I LOVE mythology and fairy tales. Always have, always will. Oh the hours I have spent pouring over Pantheon.org and my mother’s old Grimms Fairy Tales and Hans Christian Anderson books… sigh. It was no surprise to me that I fell in love with Hello Waffle’s branding right away, then. I should count myself fortunate that Christine, Hello Waffle’s owner, has an amazing eye for color, because I would have bought her stuff either way! (We can discuss self control later). I bought her Blogger Pack, which is a generous compilation of two full sized shadows, a full sized lip balm, two lip balm samples, and 10 sample shadows (and now includes one full sized blush and one sample blush, all for $30, a generous deal!).

Let’s take a peek!

The Shadows

Debussy

Debussy is a pale, shimmery, grassy acid green. This color has FANTASTIC pigmentation. It is very creamy, and goes on more opaque than I was expecting. It’s not a color I was originally going to get, but now I wish I would have ordered a full size! (Which, you know, means I will definitely get one later, because of how much ass-kicking it does).

Rapunzel

This color is so delicate and feminine! I think it would also make an amazing lip color. It’s a warm, light pink color. I think it almost leans a bit peach, but not strongly. Super duper princess.

Mendelssohn

This shade is a perfect rose-gold, something that I love perhaps too much! It’s quite sparkly and also applies with excellent pigmentation, especially for a pretty pale shade.

Golden Stairs

This is a very pale gold color with pink/peachy tones to it. Once again a very feminine color, and I think perfect for highlighting the lid or inner corner of the eye.

Dormouse

This was one of the full sized shadows I ordered because, you guessed it, it is a BEAUTIFUL taupe. I haven’t had a chance to use much of it yet, but it’s a nice, slightly pinky toned gray-taupe with quite a bit of shimmer to it, and I think it’s just adorable.

Silk

For some reason these swatches don’t fully reflect how pretty Silk is. It’s a sort of mauve color with golden shimmer, and reminds me a bit of Darling Girl Brocade but without the intense gold overlay.

Enchantress

Enchantress surprised me somehow! I didn’t expect to like it quite as much as I did, but this is a deep, wine-y red/purple color with quite a lot of shimmer to it. It has so much drama, this would make for an incredible smoky eye!

Tower

It wasn’t mentioned in the description of the website, but I get a bit of green/khaki out of this color, which is otherwise a deep gray with some blue as well. This comes from the Persinette collection, along with a lot of these other shadows, and I really appreciate that the collection has a variety of deep shades, I think it really balances it out and makes the collection really usable.

12th

12th is a deep blush color, with some purple tones. I think this is a pretty unique color, all things considered. Because it leans mauve, it has just a bit of the brown spectrum to it, which I think helps it to avoid looking a bit like pink eye (a concern I have with pink shadows, AND YET I STILL LOVE THEM). So pretty!

Cravings

Cravings and A Tight Dress are both similar shadows, but Cravings leans quite red-toned, whereas A Tight Dress leans quite blue/cool-toned. I likely wouldn’t buy full sizes of both of these, considering that, and would probably go with Cravings, because at the moment I have been using shadows with golden bases more than silver… but they are both lovely.

A Tight Dress

See?

Bae

Mmmm, I love copper colors! This shadow seems to have more gray in the shade, but in the sun the warmer tones definitely come out. It also had excellent pigmentation.

Bartok

This was my free sample with my order, and I’m really glad I didn’t miss out on it. Both of the shadows from the Musician Series were really hits for me! Bartok is such a feisty copper color, it has a lot of orange in it and a really burnished look even when just applied over primer (though I think it performs best over a glitter adhesive). I would definitely get a full size of this beauty. (Will get? Shhh, wallet, shhhh, don’t cry…)

Rainforest

This shadow was my free gift-with-purchase, and I’ll be honest, I wasn’t particularly jazzed over either shade… but when I actually swatched it, I was thrilled. This is a really gorgeous, blue-leaning green. As soon as I put it on, I felt like I was looking at freaking mermaid scales. Doesn’t this look like it comes straight from the deep ocean? I’ll be doing some sort of a dramatic look with this shadow, for sure!

Tinted Lip Balms

I received three lip balms with my order: Ginger Kitties, Rose, and Seedless.

Ginger Kitties is my very favorite, color-wise. As mentioned in a previous post, this color is AMAZING and I think one of the most extraordinary MLBB shades I have tried. I also really liked the colors of Rose and Seedless, and could see myself continuing to wear both. Unfortunately, I have to be honest and say that I am really not a fan of Hello Waffle’s lip balm formulation (like I mentioned in my other post) for a couple of reasons. I have sensitive lips and the combination of oils and peppermint oil unfortunately seem to make my lips drier. I found these to be pretty gritty as well, and I don’t put up with grit on my lips very well. This almost entirely goes away once it warms up, and then it has a whole lot of slip (which I found to make applying Seedless a bit challenging, but was fine with Rose and Ginger Kitties). You can see the grittiness here:

Like I said, it DOES go away after being applied, but I found this a bit of a challenge for application. Ultimately, I preferred rubbing my fingertip onto the balm and then rubbing it onto my lips, to avoid depositing too much product and to help warm it up a bit before putting it onto my lips.

One benefit to these lip balms that some people will really like is that they are vegan, and they are also extremely pigmented for tinted lip balms. I don’t think everybody’s lips will respond the same way to these as mine did, either, as I know many people find these to be incredibly moisturizing.

Update: Since posting this, the lip balms have been taken down from the website due to the grittiness issues, and I need to give Christine a huge shout out for customer service– she offered a refund for the lip balms, which I declined but am very grateful for. She takes a LOT of pride in her products, and has a real dedication to making sure her customers are satisfied. I hope they get re-released, I will happily buy more to try!

TAT

Hello Waffle had a 4-10 day turn around time when I ordered, though I expected it to take a bit of time to ship because I ordered during a big sale. I placed my order on May 17th and my order was shipped on May 31st. I received my package on June 12th. So, my order was shipped at the 10 day mark (within TAT), and took another 9 business days to get to me (curse you US/Canadian border!). The package was well packaged, with a cute strip of duct tape with penguins on it. I appreciated the Bartok shadow sample I received.

The Look

I used Silk on the lid, Golden Stairs in the inner corner, a little Dormouse in the crease and lightly along the lower lid, some Cravings in the outer V, and then changed direction a little bit and also applied Rainforest into the outer V last minute.

I also used the Rose tinted lip balm on my lips, which is a stunning color, as you can see.

Once again, I am using Shiro’s 1-Up blush. I’ve officially ordered the full size of this blush, as I am almost out of the sample after using it almost daily. I’ve been trying to get myself to use other blushes, but I can’t help it, IT’S SO PERFECT. Ahem. Anyway.

Gorgeous, gorgeous colors!

Products

MUFE HD Foundation in 110

NARS smudge-proof eye primer

Laura Mercier Secret Concealer in 01 and Secret Brightening Powder

Hello Waffle Golden Stairs, Silk, Cravings, Dormouse, Rainforest shadows

Covergirl clumpcrushers mascara in brown

Urban Decay 24/7 liner pencil in Tornado

Pumpkin and Poppy Oak Bark contour powder

Shiro 1-Up Blush

Anastasia dip brow in Auburn

Hello Waffle Rose tinted lip balm

Final Thoughts

Hello Waffle’s shadow collections are very intelligently created. Christine has a particular eye for beautiful shadow colors that coordinate really well with each other; I think her shades are some of the most refined around. The shadow formulation is also great, very pigmented and quite creamy (Debussy especially!). I’m also in love with her themes in general. I found most all of the shadows to be incredibly shimmery, so I do wish there were more options for slightly more matte shades, just because I love her colors and would love more variety of finishes in order to create more varied looks. Every shadow I tried was a hit, though! The real miss for me was the tinted lip balms– the colors are terrific, but the formula just doesn’t do it for me personally. I’ll definitely be ordering more shadows, however!

Your Turn

Have you tried Hello Waffle yet? Do you have any favorite shadow shades? How does the lip balm formula work for you?