Saturday was one of those rare, unanticipated, hyper-productive days that turns you into a tornado of GETTING SHIT DONE-NESS. I deep cleaned and re-arranged my bedroom. I hung up pictures on my walls that have been gathering dust in a corner since I moved in six months ago. I washed my pup’s dog bed. I made low-carb Thai peanut sauce noodles for dinner (food baby much? Worth it).

And the gods must have seen my diligence and saw it fit to reward me, because my Darling Girl order that was supposed to arrive Tuesday did NOT arrive Tuesday. Oh no!

It arrived SATURDAY.

Take that, Memorial Day! Thwarted!

My little spoils consist of 10 shadows, the Fantasia blush, the Hail Hydra gift-with-purchase, and glitter glue (and a neat sample of a yet-to-be-release shadow, and a cool sticker). It took me a few days to get everything swatched and looks put together, but here we have it, 12 shadows swatched AND the Fantasia blush used! Peasants rejoice!

TO THE SWATCHES!

Swatches

Everything together!

Digging the ‘disorganized rainbow arm’ look.

Rhapsody

One might first notice that I seem to have had some trouble swatching Rhapsody… the REALLY intense gold will take a bit of practice for me to perfect, but this is a really beautiful shadow. It has a deep blue base, and rich gold overlay.

The gold really has a lot of dimension to it. This shadow reminds me of a royal crest or something similarly regal.

Even in my second attempt at swatching I had some trouble with the evenness of the application– would love to hear if anyone has found a better way to apply than just densely packing on the shadow?

I am excited to try to incorporate this into an eye look, but admittedly it is such a ‘statement’ shadow that I imagine you would need to do something somewhat simple, and really let this shadow be the hero of the look (said in Chef Ramsay’s voice).

Brocade

Brocade is a plummy violet color with really strong gold in it. The website recommends patting this on instead of sweeping it on, and I absolutely agree with this. Patting it on over Glitter Glue did VERY much bring out the gold tones, almost to the point of overwhelming the purple, but I packed a lot of product on there. Actually using this shadow, I would likely be slightly less liberal and aggressive in my product application, but this is an absolutely lovely color, and like Rhapsody VERY regal. Brocade is the lady to Rhapsody’s sovereign lordship.

Papercut

To me, Papercut is a slightly mauve taupe with intense aqua shimmer. I’m hoping to do a look using this all over the lid. In my mind, this will be the perfect combo of crazy-shadow-indie-witchiness and pull-off-at-work-ness. I also think that the taupe will make a good crease color– most of the aqua will likely be lost upon application with a fluffy brush and with no Glitter Glue, and sometimes a girl just needs a soft taupe to put in the crease!

SO PRETTY.

Fortune Cookie

Fortune Cookie is a sandy colored shadow with green shift. The website says it has some rose in there too, but to be honest I experienced a LOT more of the green shift, which made this look almost like a light, metallic khaki when applied. I’ve used this in the look at the end of those post.

Lovelorn

Lovelorn is a dusty pink with gold overlay. In some ways, I think Lovelorn is in the same sort of family as Fyrinnae’s Serendipity, though they are certainly different shadows. In some ways, it also reminds me of sort of a baby sister of Brocade. It is really romantic shade, and calls to mind picnics in the English countryside, or something similarly idyllic and possibly surrounded by fluffy, bleating sheep. (Come on, you don’t see it?)

Basket Case

This shadow was SUCH a standout to me! It’s a cool toned purple with intense light blue shift that gives the overall impression of forget-me-not blue… but with a buttload of shine. It applied particularly uniformly and with just enough slip. I like to imagine this is what blue aurora borealis look like.

Positively Peachy

Positively Peachy is a very, very shiny shadow– it is loaded with sparkles, so it performs particularly well over a glitter adhesive. It’s a very summery color, and has some similarities to Fyrinnae’s Rapunzel Had Extensions, but I found RHE to be less sparkly and more shimmery, and with more orange tones to it. Positively Peachy IS very peachy, but I think has more dusty pink in its base.

Nightwatch

I LOVE GREEN SHIFT. I didn’t even know it, but I do. Nightwatch is a purple with green shift, and a bit of red/pink tones in there too. It has a bit of a spooky vibe, to me, and quite a lot of depth when applied.

Hail Hydra

Hail Hydra is the Darling Girl GWP for May 15-May 19. It’s a cranberry red with silver sparkles, with perhaps some very faint brown undertones. It has quite a bit of shimmer to it, and buffing it into the crease over just primer does bring out a lot of warm, reddish brown tones.

Fashion Disaster

Fashion Disaster is from the Paper Runway collection, which is a collaborative project between Darling Girl, Glamour Doll Eyes, and Chinovi Cosmetics and is set to be released at the end of June. This is a bright, warm, sunny yellow with peach shift. The peach shift REALLY comes out with a glitter adhesive, as you can see in the photo above over Glitter Glue. What a great summer color! I incorporate this one into one of the looks at the end of the post.

London Calling

London Calling is another shade that really benefits from a glitter adhesive. It has a dark blue base with a mauve-y shift. The website says red, but it read as a more pink tone on my skin. This one calls to muted red lights through early morning London fog (how’s that for artistic interpretation? Eh? Eh?).

Blue Flame

This is the shadow that led me to order all of this in the first place! Blue Flame has a vibrant blue base (it WILL stain your skin a bit) with an intense red shift. I unfortunately didn’t take photos because it wasn’t a complete look, but I applied this all over the lid last night and it is an utterly bewitching color.

Fantasia Inner Glow Blush

Oh oh oh, an orange blush! This blush is the BOMB DOT COM. It is sort of a peach-leaning creamsicle orange color, and it has a magenta shift (I guess the website says more violet and I can also see that, but applied to the skin and in person it looks like a bright magenta to me) that is sheer loveliness. I think you would really need to apply it quite heavily to see the magenta shift in a noticeable way, but I did use this blush in one of my looks at the end of the blog post and I really adore it. I have wanted an orange blush for some time now. Many summer looks will be featuring this, I can tell! I also was pleased with how this blush applied and blended out. A little went a long way, but I didn’t find it difficult to apply smoothly, or to build.

Turn Around Time

I placed my order on May 15, right after Darling Girl reopened after round of the ick in the family. A LOT of orders were placed at the time, so I know they were swamped. My package was shipped on May 22, and arrived on May 24. The TAT posted on the website is 18-20 business days, so I was incredibly pleasantly surprised with the amount of time it took for the shadows to get to me! Susan runs a lovely business!

The Looks

I am currently working on figuring out the best ways to blend loose, shifty shadows while still getting the vibrance and foiled look that the glitter adhesives give them. Experimentation can only lead to progress, even eventually, right? Here are two looks I did with some of these shadows:

All the products:

• NARS Smudge-proof primer
• Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue
• Ardell lashes, ‘natural’
• L’oreal voluminous lashes
• Darling Girl shadows in Fortune Cookie and Papercut
• Fyrinnae shadow in Bawdy Librarian
• Tarte ‘Barefoot’ shadow from Aqualillies palette
• Lancome blush in Aplum
• NYX Taupe blush
• Clinique Almost Lipstick in Black Honey
• Anastasia brow wiz in caramel and brow powder in Strawburn
• MUFE HD foundation in 110
• Laura Mercier secret concealer in 01 and secret brightening powder
• UD 24/7 liner in crave
• Pixi bronzer in Suntouched

And the second look:

All the products:

• NARS Smudge-proof primer
• Darling Girl Cosmetics Glitter Glue
• Darling Girl Fashion Disaster, Positively Peachy, Hail Hydra shadows
• UD Last Call and Oil Spill shadows
• Shiro Are You Shear You Want To Enchant That? shadow
• Darling Girl Fantasia inner glow blush
• Inglot lipstick in 156
• NYX Taupe blush
• Anastasia brow wiz in caramel and brow powder in Strawburn
• MUFE HD foundation in 110
• Laura Mercier secret concealer in 01 and secret brightening powder
• Covergirl Clumpcrushers mascara in Black

Final Thoughts

I absolutely love the color range of Darling Girl’s shadows! Each one has obviously had a lot of thought put into them and are quite unique. I do find some of the more intense shadows, like Rhapsody and Blue Flame, to be a little challenging to apply, and I would anticipate they would be a bit tricky to incorporate into more complicated looks that require a deal of blending, but if you stuck with other pressed matte shadows that didn’t need a sticky base like these ones do (similar to how you need to apply Stila Magnificent Foils), I think you could do a lot without just sticking to one color on the lid. I particularly love Basket Case and Papercut, and Fashion Disaster really caught my attention (maybe because it’s how I feel most days, haha 😉 ). I will definitely be ordering from Darling Girl again, and can’t wait to try some more looks with her beautiful shadows!

Your Turn

Have you ever tried Darling Girl? What were your experiences like? What kind of a look would you use a shadow like Rhapsody or Blue Flame to create?

It should be noted that I purchased these products completely on my own and am reviewing them independently, without affiliation to anything or anyone other than my mild (ahem) addiction to makeup.