Pretty Purples

Purple eye shadows have always been one of my makeup weaknesses. I don’t know why, but I find myself gravitating towards this shade, even though I don’t wear purples nearly as often anymore.

Today I wanted to share swatches of all the purples I own, and talk about why I love (or don’t love) each shade.

Urban Decay Rapture – Rapture is a cool-toned subdued medium purple with silver sparkles. Even though there are sparkles, there is no fallout It has a bit of a dry texture, but it’s quite pigmented. I like to use this colour to deepen up the crease.

Urban Decay Vice – Bright eggplant purple in a satin finish. Very pigmented and has a nice, smooth texture. It’s a difficult colour to wear all over the lid because it’s so bright, so I usually use it to deepen up the crease.

Inglot Eye Shadow in #420 –  I bought this in 2011 during my first visit to an Inglot store, which was in Vegas. It’s a frosted smoky purple-grey with a fantastic texture and pigmentation. This was a pretty unique shade addition to my collection at the time, but I have since gotten similar shades (see Bluff and Cherie below).

Too Faced Eye Shadow in Bluff – This is a frosted silver based lilac-mauve. I always think this colour is really similar to the Inglot #420 shadow until I swatch them next to each other, and then I realize this shadow is much lighter and lilac toned. This shadow is soft and pigmented.

Too Faced Eye Shadow in Cherie – Warm purple-taupe. I realized after taking the photos that this one looks much more taupe than purple compared to the other shades, but it’s pretty much a warmer version of Bluff, so it does have a frosted purple tinge to it. It’s a really soft and blendable shadow that I use all over the lid.

Too Faced Eye Shadow in Provence – This is a cool-toned purple with bright blue shimmers (that don’t show up when swatched or applied on the lid). It’s not a good perfomer at all; it’s very sheer, the formulation is dry, and requires many passes to become somewhat opaque, so I’ve never used it before.

Too Faced Eye Shadow in Ooh La Orchid – This is a matte orchid (surprise) shade. It has a very dry, chalky texture but the pigmentation is actually pretty decent. However, I have never used this eye shadow just because of the craziness of the colour.

Tarte Eye Shadow in Best Friend – This is a matte medium eggplant purple. The formulation is soft and buttery, and the colour is very pigmented. I tend to use this shade all over my lids, which ends up being a darker look.

Tarte Eye Shadow in Bomb Shell – This is a matte deep plum which looks more black than purple, but you can definitely tell that it’s a dark plum when swatched next to a true black. It’s slightly dry, but very pigmented. I like using this to define my crease when doing a purple smoky look.

Tarina Tarantino Eyeshadow (from the Magical palette) – this is a deep plummy purple in a satin finish. This is a really good-quality shadow and is one of my go-to’s to define the outer V area when doing a purple look.

Inglot AMC Shine #40– This is a medium red-based purple with silver shimmers. This shade also doesn’t have any fallout even with the shimmers. It’s a very sheer colour upon first pass, but is able to build up quite easily. I got this the at the same time as the Inglot #420 above, when I still had a small collection of shadows, and I used to use this a lot more often than I do now.

MAC Eye Shadow in Beautiful Iris – this is one of the products that I’m trying to get more use out of (I’ve only used it once since that post, boo). It’s a pastel lavender with a pink sheen, and has great pigmentation. The MUA convinced me to get this, but I’m still not entirely sure this shade of purple works for me – it’s a little too cool for my warm-toned skin.

Going through all my shadows made me realize that there’s about three of these that I never reach for. With that being said, this post really made me want to go buy more purple shadows, particularly the grey-taupe-purple ones that I don’t need more of!