L’Oreal The One Sweep Eye Shadow Review, Swatches, Photos
Ah L’Oreal The One Sweep Eye Shadow! L’Oreal’s answer to highlighting, shading, and lining your eyes in one simple to use palette. Imagine that? This is supposed to take all the insanity out of creating that perfect eye look and proceeding to allow you expert application of not only shading your lid but also highlighting your brow bone and lining as well!
Joy!
A contrasting eye shadow look in a simple to use one sweep design.
Does it work?
Three shades of contrasting eyeshadow and a one sweep brush for application to create an easy, simple, fuss-free eyeshadow look!
Well, the concept is brilliant but not new by any means. L’Oreal has simply repackaged the idea behind eyeshadow sheets such as Avon’s In a Wink Eyeshadow and proceeded to reformat the design, tweak it, and create an interesting and unique way to apply your eye makeup.
It’s basically a single contrasting shadow look in a single compact sans the need of major skills for application. I think L’Oreal had in mind that this would appeal to a market that isn’t quite sure of proper application but still wanting a fabulous eyeshadow look. Granted, not everyone can blend well, apply eyeshadow, and create an overall fantastic eye look (I know I can’t) and the idea behind this was to make it happen with as little fuss and application know how as possible.
But how’s it work?
Pretty simple. L’Oreal provides you with a large curved sponge applicator. The sponge is designed in a way that it’s supposed to mimic the curve of your lid and eye area. You simply swipe the applicator onto all three shadows (upwards for your left eye and downwards for your right) and proceed to swipe the applicator over your eye. Presto! This basically applies the shadow shades in the appropriate areas. The light shade is supposed to blend towards the top of your crease and highlight the area, where as the middle shade is supposed to shade your lid, and the last, darker shade is supposed to act as a liner for definition.
Interesting eh?
Well….
The concept is pretty brilliant as they basically took a note from eyeshadow sheets and improved on the overall product however it does not work out so well. I purchased two of the several shades and each had different results.
My first try with the Playful for All Eyes trio pretty ended up in a brown eye look. Although this contains a golden brown beige, a chocolate brown, a darker brown, the overall look just comes across brown, you can’t really see much in the ways of a contrast for the entire eye look. Application with the sponge is fairly easy and it fits the curve of my eye very well but I can’t help but wonder about Asian eyes and those with smaller eye areas to work with as this applicator is pretty large.
My second try with the Playful for Green Eyes (I don’t have green eyes but purchased this anyway since green shades look fab on my eyes. I know, I live dangerously particularly when L’Oreal is telling me this is SO not my shade selection. Sarcasm!). Now this just ends up a strange mess. The green is very chalky looking and the brown liner falls to high on my eye area so it basically looks like I was playing around with my mum’s makeup and proceeded to create some strange, childish eye shadow look. Not that I’m any expert in the realms of blending or application but I can definitely do a better job with three colors than this did.
The shadows vary it seems from shade to shade as the brown trio had ok pigmentation however the green was more chalky with less color pay off. In some ways they very much remind me of Japanese Eyeshadows with that creamy, slightly chalky finish however not near the quality.
- Anyone with a whole hell of a lot of patience (if you have the time and the energy to sit and carefully apply you might see some great results but quick, fast application will end up messy).
- Anyone wanting a contrasting eye look (in my experience the contrast isn’t worth the effort of patient application).
- Anyone who wants a fuss-free eye shadow look (too much work here in my opinion, you can get an eye look using three shades of shadow done quicker without the aid of this set).
I’m going to throw it out there and say these are worth purchasing for the experience of TRYING to get it to work correctly. I had a jolly good time trying to get it right and failing even when I was practicing utter patience. The theory is fabulous but the actual end result is a complete fail. You’ll probably find yourself tossing out the sponge applicator in favor of using your own brushes to creating a gradating, contrasting eye look.
Pretty fun idea but fun doesn’t make a perfect eye look!
Anyone try ’em?
Planning to?
Do share!
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