Let's go!













The first set of swatches is going to be from my actual order: 5 CotMs and one He Loves His Hammer. In the above jar shots, this is: Moon Prism Power (September 2012), Save the World (July 2017), He Loves His Hammer (Earth's Mightiest Heroes), Corona (August 2017), Umbra (August 2017), Fire Rainbow Clouds (July 2016). All of these are currently available! The older ones are high scores, and the newer ones will be available until at least June 2018, which is when Shiro clears out their colors of the month to start over for a new year.

























This first full shot is over Lorac's primer. I should probably figure out the full name of it since I've already said it so many times, but eh. You know what I'm talking about, right? I like this primer for swatches, but it doesn't last very long on my eyes. Turns out I got a bunch for free at some point, maybe with the purchase of my Lorac Pro palette? Anyway, I never use it which is why it's making an appearance here.





























And here they all are over Fyrinnae's Pixie Epoxy. This actually isn't the glitter glue I normally use (I'm a big fan of Hello Waffle Enchantment), which is kind of why I swatch with it. It looks great, I just have some longevity issues when I use it on my eyes. What can I say, I just have persnickety lids? Anyway, ooh, shiny, moving on.









Fire Rainbow Clouds



























Fire Rainbow Clouds was one of last year's high scorers. I meant to pick it up, well, last year, but forgot until now. I suppose that makes me lucky that it stayed! It's got a pale pink base, a load of sparkle, and a turquoise shimmer. Surprisingly, this performed decently over the Lorac, but of course it really shined over PE.









Fire Rainbow Clouds normal primer

Fire Rainbow Clouds PE





















Moon Prism Power

























Moon Prism Power is another high score, this one from all the way back in September 2012. I've actually been meaning to grab it for, okay, years, but somehow it never managed to find its way into my cart throughout all those orders. The base color was a lot brighter than I was expecting, but that peachy-pink base doesn't really show up in swatches, as you'll see. The shimmer in it is very strong and green; there's also some fun gold sparkle in it. This is another surprise performer over normal primer, but it just glows over PE.













Moon Prism Power normal primer









Moon Prism Power PE









Oops, I think I got a little spot of Save the World on the normal primer swatch. Isn't it weird how these shimmers look completely different swatched than they do in the jar? I just want to try them in all sorts of highlighting ways!













He Loves His Hammer















He Loves His Hammer is from Shiro's permanent catalog. You can find it hanging out with the rest of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, if you go looking. I already own a sample of this one, but I rarely use it because at some point in the past, I decided to press it, and now I never use my pressed shadows. Oops. If you were wondering, it does press extremely well, and I clearly like it enough to buy a larger size.





I'd describe it as a taupey, shimmery, occasionally purple polish with a silver sheen. It's surprisingly complex and very wearable. I also just went to check the Shiro official description of it, and they called it "silvery pewter with complex red tones", so, you know, we agree that it's complicated.













He Loves His Hammer normal primer

















He Loves His Hammer PE









See? Purpley taupe with silver sheen. It definitely can look browner or redder depending on what your pair it with, but I think of it as a purple. It does great over normal primer, but I kind of expect it to, since it's not a sparklebomb.

















Save the World



















Hello and welcome to Shiro's shiny red July 2017 color of the month, Save the World. Based off of a certain invincible Diana, it's a red shimmer, has kind of a blueish base, and gold sparkle to grab your attention if the other two things didn't already. It reminds me a little of I Understood That Reference, but if you turned the blue waaaaaaaay down and the red waaaaaay up, and then replaced the white sparkles with gold.





Anyway, you can see how that blue comes out over the normal primer, and then the shimmer just completely dominates over PE. I also purposefully positioned this swatch next to Corona (you can see it in the bottom left corner) so you can compare and contrast them. Corona is darker and purpler.

















Save the World normal primer

Save the World PE









I'm going to tell you guys a secret: so, I have a friend who's really into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and she's been having a hard time lately. I made this order to grab her a few things from the Earth's Greatest Heroes collection, and I saw Save the World on the site and thought, "Hey, maybe she'll like this too, since Wonder Woman is pretty awesome and this color looks like a nice red". Well. Then I got my order, and I took just a little peek inside the jar, you know, because I didn't own the shadow myself yet, and I wanted to see how it looked, and um. Friend is getting one less Shiro in her care package. This baby is mine.















Corona

























Corona is a shadow that comes with a built-in best friend! It's part of the August 2017 CotM duo, and its other half is Umbra—you can buy them separately, or save one full dollar by purchasing the pair together. They are both sparklebombs that perform best over glitter glue, although that's not to say they're invisible over primer alone.





Based on the recent solar eclipse, Corona is a shimmery deep wine (note that I refuse to take a stance between red and purple here) filled with multicolored sparkle. I mostly see purple and gold in there, but occasionally it looks like there's red and orange? Let's just go with lots of colors.

















Corona normal primer













Corona PE













Umbra

























I would definitely recommend a glitter glue for this shadow, just because without it, most of what you get is base. The sparkles need some convincing before they'll stick to your skin.







Umbra normal primer







Umbra PE



Well, that's it for my order...





But wait, there's more!





The last eyeshadow in this set is Corona's BFF, the color of the month known as Umbra. Again, buy 'em separate or buy 'em together and save: you have options! Umbra is a charcoal-y, navy base filled chock with sparkles. Again, I see lots of colors but there are some main ones and you can probably judge for yourself because I'm sitting here trying to decide if I think that's blue or purple. They're mostly blue, but I think they veer a little bit into purple sometimes.I would definitely recommend a glitter glue for this shadow, just because without it, most of what you get is base. The sparkles need some convincing before they'll stick to your skin.Well, that's it for my order...But wait, there's more!

Samples!





Okay friends, that was just the first set of swatches. I'm tired, but we must prevail. And by "we", I mean "I", since you can actually just leave whenever you want. Stick with me, though, because we have got some samples from the new Halloween 2017 collection to get through!





Oh, also, I have not watched this show and I did not even know it was a show until I googled it just now. I get zero of the references.

















Of course, sample baggies aren't as exciting as jars and really don't show much detail, so let's just hurry on to some nice pictures.







over normal primer





Over PE

All of these samples are from the latest Shiro release, which I did not purchase because I was waiting to see more swatches. I suppose now I shall be the one providing some of those swatches for you! In case you can't read (yes, the text is badly out of focus and this picture is unnecessary), starting from the top left and going clockwise, this is Edelwood, Come Wayward Souls, Ringing of the Bell, Adelaide of the Pasture, and Through the Wood.Of course, sample baggies aren't as exciting as jars and really don't show much detail, so let's just hurry on to some nice pictures.



Come, Wayward Souls





Wow, I just realized I don't have cute jar shots to start off these sections with. That's okay, it just means I have more time to ramble at you, and you have more text to skip on your way to the pictures!





First up is Come, Wayward Souls, which has a comma in the name. This is a minor inconvenience to me as it means that I cannot style the title properly when I put it in a list, or I have to remember to use semi-colons. I never remember to use semi-colons.





Come, Wayward Souls is a grey with blue cast and gold shimmer. It's a little unassuming, but I do like bluish greys with gold shimmer. It explains a good amount of my eyeshadow collection as well as my nail polish collection, if we're being totally honest.





Come, Wayward Souls normal primer

Come, Wayward Souls PE





The shimmer is a little more regular-looking over sticky primer, and the base is a touch more opaque, but it looks very similar over both bases, which you will come to see is a theme in this sampling.







Ringing of the Bell













Ringing of the Bell normal primer





Ringing of the Bell PE

Ringing of the Bell, a shockingly metallic mustard gold. Although, the metallic-ness is more of a satiny, brushed metal metallic, not a shiny mirror chrome finish. Shocking to me nevertheless, because it looks like a matte in the sample baggie.

Again, very similar over both bases. I believe that is what we call a good formula!









Through the Wood









Through the Wood. Rusty orange, gold sparkle. Very fall.













Through the Wood normal primer

Through the Wood PE





The orange base of Through the Wood darkens slightly when over Pixie Epoxy; this is somewhat predictable because it's a matte base. The gold sparkles do come out a little bit more over PE, but they still come out happily over normal primer. Still, the differences are very slight. You probably don't need a glitter glue for this shadow.









Edelwood

When I was 16, I got mildly into Chinese brush painting, and Edelwood is the exact color of the burnt sienna pigment I was meant to color in my trees with. It's also very matte, but did that stop me from swatching it over glitter glue? No sirree! We are running a two-swatches-per-eyeshadow deal here!













Edelwood normal primer

Edelwood PE

Adelaide of the Pasture

Staurolite! It's a little more sparkly in person. Kind of. Photo from James St. John/Flickr

Adelaide of the Pasture normal primer

Adelaide of the Pasture PE

Hey-o! Today's post is just going to be a nice little assortment of Shiro Cosmetics swatches from my latest small order. It's mostly CotMs that I'd passed on in previous months, but there's also a little bonus of five shadows from this year's Halloween collection, Into the Unknown, inspired by the Cartoon Network miniseries Over the Garden Wall.Okay yeah it looks basically the same over Pixie Epoxy, maybe just the slightest bit darker.Alright! We're on the last shadow of this post! Adelaide of the Pasture is a deep reddish brown base with bronzey shimmer that leans a bit gold. It's a little reminiscent of Yzma's Essence of Llama, but with a browner base and a yellower shimmer. It also reminds me of Staurolite, the state mineral of Georgia.Oh yeah, you're here for ground up minerals, not big solid ones. Sorry, let's get back to it.Adelaide of the Pasture is probably the only shadow in this set of 5 that looks significantly different between normal primer and Pixie Epoxy, at least to my eye. The shimmer really comes out a lot more over PE, which puts me more in mind of pyrite.Well, thanks for reading! That's probably enough random mineral references for you, and way more than enough blathering from me, so I'm just gonna cut myself off real qui—