bareMinerals READY Eyeshadow 2.0 in The Top Shelf

The bareMinerals READY Eyeshadow 2.0 in The Top Shelf is definitely a lovely duo to have on hand for the holiday season.  Paired with a red lip, you have a classic holiday look.

The two shades in the duo are:

• Mixologist - satin champagne beige, very true to pan color.
• Cognac - warm metallic antiqued gold verging on bronze (but not overly orangey even on my pale pink skin)

The texture and payoff on both of these shadows is just phenomenal.  They are buttery soft, very pigmented and they blend like a dream.

I picked this duo up months ago when Ulta was having a big bareMinerals sale, so I got it for less than 50% of retail.  If you can't find a sale, these duos cost $20 wherever bareMinerals is sold.  The duo contains 3 grams of product.

Overall:  10/10

bareMinerals READY Eyeshadow 4.0 in The Happy Place

The bareMinerals READY Eyeshadow 4.0 palette in The Happy Place is nothing new.  It's been out for at least a year and is readily available wherever bareMinerals are sold.  

I tried the bareMinerals quad in Truth, which everyone seems to rave about, but I really didn't care for it.  I thought the payoff was less than stellar.  But ... I decided to give the line another try.

I picked this quad up months ago when Ulta was having some crazy sale on bareMinerals.  I think I ended up getting it for like $10.  It was too good a deal to pass up.

But after I picked it up, it just sat in my makeup storage for months.  Anyway, lately I've been really gravitating toward plummy shadows, so I decided to pull out this quad and use it and I've been just blown away by the quality.  

I did notice that a lot of the online reviews for this quad (both at blogs and retailers) make it seem a lot darker than it is.  This is not a smoky quad.  These are bright, vibrant colors (okay, maybe not the matte brown, but definitely the others).

The shadows are:

• Peace - matte light peach.
• Imagine - metallic peach that swatches a bit darker than it looks in the pan.
• Euphora - metallic smoky plum that swatches a bit more taupe-y than you would think
• Exhale - matte cool medium brown

The color payoff on these shadows are phenomenal.  And the mattes might be even easier to work with than the metallics (that NEVER happens).  The mattes are so soft and so pigmented that they almost behave like cream products.  I have matte shadows that I love, but none of them even come close to the texture on these two shadows.

The metallics are vibrant and easy to work with.  I've said it again, I think it must be fairly easy to make a good metallic shadow, but these are no exceptions.  They're beautiful.

All in all, this is a fantastic palette and I'm kicking myself for leaving it sitting in a drawer for so long.

As mentioned earlier, I picked this quad up on sale at Ulta.  It contains 5 grams of product and usually retails for $30 wherever bareMinerals are sold.

Overall: 10/10