Stila Countless Color Pigments Review and Swatch [Purchased by me]
Or, The Law of Diminishing Returns (Makeup Edition)
Perusing Sephora recently has lost some of its excitement. As my friend put it so well the other day, "I feel like I have reached a point of diminishing returns with makeup. Which makes me the saddest [person in the world]." Direct quote. Sentence completed by yours truly. My response was "I think I hit that point a while ago and now I only buy what I really like or complete impulse buys. Those two make me a happy camper. Not so much a hoarder so it works for me."
That's a decent amount of justification for this purchase of mine which was totally unplanned and completely unwarranted. This eyeshadow trio is part of Stila's Festival of Color collection for Summer 2013. The product is called Countless Color Pigments ($22) and is a pressed pigment formula that's baked into a unique swirl of color. I'm guessing no two pans are exactly alike but that's usually the case with these kinds of products. Strangely, even though this is baked, it is not recommended to use the product wet. It may be that a damp brush will cause the product to harden and you won't be able to swirl your brush and mix the colors together, which is the whole point of the product.
Here's photos of the packaging:
I have the shade in Acoustic and while swatching like a crazy person in Sephora, I was immediately drawn to the red-orange shade in the left. The other shades looked nice, especially the neutral one. But I did swatch a pink trio that didn't impress me at all in terms of color payoff.
On to the swatches:
The first two pictures were taken in artificial lighting and the last two were taken in natural daylight. I swatched all three shades in both lighting but forgot to swirl all three shades together for the natural daylight swatch-sorry!
My only other experience with Stila shadows has been one of their larger holiday palettes and wasn't blown away or disappointed with them. These shades are smooth but also a bit loose. You will definitely get fall out with this product but that also serves a purpose. What, you may ask, do you do when all the shades get muddled together into one?
Swirl and tap away! This is the pan after I brushed the top with a mini Bare Minerals kabuki brush. Looks good as new. I know some people may say this is a waste of product but considering I have yet to use up a full eyeshadow, I'm not too bothered by it. Sorry again about the inconsistent lighting. Still getting used to this whole blogging thing.
It took a couple swipes around the pan for the intensity you see in the swatches. The light beige shade was the hardest to capture because the other two shades overpowered it. The reddish orange shade seemed a little drier than the other two and the purple brown was nice and intense. All the shades swirled together created a really gorgeous red-tinged burgundy shade. I will update this section for any wear issues I have, but so far, for a quick pick me up impulse purchase, I love the concept!
