My Favourite Stand Alone Eyeshadows

Recently Emily from Beauty Broadcast did a video about her favourite 'stand alone' eyeshadows - that is, eyeshadows you can wear on their own. I've been doing this almost exclusively for about a year - certainly during the week when I don't have the time or the inclination to faff around choosing different colours that go together and then blending them just so. One of the reasons I have gravitated away from colour to neutrals is because with neutrals, you can pretty much get away with using any one of them on their own.

Having said that, I do have some particular favourite 'swipe and go' shadows. I haven't included any of the Benefit Creaseless Creams here, though I do use them often and always on their own. But I've talked about them before, so if you want to see swatches of those you can find them here. For the record, the ones I use most often are Flatter Me, RSVP and Pre Nup.

SMH Eyeshadows

I bought some SMH eyeshadows from ACW a couple of months ago and then kind of forgot about them. I happened across one earlier this week and decided to test them out.

From left: Cashmere, Warm & Fuzzy, Sex Kitten

Wet'n'Wild Mega Last Lipstick

I'm a fan of the Wet'n'Wild eyeshadows and I decided to branch out a while back and test some of their other products. I bought two of these Mega Last lipsticks from Nonpareil Boutique - 902C Bare It All and 904B Rose Bud. Bare It All was horrible on me - it was one of those nudes that just washed me out immediately. I gave it to Jacquie, as it was much more her kind of colour. So the pictures here are only Rose Bud.

Wet'n'Wild Color Icon 8 Pan Eyeshadow Comfort Zone

Wet'n'Wild is a brand not available in Australia. On the one hand, that's bad, because they've really stepped up their game - especially with their eyeshadows. On the other hand, it's probably just as well, because although it's a brand that's as cheap as chips in the US, no doubt we'd be paying $25AUD for these 8 colour palettes if they were in Priceline or Target.

I bought Comfort Zone a while back on eBay, and although I loved it immediately for some reason I didn't start using it. It was around the time when we still had a few hot days so I wasn't really wearing eyeshadow much. However, I've been seeing swatches and looks from it in other blogs quite a bit lately so I figured it was time to haul it out and have a crack at it.

Advice needed for dealing with an eBay issue

I don't shop much on eBay - in fact, it's pretty much my last resort. I only go there if I can't find what I want somewhere else. I don't know why, I just don't really like it much. In the dozen or so times I've bought things I've never had a problem until now, and I'm not quite sure what to do about it, so I'm hoping some of you eBay old hands can give me some advice.

On Feb 5, I ordered and paid for (by Paypal) 6 Wet'n'Wild eyeshadow palettes. I received them on Feb 18, and one of them was smashed - annoyingly the only one I was really, really wanting.

Had it been any of the others, I probably would have just let it go, but since this was the one I was hanging out for, I emailed the seller immediately and told her what had happened, and asked if she would replace it. She responded the following day and said she was away for the weekend (this would have been Friday in the US, where she is), and she would post another one out the following Monday. I was pretty happy with that. (By the way, I should point out that although the other 5 palettes were fine, this was just blind luck - the whole lot was packaged in tissue paper and then a thin, worn piece of bubble wrap.)

Two weeks later on March 4 I hadn't received the replacement, and I hadn't heard anything further from the seller. I contacted her again, asking if she had sent it and when. I had no response, so last night I contacted again, pointing out that this was my third contact, and could she please advise whether she had sent the replacement palette

At this point, I have still had no response, and I'm not sure what to do next. Do I complain to eBay? Do I put in a Paypal dispute? I have no idea, and any input would be greatly appreciated.

UPDATE 11/03 - still haven't heard anything. I opened a dispute with Paypal and asked for the cost of the palette plus 1/6 of the shipping cost (which was way overpriced anyway, another thing I was annoyed about). As it turns out Jacquie found the palette I wanted at Nonpareil and since she was doing an order anyway, she grabbed one for me. Although annoyingly, she did that yesterday and then today they have 20% off everything. Grr. 

Wet'n'Wild Color Icon Trio: Cool As A Cucumber

It's been ages since I did a road test of one of my palettes - I did a few back in early December and then stopped because the weather was too hot to be messing around much with makeup. I went back to either bare eyelids or some neutral that I could swipe over without having to worry about blending and faffing about. I've been itching to get back into it as I really enjoyed playing with all these products and working out what I like and what I don't, so now that the weather has cooled down a bit (hopefully for a while), I'm back doing some.
 

Derp derp dupe.

Noodle Arms and I watched this really cool little horror movie this morning called Trick'r Treat. I'd never heard of it before, which is odd because it had some pretty well-known actors in it (Anna Paquin, Brian Cox, Dylan Baker). We always watch horror movies during the day because although we enjoy them, we are also weiners who get freaked out by anything even slightly scary.

Anyway, on to the next in my MAC dupe series. I only have one more after this one; I don't own that many MAC items. Humid is a colour I've been wanting for ages, mostly because I love green eyeshadows and it's one that always gets a mention when people talk about green eyeshadows (along with Urban Decay's Mildew, which I also don't have and would love to try). I picked it up a while back from ACW, and although I do really like it, if I'm honest I already have about eleventy million other greens that are similar to it. Including the green bit of the Wet'n'Wild Cool As A Cucumber palette.

They don't really look all that alike in the palette. The Cool As A cucumber one has more of a grey/blue tinge to it. But what about the swatches?

This one is taken outside in natural light. Humid is on the left, Cool As A Cucumber on the right. Not an exact match (you can see that the Cucumber is slightly more grey/blue leaning), but pretty good. Certainly on one's eyes I doubt you could tell the difference.

This one is taken inside - the difference is a little more obvious here, with the clearer "greenness" of Humid showing up more. But again, pretty darn close. I think I could have probably stuck with Cucumber and not bothered buying Humid.

What do you think?

Another alleged MAC dupe.

I have read many times in various blogs and beauty forums that Wet'n'Wild Penny is an exact dupe for MAC Expensive Pink, so let's see how that holds up.

In real life, they do look more alike, though why is it called Expensive Pink? It's not pink at all, it's sort of a shimmery peach/salmon colour. (Ohhhhh, missed opportunity again - I wonder how this compares with NYX Salmon or Peach...?).

Expensive Pink is on the left, Penny is on the right. Hmmm. They're pretty similar, but Penny is just a liiiiiitle bit darker. Though in real life, they do look almost exactly alike, so as dupes go I'd say it's one of the better ones. And Penny costs about ten times less than Expensive Pink, so it's definitely a worthy candidate for consideration.

What do you guys think?

Swatches: Wet'n'Wild Color Icon Eyeshadow

One of my friends is going to the US soon, and I'm currently compiling a list of things I want from MAC and Sephora. One of the MAC eyeshadows I was going to get is Expensive Pink, but the Wet'n'Wild Color Icon Eyeshadow in Penny is supposedly a pretty good dupe, so I thought since that is only $2USD at Nonpareil, I'd get that and then rock into a MAC counter some time and do a comparison. Since it was so cheap, I threw in Envy and Kitten as well. I'm also kind of wishing I'd gotten Brulee and Nutty - I've seen some great swatches of those around. Oh well, Nonpareil will probably have some 20% off sales coming up with Hallowe'en and Thanksgiving, so I might just wait and see.

As usual, these are swatched over Benefit Lemon Aid, and modelled by Noodle Arms. 

Inside with flash.

Inside with no flash:

Outside with flash (overcast day):

Outside with no flash:

From left: Penny, Kitten and Envy. Penny and Envy are both shimmery and highly pigmented - I really like both of those, and I'm happy with my purchase of Penny even if it doesn't turn out to be a dupe of Expensive Pink. Kitten, on the other hand, is not that great. It's a bit chalky, and not terribly pigmented. I had to pack quite a lot on the brush to get that swatch looking okay (so you can work with it, but it's not as good as the other two). 

I wore Envy on Friday over UDPP. It lasted pretty well, though by the end of the day there was a little bit of fading. For the price I think they're pretty good, though obviously the pigment of the colours is a bit hit and miss.

Have you tried any of these? What do you think of them?