Illamasqua Liquid Metal in Surge Review, Photos and Swatches

On my recent trip to New York City, I visited a Sephora store to check out Illamasqua. The Canadian Sephora stores don't yet carry Illamasqua (sad face). 

The only item I ended up buying was one of their Liquid Metals. I chose Surge, because I fell in love with the colour. 

Here's what Illamasqua's website has to say about their Liquid Metals: a rich and highly pigmented metallic cream that grabs full attention wherever it's applied. Smooth onto eyes, face and body with fingers or a brush and prepare to take the spotlight.

Surge is described as molton pewter.

I love the shape of the package! And this colour makes me want to dive right in. Metallic silver with green-gold warmth. More photos...

The texture of Surge is a wet cream, or a thick liquid. It's like using an oil paint on your skin.

Surge swatched on my inner arm

I googled Liquid Metals to see how others had used them and to read reviews. Yup, then I saw that this gorgeous product was probably not very wearable. These liquid cream metallics like the MAC Metal-X  do not wear well at all, even with a primer or eyeshadow base. 

While the Liquid Metals can be worn on the lips, cheeks, eyes and body, I'm not one to wear (practically) silver as a lip colour or cheek colour. A highlight, perhaps, for special occasions but primarily I'd want to wear this on my lids. Of course, with my oily-prone skin, I knew I was going to have trouble with this product.

I applied it on my right eye on top of an eye primer (Urban Decay Primer Potion) and a silver eyeshadow (Bobbi Brown's Rockstar) and on my left eye I applied it on top of an eye primer alone.

I found that I got some creasing within a few minutes of application on both eyes, although it was reduced on the right eye in comparison to the left.

Right eye: applied over primer and eyeshadow

Left eye: applied over primer only

I decided to photograph it again after some time had passed. Here is my left eye after about an hour. The product has melted almost completely away.

Left eye: after about an hour, applied over primer only

I decided to top Surge with the same silver eyeshadow to see if that prolonged its' wear. So over Surge on my right eye, I added a layer of Bobbi Brown's Rockstar. It's not the same shade of silver, it's cooler in tone, so it changes the colour of Surge. It also changes the texture of Surge.

L to R: Illamasqua's Surge and Bobbi Brown's Rockstar

To compare the two applications, you can see the difference in colour and texture below.

Here's a close-up of my right eye:

Applied over primer and eyeshadow and with a layer of eyeshadow on top

This trick lasted a little while but not very long at all. See below, the creasing that occurred after an hour.

After about an hour, applied over primer and eyeshadow and with a layer of eyeshadow on top

So Liquid Metal is a fail on my eyes, unless I try some other tricks, such as applying a longwear liquid eyeliner underneath. It's a shame.

I could see myself using this as a highlight on my shoulders and clavicle bones for night although it's pretty edgy for that. Or if I could find a power shadow the same pewter shade, I'd use Surge with it.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Have you tried to wear a metallic cream shadow like Liquid Metal or MAC's Metal-X and got it to work? Please share!

C.