Etude House Look at My Eyes Cafe (eyeshadows) review

Dear Beauty Diary,
I have been very excited to get my hands on the Etude House Look at My Eyes Cafe eyeshadows. Look at My Eyes is Etude House's permanent eyeshadow line, and the word following it tells you the type of finish the eyeshadows come in. For example, Cafe is the matte series, while Icing is the cream series. The different finishes have different price tags. Cafe has 8 matte eyeshadows, and each costs $7.90 (USD $6.38). Here's the shade chart for the Cafe series.

The first 8 (first 2 rows) are the usual shades. I guess the 3rd and 4th row are the newest shades. I got BE102 (Honey Milk), BR401 (Cafe Latte) and BR403 (Caramel Latte)

The packaging is quite flimsy and looks quite cheap. When I swirled a brush in the eyeshadow, the pot of eyeshadow was moving around in the plastic pot. Anyway, its price is a tad bit expensive for a product coming from Etude House. However, the good thing is that each eyeshadow contains 2g worth of product. You'll take a long time to finish up these eyeshadows.

From left to right: Caramel Latte, Honey Milk, Cafe Latte

Here's the product description:
Smooth, silky eyeshadow that supplies eyes with a profound, dramatic look.
Guess what? These eyeshadows have a shelf life of 3 years! The packaging said 36 months, which is 3 years. Most products have 12M in that little container sign, which means you can only use it for a year once opened. Haha these eyeshadows have a ton of product, and you don't need to worry about using them up quickly, since they can last for such a long time.

Most of the Cafe shadows are very neutral and easy to wear. They are also supposedly matte. I noticed very very fine white glitters in the eyeshadows. There's actually quite a lot of these fine glitters, but its very fine and can only be seen up close. Some of these colours, especially the lighter shade ones, are very sheer, so you need to apply a lot to see the colour. Otherwise, you need a base to allow more colour payoff.

Here are the swatches of the colours I bought

From top to bottom: Cafe Latte, Honey Milk, Caramel Latte

Almost all of the Cafe eyeshadows have warm undertones. Cafe Latte is a warm pinky brown (looks like a blush type of colour when swatched). Honey Milk is a creamy white, leaning more towards the white side. Caramel Latte is a cinnamon type of colour, and is a mix of orange and brown.

These shadows are very creamy, they glide on very smoothly and are a pleasure to blend with. No problem in the texture department. However, you need quite a lot of product, especially with the lighter shades, since they are pretty sheer.

These shadows don't stay on for very long. They fade away with time. After 2 hours or so, you need to touch up, since the colours will be very faint by then.

These eyeshadows don't have much scent in them. They smell like ordinary eyeshadows (sort of hard to describe the scent).

Overall, I find these eyeshadows ok. The whole cafe series has pretty interesting shades, so if you want a twist to your normal neutrals (like Urban Decay Naked palette), you can try out these shadows. They are also pretty matte. Pigmentation and staying power is just normal. There's not much fallouts, but I noticed that the power is so fine, it creates a cloud of powder around my face when I apply the eyeshadows on with a brush.

What are your favourite shades of the Look at My Eyes Cafe series eyeshadows? Share your thoughts!

P.S. If you haven't noticed yet, I am a neutral eyeshadow lover, I just feel attracted to all those neutral shades. I'm thinking of getting the Too Faced Natural Eye Neutral Eye palette. This may be more of my cup of tea than one of the Naked palettes. Shall do a post if I end up getting the Too Faced palette!

Etude House Bling in the Sea - Proof 10 Auto Pencil (pencil eyeliner) review

Dear Beauty Diary,
I haven't posted for quite some time... Anyway, here I have a review on the Etude House Bling in the Sea Proof 10 Auto Pencil. Bling in the Sea is a limited edition summer line, while Proof 10 Auto Pencil is the name of the pencil eyeliners. Etude House has about 5 of these pencil liners that are permanent, but Bling in the Sea has 2 limited edition pencil liners.

Permanent line of pencil eyeliners

Bling in the Sea limited edition line of pencil eyeliners

They are pretty expensive for a pencil liner, each costs $12.90 (USD $10.41) from the Etude House stores. There are a shades of soft black, grey, dark brown, medium brown and dark purple. Bling in the Sea contains a midnight blue and a deep brown. Some of these shades have glitters in them.

Packaging wise, the eyeliner looks like a cute pen. It has 0.3g worth of product, which I feel is very little. Here's the product description:
Proof 10's waterproof eye pencil supplies clean, intense definition for a long lasting, perfect 10 smoky eye look. Comes with sharpener for fine line application.

The eyeliner I got is in BR403. Here's a little swatch of it. It has fine glitters of gold and pink in it.

This eyeliner is very creamy, I only needed 2 strokes of it on my hand to get it this pigmented. However, it is not pigmented on the eyelids. I need lots and lots of strokes on my lids for the colour to show up. Not very good here, since there is a higher tendency to make mistakes with so many strokes. However, its even tougher to use this eyeliner on the waterline. It requires so many strokes, and this is dangerous, as you may poke your eye or cause irritations to your eyes.

There's a sharpener included at the bottom of the pencil, but I have never used it. This is because the eyeliner stick in the pen is very thin, so even if it is very blunt, the line created is still very thin. As you can see from my swatch, I did not sharpen the pencil, but the swatch is still a pretty fine line.

Most pencil liners always smudge everywhere, but the Proof 10 Auto Pencil does not smudge at all. It just stays throughout the whole day. Even after rubbing the swatch on my hand vigorously, the eyeliner did not fade a bit. Its waterproof too.

There's not much fragrance in this eyeliner either, it just smells a little like plastic. Overall, I think this eyeliner is overpriced. I had trouble with it too, since there was once when I applied too much pressure (because its so hard to get it pigmented on my lids), the tip broke off. There are many other better eyeliners out there. However, I feel that its very easy to use, just swipe it on (many times). It does not require the precision of a gel or liquid liner. Not much sharpening required too. And its also super waterproof, and stays put on your lids, which is pretty impressive for a pencil liner.

All right, that's all about this Proof 10 Auto Pencil. Tried it? Share your thoughts!