So, There's this New Kid in Town...

This review has been a long time coming. I've been working on it on-and-off for several days, and at the start, I was a little dejected that I failed to use the products I picked very well. But I kept at it, because I wanted to test it all out thoroughly for the review, and ended up loving it. This review is more thorough than my others, partially because Sassy make so damn much and partially because I'm reviewing stuff that I was sent free, for a review. Although, I, with all my Britishness am not legally obliged to disclose when I get free stuff, I make a point of doing so anyway.

See the looks I did using Sassy stuff here.

Sassy Minerals - A Review and Stuff

My first attempt - this would have been more sparkly, but I overblended.
Click here for this EOTD.

Sassy Minerals e-mailed me back in October to ask me to check out some of their products. They debuted in late September, 2009 and spent over a year in production before their company went live. Their website is the best I've seen from a new company, with fantastic, accurate product shots, information and a cart system that doesn't infuriate me.

All that aside, it was this line which drew me in:

Fear not. Our mineral makeup products are unique, just like you. Each color is a custom-blended marvel created in the Sassy design lab to turn you into a makeup artist! We don't use mass-marketed bases, and don't work with private label companies. What fun would that be?

Not only do they not repackage, they don't use private label and they mix their own colours, rather than simply adding bases to generic mica colours. So I leapt at the chance, and they graciously sent me a whole bunch of samples to try out.

And They're All Made Out of Ticky-Tacky

The first thing that struck me upon impatiently tearing open my packet was that all the little samples are in jars, not plastic bags. I love love LOVE this. Jars are useful, even when they're empty, and I can stack them up in little drawers and don't bend brush bristles and drop them trying to get the product out. Jars also cost more, so I feel like I'm getting better value for money (or would be; samples are only $0.75 each, considerably cheaper than chips).

In addition, each of the jars is sealed with those little plastic rings they put on tubs of coleslaw. Worse for the environment? Maybe, but it means my jars don't come open in the post and spill sparkles everywhere, which has happened to me with other companies before. The little jars were all bound together in net bags rather than plastic, perhaps to help offset the wastage for the greener among us.

I haven't seen what the full-size product packaging looks like, but this is certainly the most considerate and practical sample packaging I've seen.

That Bit About the Stuff

Sassy have an extremely wide range of products, especially given what a new company they are. They also mix all their own unique colours, so the chances of finding duplicates or ending up with the same generic shade of green is much lower. I like the names of the products, too. Blushes are 'So Cheeky', foundation/primers are 'First Base', lip products 'Lip Service' and eyeshadows are 'Eye Candy'. Speaking of which, they sell eyeshadows in four categories, and here they are:

Silk Lusters - The website describes these as pearl, they're almost matte, but have the slightest, most subtle, teeny amount of shimmer in them. I'm really interested in these, the couple I was sent were quite dull shades (they do a lot of subtler neutrals for this category) and the formula was gorgeous. Smooth, velvety, not chalky in the slightest, and I wonder if it's because the dash of shimmer they have. Either way, they have good pigmentation, they're creamy and opaque, and if I were interested in mattes I'd give these some serious consideration. I think Refresh and Kitschy look particularly lovely.

More swatches of some of my favourite Sassy shades.

Shimmer - The largest category. When Sassy got in touch and described their eyeshadows as bold and sparkly, I was honestly expecting obnoxious glitter, the kind you see in some Urban Decay shades like Midnight Cowboy, and I really don't like obnoxious glitter in eyeshadows. It gets all over your face and I think it can look childish. When they arrived, I realised they weren't. They fall into a category of eyeshadow that (despite owning over 400 now) I didn't own previously. They're sparkly, but the sparkles are so fine these end up being wearable and really beautiful, as well as having some really unique shades. I really like Fairy Wings because of its subtle rainbow sparkle, Sexy Nerd, which is an antique gold with blue, grey and gold sparkles but I just love the name, Break The Silence which is a smoky dark base with more intense blue/purple sparkles, and Ruby Slippers, which I didn't expect to like as I'm not much of a red fan. It's an orange-based red with pink shimmer and different kinds of red sparkles in, to my eye, and it both reminds me of Dorothy's slippers and seems to work and be a really pretty shade, against my brain going "red? Pink? Orange? Together?"

Some of their Shimmers have more of an ordinary shimmer finish than a sparkly one, and others have subtler or more intense sparkle, so even the finishes aren't cookie-cutter. Considering samples are so cheap, and they do some really lovely unique shades, I'd really recommend checking a few of these out.

Flash of Brilliance - I can't articulate how sexy this is in person.

Eye Liners - These are similar to the eyeshadows, and I'd use them more often as that, although the website says they can be both (presumeably with applying them wet as liner?) They tend to be bolder, with more obvious sparkle, and this is the category with some of the most gorgeous eyeshadow shades I've ever seen. I am obsessed with Flash of Brilliance (aqua, silver and gold sparkles in a black base), which looks so much more amazing in person than it does in the jar or on camera, and also Gasoline Rainbow - I don't have Gasoline Rainbow (yet) but it's like Flash of Brilliance except it's rainbow sparkles in a black base. Rainbow! As in, all the colours of the.

These ones are so gorgeous you can use them alone, because they don't need complicated colour combinations to look fabulous.

Deja Vu - This category isn't for an eyeshadow finish, as far as I can tell, but more a collection of shades. The website copy seems to suggest these are inspired by famous, popular shades, so if you own some of the MAC staples for instance, it might be worth checking these out to see if there are any cheaper dupes among them.

I haven't played around with the foundation shades much, since my kabuki is in storage and I don't have anything dense enough with me to apply it properly, so they're on the back-burner for now. I've tried some of the So Cheeky Shimmer blushes though, and I really like those. They're pretty long-lasting for powder blushes, apply great, and although the shimmer in them might be too much for some people (if so, check out the Silk Luster ones), for me it's on the same level as the MAC Mineralised Skin Finish and I really like those, since the sparkle adds a nice highlight. I particularly like Bloom With Creativity, as it's a cool-based dusty pink which is hard to find and suits my colouring.

Eye Candy Shimmers
Top: Jinx. Bottom: Break The Silence, Disturbing the Peace.

Crap swatches of the above. Can I stress again: so much nicer in person.

It's a Piece of Cake to Make a Pretty Cake

As I mentioned previously, this was my first experience with eyeshadows that have the kind of finish which most of Sassy's do. The formula on all of them is great, and I can really tell they spent a hell of a long time in production before going live. If you're into mattes, check out the Silk Lusters, although as I said, they're not strictly matte since they have a dash of subtle sparkle in them. As to the Eye Candy Shimmers, they're pigmented, the shimmer-but-not-so-sparkly-ones the most, although the more sparkly ones can be difficult to work with. I don't think this is Sassy's fault, the same is true of any sparkly eyeshadow. I had exactly the same trouble with Tattletale as I did with MAC Young Punk, you need to use a sticky base with the most sparkly shades, pat it on and try not to overblend. If using more than one colour, you'd be advised to use the same kind of technique I did here in my old Rainbow Eyes tutorial, applying each one separately to the base and then blending carefully between, if you don't want to lose any sparkle.

The Eye Liners are the hardest to work with, since they tend to be the most sparkly, although the super-fine sparkles in the really sparkly ones show up really well provided you don't overblend them. Still, sticky base, pat it on, and don't kill it with blending. Unlike obnoxious glitter shadows (Midnight Cowboy, argh!) though, you don't end up with glitter all over your face by the end of the day, and you don't look thirteen.

Ctrl+F To Me If You're All "tl;dr"

All in all, Sassy are doing everything right. Samples are $0.75, full-size eyeshadows a snip at $4.25, and they even have a size chart on each product to tell you exactly how much is in each sample or full-sized product. The brand image doesn't quite come together for me - as far as I can tell, the company is about introducing beautiful, bolder, sparklier, more unique individual products to women, without neglecting those who also want to be more subtle. The products definitely live up to this, and their range and colour selection is staggering (they do several pages of eyeshadows, and even blush shades, which is really unusual), although the website looks a bit dull to my taste, but the fact remains that it's extremely functional (the product pictures are pretty accurate, too, although everything looks better swatched) and looks nice and professional. The sparklier eyeshadows aren't terribly newbie-friendly, but that's like saying "your ice is cold" and blaming a restaurant for it. That's just how sparklier finishes are, just like mattes are harder to work with than shimmer, and with a bit of practice and adapting your technique, you can get the most out of these.

I know I'm raving, and I'm always a bit reserved when it comes to raving about companies who send me free samples - I feel like I ought to be more critical (hence why this review is more exhaustive), but really, I found them pretty damn impressive. Sassy is hands down the most professional start-up company I've seen, and to be doing so well right off the bat, I really applaud them.

Price:
$4.25 Full-Size Eyeshadow (1g), $0.75 Sample (1/16 tsp),
$11 Full-Size Blush (6g), $0.75 Blush Sample (1/8 tsp)
Where?: Sassy Minerals website.
Look & Feel: 5/5 - It's only sample packaging, I don't expect it to be stylish, but it is incredibly functional and considerate. I repeat, sealed jars on $0.75 samples!
Quality: 4.5/5 - They lose half a point because sparkly shadows can be tricky to work with, but other than that, I love them.
Value: 5/5 - Under $5 for a full-size eyeshadow is cheaper than most mineral make-up companies, including the ones that just add a base to generic mica. For that, you get something painstakingly crafted and unique, as well as some unusual finishes and combinations.

Overall: 4.5/5 - Because a 5/5 pretty much has to also do my ironing for me.

A very healthy 4.5 Internets for Sassy.

Related Posts:

• EOTD: Twice as Nice - Sassy Experiments