If you ask anyone who knows me they will tell you that I am a little obsessed with makeup. I say a little, that's a bit like saying that Ben Nevis is a little hill.
I am like a child in a sweet shop if you put me in a makeup store. You could lose me for hours, literally hours. I just have to step through the doors of MAC and I am salivating at the prospect.
As you can imagine this is a rather expensive habit especially as I do like quality and that always comes at a price. Or does it?.......

I popped into Superdrug one day and noticed a brand that I had not seen before (Amazing in itself I know!) The brand was MUA.
What is MUA? -
MUA Stands for Make Up Academy. The brand is part of Superdrug's own brand and consists of everything from Eye shadow, mascara and Nail varnish. Each item is priced the same at £1.00. No, really £1.00.
I decided to buy a couple of the eye shadows as I was unsure of how good they would be at that price.

The Packaging -
The eye shadow is packed quite neatly. It comes in a round black base with a clear flip top lid.
The lid is really easy to flip up and does not cause you to break a nail. Some eyeshade pots are so hard to open it would be easier to break into a bank!

Using the Eye Shadow -
As I said I bought two, a very basic cream beige colour and another a vivid green. I used the cream beige one first and when I swept the brush across the shadow I was pleased that it had picked up a decent amount of product as with some pressed shadows it's hard to get the product on your brush.
The first thing that I noticed when I applied the shadow to my eye was that it felt very smooth. There were no really grains to the product and the shadow was fine and had a slightly silky texture to it. As I said the shadow went on smoothly and the depth and pigmentation of colour was really good exactly the same shade as it looked in the container and often with cheaper brands the quality of the colour on the lid is quite poor due to low pigmentation to keep costs down.
The coverage of the shadow is very good and due to the pigmentation I only really needed a few sweeps and I had the look that I wanted.
Looking at the little pot after applying the shadow I was surprised that I had not even skimmed the surface. This is a shadow that will last a long time.

Durability -
I have to say that I was really impressed with the shadow so far and thought it's obviously going to wear off quick as it was so cheap. (I think that there was a part of me that wanted to be proved right that I NEED to spend money for the quality!)

So did it wear off quickly? The short answer is no. I put the shadow on before work and at lunchtime when I do my usual re touch I was pleased to see that the eye shadow had stayed in place. The colour had faded slightly but you will get this even with the high end brands.

What was also pleasing was that even though there was slight fading it was very even and the shadow didn't go into the creases which can sometimes happen.
As this was quite a neural colour I decided to give the other one a road test. The colour of this eye shadow was the most brilliant Green and unlike the first one which was matt this shadow had a fantastic shine to it and looked almost wet when applied.
I thought that perhaps with a stronger colour I would notice it fading faster or sinking into my eye crease and it did neither again there was a little bit of fading but other than that the shadow hardly moved.
With the brighter shadow it was just as easy to apply and although I did build the colour up a little by adding a few layers just to make it really intense. The colour in the pot is exactly the colour when applied with just a couple of layers.

What I love about the shadows with the shimmer is that they glide onto your eyes. You don't need to press hard to get the colour on and as it's quite tightly packed it doesn't fall onto your face when applying.
There are many colours available in both the matte and the shimmer shadows. Everything from white to Black and everything in-between.
We girls do tend to stick to the same colours and can sometimes be reluctant to try other shades in case they don't suit but this range is great for experimenting as at £1.00 per go you can afford to try that bright yellow one!
I now have 6 of these fabulous pots and I'm sure that I will be adding to my collection as I have not found one yet that I didn't like.

I should also say that I have quite sensitive eyes and am a contact lens wearer and suffered no irratation at all while wearing the shadow.

The one downside is that I am worried that it will become so popular that Superdrug will realise how good it is and put the price up. So I will share this gem with you but please don't tell anyone about this secret.................Shushhhh!

While I am still hopelessly devoted to MAC I'm most definitely enjoying my bit on the side with MUA.