Category: Eyeshadows

Maybelline The City Mini Palette

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It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted! I recently had a huge clear out of all my beauty products, and had some blogging inspiration strike me when I found some old favorites — and not so favorite — products in my drawer.

I bought two of these Maybelline powder eye shadows on a whim whilst remembering the errant MUA video I had seen with a relatively good color payout with these products. Generally, it seems like this eye shadow has good reviews. Now, full disclosure, I’m not a huge fan of eye shadow to begin with, and I’ve privy to believe that no drugstore eyeshadow – powder or gel – has a good color payout.

I picked up Chill Brunch and Downtown Sunrise (pictured). I really liked the presentation sparkly silver and beige in Chill Brunch, and wanted to play with the orange in Downtown Sunrise. Sadly, between the two palettes, I wasn’t exactly blown away by any of the turn out. I’ll go over some of the highs and lows of these palettes:

Downtown Sunrise: I think I just grabbed this for the orange, if I’m being honest! The color wasn’t extremely noticeable, but definitely more pigmented than I’ve seen other drugstore-oranges. It actually stuck around on my eyelids for more than three hours! The color payout of the orangey-beige, yellow, and the pink, however, were terrible, much to my dismay.

Chill Brunch: They got it right on the shiny beige here, good coloration and it seemed to stick around for more than three hours. I liked the impact that the shiny gray and brown had – very pigmented, very sparkly — but they weren’t great for my skin coloration, so I had to pass on those. The purples, on the other hand, are good for my skin tone, but the color seemed to disappear or lighten within minutes of application.

An upside to both of these pallets is that I didn’t really have an issue with powder fallout into either my eye or my skin. But all in all, these were still typical Maybelline eyeshadow palettes. Some of the colors are very well pigmented, but a large majority are ineffective, even if you’re using a heavy hand in application. Even if you’re able to pick out a good color from the batch, chances are you won’t see the color after thirty minutes of wear. I did really like the orange from Downtown Sunrise, but there are definitely better palettes for orange than this one. ~A

Perceived efficacy: 2/5

Longevity: 1/5

How much I actually like this product: 1.5/5

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Rimmel Scandal’eyes Shadow Stick

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Rimmel Scandal Eyes Stick

I really love the idea of non-powder eye shadows, but I can’t ever seem to find one that sticks, not even the internet-coveted Maybelline Color Tattoo. My eyes are very sensitive to powder, so I would love to find a gel-type product that will stick around on my lids. Unfortunately, this product was not the solution to my dilemma.

This is a super cheap buy at $4-5 at most drugstores. I picked up the taupe color that is in the picture, and “bulletproof beige”. It’s a gel-pencil — instead of using powder, you can apply this directly to your eyelids. Because my eyelids tend to, ahem, “sweat”, I applied primer before application to help give this product some more staying power.

Even as I was applying this, both colors, I could BARELY see the pigment, and I felt like no product was even leaving the pencil to begin with. Alright, go over it one more time. Still nothing. Alright, one more time… nope. I could hardly see any color. What little color did appear quickly… disappeared, during my thirty minute commute to work. I used these pencils for about a week to see if maybe I just needed to break through that “new” layer of product to get to the stuff that actually worked. Nope. Still no coloration.

Now, given that it’s a gel-pencil, the same concept as many eyeliners on the market today, I imagine that the darker colors would probably have much better staying power.

To add insult to injury, sharpening this is a nightmare! It’s really difficult to create a new tip, after you’ve worn it down the first time. I’m bummed that this didn’t work. I generally like Rimmel — I’ve been happy with their other Scandal’eyes products, but this product just didn’t work at all. ~A

Perceived efficacy: 1/5

Longevity: 1/5

How much I actually like this product: 1/5

 

Wet n Wild Color Icon Eyeshadow Trio

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Wet n Wild Eyeshadow

Eyeshadow has never really been my thing, but once in awhile, I decide that I want to dip my toes back into the eyeshadow arena. The idea is, if I go for one of these little Wet n Wild cheapie eyeshadows, then I can figure out my color and then move onto a higher-end product. I should have learned my lesson after almost a decade of doing this, that Wet n Wild eyeshadows unfortunately still fall into that category of “makeup you would buy for your twelve year old”, and ultimately turn me away from the idea of eyeshadow.

The foam applicator they provide is more or less garbage, the foam tends to rip through even after light use, and the “brush” has bristles that are hard plastic, too painful to use — so use your own brushes!

I swiped some primer on just to get some staying power since I know, from past experience, that these eyeshadows tend to disappear after an hour after application. I have the exact palette as pictured above, and several others, and they all seem to suffer the same problem in terms of coloration — the mid-level colors, like magentas, blues, greens, are near impossible to get to show up. They have absolutely no staying power even after you’ve gone over it a few times, AND applied primer.

The darker colors, well, are more pigmented of course, but not by much — the longevity is still poor, and they colors are not very malleable (okay, that’s not a good word to use, but you get the point). Once you put it on, no amount of good skill, light-handedness, or times spent swiping it over, regardless of tool that you’re using, will get that powder to “move over” where you need it. It’s very smudge-y.

The one thing WnW does do a bit better with are the lighter colors. I have a few one-shade palettes in my drawer (that are way too old, now that I think about it, so I should probably throw them out…) that are beige/sand/off-white colored. The longevity on these is a bit longer, maybe four hours, but there honestly isn’t really much color differentiation once you get the product on your skin — ie: doesn’t really look on the palette how it will ultimately look on your skin, and all of the lighter colors sort of look the same.

The powder on these eyeshadows WILL fall off. If you’re a contact lens user, beware! More than any other eyeshadow product I’ve used, I have the biggest issue with powder fall with WnW.

In my opinion, Wet n Wild definitely does a few things really, really well, particularly over the past few years as they’ve attempted to become more competitive with their drugstore peers. Their highlighting powders really blow me away. But these $2-$3 eyeshadows still stay firmly in the arena of “kid’s first makeup”. Even then, I probably still wouldn’t recommend it, based on the powder-fall alone.  ~A

Perceived efficacy: 1/5

Longevity: 1/5

How much I actually like this product: 1/5