Swatches: Guess the Mystery Brand!

Guess who's this mystery indie brand? 

Swatched over Darling Girl's Glitter Glue, photographed under natural light

 As you can see, they're gorgeous against glitter glue!

But so what? Any non-matte loose shadow looks good against glitter glue! How do they blend? Well, very well actually...


Eye Look #1: Over UDPP only


Since not everyone owns glitter glue, I tested out how the colours would look like over primer only. As you can see, the shifts still pop out.

The golden bit in the middle that's less vibrant than the gold colour is actually the gold shift in the blue! I didn't put primer on my lower lash line, so you can see that the blue is less vibrant there.

The things you can get away with when you have monolids...

Eye Look #2: Over UDPP only

Apologies for the gross brows..I'm growing them out

Check out the blue shift!

Ok...how long do they last? Here's a pic of the 2nd eye look after 14h...excuse the dead look in my eyes, I was exhausted.

Thanks to the yellow-toned lights in my room, the colours look different but IRL, they look the same.

Can you guess what this brand is? Here's a hint...these are the eyeshadow names & more detailed swatches:

Left: Under yellow-toned artificial light
Right: Under natural light

Swatches:
Top: Over Darling Girl's Glitter Glue
2nd: Foiled with water
3rd: Over Urban Decay's Primer Potion
Bottom: Bare skin

As you can see, it still stays on bare skin but looks slightly less impressive. I got a bit lazy and skipped bare skin swatches in the next few swatches.

Left: Under yellow-toned artificial light
Right: Under natural light

Swatches:
Top: Over Darling Girl's Glitter Glue
Middle: Foiled with water
Bottom: Over Urban Decay's Primer Potion 

Left: Under yellow-toned artificial light
Right: Under natural light

Swatches:
Top: Over Darling Girl's Glitter Glue
Middle: Foiled with water
Bottom: Over Urban Decay's Primer Potion

Can you guess the brand yet?

.......these are swatches of pure, unblended micas from TKB Trading:

• Black Amethyst
• Chameleon Glitter
• Forged Gold
• Pink, Red, Blue (discontinued colour)
• Pisces Blue
• Scarlett O'Hara

As you can see from the links, TKB Trading sells them in sample sizes of 6g for $1.50 (with the exception of Forged Gold, which goes for $1.50 for 2.5g). Since full-sizes of eyeshadows contain 2-3g of product, that means you can get 2-3 tubs of "eyeshadows" for $1.50.

This is why I'm so against eyeshadows with 0 bases. The mark up I'm paying should go into the time & work it took into researching a good formula so the micas can look great on your skin without the help of glitter adhesives & primers. 

The reason I'm making this post is because I called out popular brands in my guide to identifying if your eyeshadow is legit or base-less micas, and I got attacked big time by the fans of one of the brands I called out.

Their defense summarized is (not linking/screenshotting since this happened recently enough for vote brigading and I don't want that):

• The brand is a one woman show (I believe everyone knows about my staunch believe that indie businesses should not be given the leeway to behave in a way that would be shocking if a mainstream brand does it)
• The brand's colours are very unique therefore they can't be repackaged
• "But who here doesn't do their makeup without a primer / [Fyrinnae's] PE like thing?" so who cares if they don't adhere well to your bare skin?

I believe this post proves that: 

• Straight up micas can look gorgeous and unique, even when unblended & unformulated. They have duochrome effects too!
• They blend beautifully
• They stay on and last long over primer (and stunning over a glitter adhesive)
• You can wear them on their own, without any formula