I feel like metallic eyes are big right now. Not only are they trendy and every brand is coming out with metallic shadows, but I really like them. I have noticed that they are everywhere from the red carpet to YouTube. Lots of brands now have very high-shine, foiled finish eyeshadows which make getting a mirror like metallic eye look super easy. The best part is, you can wet your brush and get and even higher shine finish. You can manipulate how foiled of a finish you get by how you apply them, which makes them not only versatile, but super fun to play around with. Below are some of my favorites, the best metallic shadows from drugstore to high-end, in my humble opinion.
These are super, super shiny, and also super affordable. They come in quads (4 shadows to a compact) for $9.99 from the drugstore. The only downside is that there are only 4 color options. Granted, the math comes out to a total of 16 shadows, but only 4 combinations, a neutral set, a purple set, a rosy set, and a blue set. The formula of these is nice, especially for a drugstore eyeshadow. It is very smooth and blendable, unlike a lot of drugstore shadows which can be chunky or chalky.They have a very wet look to the finish, even when applied dry. This glossy finish does mean that they don't have the greatest staying power, but still pretty good for one of the cheaper drugstore products. Also, priming your eyes will make them last even longer, so be sure to do so or they will crease quickly.
Urban Decay's eyeshadows are great, we all know that. And they do already have some shimmer and metallic shades in their VERY wide shade range of eyeshadows. I mentioned one of my favorite shimmer shades, Roach, in my
November Favorites. These Moondust shadows are a new line of shades that they added to their range. They claim these are their "most sparkly" shades yet, and once you swatch them, you know they are right. They have the most intense, micro fine metallic sparkle that is so fine, it almost feels like a cream when you apply it. They are so smooth, blendable, buildable, and super pigmented. If you like metallic shadows, but don't like how some of them can be chunky, this is your shadow. Like most metallic shadows, they can be applied wet for an even more intense finish, and can be packed on with your finger for a very opaque finish. They come in 7 shades, which include neutrals, pastels, and bold tones. They are $20 a piece, but are so pigmented that I'm pretty sure they will last forever.
Makeup Geek's eyeshadows have been huge lately. It seems like everyone on YouTube, and therefore almost every makeup junkie everywhere, has tried and loved them. They come in a wide range of shades, and the formula is buttery smooth perfection. I also like that they come in pans without packaging. I depot all my shadows and put them in pallets anyways, so not having to pay for extra packaging that I just throw out anyway is great. If you haven't started depotting yet, Makeup Geek does sell her own magnetic pallets too. Her latest addition to her eyeshadow line are her Foiled formula. She released ten shades, in a range of neutrals and bolds, and these are pigmented to perfection. Again, you can manipulate the formula depending on how you apply them, and they are very smooth and blendable. They have a glossy finish and great staying power. I also like that the shades are similar to other shades she makes, so you can mix them and matte them out a bit if you wanted to.
Anastasia is a very well know, very well loved brand, and the queen of eyebrows. They recently added eyeshadows to their makeup line, and they are gorgeous. They released a whopping 69 shades, including 13 metallic shades. All of the shades are pretty, but these metallics are beautiful. They have such finely milled shine in them that creates the most dramatic, extreme mirror shine finish, which can be amped up even more with a wet brush. They are so shiny and so pigmented, that just one swipe of a swatch on your finger and you can see how pigmented it is from an arms length away (or further if that was possible). These also are sold as individual pans with no plastic packaging, and are $12 a pan. The shades themselves are gorgeous, and the shade range is amazing.
I am in love with these shadows. They come in over 200 colors, about a quarter of which are metallic, and the shade range is beyond amazing! With that many shades I would expect there to be a lot of really similar colors, but these come in literally almost every shade imaginable, including some incredible brights. They also come in individual pans, are super blendable, and the pans they come in are huge. They are $21 a pan, but these pans are by far the largest. Online Sephora gives you the option to create your own palette, and when you do you actually get a discount for buying more than one which is extra great because with this amazing shade range, you are going to want more several. The metallics are beautiful. They are not as mirror-finish, high shine as some of the others listed, but are still very smooth and come in WAY more shades than any others.
These are one of the best drugstore eyeshadows out there, metallic or not. However, they are very metallic. The formula is similar to a MAC Pressed Pigment, and is not the smoothest of shadows in this list, but it is still blendable, and one of the most foiled, shiny finishes of all when applied wet. They come in 18 very diverse shades and are only $7.99 each. My favorite part about these shadows is how manipulable they are. If you apply them dry with a fluffy brush, they have a lightly metallic, shimmery finish, but if you apply them with a flat, dense, wet brush, they go on very pigmented and high-shine. They also look nice when packed on directly with your finger. I included and swatched the Glistening Garnet shade, a rich cranberry, in a previous
Drugstore Dash/Haul, and I'm still loving them. Considering the price, the formula, and the shade range, these are the metallic shadow I would recommend to someone starting out or nervous about playing with metallics at first.
These are the only on the list that are truly a cream formula. They are also the highest shine formula on the list. I love how buildable these are. You can really keep layering them on to build up a high-impact color and extremely glossy finish. They come in 15 shades, with a terrific range of neutrals and a few good bold shades.They also come with a mini eyelid primer, which helps the color go on even smoother, bolder, and shinier than it already does. It really helps the color stay smooth and bold without fading or creasing. I also like to dip a brush in the primer and mix it into the cream, then pack it onto my lids. If you apply it dry and without the primer, it is has a beautiful sheer shimmer finish, but if you do the mixing and packing like I described, it has an intense, opaque mirror finish.
NARS revamped and released a number of new products recently, including these metallic eyeshadows. They had a lot of shimmers previously, but these are smooth metallics, not glittery shimmers. They call them "Dual-Intensity" because of the two finished you can achieve when applied dry versus wet (much like most of the others, but this one tells you so in the name). These are very rich colors, which pride themselves on being long-lasting, and that they definitely are. In fact, the formula is so stay-put, that they can be difficult to blend at times. Most of the others listed are very buffable, which is part of what I love about them, but this one is definitely the least buffable and blendable. That very thick, stuck in place formula means that if you do want to pack on very intense color that is not going to move, this is your formula. However, if you want to be able to blend multiple shades, or to buff out any harsh edges, this is probably not your favorite formula. At $29 each, I would hope to love the formula more, and there are definitely people out there who will, it just isn't always what I'm looking for. They come in 12 mostly neutral shades, with a few bolder colors like a plum, cobalt and green.
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