For Christmas this year I got some eyeshadow.

This wasn’t a surprise. My Sister is a Younique rep and therefore I get Younique products for every Christmas, birthday or other present giving opportunity. For Christmas 2014 I got the 3D Fibre Lashes, which I loved, but confess I can rarely be faffed to use as I am a lazy make up wearer, so for £23 I probably wouldn’t get it again. Later in 2015 I got the Stiff Upper Lip Stain, which I wear constantly as a lip and cheek tint, and at £18 would be worth every penny as it’s also lasted ages, it’s barely gone down at all in 4 months.

This Christmas I found a Splurge Cream Eyeshadow (£23) and Cream Shadow Brush (£12) in my Stocking.

I don’t buy a lot of premium make up brands, so my first instinct was “HOW MUCH?!”.

So in todays post I will be investigating, is it actually worth the money?

The Product

Younique call this a high density, velvety smooth cream eye shadow. It comes packaged in a heavy frosted glass pot with a plastic lid. The packaging is pretty and good quality, but nothing special, it doesn’t make you go “Oooohhh!” It did come in a cardboard box though, which always feels a bit special.

The shade I have is called Tenacious and is a deep bronze/gold colour.

Application

The first thing I did when I opened my Christmas present was pick it up and put some on my lids immediately. It went on super smoothly and evenly, with no patchiness, and that was after 3 glasses of Bucks Fizz.

Since then I have refined my technique somewhat. You only need the tiniest amount on the brush and you can create a smooth look with just a hint of shimmer. I start on the outside of my eye just above my eyelashes, then blend up towards the socket line, before blending in towards the inner corners. This means the colour and shimmer is more intense at the outer corners of my eye and gives a subtle smoky eye effect.

The eye shadow is deliciously sparkly, so sometimes I go back and add a touch more to the outer corners of my eyes, just to make the most of that sparkly pigment. I have to say that one thing I liked about it was that it was sparkly, not glittery. That’s a fine line to tread between an eye shadow that is wearable during the day, and one that is only for evening wear. The more you blend the Splurge the less sparkle you get, so you can tone it down for day time wear.

I did find if I kept blending too much sometimes I would get an area where I’d blended all the sparkle away, which could look patchy if you were peering at my eyelids through a magnifying glass. (Why are you doing that? Weirdo.)

Wearability

How often you wear it depends on how you feel about sparkly eyes during the day. I’ve been wearing it all the time, because I feel pretty good about sparkly eyes during the day, as it happens.

It feels light on your eyelids, and most importantly doesn’t do that annoying thing where at the end of the day you close your eyes and find all your eyeshadow in 2 big creases across the middle of your eyelids. So their crease proof claim has stood up to my investigations.

Is it Worth It?

After much deliberation I have come to the answer “Probably”. Not really conclusive, but hear me out!

I’d kind of given up on eye shadow, apart from for the odd evening out, because of the aforementioned creasing issues which I found intensely irritating. This eye shadow does not crease, lasts a long time and you only use the tiniest amount, so the pot will last ages. So, yes, buying a premium product gives you premium performance, it’s worth every penny and I have my eye (boom boom!) on some other shades, specifically Dreamy (a cream/white) and Assertive (deep green).

However, there’s this little bit at the back of my head that still can’t get around spending £23 on eye shadow. In my head there’s a hierarchy of make up that I will spend large amounts of money on, it goes something like:

Foundation – Concealer – Lipstick – Eyebrows – Eyeliner – Mascara – Powder/Blusher – Eye shadow

For some reason I’ve always let eye shadow languish down at the bottom as a non-essential make up product, possibly because of my insistence on only buying the cheap stuff that then creases and flakes off.

So here I am, trapped in a vicious circle, where I don’t wear eyeshadow because I only buy cheap eye shadow and it’s rubbish. Much like the reason I didn’t wear red lipstick often when I was buying £3 red lipsticks, and when I started buying premium brands I realised I could wear it every day.

Now I’ve tasted the good life of a premium eye shadow I’ve actually started to wear it more often, and if I had more shades I’d wear it even more. So yeah, if you want to wear eye shadow, it’s worth splashing out on a premium brand product like Younique. If you don’t want to set foot on the slippery slope that will lead to you spending all your money on expensive eye shadow, then I advise sticking with the cheap stuff.

You can buy splurge cream eyeshadow for £23 at Kellys Make Up Box, or from any Younique reps you happen to know (I bet you know at least one)

For Christmas this year I got some eyeshadow.

This wasn’t a surprise. My Sister is a Younique rep and therefore I get Younique products for every Christmas, birthday or other present giving opportunity. For Christmas 2014 I got the 3D Fibre Lashes, which I loved, but confess I can rarely be faffed to use as I am a lazy make up wearer, so for £23 I probably wouldn’t get it again. Later in 2015 I got the Stiff Upper Lip Stain, which I wear constantly as a lip and cheek tint, and at £18 would be worth every penny as it’s also lasted ages, it’s barely gone down at all in 4 months.

This Christmas I found a Splurge Cream Eyeshadow (£23) and Cream Shadow Brush (£12) in my Stocking.

I don’t buy a lot of premium make up brands, so my first instinct was “HOW MUCH?!”.

So in todays post I will be investigating, is it actually worth the money?

The Product

Younique call this a high density, velvety smooth cream eye shadow. It comes packaged in a heavy frosted glass pot with a plastic lid. The packaging is pretty and good quality, but nothing special, it doesn’t make you go “Oooohhh!” It did come in a cardboard box though, which always feels a bit special.

The shade I have is called Tenacious and is a deep bronze/gold colour.

Application

The first thing I did when I opened my Christmas present was pick it up and put some on my lids immediately. It went on super smoothly and evenly, with no patchiness, and that was after 3 glasses of Bucks Fizz.

Since then I have refined my technique somewhat. You only need the tiniest amount on the brush and you can create a smooth look with just a hint of shimmer. I start on the outside of my eye just above my eyelashes, then blend up towards the socket line, before blending in towards the inner corners. This means the colour and shimmer is more intense at the outer corners of my eye and gives a subtle smoky eye effect.

The eye shadow is deliciously sparkly, so sometimes I go back and add a touch more to the outer corners of my eyes, just to make the most of that sparkly pigment. I have to say that one thing I liked about it was that it was sparkly, not glittery. That’s a fine line to tread between an eye shadow that is wearable during the day, and one that is only for evening wear. The more you blend the Splurge the less sparkle you get, so you can tone it down for day time wear.

I did find if I kept blending too much sometimes I would get an area where I’d blended all the sparkle away, which could look patchy if you were peering at my eyelids through a magnifying glass. (Why are you doing that? Weirdo.)

Wearability

How often you wear it depends on how you feel about sparkly eyes during the day. I’ve been wearing it all the time, because I feel pretty good about sparkly eyes during the day, as it happens.

It feels light on your eyelids, and most importantly doesn’t do that annoying thing where at the end of the day you close your eyes and find all your eyeshadow in 2 big creases across the middle of your eyelids. So their crease proof claim has stood up to my investigations.

Is it Worth It?

After much deliberation I have come to the answer “Probably”. Not really conclusive, but hear me out!

I’d kind of given up on eye shadow, apart from for the odd evening out, because of the aforementioned creasing issues which I found intensely irritating. This eye shadow does not crease, lasts a long time and you only use the tiniest amount, so the pot will last ages. So, yes, buying a premium product gives you premium performance, it’s worth every penny and I have my eye (boom boom!) on some other shades, specifically Dreamy (a cream/white) and Assertive (deep green).

However, there’s this little bit at the back of my head that still can’t get around spending £23 on eye shadow. In my head there’s a hierarchy of make up that I will spend large amounts of money on, it goes something like:

Foundation – Concealer – Lipstick – Eyebrows – Eyeliner – Mascara – Powder/Blusher – Eye shadow

For some reason I’ve always let eye shadow languish down at the bottom as a non-essential make up product, possibly because of my insistence on only buying the cheap stuff that then creases and flakes off.

So here I am, trapped in a vicious circle, where I don’t wear eyeshadow because I only buy cheap eye shadow and it’s rubbish. Much like the reason I didn’t wear red lipstick often when I was buying £3 red lipsticks, and when I started buying premium brands I realised I could wear it every day.

Now I’ve tasted the good life of a premium eye shadow I’ve actually started to wear it more often, and if I had more shades I’d wear it even more. So yeah, if you want to wear eye shadow, it’s worth splashing out on a premium brand product like Younique. If you don’t want to set foot on the slippery slope that will lead to you spending all your money on expensive eye shadow, then I advise sticking with the cheap stuff.

You can buy splurge cream eyeshadow for £23 at Kellys Make Up Box, or from any Younique reps you happen to know (I bet you know at least one)