Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Review: Evil Shades


Evil Shades recently updated their website to be more user friendly, I'm loving how much easier it is to look through all the different offerings, in celebration I picked up two of their Blogger Review sets, and I'm really excited to be able to show you what they have.

Samples came in a pink satin baggie inside a well decorated bubble mailer. All samples are in clam shell containers, even the glosses which were in a clam shell tubes. You can see in the top picture, they're toward the bottom and wrapped in a separate plastic baggie in case of leakage. I love clam shells for lip samples, but I really prefer tiny plastic baggies for powders, I always loose more product then I'm comfortable with when I open clam shells. I feel baggies are easier to organize too but that's just my preference.

I swatched my lip samples first with a lip brush, I was really excited about them, they all looked too amazing on the website, and they do in real life of course, but unfortunately different then expected for most of them, but such is the curse of buying online!
From Left to Right

The first 4 are Deviant Lipsticks which are all very smooth, maybe a little dry after wearing them for awhile but last a decent amount of time even after food and drinks. They're candy scented but smell a bit like a food scented eraser to me.
  • Bane: A sheer but bright fuschia with a blue sheen. Though it's not labeled as sheer on the website, it really seems like it is. It's a very flattering color either way.
  • Mage: More grass green with a bit of metallic and almost no aqua that I could see. It's super opaque, I could totally see a Poision Ivy cosplayer rockin this shade, but it's not really for me.
  • Devious Virtue: Darker in person then on the website it's a brown beige with a rose tone. It applies to my lips lighter then it looks swatched on my arm, but still darker then I'd hoped. Flattering on but too dark to be considered 'nude' on me.
  • Primrose Path: A tangerine rose with a pink shimmer. Green shimmer the website says, but I didn't see that, nice and opaque but I was hoping for something more pink less orange.
Our next two lip samples are Hardcore Lips which is heavily pigmented gloss, I usually prefer lipstick but I am digging Evil Shades gloss formula, it's not sticky and it is HEAVILY pigmented. This shit lasted longer then the lipsticks.
  • Lost Kiss: This shade is another victim of screen color misinformation. It looks a lot pinker on my computer then it did in life. The good news? I FREAKING LOVE IT! This is the color I wanted Bane to be, a dark fuchsia with a very apparent blue shift when applied. It looses the lacquer sheen after awhile, but the color and the shift remain long after it's gone.
  • Just Like Candy: A lavender with a heavy metallic sheen, it does look silver/gray in certain lights or from far away. I'd call it a perfect cutsey robot shade, I did think it applied a little patchy, but would look equally stunning over a lipstick.
Blushes were swatched next with a fluffy blending brush. I increased saturation on the blush pictures so you could see them all, that's why the blue shade looks kinda funny. I took two picture for you guys, one with the colors as opaque as I could get them, and another with them blended out in the way you'd wear them as blush.
From Left to Right
  • Twizted: Blue with a subtle pink shimmer. Goes chalky when blended, but that's very common for super bright blushes. I noticed the same thing with my Aromaleigh Sonic Rouge: Cherry Bomb and Wildflower, and you can enlarge the picture below to see what I'm talking about, it sort of settles into dots. It's not very noticeable on unless you're very close so don't be scared out of trying it. Looks particularly attractive on pale skin tones.
  • Backtalk: A super bright Barbie in the 80's pink, there's a gold shimmer in there as well. Even more then the blue this is not a color for the faint of heart.
  • Love Bites: Tangerine milkshake with loads of pastel green shimmer. Super attractive!
  • Gossamer: An incredibly pale (bordering on white) pink, with tons of blue shimmer. You can see in the blended out picture, this shade is mostly shimmer with a bit of pink added in.
Blended out Blushes!

Lastly I did the eyeshadow and yes I LOVE Evil Shades eyeshadow! Their formula is silky with plenty of the depth in color I'm use to from Aromaleigh, in fact many of the shades I tried are very similar to ones I already have from Aromaleigh. I'm definitely not saying they're dupes of course but I know many of you who follow me have been disappointed by my makeup looks because the shades I use are now discontinued. So I will review the eyeshadows and also mention the ones that remind me of Aromaleigh colors, if it happen to be something you've noticed from one of my previous looks or swatch posts you now know where to pick up a similar product.

From Left to Right and swatched over Aromaleighs lip and eye primer.
  • Imp: A very shimmery silvery green with a bit of a blue glint to it. Reminds me of Aromaleighs Tea, a little less metallic then Tea was, and minus the golden tone.
  • Victorian Night: The softest silvery lavender with blue shimmer and green sparkle. Very complex color, very attractive...I needs it like breathing.
  • Seraphic: Kinda looks like Primrose Path lipstick, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if they were made from the same base. Tangerine and rose with a pink shimmer.
  • Redonite: Greener then it looks in the picture with a bit of aqua thrown in and pink sparkle. Similar to Aromaleighs Event Horizon minus the gold sparkle.
  • Nightshade: Very chalky, very bright, almost matte fuchsia. Difficult to apply and about the same shade as Lost Kiss gloss. Like Aromaleighs HitorMiss.
  • Danger Sox: A very dark burgundy loaded with silver shimmer and pink sparkle. Similar to Aromaleighs Athena with more sparkle.
  • Zombie: Wine red on a black base with eerie purple shimmer.
  • Wanderflower: A complex dark green/blue with undertones of gray and sliver sparkle.
  • Glooming: Just amazing like you cannot believe until you see for yourselves. Simple enough black with blue sparkle, but impossible to capture the beauty of. Seriously I had no idea, I just figured I wanted to test out a black eyeshadow and this one appealed to me. Now I think I have to try the rest of the blacks since this one was so pretty.
Along with everything else I also received a sample of her eye primer in Noir. The primer itself is mousse-like in texture. I tried to apply it with a brush but that didn't work so well. After that I tried my finger with better results.

It doesn't go especially opaque, and it still looks a little patchy. I like the feel of it better then the Aromaleigh primer I usually use.

And look at how pretty these eyeshadows look swatched over it, from left to right it's Imp, Nightshade, Danger Sox, and Redonite. Look at Nightshades blue duochrome, I couldn't see that at all before! In fact now that I see this I again wouldn't be surprised if Lost Kiss and Nightshade were made from the same base too.

In a recap I was a little disappointed in the lipsticks but adore the gloss. The blushes are formulated well, just be sure you know if you can handle the super bright colors (which are SUPER bright), and the super shimmery colors (which are SUPER shimmery). The eyeshadows are all amazing, and though I have favorites I whole heartily recommend each and every one of them. My favorites in this batch are Lost Kiss gloss, Love Bites, and Gossamer blushes. Imp, Victorian Night, and Glooming eyeshadow, and the Noir primer I will definitely be picking up sometime in the future. Oh yes, I will buy from Evil Shades again, count on it.

Still not sure if this Indie company is for you? Stay tuned for a Mega Geeks Inc. contest where you could win samples of some of the shades mentioned above.

2 comments:

  1. I don't own much from Evil Shades, but what little I have I adore. I've been wanting to make another order for ages but I'm still out of work so there's not any money to throw at stuff like that...

    I also want to order a bunch of samples and use it as my makeup kit at school. I HATE the kit they gave us, it's the worst makeup I've ever seen in my life.

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  2. You should definitely order from Evil Shades. I loved what I got.

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