Maybelline Color Tattoo Eyeshadow Review + Swatches

Next in review-a-thon... the new Maybelline cream eyeshadows! This was another heavily buzzed about product as it reminded many people of the MUFE Aqua Creams.

I paid $6.99 for each of these from Walgreens, but they are now showing up in Target for $5.99, so you may want to check there instead. The range currently has 10 colors from brights to neutrals and the pots contain 4g/0.14oz of product.

As you can see, I picked up Bold Gold, Fierce & Tangy, Painted Purple and Pomegranate Punk. I have to apologize in advance for the varying lighting conditions in this post -- I purchased two of these and then the lovely Heather CPed the other two for me, by the time I got the last two, we hadn't had a sunny day in a while!).

For the swatches, I used my finger in the jar and swatched them on bare skin.

These swatch really nicely and even when blended out, have a decent color payoff. Pomegranate Punk is the most pigmented while Bold Gold contains a lot of shimmer, so it tends to blend out to nothing but gold glitter. It's similar to the Mac Paint Pots that came out with the Glitter & Ice holiday collection. A note: Fierce & Tangy stained my arm when I swatched it, so be wary of that.

I set off to begin testing these in a few ways. The first was to apply them from the jar with a clean finger directly to my eyelid with no primer. This garnered really messy and uneven results, observe:

Even though my fingers are small, these creams dry down quickly so if you get any in your tear duct or under your eye, or really anywhere you don't want them to be, you have to move fast to remove it. After applying, I actually slept in the shadows to see how they would hold up. When I woke up in the morning, I had no creasing but had a little bit of fading... pretty impressive as these claim 24 hour wear with no primer.

My tests over primer garnered great results -- no fading or creasing and I could easily get 14-15 hours of wear before needing to remove my makeup. These creams are similar to Mac Paint Pots in that you can wear them on their own (with a little work to get them even) or you can layer powder shadows over them. I saw no difference in the wear time by wearing them alone or with powder over top.

Next I set out to figure out the best way to apply them. Fingers gave messy results so I decided to try a small, flat shader brush. This gave me a much more even, smooth and opaque result. I think that this option is probably going to give you the most even and opaque coverage versus using a finger or a fluffy brush. The most noticeable difference was in using Bold Gold -- it didn't blend out to nothing but gold glitter if I used a brush.

My last test was as a cream eyeliner. I tested Pomegranate Punk and found that in one layer, I got a decent liner, but after letting that layer set and then going back over top one more time, I got a really gorgeous burgundy liner. I took some photos (I am wearing Bold Gold on the lid packed on with that shader brush):

You can see just above the center of my crease that I've got a little bit of unevenness going on from the flat brush. I think that if you move quickly and blend the color into the crease with a fluffier brush, you wouldn't have this issue like I did. I even got a little mascara smudge on my lid and flaked it off with my fingernail, and had no residue from where the shadow scraped off. Once these shadows dry, they are on there for good. This eye look had no primer or base, not even foundation on my lids. I'm about 3 hours into wearing it and I've had no creasing... color me impressed!

Overall, absolutely in love with these and I NEED the rest. I think these would be a great addition to someone's makeup kit if they freelanced or whatnot, and would be great for the average user that wants colored bases that don't crease! These knock NYX Jumbo Pencils out of the park.