Another new product I stumbled upon at Rite Aid last week was Revlon ColorStay Smoky Shadow Sticks ($8.99). Smoky shadow sticks come in 5 color combinations. The idea behind them is two eyeshadow colors in each stick, one light and one dark, to give you the perfect no fuss smoky eye. I picked up the colors Torch and Flare.
I’ll start by saying that I’m 50/50 on these after my testing. On one hand, I like the convenience and they wear really well. On the other hand, they are not very pigmented and the tips easily break off.
Revlon claims that these eyeshadow sticks provide “all day, crease-proof, fade-proof color”. I have very oily eyelids and products that make these claims rarely last me a few hours. I was shocked to find that these pretty much do what they say.
I started my testing by applying these with Nars eyeshadow base. 10 hours later, I had very little creasing or fading. The next day I applied the shadow stick with no primer base. Shockingly I still had very minor creasing and fading 10 hours later. That’s a real feat with my eyelids. Usually no primer results in no eyeshadow 4 hours later.
Now on to the bad part. I was disappointed in the pigmentation of these, especially when it came to the darker of the two shades. They apply very light and require several applications to build up adequate color. Luckily they are creamy enough to blend together and color can be built up, it just takes a bit of extra effort.
These eyeshadows have a nice shimmery finish to them. As I said, they do apply creamy but dry down to a nice powder finish. Torch contains a very light nude pink and a dark chocolate brown. Flare is a light lavender purple with a slightly darker medium purple color.
Since you need to run these shadow sticks over the eyes several times, it can require a bit of gentle tugging. And off pops the eyeshadow! I was able to kinda smush it back together but that doesn’t make me happy after only one use.
I like these Revlon ColorStay Smoky Shadow Sticks enough to not return them. But I don’t think I would purchase them again. If you’re looking for a darker smoky eye, these probably aren’t for you. Unless you really want to work on building the color up over and over.
The swatches above look really pigmented but that’s with them applied heavily so they show up on camera. Once you start blending the colors out they get very sheer so you have to keep applying and blending to get them darker.
Have you seen these Revlon eyeshadow sticks in the stores yet? What do you think of them?
Leave a Reply