Review: Lost in Makeupland (part 1)

If you haven't read Ana's post over at Lipsticks and Lightsabers about this company yet, go do so now. And then read the follow-up which has more swatches.

Done? Ok. We all know Ana's the queen of lemming creation, so of course I started looking at the selection and planning a wishlist. My big thing at that time was the lack of neutrals in my life, and also of pressed shadows. So when Belen started offering pressed palettes, and released the Alice's Chains collection, I finally got off my butt and (mostly) decided what to get.

I got myself a palette with two 15mm pans and two 26mm pans (since discontinued, now only the 26mm pans are available). I wanted to grab some more fun colours in sample form as well, so I picked 5 samples and asked Belen to pick some more for me. Since I spent over $15AU I got a free gift - actually, Belen was ridiculously generous! She split my order in half so the postage was less, and threw in lots of goodies for me.

My actual order:

My freebies:

Also my order was a bit late getting out, as Belen had trouble getting to the post office, so she gave me a coupon for a whole 20% off my next order. It was only a few days past the TAT!

I'm going to swatch all the pressed eyeshadows and highlights for this post. Part 2 will be all the loose eyeshadow swatches. In part 3, I'll talk about blushes and the palette, and by then I'll have had time to test the Finishing Powder for oily skin that I was gifted, and I'll do a Part 4! I've heard great things about it though :) and in Part 4, fingers crossed I'll have been able to do some EoTD photos.

Since I purchased, Belen has come out with new product  photography which is really beautiful and much more accurate than her older stuff. Anyway, onto the eyeshadow swatches! Left-hand swatch is over Pixie Epoxy, and the right is dry, over primer.

Bruised (pressed)

"It's not purple, it's not burgundy, not brown, full of golden and purple sparkle"
Beautiful plummy brown colour. I have the pressed version so the sparkle doesn't come through much - which is GOOD because it means I can use it as a crease colour for work, which is the entire reason I got the 15mm pressed version of this. The right-hand swatch is blended out a little and you can see it doesn't get dusty and still retains its pretty plummy tones.

Glow (pressed, highlighter)

 "sheer golden"
This one is like Fyrinnae's Nijiro without the pastel rainbow sparkle, and not as shiny. It gives my skin this lovely luminescent glow - obviously hard to capture on camera! It's definitely a highlight shade and not a full-on eye 'shadow'. It would probably show up a bit more on paler and darker skintones, it really melds with my olive-toned skin.

Them Bones (pressed)

"light yellowy peach/salmon with a subtle golden shine"
The original swatches of this featured a soft beige-white matte that I thought would make a great work-safe lid shade. Unfortunately now that the official description and new product photos are up, I know that's not the case! This is a nice, unassuming peachy yellow. Not what I was after but pretty nonetheless. Don't be fooled by the swatch on the right either, my skin tends to do weird things to most yellows and oranges and make them sort of blend in, when really they're beautifully pigmented. Seriously, I can make bright orange lipstick look as neutral as pink!

Would (pressed)

"tangerine with a bit of a yellowy/golden shift"
Another 'pretty but not really me' shade. Would look more vibrant on a different skintone. I need richer, deeper oranges so they actually stand out on my weird skin - you can see how pigmented this is, there's almost no difference between the PE and the primer swatches.

Faerie (highlighter)

"sheer pinkish shade"
I thought this would look ridiculous on me since it's for cool/pink-toned skin, but... it's really soft and pretty! Right-hand swatch is over a Nyx pencil which makes it look much more opaque. I've actually swept it all around the primer and PE as well, and you can see it gives bare skin a soft glow. Since I have a giant jar of this I can absolutely see myself using it to give matte blushes a bit of glisten. It's not sparkly, or really even shimmery, it just... glows! I can see why Ana loved these highlighters so much, the formula is absolutely amazing. It definitely has a pinkish cast though, so if you're going for something a bit more versatile, Glow might be more your thing.

Phew! Those were all the pressed and highlight shadows. Keep in mind that the formula for the pressed shadows is a little different from the loose; for this reason, Belen won't press any of the Rock My Look shadows, because they don't take to pressing well. I think it's great when a seller recognises that there's an issue with a product and does something productive about it. Not to mention I attempted swatching one of the Rock My Look shadows tonight... freaking gorgeous colour, so hard to photograph, and it does become dark and dusky if it's blended out too much or applied over bare skin. Over a sticky base... well, you'll just have to wait and see ;)

Part 2 will be up hopefully tomorrow-ish, 11 loose shadow swatches!