Review & Swatches: Dark Matter Make Up Eyeshadows (20 colours)

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

Now that I've gotten your attention....here's the rest of the review. Dom from Dark Matter Makeup (DMM) asked me to help her swatch her eyeshadows and I was more than happy to help her out. Turns out, DMM's collection is more extensive than I thought, and this is what arrived....

Yup. 52 eyeshadows and 1 liquid lipstick.

So I'm splitting the review into 3 parts to make it more manageable. This part is for the reds, browns, golds and pinks.Yes, there's one purple colour in here...it looked reddish brown in the packet so I accidentally put it in this group. Whoops!

I normally write the general review for the eyeshadows in the first post, but there's so many to try out, I haven't even come close to trying every colour out. That's why I'll write my general review in the 3rd and final post.

Swatches

Anyway, here are the rest of the swatches. Since Dom sent these to me for swatching, I also did primer macros for her:

Here are the arm swatches over bare skin, foiled with water over bare skin, over Urban Decay's Primer Potion, and over Darling Girl's Glitter Glue. I tried to put similar colours close together so you can see the subtle differences.

Under Natural Light

Virgo is one of the sheerest colours, and actually looks best when foiled. For the best performance, I suggest two layers of the colour, once over primer, and another layer over glitter glue.

Cancer is really pigmented, but the duochrome is pressure sensitive, which may give the appearance of patchiness. When you swipe hard, you can end up with a patchy pink base, so I suggest patting it on, or applying the colour gently with the the tips of a fluffy brush. With a fluffy brush, it blends out to a lovely sheer purplish-pink shade

Libra is just gorgeous and one of my favourite colours. The metallic duochrome is rather pressure sensitive though, and tends to go bald when blended. This happens to most metallic duochromes I encountered and with enough skill, you can create an interesting 1-colour look with them (example below).

Emmy may look "boring" colour-wise, but it's actually one of my favourite formula in the bunch. It applies smoothly and evenly even against bare skin.

Ursa Minor is just gorgeous and is tied with Emmy for my favourite formula in the bunch. The gold duochrome tends to take over over primer and when foiled though, and it ends up looking like a plain rose gold colour. To get the pink with the golden shift, you'll need a sticky base.

Galileo is really pretty but definitely glitter glue dependent. This has quite a bit of fall out during application and prone to patchiness. Definitely requires a careful hand and needs to be carefully patted on.

Valentina looks best when foiled. It tends to sheer out and go streaky when blended so it looks best when patted on.


Betelgeuse swatches beautifully, but unfortunately goes bald and muddy brown when blended. I recommend using this as the main part of your look to show off how beautiful the colour is, and avoid blending.

Andromeda is a matte, but has a subtle, slight sheen. It's really subtle and barely visible though. The glitter glue swatch is terrible, but it's because mattes aren't that great over glitter glue. I normally wouldn't swatch mattes over glitter glue, but I wanted to give Dom consistent swatches.

Scorpio is a bit tricky. It's best foiled or over glitter glue since a lot of the gorgeous shift is lost over primer. Over glitter glue it looks great in the swatch, but on my lids, I somehow get too much duochrome and it ends up looking like a plain green eyeshadow instead of the gorgeous brown with a green duochrome. It tends to go bald and patchy when blended, so I recommend patting it on and blending minimally.

Ursa Major is supposed to be Ursa Minor's darker sister with a similar metallic gold duochrome. The duochrome is very pressure sensitive though, and the colour turns into a muddy brown when blended.

Kalpana gets these surprise silvery sparks when it's foiled. I definitely like it best foiled.

Taurus is actually a colour I like best over primer. Over primer, it looks like a reddish-brown with a subtle blue shift. Over glitter glue, it just looks purple. When blended, the duochrome disappears and it becomes a plain reddish-brown. I find the reddish-brown base difficult to blend out, but I found that using a short, stiff brush and blending hard but carefully around the edges resolves this issue.

Big Bang is easy to work with and makes an awesome highlighter colour for my skin tone. It's slightly too sheer for my liking over primer alone, so I usually add another layer of colour over glitter glue to get the opacity I like.

Aries is one of my favourite highlighter colours since it performs well against bare skin. It's great for lining my lower lashline and my inner corners.

Haruka looks just like how Haruka's hair looks like. The Sailor Moon fan in me approves. The colour's best over glitter glue, but it's pretty and blends easily over primer too!

Cor Serpentis completely surprised me by changing into this gorgeous metallic green when foiled! I like it best when foiled! The colour unfortunately stains your skin the most this way.

Ellen is easy to use over primer alone! It blends easily, is pretty opaque, and adheres well!

Setsuna swatches beautifully, but I found it slightly difficult to blend since it's prone to streaking. If you want to blend it out, I suggest using it over primer only, and using a short, dense brush instead of a fluffy brush. Since you'll have to press down to blend out for the best results, I don't recommend glitter glue since you'll "erase" the glitter glue that way and end up with bald patches.

Rei is another colour that's great over primer alone. It ends up looking darker over primer, but I love how blendable it is over primer instead of glitter glue!

Under Yellow Toned Artificial Light (to show the shift)

On my eyes...

There's a lot of looks since I tried to use every colour at least once. Some colours I used combined with other shades, so they'll appear in other reviews.

One Colour Look With Libra

This is the one colour look with Libra that I'm talking about. The gold duochrome goes bald where my eyes crease, so I end up with this two-colour effect with just one colour:

Left: Over Eccentric Cosmetics' primer only
Right:  Two layers of colour, first over Eccentric Cosmetics' primer, then over Darling Girl's glitter glue

I also did a comparison of the colour over Eccentric Cosmetics' primer only, and over glitter glue. As you can see, it looks pretty nice over primer but still looks slightly sheer. To get the most vibrant colour, I recommend layering a second layer over a glitter adhesive like Darling Girl's glitter glue.



Cor Serpentis Foiled

I applied Ursa Minor over Eccentric Cosmetics' primer, then turned Cor Serpentis into this awesome metallic green liner by foiling it with water:

Over Eccentric Cosmetics' primer

Where I tried to squeeze in as many colours as possible...

How 2 layers of Big Bang Looks Like

The ombré liner is See You Space Cowboy and Mae

So to get this effect, I applied Big Bang over primer. Then I added a thin layer of glitter glue over the colour, and add a 2nd layer of colour.

Scorpio, Emmy& Andromeda

The green is Scorpio over Darling Girl's glitter glue. Unfortunately, it just looks green. Emmy is on top and over primer only; it blends out beautifully! Andromeda is at the lower lashline over a black liner.

Taurus, Cancer & Ursa Minor Over Primer

Taurus is the gorgeous maroon that's all over my lids. The pink part on top is Cancer blended out. The gold is Ursa Minor. The brown liner at the bottom is Betelgeuse foiled with TKB Trading's foiling medium.

Full face:

Rei, Haruka, Ellen Over Primer

My creases kind of rubs Rei out. Oh well, it looks great when I open my eyes! Full face:

Life's Entropy's Big Bang Theory on my lips!