Wear, Watch, Want 24: The Blushing Candy Spaceship Edition
Wear: Essie Nail Color in Mint Candy Apple
I have heard of Mint Candy Apple for years - it's one of Essie's cult classic nail colors - but I never considered it to be a color for me. I was never into pastels or blue-greens, opting instead for darks along the lines of my all-time favorite, OPI's Lincoln Park After Dark. But in the past year or so I've undergone a bit of a change, and I've been leaning toward lighter, bluer shades, and I've been wanting to give this raved about shade a try. I gave it a whirl during a manicure a week ago and I fell in love immediately. (Although, as is common with nail polishes, the name is stupid, the color is gorgeous.) On my nails it's a completely different color than in the bottle, and if you look at swatches online (just do a Google image search) you'll see that I'm not alone. This is a color that seems to transform itself depending on what light it's in, how many coats you apply, and the skintone of the person it's on. I can safely say though, that I have joined the cult of Mint Candy Apple.
Watch: Killjoys
When I saw ads for Lost Girl creator Michelle Lovretta's new SyFy show Killjoys, I knew I'd be watching it for a multitude of reasons: 1) Michelle Lovretta makes a good show. See: Lost Girl. 2) I will watch almost any lower budget, Canadian-filmed sci-fi (and SyFy) show. I watched all of Helix, guys. HELIX. 3) I will also watch anything with Aaron Ashmore. So I was on the Killjoys train, no matter what. But then I watched it, and I was IN. I was in SO HARD. Killjoys is about interplanetary bounty hunters (already sold, btw) who operate independently so as to not be influenced by the corporation that controls their planetary system. The Quad, where our trio of bounty hunters live and work, is ruled by a class-based system, and is on the brink of a revolution. Each episode typically has the killjoys claiming a warrant (the old "warrant-of-the-week" model) but there's a series through-line involving the inevitable class uprising.
Our killjoys, Dutch, John, and D'Avin, also have their own personal storylines to contend with. Dutch is the leader of the gang, the star of the show, and the biggest badass of the bunch. She was also raised in a brothel, taken from said brothel, and forcibly trained from an extremely young age to be an expert assassin. John and Dutch have been partners and platonic besties for years, but when John's brother D'Avin joins the team he shakes things up a bit. He is a soldier with PTSD, but there's something more to it than that, and he's determined to solve the mystery behind it.
One thing that Killjoys cannot possibly get enough credit for is that there is not, even for one tiny second, a love triangle between John, D'Avin, and Dutch. They could have done it. It would have been so easy. But they don't! I have a lot of things I like about this show, but that might be my favorite. All of the thumbs up for that one, Killjoys!
One thing that was slightly disappointing about the first season (which has ended, but that just means that you can catch up in time for season two) is the lack of gay stuff. Considering Michelle Lovretta created Lost Girl, one of televisions gayer programs, I was expecting at least one of our three main characters to be gay. Imagine my horror when each of the killjoys has hetero sex. That's not to say this is a completely heteronormative show. There are numerous queer characters and their sexuality is never treated as A Thing, which is wonderful, but I was expecting sexuality to be handled the way it is on Lost Girl, and I was a little bummed out when it didn't work out that way. But hey, they can still ALL be gay. We're only through season one, after all.
Want: Tarte Bling It On Amazonian Clay Blush Palette
Last year as a Sephora holiday exclusive Tarte released their Pin Up Girl Blush Palette. I mentioned it in my post about holiday beauty products, and I ended up buying it. I use it almost every day, and I love it. If you could still buy it I'd tell you to go get one right now, it's that fantastic. Tarte realized that they did a good job last year and not only released a new blush palette for Holiday 2015, but made some improvements, and I'm freaking out a little bit. The Bling It On Amazonian Clay Blush Palette contains five gorgeous blushes in a sleeker package than last year's model. The Pin Up Girl Palette is very sturdy and solid, but it's also very hard to store and virtually impossible to travel with. It also doesn't have the names of the blushes printed on it anywhere, so if you ever needed to reference that perfect coral in your Holiday 2014 limited edition palette, be prepared to do some Googling. Once again, you get 5 just-shy-of-full-size Amazonian Clay blushes for $44 (last year's palette was $42) which is an insanely good deal. Now that I've had my blush palette for 10 months I can safely say that it's an investment that was well worth it, and I'm far down the road to rationalizing having TWO Tarte Amazonian Clay Blush Palettes in my collection.
