Inglot matte eyeshadows swatches and review

Not going to lie - all the messages about how you miss my blog make me feel both equal parts loved and guilty! I've been travelling solidly for the past 6 weeks (spending no longer than 5 days in any one country) which was obviously not conducive to either makeup or blogging.

As an inadequate apology here are a few holiday snaps:

In one of these photos I've filled my eyebrows in so this collage is vaguely relevant to makeup!

Now, without further adu here're my swatches and review of Inglot's matte eyeshadows:

Inglot package each eyeshadow, blush and I assume concealer, lipstick etc pan individually as I've shown below. Although this large amount of packaging wastage makes my environmentally conscious cricket cringe I can't argue it's extremely effective, hygienic and aesthetically pleasing.

I purchased eleven Inglot eyeshadows - nine metallic and two matte - around Christmas last year and while I adore them all I found myself reaching for the two matte taupes for almost every look I created as they were the perfect crease colours, blended effortlessly and flawlessly, and wore impeccably through all of the sweaty club dancing I am so fond of.

I'd been looking for a matte cool-toned neutral palette for a couple of months now; the Tarte Be Mattenificent palette was a strong contender and although the purple agate packaging won my heart instantly the eyeshadow quality was pretty meh. The Saucebox Etude palette was another option I liked - but they're been out of stock for about six months now (which is frankly ridiculous), and have absolutely awful customer service so I'd rather not support them.

Photo credit:
http://www.temptalia.com/
http://sauceboxcosmetics.com/

Thus, with the help of the amazing Beautylish Inglot palette builder I began building my own neutral palette which was equal parts fun and frustrating. I obviously highly recommend actually swatching the shadows yourself at an Inglot store, but if that's not possible Temptalia and other google source's swatches are actually very accurate. I ordered my palette from the UK Inglot website (as Beautylish only accepts US credit cards and ships to US addresses) and although postage was £5 regardless of how much you spend (free shipping is a weakness of mine) my package arrived less than a week later all bubble wrapped and lovely.

Top row: 360 / 363 (not new)
Second row: 391 / 329 / 326 / 378 / 358
Blush: AMC 55
Third row: 344 / 390 / 353 / 375 / 325/ 338 / 317 / 385

Aside from their phenomenal product quality and unparalleled colour and texture range my favourite thing about Inglot is the ability to mix and match their palettes as the mood strikes you - all their pans are magnetic and they offer multiple sizes of empty palettes so you can arrange and re-arrange all your eyeshadows (and brow powders/concealers/lip sticks etc) endlessly.

Since I don't know how to overlay text on my photos (sorry) I'm going to list the shade colours and names here (obviously all of them are matte):

Top Row:

• Neutral Taupe - 360
• Cool Taupe - 363

Middle Row:

• Black - 391
• Neutral dark brown - 329
• Cool burgundy tinged dark brown - 326
• Cool dark brown taupe - 378
• Mid grey mauve taupe - 358

Blush:

• Mid plummy beige pink - AMC 55

Third row:

• Mid beige pink mauve - 344
• Light beige pink - 390
• Very light neutral cream - 353
• Mid purple - 375
• Dark purple - 325
• Mid bright blue teal - 338
• Mid bright green teal - 317
• Bright mid green - 385

Top row: 360 / 363 (not new)
Second row: 391 / 329 / 326 / 378 / 358
Blush: AMC 55
Third row: 344 / 390 / 353 / 375 / 325/ 338 / 317 / 385

I cannot reinforce how amazing the quality of these mattes are - most of these took literally one swipe (with a clean finger over bare skin) to show full opacity, and all of them were incredibly soft and oh so buttery. All photos were taken with a flash.

I then pulled out some other mattes in my collection to compare the colours and texture - needless to say Inglot made it into no competition, my previous favourite mattes (Suagarpill, Laura Mercier, Urban Decay) were left biting Inglot's dust.

Top row: 360 / 363 (LM Plum Smoke / UD Tease)
Second row: 391 / 329 / 326 / 378 / 358
Blush: AMC 55
Third row: 344 / 390 / 353 / 375 / 325/ 338 / 317 / 385
(Fourth row: LM Morning Dew / Sugarpill Poison Plum / Midori)

The third and fourth shadows on the top row are Laura Mercier's Plum Smoke and Urban Deacy's Tease (from the Naked2 palette). The three swatches added as a fourth row are Laura Mercier's Morning Dew, Sugarpill's Poison Plum and Midori.

Top row: 360 / 363 (LM Plum Smoke / UD Tease)
Second row: 391 / 329 / 326 / 378 / 358
Blush: AMC 55
Third row: 344 / 390 / 353 / 375 / 325/ 338 / 317 / 385
(Fourth row: LM Morning Dew / Sugarpill Poison Plum / Midori)

Here you can see Laura Merier's Morning Dew (light neutral) is significantly less pigmented than Inglot's 353, as is Sugarpill's Poison Plum (purple) and Midori (green). Honestly I wasn't too surprised Inglot's mattes were more pigmented than Laura Mercier's as LM's are so incredibly soft they're hard to pack pigment on, and while this does make them slightly quicker to blend it's at the cost of seriously sheering out the eyeshadow.

However, Inglot out performing Sugarpill's matte brights was definitely a shock to me - I used to swear that Sugarpill's were the most pigmented, soft and blend-able mattes out there, obviously I was wrong. In comparison to Inglot's shades Sugarpill's felt grainy and applied sheer! Also, Sugarpill's mattes are not 100% matte like Inglot's are.

Top row: 360 / 363 (LM Plum Smoke / UD Tease)
Second row: 391 / 329 / 326 / 378 / 358
Blush: AMC 55
Third row: 344 / 390 / 353 / 375 / 325/ 338 / 317 / 385
(Fourth row: LM Morning Dew / Sugarpill Poison Plum / Midori)

Here you can see Laura Mercier's Plum Smoke (third shade on the top row) is a close match to Inglot's 358, but as with Morning Dew Laura Mericer's shadows were soft to their own detriment and thus required much more building than Inglot's. The last shade on the top row is Urban Decay's Tease from their Naked2 palette, when I first swatched it I couldn't believe how hard and unpigmented it was!

The Naked2 was my first ever pressed eyeshadow and palette so maybe I still think of it the way I did when I bought it a year ago ("Look at all these colours! They're so pretty and pigmented! Think of all the makeup I can do with these! Oh I'm so overwhelmed and have no idea what I'm doing..."). Tease applied patchy and I couldn't even build the swatch to full opacity, honestly I was beyond underwhelmed. Urban Decay's shadows are being notorious for under performing without a primer and being pretty awesome with one though, so that could be the issue - but it doesn't detract from the fact Inglot whipped them in making a exponentially better matte. 

Metallic colours top row: 409 / 43 / 404 / 07
Metallic colours bottom row: 452 / 446 / 445 / 399 / 154
AMC gel eyeliner: 77 (black)

This is everything I own by Inglot (with the mattes laid out in the same shape as the swatches above) in a Muji clear acrylic drawer, as the astute reader may notice I am not a smart girl and forgot to pick up an empty 20 pan palette to store my new shadows in. I'll hopefully get around to reviewing my metallic Inglot shadows at some point but just in case I don't here are some spoilers: they are the same quality as the Inglot mattes and outstrip Laura Mercier, Sugarpill and Urban Decay metallic shadows in every category I'd care to name.

Inglot's blush is also very nice, incredibly soft (softer than the shadows), creamy, pigmented and blends better than any pressed blush I've ever tried. I haven't opened the eyeliner yet but based on the reviews (and previous personal experience with Inglot products) it'll leave my current gel eyeliner (MAC's Blacktrack) wallowing in an inky pool of self pity.

391 / 329 / 326 / 378 / 358
363 / 360 / 344 / 390 / 353

Finally, here's my complete matte neutral palette - I played around with the order to find the most aesthetically pleasing and practical arrangement and honestly couldn't be happier with it! I'm somewhat skeptical about how the neural dark brown 329 will look when applied as even cool browns tend to look carroty on me, but if that's the case it couldn't be easier to swap it out for a pop of colour, or even a new matte neutral (I'm thinking slate grey).

One final word on Inglot - they're incredibly cheap! I'll do the calculations both in GB pounds and US dollars:

• A single Inglot eyeshadow is £4.50 for 2.7g = £1.67 per gram
• A single Laura Mercier eyeshadow is £19 for 2.6g = £7.31 per gram
• A single Sugarpill eyeshadow is £8.50 (prices vary) for 3.5g = £2.43 per gram
• A single Urban Decay eyeshadow is £14 for 1g = £14 per gram (or £9.33 per gram or £7.12 per gram depending on where you get your information)

I found a price discrepancy between Sugarpill eyeshadows being sold in the UK as they are being sold by licensed third party online retailers, however the fluctuation was only by about £1 per eyeshadow.

However, Urban Decay are only officially sold in the UK by Debenhams and House of Fraiser (department stores), on the Debenhams website they are priced £14 stating that it is £140.00 per 10g, whereas on the House of Fraiser website they're priced at £14 stating that it's £93.33 per 10g, and neither websites state how much eyeshadow a single pan contains. On the official Urban Decay US page the shadows are listed as $18 per 1.5g, so I guess I could go by that (£10.67 per 1.5g or £7.12 per gram by today's exchange rate) but I'm really not liking the lack of info for British UD stock lists.


And now in USD because google blogger tells me my main audience is stateside:

• A single Inglot eyeshadow is $7 for 2.7g = $2.59 per gram
• A single Laura Mercier eyeshadow is $23 for 2.6g = $8.85 per gram
• A single Sugarpill eyeshadow is $12 for 3.5g = $3.43 per gram
• A single Urban Decay eyeshadow is $18 for 1.5g = $10.67 per gram

Thus, irregardless of where you buy your makeup Inglot are by far the cheapest option, which is amazing considering they're also the best quality!

However it is worth mentioning that you need to buy a palette for your Inglot pans which will bump up your overall cost - the larger the palette the less this cost will be per pan or per gram. Alternatively you could just not buy a palette like I've accidentally done, or store your Inglot pans in a Z-palette type thing.

Needed to break up the block of text and calculations so here's a look I did with Inglot 363 and Sugarpill Bulletproof

Another caveat I'd like to add is Inglot eyeshadows are also cheaper than most indie eyeshadows:

• A single Inglot eyeshadow is $7 for 2.7g = $2.59 per gram
• Shiro's full size eyeshadow is $6 for 2g = $3 per gram
• Fyrinnae's full size eyeshadow is $7.50 for 2g = $3.75 per gram
• Notoriously Morbid's full size eyeshadow is $5.50 for "about 3g" = $1.83 per gram

All of these eyeshadows are loose except for Fyrinnae as they offer pan only pressed eyeshadows (which I thought would make a great comparison). I wanted to include more indies but a lot of them (Darling Girl, Femme Fatal etc) list their quantities by volume.

As always, love,

Saskia X

PS Don't expect another post for about a month as that's when I finish all my university exams! Sorry :(

Complete Sugarpill Pressed Eyeshadow Swatches and Mini Review

I love Sugarpill for the very simple reason that they make the best quality bright, matte, opaque and long lasting eye shadows out there. Here's an in depth review of the Burning Heart palette I wrote last year.

So without further ado here are swatches of every pressed eyeshadow Sugarpill currently sells:

Swatches were done with a clean finger over bare skin and the photos were taken in indirect sunlight

Matte shades: Love+, Flamepoint, Buttercupcake, Acidberry, Midori, Mochi, Afterparty, Velocity, Poison Plum, 2AM, Dollipop, Tako and Bulletproof.

Metallic shades: Subterranean, Elemental Chaos, Diamond Eyes and Soot & Stars.

The only shadow that didn't feel buttery smooth and apply perfectly evenly and opaque was 2AM - it was slightly more sheer and less smooth overall.

Here's how they look in my face: 

I couldn't decide which lipstick would go best with this look :( Here's

Sugarpill Elemental Chaos from the Cold Chemistry palette and Bulletproof, as well as Inglot 363 eyeshadow and Illamasqua Static pigment. I actually had trouble building Elemental Chaos up to full opacity so I packed it on over Fyrianne's Pixie Epoxy.

And here's a sneak peek of a project I've been working on which uses Buttercupcake, Love+ and Poison Plum from the Burning Heart palette.

Products are the same as they always are, with the obvious exception being the Sugarpill eyeshadow's I'm reviewing. Lashes are Red Cherry #43 in both photos and the flower petals are stuck on with Duo eyelash glue.

Obviously, I highly recommend Sugarpill to anyone who wants to get their colour on! And if you're considering buying from them it'd be awesome if you could use my affiliate link here, it'll just take you to their regular official website and if you buy anything I'll get credit!

Saskia X

PrettyTrivialities@gmail.com

Lip Tar Custom Mixes: Preliminary Adventures

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics make a liquid lipstick called Lip Tar - you paint it on as the thinnest possible layer (about a bead half the size of a pin head) with an included brush, it then dries to a demi-matte finish. It's amazingly pigmented, long wearing and comfortable to boot.

I currently own 10 of them - 7 traditional(ish) lip colours I love and 4 mixing colours:

Vintage, NSFW, Strumpet, Nylon, Hoochie, Lydia, Interlace, Tarred, Rx, Traffic, Feathered

I finally have the time in my life (thanks to being partially crippled due to recent knee surgery) to play creative artist with all my new colours (below are A TON of photos - proceed with caution).

Here's the method I use to apply them:

• Moisturise with lip balm and let it sink in for a couple of minutes
• Wipe off the excess lip balm with a tissue paper
• Apply the thinnest possible layer to give a wash of colour and create the lip shape
• Top up to full opacity with another tiny bit of Tar

That will give you a true to Tar colour which is cleanly and easily shaped and doesn't smudge or feather. To then mix an on-the-mouth colour (as opposed to mixing it on a tray/pot) dab on the least possible amount of your second colour and blend out. If you're trying to add a lighter colour over a darker colour (eg red over blue) remember to blot off the excess dark colour first or you'll have to add too much of the lighter colour thus ending up with a gloopy mouth and wasted product.

So without further adu check out my absurdly colourful mouth:

Bare lips

Two coats of Traffic - you can see it's pretty patchy and not as pigment dense as the others

Tried to get graphic and creative: looked like a mouth-flag

Blended it out

You can really see the texture difference between pure traffic and with Rx blended in

Fully blended out and matching my eyes!

Added more Rx, sad green lipstick doesn't suit me as well as I dreamed it would

You can really see the much smoother texture here

Blotted and added Feathered to get a mint green; quick comparison to Lime Crime's Mint To Be (I wasn't trying to colour match here)

Started a fresh with NSFW which is easily the most beautiful true red I have ever seen - neither orange nor too cool.
I originally bought it for mixing as a primary red, but will now definitely wear it alone.

Magical, majestic, magnificent... I'll stop now. It's just perfect

This is where I start getting bored with my regular facial expression

Created an ombre with Tarred but sadly the consistency was even worse than Traffic

Darkened it more - there's a ton of feathering with Tarred and it's really liquid-y, thus sadly this would not be long wearing orpractical to wear out

Blended it together

Added some Rx

Back to bare lips - a reminder of our canvas' original colour

Rx - the pigmentation and consistency was lovely just like NSFW

Added some NSFW and gave up trying to make a cheerfully neutral facial expression

Blotted, added Feathered

Blotted again, more Feathered

Ok so here you can see an issue I ran into: Rx stained my lips badly, making it impossible to get a true purple.
If you're going to be using Rx in a mix always use it second for on the mouth blending as none of the other colours really stain

Stained lips after about half a dozen scrubs with makeup remover

Attempted to roll with it and add Feathered and NSFW on top of the staining

More NSFW

You can still see the staining causing an inconsistent colour and texture. My custom purple/violet/lilac/lavender  dreams did not come true today, but I will try again soon with NSFW as the base colour

I pretty much had to shed 3 layers of skin to get them back to their (almost) original colour

Feathered. Yes, I am so pale I can colour and blend outside of the lines with a pure white lipstick

Unexpected downside: my pearly whites no longer look pearly white!

Im so bored at this point I barely bothered to blend and pose

Feathered and NSFW

After disappointment with the purples this NSFW+Feathered mix really made my night, somehow this photo doesn't do it justice

Not a custom mix but I wanted to wear purple out for cocktails so settled for plain Hoochie

Obviously this isn't anywhere close to the full creative and colourful potential of my Lip Tars (I've got my heart set on a sunset ombre like my Sugarpill eyeshadow look) but it's a great jumping off point. I'll definitely be revisiting this theme/project with both conventional (reds, pinks, corals, purples?) and off the wall colours and combinations.

Also, shout out to Cocktail Cosmetics for being an amazing UK distributor of Lip Tars (and Sugarpill and Lime Crime) - the owner Julie Burford gave me pretty much the best customer service I've ever encountered and my orders arrived amazingly fast and beautifully packaged.

Saskia X

PrettyTrivialities@gmail.com