Today I’m reviewing one of my very favorite collections, the Painted Flowers collection from Hello Waffle. The Painted Flowers Collection is based on Alice in Wonderland (which I love) and has a mix of cheery springy colors and dark moody colors. It’s only available in the spring each year, but the best sellers (which I believe are Eat Me, Animate Chess-Piece, Dormouse and Gryphon) are available year-round. The collection originally consisted of fourteen colors, but three have been discontinued (Mad as a March Hare, Deepest Fears and Golden Afternoon) and one has been reformulated (Moonlit Grin). I’m including all the original colors and the original formula of Moonlit Grin in this review.

As always, swatches are over Urban Decay Primer Potion on the top/left and Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy on the bottom/right. The top picture is taken in indoor natural light and the bottom one in direct sun.

The light colors: Eat Me, Animate Chess-Piece, Mad, Golden Afternoon, Pool of Tears, Moonlit Grin and Beneath Oxfordshire.

The dark colors: Dormouse, Locked Doors, Mad as a March Hare, Gryphon, Rule 42, Deepest Fears and Hearts.

Eat Me: “Light satin white with a pink sheen.” This is a very pretty soft white with a pinky golden sheen. It’s fairly sheer over primer, but makes a great highlight shade.

Animate Chess-Piece: “Pale dusty pink sheen with a touch of violet.” This is a sheer soft pink with a cool sheen and a bit of sparkle. When the light hits it the violet comes out and it’s super pretty. I would make a gorgeous one color look with a bit of black eyeliner.

Mad: “Shimmery orange peach that leans copper with a gold undertone.” This is a surprisingly soft orange with a peachy tone to it. To my eye the sheen is more of a reflective white than a gold.

Golden Afternoon: “Sparkly golden yellow.” This is a bright sparkly yellow. It’s interesting because even though my camera didn’t really capture it, the sparkles are silver, not gold, which is unusual for a sparkly yellow. It becomes more goldenrod over a sticky base.

Pool of Tears: “Light blue with golden shimmer.” This color is gorgeous. It’s an aqua blue with golden sparkle. The sheen is incredibly strong over Pixie Epoxy. It’s probably my favorite blue I own.

Moonlit Grin: “Medium blue-green shimmer.” This is the original formula, not the reformulated version she’s selling now. It’s slightly greener than Pool of Tears, with a blue sheen instead of a gold one, but the two colors are incredibly similar, so I understand why she changed this one. The new version is a darker teal with purple sparkles.

Beneath Oxfordshire: “Vibrant forest green shimmer.” This is a beautiful shimmery dark green. Pixie Epoxy really brings out the shimmer and brightens the base color.

Gryphon: “Muted bluish-gray taupe.” This is a light, silvery taupe. The base is a reddish brown (as you can see on the primer side of the swatch), with a bluish silver sheen over the top. It’s nice enough, but I feel like Hello Waffle makes a lot of colors similar to this.

Rule 42: “Dark blue-ish grey shimmer.” Over a sticky base this is such a rich steely blue-grey. It’s weird that the primer side of the swatch is showing up quite as sheer and reddish as it is, because it doesn’t look like that to me in person. In person it’s definitely sheerer than it is over Pixie Epoxy, but it retains its bluish color. It’s behaved well when I’ve used it in looks over only primer, so I’m not quite sure why it’s swatching so poorly.

Deepest Fears: “Dark gunmetal purple.” This is such a pretty shimmery grey-ish medium purple. It’s distinctly cool toned, with a steely dark silver sheen. It’s a shame it’s been discontinued because it’s gorgeous. It looks amazing in the crease with a lavender shade on the lid.

Hearts: “Blackened red with red shimmer and red highlights.” This color is amazing over Pixie Epoxy but a little disappointing over primer alone. On a sticky base it’s a purpley blackened red with a bunch of shimmer. Over primer it becomes a sheer burgundy and the shimmer pretty much vanishes.

Mad as a March Hare: “Reddish brown shimmer.” This is a rich reddish brown, with a bit of a coppery sheen. I’m not a huge fan of browns in general, but the red in this one makes me really like it. It’s a shame she doesn’t make it anymore.

Locked Doors: “Dirty brown with gold shimmer.” This is a sparkly golden brown. Over Pixie Epoxy the sparkles are quite dense. I think this color makes my eyes look super blue when I wear it.

Dormouse: “Pale sparkly taupe.” So much sparkle! To me this color looks like a light tan, not a taupe, and it’s chock full of silver sparkles, even over primer. Despite the sparkles, it makes for a good transition color on my skintone, and I wound up using it in three of the looks I did for this collection.

Overall Thoughts: As I said at the beginning, I love this collection. All of the colors are stunning over Pixie Epoxy and while a lot of them are sheerer over primer, in many cases that actually makes them easier to wear, because they’re not so in your face. I love the balance of the collection between the bright and deep colors, and I’m sad that the three discontinued colors aren’t a part of it anymore, because it makes it less rainbow-y. (Although I did snap up minis of them when Christine announced that they would be discontinued.) Golden Afternoon I could easily replace with another yellow, but Deepest Fears is one of my favorite cool purples and Mad as a March Hare is my favorite reddish brown. I think reformulating Moonlit Grin to make it more different from Pool of Tears is smart and I’ll probably pick up a jar of the new formula along with minis of the rest of the colors I don’t have. This is the only collection that I’ve wanted to upgrade all of my samples to bigger sizes, and I think that says a lot.

I love the variety of looks you can make with these colors. Tomorrow I’ll post five of them, a couple wearable neutral looks, a couple bright cheerful looks and one dark and moody look. I’ve also put together a tutorial showing how I made one of the looks, so stay tuned for that too!

You can find the looks here and the tutorial here!