Thursday, 7 July 2011

Review & Swatches: L'Oreal Infallible Eyeshadow in Burning Black and Purple Obsession


There's been a lot of buzz about L'Oreal's latest eyeshadows.  Infallible shadows are designed to be long lasting with intense pigmentation, and there's been a fair bit of comparison between them and Armani's much pricier Eyes To Kill Intense eyeshadows (mainly down to near-identical packaging and texture).  I picked up Purple Obsession (purple with blue sparkle) and Burning Black (a blackened red).

Burning Black 

Purple Obsession

The texture of these is pretty strange.  They're packaged like a loose shadow, with a plastic insert keeping the shadow in place inside the pot, but the consistency of the eyeshadow is actually between a powder and a cream.  They have a slightly emollient feel to them, despite feeling much like a half-pressed powder eyeshadow.

Left to right: Burning Black, Purple Obsession

These swatches show the intensity of the pigment.   The finish isn't overly metallic or too sparkly, but has a slight sheen and flash to it, making it more wearable for day time (if you go in for dark colours during the day, which I do).

To swatch, I rubbed my finger gently over the surface of the shadow in the pot (not particularly easy with nails, as the aperture is quite small), and then stroked my shadow-laden fingertip downwards on my hand.  You can see at the bottom of the swatch that the shadow doesn't really stretch and blend easily.  I found the same to be true when applying to the eye with a brush - the first placement of shadow is incredibly opaque and intense, and thereafter it's really, really hard to blend that first bit of shadow across the lid.  It's somewhat easier to blend with a fingertip, but then the colour gets sheered out to the degree that you can't really see the depth of the colours.  Finger-blending also seems to create a bit of a patchy finish.

Burning Black

Purple Obsession

Unfortunately, the wear isn't impressive at all - worn over primer, I ended up with a horrible creased mess of an eyelid after ten hours, which given the supposed 24 hour hold is a bit of a let down.  I won't be buying more - the lack of easy blendability on bare skin or on primed skin, plus the disappointing wear even over primer, makes this a pretty unappealing product to me.

Infallible eyeshadow is available from the usual stockists, including Boots, where a single shadow will cost you £6.99 - although many retailers are currently selling them at £5.49, so if you're interested in one, pick it up quickly!  What do you think?  Tried these?  Impressed with or put off by the intense pigmentation?  Let us know in the comments!

2 comments:

  1. I really like the look of Burning Black, but I probably wouldn't wear it on its own :(

    ReplyDelete
  2. Strange, these last an eternity on me, and others would attest to that as well.

    ReplyDelete

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