If you’re
like me, and you like your makeup to be bright, striking and generally quite
obnoxious, your quest for colours has almost certainly taken you through the
pastures of Sugarpill at some point.
For a long
time, I worked quite hard to ignore my desire to try their products; being one
of these boring, responsible adult types, I only have a limited budget to spend
on my hobbies, and within that budget, I have quite a large number of hobbies
and interests I want to spend money on. Despite the fact that many people said
Sugarpill is genuinely worth the money, I found the idea of paying £24.95 for
four eyeshadows pretty extreme.
I found a
number of dupes as part of my mission to ignore Sugarpill. There is, as always,
the 88 palette, which has a great selection of bright colours; with the correct
base, these colours will give you plenty of scope for bright looks. For
comparison, my 88 palette cost me the princely sum of £6.95, and whilst the
pans are much smaller than you’d find from Sugarpill, this palette also gives
me every neutral shade I’m ever likely to use.
My 88 Palette; this is actually my spare, which I bought since I've used up a number of shades in my original one. I bought this from eBay for £6.95, and I'm pretty sure it's the same as the Coastal Scents 88 Palette.
Another
utterly random palette I found in a local independent beauty shop was my W7
Neon Colours palette, which is a little 5-pan palette. W7 is probably best known
for their dupe/blatant copy of the Urban Decay Naked range of palettes. The
eyeshadows in this palette are not what I would describe as “true neons”, in
the same way that the Sleek Acid Palette is, but they are nice, bright shadows.
They are a little powdery however, and so they are best applied as one would
apply a neon shadow, in small patting motions to build up the colour. I’ve had
a lot of success with this little palette, particularly the yellow shade, which
I do think is comparable in its intensity to Buttercupcake from Sugarpill. This
palette cost just £3.95 and in my opinion, proves you do not need to pay a
fortune to get bright eyeshadows.
My W7 Neon Palette; I got mine from a local independent makeup shop, but they also sell W7 at Peacocks, and a number of other "cheaper" shops
The colours
I found I was struggling to find dupes for were decent bright blues, of which
there are five million on the market, but none with any staying power and the
purples. There are always hundreds of purples, but finding them in vibrant
shades from cheap brands proved difficult. In the end, I got suckered into the
purchase of, what remains to-date, my most expensive (but also beloved)
eyeshadow palette, the Sigma Crème de Couture palette.
My Creme de Couture Palette from Sigma; I absolutely love it, and feel like it was worth the cost, but I still die a little inside when I think of the price...
Eventually,
I found an official UK
I certainly
was not disappointed in this palette. Compared to the cheaper eyeshadows, I
found these easy to apply; so easy that I could throw together a quick look
using just the Heartbreaker and a neutral transition shade in the brief time I
take to do my makeup for work in the morning.
Sugarpill's Addicted to Pretty Palette in "Heartbreaker"; I adore this palette. Top row left to right: Velocity, Mochi. Bottom row left to right: Acidberry, 2am
I love all
the colours, but in particular, Velocity, the darkest, bright blue shade, is
the star for me, and I honestly could not name something cheaper I’ve found
that does the same job. Mochi is also a surprisingly unique colour compared to
the light blues in my 88 palette, where I found (as I suspected before my
purchase) that I had an excellent Acidberry dupe in my 88 palette. 2am is a colour I did not expect to
like, but compared to many other muted purple shades, this really has something
more to it, and blended over Velocity, it wipes the floor with many lesser
warm-toned purples.
Sugarpill "Heartbreaker" swatches versus some of my cheaper eyeshadows; the top colour is Sugarpill, the bottom colours are my dupes. All shadows swatched over primer and a white eyeshadow base.
I later
bought the Burning Heart palette, for which I had very high hopes. The internet
generally waxes lyrical about it, and therefore I expected a lot for my money.
Although I do enjoy these eyeshadows a lot, I would say it wasn’t quite the
seminal moment that the Heartbreaker was for me. I feel my 88 palette has a
great dupe for the red, Love+, and the W7 palette has excellent substitutes for
Flamepoint, the orange shade, and as mentioned above, Buttercupcake. The star
in this palette is, of course, Poison Plum; Sugarpill’s famed purple shade.
Sugarpills Addicted to Pretty Palette in "Burning Heart"; top row left to right: Poison Plum, Love+. Bottom row left to right: Buttercupcake, Flamepoint
Sugarpill "Burning Heart" swatches (except Poison Plum) versus some of my cheaper eyeshadows; the top colour is Sugarpill, the bottom colours are my dupes. All shadows swatched over primer; orange and yellow shades swatched over a white eyeshadow base. It still surprises me how well my cheaper shadows hold up.
I
was unsure whether I would love Poison Plum as much as the purples in my Crème de
Couture palette; I thought they might be a bit similar. As it happens, Poison
Plum really is its own beast, and the assertion that there’s nothing quite like
it is very true. For me, it’s a real transformative shade, in that dependent
upon what you put it over or next to, it can look different every time you
apply it.
Sugarpill's Poison Plum versus some of my other purple eyeshadows. I think it's very different to the shadows from my Sigma palette, and clearly much brighter and more pigmented than the 88 palette.
At time of
writing, I’m still waiting for the Sweetheart palette to come into stock at Cocktail,
but the longer it remains unavailable, the more hesitant about its purchase I
become. I feel I have plenty of blues in my collection and I can honestly say I
have more greens than I will ever actually use, so I just do not feel I need to
have Afterparty and Midori in my life. I’m currently toying with the idea of
trying Dollipop in a single, and as for Tako, I am tempted, only in that I go
through white eyeshadow like nobody’s business, so it would potentially have a
place for me.
Sugarpill's Addicted to Pretty Palette in "Sweetheart". Top row left to right: Dollipop, Afterparty. Bottom row left to right: Midori, Tako.
Overall, I
enjoy Sugarpill a lot, and I do highly recommend their shadows from the point
of view of quality, ease of application and pigmentation; the latter being
something I don’t think will be easily beaten. However, I don’t think Sugarpill
eyeshadows are completely inimitable; there are other brights from cheap brands
that will do the job, provided you apply them right. In some ways, I’m glad I
waited as long as I did before trying Sugarpill, if only to learn the
techniques to deal with cheaper, chalkier eyeshadows before being presented
with something so easy to work with, honestly, I couldn't be happier with the products I've tried from Sugarpill.
Primers used for swatching: Geek Chick Cosmetic Labs "Power Up Primer" and Lunatick Cosmetic Labs "Primetime" white eyeshadow base
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