Neutrals from NYX

 Of course after last week's rant about the over-abundance of neutrals, I would have to review a neutral-hued product! I've actually had this mini-palette for quite a while and have been meaning to give it a good look. It's from NYX's Love in Paris collection and is called "Parisian Chic." I chose this particular one because it had a nice combination of shimmery and sparkly golden colors with some nice taupes, too. I figured it would be a good one for me to use to do a neutral smoky eye, like so:

I used four colors from the palette to create this look, and topped it off with a little Urban Decay 24/7 liner in West. I applied the colors dry over a base of Urban Decay's shadow primer and then spritzed myself with some makeup setting spray and headed over to troupe practice. After an hour of building up a good sweat, I came home and found that I had a little color loss. I had also noticed this after wearing it all day on a non-dance day last week.

So far I'm not really convinced that this eye shadow can stand up to hardcore dancing. However, I do really like to use it for daily wear when I want to look nice. A quick swipe of a couple colors from this palette gives me a slightly glamorous neutral eye look that is great for daytime meetings with clients or fellow dancers. I also think this might be a good choice for the student dancer who is only going to be dancing for a few minutes at the recital and wants something she can make use of outside of her dance life, too. The packaging is compact, sturdy, and closes securely, so it should travel well. NYX offers 10 different Love in Paris palettes that are each only $10 for 9 colors, so they're worth a try, especially since they are Cruelty Free.

One of my favorite eyeshadows!

 This may come as a huge surprise to most of you, but I actually have a favorite eyeshadow color that isn't green! In fact, I probably wear this shade more often than any other color in my collection, because it's such a good versatile neutral. It's Legendary Black from MAC's Pro Longwear eye shadow line, and the website describes it as a "warm almost black" which is a pretty good description but fails to mention the lovely golden sheen.

This is my go-to shade when I want to do a smoky eye. I like it because it's softer than a true black and the warm tones pair well with the olivey greens colors that I use so often. It's also easy to build it from a light color to a really deep blackish shade, depending on how intense I want to be. I've worn it numerous times for all sorts of dance events and it's held up perfectly.

 Not the most impressive hand swatch, my skin is pretty dry and I literally misplaced my primer potion (as in I took it out of my train case and 5 minutes later I had no idea where it was), but it gives you the general idea.

By the way, if you have the Urban Decay Book of Shadows Volume IV, "Cobra" is pretty similar to this shade and actually looks better as a hand swatch (it's on the left in the above image), so I might give it a try the next time I do a smoky eye.

You can see how versatile Legendary Black is in these two photos. In the top image I've used it lightly to add just a touch of smoke to this woodlands-faerie inspired look for my photo shoot with Liora K. Whereas in the second image, I went really dark for my performance at the LVBDI. These images show just two of the many, many times I've used this great color, so it was about time I reviewed it!