Review & Swatches: NYC Halloween 2012 Limited Edition Sweet & Devilish Collection (eyeshadow & polishes)

Can you smell that? Halloween is in the air! (Well, at least at the drugstores...)

I finally found the NYC Halloween 2012 Limited Edition Sweet & Devilish Collection at my local Rite Aid (click here for pics of the display) and I couldn't resist picking up a few items. I of course bought the eyeshadow duo with the bright red shade, and also the polishes (except for the clear top coat that glows under black light--I don't come across too many black lights at my age. Sad.)

So let's start with the eyeshadow:

 NYC Limited Edition City Duet Eye Shadow in Devilish

(retail: $2.99, 0.07 oz)

You all know I'm a sucker for true red eyeshadows (why are there so few options at the drugstore??). Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers has a true red shadow again this year as well (I'll be showing you more pics of that duo in an upcoming post) but let's take a closer look at NYC's offering:

It's hard to see, but if you look really closely, you'll notice that there are tiny, sparse flecks of glitter in both colors. The glitter is so sparse though, that you cannot see it when on the eye. Both shades are true mattes with no shimmer whatsoever.

Using the exact directions as printed on the packaging, here's the eye look I was able to achieve using just the two shades in this duo (no other shadows were used on my eyes; just my usual liner, mascara and eyebrow pencil):

I didn't use eyeshadow primer for this look, and look at how vivid that red is! It's a TRUE red too. It doesn't lean magenta or orange.

I'm very happy with the performance of the red shadow. Unlike a few other shadow duos I've tried from NYC over the years, this shadow was not hard, dry, powdery, weakly-pigmented or difficult to work with. It's everything you want in a matte shadow: highly pigmented, soft and easy to blend. Also, very little, if any, fallout. I dare say it's close to perfection when it comes to a drugstore matte shadow.

As for the black shade, it's not quite up to the level of the red (but I'm pretty sure that if you're reading this, you won't be too bummed about that since most of already have a zillion black matte shadows). I just find this particular black matte to be a bit dry, and if you look torward my inner eye region above, you can see that it's a bit patchy after blending. 

Staying power for this duo without primer is about 3-4 hours for me (remember, it's hot here in San Diego right now and I also have very oily skin; your results may vary). With eyeshadow primer, this look lasts all day for me, with some creasing at the 6-hour mark.

FINAL VERDICT: If you love red matte shadows, don't hesistate to grab this one when you see it. For $2.99, I think you'll be very pleased with the pigmentation and texture of this shadow, but you'll probably want to use another black matte shadow in your stash because the one in this duo is a bit dry and patchy.

Next up: the nail polishes...

NYC Limited Edition In A New York Color Minute Nail Polishes in Enchanted and Haunted

(retail: $1.99 each, 0.33 oz)

Enchanted

Enchanted looks so pretty in the bottle. But sadly, I have some issues with this polish. First, the tiny hexagonal gold glitter is very sparse (not always a bad thing!) but in this particular frosty polish, it's hard to "dab" the glitter where you want it because, if you do that, you disrupt the frost finish. Usually with frosts, we want very uniform, vertical brush strokes. But since the glitter in this formula doesn't distribute itself evenly with each brush stroke, I found myself making a mess trying to get the glitter where I wanted it, and I ended up disrupting the brush strokes in the process.

Also, this polish is sheer, so it requires three coats for what you see in these pics. I don't know...there's something about a frosty polish with glitter that intrigues me (we don't see too many of them at the drugstore) but this one just doesn't have enough glitter in it to really work, and the glitter that is here really wants to pool up near the cuticle and tip of the nail.

 Haunted

Featuring the same tiny, sparse, gold hexagonal glitter as Enchanted, this time it's in a black jelly-creme base. Again, this one requires three coats for what you see here. Unlike Enchanted, I like that the base is more forgiving (no brush strokes to worry about) which means you can take your brush and dab it with the glitter to get it where you want it. HOWEVER, the formula of this polish is thick and goopy, and it wants to pool up on the ends of the nails. So dabbing the glitter around sounds much easier than it actually is. After I was done with glitter placement, this polish was a lumpy, bumpy mess the first time around. I had to remove it and try again (these pics were taken after my second attempt) and the second time produced better results because I did less dabbing and sort of just let the glitter go where it wanted to go.

If you plan on buying Haunted, I definitely suggest adding a few drops of nail polish thinner to this formula. I think it with help immensely.

In a nutshell, I say "YES!" to the red shadow and "skip" to the nail polishes in the NYC Sweet & Devilish Collection.

Have you spotted the NYC Limited Edition Sweet & Devilish Collection in your area yet? Have you tried any of the other products in this collection? I'd love to hear your thoughts!