Today's topic?
Shiro Cosmetics
http://www.etsy.com/shop/shirocosmetics - What They Offer: Shiro is a new-ish company, currently offering eyeshadows in a range of shades based on/named after various aspects of the Pokemon games. One blush shade is available, and Caitlin is currently expanding her range to include a new collection of eyeshadows.
Ordering Process: Since Shiro is an etsy-hosted shop, ordering is easy. The photography is great, and what's even better is that Caitlin has swatch photos with the listings for almost every eyeshadow. Swatches-on-the-website really make me feel confident about a company...and it makes for easier shopping, because I don't have to go googling for a swatch done by a blogger, if I'm conflicted about a colour. It also helps to give one an idea of how sheer or opaque a colour is, which you don't always know from the shade description.
I ordered twenty shades at once, so, I convoed Caitlin for the order, instead of going through the main etsy checkout (she does offer listings for ten and fifteen full-sized shadows, though). She was extremely friendly, quick to reply, and kind enough to give me a discount on the products.
Shipping: I've always heard great things about Shiro's fast shipping and cute gift packaging, and it's definitely true. My order was finalized last Wednesday, shipped out on Thursday, and came today. Everyone and their mother has blogged a picture of the Shiro packaging, so I'll just say that the outer box my order was packed in was nice and secure, and full of packing paper strips to secure the bag. In addition to the business card on the gift bag, another was included in the sample baggie packet, which is great, because I can give that one out to someone.
The Order: Whee!
These are the samples I received:
I don't know if Caitlin did it intentionally, but I like the way this selection goes together. You look at the picture and can immediately imagine a look using all four colours.
Labels, printed with the company name, shade name, and ingredients. I'm really glad these aren't handwritten. Handwritten shade names always seem to rub off eventually. I also really like that she lists the individual ingredients on each jar.
Jars by colour family. Purples, blues, greens and yellows, orangey shades, and neutrals. This is definitely representative of my eyeshadow collection as a whole. I love purples and neutrals.
My only complaint about the packaging is that, when I poured my order out onto my desk, several of the lids fell off. Imagine if there hadn't been sifters in there! That would have been horrible. And then, in addition to the lids that came clean off right away, most of the others weren't screwed on tightly.
Swatches: Ready for the fun part? I'm really disappointed that my Concrete Minerals primer didn't come today, too, cuz I really wanted to be able to review these at the same time. In lieu of that, I'll just be using MAC paint, in Bare Canvas. Also, it's kind of late in the evening, so these will be under artificial light. What does that mean? That I'll be doing a second set of swatches later, in the daytime, using the Concrete Minerals primer. It'll be interesting to compare the two. Also I'm just too excited about this, to wait.
As I'm opening the jars, I'm noticing that some of the sealing labels are not pressed down very tightly, either.
These are definitely jam-packed with product. Awesome!
Flash, indoor light.
Same, without flash.
Vulpix is a lot prettier than I thought it was going to be. It isn't like I didn't think it would be nice, from the swatches on the website, I just didn't think I would be as into it as I am. It's a lot more coppery than I expected. Love it.
Shaymin is a colour I ordered because I own literally nothing resembling this. It's like a light coral, leaning towards orange.
Bulbasaur is a pretty standard green, with lovely colour pay off. Again, this is something I, for some reason, didn't own anything similar to.
Dunsparce. You know how everybody has those colours? Whenever you see something similar to it, you keep buying it? I am a sucker for buttery, iridescent yellows, because they remind me of Silk Spectre. The sparkles in Dunsparce look very blue to me. I love it. However, if you already own "Pale Jewel" by Hi-Fi Cosmetics, you can probably skip this one.
Weepinbell. Love it. There's just enough green in this yellow, to make it chartreuse-y, but not to the point where it looks scary or unwearable. At least, not to my eyes.
Wobbuffet is another one that surprised me with its prettiness. Something about the way it sparkles is really nice.
Manectric - finally I have found a light blue that isn't wussy looking. Every time I try on a light blue, it looks so babyish and washed out, but there's nothing washed out about this. Really pops.
Poliwrath is another surprise! Beautiful navy, but it's the orange tint to the sparkles that really sets it apart. I love blue/orange combos, so this is a winner.
Jigglypuff looks so pink, in every other swatch I've ever seen of it. But on me, it looks very purple. Huh.
Lance The Dragon Trainer is, literally, the whole reason I first wanted to order from Shiro. And it lives up to my wild expectations.
Mewtwo would be an excellent crease colour for a purple look. I really like it.
Spiritomb is warmer than it looks in some swatches. Very surprising, lots of multi-colour in the sparkles.
Rattata is the only semi-matte shade in the group of colours I bought...possibly the only semi-matte in the entire collection, I'm not sure. It applied a little less smoothly than the other colours, but the tone is so beautiful thatI don't mind.
Neutral time! (And the sample shades, since I forgot to include two of those on my first hand.)
Flash, indoor light.
Same, without flash.
Rapidash doesn't really show up well in these pictures, because it's about the same shade as my skin...but shinier! The sparkles are less noticably red/orange than I wanted them to be, which is a real shame, because I was super excited about this colour.
S.S. Anne may be the most rave reviewed colour on Earth. It seems like every blogger who swatches it is in love with it...and I'm not exception. It's as gorgeous as they say.
Brock the Rock is interesting because the base itself is more satiny than shimmery, but there are still lots of sparkles. These three colours would be great as a neutral, daytime eye.
Sudowoodo...is it brown? Or kind of green? Or gray? I don't know, but it's pretty.
Steelix looks a lot like one of my favourite Aromaleigh colours, Darcelle. So, if you had your eye on Darcelle, and didn't have the chance to get it before AL closed up shop (though they are reopening for a few days, at the end of the week), never fear, because you can just get Steelix! It's not exactly the same, but it has the same kind of idea.
Hyper Beam. I love blacks. But I don't have any good sparkly ones. This one is pretty opaque, which is good. I hate wimpy black shadows.
Acid. Whee! I love this colour. It, too, is similar to an Aromaleigh favourite of mine - Coney Island.
Zubat, at least on me, looks depressingly sheer. I say "depressingly," because it's a neat colour, but it's just coming off so patchy on me.
Gengarrrrrrrr. WHY OH WHY did I not get a full size of you? I LOVE YOU. Gengar looks like Halloween. Almost black, but just purple enough, and the sparkles look orange and purple, to my eyes. I'm going to have to go on another Shiro shopping trip, just to get a full size of this, so I can share the sample with someone else who would love it.
Meowth - Looks exactly like I imagined it to. I didn't order it because I wasn't super excited by it. Looks like any floofy white highlight shade, to me, and while those are nice, I just don't find myself using them often.
These colours definitely have staying power. When I used makeup remover on my hand, between sets, it took some work to get a few of the shades off. Surprisingly, Butterfree was one of the ones that really wanted to stick around.
Let it also be said that the samples are really generous. Here's a picture of Acid, shaken down to the bottom of its bag. Nice, fat sample.
Overall Impression: Love, love, love.
Would I Order Again? Absolutely. In fact, I believe I just mentioned that I really need Gengar in my life....
I don't work until the afternoon, tomorrow, so I'll try to do an EOTD with these.
