L'Oreal Paris The One Sweep Eye Shadow - #519 Playful for Brown Eyes

L'Oreal Paris The One Sweep Eye Shadow is basically the smokey eye for dummies. Part of their Studio Secrets Professional line, the idea is that if you don't really know how to put on makeup or don't really want to take the time to do your own smokey eye, with this product anyone can get the look with one sweep of the applicator. I will be honest in saying that when I saw this product I thought "are you kidding me?" Once I got over the initial reaction I actually was really rooting for the product to work. Knowing that everyone had the same reaction I did I really wanted L'Oreal to prove us all wrong.

The product is designed to have the best colors together in one palette based on your eye color and what makes your particular eye color pop. So far I have seen that they have two eye palettes for each eye color broken down by blue, green, hazel, and brown eyes. Brown eyes are always encouraged to wear purple, so since I have brown eyes, I tried the #519 Playful for Brown Eyes palette. This palette includes a deep lavender shade for the smoke, a taupe color that combines a bit of purple and pink for the midtone shade, and a pink as the highlight/base color. All three shades have a bit of a shimmery finish.

Also included in the palette is a uniquely curved applicator specifically designed to apply all three colors with one swipe nestled into a convenient little mirror. Now, before I applied the product I was certain that if the product was a flop it was going to be because of the applicator, but I figured that even if the applicator didn't work that the shadows would be nice enough that you could still use the palette with your own brushes if you like the colors. I thought that the applicator wouldn't apply properly or you wouldn't be able to get the product on the applicator in one swipe or some other type of problem. I was wrong.

The product is a flop unfortunately, but it is not because of the applicator. The problem is the shadows. These shadows don't have much pigmentation at all. To create the color swatches below I had to use my fingers and go back into the product three or four times. As you can see even after all of those applications you can still barely see the color. In fact, the pink on the left was so light that if you look closely you can see that I had to apply a small strip of the taupe to the right of it just to be able to tell where the color was. In addition, how are you supposed to create a smokey eye when the darkest shade applies so poorly that you can't even get a full length swatch with your finger. As I swiped the color down it was all out of gas before my finger was even halfway through the one and a half inch swatch. The applicator wasn't the problem at all. There are instructions on how to use it on the back of the palette. It picked up the color exactly the way it was designed to. It fit nicely on the eye. It also was easy to realign it if you wanted to go back over the eye a second or third time to pack on more color. Unfortunately, until L'Oreal takes the shadows back to the drawing board and makes them creamier or softer and much more highly pigmented the product is a fail. The good news is that with a simple revamp of the shadow consistency the product could be genius.

I was sent this product to review as a bzzagent. For more information about this product go to: http://www.lorealparisusa.com/