Cheap as chips (Boots Natural Collection Duo Eye Shadows)

Member Name: caz-3124

Product:	Boots Natural Collection Duo Eye Shadows
Date:	21/03/09 (44 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Price, nice colours

Disadvantages: Chalkiness

Natural Collection is made by Boots and is one of their threee make-up ranges. I think this is their most basic range, less expensive than the 17 range and a significant step down from their No.7 range. As the name suggests this range concentrates on natural looking products i.e. keeping in line with skin colours. This range's USP is that every item is priced £2 or under and they quite often run a 3 for £5 offer so this is probably the cheapest range to go to were you wanting to buy a complete face of makeup as it were. It also makes this range very teenage friendly for young ones just starting to use cosmetics or for those who are sticking to a tight budget. I also think that as the range is so cheap it is an excellent way to try out a new product to see if it works for you. I wanted to experiment with different eyeshadow colours not so long ago and decided to pick from the Natural Collection because they were the cheapest shadows in Boots by £1. I decided to buy a few to try out different colours and see what worked for me and if I liked them that was great and if I didn't then I wouldn't feel as though I had wasted a lot of money and get the guilts and could happily go and buy a higher quality shadow from a better brand safe in the knowledge that I would be happy with the colour.

Now Natural Collection does three types of shadows - single, double and triple. They all look the same. They are unsurprisingly cheap looking. There is a little plastic white circular base with the tray of colour inside and then a see-through plastic screw-on lid. Though it looks cheap it does enable you to immediately grab the right shade without having to remove the lid to check. There is no brush supplied which to me is a positive aspect as I find brushes included with products are always cheap and nasty and find it more effective simply to get a proper shadow brush. Moreover were they to include a brush the price would increase. The duos are simply divided down the middle of the pot with a different colour on either side.

When you pick a pot the colours in it are complementary so you have a light green on one side and then a darker almost turquoise on the other. You can use one colour all over or alternatively use the lighter colour on the browbone and the darker on the lid. I think the colours are easy enough to blend into one another but my major gripe with this is its consistency. It is very chalky. Now I am not surprised by this as often the main ingredient of cheap shadows is chalk. As such it is rather dry and flaky and means the staying power is lacking. I always use a dab of foundation and then loose powder on the eyebrows to ensure shadows have something to stick to as it were but even with this this shadow had disappeared by the time I got back from work, it simply wore off. I found the pigments vary according to which pot I chose, some showed up straight away and others needed repeated applications before it could be seen. Some of them especially the lighter shades had quite a pearlescent appearance.

There are currently five different duos to choose from:
- Frost shimmer / Aqua
- Rosemary / Thyme
- Blackcurrant / Viole
- Plum / Blossom
- Starlight / Midnight
They are £1.95 each so you could say that each colour only costs you 97.5p each and that, well it's a pretty good deal...

Summary: Good for experimentation