We're back for Wet N Wild Wednesday!

We're back for a special Wet N Wild Wednesday, and we're talking eyeshadow!

I already pitted the Summer 2013 and Summer 2014 eyeshadow collections against each other once, here, and we're back for round two!

In this corner, "To Muse and Carouse!"

This trio is a nice matte sky blue, a matte tan, and a deeper matte brown tone.

The colors didn't have the payoff that I was expecting to see (I'll admit, I was a little nervous of the potential impact of that blue!), but they went on nicely, and blended well. In fact, when you see the color on me, you'll see it with primer, and it still didn't have a ton of color payoff. But, it's a nice set of neutrals, and you can never have enough of those, right?

In action. I try to take pictures outside when I can, but it was pretty rainy this week, so these are all taken in the light of the big window in my living room. You can see - nice, and I actually like how the color plays off my eyes a lot, but if you're wanting big, splashy color - this isn't your guy.

In this corner, from the Summer 2014 collection, "Who's Carpooling?"

This collection is a matte white, matte kelly green, and matte royal blue. And unfortunately, suffers from far FAR too much of a good thing.

These colors are all CRAZY pigmented. Make no mistake - what you see in that pan is what will show up on your eyelid. Which is FINE, if you need a great matte royal blue, or kelly green. And had I been in the market for either one, I would have been thrilled. As matte kelly green and matte royal blue go, they're top notch. Seeing this much fire power in a drug store brand is truly impressive.

But unfortunately, everybody doesn't want all fire power all the time. I was just telling someone else about this, and I made the comparison to cooking with jalapeno. You don't cook full blast, all jalapeno, all the time, right? That's kind of what this palate suffered from. It needed some...something to dilute it. A little shimmer never hurt nobody!

And as if parsing down all this fire power wasn't enough, there was the problem that the minute I tried to blend these to dilute them, they started going EVERYWHERE. Let me start at the beginning.

I use my primer (Fergie "Take On The Day", also by Wet N Wild), and apply the white all over. Things are going swimmingly. I decide to follow my own color scheme rather than the Wet N Wild suggestion (royal blue across the lid, green in the crease, white to the brow), and decide that I'll go green across the center of the lid, and blue on the outside. I battle through the FOUR safety stickers Wet N Wild applies, and finally reach the product. White all over, great. Dip my brush into the green, apply to the lid. Ooh, boy. You guys, I may as well have gone across my lid with a green sharpie. The colors beautiful, but WOW. So I panic, and decide I have to have a new plan. I swirl the green through the white, which gives me a bit of a lime color, some of which is now deposited on my undereye, despite my not-at-all-aggressive-blending, and decide I'm going to use a dense bristled eyeshadow brush, and the blue liner, to give myself a pseudo eyeliner line.

I finally gave up, and decided I didn't have time to play with this, wiped the entire thing off, and went to work virtually bare eyed. What a disaster!

In action, with the three pan shadow in question. Also taken in the light by the window in my house, because it's still rainy and gross in Michigan! :)

So the dilemma I had was this;

Summer 2013's entry, "To Muse and Carouse", is a generally solid performer. Not exciting by way of color payoff, nothing to get excited about by way of longevity, but otherwise, a solid entry.

Summer 2014's entry, "Who's Carpooling?", is a bit more erratic of a performer. REALLY exciting by way of color payoff, but the color drift also calls the longevity in to question too, right?

So, based solely on wearability, I have to give this battle to - Summer 2013! Of these two, I believe that "To Muse and Carouse" is the superior eyeshadow. If you could only pick up one, "To Muse and Carouse" would hands down be my recommendation!