Sugarpill Haul/Review

YEEEEEEEEEEE!!! I have off and on debated ordering these products and for various reasons haven't ordered anything until now. One of the cons was I kept telling myself I have colors that are very similar to those and yeah I am sure I'll use them often, but if you already have something that looks like it why buy it? One of my pros was RED-friggin ay'-LOOSE EYESHADOW that... brace yourselves for this, reminds me of the ruby red slippers from the Wizard of youknowwho not to mention I have an obsession with red eyeshadow.WELL finally the 30th was the day where I said screw it I am ordering stuff.

Sugarpill is a homegrown company and by homegrown I mean straight out of my own backyard of Oakland, CA. I don't typically purchase from "e-tailers" or self starting makeup companies for a few reasons. Mainly because most companies just take Micas that they buy at wholesale prices, put it in a baggy or buy from private label cosmetic mass producers (take a look at ladyburd.com, if you're familiar with popular online makeup "gurus" you'll see the exact products they're trying to sell under their own name) and slap their own stickers on it and sell it as if it was really THEIR own creation. Which I am not knocking at all, I have used some of these sorts of products in the past and there's absolutely nothing wrong with them by any means. But for me I'd rather invest my money in someone's self starter company who REALLY is creating their product from the ground up because it's something they genuinely love. That's why I chose to order from Sugarpill because there was 0 doubt in my mind this company is genuine products started of their own creation from the ground up and I couldn't help but to support a Bay Area cosmetic line.

I received my package last Thursday and I could have posted this then, but I wanted to use it the stuff and have something stable to say. And as I know this is a start up company for their sake to get some accurate and honest feed back (if they even read this haha!) and for those of you whom are hesitant to purchase from a new company I wanted to take my time and give this review 100%. I've also done swatch comparisons to more known/widely available products. 

PLEASE NOTE: My pros and cons are stated from the perspective of me being a Freelance Makeup Artist and as an every day consumer. So a pro as a consumer could be a negative as an artist. I don't want to confuse anyone so if in one part I suggest I LOVE something and then further down state a draw back to it. I have tried to define the perspective of what topic I am discussing, if coming from me as artist or regular every day Jane me.

Shopping list.. 

Burning Heart Palette

Asylum Loose Eyeshadow

Asylum Loose Eyeshadow $12

Available at: SugarpillShop.com 

5 grams / 0.19 oz. (by weight, not by volume)

Compared to a MAC pigment which is 4.5 grams/0.15 oz and $19.50 a jar. Clearly looking at the numbers between the products you instantly know you get more with Sugarpill Loose Eyeshadow than a MAC pigment. To break it down even further because I feel like a lot of people just see a jar/tube/eyeshadow pan and just buy it not really thinking of the value or devalue behind it just more for the brand name that's on it. For example, when you go to an every day grocery store and buy 24 cans of Diet Coke and you pay $8 but when you go to Costco you pay $11 for 48 cans of Diet Coke, for most people they'd pay an extra $3 for 24 more cans of Diet Coke as it's a better value. So I think if you do want to invest into makeup it is worth your time waiting and looking into these little details so you get to see what is more bang for your buck. So Mantha here has put on her thinking cap and done a little math.

For a whole ounce of one MAC pigment by weight you would pay $2,080. If you were to buy a whole ounce of a Sugarpill Loose Eyeshadow it would be paying $1,129.

Not like anyone would need a whole ounce of a pigment quite possibly ever, but that goes to show what a huge effing difference there is. Being obsessed with red eye products, there's 0 I can say negative about this color. It's so pretty, it has sort of a wine tone to it so it isn't a true blue-red nevertheless it is beautiful. I am looking forward to the next time I do an intense red lip then adding just a hint of this on the center of my lip for a little extra something.

Anyhow, aside from it being red I think the product itself is wonderful. Sometimes when you use a pigment wet it can tend to look clumpy, clusters up like old wrinkled newpaper, then once it dries it's pretty difficult to blend out. I hadn't had any of those problems with this product. Went on very smooth when wet and blended beautifully. I was VERY pleased with this product. I WILL be getting my hands on more of these loose shadows. I HAVE H A V E HAVE HAVE HAVE to buy Decora next. Magpie has my name all over it too as does Junebug, Goldilux, Hysteric, Starling,  and well... all of them.

In the picture below you can see when dry there is very little color pay off. I want you to keep in mind there was NO base under these products. I wanted to show the true vibrancy of these products with out an enhancer, just completely what they have to offer on there own (mainly because I believe they have A LOT to offer in payoff). So if you did use a base or primer with this product dry on top it would grip onto the base and have considerable more coverage than show dry with no base. In personal use I use my pigments wet so this isn't an issue for me. There also isn't a sifter, which I just want to throw that out there because that could be an issue for some of you. But, I am against sifters as they take up too much extra room in your jar as they dip down taking up space and it would be nice to see in the future small plastic caps like the ones that come with MAC pigments because I feel like it help keeps the fly away pigment mess at bay.

My biggest issue with the product is it's name. Not the name "Asylum", but the name of the actual product. On SugarpillShop.com it's just simply listed as a loose eyeshadows, but you can see on the box the products are titled Chroma Lust. From a marketing stand point (as I have a strong background in retailing) I wish the website will change the name instead of just listing these products as loose eyeshadow to Chroma Lust. I think at this stage in the game Sugarpill should stick to what they're calling the product. Not something just because every typical Sarah and Jane know what a loose eyeshadow is. So calling it a Chroma Lust on the site if that is in fact what they want it to go by, there can be little description stating somewhere they're the same deal just different name.

Example: When I hear the words "Lip Tar" I automatically think of Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics. They're relatively of a newish brand as well, but they took that one product which there are many similar products of that nature and gave it their own name so now when you hear "Lip Tar" you don't think "oh what in the hell is that?" You know what it is and you through the grapevine it is a good and reliable product.

I wish they would do that with Chroma Lusts or whatever they're opting to call them because I think 6 months down the road when Sugarpill catches on more people are just going to keep calling them loose shadows, so imagine you're watching a youtube video and someone says "and next I am going to use this loose eyeshadow in Asylum". I mean yeah it's simple they may say the brand name, but what if someone doesn't say the brand? You'd rather your product being known by and listed on your site under the same name across the board so when someone does do that youtube tutorial and doesn't say your company name, but does say "And next I am going to use this Chroma Lust in Asylum" people are automatically going to start associating Chroma Lust with Sugarpill.

Burning Heart Palette $34

Available at: SugarpillShop.com

4 grams/.14 oz. per each shadow (by weight, not volume)

Clockwise: Flamepoint, Buttercupcake, Love+ and Poison Plum

So I hate to compare these to MUFE/MAC eyeshadows because Sugarpill is it's own company and really does not need to sit under the shadow (and I don't mean eyeshadow) of the above mentioned brands. But in order to give you some perspective for the size of these shadows I have to reference more known products for you to give you a comparison. A MAC eyeshadow is 1.5 grams/.05 oz at $14.50 for a potted shadow and $11 for a pro pan refill. A MUFE eyeshadow is 2.26 grams/.08 oz and $19 per potted eyeshadow. So Sugarpill Eyeshadows are just a hair under 2x (two times) the product of a MUFE shadow and just over 2.5x the amount of a MAC eyeshadow.

While this is an amazing value, but as a freelance artist it's a little bit of an annoyance, I use larger palettes (15 to 28 eyeshadows per palette) for all of my powder products so I can open up all the palettes and see everything than do work. Because there aren't any companies that I am aware of with shadows that are of this same size there aren't any large size palettes with individual wells for them. I would have to keep these in their own 4 well palettes and carry around a few of them or use a Z Palette. Which I don't think is entirely necessary to have to go to a whole different site and buy a seperate palette to store them how I want. NOW, when Sugarpill grows more hopefully we can get perhaps a 10 pan pallete to put shadows in so when we're ordering the rest of our makeup crack we can just order everything we need in one spot.*cough*please?*cough*

You can see I put the MUFE shadow next to Poison Plum in the Sugarpill palette, I think this best shows you how much larger SP pressed shadows are. You can see on the right with the MUFE shadow there is a thick gap between it and the palette well.

These shadows cost $12 individually. So if you chose to buy the potted forms of these shadows you'd be paying $48 yet you only pay $34 for them collectively in the palette. Look at it like this... say you want to put together your own MAC quad. You go to the store and pick out whatever shadows you want, it's $11 per pan so $11x4= $44 + $5 for the empty quad to put them in brings it to $49. While the Sugarpill palette A) has a mirror where as MACs quads do not so instead of lugging around a quad and a mirror, I can just carry around 1 thing. B) CUTE. It's something I'd much rather pull out of my kit/makeup bag/purse than a MAC quad and let me tell you I put this quad in my purse tonight and took it out with me because of the mirror and when I was checking my face while out at dinner and people were asking where I got my compact at AHEM, cuteness. For shits and giggles here is a size comparison between a MAC quad and a Sugarpill palette:

Down side to Sugarpill palettes is they are a paper material so they're not so easy to clean and they aren't sold individually. In the pictures of the palette that I personally have taken you will see extra fall out from the shadow which is beyond normal, problem is... I actually really tried to get it cleaned off before taking pictures and because of it being paper it sort of gets stained. I hope in the future these palettes come out as a solo item so you can purchase them on their own and mix and match your colors all you want and eventually are redone to be a plastic body.

Similar to a MUFE eyeshadow singles there is a small hole in the under portion of the packaging where you could stick a pin in and pop out the eyeshadow (BLESS YOU PEOPLE FOR DOING THIS so the rest of us don't have to do any big depotting mess) you CAN do this with the Sugarpill palettes. My personal little peeve is, I don't want to ruin the adorable label on the backside of the palette hahaha so when I took out shadows instead of using a pin to pop them out I VERY carefully and lightly put my fingernail between the pan and the palette lining and popped it up. Which made me a wreck because I didn't want to make one of the shadows crack because some shadow crack easily doing this, BUT crisis was averted.

CUTE sticker on the back of the palette

little pin hole

As for the eyeshadows themselves I think they are gorgeous. INSANE pigmentation. I can already tell you I will be buying this palette again for my freelance kit as well as the Sweet Heart palette and just the single Bulletproof shadow (so I can have all of the shadows eep!). I can not speak words as to how AMAZINGLY pigmented they are. They blend effortlessly. I am in love. I am a Sugarpill shadow whore. Yep that's right. I said it, it's out there, can't take it back. SHADOW WHORE. The only "down side" to the product itself is the pigments are so intense it will stain your lid and that's including a primer underneath. It's not a big deal, you can use an oil based makeup remover to get off the stained portions and you'll be fine.

Overall... love. Pure love. I hope to try some more products soon. I am looking forward to using Sugarpill on clients and seeing how it works in action. I am really happy to have found such a great company so fresh to the game because I'll be able to see it grow and become a junky and want to buy everything and wah wah wah wah. The pros of the products and the brand beyond out weight the cons seeing as the few cons I found aren't very big in my opinion. So I will be buying more Sugarpill in the near future.

Oh and PS if you couldn't tell from the swatches, I hands down prefer Sugarpill shadows over the ones swatched next to them.

FOTD

I love how these colors are so bright they make my skin look SUPER pale.

Eyes
Brows: NYX Retractable Brow Penicl in Charcoal

Primer: UDPP
Lid: Love+ and Asylum

Crease: Flamepoint and Buttercupcake
Hightlight: MAC Next to Nothing e/s

Upper liner: Wet n' Wild Mega Liner in Black

Lower liner: Buttercupcake and Love+

Mascara: Rimmel Extra Super Lash

Lashes: EBay Lashes

Face
MAC Studio Moisturecover (NW15) and MAC Mineralized Skin Finish Natural (Light-Medium)

Cheek: NYX Rouge Cream Blush in Boho Chic

Highlight: MAC Shroom e/s

Bronzer/Contour: Benefit Hoola

Lip 

NYX Round Lipstick in Tea Rose