Fyrinnae : Eye Shadow Swatches & Review

I've realized that at the pace that I'm moving, my indie obsession "month" is going to turn into more of an indie obsession two months. I looked at what I still have yet to receive in the mail and what I still need to swatch at my house and it's... a lot. Regardless, today I'm going to be talking about Fyrinnae! Back before I had ever even heard of Reddit or the indie makeup community, I had heard about two indie companies; Shiro (which I have coming up, it's just going to take a long time to do swatches) and Fyrinnae.

To be honest, Fyrinnae's website put me off and I held back from ordering for a very long time; I guess I'm just a really visual person and I couldn't get past the web design for a while. However, I eventually got over it and after seeing so many beautiful shadows, I had to place an order. You guys, you guys; don't be like me, don't let the website deter you from ordering. These shadows are seriously amazing quality and applying beautifully. 

The pictures above are from my first order, however the swatches include a few more shadows since I placed a second order not too long after the first. I also ordered some lip lustres and their Pixie Epoxy, but those items are going to receive their own posts, so I'm only focusing on the shadows (and two blushes) at this point.

I do have a few individual comments for certain shadows, but I can honestly kind of do a lump review because the quality of every shadow is so similar that they all fall under this umbrella. Typically speaking, loose powder shadows are very powdery; I think that idea kind of goes without saying, but Fyrinnae's shadows aren't like that. They did a reformulation of their shadows in early 2013, so I can't compare the old and new formulas, but the new are much more of a semi-loose shadow. Fyrinnae writes on their website that there might be some clumps in the shadow due to this and that's definitely true, but you can just the blunt end of your brushes to break them up and then they become perfectly useable.

Every single one of their shadows that I own is buttery and smooth and insanely pigmented; more pigmented than any other indie shadow and maybe all of the other shadows that I own.  I kid you not. I can literally dip my little finger in the powder and swipe it down my arm and get full pigmentation. While it's an undeniable fact that all the shimmery shadows look better on top of their Pixie Epoxy, I can get full pigmentation with just plain old primer underneath. I don't really know what I was expecting when I purchased these, but whatever it was it was completely blown out of the water.

Before I get to swatches, I just want to tell you that no matter how nice the shadows might look in photos, they look 1000x better in real life. The beauty and complexity in these shadows is so incredibly hard to photograph, but I tried my best. And my last words before showing you the swatches are these: if you love eyeshadow and you love complex, amazing colors, then buy some Fyrinnae shadows!

Ok, now to the swatches.

I'm really sad about these photos for one huge reason: Mephisto. I could not get Mephisto to photograph true to itself! Remember Blue Flame from the Darling Girl post? Mephisto is basically the evil twin of Blue Flame... Mephisto having a navy base with a red overlay/shift. Essentially, what I'm trying to tell you is that I'm a horrible person and I couldn't get Mephisto to show its majestic-ness in these photos. Sorry. It's awesome though, believe me.

Out of focus for those sparklezzz

I got a little overzealous with Bawdy Librarian... so there was some fallout

This was my favorite set of shadows to swatch! Sake & Sashimi actually has green sparks in it which makes it unexpectedly awesome, in my opinion. Do you see that reddish shift in Serendipity? Seriously, to die for; I would sell my first born for that. My absolute favorite shadow from this set is Velveteen Werewolf, which is actually part of their Arcane Magic collection (it has its own section on the website, make sure to visit it). I can't even put into words why I like Velveteen Werewolf so much other than it's fucking gorgeous, so there. 

Greek Goddess and Royalty are both blushes; yup, that lovely purple shade is blush. I got a purple blush last year with the Creme de Couture collection from Sigma and I kind of fell in love with it. I've been wanting something that is more purple and less Lavender, so I decided to pick up Royalty. The swatches that I did are several swipes of the product, so unless I pile it on my face, it won't be that dark when I wear it. Greek Goddess has a bit of shimmer, but Royalty does not, so any shimmer showing up is just fallout from something else.

Out of focus for SPARKLES!!!

And then there is this gorgeous bad boy. I'm an idiot and tried to swatch this over Pixie Epoxy, which was incredibly stupid. Pixie Epoxy is specifically made for shimmer and glitter shadows, not matte shadows (which is what Inappropriate Popsicles is). I couldn't get a good swatch of this shadow, but I'll try to incorporate it into an eye look so that you can see what it looks like!

And that's that! Like I said above, I'm going to do a separate post for the Lip Lustres and Pixie Epoxy, but if you're curious, I've posted some swatches on my instagram (link on the right side of this page!). Questions or comments? Let me know down below!