Giorgio Armani eyes to kill silk eyeshadow #12 Moonlight swatch/ review

Here's the Armani Eyes to Kill Silk eyeshadow in shade #12, there's no color name printed on the box or container but according to the official website the corresponding shade name is "Moonlight".

I did not see swatches before getting it, but the rainbowy mixture got me curious since it looks like a pale silvery blue base with fine pink and green flecks of pigments through it.

Here- you can see the color looks rather complex in the jar.

As mentioned in my previous reviews, these eyeshadows have an interesting moist powder/ cream texture. It's very finely milled and intense pigmentation and is meant to be buildable in color.

Swatch, more densely on left and blended out on the right:

You can see how it's almost slightly lumpy on the finger tip.

Here you can see it being a bit uneven on the left, but it blends out easily.

Well at the end of the day- this is really a shiny silver shade. It's not flecks of silver but does blend out to a sheer silver shimmer. It's not a 'white' silver but more a mercury silver, and capable of being blended out to a really sheer layer which gives more a shimmery finish with translucency. Can be layered to a true mercury silver too.

It's a rather metallic shade which means it's not very forgiving on the eyes, sort of accentuates and creases and a bit too glaringly silver. However it sheers down as a nice eyeshadow base and adds a real sparkle to any eyeshadow you apply on top.

Overall rating 3/5. It looks more amazing in the pot than applied for sure.

Stash visit- Armani Sheer lipsticks #34,35,36 and Shine Lipsticks 53,54,55 (2010 Tokyo Coral collection) reviews

Here's a quick line up of the Armani lipsticks from 2010/2011

Sheer 34 Sienna

Sheer 35 Burnt Coral

Sheer 36 Sunset pink

Shine Lipsticks 53,54,55 (are all from the Tokyo Corals collection from 2010- I cannot find color names matching to the color codes anywhere, Armani doesn't print the color names on the lipsticks either)

Sheer 34 Sienna below- it's a sheer browned-red, not quick brick red but a bit of an understated brown red

Sheer 35 Burnt Coral below: it's a reddish coral on the deeper side, not as much orange as I imagine to really fit into the coral family. Again can be sheered out to a light red coral tint- definitely more on a sheer red tint side but not a true red.

Sheer 36 Sunset pink below: it's very delicate sort of sheer medium pink with a touch of peach.

Shine 53 below: a pink with very slight mauve, but not enough purple to make it look like death on my lips, very wearable, it's lighter on the lips.

Shine 53 below- a soft berry pink

Shine 55 below- quite a vibrant orange, it's quite true orange in color, not as scary as the Rouge d'armani 405 in Tibet or something which is even brighter and more pigmented than this. I usually can only wear this under another lipgloss to tone down the vibrancy of the shade.

To be honest I cannot feel too much difference between some of the Armani lipstick families, like Shine and Sheer lipsticks feel very similar to me (Rouge D'armani line however is more pigmented and glides on smoother). Both the Shine and Sheer lipsticks for me are slightly glossy and swatches on the sheer side, of course the darker shades have better pigmentation, but the lighter shades never just 'disappear' on my lips but still gives some nice color.

Armani Eyes to Kill Silk Eyeshadow Intense 1 Blast of Blue/9 Rock Sand/10 Airy Jade/ 13 Black swatch/review

Armani Eyes to Kill Silk Eyeshadow (or Armani eyes to kill intense eyeshadow as per website) are a sort of firmly pressed but will crumb loose eyeshadow that are almost like a compressed cream shadow when blended. Think of it as a very dry cream eyeshadow that spreads smoothly.  To me they are in the same family of category with Chanel Illusion Ombre eyeshadows, other than the Armanis are usually combination of two pigment shades so it looks way prettier in the jar!

Here's the box pacakaging , housed in a glass jar container with screw top, much like the Chanel illusion ombre eyeshadows.

Ingredient list:

 
 
From top left: #01 Blast of Blue, top right #09 Rock Sand, Bottom Right is #10 Airy Jade, bottom left is #13 Black.
They look like a solid cream eyeshadow, but they are NOT. They are still crumbly loose eyeshadow pigments and just simply firmly pressed down. If you tip them upside down and shake, you will get a huge mess =)




Left to right: 1 Blast of Blue/9 Rock Sand/10 Airy Jade/ 13 Black

Here are my dry swatches. Each color is swatched twice with slight different intensity, other than #13 black which is swatched once.  I didn't swatch these wet, but when swatched wet the colors are very intense.
I hardly ever use my eyeshadows wet so that's not very realistic for me.



#01 Blast of blue is a blue with gold pigments, it swatches more like a complex grey-navy with gold shimmers and flecks. Applied intensely it looks like a darkened grey blue with a gold sheen. It seems to have a more 'flecks' sort of consistency than shimmers when used dry.


#09 Rock Sand is a shimmery beigey peach. Very similar to Chanel illusion ombre #82 emerville. I wouldn't think you'd need both shades.

#10 Airy Jade is an icy, frosty blue shimmer. It looks quite frosty when applied wet and almost white.

#13 is a patent black, it looks patent black when used wet. However when dry it looks like an ordinary black charcoal and sort of lacks pigmentation. (When used heavily or wet it's very, very black though). It's the less crumbly and more powdery out of the 4.

Here are each shade on their own:

#01 Blast of Blue

#09 Rock Sand:

#10 Airy Jade

#13 Black 

 Overall 4/5.
Again, not a fan of individual eyeshadows and given the consistency and intensity of these shades when applied more heavily, this is A LOT of product and I wish they can somehow make it into a palette with smaller size so you can try more shades.

They retail for a whopping 32USD each too, which kind of takes the fun out of buying individual shades.

However the finish and pigmentation is revolutionary- I know a lot of brands have came out with loose pigment eyeshadows lately but these are a lot more practical. They are not so loose that they fall everywhere when applied, and the jar packaging with the pressed consistency means they are a lot more portable too.

Spring makeup must see! Armani/Albion/Paul & Joe/Maquillage/Coffret D'or / Aube Couture (February Spring Biteki special edition)

Biteki is one of the top Japanese beauty magazine much like Voce and Maquia (comparable to what Allure is in the US I suppose). Every quarter they release a special pamphlet which features almost EVERY single brand's seasonal collection (not just usual boring promo pictures but literally every item of the actual product), so you can see lipstick shades in actual colors and all the eyeshadows or even eyeliners/ eyebrow pencils all under professional photos!

Along with the pics you also have with a quick description of the product (e.g. this eyeshadow is meant to feature a sheer iridescent finish, or this lipstick line is a pigmented creamy finish), and whether product is Limited Edition (yes the word that makes all women crazy.. =P ) in addition to Japanese RRP prices and color codes/ full names (unfortunately not with English product names too- but I can always figure it out in the end by comparing against official website). Best of all is the main magazine body often uses those products on models, and in this little pamphlet it also notes like 'please refer to page 90 of the main magazine' where a product in the pamphlet featured in spring collection was applied to a model. How neat is that! so you can see great swatch pics on the model. (of course there's some photoshopping but I find the colors quite accurate).

Here are some extracts from magazine on things I want to get, there are so any pages in this supplment, I only took a few pics of the ones I'm interested in, respecting the copyright of the magazine, I highly recommend purchasing the magazine if you could (though this magazine RRP is 550Yen in Japan yet I can only find it for $19AUD in Australia, hello! what a ridiculous markup!)

(Japanese brands below can be purchased from http://www.adambeauty.com/ (cheaper but less choices and slower updates) or http://www.ichibankao.com/ (more expensive but quicker updates)). Not affiliated with either sites.

Maquillage

Suqqu

Suqqu is a Japan exclusive so far I believe (and also UK as a reader pointed out! thanks!), it's quite pricey...

Jill Stuart-

The same pink looks...

Shiseido Integrate

(Which is a drugstore line)

Est and Eprise (both are premium makeup lines)

Kanebo Coffret D'or (I dont find the lipstick swatches too helpful though- neither is the main website, however if you like light to medium shades, most colors are really user-friendly and foolproof, other than a few really dark ones in the swatches you might want to check out first before purchasing sight unseen.

Ayura- again, mostly sold in Japan.

Sofina Aube Couture

Aube Couture is the new line replacing "Aube", it's a bit more pricey, however I think they are also trying to grow into a more mature brand. I'm quite excited about this! purchased a few items already, need to find time to try them.

Giorgio Armani Pink Lights collection- again, super overpriced brand as we all know it...I think the botton left is the 'Blending Cheek Duo' in #4- Rosewood and something..can be seen on official website, RRP60USD (booo)

Shiseido International

Estee Lauder and Clinique

Very interested in that EL palette, I've seen gorgeous pics elsewhere of it!

Clinique ones features 4 Limited Edition eyeshadows in the blossom print (in previous years they've been releasing blushes in that print).

Guerlain Paradis

Guerlain new collection features many single eyeshadows and the Paradis palette #404, unfortunately it's one of those brands that seems to grow in price exponentially...

Paul & Joe Ingenue Collection (reviewed in my blog) and the regular line additions - see my earlier posts for reviews on the Ingenue collection.

RMK Translucence

Lunasol- blossom collection

YSL

hrrrm a tad weaker this year, nice colors but not very exciting, just variations of spring shades really..

Hope you find these helpful! I compared some actual product pics against my photos above and they match quite reasnoably well.