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. 

December 31st update

Greetings, Earth dwellers.

We're rather busy (what's new?) this evening, but I promised an update here, and am actually getting to it. Five new shadows and a highlighter have appeared in the past several days, in addition to Atomic Afterglow being re-introduced, but it's technically a few years old. Pygmy Hippo and Ocelot (Lip Lustres) came early this month, and both have been extremely popular, thanks to many of you. We are hoping to push forth a couple more shadows very soon, but no promises. Even without new products or colors, it's constantly hectic around here, and we musn't get behind schedule.

The mauve highlighter/contour (which could be used as eye shadow highlight, too) looks daunting, but warms up to a more human-like hue upon application and gentle blending. We've had this sitting aside for several months, and kept meaning to add it to the catalog, as the poor highlighters haven't seen a new fellow-product in years.

Tonight, we work on checking through ingredient stock and pressed eye shadow inventory, and most likely replenishing a couple pressed shades. 

Witchy Woodland Creatures and Velveteen Werewolf are the frontrunners.

No surprise, the browns are the top sellers so far. Ghost's Kiss was really fast-moving on 10/1 & 10/2, which was new; usually a new Lustre shade doesn't sell well until some blog reviews are out. Especially since the trial size Lustres weren't available again until 10/3.

I was right about the new products selling insanely fast, but at the time I didn't know just how right I was. 10/1 & 10/2 were a madhouse (or rather, madstore?), and the days since have been nearly as busy. Of course, Fall is the Indie busy season, at least for some industries, so it's expected. But this year: whoa.

Yes, it's great! We're thrilled you anticipate and like our products so! Thank you very much for that. I'm just mentioning all that because it did indeed have an impact on the time frame, though not by an absurd amount, and at times I miss seeing an email or two, et cetera.

Chances are great that I forgot something I'd intended to write about, but it's after 11pm. We'll be in the studio early tomorrow working on Tuesday's outbound shipments. Monday is a US holiday (why is Columbus Day a USPS holiday??), though UPS and FedEx are operating as usual - which is good because apparently several big shipments ended up being scheduled to arrive  on the same day.

Good night!

"Duochromes", Arcane effects, and other matters.

Frequently I see people refer to our Arcane line (or shadows/nail/lip products with similar effects) as "duochrome", what we refer to as "Dualcolors" for Fyrinnae. In the color cosmetic field, this generally refers to one color with another color mixed into it or laid on top of it, in the case of a sheer highlight on top of an opaque base color. These are formulated in a way to allow 2-3 distinct hues to be visible at once. For example, our eye shadow Wicked is a satiny dark violet with a lighter turquoise shimmer on top. The particles are mixed together, but upon application the highlight appears to lay on top of the other colour. There are many, many colors like this in the cosmetic world. The Arcanes, however, are different. Sure, some are also two distinct colors such as Faerie Glamour and Conjuror, but when brought to the light or viewed at an angle, the highlight changes hue, sometimes to more than 3 variants, so you can see more than just a couple flat shades. The pigments used in creation of these eye shadows (they show up better in nail polish which you probably know; the enamel or liquid helps reflection) do shift to various hues, depending on angle, proximity to light, and yes, the color-vision of the viewer. We all see colors differently. Reflection of light shows you varying colors, in the same manner a prism gives off a rainbow. These variations stay in the same color families, though. You won't see a bright yellow change to royal blue, but a coppery yellow may shift to orange to warm pink or red.

When we pen the Arcane descriptions, the initial colour or mix is given for how the shadow appears viewed straight on, at about arm's length, with indoor lighting. About the distance, or a little closer than other people will see it on you. Some of these look fairly blah in sunlight, or it kind of blends the hues together.


On to the Samhain set for this year: This weekend we did raise prices on most products, though pressed shadows, Pixie Epoxy, gel primer, and most face powders stayed the same. Shipping was raised from free at $50 to free at $75. Giving free international shipping adds up fast, but I don't want to eliminate that. Changing some mini prices caused an odd glitch so those had to be done one by one, which took hours, hence the store being closed for most of a day while it was completed and checked. The new colors were posted earlier today, but I never announce it, because there is always a sudden mad rush to buy them, and especially with the recent pressed shadow release, we usually have as much business as we can handle without working exceedingly long hours (and there are five of us here which crowds the studio when hours greatly overlap), which a couple of us do anyway. We always try to get everything out the door quickly, but if suddenly incoming purchases triple (or more, as happened last September), the waiting time frame will increase. For example, if at work or school you (or your group) can get 10 tasks done in an hour, then one day a supervisor comes and says you must now get 30 tasks done in that same hour...you get the picture. I don't want to have to close the store for orders, but that may end up happening this year given the overnight popularity of our pressed shadows. Daemon's Tail, Te Amo, and Polar Bear keep selling out the fastest. I'll wager that is odd of me to write, but I strive for honesty with customers, and keeping our products developed and produced here as they always have been. Remember, we never do limited editions, so the Samhain-theme products will still be here next month and the next, and so on.

I'm not in the office now, but will be down there and reply to email later today.

perfectly

, unless someone else gets

New

The application/durability testing by a couple local artists was completed In July, and in the past few days  recipients of the eye shadow giveaway have posted or emailed feedback and pictures:

http://www.perilouslypale.com/2012/09/fyrinnae-pressed-eyeshadows-te-amo-and.html

http://bloodfeatherslipstick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/thats-what-she-said-fyrinnae-pressed.html

https://twitter.com/99Raina99/status/241380778322305024/photo/1



Rapunzel didn't fare well, but we feared that in the first place and have since made a slight alteration to the  base, changed dimethicone viscosity, so it seems good now. I used to press some all by hand a few years ago, which were never up for sale of course. The available shades are going to be rather limited. Very few of the sparkly shadows, and we're keeping out most that are similar to shades available elsewhere, such as the ghost-types and Koala. They will be added to gradually, and as I mentioned before, some shades will pressed-only. The picture below shows Damn Paladins, Te Amo, Rapunzel, and Purgatory.

(In which Damn Paladins appears too pale and Te Amo photographed splotchy for some reason)

We did have to switch manufacturers of the pans about a month ago, due to a great number of them ending up being either 25mm or nearly 27, which not only was annoyingly inconsistent, but created obvious problems with pressing equipment and the compacts. There will not be blush, highlighter, or other powder products in pan form in the foreseeable future.

I'm going to try and have these available starting in two weeks, maybe sooner or later, but we don't want that too close to the Halloween/Autumn release, as September and October are almost always the busiest months of the year. Speaking of which, if you thought last year's Halloween colors were good, these are unreal. In fact, there were too many gorgeous shades that we moved some out and pushed them to a future release, perhaps winter.

Also, in several random orders shipped this past week (and a few more that will be on the way this week), a silicone long-handle applicator was included as a gift, so a few of you may see one show up. Unlike brushes, these can be washed right off and dried, ready for another color, so it may be something we add. A friend reported that they work great for adding glitter or shimmer onto lips without gunking up other tools.

Bits of this and that.

Another big thank you to Siryn. She did a grand job displaying the shades. I think Sorceress, Steampunk, and When I Grow Up look especially cool.

Have you done looks with our newest glowing shades? I've seen Phyrra's and Mandy's so far. These sold like sparkly hotcakes, so I'd love to see how you've worn them.

The majority of purchases are being shipped in 2-3 business days; had a few from 6/19 which didn't make it out until this morning. All in all, we're moving fairly fast for this time of year. Must be the wonderfully cool weather.

Regular tubes for Lustres and PE will be back this week. My deepest apologies for the shortage of those. The black-trim ones are exactly the same, except color.

I believe that's all for now. Seems I have email to tend to, then on my way back over to the studio.

Update on the new shades, and thank you, Siryn!

By now you're probably seen our latest shadows. Four are glowing shades, created the same way as Electric Stardust and Otherworld are, to give a reflective appearance over a decent primer or base. These shadows have been formulated with transparent bases, making them easy to blend with one another or with other shades, without a worry of them becoming "muddy" or mucking up another shade (try Aye, Captain and Space Kitty blended together. Nice effect). The other is a very bright hot pink, Superstar. It can be more subdued, yet still a lush color, if applied very lightly. This could easily work as an intense lip or cheek color. As usual, the new releases are not in a collection. Actually, two of the glowing shadows were formulated several months ago, and got pushed to the back of our "in progress" cabinet. There are a lot in there like that. Most never see the light of day. Or your swatching lamps. Mainly because too many are similar to existing shades.

Moving right along, I'm overdue in giving a great big thank you to Dawn of MakeupBySiryn.com , who's pictures you will see gracing several of our catalog pages, showing off products' color and effects quite beautifully. Click the link to visit her cool blog, which features many outstanding comics-inspired looks.

That's all for now. Have a good weeken--oh crap, it's only Wednesday.

Why Fyrinnae doesn't offer eye shadow samples.

A few years ago, perhaps seven, we first started offering samples. They were about 1/8 of a teaspoon in *gasp* in little zip-close bags. Which I refuse to call "baggies", as that is the brand name of a sandwich-type bag that has no closure. Anyway, after a while, maybe in 2006, I changed to small clear polystyrene jars. The samples for most products were 1/4 teaspoon, which was, and still is, the average size allotted for samples with small independent cosmetic companies. Products like foundation and finishing powders got more per jar, since one uses more per application than an eye shadow or whatnot. These were first $1.25 to $1.50 then $1.50 to $1.75 when I had to increase product prices slightly once.

A couple years later, The perfectly-sized scoops we used were altered by the manufacturer, and ended up being slightly larger (of course we could have used others, but this ended up working out better). To compensate, I just increased the size allotted per product to 1/3 teaspoon - except for the Arcane line because of the ingredient and price difference, increased the price a little (to $2 for shadows), and stopped calling what was clearly a large amount of product a "sample" and changed it to "Mini". Face products are still samples, as you need more and won't get 15-20 uses out of a tiny jar, but by now you all know that a Mini jar of shadow is no sample, and it can last weeks, even months. A sample of product should allow the consumer to try the product at least once, ideally 2-4+ times, but isn't meant to be a substitute for the retail size(s). So, for the past few years, our 1/3tsp Mini size is the small eye shadow you can buy without risking a large purchase, and yet still have plenty to last for many uses. The blush is somewhat in between; there's about 1/3tsp in each sample jar, and that should last for a few applications, but depends on how much you use (and blush application isn't as precise as eye makeup). Most of the time, we err on the side of caution and give a little more than 1/3tsp of product. Primers and finishing powders come close to filling the jar.

Have I bored you all yet?

We're looking forward to bringing out a few new things next week, if all goes well. I'll see how things are after this weekend, but at least the pace has finally slowed down a tad.  All orders through the 22nd were sent off this morning, and just a few remain from 4/23.

Thank you!

Only four new shadows, and this has been our "biggest" release so far. Bigger and busier, somehow, than when we released the Halloween 2011 collection. The past  four days have been more hectic, in a good way, than any other time I can recall, in all the years past. Thank you. We're getting the last several purchases from 4/13 & 4/14 sent out tomorrow and Thursday. The difference in label text is driving me completely mad, but the "old" style labels couldn't just be pulled from products. Hopefully you'll hate it less than I do. Label styles are the same, but the font differs. In a few days everything with the old style will be gone, so future orders won't have a mix.

Yes, there are more upcoming, but I can't say exactly when. Two weeks maybe. More bright colors with absurd names.
Reviews were reinstated yesterday, but had been off the site for over a year (so there's a big date gap).

There. All done. I hope.

Got some of the new shades up this morning and everything looks good. This is much more suited to the company image (which, if you know me, you probably wondered for a while why I had scrolly fluff and stars. I hated that header). Unfortunately, no matter what we did with js overrides, the text shadowing would not work in IE. Got it to work on regular text but not link hovering. So yes, the store looks best in Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome as far as I know, but is a little more mundane in Internet Explorer. The server seems a tad slow today, too.

Please don't hesitate to let us know if there's a layout or functionality problem.  <3

Upcoming Changes & the history of Pixie Epoxy

Good day everyone!  The new site version is ready to go. R had been working on it a couple months ago, and Xin tweaked it up a little just this past week. Looks pretty good. When that is up, there will be new bright shadows, also.

While my chemist is away, I realized he had never posted this little story of how PE came about. It reads somewhat cocky, but that's just how he is. Sometimes I have to curtail his invention projects lest they take over the entire north side of the studio. He's good, he's really good, but has truly earned the Mad Scientist title. Here's the post (though on PE's description it did state it was made for an MUA, it was: she asked him for it after seeing the concept and results. At the time he had no intention of having this in the catalog).

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    Pixie Epoxy, my pride and joy. Not quite, but I readily admit it has been my favourite invention. Several years ago (2006 as I recall), I was still wearing makeup on occasion, usually overly-dramatic eye looks for fun or when friends dragged me to clubs. There were various little tips and tricks to make sparkle stay put and shadows look their best aside from using regular shadow primer, but none worked well enough for my liking. While it doesn't seem to be a huge issue for many women to have a little sparkle fall onto their face at night or when heavily made-up, it drove me completely mad (...a short drive that may have been). So I started spending late nights at my lab working on a solution. You likely know by now that prior to being at Fyrinnae, I worked at a lab which was under contract by a major cosmetic company, and I just didn't have the freedom to do anything outside the set structure (they don't really value creativity). Developing new products and completely changing "old" products quickly became a hobby of sorts, almost an obsession. This is why Lip Lustre is the way that it is: no guy, and few women, wants goopy, sticky lip gloss. 

    Pixie Epoxy literally took months of development and testing, and after a while I shelved the project because regular work at Fyrinnae was time-consuming enough without any such distractions. At some point in 2007 I went back to my myriad of notes and started it up again. Can't. Have. Sparkles. All. Over. Dammit. I think this was around when the City Glam cosmetic "glitter" was really popular, and people wanted a way to keep it on. I saw many were using lip balm, glycerin, or lash glue to keep the sparkle in place. That just wouldn't do. 



   Soon I had tested a final version, and tested again and again just to be sure. It held all in place without feeling like goo, nor causing irritation (I have very sensitive eyes, and damn-near everything irritates). So, my employer added it to the catalogue and Pixie Epoxy started selling. Then it quickly started selling very fast. Then very, very fast. By early 2009 it was the top-selling product of Fyrinnae's line, and still is. Prior to PE's development, there was no product like it available anywhere. Sure, there were a couple "glues" to hold glitter in place on face or body, and people would often use a mixing medium or make their own, but these didn't really suffice. Now a few years later and this product has been copied several times (about which I'm stuck between irritation and amusement). Though most people don't know its origin: just a guy who wanted his sparkly green eye shadow to stay put through the evening so he could be a proper Pixie, not look like he just shagged one (and now you also know the name origin).

Time frame notice: It NEVER ACTUALLY takes that long.

Thought it was about time I said this: The very lengthy time stated frames, which have always been padded, are never, ever accurate. I started doing this way back when we got a sudden, major jump in popularity several years ago, and at times, odd incidents excepted, the processing time due to order volume was often around 2-3 weeks back then. But in the past two years at least, I can't think of a single instance where an order actually was in the queue for more than fourteen business days, and those times were very rare. Our usual max time is 10-15 when it's extremely busy just after new releases. Average since 2010 has been 3-9 business days.


So, right now the current stated time frame is 20-28 business days. Business days exclude postal holidays, Sundays (and most Saturdays). We work all of those days, but the USPS doesn't. The actual time frame, meaning from the date your order is placed to the day it is shipped, right now is 2-5 business days. This morning the last few purchases from 2/14 were shipped, and only a handful from 2/15 & 2/16 remain. The actual queue time is never even close to the stated time.


"Why in the heck do you do this weird thing, man??"  Going back to paragraph 1, after seeing that people really liked getting their orders in less than the time they expected, I just kept doing it. Order volume steadily increased over the next few years, so of course we had much, much more to do. Sleep be damned, everyone here has been known to work nearly around the clock (slight exaggeration, but 12-16 hour days are common). Anyway, I just keep the time frame almost absurdly padded. Though one reason is in case anything "dire" happens such as an extended power outage, damaged containers, manufacturer component/ingredient delays, etc (once again, the store is never closed due to order volume). So if there is a delay by a couple days, the customer knows to expect it.  It says on the site, "Allow ___ business days queue and creation time before shipment", not "your order will be shipped after x amount of time". By the way, Monday is a USPS holiday, so next shipments will be on the 21st.

Thanks for reading my drivel, and we hope you're all having a pleasant weekend! The next time I post here it should include new shadow pictures at least.


P.S.
I actually fear that if I post a realistic time like 6-8 days, people will flock to the site with, "homgz they're shipping fast now!" and all purchase at once, thereby causing an unforeseen sudden delay (magic powers only extend so far). I did that once, about three years ago. It happened just like that, too. Kind of screwed myself over with this approach. :p

Important update

Good day, lovelies.

As most of you probably know by now, we don't take "holidays" off, so of course I will be working through the whole month. However, Fyrinnae will be closed (this time I know in advance!) from about 1/1 through 1/19. I'm not quite sure about the re-opening date yet, as I won't be here most of that time. This is not something I have much of a choice in, but at least is not unplanned (double...negative...). Purchases made prior to the closing date will of course be shipped promptly; we just won't be accepting any new ones for a while. Also during that time we'll be doing the year-end taxes, which in itself isn't a huge undertaking, but best to get it done when there's not much else going on.

In 2011, the store has only been closed for less than five weeks total.