Hello Waffle is one of my very favorite indies. Christine, the owner, is incredibly sweet and makes fantastic eyeshadows. I have so many of her colors and have yet to try one that wasn’t beautiful. Today I’m reviewing her Musicians Collection, with colors named after classical composers. The collection has a ton of rich, beautiful neutrals which remind me of musical instruments, along with some pretty pastels and a few bright sparkly colors. Overall, the collection is full of sparkles, with just one matte shade. The formula is lovely and easy to apply and blend.

Swatch time! All colors are over Urban Decay Eden primer on the top/left and Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy on the bottom/right. The top picture in each collage is taken in indoor natural light, and the bottom right in direct sunlight.

The colors! Vivaldi, Chopin, Debussy, Tchaikovsky and Pachelbel.

The neutrals! Einaudi, Mozart, Schubert, Rachmaninoff, Bach and Bartok.

Pachelbel: “Sparkly white-gold, wedding-like.” This color is a beautiful shimmery white with yellow and gold tones to it. In the light, it has a bit of an iridescent sparkle to it. I think wedding-like is a perfect way to describe it.

Mendelssohn: “Light pink with golden sheen.” Hello Waffle makes the best rose golds and this is no exception. It’s a light golden pink with a beautiful sheen and just the tiniest hint of green sparkle to go along with the gold. There are so many things to do with this color! It’s great all over the lid, but can work as a highlight to complement pretty much any of the warm or pastel colors in this collection.

Tchaikovsky: “Vibrant gold with red, silver, and blue sparks.” This is a straight up gold, with no other tones and a lot of sparkle. It applied like a dream and was super easy to blend too.

Debussy: “Soft pastel green with subtle golden highlights.” This is a super gorgeous light green with gold shimmer. It’s very pastel, but on top of a sticky base it takes on a slightly neon lime green quality. Honestly, I was super surprised I liked this one. I almost didn’t buy it at all because I thought to myself “what would I do with a lime green?” but without a sticky base, it’s much more delicate than that and I like it so much I’ve already ordered it in a bigger size! There’s not another color like this in my collection, and my pictures don’t capture everything I love about it.

Chopin: “Romantic soft gray-purple duochrome.” To me this is straight up purple with no grey at all. Over primer, it’s very pastel and sheer with just a hint of blue overlay, but over pixie epoxy it becomes opaque with a strong blue shift. This color was the hardest to work with in the collection. If you want the bright purple/blue shift to show up, you really need a sticky base, but because of the contrast in opacity, blending it over a sticky base is tricky.

Vivaldi: “Copper red with silver sparkles. Caution: Sparkle-bomb” I love this color. It’s a very sparkly red, with cool tones and silver sparks. I don’t see any copper in it. It was a dream to work with too. Very easy to blend out the edges, so you don’t wind up with a harsh line of red, which makes it easier to wear than your average bright red.

Bartok: “Copper with bronze, gold, and red sparkle. Caution: Sparkle-bomb. One of [Christine’s] personal favourites.” This is a very bright copper, that reminds me of a shiny new penny. It’s interesting that she calls this a sparkle bomb, because for me this is more of a smooth metallic, with only a few discernable sparks. I see it as much more shiny than sparkly.

Bach: “Neutral brown with copper duochrome.” If Bartok is a bright new penny, Bach is an old penny that’s somehow managed to age in color but keep it’s shine. It’s a rich red-brown copper, with a good sheen. The duochrome is a reddish shift and it’s super pretty. There are also the tiniest red sparkles. It darkens over a sticky base. It makes me think of violins and I want to try wearing it all over the lid with Rachmaninoff in the crease.

Rachmaninoff: “Matte espresso bean brown.” This is a matte, deep brown. The sparkle that you see in my swatch migrated from other shadows in the collection. Over primer there’s a hint of a red undertone to it, but over pixie epoxy (which it plays well with, even though it’s a matte) it becomes much cooler. It makes a great eyeliner and also works well to deepen the crease.

Schubert: “Muted blurple duochrome but darker, leaning almost brown.” I don’t even know what Christine’s description is supposed to mean, but I’m not sure I can do better. Schubert is kind of like what would happen if you took a red-brown base and layered a blue-silver overlay on top. Over a sticky base it gets a lot darker and the blue/silver aspects become more prominent. In the sun, it showed up a bazillion different colors and I was shocked that my pictures of it were all the same eyeshadow. It’s super complicated, but surprising wearable, and in the look I did with it, it functioned basically as a complicated silver.

Mozart: “Brown-toned silver.” This is a taupe brown silver. It reminds me of old armor, but with a bit of rainbow iridescence. The brown comes out at the edges, while the middle is more solidly silver. It pairs well with Schubert.

Einaudi: “Sheer black with silver sparkle.” The black base is very sheer over primer, but not over pixie epoxy or when mixed with superstar serum. The sparkles are big and silver, but can catch the light in ways that make them look more colorful. It makes an excellent liner. As a shadow it works to darken the outer corner, but the sparkles don’t really show up and it takes a lot of blending. I think it could make a fun sparkly smoky eye, but I haven’t tried it.

Overall Thoughts: All in all, I really like this collection. The neutrals are fantastically rich and remind me of musical instruments and the pastels are soft and pretty. I love how the shadows really capture the feeling of the composer’s music, like how Pachelbel is delicate and pretty or how Tchaikovsky is full of epic grandeur. Chopin and Einaudi were more difficult to work with than the rest of the collection. Both of them were very sheer over primer but very dark over a sticky base and required more work to blend out. But if they’re colors you love (or if you want a sparkly black eyeliner) and you’re willing to spend a bit more time blending, I’d say they’re still worth it. The other ten colors are incredibly smooth and easy to apply and I would recommend them in a heartbeat.

As always, stay tuned for the looks I’ve created using this collection. Tomorrow I’ll put up five of them. Several are soft and neutral, but there are also a couple of statement looks in the mix.

The looks are now up here.