Favourite Eyeshadows

I think my first post will be of eyeshadows cause the haul is still fresh (I just got the wet 'n' wild ones today).

My all time favourites are still MAC eyeshadows of course, and I've compiled a 15-piece pro palette of all neutral colours because those are the colours I use the most and I find myself constantly reaching for this palette. MAC is my favourite high-end brand for anything but their foundations. Their foundations break me out because I have really sensitive skin so I have to really be careful about the liquid/cream products that I put on my face (particularly my cheeks, chin and forehead).  I have 14 pro refill pans:

I organized the highlight colours at the top, the lid colours in the middle and crease/blending/outer corner colours at the bottom. Sorry the picture quality isn't that great. From left to right is the following:

1. Crystal Avalanche

2. Nylon

3. Rice Paper

4. Goldmine

5. Naked Lunch

6. Satin Taupe

7. Woodwinked

8. Bronze

9. All That Glitters

10. Expensive Pink

11. Embark

12. (Nothing - waiting for a silver shadow)

13. Soft Brown

14. Bamboo

15. Amber Lights

Yes, all of these colours are common favourites and I meant for them to be that way. That's why they're my favourite shadows that I reach for most often! =) I'm really happy with all of them. I use Crystal avalanche for inner corners when I do smokey grey looks and Nylon in the inner corners when I do neutral/brown looks. I use Rice Paper as a brow bone highlighter and Naked Lunch sometimes as well for pink/neutral looks. Satin Taupe, Woodwinked, Goldmine, All That Glitters and Amber lights are used as all-over colours. Embark  and Bronze are used as outer corner colours. Soft brown is my favourite crease/blending colour. Sometimes I'll find that Soft brown is too harsh of a blending colour so I'll use Bamboo in place of that. Other times, I'll use both with Soft Brown as a crease colour and Bamboo above it to blend.

Next are my brand new Wet 'n' Wild Eyeshadows. These eyeshadows are EXTREMELY pigmented (except for 3 of the shadows). I have all 4 of the ColorIcon palettes: Greed, Pride, Lust and Vanity. The best part about these palettes is that most of them are serious dupes for MAC shadows that I don't own (except Embark and All That Glitters). Each palette was around $5-6 so they definitely trump MAC shadows for price. I find that some of them are even better quality (more pigmented) than their MAC counterparts. I've actually labelled all the MAC dupes of each colour on the palette cover. These were discovered by one of my favourite makeup gurus on youtube EasyAccessBeauty. I also have pictures of them swatched on my fingers. So here they are:

246 - Greed

1. Blanc Type - Matte soft peach

2. Samoa Silk - Matte peachy orange brown

3. Carbon - Matte black

4. Idol Eyes - Shimmery periwinkle silver

5. All That Glitters (kind of) - Shimmery pink/peach

6. Black Tied - Matte black with silver glitter

As you can see they're all pretty pigmented. I don't know if you can tell, but the blue and the pink ones are not as pigmented. I had to really dig my fingers into the shadow to get that pigment to go onto my fingers. But I tried applying it with NYX jumbo pencils (lavender for the blue/silver and strawberry milk for the pink) and they showed up perfectly fine. It's just an extra step I'd rather not have to have but the rest of the shadows are amazingly pigmented.

247 - Pride

1. Gesso - Matte white

2. Newly Minted - Matte mint green

3. Nehru - Matte navy blue

4. A shimmery butter colour

5. Steamy - Shimmery sea foam green

6. Deep Truth - Shimmery navy blue

I love all of these except for the butter coloured one because that one is really chalky and hard to blend. That's why there's no MAC dupe for it!

248 - Lust

1. Pen N Pink - Matte baby pink

2. Fig. 1 - Matte purple/magenta

3. Shadowy Lady - Dark plum

4. Vanilla (found after picture was taken) - Soft cream colour with peachy tones and silver glitter

5. Night Divine - Shimmery dark grey/slate

6. Beauty Marked - Matte black with purple glitter

All of these are SUPER pigmented. I like the dupe for Beauty Marked the most because the actual MAC shadow shows up as a matte black with tiny amounts of purple glitter if you're lucky, whereas this shadow actually distributes the purple glitter really evenly. 

249 - Vanity

1. Malt or Bisque - Matte light peach

2. Cork or Wedge (more like Wedge) - Matte khaki

3. Embark - Matte dark brown with red undertones

4. Nylon - Shimmery pale yellow

5. Gorgeous gold - Shimmery cool-toned gold

6. Mulch - Shimmery dark brown with pink undertones

I love all of these even though I already have Embark and Nylon. I was gonna buy Bisque and Gorgeous Gold but now I really don't feel the need to do spend $26 plus tax for them =P

I also bought a single ColorIcon shadow because this one screamed HUMID from the MAC To the Beach collection which I had been really wanting to get but never did because I just couldn't justify spending so much on one collection.. especially for a shimmery green shadow. I'm so glad I got this because this was only less than $3 as opposed to MAC which is $17. It's a super pigmented forest green with gold undertones like Humid!

Lastly, there is another quad that I constantly pick up to use. The quality is not quite as good as MAC or the Wet 'n' Wild ones (I know, I never thought I'd say Wet 'n' Wild has better quality than ANYTHING)  but the colours in the palette are made to be used together and it's so convenient. It's the palette I reach for most when I don't know what to put on in the morning but don't want to look washed out. It gives a really nice smoky eye look for everyday wear. It's the Maybelline Stylish Smokes Quad in 02 Natural Smokes:

02 - Natural Smokes

It's kind of faded because I use this quad so much, but this quad is good for beginners because it etches into the shadow which colour should be used on the lid, crease, brow bone, and outer corner. I use the top left colour as an all over lid colour, the top right for the crease colour, the bottom left on my brow bone and the bottom right as an outer corner and lower liner. The bottom right colour is really pigmented so I use it as a liner for my lower lash line because I think eyeliners look to harsh there and they tend to smudge too easily (especially pencil) for me. Some people also say that these are MAC dupes as well, like the top left is Satin Taupe, the top right is Mulch, the bottom left is bisque and the bottom right is Dark brown. I just completely disregard that because the texture and consistency of this product is so different than MAC that it's really not comparable at all. Yes, if you don't have a lot of money for eyeshadows this could be good for you. But if you expect quality, this won't give you the quality that MAC would give (or Wet 'n' Wild) because you have to really work with these colours for them to show up (except for the bottom right colour). But I still really like it because it's really convenient that all the colours you need for a look are in one tiny palette.

I'll do a post on the Coastal Scents 88 Matte Palette and the 88 Shimmer Palette next!