L'Oreal HiP Crystal Shadow Duos, Take Two: The Foiled Edition

If you saw my initial review of these new HiP Studio Secrets Professional Crystal Shadow Duos, then you know that I was less than pleased with them. The loose sparkle and fallout made them one big mess and I just could not get them to work for me.

After I posted that review, a few of you asked if I had tried these shadows wet. I did try them that way, but for some reason I forgot to mention it. So thank you for asking, because now it gives me a chance to post some photos of what they look like foiled:

(left) Precious, (right) Darling

Here are some swatches of Precious with the colors both dry and wet:

And Darling:

As you can see, applying these wet really intensifies the colors on all four shades. That's great, right? Well, the bad part is that when I applied these wet to my lids, there was STILL fallout. And this time, since the sparkles were wet, they would not budge. So just a word of caution: If you're going to purchase these and you plan to use them wet, just be really, really careful when you're foiling.

Also, when I wore these wet, they creased within about an hour. And as they dried, the sparkles loosened up and started falling a bit. I'm sure if you used a fantastic mixing medium this wouldn't be a problem, but I used plain ol' water. But to go through all that trouble, just to have these crease on me...and then eventually experience fallout when the whole reason I was using these wet was to avoid fallout? Kind of a bust.

So once again, if you use a good mixing medium and you apply a VERY thin layer of shadow to your eyes, you might have a really great experience with these. For me, it was just too much effort. I can get a fantastic, shimmery eyeshadow that lasts all day, even when applied dry, from one of my Wet n Wild Ultimate Expressions palettes, and those palettes have similar shades to these duos anyway.

So...are you considering picking up any of these duos? If you own one and it works for you, please let me know! I really, really want them to work for someone--sadly they just don't work for me.