Anastasia Beverly Hills Single Eyeshadows – Hot Chocolate, Sienna, China Rose, & Dragonfly Review, Swatches, & Looks

When the Anastasia Beverly Hills (ABH) single eyeshadows first launched, I was invited to Macy’s to do a makeover with all the products. This was back when I first started getting into makeup so I immediately was drawn to Sienna and Hot Chocolate since they seemed like the colors I would get the most use out of on a daily basis. The girl that was doing my makeover did a smokey eye with them which looked really nice and then I was convinced that I needed to buy them. ABH was offering a deal, which is still offered, buy four eyeshadows (total: $40) and receive a free magnetic palette. So I looked at the rest of the shadows and picked Dragonfly and China Rose. Each eyeshadow individually is $12 for reference.

Back then I thought these shadows were everything but after gaining more knowledge of the makeup industry and trying endless amounts of products I now have a different opinion on them. Let’s start with the matte shades: Sienna and Hot Chocolate. They blend effortlessly with any other shadow whether it’s cream or powder and they have great pigmentation. The only thing that I don’t like about these matte shadows is that they develop hard pan so the shadow feels much more rough to the tough however, this doesn’t really affect their performance. Unlike the mattes, the duo chromes Dragonfly and China Rose are much softer and smoother. Dragonfly applies great to the skin but requires a little extra packing to get the full opaque color. China Rose, on the other hand, doesn’t stick that well to my skin sometimes so I have to wet my brush to get it to apply well and have opacity if not it sometimes looks like little bits of glitter. Also, I wouldn’t even consider these traditional duo chromes since in the light they still reflect the same color so I would say they’re more like satin/metallics.

Overall, the shadows are okay in my opinion and I don’t think I would repurchase these unless I couldn’t find any dupes. The shadows can be worked with but just require quite a bit more work than shadows from other brands that I have used in the past. I do have to say that ABH does have a great selection of colors and perhaps others perform better than the ones I chose. Below are two eyelooks that I created using these shadows which I think came out great with the extra effort to make them work. Until next time, peace out!