Top row: Caught in the Act Courtney, Feisty Felicia, and Insane Jane
Middle row: Bossy Bobbi, Makeout Mary, and Just This Once Jamie
Bottom row: Mischievous Marissa, Tempting Tara, and Devilish Danielle
So, sometime last summer, I purchased a bunch of products from TheBalm. The whole thing that spawned this mini shopping spree was their promotion that was going on at the time: Buy all three Shady Lady eyeshadow palettes for the price of one! And you know I had to jump on that deal. Of course, a week after I received these palettes, I sort of... forgot about them. But I promised myself to actually use all of my unopened make-up products this year, so I made sure to bust these guys out. Shady Lady Vol. 2 comes in a slim cardstock case and has a magnetic close. It comes with a mirror that spans the length of the lid. The cover design of this palette features a zebra print background and the silhouette of a girl along with the name of the palette and the brand in light grey. Each palette contains nine eyeshadow shades, a total of 17 grams of product, and retails for $39.50 USD.
Caught in the Act Courtney, Feisty Felicia, and Insane Jane
Caught in the Act Courtney is a dark warm chocolate brown with red undertones in a satin finish with gold shimmer particles. It has a soft, silky, finely-milled texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has high pigmentation and opaque colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is less reddened than MAC Swiss Chocolate, and more golden than MAC Make Your Mark Pro Longwear Eyeshadow.
Feisty Felicia is a blackened plum-brown in a satin finish with silver shimmer particles. It has a soft, silky, finely-milled texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has high pigmentation and opaque colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is more brown than MAC Shadowy Lady, and more plum than MAC Handwritten.
Insane Jane is a medium taupe-brown with shimmer-sheen in a frosted finish. It has a soft, finely-milled, almost buttery texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has high pigmentation and opaque colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is lighter and more brown than MAC Satin Taupe, and darker than Urban Decay Verve.
Bossy Bobbi is a medium-dark teal-blue with shimmer-sheen in a frosted finish. It has a soft, finely-milled, almost buttery texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has high pigmentation and opaque colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is lighter and more teal than MAC Deep Truth, and lighter and more blue than Urban Decay Hijack.
Makeout Mary is a medium yellowed olive green with shimmer-sheen in a frosted finish. It has a soft, finely-milled, almost buttery texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has high pigmentation and opaque colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is more green than MAC Sumptuous Olive, and lighter than Urban Decay Mildew.
Just This Once Jamie is a medium mauve pink with shimmer-sheen in a frosted finish. It has a soft, silky, finely-milled texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has medium-high pigmentation and semi-opaque to opaque buildable colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is much lighter and more pink than MAC Shale, and slightly lighter than Urban Decay Bordello.
Mischievous Marissa, Tempting Tara, and Devilish Danielle
Mischievous Marissa is a medium muted orange with shimmer-sheen in a frosted finish. It has a soft, finely-milled, almost buttery texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has high pigmentation and opaque colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is lighter and less red than MAC Coppering, and lighter and more muted than MAC Hot Paprika Pro Longwear Eyeshadow.
Tempting Tara is a pale cream with shimmer-sheen in a frosted finish. It has a soft, finely-milled, almost buttery texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has high pigmentation and opaque colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is lighter than MAC Dazzlelight, and warmer than Urban Decay Zephyr.
Devilish Danielle is a pale peachy champagne with shimmer-sheen in a frosted finish. It has a soft, silky, finely-milled texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has medium-high pigmentation and semi-opaque to opaque buildable colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is slightly darker and more peach than MAC Dazzlelight, and slightly lighter than MAC Jest.
The formula of these eyeshadows is phenomenal across the board — soft, smooth, pigmented, easily blendable. What I like about the Shady Lady palettes is that there is enough variety in the shades that keeps it interesting without being unwearable. They're great for those who want to experiment with colour but not overwhelm themselves, and these shades will work well on most skintones and undertones. On that note, I do think this palette could benefit from more of a variety in finishes (all of these shades are frosted or shimmery) to make it even more well-rounded. I'm also disappointed in the fact that Caught in the Act Courtney is included in both Shady Lady Vol. 1 and Vol. 2; I always think that if a company is going to release a series of eyeshadow palettes, they should always have completely separate shades in each palette. However, the price is incredibly reasonable, even at regular retail price, and works out to be much less expensive than comparable brands like MAC and Urban Decay. I still don't understand why TheBalm isn't more widely available than it currently is; their products certainly perform at the same level or higher than many much more popular brands.
I agree that theBalm should be so much more available since the brand has such stand-out, quality products! It's frustrating, really. I feel like it's partly the brands fault for not marketing themselves more, as they're still somewhat underrated and are slipping even more off the radar now that you can't get access easily. ~boo-hiss~
ReplyDeleteI know, I'm so sad about this. :( I'm just glad that I bought all those palettes when I put in my online order! I know TheBalm is available at Duane Reade, so I can always pick some stuff up when I go to NYC, but I just wish they were more readily available here. The thing is that there's not a lot of hype around the brand in general. MAC has become this huge international brand but didn't advertise until a couple years ago (and even then, it's only been for mascara; prior to that, they only advertised their Viva Glam products for the MAC AIDS Fund). I think it's just hard for an indie make-up brand to make it that big. They really need to be bought out by a bigger company so they can get wider distribution!
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