Art Deco Eyeshadow Base Review

Eye primers have to be one of the most debated products on the planet.  Some people love a certain one, others hate it.  My eyelids are what I would call "normal"- neither oily nor dry. 

I always wear eyeshadow primer unless it is to test a product.  I had always used Urban Decay in the past, and I still have plenty of tubes left, but I am almost out of the original one.  I bought Too Faced and it was all right, but I prefer the texture of Urban Decay.  Of course they don't have that here- if they do I have yet to find it at least.  I didn't set out to buy this in particular but picked it up with a few other things and here is my experience with it.  

The first thing you will notice is the smell.  Yeah, it pretty much reeks since it's not a subtle smell but it's easy to get over it.  I did not notice the smell transferring to my eye. 

One thing people were complaining about is the "unsanitary" pot.  So if you know it's in a pot and that's how you feel about pots, my suggestion is to skip this product.  Or you could be a little bit more reasonable and use a brush, that's what I do.  I am not trying to be rude but nobody's forcing anyone to stick their fingers in anything.  I honestly don't see how anything but a baby's finger could even fit in this small pot.  I use a brush for all my cream shadows so it makes no difference to me. 

Another thing is it does look a little shimmery, but it didn't make a slightest difference when I used non-matte shadows, and I had to look really closely even when using a dark matte on my eyelid.  I do often use primer on my actual brow area because I have to fill in over half of my brows, and where my brows are very sparse (read: non-existent) I did not feel comfortable using this because it did look a little too shiny.  But that is just my personal experience, it is an eyeshadow base, not a brow base. 

For the purpose of this review I used the following eyeshadows by WetnWild:

I could tell immediately that my eyeshadow looked better with the base.  I tried my very best to capture good, accurate photos but even if it is a bit difficult to see, I did see a big difference in person. 

After three hours, the non-primed lid started to fade a teeny bit, but after six hours it was easier to see the difference. 

I was quite pleased with the performance 6 hours in.  I have also used MAC paint pots as a base on occasion without that much success.  Speaking of which, this product does not have the same texture as a paint pot, it's much thinner and more moist. 

At 9 hours, the Art Deco based eye was about the same, the non-primed eye was showing more wear.  By 12 hours, I knew I was done. 

I've used this primer daily for about a week, and I think the results are very good.  I was looking for something more easily available, and the low price and good performance make it even better for me.