Sephora F&F Sale

Well, if you didn't already know the Sephora Friends and Family Sale is firmly underway and will be going on for a quick minute. there was a little bit of bitching and moaning as it came down to the wire and the sale was about to go live and no one knew what the code was. People started to swear oaths that they would nenver set foot in a Sephora again and started to crow about how they'd secretly loved Ulta more all along anyway. I think there may even have been some death threats bandied about and then low and behold, the sale went ahead as planned! The deal being that you go to www.sephora.com/friends and enter your e-mail address. You will be given a one use only code that is unique to your e-mail address and that code is good for 20% off of anything, no exceptions. Should you freak out and realize you screwed up and you need to make another order, you can get another code for up to 5 e-mail adresses total, per computer. So really, the skies the limit. I have been trying the website on and off since the sale began today at midnight and I can't get through. Which leads me to my next point: I don't think I am going to get anything. I know, right, gasp!!! I mentioned before that I am a bargain shopper? Well, to me Sephora at 20% off is still usually not the best I can do price-wise when I'm looking for something. I am interested in TheBalm Shady Lady Palettes 1, 2, and 3, and their Meet Matte matte eyeshadow palette:

First post ever!!

I am so excited to write this first post! I guess I'll just say a few things about myself and what you can expect to find in this blog in the future. I am a Muslim woman in my 30's currently living in the American South. While my faith is important to me and I love the Muslim community, I am neither straight nor narrow, and definitely am not a spokesperson or rolemodel. All the opinions expressed herein are mine alone and in no way represent any larger community viewpoint (yay! disclaimer!). I do design clothes for my own pleasure and love to sew, bead and embroider by hand. I also design and make jewelry. One of my major interests right now is in finding new ways and styles of approaching Islamic dress. I am currently obsessed with the work of turn of the century designer Mariano Fortuny who used lavish hand-stenciled fabrics to create breathtaking caftan and kimono style coats and ethereal floor-sweeping dresses. His, since irreplicable, technique of putting tiny pleats into pure silk created long, light dresses that hugged the female body just barely and then kept flowing to the floor to finish in gorgeous light-weight mermaid-tail style trains. His work heavily influenced the costumes in one of my favorite movies Wings of a Dove (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120520/). Here's a link to his wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariano_Fortuny_(designer) and a photo of Mrs. Conde Nast (ooh la la!) wearing one of his creations back in the day.

I had the incredible good fortune to stumble across a groovy Goodwill clerk the other day who sold me an extra long crinkle silk sari for $2.99, so I am going to attempt to recreate one of these badboys in the pleasure and quiet of my own home. That's a project I hope to share with y'all as well as all my attempts at creative and avant garde modern Muslim dressing. What I find so exciting about this is the possibility of creating a style of Muslim dress that is at once 100% created for the modern Muslim woman from its inception (rather than many layers of "Western" clothing adapted to fulfill the requirements of Muslim dress) and not Middle Eastern in style. I love Middle Eastern and South Asian, etc., clothes, but I don't feel that an American Muslim woman should be limited to wearing only that. I would love to see an organic, home-grown American Muslim fashion style emerge. Of course it would include Middle Eastern, South Asian, African, etc., elements as all of those styles are very much American, but it wouldn't be limited to one of those styles in particular. If that makes any sense...

Also thrilling are the upcoming Friends and Family sale at Sephora, the ongoing clearance sale at Urban Decay, my recent order at 3 Custom Color Specialists cosmetics and recent hauls from Hautelook!

Let's see... in that order:

-Friends and Family sale at http://www.sephora.com/ is from October 20-November 12th. 20% off everything, no exceptions. At least that's the speculated info so far. I will be watching the Sephora site (like a hawk) to keep you updated. (Just got some products from Fusion Beauty that I hope to review for you before the sale as those are on steep clearance right now at Sephora. So far in my testing the Fusion lipgloss is one of the best I've ever used!)

-The ongoing clearance at http://www.urbandecay.com/. They are moving the Vegan Palette at $13 people!!!....

As well as The Summer of Love Palette for $10, pigments for $3 and really just a lot of fantastic stuff for a steal. Plus I discovered that if you create a new account on their site they will e-mail you a 15% off coupon that you can use immediately on your order. I got a hellified shit ton of sparkly, scintillating loot which I intend to share with you all here.

- I also have some stuff from 3 Custom Color Specialists on the way hopefully. They are a high-end indie out of New York whose main claim to fame is their ability to replicate any discontinued lipstick shade on earth or make any lipstick/lipgloss shade you can think of from scratch. While that's totally cool, and I do intend to take them up on it one day, their ready to wear line of cosmetics is fabulous!! I have never seen anyone review or swatch them online so I intend to do a massive 3CC review, swatch-a-thon and lovefest here! A link to their website in case you'd like to have a look around: http://www.threecustom.com/

Oooooh! Aaaaaahhh! Red......

- And last but not least the amazing http://www.hautelook.com/ ... Hautelook is a private sale website. Basically the way it works is someone invites you (I would be happy to invite you if you leave me your e-mail address in the comments or , I think now you can just register yourself(?) and then you can sign up to shop "private sales". I don't know how they do it but sometimes the stuff is like 80% off! I have gotten the best makeup, jewelry, scarves, shoes and skincare from this site. They have limited quantities, so if you see something you like you have to move fast and buy it or it will sell out, but the prices can be out of this world. And I can honestly say I have loved everything I have bought from there. I have a Kevin Aucoin order on the way so let's hope that doesn't break my good luck streak! Oh, and speaking of private sales, I actually used the website http://www.popsugar.com/ to order from 3 Custom Color Specialists. They do Groupon type sales sometimes and that's what I used. If you need an invitation to those private sales, once again, leave your e-mail and I'll hit you off.

Alright y'all, off to drape 20 yards of tie-dyed silk over my body, apply glittery pink plumping lipgloss and milk my coffee robot like a bionic cow in an attempt to work it out!

Anybody have a Sephora shopping list all written out? What are you getting? Anybody working on any freaky fashion projects? I'd love to hear about them...

Peace