Archetype Cosmetics Intro

Those getting used to my horror reviews will be a little turned away, but hey, this is my blog! I received my order from Archetype Cosmetics on Saturday January 3 which was originally placed on December 2nd, so their 3 to 4 week shipping scenario is still in effect (I consider myself lucky though because a handful of gals have waited months).

Archetype Cosmetics Site

$0.25 - Sample Bag (Generous amount!)
$3.75 - Small Pigment
$7.00 - Large Pigment
$9.75 - XLarge Pigment

Shipping is also very reasonable starting at $1.75 First Class Mail


Overall I received a full size of Gloomy Sunday, and Beetlewing with an assortment of samples in Bela’s Grave, Transylvanian Concubine, The Gargoyle Tree, Death's Head, Poison Pen, and Samhain Eve. Several of these did not fit my taste and were passed on to my friend Winter who is my polar opposite in makeup(great because if a color doesn’t work on one of us, it will on the other), so this will be a brief review. And let me note I am impressed! I placed another order last night, and have a few that will be passed from Winters waiting order so I will soon be to my neck in Archetype Cosmetics and updated reviews... Yay!

The colors look beautiful indoor or outdoors, and are very versatile so they can be dressed up or down for occasion. The colors build well so you can have an even sheen to full intensity, and blend perfectly so they do not cake on like some cosmetics. One thing to note is that the colors that have sparkle or glitter are not fooling, and unfortunate for myself because I prefer matte to low shimmer so some of these I have to feel outgoing to wear. Because of the sparkle, without second thought I recommend that you use Urban Decay Primer Potion as a base to help keep the shimmer in place. Following that guideline I wore Samhain Eve yesterday in the crease and it blended beautiful with my highlight base color of Marigold from Aroma Leigh. The glitter from the shadow also stayed in the desired area with only a few specks on Marigold, and I did not get any fall off on my cheek!

Also, if closely reviewed it appears that all the shadows that I received have a soft peach/pink undertone to the shimmer, which strangely looks really nice and adds dimension to the color. Don’t let that intimidate you either because I myself am not a pink person but whole heartily approve. Also, the colors appear to vary in different lighting due to the dimension and shimmers, so my reviews are a mix in varied lightings.

It was absolutely impossible to get these colors pictured, so I had to tweak the tones of the pictures to try and get a close match of how it really looks in person. For dimension you can see the glitter and shimmer pickups in the short video clip. You can mostly see the sparkle highlights when the camera goes out of focus on the previous color. UDPP used as base and colors in order Beetlewing(to pink and looks closer to the actual Samhain Eve, but you can really see the green shimmer), Poison Pen, Samhain Eve(far to brown), and finally Death's Head.




Beetlewing: The base color is a taupe leaning to the bluish grey side. This has shimmer in silver and even sparkle in green.


Poison Pen: I really like this color, though for some reason it is suddenly missing from the website so I could not get a full size in my new order. Base color is a deep golden olive with a gold shimmer.. This is absolutely ideal for people that stay towards warm colors, like myself, and is great on olive skin.


Samhain Eve: This is the ideal taupe with a sheen muted purple and silver sparkle. Site says moderate amount of sparkle but I think it is more than enough haha.


Death's Head: Base is a creamy brown with a sheer overlay of soft red shimmer, and gold with green sparkle.