Readers, I owe you an apology. I’ve been absent for a shameful 13 days, letting reviews I’ve already prepared sit, gathering dust. The reason, at least, is an exciting one – I’ve been shopping for my first-ever solo apartment! Right now, I drive almost an hour and a half each way to work, so I’m beyond excited to be finding my own place, but apartment hunting is exhausting and time consuming. I will be posting a couple of reviews over the next couple days, though, including Shiro’s latest Color of the Month shade and Notoriously Morbid’s new Lost in the Lodge collection, so stay tuned! To start with, I have a review of 8 Bit Cosmetics.

I’ve seen swatches of 8 Bit’s shadows now and then since they opened last March, but I’d never placed an order with them until the end of February. I ordered three shades and received one “deluxe sample” free with my order (included in all orders over $10). Here are the shades:

Do Cats Eat Bats? – This was a dusty, almost matte purple/mauve shade. I was expecting this to be much darker based on the shop’s swatch, but I do like this color. The problem with this one is that it is very hard to blend. The formula sort of drags, no matter what kind of primer I try it over (the swatches here are over Darling Girl Glitter Glue, which normally works fine with matte shades). It took a lot of build up to get an opaque swatch on my arm, but on my eye I had the opposite problem – as soon as I touched my skin it wouldn’t budge! During application, this ends up really weird and patchy. I wouldn’t recommend buying this shade, but if you like the color, Shiro’s Mother of Dragons is very similar.

I’m Late – A bright, chartreuse gold. This is described as an “olive gold” in the listing and looks that way in the 8 Bit swatch, but it looks much brighter to me in real life, almost with a lime note. In real life, it’s a bit more green than the swatch above, but the brightness is accurate. This went on more smoothly than Do Cats Eat Bats, but still doesn’t blend out well.

Bronze – This is the color I was most excited about, and the entire reason I placed my order. It’s a very pretty copper shade with red and gold flecks. I wouldn’t say it’s a “rosy gold,” the way the shop describes it, but their swatch was accurate and it’s quite lovely in real life. This one is also difficult to blend out (I used it in an eye look yesterday and spent more time trying to blend this shade than I normally spend on my whole eye look), but the only one in the order that I would say is worth the effort. That said, if anyone knows of a similar shade that’s less difficult to work with, please let me know!

Knight in Shiny Kevlar – A deep, matte black. This was the free sample I received in my order. It came in a clamshell, which I’m usually not a fan of, but it opened ok with minimal mess and the clamshell was packed very full, which was nice. I don’t wear shades like this on my actual lid very often but I do like them as a liner; however, I wouldn’t recommend this one. Just like Do Cats Eat Bats, this applies very patchy (you can see places where it didn’t cover opaquely in the swatch above). It’s also rather powdery and produces a fair bit of fall out. If you’re looking for a matte black, Shiro’s Dwarf in the Flask is a better option, I think.

Overview

Prices

8 Bit Cosmetics’ prices are on the low end of the indie spectrum. Full size jars cost $4 and are fairly well-packed. Samples cost $1 and come in your choice of a clamshell or baggie. Orders over $10 come with a free deluxe sample.

Shipping starts at $3, with 10 cents added for each additional full size product. Samples do not add to the shipping cost.

Website

8 Bit’s storefront is the standard Etsy shop, with her catalog divided by full size shadows, sample size shadows, sets, glitter, glitter samples and nail polish minis. There is no mention of the ingredients list on any of the listings, which is a bit odd, but they do state whether the shadows are vegan-friendly. Here’s a photo of the backs so that you can at least see the ingredient list for the ones I purchased (Knight in Shiny Kevlar has a clear label with black text, so that one isn’t legible, sadly):

Ordering

When I ordered, the owner had a message up that they were out of town due to a death in the family and would not be fulfilling orders until the next week. My order shipped within a few days of her return, which was perfectly reasonable.

The shipping packaging wasn’t great. The four shadows, including the clamshell (not the most secure type of packaging) were sent naked in a bubble mailer without any sort of wrapping. I don’t mind when companies don’t bubble wrap – after all, plastic jars aren’t really fragile – but I do want them bagged or wrapped with tissue paper or something. When they’re put in loose, jars lids can unscrew or clamshells can get opened. Luckily nothing happened to mine, but it was still a little anticlimactic to open the package and just see four naked shadows without so much as an invoice to keep them company.

Products

As I mentioned in the individual shade reviews, the formula on these was really disappointing for me, as was the disparity between the swatches they posted vs. how the colors looked on me. The shadows dragged and wouldn’t blend, and were either too hard to build up to opacity or blend out. I tried comparing the ingredient list to some other companies to see what the culprit was, but their first three or four ingredients are identical to other companies whose shadows I enjoy quite a bit, so I’m stumped.

I waited a couple weeks between receiving these and posting this review, trying to find a way to make them work, but I just can’t get them to cooperate. They do function blend slightly better over a non-sticky primer, but they’re still not great that way and the shimmery shades loose a lot of their punch.

Overall rating: 3/10

Would I order again? No.

All products featured in this review were purchased by me with my own money for personal use. All products featured in this review can be purchased at their shop here.