L.A. Colors is a very cheap makeup and cosmetics brand that is available at discount stores like Dollar General, Family Dollar, and Dollar Tree. Most of their products are $1-2, and these eye shadow trios were just $1 each! I decided to pick up two of the more neutral trios to try out. I grabbed “Natural”, an all matte trio featuring an ivory shade, an ashy brown, and a dark brown. I also got “Sunflower”, which is an all-shimmer trio with a pale gold, reddish copper, and a bronze-y brown. There are also several other trios is varying shades and finishes if you want to try them out but aren’t fond of the ones I picked.
I have a very split review on these, because I LOVE the Sunflower trio, but don’t really love the Natural trio. The Sunflower trio reminds me of a foiled eyeshadow, due to its pigmentation and butteriness. It does have a bit of fall out, but not very bad, and I love how creamy these are. The Natural trio on the other hand… this trio kind of sucks. It swatches nicely on the finger, but on the skin and eye it comes off as patchy and is so powdery that there is insane amounts of fallout. The pigmentation isn’t amazing, no where near as good as the other trio, and I have many other matte colors similar to these that I choose to reach for instead of these when I am doing my makeup at home, just because the fallout and patchiness is a pain to deal with. I was really hoping it would rock, because these would be beautiful crease and transition shades, but they are just not pigmented or smooth enough for me to really love. I will still continue to try and make this work, because the colors are nice shades and it is so small that it is great for travel or on the go, but it is pretty “meh” for me. I found that it works best over an opaque white base (see swatches below).
Below are swatches from both trios. The three shades on the left are from the Natural Trio and the three on the right are from the Sunflower Trio. I swatched them over two bases, Nyx Milk Eye Pencil and Urban Decay Primer Potion, and then on just bare skin. You can see that on top of the Milk Eye Pencil base the colors, even from the Natural Trio, show up the best and brightest.
For $1, these shadows are alright, especially the shimmers. They are compact and are the perfect size to throw in your bag or purse for on the go. They definitely require a primer that is very tacky, and an opaque base such as Nyx Milk will make them stand out even more and look more pigmented on the eye. If you plan on using the Natural Trio, make sure you wait until after the eye is done to do under eye concealer, because clean up is required due to the fall out from the darker shades. If you were just going to get one, I suggest getting the Sunflower Trio, as there are better neutral matte shades out there, even at the drugstore.
What is your cheapest beauty find? Did you love it or hate it? Let me know in the comments below!
xo
Byte of Beauty 