It’s pure coincidence that Katie offered to swatch and compare primers in a week that I was using the giveaway question to ask about primers — but what a great coincidence! Here are her swatches and review:

Sephora Eye Primer: I don’t particularly like the brush applicator because you can’t tell how much product you’re getting. I really dislike that it comes in such an unnatural color because it shows through the shadows and changes how they look. This primer really grabs onto the shadow when you first apply, but doesn’t hold onto it for long. Rating: C

MAC Prep + Prime Eye in Light: Comes in a pot, which allows you to control how much product you’re getting. It looks yellow on my arm, but on the eye that helps cover any bluish discoloration from veins. There are several other colors for people with darker skintones. I can actually use this as a concealer and an eye primer. Bonus: lasts forever! Mine is over a year old and still extremely creamy. Didn’t hold onto the color as well as the last two primers, but also didn’t affect the shadow texture very much. Rating: B

Urban Decay Primer Potion: I like that it’s nearly transparent and seems to blend into my skin; however I don’t like how hard it is to blend shadows when I use this primer. Dealbreaker: the cute packaging is completely dysfunctional. The doe foot applicator is pretty useless for your eyelid and doesn’t get nearly all the product out of the tube. Some choose to cut their packages open and scoop out the product, but I don’t think it’s worth the trouble. Rating: B

Too Faced Shadow Insurance: Transparent and blends into the skin very well. Comes in a nice squeeze tube that allows you to control how much product you’re getting. I find it’s easy to blend shadows over this within a minute or two of applying. Changed the texture of the shadows slightly, but kept colors vibrant. Rating: A

No Primer: Clearly, using any of these primers makes color more vibrant and longer-lasting than no primer at all.

There’s surpisingly little to say about the new Nano liners. They’re meant to be high-intensity pigment (and they’re pretty), but that’s about it. They’re not waterproof; they contain no special ingredients. They’re $5 each — and they’re short pencils, unlike Electro and Flashy. They’d be a nice thing to add to your Sephora cart if you were trying to earn free shipping. Oh, and for some reason I found them very difficult to sharpen. They didn’t seem to fit easily into the small-size sharpeners Sephora had lying around, but the larger-sized ones chewed them up.

Midnight Black and Glitter Black are almost identical. Glitter Black is a slightly softer color, and contains a few sparkles.

Pure White is exactly that: matte white with no sheen.

Coffee is a deep, cool brown with no iridescence and no sheen.

Chocolate is warm, sheeny, chocolate brown.

Glitter Brown is nearly identical to Chocolate, but it’s sparkly and a bit iridescent.

Golden Sand is an iridescent, warm yellow (almost green) brown.

I knew as soon as I swatched it that Iced Brown would excite a lot of you. It’s a cool, silvered brown.

Pearl Beige is a fantastic champagne gold — I know it seems like a weird choice to love, but what a beautiful highlight it would make for the inner corner of the eye.

Kaki Green is an olive drab, a browned forest green with some iridescence.

Silvered green (sage) is one of my absolute favorite colors… unfortunately Silver Green isn’t silver-green. Blackened teal would be a better description.

Precious Silver is a straight-up, plain, cool silver.

Nuage is a fascinating iridescent, blued, gunmetal grey. It deserves an instant following.

Gri Gri is another very cool color — I think Crayola used to call this Cadet Blue? It’s a very industrial blue-grey, no iridescence.

Azur Blue. Wow. Zing! Sephora also makes a nail polish this exact color. The eyeliner has a sheen, but no iridescence.

Lagoon is a reflective, iridescent blue-turquoise.

Blue Jean is another fab shade, iridescent blackened navy with silver sparkles — a lot like denim, actually.

Plum is an iridescent red-purple that reminded me a bit of Urban Decay’s 1999.

Wild Spirit is a blue-purple with a sheen but no iridescence.

Packaging is definitely a big part of the collection, which includes a plethora of makeup bags, travel-ready brush sets, and accessories (nail files, compact mirrors, a perfume atomizer). The actual makeup offering includes a 5-color eyeshadow palette, 4 shades of lipgloss, and a shimmery loose bronzer.

The eyeshadow compact is $32, and the shadows themselves feel like suede (a good thing; they’re soft and pigmented). The shades are sparkly tangerine (gold sparkles), frosty champagne, frosty warm brown, matte medium brown, and a sparkly pink. If anyone knows how to wear orange eyeshadow, I am all ears.
I was inspired to try the orange and pink shades as blushes, but the sparkles became much more noticeable when I sheered them out — probably more noticeable than you want in a blush.
The four lipglosses are matte, and quite opaque — I’d say medium-to-full coverage. They have doe’s foot wands, and though I didn’t test them on my lips, they felt quite sticky on my arm. These are each $15. Sephora’s website describes these as lipstick and gloss in one — I wouldn’t have realized if I hadn’t read it. Though they offer good coverage for a gloss, they feel like a sticky gloss (unlike the more liquid-lipstick feel of Laura Mercier’s Lip Velvets, Dior’s Creme de Gloss, and Givenchy’s Lady Pulp Gloss). The four shades are Naked Peach, Pink Coffee, Rosenberry, and Sultry Spice.

Their waterproofing comes from their somewhat waxy consistency, and you’ll probably want an oil-based cleanser to get them off. Also, I’d recommend against leaving them uncapped — they get much harder if they’re exposed to air for very long periods of time.

I’m also relieved to finally understand the difference between the two blacks: Flashy Black (01) reflects blue, whereas Deep Black (10) is just deep, matte black.

Flashy liners are sparkle-free, but click here to see Sephora’s Electro Liners (not waterproof, but very pretty).

Sephora Flashy Liner Waterproof: Flashy Black, Flashy Silver, Flashy Mauve, Flashy Green, Flashy Orange, Flashy Brown, Flashy Copper, Flashy Blue, Flashy Pink, Deep Black

The Sephora brand can be easy to overlook when you’re standing in the presence of NARS, Dior, and Laura Mercier (not everything from Sephora’s line is a winner, though there are some real standouts). Electro liners also generally take a back seat to their cousin, the Sephora Flashy Waterproof Liners (swatches to come).

But I love eyeliner, and I love tiny sparkles in my eyeliner, and these made my heart skip a beat. And if you missed out on the Pearlglide craze, Electro liners might bridge the gap (click here to compare; they’re not quite as soft as the Pearlglides, which I think is a good thing).

• Black Electro is a lot like Black Russian, though Black Russian has blue sparkles and Black Electro’s are silver.
• Metal Electro is similar to Wolf — though Wolf is pewter (dirty silver; grey with gold), and Metal Electro is silver.
• Electro Mauve is the lovechild of Rave and Miss Fortune.
• Electro Night is a little less “blackened” than Fly-by-Blu, but oh, it is thrilling.
• Khaki Electro is actually a little darker than Bankroll.
• Copper Electro is almost identical to Spare Change.
• Electro Choc is brighter/lighter and more shimmery than Molasses.

Sephora Liner Electro Glitter Eye Pencils: Sephora Electro Liners, Black Electro, Metal Electro, Silver Electro, Electro Mauve, Electro Night, Electro Marine, Khaki Electro, Copper Electro, Choc Electro, Electro Choc, Chocolate Electro