First swatches: BeautyUK Metallic Sparks Eyeshadow Pencils

These bad boys are metallic cream eyeshadow pencils are by BeautyUk, a budget beauty brand that is stocked in Superdrug (they don't seem to be on the website). I've never tried any of these products before as they looked too cheap to be any good. But, I was killing some time and was intrigued by these pencils as I wanted some bases for shimmery eyeshadow. I've ordered some NYX Jumbo pencils, but they are coming all the way from the States, and God only knows when they will arrive. So obviously I grabbed four of them. Each pencil costs £2.50 and has a little gem on the end to show you the colour of the product:





Cute, huh? And yes, I do have pacman nails :D So I picked up the copper/bronze, gold, silver/grey and dark purple colours, just because I thought they were pretty, but there are green and blue versions too. Also there were no testers (Why, oh, why is Superdrug so consistently rubbish?) so I was naughty and opened some. Anyway, here's what the pencils look like:





And now for the swatches! This is my first swatch picture EVAR, my light was way too bright! The pencil itself is on the left, and on the right are metallic colours from my 120 palette swatched over the corresponding colour, with the same eyeshadow swatched underneath to show you the difference:






The purple looks very taupey here, but in reality, its much more of a dark aubergine colour. The grey looks a little darker in real life, and the gold a little lighter.

Now, I have to say, the quality of these is amazing FOR THE PRICE and they are great as BASES. As you can see, they're nicely pigmented and all the eyeshadows look much, much more intense, apart from perhaps the gold, which out of the four is definitely the worst. The bronzey is the my favourite of the bunch as its so pretty, but peformance wise, the copper, grey and purple are equal. The gold kind of sucks, though. It creased on my lids after a couple of hours (although I have only worn it under the gold from my Sleek Original palette, which foils anyway and that may have contributed) and it definitely made the least amount of difference to the shadows I swatched, but that could just be the choice of shadow. The gold also has glitter in it, which I'm really not looking for in a base. But one out of four ain't bad, and the bronze would probably show up gold colours fairly well. All the colours blend well, don't drag on the eye too much, and apart from the gold, when used over a primer and set with an eyeshadow, they've stood up pretty damn well to a hot, busy waitressing shift!

Heres a super super quick look I created with the purple on the top lid and the silver underneath. The eyeshadows on the top lid are from the 120 palette and the bottom colours are from the Sleek Storm Palette. My skin is terrible so that's why these are mega cropped. I like the finish the pencils give though, I didn't have to work at the shadows from the 120 palette much at all, and they can be a bitch to work with.








Pros:
-Really cheap at £2.50 each.
-Give a really nice sticky base for colour to cling to
-Blend well
-Nice and pigmented
-Cute packaging

Cons:
-Inconsistent. Some colours are better than the others. The gold colour did not last well on my lids whereas the others did, and its much thinner in consistency.
-The pencil tips break quite easily
-Pretty sure these are marketed as an eyeshadow. No way in hell would I wear these alone. They need to be set.
-No testers in store.
-The gems are really loosely glued on - pretty sure they'll fall off soon.

Would I repurchase?: Possibly, we'll have to wait and see until my NYX order gets here, and then I can compare the two. But for £2.50 they are definitley worth the cash. They're not stocked on all BeautyUK stands but I found them here: http://beautyscenttoyou.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=40&products_id=5193

Love and kisses,

Robyn xxx