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Essence Mono Eyeshadows are a small collection of single eyeshadows that come in matte, shimmer and glitter finishes. Each of the 6 available shades are $4.99, contain 2g / 0.07 oz of product and can be purchased from Essence or Ulta.
These come in clear acrylic compacts. The pans are larger in diameter than a standard single that you might buy alone from an indie brand and they are glued into the compact. They aren’t hard to open or close. Brand new, the glitter shade came with a protective insert over top the shadow, the other two didn’t have this. They don’t smell like anything to me and I don’t see fragrance in the ingredients list.
Swatches
02 Neutral Brown – Mostly neutral medium brown with a matte finish. It leans ever so slightly golden but not enough to register as obviously warm against my skintone.
02 Silky Taupe – On my arm, this looks like a light bronze with neutral undertones but on my eye this looks more like a light nude shimmer. It isn’t super “taupe” colored once I have it applied. All fine shimmer, no larger sparkle. This is quite a creamy powder. I wouldn’t say it’s truly a cream but it feels like a very emollient powder shimmer.
03 Blushed Stardust – Large silvery glitter with a very sheer nude base color. The base color in this is only noticeable in the swatch and not when I use it on the eye. This reflect on this is brighter and more silvery than I expected. The sparkles are fairly large but they aren’t flakey and they don’t break apart into smaller shimmer if you keep blending them out. This wasn’t too dry and felt like it also had some emollience to help hold it together.
Performance
The shade selection is super limited. For the matte finish, there is only this one shade available. There are 3 pearly shades (taupe, gold, and a deeper brown) and the glitters come in 2 shades (champagne and silver). I hope they come out with more shades because I think these are really nice.
I felt all three finishes were generally easy to use. The matte has a slightly thinner feel with buildable color payoff. It didn’t feel like a dry or dusty powder but wasn’t super buttery either. I felt it was quick and easy to apply, showing up well on my skintone without too much effort. It is very easy to blend but didn’t “blend away to nothing” too easily.
The pearl had more color payoff than I was expecting, a creamy texture, very little fallout and gave off lots of shine with not much effort. This one swatches and applies like more expensive shadows I have.
The glitter was also very reflective, had enough binder in it to not feel dry or have excessive fallout, and had a distinctly different (sparkly) finish than the pearl. Fallout from the glitter was moderate and slightly annoying but I’ve seen worse.
I’ve tried these a couple of times, mainly using the matte shadow over most of the lid and topping it with either the pearl or the glitter. Without primer, I got 5-6 hours before they creased on me, and with primer I was able to wear them for 9 hours with no creasing.
Looks
Look 1:
- Neutral Brown – Applied broadly throughout the crease
- Blushed Stardust – Center of lid
- Silky Taupe – Lower lashline
Look 2:
- Neutral Brown – All over lid, blended into crease area, lower lashline
- Silky Taupe – Layered over Neutral Brown on the center of the lid, and center of the lower lashline