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Review: Arcana Flowers and Stars Collection

I'm a little late to the party (as always), but I have three scents from Flowers and Stars, the most recent Arcana release, to review! Arcana is one of the most beloved perfumeries over on  r/indiemakeupandmore , and I will admit that I've definitely bought into the hype and purchased many, many perfumes from this brand over the past few years. From my experience, I've found that Arcana scents really benefit from an extended period of resting time... which is totally my excuse for taking so long to test these out. Fun fact about me: I grew up loving astronomy and basically anything space-themed. I totally wanted to be an astronaut when I was younger. So obviously, when I heard Arcana was doing another collection based heavily off stars (following up on their collection from last summer, which was themed around constellations), I was so in . After a lot of agonizing, I picked up the following three decants: Adhara - The maidens. Vanilla cream, tangerine, clementine, Naga...
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Sixteen92 The Beautiful and the Damned & Theda

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So for once, I'm going to review something that's actually available at the moment! Sixteen92 just released Part II of their summer release, a re-release of four scents from last year's summer collection. (Paper Moon, the fifth scent from last year, is now part of the General Catalogue. I have it too and may review it in the future with some of my other Sixteen92 perfumes.) The collection was inspired by the Jazz Age in 1920s America. Of the four scents, I own two: The Beautiful and the Damned - Sparkling pink grapefruit, strawberry, raspberry, and currant with soft violet gardenia, and Tahitian vanilla absolute.  Theda  -  Tart sangria infused with ripe summer fruits (white peach, nectarine, berries, citrus), dark vanilla, wild vines, rose absolute.  I got The Beautiful and the Damned for pretty much one reason alone: grapefruit! I love me some grapefruit, but unfortunately citrus scents have a tendency to read like soap or some kind of cleaning produ...
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The Great Summer Purge (Second Time's The Charm?)

It's been three years since I first got into makeup big time, two since I discovered the black hole of indies, and one year since I realized that maybe (just maybe) my collection was starting to get overwhelming. And it still is overwhelming-- despite joining Reddit's /r/MakeupRehab community, as well as reading about the immensely popular KonMari method of tidying.  Last semester, I went a little bit crazy, stress-buying all over the place. This semester, I turned things around completely, going on a successful total no-buy for over four months. As it turned out though, this didn't help me deal with my collection at all, because although I wasn't actively adding to my makeup hoard... I also wasn't using any of it. My makeup and perfume usage dropped drastically this past semester, to the point where all the indie scents I'd been buying before Christmas were just lying around my desk, totally untouched. I want to improve on both fronts. I do want to lower my...
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Update: The Great Purge?

So I went into the summer with big plans to catalogue and take control of my rapidly growing makeup collection. Unfortunately, procrastination took root and the summer turned out to be a lot busier than expected. As you can probably tell from the lack of updates after my intro post, I didn't exactly complete my task of going through all the stuff I own and sorting through the whole mess. However, although I didn't do so well in terms of actually posting my results on here, in terms of actual decluttering, l did make progress! I completely finished going through my "nails" drawer, and made a good dent in the "eyes" category. I've also managed to rein myself in and limit the number of makeup purchases I've been making, especially on the indie front. After moving all my stuff back into my college dorm, I realized that I still want to get my make-up and perfume under control. I'll be continuing with my great purge (although I'll no longer be ...
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The Great Summer Purge [Intro]

I like colourful things.  I really like sparkly and colourful things, to the point where my friends think I'm a little nuts for hoarding all the makeup and never actually using it on my face. Especially after discovering the wonderful world of indie makeup in the past year, my collection has absolutely snowballed.  Inspired by  /r/makeuprehab  over on Reddit, I've decided to take the time this summer to fully go through and sort my entire collection, so that I can appreciate and get good use out of what I already have as well as make smarter purchases in the future. In addition to doing a thorough inventory, category by category, I also plan to do a Project Pan for items coming out of my declutter. As I evaluate all the stuff I own, I'll also be swatching and reviewing as many products as possible, since I spend enough time chattering away on  IMAM  anyways, and because there can never be enough honest reviews! 
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