Sunday, May 22, 2011

NYX - Eye Shadow base

So I'm finally getting around to doing a review for the NYX eye bases that I bought quite some time ago ( Hooray!!) The NYX website describes these as "Maximize the intensity, longevity and unashamed brilliance of your eye shadow statements with our eye shadow primer pots. Each of the three NYX Eye Shadow Bases—for vibrant, pearl or neutral tones—creates a smooth canvas for color, increases its durability and prevents fallout."

Sadly NYX still doesn't deliver to Australia! I purchased mine though Joys cosmetics on eBay. Joy's cosmetics is an awesome eBay store with just about any NYX product you could want, she is super efficient with items often shipping out the day of payment or the next day and typically take 1 week to reach me in Sydney. I believe I paid around $14USD for the whole set with approx $6USD shipping.

The NYX eye bases come in small white lidded pots that contain 7 gms of product ( it doesn't sound much but even with daily use 7gms will last an insane length of time) they have the NYX logo and the product type printed on the top and the product names on the sides along with the claim that they will give 100x more vivid colour, each finish has a different code number on it.  In the set there is Pearl - code ESB02 which is a sheer white with tons of shimmer. The   Matte - code ESB01 which is a really solid matte white, no shimmer or glitter at all and Natural - code ESB03- which is a Neutral nude colour with a slight sheen to it.

left to right, Pearl, matte and natural.

Onto the individual pots.
Pearl - shimmery slightly sheer white - Feels and looks a bit oily on the skin, this might not be a good choice for anyone with oily lids, it would probably slide around a little.
Matte - solid true matte white, feels and looks more dry and stickier on, it also does an awesome job of bringing out colours by providing a solid white canvas to start with
and Natural - neutral nude with a slight sheen to the finish, this is simply just a natural base, it doesn't particularly intensify shadows, and it has a light sheen and slightly more moist texture than the matte formula.
The swatches
left to right, Natural, Matte, Pearl
Personally the Matte is my favourite formula, I simply like the way it almost feels as if you have a nice blank canvas to start with, and on my lids the colours seem to be more brighter than when over the other primers.

The experiment!!!

I swatched a Chi-Chi pressed shadow in showgirl first on my wrist first with no base, this is the one.
This is a very shimmery colour in it's own right and I was interested to see if there was any difference to the finish of the shadow depending on what base it was swatched over. I then swatched it over the Pearl base, the Matte base and lastly the Natural base. This was done about 10:30 am.
Left to right we have - swatch on Natural, swatch on Matte, swatch on Pearl and lastly the colour on its own, no base at all. I looked and looked at the swatches on my arm, and there was almost no difference between any of them. Matte was no less shimmery as pearl was, which I believe is supposed to happen and Natural looks slightly different mostly as the underneath base is a different colour, but again there was no difference in the amount of shimmer to it.  I wouldn't at all be concerned about weather the matte was going to dull my shadows if I was only buying that one.

Next photo 4pm, after doing housework, picking children up from school etc, etc. As you can see the colours have dulled dramatically, but in all fairness an arm does get a lot more use than your eyelids do and I had a long sleeve jacket on outside when picking the children up.
This swatch shows me that the Natural and the matte base definitely last better than the pearl, and I do feel that is due to that oily texture the pearl base has. The swatch with no base is pretty much gone at this point.
At 9pm that night I could still slightly see the swatch that was placed over the natural base, so it appears that the natural base lasts longest on my skin, having said that arms are different to eyelids and I usually get a good 10 hours no creasing out of all the bases, when wearing them as intended.

They are a good budget product and if I have to purchase only one from the range it would be a toss up between the Matte and Natural, and I think realistically the deciding factor would have to be which colour you prefer to start your application over, Natural or white!

Happy Base hunting beauties :)

7 comments:

Sarah Kretchmer said...

How are you meant to use them? Ie are you meant to use pearl when you are using shimmery shadows and matte with matte shadows or does it not matter. If it doesn't matter why would they release the 3 or is that just to cater to different preferences? Ps fantastic article!

RitualEyes said...

OH, i so totally forgot that, yes you are supposed to use pearl with shimmer shadows, matte with matte shadows or to matte down shimmery shadows and natural with pretty much anything... i really don't think looking at my experiment that the matte does matte down shimmer shadows though.

Blackmagic said...

I found the matte white base by NYX made my eyeshadows crease on my eyelid more so than if I were to use my normal primer base. I also found that the base starts to dry out in the pot over a few weeks even when the lid is properly fitted and tight. I'm not a huge fan of these.

RitualEyes said...

interesting, it doesn't seem to do that to mine, and I have had my pots for a while with no drying out, I guess creasing just comes down to skin type.

it's a shame they dont work for you.

D.Sadie (D.G.S.Beauty) said...

Great review! Have you tried Urban Decay's Matte primer? If so, which do you like better? NYX or UD? Btw, great blog. I'm now following you. =)

-Dinah
http://dgsbeauty.blogspot.com/

RitualEyes said...

I've only just gotten my hands on the urban decay primer potion. LOL I have stacks of nyx primer to get through before I open it up, plus I also have the Face of Australia primers and another one that I cant think of off the top of my head.

EsteeDarla said...

I bought all 3 of these not knowing for sure if I would like them but I fell in love with them so glad I got them, I use them almost all the time only time I am not using them is when I am trying out other products to review but these keep your shadows on and in place even when I go swimming