Almay Intense I-Colour Trio For Blues

In my continuing quest to find the best drugstore products for enhancing my eye colour, here's the second installment! It was suggested to me by Shayna via Twitter (@shaynaburns).

Almay has three eyeshadow palettes each for blue, hazel, brown and green eyes and I chose this one for blue eyes - Intense I-Colour Trio for Blues with Light Interplay Technology.

The trio features three shades, the largest palette being a shimmery cool pink.

The other two shadows are a deep navy blue-indigo.

And a shimmery taupe.

Swatches:

It occurred to me while swatching that the taupe shade was very similar to MAC's cult fave Smoke & Diamonds so I swatched them next to each other...

Smoke & Diamonds on the left and the Almay Intense I-Colour Taupe shade

They're pretty close, although the Almay shadow is more frosty and silvery than Smoke & Diamonds. Anyway, onto the review and the look!

I chose this palette because the other two eye palettes available for blue eyes are a coppery trio and a blue-heavy trio. I know from experience that coppers are usually a great match for blue eyes and that blue shadows tend to overpower blue eyes so I opted for this trio - a less convincing combination of shades. We shall see how it works though!

Instructions for how best to apply these colours are on the back of the packaging and also on the back of the palette itself.

This is of course, a suggestion and it is a standard, basic eyeshadow application technique that drugstore brands tend to use often. Why not, really? It's classic and it works. The medium shade, in this case, the taupe shade is applied all over the lid, with the darker shade (the dark blue) applied to the crease and the highlighter shade (the pink) applied to the browbone (or over the other shades if you want more shimmer). 

Of course, you may apply these colours alone, or in other combinations or you can add to this basic look (IE. applying the dark shade along your lashline and under your eye or using the dark shade on the outer half of your eyelid and the taupe on the inner half).

Each of these colours are very pretty and can be worn on their own or in combination with other colours but I'll test this the way Almay instructs me to.

OK, I added a bit to the look as I've been using this palette for a few weeks the way I like to wear shadow. I followed the basic lid-crease-browbone instructions, but I added a smudgy top and bottom lashline with the dark blue. 

Of course, the photos minimized the intensity of the look, but I think you get the general idea. 

I liked the colour combination of this palette, but like many of the drugstore brands Almay insists on making their shadows so very very frosty! I'm hardly anti-frost, but when I'm contouring my crease, I'd prefer something with less frost. The idea of using a dark colour as a contour is meant to minimize, deepen, outline so when you add a frost to it, you're doing the opposite by adding light and shine. I will say though that the dark blue in this Almay trio is less frosty than the other two shades, so at least they kinda get the idea.

 If I were to recreate this look using similar shades I would use MAC Contrast as the crease colour. Contrast has a slight sheen to it that allows you to layer it but without overwhelming the look with frosty sheen.

I'll use this palette again, though perhaps not together (frost overkill!). But I did like the colours and the texture impressed me as well.

C.