Some Thoughts on Colourpop

I finally placed my first Colourpop order a couple of weeks ago and when it arrived on Monday I was beyond excited to crack them open. It was all I could do to get the photos before I stuck my grubby fingers in the product. 

For the uninitiated Colourpop is the latest in a line of fledgling beauty brands that are made in the USA and pedaled by the YouTube hierarchy. 

Not that there is anything wrong with that. As a business model it's pretty genius but, from a consumer perspective it does make me hesitate before parting with my cash. 

Now that I have had a chance to play with my goodies (I ordered eyeshadows and a blush) I'm all about telling you what I loved and what I didn't love.

Now the one thing everyone loves is the price. $5.00 for an eyeshadow and all of their various lip offerings (which I did not venture in to) and $8.00 a piece for the brand new blush range in addition to free shipping over 30$. As far as a budget beauty brand goes the prices are more than fair, especially for a brand selling exclusively online at the moment.

The one thing that I have only seen touched on very very briefly by the beauty community is why the prices are so low. They are affordable because quantity wise you do not get much. Creative packaging for sure because it effectively disguises the fact that you are getting a pan of product about the same depth and circumference of a MAC eyeshadow.

That aside, if the product works I am not too bothered by the small quantity for the small price.

I'm going to start with the let down and end on a rave. How does that sound?

The blush is not something I really clamoring over. The shade I picked is called Swift at it's a beautiful terra-cotta color that works really well with my skin tone.  The formula was mousse-y and creamy with pretty excellent pigmentation. Pigment wasn't the issue. I find the mousse texture applies best with fingers across the board (eyes and cheeks) and this blush had so much pigment that applying it to the face that way made for instant over application. It took a lot of blending to get this to look relatively normal. When I tried applying with a brush I got similar results. I tried duo fibre as well as a more dense synthetic brush and just wasn't happy with the application overall. 

To make matters worse I didn't care too much for the wear on this. It may have had something to do with my base products (I've tried it with the Bobbi Brown BB Cream and the Chanel Vitalumiere Aqua.) but all of the times I've worn this it has gone patchy after about two hours and has nearly faded entirely by days end. You may have better luck with this if you are applying it over a more full coverage or long lasting product but for my purposes this just hasn't worked.

Now the eyeshadows are kind of another story. When it comes pigment here they were similar to the blush; all pigment all the time. Even the sparkle shades had lovely and opaque color coverage. These applied beautifully with fingers and even blended out quite well with a brush. They didn't apply too well with a brush but blended out far better than the blush.

When it comes to lasting power these are pretty stellar. I have had some variation from shade to shade but I get about 6.5-9 hours out of these with a primer. I will typically prime, apply my crease shade, tap these onto the lid and then blend the two together in the crease with a fluffy brush. I have even forgone the crease color in favor of blending the lid shade up higher and while this did work it was the day that I ended up getting the shortest wear time out of these. 

What I really think makes these shadows worth it is the metallic shades. They remind me a lot of the Urban Decay Moondust shadows in that they create a high-shine, glittery and wet look on the eye lid. The advantage here is that the cream formula basically eradicates fallout. Over the day a few stray sparkles will migrate but for the most part these suction cup the sparkle to your lid. The pearly formulas were just as beautiful but honestly I could do without the matte shades. Not only are they more of a satin finish but, I had application issues with these similar to the blushes and if I were to repurchase I wouldn't get any of the mattes. 

From Left to Right: Drift, So Quiche, Sequin, Hammered, Hustle

All in all I think there are some nice offerings from the brand that I will get some good use out of but, having said that. I don't think that everything they offer is as good as people say it is. The strange texture makes for a slightly more high maintenance application but some of the eye shades are definitely worth the struggle, the blush not so much.

Have you guys tried anything from Colourpop? Have you heard of it before?