Black Radiance Eye Appeal 8 pan eyeshadow palette-Posh Plums--Swatches & review

I said I'd review ALL the palettes in the new Black Radiance Eye Appeal 8 pan line and, here at GlamOnTheCheap, we deliver the goods so, here we go!

Here we have the Posh Plums palette. (And no I didn't get around to building a light box yet. I just took my kids' big art pad outside, put the palettes on that and took the pics in sunshine)...Click the images to make them bigger. (view pics and read more after the jump!)

I thought I'd take a shot of Posh Plums next to Wet N Wild's 8 pan palette in Petal Pusher--just for purply goodness comparison. 

Scroll down for a closer look at the left side of the palette (sideways because I forgot to rotate the pic and am too lazy to go back and do it now)...For some reason, my camera wants to make the Eyelid shade appear a little pinkier than it is in real life and the crease shade is darker in real life, too--much more of a royal purple than it appears in this pic. ::::shakes fist at lyin' ass camera lens::: The browbone and accent shades, however, photographed pretty much color accurately. 

The browbone shade is a gorgeous shimmering mauve. The eyelid shade is a warm red-based purple matte with lots of gold microglitter. The crease shade is a blue based royal purple matte with some very sparse silver glitter. The accent is straight up matte black.

Here are the swatches of the left side ordered as they appear from top to bottom on the palette. Each color is swatched first by itself and then over NYX HD eyeshadow primer base (seriously, you guys, this base is AWESOME)...

.

 Above is indirect Sun...

Here they are in direct sun...

Much like the Urban Jungle palette I reviewed here, these colors are, sadly, pretty dry and chalky. Without primer, they are pitifully faint and basically FALL off the skin when rubbed. Primer gives you a much more vivid swatch but application is very patchy. I had to go over each swatch a million times to get a solid-looking streak for each color. 

Moving onto the right side of the palette: 

Once again, my camera be lyin' on me. These shades are much warmer in real life. The browbone shade is a light purple shimmer with a really pretty gold flash. The eyelid shade is a gorgeous deep plum shimmer, the crease is a greyed out purple shimmer with silver glitter mixed in and the accent is a matte black with lots of silver micro glitter.

Swatches are browbone at top of wrist, then eyelid, then crease, then accent. Once again, each shade is applied first alone and then with the same NYX primer (buy this primer I tellz YA!!)

Above is indirect sun

Direct sun

The 3 purples on this side of the palette really are GORGEOUS. My favorite by far is the browbone shade--I LOVE that golden shimmer! However, once again, these eyeshadows absolutely NEED primer to LIIIIVEEE. Without it, they're all pale and sad and weak and won't stay on the skin at all. It's a shame because these shades look so dang pretty in the pan but it is WAY too much work to get them to look anything like that on the skin. 

Bottom Line:

I call strike 2 for the new Black Radiance palettes. At this point, chances of the Downtown Browns palette not sucking are looking pretty slim...and once again I'm sitting here wondering how these shadows could be so bad when the sister line Wet N Wild shadows are so frickin good? And, to make it worse, the Wet N Wild palettes are 3 bucks cheaper! Grrrr...the more I think about it the more pissed I get.