Notoriously Morbid is an indie beauty brand that gears their goods towards people who are a little on the morbid side. Products are typically titled after horror, fantasy and weird books, movies and TV. The Notoriously Morbid Vanishing Cabinet is a (rather hard to get) surprise sample bag that plays on a theme each month. The waitlist is painfully long since it’s an indie brand, and I’m okay with that. I get that scaling an indie brand can be hard. The Vanishing Cabinet is $12.90 a month (shipping is included). They’re trying out offering the ability to buy a one-month trial of this bag, after which I imagine they’ll bump you up in the subscription queue if you’re interested.

The theme this month was Sicker, Sad World, a play on the bizarre TV show-within-the-show on Daria, an MTV joint that gave sarcastic girls everywhere a heroine. Definitely on-brand for Notoriously Morbid!

This VC included four eyeshadow samples, a lip balm sample and a sucker. Each came with a coupon code for a free full-size eyeshadow with any purchase, a $5.50 value. Each sifter of shadow is good for several uses–to be honest, for me, this is enough for all my makeup application for a year or better–and the lip balm is about as much as I’d use in a season. Tentatively, I think the $12.90 value is pretty good.

Only Child (Eyeshadow) – A pinky mauve with a touch of purple duochrome. Dabbing it onto my hand with my finger, I had a hard time getting this shade to build well. I really had to push the colour in. Over a primer, however, this really stuck and looked great.

Authority’s Problem (Eyeshadow) – A really nice warm grey silver that will make an awesome steely smoky eye. This applied SO WELL and I’m stoked to use it all over the place.

I Hate You (Eyeshadow) – A brown with green duochrome that reminds me of old-school Urban Decay. The duochrome on this one is a little disappointing unless you’re right up on it. Tapping this on made it look like a pretty average brown, but over primer, it got clumpy and weird. May just be my primer, but this shade is giving me guff!

Misery Loves Company (Eyeshadow) – The description that kept running through my mind for this one was bruise. It looks like a really deep, painful bruise, with lots of blues, purples and greys. The application of this one was also stellar and it offers a lot of buildability, but I can see the bruise factor being a negative unless used just right.

Mystic Spiral (Kiss Balm) – My boyfriend and I had the same, NSFW response when we smelled this “Oh my fuck”. It smells like the most wonderfully buttery, vanilla baked pastry you’ve ever smelled. It has virtually no taste and a neutral colour. It feels a bit like Vaseline on, though less greasy.

The Overall – I’m really pleased. The samples felt a tiny bit smaller than what I’d hoped for. At about $2.58 per sample, that’s a bit more than I’d normally spend. The curation is really cool, but I’m a smidge worried that this is going to become one of those “more stuff” subscriptions. But! But! But! I really like this one. So if you don’t see it ever again, don’t think it’s not because I don’t -LIKE- the NMVC. It’s just that I should really be saving my money and space.