Every colour of the rainbow!

Colours and sparkles have always been my kryptonite.    I recently heard of a make-up retailer called Inglots through a very positive review/rave by xsparkage on Youtube.  I was so excited when I saw it.  You have to understand that I’ve spent A LOT of money on eyeshadows, and sometimes I regret purchasing them because the quality is low.  It has very little to do with brands.  What I mean is that either they don’t stick properly to the skin, they lack pigment, the texture is chalky, they don’t blend well, or they are not true to colour.  I’ve pretty much settled for MAC shadows as the safe route because they are relatively affordable for me with my pro discount, and they work well.

When I first heard of Inglots, the first thing I did was search up their website.  I’m practically a pro at online shopping =D  I was a wee bit disappointed that you couldn’t make orders online, however they can take orders by phone and all orders over $150 ships for free.  It just so happens that I was planning my trip to Las Vegas at the end of 2010, and I decided to look up locations of make-up retailers not in British Columbia.  I literally screamed with excitement when I saw that Iglots was at the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace.  My sister came running into the room wondering what the fuss was about.  When I told her, she informed me that there used to be a location at Metrotown but it closed (she’s guessing) due to lack of business/popularity.  WHY? WHY?!?!  I guess it’s not as flashy as Sephora, and MAC was their main competition.  Now there are only 3 locations in Canada and they’re at the other end of the country.

Anyways, enough of the story.  I got to the store and spent about an hour (probably longer) trying to choose my colours, and I’ve settled on the 3 palettes – neutrals, yellow-blue, purple-red.  Here are my lists of PROs:

1. Freedom System
   Each palette above can fit 10 shadows and you can mix and match to your liking.  They have hundreds of colours so it does take some times to narrow down!  I’ve swatched till my hands turned black.  I didn’t have enough money to do so, but it also applies for concealers, blush, and lipsticks!
2. Eyeshadow size
   They have round pans similar to MAC sizes for cheaper but the large rectangular ones are much bigger – similar to the size of Make Up For Ever shadows but for 1/4 of the price.
3. Price
   Each palette costs $50  – that’s it.  No separate price for each shadow and then buying the palette.  It’s a one price deal.
   Compare to MAC: $13 per shadow + $16.50 for the palette = $211.50 to fill up one palette not including tax.
4. Pigmentation
   Excellent!  The colours are vibrant and the camera managed to capture quite well the sparkles embedded in the eyeshadows.  This is one of the MAJOR pros of the shadows.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’m very attracted to sparkles so obviously I have a collection with quite a few sparkly shadows.  However, almost 100% of the time, they look good on the pan but no sparkles end  up on your skin.  It either falls off or the sparkles are only on the surface of the shadow and disappears after a few uses.  Iglot shadows have fine glitter pressed within the a matte colour and applies very well without looking overly glittery – that’s a eureka moment right there.
5. Palette Casing
   Perfect for make-up artists, or just for traveling.  The case is heavy duty so the shadows don’t break as easily.  The lid is attached through strong magnets at the corners of the case. I can stack all 3 palettes together and only use one lid if I’m traveling to a job.  Genius!

CONS

1. It is a bit difficult at first to remove the shadows from the pans once they’re in.  It look me some experimenting and chipped little bits of the shadows while trying, but eventually I figured out a way using a spatula.
2. The casing is heavy duty, so it is slightly heavier to carry around by hand.
3. They are numbered rather than named (probably because there are so many colours, it’ll take them forever) and the numbers are not in any kind of order.  For example, when I was looking through all the yellow colours organized by shades, the numbers are random.  It would have been much easier if the smallest number is for the lightest yellow and increase as the colour darkens.  The girl working there couldn’t even tell me which shadow it’ll be if I gave her a number.
4. There are no close locations to me so I can spend my days swatching like crazy (that could be a good thing…).

That’s it!  All in all, it was one of the best parts of my trip.  I’ve found my eyeshadow palace and I’m staying for awhile =)