Sugarpill Cosmetics Review

I've been a fan of Shrinkle's for a long time, i own several items from her clothing line, and have always enjoyed reading her blog posts because she seems like a genuine, fun loving, sweet girl. She introduced me to Kryolan makeup and I always giggle at her blog posts detailing her love for Ron Perlman and grow lustful at the photos of amazing food she often posts (and yet remains so trim, damn you Amy!) and i've really liked her bright, colourful style and tranny/clubkid/80s rainbow brite girl makeup. So when i heard she was working on her own makeup line i was obviously really excited. I was sure that Amy would be taking the Kryolan she sells as her inspiration and creating something even more bright and beautiful.
And i was not disappointed.




Sugarpill's website is really impressive. Go and have a look, go on, i'll wait :)
Look at the pretty, pretty website!
I think it's really impressive because not only is it really functional and attractive but it instantly gives you a really strong sense of the brands identity (a sort of naughty/nice punky pretty cuteness) and establishes the brands colour scheme of hot pink, black, white and blue. The website is easy to navigate and includes information about the brands formation, links to video and blog reviews and tutorials, absolutely gorgeous images and very clear photographs of the products. The product photos are really impressive to me, not only do they show the product in it's packaging but also close ups of the colour, skin swatches and in some cases the products used in a look.

Currently Sugarpill sell 9 colours of pressed eyeshadows, 3 pressed shadow palettes, 11 loose eyeshadows, false eyelashes and stickers of the Sugarpill logo but if you read This interview by Grey  you'll see that Shrinkle is planning many different products to come later on.

My girlfriend and I made an order together (we're sharing everything) and ended up buying 2 pressed shadow palettes, 1 single pressed shadow, 1 pair of eyelashes and 3 loose eyeshadows. At the time we ordered Sugarpill was having a pre-order sale of 15% off everything and the total of our order came to $105 which i was more than happy with. My order took under 2 weeks to arrive from America, and as the shipping was free (free shipping anywhere in the world if you spend $75) that was really great for me. Even better was that it arrived with no customs charges attached! .

 And here is the parcel:

(flap of paper is to cover up our address :P)
Cute huh?
Inside everyting is wrapped in pink tissue paper and arranged beautifully:

Can you see how wonderfully everything fitted together? I don't know if it's a coincidence or on purpose, but all the products slotted together perfectly, so they couldn't move around during shipping. Also there was no waste of a box too big for the products (i'm talking to you here Mac!). As you can see the packaging is absolutely stunning. Each product comes in an absolutely gorgeous box, and then the product themselves are in matching custom jars and compacts. The packaging is really high quality too, the cardboard palettes are really heavy duty, the plastic jars are thick and the logos are printed on, not just stickers.

Our order came with some gorgeous free stickers, an invoice with personal note and Amy was amazingly generous and gave us a free full size shadow! :O Claire was really happy because Amy's note mentioned a necklace she bought from Claire once. It's little things like this that make a big difference.



So here are my thoughts on the products I bought:


Firstly the eyelashes



Hee hee!


Nice instructions.


These are the 'Dewdrop kisses' lashes and have beautiful little crystals on the hairs. Sugarpill stock another pair of lashes too, a more regular cat-eye pair. They were $8 which is basically the average price for a pair of lashes. These are the only product i haven't used yet but keep an eye out for a FOTD with them soon :)

Next the pressed eyeshadows. We bought 2 of the palettes which contain 4 shadows each but cost $34 instead of $48 (single shadows are $12 each) so you're effectively getting a free shadow and $4 off :) Sugarpill offer 9 pressed shadows and the two palettes we got, Sweetheart and Burning heart, had 8 of them!


front of the box


back of the box


Front of the actual palette


back of the palette.


And all the shadows together.
Palette on left is Sweetheart with Dollipop (matte hot pink), Afterparty (slightly shimmering bright blue), Midori (slightly shimmering forrest green) and Tako (matte white). Palette on the right is Burning Heart with Flamepoint (matte bright, nearly neon orange), Buttercupcake (intense bright primary Yellow), Love + (slightly shimmering poster-paint red) and Poison Plum (slightly shimmering royal purple). There is another palette, Cold heart which includes Bulletproof, Tako, Poison Plum and Afterparty.

As you can see the palettes are beautiful, decorated with the Sugarpill logo in hot pink and silver on black with the Addicted to Pretty kitty on the back. They are made of a very heavy duty cardboard, which means they might get scratched or damaged with very heavy use, but will take some knocking and scratching for that to happen. They open to show the shadows and a really good mirror. You can easily pop out the individual shadows as the palette and pans are magnetized, so you can swap with other colours if you wanted to.

We decided we had to have the last pressed eyeshadow, Bulletproof, which is a matte black. Here is the packaging this came in.


box front


box back


top of the eyeshadow


back of the eyeshadow.

 

Bulletproof Eyeshadow between a Mac shadow and a MUFE shadow. It's hard to tell but the Sugarpill is slightly larger than the MUFE.

These shadows are gorgeous. Personally i generally find pressed eyeshadows easier to apply than loose ones and these were smooth, buttery and incredibly well pigmented. The majority of colours are mattes, which i really like but some have a subtle pearly shine. They are incredibly intense colour, though i have managed to sheer out Dollipop to use as a blush and used Tako very lightly as a highlight colour. I would say if high-impact bright colours are not your thing these shadows are not for you, but you probably have guessed

that already from the pictures! These colours last amazingly well and they are incredibly easy to take off, just using normal makeup remover. They don't leave any staining (Dollipop did stain my eyebrows but that's because the hair is bleached and the shadow is not designed for use on the brows. It wasn't bad either, just left a pale orangey tint) whih i found quite surprising as usually colours so intense and pigmented stain my eyelids at least a little, especially pink, orange and red colours.

I was very very impressed with these pressed shadows, i think for the price they are very good value considering the quality and the size of product you get.  The colours are simply breathtaking, they're easy to use and wear incredibly well, i'm really happy i have all the available colours.

Now the Chromalust loose shadows. We bought Asylum, Tiara and Goldilux and we recieved Magpie for free! These jars are BIG for $12. Seriously you don't get a 5 gram jar of shadow, you get 5 grams of shadow!


Here is the Chromalust next to one of my Evil Shades glosses, which is in a 5g jar.


front of box.


Back of box.


The lid of the jar.


The bottom of the jar.


Asylum (slightly coppery bright metallic red), Goldilux (pure gold), Tiara (pure silver), Magpie (metallic blue/black with lighter blue sparkle).

These loose shadows are some of the nicest i've tried. Even dry they go on super intense and all have an absolutely amazing sparkling finish. Used wet these are incredible, an opaque, metallic paint. I've also found it's possible to apply just a tiny layer of colour to create a sparkling tint without heavy colour (this works especially well with Tiara and Goldilux). Again like the pressed shadows these have amazing staying power (see below) though i found they did and came off incredibly easily. I've also found that oddly i have suffered much less fallout from these than i have with other loos powders, though perhaps that's just coincidene. Tiara and Goldilux are just stunning, they really look like powdered metal to me but with an added diamond sparkle. There are other colours of this i need want, especially Decora which is a pink with green sparkles and Absinthe which is a light, bright yellow green.

And finally, the gorgeous swatches!


Top row: Tako, Midori, Dollipop, Afterparty, Magpie, Asylum
Bottom row: Bulletproof, Buttercupcake, Flamepoint, Love+, Tiara, Goldilux.
(all swatched  dry)

And here are some looks i did freshly applied:

 

Buttercupcake, Flame point, goldilux (sheer on browbone) and poison plum (as eyeliner)

Asylum and Goldilux (used sheer and dry on crease and brow bone and wet as eyeliner and on waterline)

And these photos were taken 12 hours later:

 

Please keep in mind i had not worn any primer and had been rubbing my eyes as if i weren't wearing any makeup (which is why there's a yellow smudge on my nose in the first pic :P)

As you can see they laster really well after 12 hours of wear. They're not perfect, the colours have faded slightly, especially at the crease of my eyelid, but still held their own. I was personally very impressed with these results.

Overall i am absolutely delighted with what i got from Sugarpill and as soon as i'm off my no-buy i shall be buying some more loose shadows. I can't wait to see what Amy comes up with next. I'm aware that this review is basically entirely positive but i really can't think of any negatives. I know the price might be a bit off putting for some people but i genuinely think they are worth it, especially if you compare the prices. The pressed shadows are $12 for 4g (or cheaper if you buy a palette), compare this to a MAC shadow at $14.50 for 1.5g (or more expensive if you're not in the US) or a MUFE shadow at $19 for approx 2.27g or the loose shadows are $12 for 5g compared to a MAC pigment at $19.50 for 4.5g, a MUFE pigment at $19 for approx 1g or even an Aromaleigh shadow at $8 for approx 1.5g. If you think about it Sugarpill really isn't expensive at all.

These are high quality products in gorgeous colours, the brand has a great image which is consistent throughout their website, packaging and products. Sugarpill never test on animals and the majority of their products are vegan (All of the loose shadows are vegan as well as some of the pressed shadows. It says clearly on the page whether the products are vegan or not as well as providing ingredients). Personally i think they are really wonderful and i would definately purchase again.

(i bought all products except Magpie which was a free gift with my purchase)