Guest post on new products

We are not really guests though. We work at Fyrinnae but this is the first time using the blog. Hi, I will refer to us as H, myself, and N, though you have probably seen my name on your packing slips sometimes. We were asked to make a post regarding the theme and names for the collection shown in the previous post.

N: It's Desi wedding themed. Vaguely.

H: My idea, in case anyone is worried about appropriation. Desi refers to people from India, Pakistan, all around that part of south Asia. Like us.

N: This only applies to these first five shades. It's unlikely the theme will continue beyond, but we think they are reminiscent of exquisite bridal lenghas and the whole atmosphere. Why are you typing this like a magazine interview?

H: I don't know. Pay attention to the swatch pictures! The product pictures could not capture the complex hues and sparkle as well. All of them look far better on skin than in the jar. I think that's it.

Thanks for reading!

Preview

Going to go ahead with these amped-up Arcanes, and see how it works out (see previous post). Photos do not even come close to showing the colour changes and dimension (but you probably know how hard it is to capture that in pictures). They look fairly right on application, but pictures of the actual product turned out very dull. These are all transparent. Not completely sheer, but not opaque. Of course on a sticky base they will seem like it, but can easily be layered over other colours. For example, if you applied a plain black or dark grey shadow or liner, then a thin layer of Pixie Epoxy over that, then applied one of these, you'd have a very dramatic sparkly effect.

Edited to change swatches.

About arm's length away, and in low indoor lighting. Yes, the pink one really is intense in some light.

Angled and closer to the same light (camera compensated by darkening it).

The determining factor on keeping these and building upon the collection will be how well they sell for the "second round". With every new release, there are rapid sales in the first few days. Sometimes more than others (Royalty, the new purple blush, sold astoundingly well in the first 2-3 weeks, much to our surprise). After the initial rush, if there is still demand and response is good, we shall keep going with them. The price will be higher due to the considerably higher cost of specialized colorants and the ratio in which they are used.

14 July update

Hello everyone.
Going to make this short, as my office time is quite limited this week. We've been working, when time allowed, on a new higher level of Arcanes for a while. The problem is, these are considerably more expensive to produce, so if introduced into the product line, they will be a little higher priced. So, and while not exactly limited edition, they may be included on a test basis. If they sell well after the initial first few days rush, then they will be kept and probably expanded. New products which are poor sellers after a couple weeks are somewhat of a waste of space, time, and ingredients, especially ones which have methods or colourants specific to them. The bright semi-mattes recently released sold fast at first then fell flat and are hardly moving at all after a short time. So we will see if the new Really Neat Shiny Things are worth it.

Pressed shadows are undergoing a slight base/additive tweak (just altering ratios in most) this week, so those won't be restocked for a while.

Shipping and other details

  While we do know that a lot of people are uncomfortable with the phrasing and days listed for the time frame on our site, it's done this way for a reason. Remember last week when there was a sudden shortage of the tiny jars? So perhaps due to courier delays or supplier shortages, we were to run out with numerous orders in the queue. Well, then those customers will be waiting longer than our usual 3-7 business day time frame (in which case, if it was more than a reasonable amount of time, everyone with delayed shipments would receive partial refunds for the wait. It's happened before but not on a large scale). Hence why the phrasing has  been "Please allow up to...", as in, there's a chance it could be that long.

  Orders are sent within a few days. Most of the time it's anywhere from 1 to 10 days, depending on the size of the purchase and how busy we are. They're generally pulled in sequence, but we also try and get the smallest ones, or single-item purchases sent as soon as possible. During new releases, or after major blogger reviews, as the purchase volume increases greatly it does take a few days longer to ship most. After our Winter 2013 release, some were at the two week mark, which is too long for us, but can't really be prevented. This is why upcoming releases are rarely mentioned far ahead of time if at all. It's chaotic all at once. No orders are ever in the queue for even 20 days (and very few hit 14). The last time that happened was, as I recall, about 4 years ago. But, it could happen.

I'm at work daily from about 7 or 8am to at least midnight, often well past 3am. So that short window of of morning is when I'm home to shower, sleep, and tend to cats/house (aside from a short midday break). This probably sounds like a dramatic exaggeration, but anyone who knows me knows that I don't do anything but work. The others here are usually gone a few hours earlier, but one or two may stay as late as they can when we're swamped. Everything is shipped first thing in the morning, so I'll be in the studio nightly until the last parcel scheduled to ship is packaged up.

  Speaking of everything shipping in the morning, either USPS is scanning less, or their systems are just borked constantly, because there have been quite a few that just seem to vanish for a few days after leaving the area. The tracking will show that the parcel left the local PO, but then nothing for several days. They also aren't usually scanned as incoming at the local post office until afternoon or evening, but we do take them there by 8-9am most days, never later than 10am. Sometimes they don't scan the label at all, then finally do at delivery (and from things I buy, I can see this is a delightful little issue nationwide).


  By sudden requests, the bright semi-mattes are being reconsidered. They're much in finish like Automatic Toaster, but somewhat more silky and blendable. In the meantime, welcome our two newest shadows, Kraken and Debonair. Kraken was a pain in the tentacles to photograph properly, but at about arm's length or in low light, the shimmer does have a bronze-gold cast, it just kept appearing green in pictures. There may be a new Lustre or two upcoming as well.

 We hope all of you are having a great week so far!

Several minor things, which I pen a novella about.

   You should see our tables right now. There are several long steel tables (the sort used in kitchen prep), and one is used only for working on new shades, product changes, or any needed shade reformulation. It's currently covered in little test plates, numerous large bags and pails of colourants, two microscopes, and a mess of notes in my horrid handwriting. I had a couple of really neat shades, which worked great in two tests, then once I mixed a larger amount and added the rest of the ingredients to check, they went to Mudville. The satiny green highlight I had on one didn't play nice at all with the particle size of one of the main base colours, so it morphed into an uninteresting, rather mucky appearance. Layering 150µm sparkle onto a matte or blending into 25-50µm shimmer is no problem, but 5µm gets drowned out by the larger particle shimmers, so instead of an obvious highlight, you end up with a blend of shades. That can be fine sometimes, but wasn't going to work with these hues. On the other hand, we have a lilac shade which turned out quite beautiful, it just hasn't been named yet.

   Also, I am now re-thinking the satin mattes we had ready about three months back. Mattes just are not hot sellers, and these, albeit bright and easy to blend, are rather basic shades. We'll see. There's a tangerine-yellow, which I know won't do well. People should buy yellow shadows more often! It looks really good on many people, especially when in a look with vibrant greens or warm red/pink.


   Royalty sure has been selling rather fast. Years ago, Seduce was rarely purchased, but I'm guessing people are getting more comfortable with purple blushes? I did consider bringing back our red (Intrigue - it was a real red, more vibrant than Spellbound), and perhaps will in the future.


Why it takes us so long to get the pressed shades re-stocked:

   For several years we've maintained a rather unique (at least I assume it is) production process of eye shadow. Some are much more involved than others. For instance, due to particle size layering, heat treatment, and such, a shade like Because Cats takes considerably longer from start to finish than Space Kitty. Housework Pearls takes much longer than Koala. Most can't be done in a very large volume at once. We prepare the shades for being pressed with their loose counterpart, then separate out what's needed for pressing (usually about 500g or 1kg) and finish each respectively. The pressed shades need to be just the right consistancy before going into the machine, and the same ratio of wet ingredients don't work well with each shade. Mephisto doesn't have a high amount of mica, and mica is great for pressing because the microscopic platelets fit together almost like tiny puzzle pieces. It does have some silica and other ingredients which have a rounder or more uniform particle shape. So that one was slightly modified to work consistantly, though still ends up a bit fragile. The mixing and adjusting, then the cleaning up parts between shades...all adds up to a very time-consuming process. We can't very well manage more than two or three pressed shades per day, and those are done when there isn't a very large pileup of other tasks. Always, current purchases in the queue take precedence over all else, so re-mixing of needed colours and package filling is done before pressed re-stock or tinkering with new things.


Sample/freebie amounts:

   It's been asked, and sometimes mentioned in blog posts, regarding the size of the blush, finishing powders, highlighter, and free samples. It's varies. The eye shadow Minis (we started calling them that when the size was changed from 1/4 to 1/3 tsp on the regular shades a few years ago; plus if you get more than just a few uses out of something, It's not really a "sample") are measured uniformly: we have these little scoops which hold exactly 1/3 tsp and 1/4 tsp of powder. But for the face products, one generally uses more each time than with eye shadow. So, these are usually a tiny bit more than 1/3tsp; the measure is rounded when we fill the jars. The free samples are not really measured, it's generally a little more than half the size of a mini or regular sample size of that product. Except when we include a trial size Lip Lustre or Pixie Epoxy free, those are all the same volume. 


Since this is a holiday weekend and no shipments are outgoing Monday, that gives us a little extra time tomorrow, so if the Giant Pile Of Things To Get Done is mostly finished by tonight, a couple shades may get prepped to press tomorrow. At any given time there are 200-350 orders in the queue (we average 50 to 100 incoming each day), but with every new release that amount doubles right away. 


* Edited to add: Sorry about the little jars being out from the 21-22. The missing ones turned up, fortunately.

1960s Retro Collection and other notes.

Good evening (morning, or afternoon, be it so where you are). You may have noticed out new collection went up on 3/30. I would have announced it here yesterday, but the absolutely insane volume of sales (this is a good thing, but sometimes you people catch us off-guard; Spring is usually a low sale time) has kept us quite busy in studio and office.

If you have never used our loose shadows, or haven't bought since before late January this year, ours are not free-flowing loose powder. They have had various particle-binders for the past few years, and in January we greatly minimized the flyaway, fallout, and increased adhesion as detailed on a previous post here. The greatest difference is with the most sparkly shadows such as Dinosaur Plushie and Book Of The Dead, and some of the pale shades like Crimson Ghost.

Thank you for all your patronage, and we hope your week is off to a good start!

Email address, 50s Retro Collection

   Good day. At least I hope it is for you. Not too bad here, thank you for asking. :)

   It was brought to my attention a few days ago when a long-time client asked about a couple emails her friend had written us, as they went unanswered. As it turns out, they went unreceived. They had been sent to order@fyrinnae .com, which never has been a valid email address. We don't use a catch-all (hey there giant 300mb folder of nonsensical spam), and info@ and staff@ have not been valid emails in a very long time. Unfortunately, PayPal had info@ listed on our profile, and it took me forever to get that off there for whatever reason. Regardless, the only valid all-purpose Fyrinnae email, except for individual ones we here all use for business contact purposes, is store@ , which is the one specified on the Contact page. Which is not to say we don't miss an email on occasion. If you don't receive a reply, first check your spam folder (Hotmail and Yahoo are terrible for this), and please send another. If possible, from a different email address, because a great many we reply to bounce as non-existent.

   By now you've of course seen, and likely bought some of, our newest collection, the 50s Retro. The shades were designed around the minimal colours used in the 1950s: bold red lips, subtly defined eyes, but little eye shadow, and most often in matte and satiny skintone hues. Late 50s showed more color options springing up, and by the mid-60s cosmetics were by far more diverse and vibrant, which is when our next collection is based. I'm unable to give an estimated time on that though, as we have so much else going on though March and April. Pressed shadows (which I am highly pissed off about and am actively searching and contacting other compact manufacturers) will be back as soon as possible, but most won't be up until the end of this month. 

Jar sizes, product amounts, and such. A tiny note from the Chemist.

Oddly, we get frequent inquiries about the size differences in products, most often the loose eye shadow. The sizes and weights noted in the catalogue are correct. Though the weights are sometimes a little understated. The weight of a mini jar of eye shadow is about half a gram, usually a tiny bit more. But the measurement is always the same: one-third (1/3) of a teaspoon, or 1/4tsp for Arcanes. Some may appear a smidgen more full than others when on their sides, due to density of ingredients and/or particle size, which I'll get to on later in this post. They're not blindly filled; we have measures for filling. The full size, however, are filled to the top, packed down, and topped off. This is how it often seems the Mini jars give about 1/3 or more of the size of a full jar.

The size of jars for Minis (these are most certainly not samples! A sample doesn't customarily last you weeks to months. They're small versions of the product) is notably smaller than the full size. The regular eye shadow jars, a common size, hold just about 5ml of liquid, while the Mini size holds 3ml. Below are comparison photos of the product and jars.

The weight for Fyrinnae's loose eye shadow is listed on the store and labels as approximately 3 grams. Some are close to 2.8, and many are over 3.5g. The US labeling regulations allow a very small variance in weight, usually if it may vary between shades or styles of the same product. For the Minis, we have it listed as .4 to .7gram. That's not quite correct, as the 1/3tsp of product weights a tiny bit more than that, but understating is always a bit better policy. You're still receiving the same amount, even if by weight it may be .5g for Cupcake Frosting, and .9g for Dragon's Wing.

Still with me here? Cool, as I'm going to keep typing. Let's discuss why some weigh more. In short, some colourants (pure dry powders in the form of dyes, inorganic pigments, micas, synthetic fluorphlogopite and silicates, etc) are much heavier than others. Chromium Oxide weights a lot more, and is far more dense, than standard cosmetic grade lake dyes. So for example, if a green eye shadow is based on chromium oxide for main colour and treated 10-25µm mica for shimmer and depth, it may weigh twice as much as a similar colour shadow based on blue 1, yellow 5, titanium dioxide, and 50-100µm sparkle mica. Make sense? The product appears the same size, and you get the same amount of product, but the weight varies. Most of the time it's not noticeable.

Now, that probably explained why the same size jar from X company is marked as a different weight than the same size container from Z company. Neither company is wrong, but X uses a smaller particle size borosilicate (40-150µm) for sparkle, and a considerable amount of stearates and iron oxide in their base, creating some rich opaque colours. This makes the jar net weight 4.5 grams (or whatever, I'm making this up as I type). Z contracts a manufacturer to produce a vivid product using dyes and treated mica, with big sparkle (100-350µm), in some of their shades. These jars are the same size as X's, but net weight of product is 2 grams. Consumers are not being cheated, company is not lying, but ingredients have varying weights. This applies for all cosmetic products, be they powder, creme, liquid, or wax based. Think of a bucket of sand versus a bucket of Legos. Besides the fact neither would be fun dumped across your living room floor, the Lego bucket will weigh less, even though both are filled to the top.

WHAT is µm?? That's the symbol for micrometre. That's how we measure the particle size in powders. An average shimmery mica colourant has a µm range of 5 to 100. The larger the number, the more sparkle (like 200-300), until we get past general cosmetic use and into nail polish (huge flakes of silicate and synthetic mica!). Smaller numbers such as 5 to 10 are most often in the satin and low-shimmer products, where you have a sheen but no sparkle.