This review is mainly for chrisconnolly's benefit but, heck, someone else might find it useful. Anyway.

So. I'm not a professional photographer and everything I know about photography comes from an incredibly informal trial and error process. I don't like to get too technical about any of it; I just want pretty pictures. I mainly use my cameras to take pictures of makeup, cake, crap I buy and drunk people in dive bars.

Enter the Lumiquest soft screen flash diffuser thingie. It's cheap, it's basic and it looks a hell of a lot nicer than sticking a piece of toilet paper over my flash.

For makeup close ups (I get exactly zero natural light in my apartment), this diffuses flash pretty well. I prefer the diffusion I get from a simple piece of toilet paper or tissue, but only just slightly. And this thing has the major advantage of not getting in the way of the pop-up. Even though it doesn't do anything for subjects at a distance, I still like it for bar scenarios because it seems to reduce blinking. It sits nicely so I haven't gotten any weird flash lines or anything. I know there are a lot of pop-up flash diffusers that are smaller and cover the sides but this one's cheaper and more universal.

At home I pretty much still use toilet paper instead of bothering to rig the Lumiquest up. My camera doesn't have a prominent nameplate for this to hook onto at the front so it involves a slightly ugly velcro thing. I've been holding it in place at the front and that's pretty annoying, but now that I know I'm keeping it I'll attach it and use it all the time when I'm on the move.

Anyone else use something like this? What do you think of it?

I don't know about you, but I always want that extra punch of color out of my eye shadows. And that means mixing mediums. I've tried out quite a few and here's my two cents on these three.

DuWop
So, DuWop's Payoff is mostly just water and glycerine itself with a couple of other preservative type stuffs for good measure. Instructions are to drop a bit directly into your eyeshadow and use like always.
Pros: Easy to travel with, easy to use, decent staying power.
Cons: Potentially unsanitary, not quite as much pop to colors.
Overall rating: 3/5 when used as directed, 4/5 when you dip the brush directly into a drop of Payoff. (I like to use the kind of painting palette you can get at places like Michael's.)

Glycerine
Typically, glycerine gets watered down with at the very least equal parts water. My particular mix is a drop of glycerine to four drops of water.
Pros: Incredibly inexpensive, very good color payoff and staying power.
Cons: Difficult to get a consistent mix, not as easy to travel with as DuWop.
Overall rating: 4/5

Plain Old Water
Some people wet the brush directly, some people mix some water with some eyeshadow before the brush enters the picture. I wet the brush directly and dip it right into any color that I don't ever plan to use on anyone else. I also make sure to keep the shadow open until it dries to minimize the bacteria potential. If I might ever use the shadow on someone else, I put some into a painting palette and mix it there.
Pros: Basically free, easy, excellent color payoff.
Cons: Pain in the butt when you're not working in a bathroom, slightly less staying power than a glycerin mix.
Overall rating 4.5/5

All in all, the only thing I love above DuWop is the bottle. When I use it up, I'll probably keep the bottle and keep my own glycerin mix in it for travel. But on a regular basis, plain old tap water gives me the best color payoff and is easiest. Any longevity that glycerin has is mostly overshadowed by the color payoff of water. Plus it mixes better with stuff like Kryolan Aqua Paints.

What works best for you guys? Has anyone tried using other unconventional products as mixing mediums?

So. Many of you voted and the clear winner in my poll was Airflash. I listened and I was liking it pretty okay.

Until I decided to apply it with the Sonia Kashuk blending sponge.

They recommend you apply Airflash with a kabuki brush and when you do that it goes on smooth and gives good coverage. But I hated the extra work to get it into every nook and cranny of my face, especially the sides of my nose and my inner eye.

This thing makes all of that headache a thing of the past. I bought it on a whim on vacation in Destin because it was funky looking and I haven't regretted it since. It gives me all of the control and precision I was missing with the kabuki brush.

So in case you've been wondering whether this thing is worth the $8.99 given that you could buy a bag of disposable sponges for much less, the answer is totally "yes." It even takes to washing really well, but I'm thinking of buying another one so I can let it really dry well when I clean it.

So, I was in a Pathmark buying some finishing touches for my wedding, centerpiece accessories, bathroom loot, stuff like that. And what did I see? e.l.f. in a store, in a "bargains" aisle instead of the makeup aisle, no less.

For those of you who aren't familiar with e.l.f., it's fair to good quality makeup and brushes for $1 each.

So I rabidly snapped up one or three of everything (this was a pain in the butt in the self-checkout line, but ultimately worth it) and gleefully plotted returning all of the disposable makeup applicators I bought from Sally for the wedding.

I had never before seen a single e.l.f. product in a store. Two days after my wedding, I discovered more e.l.f. in a random non-chain drugstore in my neighborhood. (A lot of the best stuff was already entirely sold out, boo! But I did get an eyelash curler and a couple of other things. Because why not?)

Anyway, have you guys been seeing e.l.f. around? Where?

And for those who were curious, there are links to full picture sets from my wedding at my blog.