My Makeup Audit: June 2021
For June I had a total of 37 individual eye shadows to choose from including MAC, Nabla, Lethal Cosmetics, Makeup Geek, Meow Cosmetics and Sephora Collection. I’m running low on mattes to audit and I’m starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel so to speak.
Top Row L-R: Hajar Karim – Marsh – Well Behaved – Charcoal Brown – Fabulous Fit
Middle Row L-R: Lime – Club – Red Brick – Brulé – All Woman
Bottom Row L-R: Sour Lemon – Goldenrod – Gameela – Red Alert – Deep Cravings
The big palette consisted of only MAC shadows of varying age. The newest is from 2015 (Well Behaved) and the rest are 2014 or older. 12 mattes or near mattes and three shimmers. A nice variety of colour and a small but ok variety of neutrals. I did not have a really dark matte, but the almost black shimmer Deep Cravings sufficed to do liner duty on most days. On some days I did use my Eye Brow Cake in “Gaze” from Illamasqua for that purpose as well.
Top Row L-R: Euphoria – Equinox – Glitter Dress – Hey
Middle Row L-R: Pixie Dust – Flame Thrower – Deception
Bottom Row L-R: Grandstand – Casino
The newest shades in this smaller palette are the two Lethal Cosmetics shades (Euphoria and Equinox) from 2019. The oldest are by Makeup Geek (Pixie Dust, Flame Thrower, Grandstand, Casino) from 2013-2016 and in between we have the two depotted ones from two different fixed MAC 15-pan palettes (Hey, Deception) that I got for my birthday one year and a single from the Sephora Collection (Glitter Dress) that I managed to date to 2018.
Top Row L-R: Mystic – Selfish – Alchemy
Bottom Row L-R: Danae – Nereide – Juno Moon
I purchased many Nabla shadows back in the day and I think these are from around 2016-2017. As mentioned in previous posts I tend to reach more for my Nabla mattes rather than my shimmers and its been a while since I wore these.
Clockwise from top left: Modern Pewter – Radiation – Cat Days of Summer – Silken Robes – Oddity – Cirque du Meow – Tattooed Lady
I tried to look up how old this Extra Dimension shadow by MAC (Modern Pewter) is and my best bet is that it is from the 2012 collection Reel Sexy. The product has come loose from the pan but somehow I have still kept it since I remember loving it many years ago. It used to be one of my favourites. The rest are Meow Cosmetics shadows and they are from around 2013.
Let’s move on to swatches of each shade and a summary of opinions after wearing them in some capacity over the course of a month.
Starting with my MAC palette. Hajar Karim is just not my type of green. I wore it once and quickly decided it is not for me. A poor purchase to be honest, since I think I bought it due to the (then) unique shade and then never wore it. Lime is an interesting mid green that reminds me of avocado. It is quite powdery but nothing that stopped it from performing well on the eyes on the two occasions I wore it. Sour Lemon is interesting. The shadow leans a lot more yellow on me when applied than it looks in the pan. At first it bothered me but then I enjoyed the shade more and more. I will keep both Lime and Sour Lemon for now.
I barely had time to use Goldenrod but I am quite confident that I want to keep it. It is a deep pollen shade and I know I wear a lot of yellow so i do not mind having a plethora of choice. Marsh was a great crease shade this month, when I got bored with my neutral options. I loved pairing it with a cooler lid shade. Club can also stay. I only wore it once but I do think it is a pretty shade and I need it to go through Round 2.
Well Behaved and Red Brick both work very well. Gameela on the other hand was very poorly pigmented and that makes it less useful than a more pigmented counterpart. I know I have at least two dupes of mattes in this colour that have passed through the audit already so I can easily let this one go. Red Alert is a rusty red with a pinky sheen, a feature that surprised me. I only wore it once but liked enough to warrant keeping it.
Brulé is another old trusty everyday shade. I wore it on eleven days this month as a last hurrah and now it is time to let it go. It’s old and I’m sure I have another matte pale shade like it that can fill its shoes just fine. Charcoal Brown was the only brown matte shade this month and it was used repeatedly. It is a cool brown with an almost green tinge. A versatile shade all in all. Deep Cravings was used very little but this black with a slight sheen was easy to blend and gave an easy soot when I used it. I wish I had used it more to see what it really can do but that will have to be a thing for the future. Finally we have two greys, All Woman and Fabulous Fit. Both suck. Bad payoff and non-flattering shades one me. So out of theses nine, four will go (Gameela, Brulé, All Woman and Fabulous Fit) and the rest can happily stay.
Moving on to my other palette, the all shimmery one. I did not manage to wear all of these. Equinox (Lethal) and Pixie Dust (MUG) were never worn but I can safely say that they can stay for now. In fact I have decided to keep all of these. Euphoria (Lethal) along with Equinox are newer shades and I enjoy them both. Flame Thrower and Grandstand (MUG) are both in the lovely Foiled formula and they are still gorgeous. Hey (MAC) was my main inner corner highlight this month, due to a lack of options, and I must say I really love it as that. It adds a creamy brightness that looked lovely with almost every look. I’m glad I got to know it so well, a thing that would never have had happened outside of this audit.
Then we have three shades that I am a bit torn about but have decided to keep anyway. Glitter Dress (Sephora) is a murky slightly green taupe. The shade is lovely but I generally dislike shadows with a lot of visible glitter particles in them. Glitter Dress is full of silver particles. But I did enjoy wearing it enough for it to stay. Deception (MAC) is a bit crumbly in the pan and it is also starting to form a hard-pan in the middle. But the shade is lovely, a light taupe and mauve mix with a golden sheen. Finally we have Casino (MUG), a shadow that looks really flat and boring in the pan but lovely on the eyes. It is a muted warm gold and I know I have many of those. But to be fair I loved wearing it so it should stay for Round 2 and face off with all my other gold shades.
Then we have the smaller palette filled with only Nabla shadows. Out of these I’m keeping three and letting three go, something I could not have foretold going into this month’s audit. If I look at the swatches I love them all, but when worn the flaws in the formula shows itself. Mystic, Danae and Nereide simply does not look good on the eye. Mystic just turns into nothing on the eye which is sad because I love the colour in the arm swatch. Danae and Nereide are both gritty in texture with large glitter particles throughout. Hard to work with and I just do not enjoy how they look on the eye.
The sole shade that was gritty but made it work was Selfish. When blended the initial grit dissipates and it turns smooth. A mix of hot pink and silver glitter on a somewhat translucent green base makes this one unique shadow. Then we have Alchemy, a rosy base with a strong blue shift. I love this type of shade a lot and it works well on the eye. Finally we have Juno Moon, a dark and almost blackened plum. I loved wearing this a lot more than anticipated, so it was a pleasant positive surprise.
Moving on to the single pots and jars. Modern Pewter (MAC) is a very old light olive shade that I used to love. Wearing it now just make it very clear that its time in my life has passed. It is nothing special anymore and I have no feelings left for the shade. It feels great to let this one go since it sums up the purpose with this audit so well. I needed to do this in order to be able to let the hard ones go.
Another old love that will have the same fate is Radiation (Alien Abduction collection by Meow). I remember this shade as a radiant spooky light yellow green with a visible sickly green shift. Something must have happened with the pigment, because now it just looks like a flat pale yellow. I’m a bit sad to be honest and I wore it on several days just to make sure I felt what I felt. But I need to let it go, since I do not enjoy wearing it anymore.
Shades that were sub-par on the eye besides Radiation was Oddity and Tattooed (Carnival collection by Meow), neither just not adding anything extra when worn. The rest of the Meow shades, Cat Days of Summer (Joys of Summer collection), Cirque de Meow (Carnival collection) and Silken Robes (Times Square collection) were all beautiful on the eye and I will keep those three.
Looking back at pictures from June I feel like I had some good makeup days and a lot of in-betweens. Many shadows turned to be meh on the eyes and I was unhappy with how quite a few looks turned out. My happy focus during the month has been to keep exploring my lipsticks and that made the process more fun than if I only had eyes to evaluate. Below are a few of the looks I enjoyed wearing in June.
June 19
Eyes: Alchemy – Well Behaved – Juno Moon – Brulé – Gaze
Cheeks: Habana (Sleek Makeup), OMG (highlight, Illamasqua), Next To Skin (contour, MAC)
Lips: Spirited Away (Lisa Eldridge)
June 20
Eyes: Nereide – Marsh – Hey
Cheeks: Mocha (blush, MAC), Play It Proper (highlight, MAC), Silhouette (contour, Illamasqua)
Lips: Rose Official (Lisa Eldridge)
June 23
Eyes: Juno Moon – Charcoal Brow – Brulé – Hey
Cheeks: Oh My! (MAC)
Lips: Striking (Revlon)
June 26
Eyes: Cat Days of Summer – Radiation – Caffeine primer (UD)
Cheeks: Flushed (blush, Sleek Makeup), Radiation (highlight, Meow)
Lips: Sultry (Revlon)
June 27
Eyes: Club – Goldenrod – Deep Cravings – Charcoal Brown – Brulé
Cheeks: At Dusk (blush, MAC), OMG (highlight, Illamasqua), Gotham (contour, Nabla)
Lips: Velvet Blush (Lisa Eldridge)
A total of twelve shadows are out after June’s audit. A very good number and larger than anticipated. Letting go of those Nabla shadows was a bit of a surprise and I am happy that I managed to let go of some old favourites (Modern Pewter and Radiation) despite sentimental feelings towards them.
Besides the eye shadow audit I managed to wear 17 blushes, 4 contour shades, 8 highlighters, 19 lipsticks and 2 glosses. That is fewer products than last month and one reason for that is I had more bare faced days combined with accidental repeat wear of some of my blushes and intentional repeat wear of my new Lisa Eldridge lipsticks.
Thanks for reading!