Hello Waffle Cosmetics

https://www.etsy.com/shop/HelloWaffleCosmetics

Christine is super duper sweet and always includes such generous samples in the order! She is incredibly quick with her shipping responses to any questions you have! Super positive experience with her!

Hello Waffle's eyeshadows are awesome. They stayed put with a primer for a full day, no creasing and minimal fading. The lip balms are great, too, but can be prone to grittiness. It melts into a comfortable balm with opaque color very quickly, though.

Christine has excellent customer service as well. Ships fast and responds to emails within a day or two.

I love this store. The owner is amazingly sweet, and will answer any questions you have very quickly. I had a problem with one of my full size tubes (which was MY fault!) and she helped me to sort it out.

Brilliant range of colours for lipbalms, great themed colours for shadows. Already done two orders, plan on going back for more.

Original thread and my swatches.

Frozen Collection
I adore this collection so. very. very. much. I was a little worried at first because from Hello Waffle’s own swatches, some of the colors looked very similar to each other, and I’ve run into this issue with the Tangled collection, but nope! They were all gorgeous, distinct, and uniquely different. I am in love with the color selection.

They are very pigmented, have incredible staying power, and are very shimmery/sparkly. I love them. They also didn’t even need a primer to stay put (except perhaps “Here I Stand” which started moving around a little, but… considering where I swatched it, that is totally justified). Some of the darker colors stain a little when you wipe them off, but it comes off easily with makeup remover.
This is by far the superior collection in my opinion.

Tangled Collection
The colors in this collection are soft, sparkly, and completely wearable both into the office and back out. “Mother Knows Best” is fast climbing to become one of my favorite shadow colors, as well as “Floating Lanterns.” However, I find that “The Crown,” “Golden Flower,” “White Shells” and to some extent “Magic Hair” are all incredibly similar to each other. When you swatch them together you can pick out some differences, but they are essentially very close to each other, and go on very sheer so it’s nearly impossible to see the differences dry. “Frying Pan” and “Gothel” are also quite similar.

These shadows are also a little more finicky to work with. I am used to some pretty reliable color payoff so I found I needed to use more product to get decent color build up using my regular primer, and then that these shadows also faded a lot more. I wore a few of them to work, and the purples held out pretty well (though faded) but the lighter colors (“The Lost Princess,” “White Shells,” and “Magic Hair” were just gone. When I added e.l.f.’s glitter primer to the regime, the purples stayed gorgeous all through the day, but the lighter colors were still pretty much gone.

Some of the darker colors also stained, but this doesn’t bother me, and they came off easily with remover.

Lip Balms
I haven’t taken photos or swatches of these yet. But while the texture came out of the tube a little gritty, it still came out pretty easily, and once I warmed it a little against my lips, the texture turned smooth. I didn’t mind it, I’ve had similar experiences with most vegan lip balms. The color payoff is good, they lasted quite a long while, and were not drying. I have one full-size in “Vamp” that came free with my Tangled order, one full-size “Elsa” which is part of the Frozen collection, and a sample size tub of “Crookshanks” that came free with my Frozen order.

Customer Service
Christine is a sweetheart; super nice, extremely open to feedback, and quick to keep the lines of communication open if there is an issue with an order (even if it happens to be a short delay in her TAT).

Overall/final notes
I think some of her swatches are not actually true to what they appear to be on her listings. "The Cat's Meow" (which admittedly is a limited color anyhow) appears a bright pink on her listing and in real life is more of a dusty purple. Others have commented that her Frozen Collection swatches suggest there are more blues in it than there actually are (two) which I agree with, and I thought the pinks in her swatches from the Frozen collection looked absurdly similar to each other, but this was not the case in real life.

I have not found all of the shadows extremely easy to use, but I find them all very pretty and worth the extra effort to get them to work.

Reddit username is mirroredsakura.

I find the colors to be very unique from other brands I have tried and those I have only seen online. I like that she includes a free sample with orders too. Though I havent tried the sample of lip product yet, simply because of allergies and sensitivities in the general area of lip products.

Also the owner is really nice, and I like that she has an active presence in the community. Its really easy to talk to her.

I received some products as a personal gift from Christine and I thought I would share some: https://imgur.com/a/Bcntg. The imgur album also has some comments on her products.

Overall, I think her products are lovely and she was a pleasure to interact with. I did send her some feedback and I was pleased with how she responded to every comment (no matter how small, seriously I commented about the color of the cat logo) or concern. I'm really excited to see her shop grow and I love how receptive she was.

I posted a reddit thread with that imgur album (http://redd.it/1z918k) and /u/SirWaffalot (Christine on reddit) dropped by to elaborate on what changes we can expect. I can only see Hello Waffle getting better and I'm excited to watch her shop grow and make purchases in the future.

Edit: Formatting!

Received my order about 2x weeks after placing it (I'm an international customer, UK based)

She was out of samples of one of the lip colors I ordered so she included a full size! <3

She was very quick to respond to queries

I'm really happy with the quality of all the products I ordered: tangled sample set, and samples of 4 different lip colors

She also included an additional lip color sample


Great indie experience. Would definitely recommend!

Christine is lovely! I'd been harassing her via PM for a while before I ordered but she was so nice and answered all my questions.

It took 2 weeks to arrive, but I'm UK based too plus bank holidays all over the place delayed it a few more days. I didn't mind waiting! Everything was packaged well and there were no spills.

She was very generous and included 2 full size Colour Of The Month shadows after I asked if I could get samples if it were possible. She also upgraded a lipbalm sample to a full size - the sample of the balm would have come with the baggie samples anyway. Such a lovely gesture from her

Overall I'm really happy with everything I got and have had fun playing with shadows over the past week. Definitely ordering again soon!

Thank you Christine for making my first indie shadows experience a great one <3

The turnaround time is short, the shipping is extremely reasonable (as a Canadian/usually international customer, it's the lowest I've encountered at an indie thus far), and Christine is communicative, accommodating, generous with samples/upgrades, and overall great. Plus cats. Such a lovely brand.

Product-wise: beautiful shadows. I think the swatches don't always do them total justice, but usually it makes for a pleasant surprise in my experience. I find wear time/pigmentation comparable to my Shiro stuff and Shiro is my standard, so I'm happy with it!

(Sidenote: The Musician collection swatches look like maybe she's picked up more of the duochromes/complexities of the shadows? Will have to see my order in real life to compare, ha.)

I find the texture/pigmentation/wear time of the new lip balm formula lovely (feels like a lip butter I own, but vivid and lasting for a tinted balm), though it's also a bit soft and will crack on the surface if I don't twist it up slowly/gently. I also find that due to the (admirable) pigmentation of some and the tube shape, I do have to fuss with a lip brush to not look messy. So I think this is a very neat product in maybe not ideal packaging? I've ordered more in clamshells. This is my experience in my climate though (cool/dry), so your mileage may vary!

Overall, I love Hello Waffle and I'm excited to see where it goes in future. Not just a would order again, but definitely will when she has some new items to try.

I ordered a blogger's pack from Hello Waffle during her sale back in June 2014 and I couldn't be happier! The turnaround time was very reasonable for a peak period and everything was beautifully packaged and formulated. Christine is amazingly generous and friendly and her products are AMAZING.

Blog posts that I made:

http://minkishly.wordpress.com/2014/07/15/hello-waffle-review-part-1-gorgeous-gorgeous-eye-shadows/

http://minkishly.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/hello-waffle-review-part-2-blushes-and-lippies/

Long story short, I had an amazing brand experience with Hello Waffle and would highly recommend to store to everyone!

HW is my favourite indie ever just because the owner is so sweet and the customer service is so awesome. There's so many eyeshadow brands out there and HW stands out just because you will just want to give Christine all your money once you get to know her. She's super sweet and awesome.

Here's my reviews, swatches & craft projects using HW:

http://workingwithmonolids.blogspot.com/search/label/Hello%20Waffle

I placed my order on November 17th, and it came sometime during Thanksgiving weekend (November 28th or 29th), which is a great turnaround time for an indie company considering how long it probably took to ship during the holiday.

Receiving the order was such a great experience! Everything came as planned, with an extra sample baggie from the Catssic Literature Collection included for free! The invoice had a sweet handwritten note and was stamped all over with different cat patterns. The quality of the shadows and the blush was incredible & I can't wait to order from Christine again.

Thanks Hello Waffle for going above and beyond the big-box brands and reminding me why I love ordering from indie companies! It's people like Christine who make the world of independent makeup such a warm, welcoming, addictive community.

Hello Waffle! This was actually a gift from my boyfriend, but the story behind it is very sweet. I'm a huge Fringe fan, and I lost my shit when I found the Hello Waffle Fringe collection! I was super bummed that I didn't get a chance to order anything from the Kitty Kingdom collection before she closed down shop, but my bf sneakily placed an order right before she closed. He ordered the entire collection (in full size! I am so spoiled) and put a cute little note in the comments telling Christine how excited I was for the collection and thanking her for making such a perfect gift. She sent the order out with a lovely little note for my bf, and she included a full size 1000 Likes as a surprise for me! And the colors are gorgeous. Like, ruined-me-for-other-colors gorgeous. Again, already planning my next order.

http://www.indieknow.net/2014/11/company-overview-hello-waffle-cosmetics_13.html

Quick turnaround and great packaging. I love the face products, they are very blendable but you can build them up well. Both her highlighters and contours are nearly foolproof and incredible quality. Lavender cream is even better than everyone says!

I had a much worse experience with the shadows though; I've found they have to be used over a glitter primer to show up, whereas I would usually use just a primer for everyday and a glitter primer for extra glittery looks. All the shadows I've tried lose any duochrome/sheen/glitter/color and become dull matte base colours without glitter primer. Eg Gene, a very pretty dark jewel purple, applies as a sheer dark grey-black color. Sadly I can't recommend them unless you always use glitter primer, especially when so many other brands apply really well over just primer.

I love this company, like so many others

Great quality products (such shimmery wonder...), good TAT, awesome customer service. I ordered sample, and I have to say, I love the baggies they use: they are the easiest to depot out of all of the indies I've tried.

TAT: Website indicated 10-20 days when I placed my first order on Thu, 2/12. I placed another order on Sun, 2/22. Shipment information received on Wed, 2/25. Package received on Wed, 3/4.

Customer Service: I e-mailed Christine to ask to combine my 2/12 order when my 2/22 order was ready to ship. She was quick to respond and refunded my shipping on my second order immediately without prompting. When I received the shipping info, I realized she combined my 2/22 when my 2/12 order was ready. :O She's amazing, enough said.

Packaging: Packing was adorable with the kitties and extremely clean. She had stickers to seal my jars and my samples were packaged in a plastic baggy to keep them together.

Product: My eyeshadows were soft, buildable, and wonderful pigmented. The free sample she included went perfectly with all the other colors I chose as well. I bought a few samples, a few halfings, and a full-size, all of which were extremely generous. I will definitely order from Christine again.