Chicca Mystic Powder Eye Shadow

I blame Citrine for giving me lemmings for the Chicca Mesmeric Lipsticks, which I'll review next (which may mean a few weeks...). But when I was buying these lippies I spotted this Mystic Powder Eye Shadow in EX36 Fuchsia Island. It was pretty, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Honestly, I'm not sure what this brand is all about. It started out aiming for ladies in their 50-60's, but according to their official website, "chicca" is Italian for "cute." I have to wonder if women in that age group would really describe themselves as "cute," but okay, whatever. Nowadays, their spokesmodel is a much younger gal so I guess they realized they needed to do some marketing research after all.

All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

Turns out that after some marketing research, they decided that their eye shadow palettes ought to contain just two small pans, basically half your average quads, but ought to be premium price--5,500yen! Also, they thought it was best that their powder eye shadows be pressed into cute but extremely difficult to pick up patterns like thin stripes and small circles and flowers.

And yet this Mystic Powder Eye Shadow in EX36 Fuchsia Island was pretty enough for me to overlook the small pans, the huge price tag, and the hard-to-pick-up patterns. The compact itself I thought was a bit clunky, being square and wide and thick, but still it was weighty and substantial. I didn't care for the gemstone, but on a white shimmery compact it was elegant.

But one swipe of the eye shadows and I started to curse myself. This couldn't be right, could it, that a high-end brand eye shadow could be shittier than the ones I tested at Daiso? I was shocked and appalled at how crappy these eye shadows were: they were hard, dry, chalky, and with barely any color at all. I rubbed, and rubbed, and scraped, and rubbed, and still ended up with the pathetic swatches below.

So basically, I paid 5,500yen for just that tiny stripe of purple at the bottom right there. Wow, what a POS! If it weren't for that tiny stripe of admittedly pretty purple, this whole thing would have gone straight into the trash bin, because that was what it was, trash. Now I don't know if the whole Mystic Powder Eye Shadow line is on the same level of crap. LE items are notoriously inconsistent with the permanent lineup. Regardless, I won't go anywhere near another Chicca eye shadow, that's for sure.

- EX36 Fuchsia Island: pretty only in pictures, unfortunately.

Left pan, top to bottom:
- Ecru, shimmer, very sheer.
- Lavender, shimmer, very sheer.

Right pan, top to bottom:
- Pink beige, shimmer, very sheer.
- Carnation pink, shimmer, very sheer.
- Eggplant purple, shimmer, high intensity. This tiny stripe of color saved the whole palette from getting tossed into the trash. Perhaps I should just scrape out the rest and dump them, because I'm insulted every time I look and remember how shitty they are.