Review with Swatches: Maybelline Color Tattoo 24 Hour Gel-Cream Eyeshadow

I've been dying to try these since Maybelline spilled the beans about their launch way at the beginning of the year, and patience is not one of my star qualities. Luckily they finally arrived for testing a couple of weeks ago, and I was all too eager to get going.

Maybelline Color Tattoo 24HR by Eyestudio

My experience with cream eye shadows have always been less than spectacular. I am a notorious eye rubber, and I am starting to suspect that the only area on my face with excessive oil glands are my eyelids. Needless to say, by lunchtime I generally have a beautiful (?) line in the crease of each eye, with some smudgings to compliment it. I'll leave the graphic description of what happens on a warm day up to your imagination - but it's a mess, and there's nothing hot about it.

But back to the present. The formula makes use of waxes, lightweight gel and 30% pearls and colourants to deliver intense bold colour. The shade I reviewed is Permanent Taupe (it's called Tough as Taupe in the US, I think that sounds way cooler), and I am most impressed with it's Taupe-ness, for starters. It's not champagne, beige or brown - it's proper almost-putty coloured Taupe. I applied it with my fingers (you can use an eyeshadow brush too), and I soon realised you have about a minute or two to play with it - after that, it sets/dries, and it's pretty much a done deal. As you can see in the pic below, you can control the intensity of the colour very easily.

Swatched: Maybelline Colour Tattoo in Permanent Taupe
(or Tough as Taupe, depending on where you live)

Does it last 24 hours? I don't know, I would probably sleep it off on my pillows if I attempted to test that theory. On one of the days I wore it I noticed some very slight shifting in the crease by mid afternoon*, but on all days at least 80% of it was still present after 12 hours. It's already moved into my (very small) daily makeup bag, and I'll probably add Eternal Gold sometime soon too. And then I can just imagine what you can do with Endless Black...

Swatched: Maybelline Color Studio in Endless Purple. It's really
pretty and vibrant, but I haven't had the guts to apply it anywhere
except on my wrist yet. I would love it if it works for me, but
deep down, I already know COMPUTER SAYS NO, pasty face.

Colour Tattoo is available in 5 shades locally (Boo Hoo, the US has 10 shades), and the RRP is R100 each

C xx

*I was wearing a very illuminating/light reflecting foundation on this day, which also served as the base for my eyeshadow. Bear things like that in mind, and consider using an eyelid primer if that's a problem for you too.