There has been a sea of fantastic reviews about the new Maybelline Color Tattoo Crème eyeshadows… but are the drugstore alternative to your much-loved MAC paint pots worth the hype?
I was lucky enough to be given three of the shades as a gift from my lovely friend Allison (aka Amarixe) on my recent trip to the states and I have to say, I’m really rather impressed!
The three shades I have are ‘Tough as Taupe’ (35) a deep, matte taupe, ‘Pomegranate Punk’ (30) a deep metallic burgundy and ‘Bad to the Bronze’ (25) a light, golden bronze.
They come in almost identical packaging to Benefit’s creaseless crème shadow/liners and are very similar in consistency to them, and to the MAC paint pots. They all have the similar, slightly greasy but blend-able texture at first, which quickly dries down to a solid colour base.
They claim to be smudge and crease free, and (as the name suggests) last for 24 hours. I don’t know about 24 hours (I for one like to wash my face at least twice in that period of time!) but they certainly do stay!
In my opinion, these shadows are closely comparable to both the MAC and Benefit alternatives, not only in terms of colour pay-off and blendability, but also staying power and non-creasing. I like to wear these both as a base for eyeshadow, and on their own (for more lazy days!)
Left-right: Benefit Sippin’n’Dippin’, MAC Rubenesque, Maybelline Bad to the Bronze, Tough as Taupe and Pomegranate Punk.
They really are extraordinary when it comes to high street crème shadows, which from my past experience are normally awful!
There are 10 shades in the range, 6 of which are lovely everyday colours, three are beautiful bright shades (I especially love the vibrant peacock/teal shade) and then there is one rather standout, hideous orange shade which I personally, would never wear. If you’d like to see swatches of all the shades, Allison has some great photos and a review of the full line on her blog if you want to take a look (a big thanks to her for letting me use the picture above!)
Overall I’m very, very impressed with these shadows. They are understandably hard to get your hands on in the US (they seem to be sold out everywhere!) I’m not sure when they land in the UK but I would thoroughly recommend checking them out when you get the chance. They are around $6 in the US so I’d expect them to be about £6 over here… definitely a bargain!