Makeup Expert Guesses Cheap vs Expensive Eye Shadow | Allure

So today, Allure is giving me some mystery eye, shadows and challenging me to guess which ones are most expensive Music, so eyeshadow a definitely has what we call Specialty. Pigments specialty pigments are those that do things Beyond just offering like a base color and coverage. They could be iridescent or duochrome having two different shades. They can have a color shift and that usually means more expensive, because specialty pigments can easily go up to be like 700, a kilogram. In this case, this Glitter has a almost peachy pink to violet blue color shift to it, and eyeshadow B also has some specialty pigments, but they seem to be larger particle in that its in the glitter itself, like plastic and not any sheer or Mica pigments. That are also in the Shadow with it. Glitter eyeshadows should have a hexagonal shape if you look at it under a microscope, if its circular or even square that can cut into the eye, which is why you shouldnt use craft glitter on your face, because that one is not hexagonal shape. So as Im zooming in on a I see, very few hexagonal shapes, so it looks like most of the Shadow is made up of micas or some maybe silica and Micah and silica, of course, theyre minerals. And in this case the minerals arent like uniformly shaped, because you see all these tiny particles that are kind of jagged, but you can occasionally see a hexagonal shape, thats, bigger and thats kind of pink in color.

So that lets me know that that is in fact the glitter particle, but theres not much of it. I dont think thats a high priced eyeshadow because, if youre paying for glitter Shadow, you want glitter and for sample B Im, definitely seeing more of the hexagonal shapes. In this case, the color is blue and notice that the silicas, the silicates, the mica, is like the smaller particle shapes are a little bit more uniform and smoother on the edges, less Jagged. This seems to be like the higher quality higher priced option, because you have way more glitter particles that are visible. Glitter eyeshadows typically are made from plastic. Glitters plastic naturally does not stick to skin well, so it has to have good adhesion and it also has to be free from irritation, because oftentimes glitter eyeshadows are made with film formers that are dissolved in alcohol or other solvents that can be irritating to the eye Product a initial thoughts, kind of patchy and in terms of the texture it applied, fine Im noticing a slight warming sensation, so theres, probably some film formers in here. The purpose of the film former is to prevent the glitter from flaking off, because its such a large particle. It has a hard time. Staying on the eyelid now were going to apply eyeshadow B. This one definitely has a bit more coverage and you can definitely see more of the larger glitter particles, and the other thing to look out for with glitter Shadows is that they can tend to Clump because of the larger particle so Im trying to see how easy It is to break up those clumps with the brush, so after the visual analysis and the application I feel like sample B, is the higher quality and more expensive Shadow, because, as you can see, it offers significantly more coverage.

It was is more comfortable on the eye, and also this was easier to blend. Lets. Look at some prices, starting with a oh wow, 4.99 thats, a pretty good price for the Shadow and B 25. He is the winner going out for the ingredient list its clear that there was like less glitter in Sample a versus sample B, because the second ingredient in Sample a is calcium, aluminum borosilicate. The borosilicates were those Jagged varied, shaped, smaller particles that we were looking at versus the third ingredient, which is the actual plastic litter, and we compare that to sample B. The second ingredient is the glitter itself. Polyethylene Terra phthalate in this case, and the third ingredient in simple B, are the borosilicate particles. The differentiating factor between a powdered metallic and a standard glitter is the particle size. Powdered metallics are typically made of finely milled, Mica or paracilicate, or some mineral that gives you that nice even smooth coverage, while still having a metallic Sheen to it initial impression a is chunkier and almost has like a glazing effect. Glazing is when you have a large amount of oil pulling up from the shadow itself. We typically try to avoid glazing, regardless of how much youre spinning on the eyeshadow, but it does happen, especially in lower priced Shadows. Shadow B has a more uniform texture to it. The main things to look for in a powdered metallic eyeshadow is how well it Blends and avoid creasing in the eyelid area, Shadow 8.

In terms of picking up on the brush it kind of like broke apart a little bit which lets me know its not going to be the smoothest application kind of applies almost like glitter, where there are some specs that fall out like half of it fell off. Of the brush, but once I blended it out, it came out more even and uniform, but still kind of sheer and now for shadow B. This one sticks to the brush a lot better. Oh yeah thats, definitely more pigmented and it goes on much smoother. So far. I think Shadow B is the higher quality item because it had an easier application and it add more coverage now were going to do. Whats called an oil test, basically were going to take a skin like oil, in this case jojoba oil and apply it to my wrist and then apply the Shadow on Top. This is to see how well and How likely the shadow is to crease and because these are metallics and are already made with Mica. Mica is a really great oil, absorbing agent Im, trying to recreate an oily eyelid in the area that creases really easily and now Im just flexing my wrist back and forth just to see if I see any like creasing or bunching in the center so far, Im Pretty good, there is some slight creasing in this divot here. Okay, now for eyeshadow B and I notice when Im picking up with my hand, it has a very dry texture to it.

Im not noticing much creasing here, except a slight line right there, but its barely visible Im, not really feeling either these shadows in terms of application, because they both were kind of dry and crumbly upon just touching it with your finger and they both kind of bunched. In the eyelid, a little bit when blending it out, so I think B is the winner here, but by a very narrow margin it applied better. It still had better coverage. Also, Shadow B did not have as much creasing compared to Shadow a when performing the oil test and now, for the big reveal Shadow, a ten dollars, not bad and Shadow B M. This is not worth thirty two dollars. It is the winner. It is like the higher quality higher priced item button because it bunches and how dry it was it no. I would rather have Shadow a in this case because youre getting the full price that youre paying for versus this should be a lot smoother more luxurious. In terms of how you apply it all right, looking at the ingredients sample a is Mica based and so is sample B, but sample B used a synthetic Mica called synthetic fluoroflogopyte thats worthy of note, because synthetic Mica tends to be more expensive because its created in A lab versus natural Mica, thats mined and oftentimes, it has an unethical source. So if you want something ethical, you should have to pay more for it because its Fair Labor practices, so that does justify the price a little bit more, but you can definitely get synthetic fluoroflycopied for less than 32 dollars.

Matte eyeshadows are matte because theyre mainly made of pure pigment, the mattes are pretty neon, which lets me know. It has a type of pigment called Lake pigments Lake pigments are usually 30 dyes, dye stain pigments cover, which is why sometimes, you have eyeshadows that stain your eyelids palette B also has some bright colors, but theyre, not quite as neon, and this one actually has a Red thats interesting because its kind of hard to get a nice full coverage red for eye makeup thats, because youre limited in the pigments if its iron oxides, the mineral pigments theyre, not very bright, but you get coverage from them. However, if its red 40, it tends to be sheer and it always tends to pull orange or you could use Carmine, which is a nice purplish red but isnt vegan for the purposes of assessing the coverage Im only focusing on these two shades, just because the red And the orange tend to be harder to get full coverage and the purpose of matte is for it to be a nice solid flat, color, so thats the main quality were going to be evaluating, in terms of which one is the higher priced item: Shadow, a Im Going in with a narrow brush to pack that pigment on so this color on my skin is more on the sheer side, but still a nice, pretty color and it blends pretty easily. So this color, while pretty isnt nearly as vibrant as I expected it to be because in the actual palette, its super bright and neon and bold, but on my skin, its kind of subdued and thats.

Something to note because a lot of times when theyre formulating Shadows. They dont consider a wide variation of skin tones when theyre determining how well it should blend and look on the skin. Alright, now lets apply Shadow B Im not really impressed with either of these colors again. They both have a soft pastel, look to it, but theyre not neon Im. Putting on my lab coat because were about to do a very messy test. What Im looking for is How likely it is to bleed into the alcohol and how much is left at the bottom is sediments if there is a high concentration of color in the solution that lets me know that there is a high concentration of Lake pigments and A higher concentration of the lake pigments usually means a more expensive palette solely going off of initial Impressions. A definitely has some Lake pigments because its starting to stain the alcohol solution, almost immediate immediately, whereas B, has a slight tint but its not concentrated, but were going to. Let both of these sit for two hours to give it time for the lake to bleed into the solution of alcohol. So looking at sample a there is a high concentration of dye in the solution. As you can see, like theres very little sediment at the bottom, which lets me know that this one is definitely made from some Lake dyes and probably a large amount of it, it might be a higher price eyeshadow, because Lake pigments tend to be more expensive than Other types of pigments now looking at eyeshadow B, There is far more sediment at the bottom and the color in the solution is not as concentrated, so this might have Lake pigments, but not as much as sample a so.

This one is tough because neither of them had the coverage I was expecting. They both had similar application Shadow – a has more Lake pigments in it. So off of that alone, Im gon na say eyeshadow a is the higher priced one. This one is wow 49 and this one 20 dollars. Okay, that makes sense neither of these lived up to my expectations, but because this one has some bright neon colors. That explains why its more expensive I dont, like that they werent really inclusive in terms of the payoff for darker skin tones, and that happens a lot in Labs, because the lab doesnt have any dark skin individuals theres no way for them to test it, because they Really rely on the contract manufacturer or the chemist to do the testing that the chemist is one shade thats. All the shadow is being based off of lets. Look at the ingredients so looking at sample a I was right. There are definitely Lake pigments in this color. As you can see, theres Carmine red 6 red 28 Red Seven Lake Red 30 lake were at 40 Lake, Yellow 5 Lake, yellow six Lake yeah. This is a bright palette. Sample B, on the other hand, only has yellow five Lake red 40 Lake and blue one Lake. Liquid eyeshadows can typically be broken up into either water based or oil based the water based ones, tend to dry or set faster. You know producing a transfer resistant film on the skin, but they also tend to be a little bit more irritating because you have to add extra preservatives to account for microbes that might grow on the water things that are anhydrous or water.

Free dont typically need preservatives like lip, balms and lipsticks are often made without any preservation system whatsoever, because microbes cant grow in an environment, thats absent of moisture, so Shadow a seems to have like a mica based kind of like metallic Sheen to it, and it also Tends to be more of an attribute for a water based formulation and oil based that uses pure pigments and Shadow B also has some glitter Mica particles in it so Im thinking that these are both water based formulations. Just going off of how it looks in the container itself and as far as colored, this is the more interesting combination, because it has a reflection to it where you have this purple color, but it has a golden reflectance making it a specialty, pigment and Specialty. Pigments are more expensive to produce versus Shadow a that has more of a solid tone. It still has some slight reflection, but so far its not as interesting visually Music now lets apply Shadow, a Im looking to see if there is any burning or irritation from the preservative system, and there is some slight irritation. The color is nice again, not interesting, but it is still a nice solid color as far as dry down time, its important that your liquid eyeshadow doesnt dry too quickly, because you dont have time to blend it with other colors or if you want to do a Smoky eye look and add something on top.

If it sets too quickly, then it wont budge and blend in and mix in with other Shadow. This one has a really moderate dry down time. I can still feel its wet on the skin, so thats great in terms of adding other colors on top. If I wanted to now for shadow B, this one also has some good coverage its not as irritating as Shadow a and the dry down. Time seems to be pretty good because Im able to go back over areas to make sure its fully Blended and everything is properly covered. It also seems to be more opaque. Its definitely shinier in terms of the sheen theres, more light bouncing off of the eyelid Shadow B has the more into interesting color, but that doesnt necessarily mean its the higher quality or higher price. That could just be the color option. All right now Im going to soak a cotton round in water and then wipe it if theyre water based itll melt as soon as the water touches it. But if its oil based itll kind of bead up on top Shadow, a yeah, a good chunk came off. Now for shadow beat oh yeah, that ones definitely water based. If youre looking for a shadow, thats easy to remove at the end of the day, you should go with a water based liquid Shadow. If youre looking for a more water resistant Shadow, you should make sure that its an oil based formula using something like ISO DOTA cane its the first ingredient.

The other downside to a water based formula is if youre, combining it with other makeup items like concealer on your eyelid. Most concealers are oil based, so it may not appear well with water based Shadow. On top of it and Ill say for this category, it was kind of hard to determine which one is more expensive because they both had similar coverage. They had similar dry down time, similar application so based off of all the tests. I feel like Shadow a is the more expensive Shadow because it had a little bit of water resistance, whereas the other one came completely off, which makes me think the only solvent in Shadow B is water. However, in terms of color, I prefer B but lets look at some prices: Shadow a is 36 and Shadow B, 25 isnt, surprising theyre, both in that mid tier, almost luxury price category and as you go beyond 40 and 50 youre getting that luxury tier where youre Expecting more of a aesthetic and sensorial difference and application all right now lets take a look at the ingredient list to see if these are both. In fact, water based liquid Shadows, so sample B, is 100 water based theres, not really any oil based ingredient in this formula. The first ingredient, of course, is water, whereas Shadow a is kind of interesting, its like what we call an emotion, a combination of oil and water. In this case we have water, and then we have the iso DOTA cane I mentioned earlier, and this kind of makes sense, because when I added water to the cotton round and swiped it only a fraction of it came off instead of it completely coming off and Completely staying put, which lets me know its more likely a combination of oil and water, as I mentioned before, they both had similar coverage and applications.