This was purchased for me either by my mother or my husband. I am not sure of availability because I know Physicians Formula dropped several of the Shimmer Strips lines, the brown eyes version of this is still shown on the Physicians Formula website as of the time I wrote this up.
I used all nine shadows in this palette over the course of two days, Wednesday, May 20th, and Saturday, May 23rd. Normally I would not use that many colors at once, but I wanted to try and use as many as possible, in a way that made sense, but still covered all if I could. The result was two completely different eye looks that were both ways I would normally never wear eye shadow, even around the house, unless I was having a really bad day and needed something to make me laugh. Although the results, as I was looking at them, and seeing how the shadows worked together, I actually ended up liking and wishing I had somewhere to go because I felt very dressed up using these.
The top two shadows were used as brow bone highlights, the first one the first day and the second one the second day. The second two colors ended up being the all over lid colors, again, first one the first day and the second one the second day. The middle color was only used once, above the smoked out crease as a "pop of color" because I could see no other way to use it. The next two colors where each used on the outer half of the lids, layered over the first lid color and then blended together, again, the first one on the first day and the second one on the second day. The last two colors ended up being the dark crease colors that made the looks smokier than I can normally handle, again, the first one the first day and the second one the second day. On both days I used them over the Wet n Wild Take On The Day eye shadow primer in For My Primas from the Fergie line.
I was surprised just how pigmented these eye shadows are. I have used at least one, possibly two, of the Shimmer Strips eye shadow palettes before, although not really the darker colors, which is probably why I didn't expect these to be as pigmented as the were because I tend to stay at the top of the palette. The colors did blend well together and although I did have to be careful because sometimes I would loose the lighter front lid color to the darker ones if I was not precise with my brush. The darker the shadow, the more it could take over the look, and I do think there is only so much layering back on of the lighter colors you can do. Once it got to a darker level the lighter shadows really didn't show much any more on the lids even when I tried to apply them on top of the darker shadows if I made blending errors, so some level of skill is necessary with these if you really want to see all of the individual shades on the lid. The shadows are in smaller strips, but I didn't really have a problem keeping my brushes in just one shadow, though I did have to use just the tip of each brush for picking up shadow and then placing it; I am not sure if picking up the shadow on the side of the brush would really work with these.
Overall I am happy I tried this palette and that I used it the way I did. While I do not think I am suddenly going to start wearing more dramatic smokey eye makeup all the time, it was fun to do and even more fun to find that I liked the way it looked on me. While my preference for makeup is usually to put as much on as possible without looking overly done up, on these two days, really done up ended up being a fun and exciting thing to try out and made me think I should try it more often with some of the eye shadow palettes I normally use, but using more of the shadows in them as I typically stay away from the dark browns/dark grays/black shadows.
