Contrary to what you may have heard, all eye shadows are not created equal. Packaging, processing and ingredients tend to vary quite a bit between the cheap and expensive brands – but cost isn’t necessarily the most reliable indicator of a fabulous product, either.
What standards should your next eye shadow purchase meet? What are the criteria that you should be using to judge whether a product is junky or amazing? This article exists solely to thoroughly answer that very question for you (and for anybody else who may be interested) in a totally uncomplicated way. Please, read on!
The first thing you’ll notice upon applying a new eye shadow is whether or not the color on your eyelid looks anything like the color in its packaging. If a shadow appears rich and bold in the eye shadow pan but goes on dull and spotty, almost too sheer to be seen, then the formula is lacking the pigment necessary to offer some vibrancy and staying power.
Even with the addition of a top-notch lid primer, you’ll never achieve the results you want using such a shadow formula. Shop around; identify eye shadows with satisfying color payoff. The better the pigment, the less product you’ll need to use – thus, it provides some extra bang for your buck, too.
Quality eye shadow should have a smooth, silky finish to it as opposed to a scratchy, crumbly or flaky one. If you want your shadow to produce a smooth, velvety application that will last for hours and hours, you have to seek out and find the products that were developed with some measure of care.
Costs and dividends and cutthroat profiteering should not be the driving forces behind a cosmetics company’s newest line of eye makeup products. When that’s the case, consumers end up with an insultingly inferior product that doesn’t manage to live up to expectations or trump its competition. Consider texture as it pertains to comfort and eye shadow longevity, and buy accordingly.
Ease of blending is one area where your eye shadows should perform well or hit the highway. If your favorite products generally create a strong, harsh line that can’t be buffed away by any amount of brushing or smudging, then it may be time to consider purchasing different beauty items – items that make your life easier, rather than creating more problems.
Don’t throw in the towel with that metallic or smokey eye look! Don’t call it quits where those ultra-intense colors are concerned. Just pick an eye shadow that fades and blends into other colors without too much effort on your part. It’s not an impossible dream.
As consumers, we can all agree there’s nothing better than making purchases in total confidence, knowing the items we’ve chosen will perform precisely the way we want them to perform. Sadly, short of trying literally every option on the market in an effort to determine what’s worthwhile and what isn’t, there’s not a whole lot we can do to avoid the occasional acquisition of an outrageously crappy piece of crap.
There is, however, something to be said (an overwhelmingly positive something, at that) for testing and sampling eye shadow palettes to whatever degree is permitted by the store, while bearing in mind the important pointers addressed above. May you have fun, shop smart and save plenty of hard-earned dollars in the process!