Tag Archives: indie eyeshadows

Indie Brand Spotlight: Shellwe Makeup

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In December of 2024, I ordered the Wulfa palette from Monolith-EU, but ended up being sent Elaina instead. Considering how the packaging is, as shown above, I can understand how it would be easy to get palettes mixed up. There is nothing written on the brown paper and the only identifier is the animal symbol (in wax, sticker form, on a charm, etc). Monolith shipped the right palette to me after I contacted them, so that’s how I ended up with two items from Shellwe Makeup. These are my first and only ones so far.

Elaina Pigment Palette

The Elaina Pigment Palette mattes feel hard pressed, but that could be the nature of these being a high pigment formula. Although there’s some stiffness when I try to pick up the product onto my natural hair brushes, the mattes still blend pretty well. The pale green of Shade 1 (which looks grey on my skin) is a bit thinner and less opaque. Shade 7 is also a nicer brown to work with than the redder Shade 10 because the latter doesn’t blend as easily or evenly. Still, I can get it to comply with a bit of time and effort.

Shade 4 looks like it should be a yellowish green based on the pan color, but it’s much darker on my skin. I can only use it as high as my crease, and not as an under-the-brow type of shade. This means that despite this palette appearing to have a nice gradient of light, medium, and deep mattes, they’re actually mostly dark shades and therefore look similar on my skin tone. This limits my options for eye looks even more.

The silver (Shade 2) and gold (Shade 8) are scattered-effect topper type of shimmers. They aren’t easy to pick up on a brush or fingers and will have fallout without glitter primer. They were so annoying to work with that I actually removed them from this palette and replaced them with silver and gold single eyeshadow shimmers from Fantasy Cosmetica.

How Shades 2 and 8 look after being rubbed together.

What’s interesting is the fact that at some point (I got my palette in early 2025) Shellwe Makeup reformulated those exact two shades. It wasn’t until I was working on the final draft of this blog post that I decided to check if this palette was still available on the brand’s website and noticed the sign below.


So, I can’t have been the only one who despised those shades. Even though I don’t usually like toppers, the formula of these were objectively not good. So, I hope the new ones are more to everyone’s liking!

The light green shimmer that actually appears goldish on my skin (Shade 4) is chunkier and wetter than the rest, but still manages to lack in opacity. The purple duochrome, Shade 6, is beautiful and smooth. The golden brown satin, Shade 9, is smooth but makes much less of an impression compared to the sparkle level of the others.

Because there are 10 shades in Elaina, and only 3 of them are perfect eyeshadows for me, I’m not as happy with this palette. Switching out the two most problematic shades helped, but I still rarely reach for this. I’m glad it was technically free, since Monolith didn’t make me send it back in exchange for the mixup with Wulfa.

Wulfa Eyeshadow Palette

Now this palette is amazing!

The shimmers and mattes are pressed way more loosely. In fact, Wulfa came with two super thin foam circle pads to protect two of the shadows, but I can’t tell which ones because they fell out before I could open the palette all the way. If I had to guess, I assume it was for Shade 1 and 4.

As seen in the photo below, with the exclusion of that vibrant Duochrome (Shade 1), this is the amount of kickup I got around the edges of the mattes and shimmers after just one use, compared to how clean the edges of Elaina are despite having used it three times by that point. To this day, my Elaina palette still looks quite clean.

The two replacement shades by Fantasy Cosmetica that I chose are shown in Elaina above.

Shade 1 is chunkier and wetter, like the light green shimmer (Shade 4) in Elaina, but Shade 1 is more opaque. This duochrome is stunning! I do sometimes get kickup, but less than I’d expect considering it’s a bit flaky.

Shade 2 is a fantastic yellow. It’s super blendable and soft.

I don’t wear orange eyeshadows that often outside of creating eye looks for palette reviews or outside of the fall season. However, this is a pretty color. It gives some kickup, but it’s not too bad.

I was a tiny bit disappointed by Shade 4 because it’s so dark that I can’t see as much of the green tone. However, I can create cool looks with it when I pat some of the other shimmers on top. The consistency is thick, but it applies smoothly and adheres well to the skin.

The deep purple (Shade 5) takes more effort to diffuse in the way I want, but it can definitely be packed on for smoking out my looks. It’s at least easier to blend than the reddish brown shade from Elaina.

I tend to use one or two shades from Wulfa with eyeshadows from other palettes to complete looks. For example, I used Shade 4 in the eye look in my Shade Range Expansions post in the dark grey shirt. I might have used a few shades from the Elaina palette in the pink top from that post. I think I used one Wulfa shade in my Armani Dolci Blush post as well, but I cannot confirm for certain. I often forget what I use in multi-palette eyeshadow looks.

Another point going for Shellwe is that these shimmers don’t really crease on me. The only real gripe I have with the Wulfa palette is actually the packaging. The magnet the holds it closed is very weak, which is an issue I don’t have with Elaina. I have to keep bending and working the folded portion of the palette to try and align it right so that it stays closed. My only other workaround is making sure that I keep at least one other palette on top of it to guarantee it stays shut!

I absolutely recommend the Wulfa palette, but I’m not sure whether I will buy more from Shellwe Makeup. I’m open to it if a color story is truly drawing me in. I’m still curious about their Farasha palette, for example, but I have such a huge eyeshadow collection that I think I should just stick to purchasing from my usual Indie brand favorites. Black Friday of 2024 was my time to branch out and try products from a few additional brands, but from 2025 and onward, I’ve felt less adventurous. Brands like Odens Eye, Fantasy Cosmetica, Clionadh, and Singe Beauty produce enough to keep me fearing for my wallet!

That’s all for today! Thank you for reading!

-Lili ❤

Bella Beaute Bar x Noopur Coalescence Palette

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DISCLAIMER: Whenever I post about a brand, Influencer, or other public figure for the first time, I write a disclaimer to inform readers about any potential biases.
Regarding Bella Beauté Bar, I am not affiliated with them in any way. I’ve heard nothing but positive things about their eyeshadow quality, so they’ve been on my list of indie brands to try for a long time.
Regarding Noopur, I believe her Instagram account is one of the most well-known for indie brand swatches, especially multichromes. Her work is frequently in my feed, but I don’t know anything about her as a person.

I purchased this palette because purple and green are my top choices for colorful eyeshadows, and I love multichromes. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I ran out of room on my arm, so I moved Jal to the top. This is why the swatches aren’t completely in order.

I’ve owned this palette since the end of November 2025 and considering how infrequently I’ve been wearing colorful eyeshadows, I’m still surprised that I’ve used this a fair amount. Wanting to test this palette organically over time instead of forcing myself to apply it daily in a two-week period is why it has taken me so long to post this review.

The Coalescence mattes remind me of Natasha Denona’s mattes, but with even more pigment. Some feel silkier (with some slip), some feel buttery, and all of them are soft to the touch. I am impressed by the kind of pastel shades not looking ashy on dark skin. However, they don’t build up and adhere as well to my eyes if I’m using my tried and true Lisa Eldridge Liquid Silk eyeshadow as a base. When I want to wear Libra, Dawn, and Sprout without them looking like sheer veils of color, I have to switch to the MAC Paint Pot or Milk Hydro Grip Eye Primer. The only other matte that needs special treatment is Aries because of its ultra pigmented nature. A little goes a long way, and it is slightly less blendable than the others. When I wipe my makeup brush onto my microfiber towel, it gets everywhere and has even transferred back off the cloth onto other objects before (brushes, fingers, etc). So, I try not to pick up as much onto my brush and build it gradually.

Although I was drawn to this palette for the greens and purples, I found myself mixing mattes together to try and turn them into the specific shades/tones I envisioned for my eye looks. These eyeshadows are formulated in a way that is actually pretty good at being able to do that. Some brands’ eyeshadows can sometimes be a little too good and turn a new color while I’m attempting to just create a gradient of one shade blending into another without lines of demarcation. Thankfully, I don’t have that problem with these, but I don’t try to just blend one shade on top of another when I’m mixing. I dip into both colors with my brush when I pick them up initially, so I can blend them into my skin at the same time. Then, I adjust it with additional product afterwards if needed.

All of the shimmers in the palette had small round foam coverings over them, which I assumed was to protect them in transit because they’re fragile. Imagine my surprise when I tried to rub my finger in Jal for the first time and nearly shifted half of the eyeshadow out of the pan! Thankfully, they can be pressed back into place in the pans.

This also happened with Agni, which is another of the flaky eyeshadows. Essentially, Flora and Fauna have traditional metallic and satin finishes. Flora has the benefit of being an impactful shimmer, but smooth enough for me to use it to brighten my under eyes. Fauna is even smoother, but is too dark to serve that purpose. I like having a neutral option theoretically, but since it’s so outnumbered by the more colorful options (and even the muted shades still pop), I find myself struggling to incorporate it into looks.

To minimize fallout, I can dampen my brush and use the Nyx glitter primer, but it still happens throughout the day. However, it’s not bad enough for me to consider it messy looking.

Harmony is described as having a “sheer purple base and shifts blue-purple-pink-peach with additional purple sparkles throughout.” I can see blue, purple, and pink as sparkles, but not as a color changing shift.

Agni is described as a “holochrome with a grey base and shifts pink-orange-gold,” which I agree with, along with Balance having a “super sheer base and a mix of green-pink shifting sparkles as well as blue-purple sparkles.” When I’ve tried to intensify the look of this eyeshadow and pack it on by wetting it or using glitter primer, I haven’t liked the look as much because it seemed like only the blue color grew bolder. I wish the shift was a bit stronger, but Balance is one of my favorite shades in the palette.

I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed that Dissonance, the “super sheer light olive base with silver sparkles and orange-gold shifting sparkles mixed in,” looks mostly just orange on me and not as green as it appears in the pan. It’s a pretty color, but I love greens and the only eyeshadows that read green on me are mattes: Sprout, Decay, and Chaos.

And then finally, Jal is a bright blue with silver sparkles. I’m not a lover of blue eyeshadows, so I didn’t intend to get much use out of this shade. When I think about it though, between Jal, Vayu being a blue-grey, Sprout being a minty-blue, Decay being a blue leaning green, plus the blue sparkles in Harmony and Balance, this palette feels like more of a blue palette than green. This explains why I sometimes get this sense of being unfulfilled when I use this palette despite the pretty colors and them having the sparkle intensity and impact that I like.

If the other Bella Beauté Bar palettes have this type of quality, I would happily purchase additional palettes in the future. The Coalescence eyeshadows, although able to be combined and tweaked, are not totally within my palette preferences. Part of my preferences is having ready-made colors available that I love, so that I can create looks quickly without too much thought. There are times when I do still enjoy playing with colors, which is why I’ve continued to reach for this palette periodically over the past six months.
One of the great features of this palette is that it’s magnetic with finger holes in which to rearrange or swap shades. So, I still have an easy way to tailor the palette with other BBB shades or exchange them with standard eyeshadow pans (26mm) from brands like Sydney Grace, Clionadh, Devinah, Terra Moons Cosmetics, Fantasy Cosmetica, etc. The only thing to watch out for is that some of the brands overfill the pans (Sydney Grace mainly) so the mirror/inner lid of the palette could get messy from having eyeshadows press against it.

There are four pressed pigment singles that are part of the collab. They look stunning, but they were sold out on the Monolith-EU website when I was buying the palette, so I didn’t think about them again. I am still curious about how those differ from the shimmers in this palette, but I think I will pass on them anyway.

That’s all for today! Thanks for reading!

-Lili ❤

Viseart Étendu Palette Cashmerie Charmeuse Review

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I haven’t mentioned Viseart since the last Eyeshadow Palette Ranking. One year after that post, I bought the Cashmerie Charmeuse palette on sale from the Irress Beauty website. I hadn’t heard of that business before, so I was nervous to shop from them, but there were no issues with my order.

Even though I’ve had this palette since October 2025, the bulk of its usage was in the beginning weeks of me getting it (riding on the excitement of being a new addition to my makeup collection). Of course, I’ve used it more recently as well to refresh my memory on how it performs.

I am so happy to report that the eyeshadow quality in this palette is as great as I expect from Viseart! There were a few years that I felt the quality had dropped (coinciding with the transitional year that Viseart started manufacturing in California, alongside France). I believe 2022 was when I started to regain confidence in the brand’s formulas and considered them to be stable again. Regarding their formulas, the brand prides itself on the fact that, “90% of the ingredients in our palettes are the same across the entire product range to create a range of color true shades for our global audience to choose from.”
That being said, Viseart’s eyeshadows contain talc, including their latest launch called Lisa Says Gah x AQUA Étendu. This may be fine in the US, but they still manufacture in France and talc may be banned within the EU by 2027. So, changes to Viseart’s formula could be coming whether we the customers like it or not.

Before I move onto the finer details of this palette, I want to acknowledge that this type of color story usually does not interest me. I prefer high contrast looks on myself, so I tend to favor dark dramatic eyeshadows, bold colorful mattes, and sparkly shimmers. I cannot explain why I was so drawn to this color story when it has so many midtone/medium deep colors that will not show up as well on my skin, many of which are muted and had the risk of looking dull compared to the saturation of my skin. This color story is geared towards “soft looks,” which is rare for me to own, but I wanted it anyway!

Veloutine is my only option for creating depth in the outer corner. It is described as an “espresso bitter brown,” so it’s not quite as dark as I would wish, but it still gets the job done. All the other mattes in this palette require very little effort to blend, so this one is a bit troublesome in comparison. It sticks a bit where it’s placed, so I rely on my workhorse brushes (mainly Sonia G) to make things look even.
I don’t consider it a bad eyeshadow though since I can get the kind of results, seen in the eyeshadow looks, in a reasonable amount of time.

The two colors I rely on for brightening the inner corners are Moire Argent and Soie d’Or. What impressed me the most about Moire Argent is that it’s one of the few light pink shimmers that actually look pink (and not silver, gray, or white) on me. Since it’s described as a “lilac rose” perhaps the slight addition of purple is the reason, explainable by color theory.

I typically use Cachemire Doux and Charmante mixed together to brighten the area under my brows. Charmante is so whitish-pink that it only looks good on my warm medium-dark skintone if I’m doing pink or cool toned looks. Cachemire Doux is a little too dark to use under my brows by itself.

Mousseline, described as a “burnt plum,” and Cambresine, which has a “midtone greige stone hue,” are surprisingly darker on the skin than they appear in their pans. I use them in the crease, along with Tulle Rosé.

Soie Fumée has such a fancy sounding description as a “midtone smokey pewter thistle,” but I just think of it as a taupe color. I only use it when I’m creating a full-on cool toned look. The “light bark lilac taupe” is called Cire, and it looks brown on me. So, I use that one when want a neutral type of eyeshadow.

Faille and Moire are the most exciting shades in this palette, and both are listed as duochromes. I cannot detect a shift in Faille, as I only see a burgundy brown base color with purple shimmer. However, it’s still quite a pretty shade. I get some fallout from it, but not enough to prevent me from wanting to wear it.
Moire is one of the most common duochrome eyeshadow colors, but I still love a classic!
I have to admit that I’m a bit disappointed that it doesn’t stand out as boldly as I want, even when applied with a wet brush. It doesn’t compete with Verrerie from the Violetta Petit Fours quad, but not everyone wants their duochromes and multichromes to be attention-grabbers like I do.

In case anyone is wondering, here is how the new ranking would look like.

Ranking List of All the Viseart Palettes I Ever Owned:

  1. Dark Mattes 04 (Original 12 Pan Large Version)
  2. Petits Fours Violetta
  3. Bijouxette Étendu
  4. Petit Pro London Étoile
  5. Petit Pro Soleil (Swatchfest)
  6. Cashmerie Charmeuse Étendu
  7. Petits Fours Peridot
  8. Petites Shimmers Coy
  9. Minx Theory II Palette
  10. Neutral Mattes 01 (12 Pan Large Version)
  11. Grande Pro 1x
  12. Warm Mattes 10 SlimPro (Swatchfest)
  13. Boheme Dream (Original 12 Pan Large Version) (Swatchfest)
  14. Dark Edit (Swatches) (Discussed)

Cashmerie Charmeuse satisfies me when I have a unusual craving for soft looks, mauves, mid-toned colors, and either cool toned or neutral eye looks. Although I won’t be using this palette often, the quality and performance make this a purchase I don’t regret! It pleases me that Viseart continues to be an eyeshadow brand that I enjoy and can recommend. I just hope they will be able to manage through the EU cosmetic regulation changes in 2027!

That’s all for today! Thanks for reading!

-Lili ❤