Beauty and the Geek: Valiant Beauty Eyeshadow Review
I was delighted last week when one of our readers, Ira (AKA MouseWings), sent me a gift: eyeshadow! Ira is a fellow makeup lover, so the gift was much appreciated. As soon as the package arrived, I was giddy to try on my new eyeshadow from Valiant Beauty, a lovely TARDIS blue color called “Frigid.”
Before I get into the review of the eyeshadow itself, some information about Valiant Beauty. Valiant Beauty is run by Sarah Ryke, out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her Etsy page boasts a wide variety of loose eyeshadow colors (all vegan). Her shop opened on November 10th of this past year, and she is already racking up the sales and the compliments — she has a 100% positive feedback rating.
I first became aware of Valiant through Ira (plus, I’ve been searching for a nice blue color), so I was happy to receive this lovely eyeshadow gift.
Now that I’ve told you a little bit about the company, it’s time to delve right into the review of the eyeshadow!
With small businesses, packaging can make or break you because this is your customer’s first impression of your product. The eyeshadow came to me in a cute little black bag. It also included a free sample of a different color! The eyeshadow container was a good quality, the labels on both the top and the bottom of the eyeshadow were clear and easy to read, and overall, it gave a really great first impression.
I tried out the eyeshadow on the back of my hand first before putting it on my eyes. I did this for two reasons: first, I wanted to see if I could layer the color on to get different variations in shades and vibrancy. Secondly, I wanted to see if I could get the same color with and without an eyeshadow primer. Most days I use a base, and some days I don’t — and some eyeshadows look better without it.
Below, you can see where I tried on the eyeshadow. On the left is one layer of the Frigid eyeshadow on top of an eyeshadow primer. On the right is three lightly applied layers of the Frigid eyeshadow on clean skin with no primer.
I was able to get a more subtle look by applying the eyeshadow lightly (without primer) and then add on to the saturation of the color by adding more layers. It definitely stuck much better with the primer, as one layer of the eyeshadow came out to three layers without primer (when I applied it later, I used a less light layer and wound up doing two applications of the eyeshadow to get it to the desired color).
I liked this about the eyeshadow because I sometimes like to build up color in some areas and not in others, and it was very easy to do this with the Frigid eyeshadow.
As you can see, the eyeshadow went on very smoothly, and the color was true to the picture on VB’s Esty page. The first day I wore the eyeshadow, I applied primer to only one eyelid, and then just applied the eyeshadow straight onto my other lid. It was time for a longevity test! I’m happy to report that after an 8 hour work day, plus an hour of commuting, both eyes still had great, vibrant color. This made me very happy! The Frigid eyeshadow was also very easy to wash off that night, and although I usually don’t wear the same color eyeshadow two days in a row, I wound up wearing Frigid again the next day — along with the sample color I received.
Overall, I find Valiant Beauty’s loose powder vegan eyeshadow to be a great product. The eyeshadow price ($5.99 US) is comparable to other “home made” beauty/cosmetic sites, and the color is beautiful and long-lasting. Visit Valiant Beauty’s Etsy Shop here, and make sure to visit them on Facebook, too!
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http://mousewings.dreamwidth.org/ Iris
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Sarahryke
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Strawber31
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