Bare Escentuals Prime Time Primer Shadow Review

A little after Christmas I purchased a gift for myself, I felt I was deserving since I had purchased all those gifts for other folks, but I decided on something small. So I purchased the Bare Escentuals Prime Time Primer Shadow Collection in Strike It Rich.

I received a set of five mini primer shadows for $18. As I've mentioned before, I'm an oily girl - that includes the eyelids - and BE's loose shadows seemed to disappear or melt away half way through my day. So, I decided to give their version of cream shadow a try.

I will say when I opened the box I was really disappointed by how mini, the mini really was. I considered this to be an initial drawback. The five shades were:

Gunmetal (midnight silver)

Gold Nugget (radiant gold)

Bronzed Twig (iced chocolate)

Sundance (sunlit peach)

Sandalwood (golden taupe)

Click here for more swatches

I soon found out that the size of the tube wasn't as big of an issue as I initially assumed, because it only takes an extremely small amount on my pinky to color my lid up to the crease. The texture was extremely soft and light. Once applied, the colors are true and vibrant, and have more of a shimmer rather than a sparkle. I was pleasantly pleased to find that the color really did last all day and no fade or slow melt away.

The second drawback I found is that if a bit of shadow remains too close to the tube opening, it dries into a little crumble, so that's a bit of wasted shadow. Still, no biggie. 

I typically use the primer shadows alone on the lid with a loose or pressed shadow in the crease. I've personally found the Sundance and Sandalwood to be my favorites, I can throw one of those on with some liner and mascara and be out the door. When I use two different primer shadows for the lid and the crease, I just have to work quickly to blend really well before they "set," but I did like the end result. I don't look so hot with any dark shadows on my lower lid, so Bronzed Twig works awesome for me in the crease. I'm not so sure how I feel about Gold Nugget yet, may be a bit too gold for me, at least in the day. I plan to try the Gunmetal as a crease shade paired with a purple-ish lid, so we'll see how that goes.

One last thing, though I'm all about a makeup brush, these shadows definitely work better when applied with a clean finger (which is more than I can say about my tarte Precious Gems Cream Shadow Collection....that review to come later).

Overall, for me the pros outweigh the cons, so I have to appluad BE (once again) for a quality product, because I am very pleased and plan to buy more!