Hard Candy just released new products for the holiday season, with gorgeous colors to incorporate into every-day or party looks. Hard Candy has been sold at Sephora in year’s past, but is now exclusive to WalMart. I’ve had some pretty extensive experience trying their products and the brand itself is hit-or-miss for me. There are some really awesome makeup products that have become go-to favorites for me, and there are also a fair share of disappointments. I got the opportunity to try 3 of their new eyeshadow products; where will they fall on the spectrum? Let’s take a look!
First up is the Mod Quad Baked Eye Shadow in Under the Moon. This quad includes 2 sparkly eyeshadows, and two that lean more towards a satin finish.
Shades include: light pink, light orchid, mauve rose, violet
The packaging is pretty cute, and includes a window to show the shadows as well as a faux snake skin cover (which houses a mirror on the inside of the lid). I haven’t had much good luck with any baked drugstore shadows- ever. I find that they aren not as pigmented as I like my eyeshadows to be, with the Mod Quad being no exception. The two light shades were extremely weak, with the lightest shade delivering only sparkles, almost. I was pretty disappointed in the violet shade as well. The only color I see myself using is the mauve satin shade, which wasn’t so bad on color payoff.
Next from the new releases is the Shadow Dancers Liquid to Powder Eyeshadow in Innocent. I was really intrigued with the idea of liquid-to-powder, and assumed it would offer a cream-to-powder application and finish. These come with two eyeshadow shades in a double ended tube. The wands on the shadows were quite odd. They almost remind you of a doe-footed applicator, but they are thin and straight, which makes for difficult application. Why not slanted wands, Hard Candy?? Once again, the lighter color pretty much only delivered white sparkles. The pink in this duo wasn’t so bad, but had a very thin consistency and I could not build it up to full opacity. The white side could be used on top of another shadow to add sparkle. I could almost see these as Hard Candy’s attempt at cream eyeshadows that turned too liquid-y, and so they named the product to match that.
Lastly are the Poppin Pigments Loose Eyeshadow Duo in Violets and Roses. I’ve just started experimenting with pigments recently so I was most excited to try these, especially because of the gorgeous shades. One being almost a rose-gold champagne color, the other a violet orchid. So I open the cute little bottle up and… what the heck? These little bottles have what seem to be sifters on top of them (reminding me of a baby powder bottle). These make it EXTREMELY hard to get any product out. Also, the caps are pretty deep and tiny, so if you tried tapping the product out of the bottle into the cap, it’s a struggle to dip your brush in to pick up the pigment. I found the easiest (but MESSIEST) way of trying to get any product out was to tap it on my hand pretty hard. Yet again, the pigment on these were nothing to write home about— ironic since these are supposed to be POPPIN PIGMENTS. I think it partially had to do with the fact that I couldn’t really get much product out at once! I favor the champagne color over the violet one, but still wish I could get it to a better opacity.
If you had to guess, what do you think I would label these new releases as? Yep… unfortunately these are all big misses in my book for Hard Candy. I mean… if you enjoy playing with color without bold pigmentation, then maybe give these a go? Otherwise, I’d say skip em. Available exclusively at Walmart.
Product received from PR for editorial consideration, all opinions expressed are my own.
Have you tried any of these products from Hard Candy? If so, what did you think?
Hard Candy has always perplexed me with their history of going from Sephora to Walmart, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Some day, I have to check into whether they changed owners or management or something. I have to believe that in going from class to mass their quality level had to change too. Clearly, those products that you reviewed we a fail, though the shades could have been very pretty. These were wan, at best. 🙁
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There are several Hard Candy products I love from the lipglosses to their baked blush and highlighters. There are SO many products available from the brand there will certainly be a few misses I guess. I never used their products when they were in Sephora so I don’t have any info on that!