After being permanently scarred by the total disappointment that was Mermaid Palette, I'm totally drawn to eye colors that I feel like are going to live up to my hopes and dreams as far as pigment goes. Cargo Cosmetics is killing it.
For reasons that I cannot properly articulate, I have also fallen in love with gold eye shadow. Though it sounds tacky as hell, its actually universally flattering and looks fabulous on literally any skin tone. Of all the amazing gold eye shadows, and there are many, and I know this, because I've worn them all in the last week or so, Mojave is the absolute best. Please stop what you are doing and buy it immediately. It's even on sale!
Cargo has all of these amazing rich shades, and I love them all. Mojave was my first love, and so, because its sort of a sand-like color, I picked a sea color to go with it, one called Aegean. Behold:
I mean, look at those! Tell me you don't want to dive in and swim around. These pots typically run $16.00 apiece, though various websites currently have them on sale between $8.00 and $12.80. I can tell you though, that for your money, you'll get a huge amount of product. Cargo's single eye shadows are 3.5 grams. By comparison, Urban Decay's single shadows are 1.41 grams and $19.00 each.
After falling so deeply in love with these two colors, I just wanted to replicate them over and over. Luckily for me, Cargo makes a palette for that! The Land Down Under Palette is nothing but sand and water colors and they are just as rich and deep as the colors that I originally fell in love with.
In addition to the twelve gorgeous colors, the palette comes with a two sided brush, one side for blending and the smaller side for smudging. The brush is really firm, but at the same time, the bristles are very soft. I can already tell it will be one of my favorite brushes.
The last thing included is a black eyeliner pencil. I typically prefer using gel pencils, rather than the old school ones that look like colored pencils, because those tend to be chalky and cheap and not apply well. This one is an amazing exception. Even though it looks like an old school pencil, it slid on like a dream. I was so impressed.
I actually had to blend the colors a ton so as to not look like a clown. The only downside to these colors is that they powder up, like baby powder, very easily, so there was a lot of dust, but I really had to tone it down despite using a super light tough to apply the colors. The pigment is crazy good.
When I got home, I decided to separate out the sand colors from the sea colors and see what they looked like on their own. About half way through, I remembered I have an almost two year old daughter who is completely obsessed with makeup, and simultaneously totally destructive to anything she touches. I knew she would never stand for me doing two totally different sets of makeup, so I did one on each eye. I look bananas, just put your thumb over one side of my face or something.
The bottom line here, and this cannot be said enough, is that I am so super pleased with these eye colors. I seriously don't think there are any I've liked more. Also, I'm not kidding about the gold eyeshadow, it really looks good on everyone. Try it out, you wont be sorry.