A couple of months ago I had this weird bout of nostalgia to the make up I used to wear when I was about 15 or 16. Remember make up back then? Rimmel, Boots 17, only having one or two of each thing and using everything up to the last scrap? Those were the freakin’ days! Ok, they probably look much cooler in hindsight, and having a bazillion cosmetics to choose from these days does have it’s advantages 
One of the cosmetics that I found I didn’t have was the matte brown shades I used to wear a lot back then. Why did I wear them? EVERYONE had a default kit of brown eyeshadows. Blue eyed girls wore brown eyeshadow in the day and pink, or blue for special (although I was blue eyeshadow crazy and still am), and peach blusher, and that strange heathery pink shimmery lipstick in the Rimmel smallest/cheapest size.
I looked through my kit and I have heaps of blue shadows, a handful of pink shadows, and no matte brown. Woohoo! Shopping time!
I don’t know if you girls ever go into discount stores like Poundland or Savers but if you have you might have noticed that they have racks of bagged brand-name cosmetics of discontinued lines. They’re usually fairly unappetising but occasionally: GOLD!
I was in my (frighteningly”local”) discount store Trago Mills and I spotted that they now carry bagged brand name cosmetics. In those bags, at £1.99 were Calvin Klein eyeshadows! NO WAY! And even better, there were heaps of matte browns to choose from.
Click to continue reading about the CK cosmetics for £1.99 each and see more photos and swatches
I bought five shades of eye shadow: Moonstone, Sandstone, Deep Brown, Best Brown and Myrrh and one shade of Lip gloss: African Violet. This set me back just under £12. Of the sites I could find still selling these babies for full price, they were clocking in at about that price for one shadow. There are few sites selling them for high prices now because it looks like Mr Klein has abandoned his adventures in eye shadow and ALL the cosmetics from the range are going for bargain prices. Good news for us though because these shadows are excellent!
If you want to check them out in action on my eyes, there are a couple of close ups on my first Face of the Day from a few weeks ago.
The shadows come in a range of shades which have quite subtle differences between one and the next, but they are distinct. This is real perfectionist-shade-selection territory, which is nice. I don’t know if my local store had the full range, but they had a few more in the browny/grey/buff area that I didn’t buy, and some blues and silvers and a couple of dark shades too.
The packaging is minimalist and practical, you can see through the whole lid so it’s easy to pick out the colour you are after, and the back is labelled legibly too. It would be nice to have a sponge applicator but I guess CK cosmetics chicks all have nice brushes ready to use so the applicator bit would just take up space and harbour bacteria? Not having it adds to the grown-up minimalist aesthetic of these shadows, and since they’re just under £2 each at the moment, it’s fine with me!
My swatching didn’t turn out brilliantly as there’s so little decent daylight around but I hope you can see the distinctness between the shades. I absolutely love using these. The powder is very fine milled and blends like a dream. These shades are mostly matte but not at all chalky and flat. They’re just not shimmer/sparkle. It’s a really nice texture/finish and lasts really well throughout the day.
Finally: the lip gloss. Ultimate Edge Lip Gloss in African Violet. I got this one from Trago for just £1.99 and you can get if from various online sellers for around £5 including shipping. Sadly, this one is not the stunner that the eyeshadows are.
Swatched on my hand, you can see it has a sheen, but almost no pigment at all. Really so little pigments it’s invisible on lips. However, what it loses in pigment it makes up for with an OVERPOWERING SMELL. I’m not exagerrating, it’s a knock-your-socks-off scent. If any of you guys are also on a nostalgia trip you might get a kick out of the fact that the overpowering scent is of Calpol the baby medicine. Somehow CK has managed to combine the sickly sweetness and massive pinkness of the Calpol smell and pack so much into this gloss that you could smell it from space! Smell and lack of pigment aside, it feels a bit sticky on the lips, tastes ok, does basically nothing and comes in a very small size. For all these reasons I don’t recommend this gloss. Best left on the rack.
In summary, the eye shadows are an incredible bargain at under £2 and I wouldn’t blame you if you bought the whole range! The gloss is weak and best avoided.
Have you picked up any of these or other designer make up in discount stores? What did you think?
That’s such a great idea. I’ve never thought of checking out the cheapy shops for make-up. And what a bargain those eyeshadows are! I think the Moonstone/Sandstone/Deep Brown combination will make one helluva smoky eye!