Sana Excel Skinny Rich Shadow in SR-05 Warm Brown

While I am trying to stay away from hypes,  I do keep a close eye on what's hot in Japanese market (and pounce when I find them without markup). I feel like Japanese beauty market is way too competitive to be be bought out with "Influencers" . I might as well add that I hate that word, if I get an email going "Hello Influencers..." I set it as spam right away.

Excel (not the one spreadsheets) is one of the few small makeup lines under the Sana umbrella. I first started noticing these eyeshadow quads popping up in various magazine awards, next to palettes I already own and like (Visee Nudy Rich and various Lunasol). When I checked, I found out it was also rated number one from Cosme.net for the last quarter of 2015.

The lines Skinny Rich (eh...) Shadow that's best described as fifty shades of brown...All of them are some sort of brown beige gradation but with different leaning (rosy, beige, cool etc.) and number 01 has eerily similar color scheme as the perennial best seller Lunasol Beige Beige. I am sure that's not a coincidence.
With a brand not as mainstream, I was actually lucky to find it at Adambeauty (with no mark up). I waited too long the best seller SR03 (muted pink brown)and SR01 (Beige Beige lookalike) were sold out, I snapped the newest SR-05 Warm Brown instead.

The compact looks sleek and simple. The golden frame looks classy and it gets scratches as soon as you unwrap it. Well, for 1500 yens, you can't expect a fancy compact. 
The quad consists of four seemly shimmery pans with uniform texture. Upper left is a ricepaper beige as base and highlight, upper right is a creamy apricot that doesn't look too orange/colorful (it's still rather neutral even when you are heavy handed on this), a medium nutty brown is main shade and a deeper chocolate as liner.
Even all four have the same finish (a very subtle satin), the palette doesn't look flat on the eyes at all.  Each pan would melt into skin and onto each other, leaving no obvious powdery trace at all. The soft texture melts right in that I don't even need to blend/smooth out the edges (there is no edge!)
See now it's not even powdery on my arm.
Just a hasty/simple gradation with all four shades. We get so many rainy and overcast days this year it's hard to properly review and swatch for eyeshadow without great natural light.

I get to use all pans and don't need to worry about turning muddy. The overall effect is a soft brown with a hint of sunny apricot.  If the range was made to copy Lunasol, I think that their texture definitely feels and wear like a high end one. Now I want to try their lip oils...

Comments

  1. Ooh, but this one is more like Coral Coral, although the swatches look warmer with a useful accent brown (Coral Coral doesn't have one, you know). Sana is a brand for nice affordable cleanser in my book but the quad definitely looks interesting. Let us know if you spot some non-brown ones as I need to stop collecting brown eyeshadows (the collection is beyond 50 shades..LOL).

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    Replies
    1. They have none brown ones but I imagine it's totally different series and texture. I actually don't mind more neutral (then I dont have 50 of them...yet.

      I think this only look like coral coral from the pan, lunasol is glossy and this one doesn't have obvious shinny particles.

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  2. Do you think this is better than the Canmake eyeshadows? I've been seeing Taiwanese YTers talk about Excel brow pencils a lot

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