Bobbi Brown Long Wear Metallic Cream Eyeshadow

It seemed like a good time to wrap up the Bobbi Brown cream eyeshadows, so I could finally make my all-eyeshadow recap.  Bobbi’s cream shadows come in two formulas: “regular” and Metallic.

The metallic shades are very sparkly/glittery. For the most part, pretty-colored sparkle in a sheer base. I imagine you’d use them very sheerly, for a light wash of sparkle, perhaps in an evening look (maybe over another cream shadow?). Naturally, this makes them difficult to photograph.

I made my first set of swatches as heavy-but-finger-blended swatches. I took pictures and notes on the colors, but I worried that this picture still wouldn’t give you enough information about the shades.

Chrome Patina is  like a darker, bluer version of Moonstone. It’s blue-green-grey-gold… the kind of color I always love. Brown Metal looks like a pink-silver-brown in the lighter swatch. Starry Night is blue-black with a few pink sparkles. Black Pearl is black-lilac. If you love Black Pearl, order carefully. There’s also a “regular” cream shadow with the same name, and it is a completely different color.

Starry Purple is the most pigmented of the bunch (though keep in mind this is still a heavy swatch) — it’s a very blackened purple. Antique Gold, in the light swatch, is a cool grey-brown with pink and gold (though you don’t see them in the photo). Goldstone, in the lighter swatch, is a warmer brown, with pink and bronze. Mercury is pink-silver. Moonstone is lovely: green-grey-gold. Opal always photographs terribly — the white disappears to leave just pink and orange sparkles. It’s really very duochromey. Surf and Pink Oyster seem the least exciting to me, because there’s no complexity to their colors. Surf is ice blue; Pink Oyster is baby pink.

Because I was worried the photo still wouldn’t show the colors, I applied these shadows again, more heavily than anyone would ever wear them. They will never look like this on anyone, but at least you can actually see the colors this way. (And please ignore the “textural” issues you see as a result.)

In the heavier swatch, I think you can see the blue-green-greyness of Chrome Patina, the slight pink tinge to Brown Metal. Antique Gold looks a lot darker… almost like pewter, and Goldstone looks like very cool brown-gold. Of course Opal loses its shimmer/duochrome altogether and just looks white.

The Metallic cream shadows are $22 each.