Lately, I've been discovering a few lesser-known brands. One of my favourites of late is Evil Shades, which is all the work of Andrea, who, by the way also runs the blog Black Nail Polish and Lip Gloss. Yup, she's one pretty funky lady, so of course the shades she makes would also be out of the ordinary. As you can imagine, like most other indie brands, her mantra is high quality and high pigmentation at a low cost - but unlike other brands, Evil Shades actually lives up to its name.
Case in point is the collection of loose powder eyeshadows, called The Stars, which were released awhile back, but are still available on her Evil Shades website here. These look like unsuspecting normal eyeshadows, right?
Wrong! These are actualy pretty darn awesome - once you foil them. The two shades I have, Ice Star, and Morning Star, actually primarily consist of a coloured glitter base with larger complimentary glitter. So yes, these are glitter-heavy. They were formulated to glisten and sparkle like stars, which would account for the glitter-intense formulation.
Here's a swatch of Morning Star and Ice Star:
L - Morning Star (applied dry), Morning Star (foiled), Ice Star (applied dry), Ice Star (foiled)
Morning Star is just a bunch of orange glitter dry, but once foiled it's a gorgeous pale gold with red specks of larger circular glitter. Really like what a morning star might look like!
Ice Star is a white that leans slightly blue, and has larger specks of blue circular glitter. Very icy and cool. This one also looks better foiled, but the difference isn't as drastic as Morning Star.
These aren't as interesting dry, but once you foil them, they totally wow you with their absolute gorgeousness. In my swatches, I foled both Morning Star and Ice Star with jut a spritz of water, and already they're blinging like nobody's business. No wonder they're shining like stars! Even though I'm not too keen on glitter, I really like the effect these give foiled.
Now the bad part: glitter fall-out. Because these are essentially just bits of glitter in varying sizes and colours put together, they do tend to fall out more than other loose shadows. Evil Shades has formulated them with some adhesion properties, so that helps, but glitter is as glitter does. So if you're not too keen on dealing with fallout, then these may not be your cup of tea.
So do you need these colours? Not if you're glitter-averse, or don't want bling for your eyes. But if you love the high-shine, intense-sheen, metallic effect, and you have the patience to work with these, you'll love them.
(Products sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affilated with the company.)
