Visee x Mercury Duo Brilliance Forming Eyes

Update Monday June 20, 2011.

Julia left a comment suggesting I should try using the cream base on these palettes on my lower lash line or in the inner corners of my eyes, and I did, and though I still don't like the greasy texture of these cream bases, they did work out a lot better!

And what do you know, apparently I haven't been following instructions on how to use these palettes either, because the plastic packaging for these clearly says the cream base is to be used to highlight the inner corner of the eye. Ha, silly me. A classic case of incorrectly using the product and then rant about it. My apologies. I take back some of the mean things I said about the cream base on these palettes ^.^

This encourages me to go back and use all the cream shadows I hate, like that Canmake Jewelstar Eyes below, on my lower lash and inner corners of the eyes too. Thanks for the great suggestion, Julia!

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Original post Friday, June 17, 2011.

Originally I didn't want to go anywhere near these Visee Brilliance Forming Eyes, thanks to the glittery cream base (lower left) on each palette.

I'd made this point repeatedly - I don't have anything against cream eye shadows. Quite the contrary, I love them. I wear sheer ones (Laura Mercier Metallic Creme Eye Colour in Platinum) as base and use the more pigmented ones (also Laura Mercier, in Gold, as well as the long discontinued Lancome Colour Dose in Bungalow Berry) to add depth. But the glittery cream shadows that are usually included in many Japanese made eye shadow palettes, and sometimes sold separately too, like Canmake Jewelstar Eyes (I still regret that mistake, urgh), are something else entirely. And mind you I'm not talking about the cream liners in palettes like T'estimo Frame Impact and Grande Shine Eyes, which surprisingly don't crease on me as they do on most people. I'm talking about the super greasy, crease central, chunky glittery crap that's so gritty it irritates my eyes, like the one in this Visee Brilliance Forming Eyes. And this is coming from someone who loves sparkly glittery eye shadows!

A-6 Blue

A-7 Gray

And then I saw these 2 Limited Edition Visee x Mercury Duo palettes super discounted at Don Quixote and thought, well, at least I'm not paying full retail xD The limited edition palettes are just too pretty to pass up for just that useless piece of crap cream base. Plus they come in polka dots cases with 2 of the powder eye shadows embossed in a polka dots pattern. Considering I've been resisting these since they came out more than a year ago, I'm patting myself on the back and giving them a go.

The A-6 Blue is in a foam green and bubblegum pink polka dots case, and the A-7 Gray in a hot pink and silver polka dots case. In both palettes the upper left powder shadow has a rose embossed print and the 2 powder shadows on the right have polka dots embossed pattern. Beautiful to look at, to say the least.

The rose print and the polka dots pattern are adorable, no?

- A-6 Blue: Admittedly, this is the more interesting palette for me (and I would guess with most people) because of the champagne paired with a blue green. I really wish they'd thrown in a powder base instead of a cream one.

- Cream base (lower left): shimmer, very sheer, looks ivory but goes on a clear base with gold glitter. Heck, since I bought the darn palettes I thought I'd give this a chance but alas, just as I thought it's greasy as hell and creased on me like crazy!!! Gave it several tries too, and even tried applying it with my trusty cream shadow brush that's actually a mini Foundation Brush from Japonesque. Nope, same melty result. To be fair it did enhance the other colors, especially the pretty blue green, if only for the 10 minutes or so before it started creasing. Utter crap.

- Crease color (upper left): shimmer, low intensity, a golden champagne that I like to use as a shimmery wash. I would first apply a [different] sheer cream shadow as base (recently I've been using Laura Mercier Metallic Creme Colour in Platinum and Lavshuca Eye Jelly, which I will review next), then a wash of this color, line my eyes, then finish up with another glittery wash

- Accent color (upper right): shimmer, medium intensity. Appears more on the green side in the pan, but applies a bit more blue-ish turquoise on me.

- Liner color (lower right): shimmer, medium intensity. A charcoal gray that's does its job as a liner.

- A-7 Gray: this palette is perfect for a smokey eye, but other than that I can't really figure out what to do with 2 very similar silver/silver-gray shades. But hey, I like the packaging for this palette better, at least!

- Cream base (lower left): shimmer, very sheer, looks whitish silver but goes on a clear base with silver glitter.

- Medium/crease color (upper left): shimmer, low intensity. A true silver, very pretty!

- Accent color (upper right): shimmer, medium intensity. A grayish silver with a slight blue sheen. During swatching I had to layer this on to show that it is a different color than the medium/crease shade. Normally though, I don't layer on my eye shadow, so this color is indistinguishable from the medium/crease shade on me.

- Liner color (lower right): shimmer, high intensity. A slate black (not quite black) with a bluish sheen. This liner color is more pigmented than the liner color in A-6.