Do you know that feeling when you really want to love a product so bad because you fell in love with the color, packaging or whatever reason it made you purchase it, but it just did not work out. Despite the consistent poor reviews given by other makeup enthusiasts, you still went ahead and bought it?
I really should not bother reviewing this particular eyeshadow because I already gave this to my friend last year (despite my warning), but I just can't move on from the fact that out of all the good, pigmented eyeshadows in the Etude House Look at My Eyes line, I still went ahead and purchased this, thinking that I could at least do something about this to make this work with me.
You see, I have this very unhealthy habit of gravitating towards everything that's color blue. The more rich and vibrant it is, the better. I love blue eyeshadows so much that I would even save up and buy a high end brand, just because I like love to collect one (I'm talking to you my NARS Outremer...my very first high end eyeshadow...hahaha!)
I don't even understand it since I know that blue eyeshadows are quite hard to work with, especially for daytime (but I would use it during daytime given the chance). I don't even use blue eyeshadows on a daily basis and if ever I would use one, I would only put it on my lash line as a liner and smudge it out a little to make it quite smokey if I want to.
Price:
I honestly forgot how much this is, but I think the price range would be anywhere from P150-200 each, depending on where you purchase it. It's very affordable.
Place bought:
SM North Edsa (or you could buy this from an online seller)
Packaging:
As always, the packaging of Etude House tends to be consistently cute, pink and girly, but at least they did a good job at keeping it minimalistic this time with the eyeshadows. See how pretty it is in the pan?
Formulation:
This is where the flaws come in. This particular eyeshadow is nowhere near buttery. It has a hard, slightly chalky texture, that picking up pigments from this with a brush is quite useless and using your finger to pick up product would only give you less than satisfactory results.
Given the price, I understand that I can't expect superior quality and performance, but because I also own other Etude House eyeshadow from this line that has good quality and performs really well, I just hoped that this particular eyeshadow would also be consistent with the rest that I have tried and still enjoy using up to now.
Pigmentation:
Since using a dry brush would make the powder fly everywhere, making a mess on my table and my hands, I tried using this wet in hopes that it would give me better pigmentation. Unfortunately, using this wet ruined the eyeshadow (look at the "cement-like" texture at the upper left side of the pan in the picture above), making it harder for me to pick up product the next time I'm going to use it.
After giving this eyeshadow a good rub with my finger, it would look like it would give me good pigmentation (as shown in the picture below), but that's where the good part ends...It applies very patchy. The rich, vibrant pigment we see in the pan automatically says bye bye as I applied it on my skin which gives a very dull looking pigment blah of nothingness.
But honestly, the deal breaker for me that pushed me to just give this to my friend to play with was the glitter. I HATE GLITTER, ESPECIALLY CHUNKY GLITTER...WITH PASSION. It's not the eyeshadow's fault in the first place since I was dumb enough to know this contained glitter when I bought it, but I never expected the glitter particles to migrate everywhere on my face throughout the day. Eventhough I'm a Twilight fan (yes, I hear many sighs of disappointment...deal with it...hahaha!), not once in my life did I wish or want to sparkle like that hunky vampire we saw in the movie. Anyway, I've seen my friend use this eyeshadow too and I knew she was hella annoyed with the glitters chilling all over her face throughout the day. She keeps on wiping her cheeks, chin and even her forehead every now and then...I warned her about the glitter, but she kept the eyeshadow anyway hahahaha!
Pros:
- affordable and easily accessible in Asia and online
- cute, minimalistic designed packaging (not that this matter too much)
- so many colors to choose from (they also have matte eyeshadows in this collection)
Cons:
- applies very patchy (I understand that many blue eyeshadows, especially mattes, applies quite patchy, but this eyeshadow took "patchy" to a whole new level)
- poor pigmentation
- poor texture
- poor staying power
- glitters scatter everywhere on your face
- you can't apply it wet or you'll ruin the eyeshadow
Swatch:
after LAYERING this a few times, you still get this much pigmentation. 'nuff said....Excuse the scaly arms, I had eczema on my arms at that time (I know, it was a bad idea).
Would I repurchase?
Obviously not...BUT I am interested in trying out other colors from the Look at My Eyes line because, as I said before, the other eyeshadows I own from this collection performs really well. I would still recommend that you try out the other shades. I want to try out their matte eyeshadows from this collection, I hope they're good.
