More light earth-toned shadows please!!

[BeaT]

Because my skin is very pale, finding the right earth-color shadow is often a challenge with MMU brands, whose colors tend to be bright, even the neutrals, meaning that when I use an earth-color shade, it often looks like I've been hit by something or had a really bad night. The lighter shades of the Bobbi Brown Chocolate palette have been my everyday staples, yet since I've made the decision to switch to all MMU, it means no BB for me -- or BB until Silk Naturals revives the Chocolate palette clone or creates some more!

(Quick! My palette is wearing out!)


So far, Silk Naturals is the only preservative-free MMU brand that I've found which does decent earth-tones... Thank you, Karen!!

[JenW]

Welcome to the forum, BeaT!

Can you tell us which SN ones you like the best? It will give us something to go on. Also, which Bobbi Brown ones are your favorites?

I have to admit that I would be Bobbi Brown's prime target for a customer if the prices did not make me do a double take. Also, I like the ingredients Karen uses much better. It is a win-win for me to be a Silk Naturals customer.

[BeaT]

Hi JenW, thanks for the welcome

In terms of earth-toned SN shadows, for now I'm using Bone only and am still ambivalent about trying other shades, as they all seem a tad too dark for me (except the lighter shades from the BB Chocolate clone that is.. but they're gone before I got to them, alas.) However, I do have Sapphire, a tiny dash of which adds some subtle flare, which is quite elegant and reminds me more of Cle de Peau (a Japanese brand also sold in certain upscale North American department stores) than BB.

As for BB, my current staples are: Caramel Toffee Shimmer Wash and Frappe, from the Chocolate palette, and Cement Shimmer Wash, from the Nude on Nude palette. The BB Bone has been a perennial in my everyday makeup and long considered a non-negotiable essential for me; it's quite some feat to have me switch to another brand. I've even tried to find a Bone substitute in other traditional makeup brands yet to no avail; the colors just weren't right.

I've been using the BB Bone as a parameter for how good a MMU brand's neutrals are; other brands' base colors are just too shimmery and too....,uh-huh, juvenile-ish... for my taste. SN has been the first one to pass my Bone test.

The SN version is very, very close, though I'd say it's a bit lighter than the BB Bone (I can tell because my skin color is somewhere between the two; lighter than BB Bone but darker than SN Bone), but the proximity is close enough to be satisfactory. The Bone is a great base color for lighter skinned gals; it provides a clean canvas and brings out the colors. The difference is the most prominent with neutral and light shades; without the Bone as a backdrop, the colors look much drabber, which is why BB has Bone in every single neutral palette it has ever made.

In addition to the lighter earth tones, I'd also love to see clones of the famed BB Shimmer Bricks, especially the Bronze, which is truly universally flattering, versatile and an all-time favorite of many.

I too prefer the SN formula; reading the BB ingredient lists gives me headaches..... which is exactly why Karen needs to make MMU replacements of them -- so I will no longer have to struggle between beauty and health and can have them both!

[JenW]

Have you tried Honey? It is the clone of the Caramel Toffee Shimmerwash. It might be a tad darker, but it should go on pretty sheer with the right brush. Mocha is the other lighter one. I am not sure which one it is a clone of (I am guessing Frappe), but it is a matte. I really like Mocha. It is in the 'staple' category for my shadows.

If those are not what you are looking for, Karen always has something up her sleeve. What you are requesting might not be scheduled for the MOAC, but I bet it will not be long before she has something like you want. I think there is definitely an interest in mineral shadows in many colors with the refinement of Bobbi Brown.

[BeaT]

Many thanks for the tip-off, Jen!! Now I know why I couldn't find Mocha on the main site -- because it's only listed in master "Eye Shadows" catalog but not in any of the subcatalogs! And since I only checked on the Clones and Browns/Neutrals catalogs, of course I couldn't find them and thought they were discontinued...

Oh my, ain't I happy now.

And back to the colors issue... The SN Honey is more "inspired" by BB Caramel Toffee than a clone. The BB Caramel is very non-shimmery. It's easy to be misled by the name "Shimmer Wash"; one would expect a light shimmery dust with this, but in fact it's kind of a "lite" version of the normal BB shadows, more transparent and less mute and heavy, without noticeable light-reflective particles, more of a "wash" than a "shimmer." The SN Honey looks like a beige-ish sheer gold in the swatch, which is nothing like the BB Caramel Toffee, which is just like the name -- a light caramel shade... But still, thanks, Jen!! I've really been looking for Mocha and was really unhappy I couldn't find it!!

The categorization problem definitely needs to be fixed.

[JenW]

Thanks for the 'heads up' that Mocha was not under the Browns/Neutrals. I fixed it, and it is there, now.

[Autumn]

I am quite fair and tend to wear neutrals a lot. I am really happy with all my SN e/s. I am the type of person that literally grabs a SN e/s (from a pile) and a brush and swipes over my lid. No matter which one I grab I always look great and not "obviously wearing eye shadow". It literally takes me seconds to do eye shadow if it is SN.

I also appreciate the reasonable cost. Some companies are charging $10.00, $12.00 or more for an eye shadow.