing a good face wash won't fix, you know?  Applied with a light hand and an angled blush brush, Ghost Candle becomes a sheer, beautiful highlight with subtle sparkles.  Will-O Wisp is a great highlight paired with a coral cheek, as the subtle coral color blends beautifully into a stronger blush and sits nicely as a highlight on my cheekbone.  I haven't tried Corpse Candle on cheeks yet, and I'm a little concerned that the gray might turn ashy, but we'll see.

With flash, blurred slightly, top-bottom: Corspe Candle, Ghost Light, Will-O Wisp

No flash, same order: Corpse Candle, Ghost Light, Will-O Wisp

And that's a wrap, lovelies!  Did you get any Halloween goodies yet?  Or are you saving for the high-end holiday collections?