Stila is quite famous for their eye shadow pan and palette, I decided to give the eye shadow duo a try as well since the idea of paying a little more to get two shades (instead of the a single pan that will last forever) of the awesome Stila shadow is very tempting.
But to tell you the truth, sadly (or luckily, for my wallet) they are not as good as I would imagined. Or should I put it this way...this thing is a complete waste of money.
The Stila Eye Shadow Duo I got is called orchid, a cooler (compared to the Montmartre quad) purple combo, the lilac side is pretty much the same as the single pan "Key" and the darker side, from what I heard in Makeup Alley, is a dupe of Cassis.
While the color is quite intense and rich when I swatched it on my finger but both of them turned chalky and dirty the moment I tried to to blend them down. (When I blend the other shadow from Stila, the power merely expanded and became a sheer yet still vibrant layer of color, but for the duo, it just got muddy and dull, all the vibrancy of the color is lost in the brush tip...When used wet, it became an utter mess and all runny...
The shape of the duo is a bit awkward too: While the outer halves of each piece have the same radius,they didn't take into the account of the fact that this is made of two pieces of pan: The two metal blocks between them add thickness and makes the double pan an oval instead of a perfect circle so it won't fit into a palette at all and barely fits (but can be housed) a single aluminum case, you can probably see the two pieces are not level, the darker shades simply sits on top of the edge of the lighter shade...(If you buy it from Stila's website, it comes with the paper pot so it can be squashed in.)
I mean, it does look good on my arm and such...but I certainly didn't spend all that money just to wear this on my arm!
But to tell you the truth, sadly (or luckily, for my wallet) they are not as good as I would imagined. Or should I put it this way...this thing is a complete waste of money.
The Stila Eye Shadow Duo I got is called orchid, a cooler (compared to the Montmartre quad) purple combo, the lilac side is pretty much the same as the single pan "Key" and the darker side, from what I heard in Makeup Alley, is a dupe of Cassis.While the color is quite intense and rich when I swatched it on my finger but both of them turned chalky and dirty the moment I tried to to blend them down. (When I blend the other shadow from Stila, the power merely expanded and became a sheer yet still vibrant layer of color, but for the duo, it just got muddy and dull, all the vibrancy of the color is lost in the brush tip...When used wet, it became an utter mess and all runny...
The shape of the duo is a bit awkward too: While the outer halves of each piece have the same radius,they didn't take into the account of the fact that this is made of two pieces of pan: The two metal blocks between them add thickness and makes the double pan an oval instead of a perfect circle so it won't fit into a palette at all and barely fits (but can be housed) a single aluminum case, you can probably see the two pieces are not level, the darker shades simply sits on top of the edge of the lighter shade...(If you buy it from Stila's website, it comes with the paper pot so it can be squashed in.)
I mean, it does look good on my arm and such...but I certainly didn't spend all that money just to wear this on my arm!
thanks for the honest review, I have been stalking Strawberrynet on Stila e/s pans! Lol now my wallet thanks you
ReplyDeleteHey, Nikki:
ReplyDeleteActually most stila single pans have pretty good reviews (and I like quite a few of them such as kitten, oasis, ray,cha cha, jade, indigo), it's just the duo I find chalky...There is also a matte mineral shadow, which has its own page in stila's website, are a bit unpopular so I am not going to given them a try...
Something I found on strawberry net is that they seems to carry some items that were discontinued for quite a few years... Like those Anna Sui gloss lipsticks and many others...and I heard from some beauty forum members that they even cut off the expiration date label on the bottle of skin care items to conceal the fact that the merchandise is expired...
The stila shadow in strawberry net comes in a paper pot, which means they are not as fresh as the one that comes with just a refill pan and aluminum pot...but since eyeshadow don't expire that fast maybe it doesn't really matter...maybe it's OK (I still think hunting on the eBay might give you a better deal on those...)