I recently purchased two items from the Walmart-exclusive Flower by Drew Barrymore makeup line (available online and in some stores), and I’ll be reviewing both for you today. First up – Color Play Creme Eyeshadow in the shade Time Willow Tell, which retails for $8.
First: Packaging. Part of the premise behind Flower Makeup is that it is prestige-quality makeup in high quality, more luxurious packaging for an inexpensive price. As with any makeup line, the quality of the items vary, but packaging wise, I personally think they completely missed their goal. To me, the packaging looks and feels extremely cheap and tacky – white plastic? Really? It is reasonably functional and sturdy, but not only is it not luxe, it’s some of the least attractive drugstore packaging I’ve ever seen. Additionally, they neglected to label the plastic with the shade names of the products; only the peel-off labels (which seal the products closed) have shade names.
Texture-wise, this is a really interesting product. I first read about it on Nouveau Cheap, and I was intrigued by G.’s detailed review – a whipped mouse that never dried down, but didn’t crease, even on her oily skin? I suggest reading her review, as she had a totally different experience with this product than I did (it creased for me; more on this later). I do agree with her about the texture in the pot; it’s sort of cool-whip-esque, and totally different from any other eyeshadow I have tried.
Time Willow Tell is a very sparkly icy sage green. In the swatches below, I’ve applied it two ways; the left swatch is a single thin, blended layer, and the right swatch is multiple layers. As you can see, one layer gives a lot of sparkle and very little color; multiple layers give a little color, but it’s still quite sheer. I found that it was not possible to build it to an opaque color.
Natural light: one layer, multiple layers
With flash: one layer, multiple layers
I tried wearing this on my eyes several ways. As an extremely sheer wash of sparkle only it works well enough and doesn’t crease – there really isn’t enough product there to crease. Layered about as heavily as in the second swatch – which is really quite sheer and not very heavily layered at all – it creases very badly within a few hours on me, either alone or over primer. If worn the same way but set with face powder or eyeshadow (I chose a sheer shade, but I imagine layering on an opaque eyeshadow would work as well), it works for me and does not crease. It has a little fallout throughout the day, due to the sparkle.
Overall, I found this product mildly disappointing. I was hoping that I would be able to get a richer, more opaque color out of it; instead, it’s quite sheer. I don’t really mind using a primer and setting it with powder, though of course I would prefer it if I could use it alone. I won’t be purchasing any more of these shadows, and I don’t recommend them.
*As noted in this review, I purchased the featured product. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.
