I know I said I wasn’t going to make another order from Smash Cosmetics in my last post about them. I really didn’t want to. However, I wanted some blue lipstick, and had a coupon code, so I decided to make one. And then I got another coupon code and they had a massive sale so I was paying two dollars each for eyeshadows, so I even made that order before the first one got to me. I thought it would be great. Oh, how I was wrong.

It is important to note how nice I am. I mean, I know people say they’re nice, but I am pretty forgiving, especially when it comes to my indie cosmetics. I can accept a few quirks in different monitors when showing colours or a mistake made when shipping or whatever. I get it. However, you know what I don’t like? When instead of a lipstick, I am sent a sweaty broken stick, like a crayon but less pigmented.

The colour name was Still, and it was on sale for some reason. You might notice a slight difference between my lip swatch and the one the shop provided. Namely, the shop’s swatch was actually blue, as opposed to a mild greyish tint. Now, normally, this would not be an issue for me- I do understand that makeup is chemistry and that things go wrong. That on its own is not really a problem. When something is completely unusable, though, I do like to try and do something about it, so I contacted the shop owner. She was very pleasant, and said that, since she hadn’t sent out my next order yet, she would just include a replacement in there. I was pretty happy with that, except for one problem. When I finally got my new order last week, there was no lippy to be found. Over the course of the week, I’ve contacted the owner three times to ask what was going on. There’s been no response, and, since I had to wait for the new package, I’m way outside the time limit for disputes. This is not cool. Heck, if she even bothered to reply to say “hey, sorry, sucks to be you i guess” I’d be fine, but she just disappeared. I am not alright with this. (Although it is a bit of an exaggeration to say she disappeared. As a matter of fact, she posted three new items in the store while I was writing this review.)

That said, let’s take a look at the package.

I mostly ordered eyeshadows, but also got a liquid and cream eyeliner. The shadows come in large jars and are mostly full with sifters. You do get a lot of product for the price, especially when there is one of the frequent sales.

All swatches were done over primer. I don’t have enough arm space to do the usual routine, and I was already doing two full arms. Besides, I was not too enthusiastic about this.

Sapphire liquid eyeliner. I can’t speak to the longevity of either eyeliner- they did come off easily when I washed my arm. This is a deep, metallic blue. While it takes a while to dry, it is fairly easy to apply.

“Magenta Madness” cream eyeliner. The quotes are there because I’m not actually sure what on earth this is. If you look at the shop swatch, you’ll see an entirely different colour- while I paid for a bright neon magenta, I got a light candy pink. It takes even longer to dry than Sapphire did.

Deathstar– That is certainly a brown. It’s listed as having loads of shimmer and glitter, but even over primer, I had to squint to see any. It might benefit from Pixie Epoxy, but I’m not really impressed as is.

Frankenstella– I got a sample of this from my last post. Still a nice colour, although there is something up when your “no primer” swatch outshines the actual shadow with primer.

Peacock– Peacock is a sheer, blue-green shadow, with a bit of blue sparkle to it. I had a lot of trouble trying to build this one up to opacity.

Telescope Eyes– This one is what we call a glitterbomb. It’s a bluey shade, full of purple glitter. This one is a pretty interesting one.

Flicker Out- It’s described as a yellow with an orange shift, but I didn’t find the orange very strong at all. It’s almost identical to Flounder.

Amore– I did like this one. I have a certain affinity for “rose gold” colours, which this one tends towards.

Angelite– Another glitter bomb. This is a gunmetal, loaded with silver glitter. Oh, the fallout from this one- I do think it’s worth it.

Hell– Something happened to this since my last order. I got a sample, and it was a lot more opaque and glittery. This one is a struggle to work with.

Asteria– A dark gray with aqua glitter. I was expecting this to be a lot darker from the photos- while it’s nice, it’s kind of sheer as well.

Annihilation– Well, this is certainly a brown. And a huge disappointment. The swatch showed a greeny goldy brown shine. This is just a slightly glittery brown. While it’s a perfectly fine slightly glittery brown, it’s certainly not what I was expecting.

Batty– If I order a black shadow, it would be nice if it was black. This is sort of a dark plum with pink glitter- while nice, it’s not what I wanted.

Part of the sale when I bought this stuff was that you got samples of the new horror story collection when you bought 25 dollars worth of things. It was the main reason I made the order, since I am a sucker for spooky things. The collection consists of 16 shadows, and if you can count, you are already noticing a problem. Namely, that I only got 14 samples. I feel sorta bad about complaining about that since it is a free thing, but they could have at least switched out one of the browns.

Also, this is just a personal thing, but these labels are entirely impossible to read. I’ve heard a lot of problems with the hand-written labels on the eyeshadows, but at least they’re legible.

Once more, these are swatched over primer.

Pennywise– You should have seen my face when I swatched this. It was hilarious in a really sad way. This one is pretty much just glitter, even though it’s marketed as a full-on white. The glitter isn’t even the cool red and blue stuff from the swatch.

Bates– Of course this one is gray. I mean, I didn’t expect it to be based on Norman’s awesome fair isle sweaters from Bates Motel, but a girl can dream. Bates has a slight brown shimmer to it, which sort of sets it off.

Jason– The first of the browns. This one is nice- it has a blue duochrome in there, which is good if you’re into that.

Candyman– Like its inspiration, this eyeshadow gets a resounding “meh” from me. It actually looks a lot like Annihilation in the swatch on the website, and is almost identical in its disappointing glory.

Hannibal– A shiny silver. Nothing to write home about here. There is a slight pink tone to it, but it isn’t visible.

Exorcist– This is just a kind of grungy lime green. Not my favourite here- the multicoloured glitter is a bit too muddled to be effective.

Krueger– Can I go back and get this as a full-size instead of Hell? I love this colour. It’s a strong blue-based red, and while it’s described as copper, I think it’s better.

Pinhead– I am not sure Smash Cosmetics knows what “silver” means. This is a bronze eyeshadow with silver-blue glitter- I am kind of a fan of this one, too.

Chucky– A red-orange eyeshadow, almost matte. Not too interesting, but nice.

Redrum– Another one I like. Redrum is a deep shimmery brick red. I mean, I know that’s sort of my thing, but it’s still nice.

Frankenstein– This is also kind of confused. It’s a browny green with some silver in, I guess. I suppose when you have 200 or so eyeshadow shades, you have to try some uncomfortable things, but still.

Stay Puft- This is a lot more white than Pennywise was. It’s full of white glitter, no matter what the listing says.

The Thing- Another brown. This is kind of tawny, but not too much glitter showed up here.

Cujo– C’mere, boy! Where’d you go? Seriously, this translucent tan befuddles me. I was under the impression that brown was an easy colour to mix. This is just sorta there.

I didn’t even do a look with these, since I was that grumpy.

Packaging- 5/10. While I appreciate getting more eyeshadow, something ought to be done about those Halloween labels.

Texture- 5/10. A lot of these were just glitter bombs, and a few had weird flecks in them that I couldn’t place.

Pigmentation- 5/10. While some were impressive, more were weak.

Colour Selection- 4/10. A lot of the website swatches are incredibly off. It’s kind of hilarious.

Seller Communication- 1/10. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re ignoring Etsy messages, the least you could do is not go on Etsy and post new items while you ignore them.

New overall mark- 20/50.

Unless there’s a massive sale, save your money.

13/10- I finally got a response back from the owner after sending a copy of this blog post. She says her internet had failed her, so she couldn’t get back to anyone, and that the new stuff going up was due to an auto-listing program. I have heard other people say that she responded to her personal e-mail in that time, but I can’t really confirm or deny that personally. She told me she would send out the stuff I missed out on, and I asked her if I could get a refund instead, because after seeing the quality of products that presumably have nothing wrong with them and hearing about another person finding mould in their lipstick, it really isn’t worth it to me to wait on another lipstick and hope it isn’t contaminated. No response yet to that.

