Cream Shadow Collection

My love for cream shadows has taken me a while to develop, as a lover of all things matte my shadow palette collection is pretty extensive but over the past year I have built up a cream collection I am really happy with. If you are a regular reader you will know by now I do tend to steer towards high end but I must add a special mention to the Maxfactor Excess Shimmer cream shadows *review. I used to have a few of these and they are really good but when I culled my makeup when moving house they just didn't make the cut over my palettes. As you can see most of my shadows are fairly neutral but all offer a different finish. My only real colour shade is the Chanel Illusion D'ombre in shade Illusoire which is a beautiful deep shimmer purple that looks amazing as a smudged liner. The By Terry Ombre Backstars in shades Mysty Rock and Frozen Quartz are both very neutral pinks when worn alone, but together these make for quite a statement smokey eye that can be applied in seconds. 

As I more regularly wear the gold browns though I thought I would swatch my favourites, and my most worn of the bunch is the Ombre Backstar in shade Bronze Moon, this is a really easy all over wash of colour which gives a nice bit of definition meaning I don't have to wear eyeliner. I love applying the Diorshow Fusion Mono in Meteore on top of this for a really intense gold shimmer, but it also looks lovely worn alone with a really thin cat flick liner. The Chanel Illusion D'ombre in shade Emerveille is the most delicate pink shimmer I could find and I am sure I will be wearing this a tone in spring. The Bobbi Brown Longer Cream Shadow Sticks are actually my least favourite formulation in that they just do not sit as effortlessly on the lid. The do not really set and so I find I have to re smudge it throughout the day to prevent it from creasing. I do however love shade Beige Gold as an inner corner highlight and it seams to stay put if you pat this in with your finger rather than applying product straight on to your eye. 

Just to give you an idea of playtime and longevity, here are the shadows smudged once over with my finger after about a minute. You can see that the Ombre Blackstars stay put the most with the strongest pigment but there is still plenty of time for you to have a play with the cream and get the look you are after. The rest of the shadows are still there but they do take a lot longer to set and even then they are still not as long-lasting as the By Terry. I think the best way to buy the cream shadows is to have an idea of the shade and intensity you want and just go and swatch all the different brands. They all have variations of the same colours, but where if I wanted a deep brown I would go for By Terry over Dior, and if I wanted an amazing high shine glitter you can't beat Dior, so it just depends on what your preference of finish is.