Swatch n Squawk: Black Radiance Eye Appeal 8 pan eyeshadow palette in Urban Jungle

Ok, so let's get this show on the road. Here we have Black Radiance's new Eye Appeal 8 pan eyeshadow Palette in Urban Jungle which, if you take it outside on a cloudy day and shoot a crappy pic of it, looks kinda like this...

(read more after the jump)

What's that you say? This palette looks suspiciously like a Wet N Wild 8 pan palette. Yes, tis true as evidenced here: 

(The palette on the left is Wet N Wild and the one on right is the new Black Radiance palette.) The palettes bare a certain family resemblance because Wet N Wild and Black Radiance are both owned by Markwins and, apparently, Markwins was too lazy to come up with different packaging for the Black Radiance collection. They did, however, make sure to charge $3 more for the BR palettes than they do for the Wet N Wild palettes and to that I say: what's up with that, Markwins? How are you gonna charge extra for the same damn palettes targeted toward the darker girls? That just ain't cool....anyway moving on.

Here's a shot of Urban Jungle by itself with the lid up so you can actually see what's inside:

Oooh looks pretty, right? I am SUCH  a sucker for earth tones and green eyeshadow in particular, so I was all SQUEEEEE when I saw this. Wet N Wild palettes are made of awesomesauce--amazingly buttery and super-pigmented and I figured since these were made by the same frickin company in the same frickin packaging, I just scored an awesome sister palette to my beloved Comfort Zone...sadly, I was mistaken. 

The shadows on the left side of this palette are super coarse and chalky as hell. Without primer, the shadows on the left side of this palette are useless. Observe:

(ok granted I could have done better in the photography department but hey, cut me some slack--I'm a frickin newbie over here. I'll figure it out)...I swatched the left column of shadows in the same order as they appear in the palette top to bottom first without primer & then with. (Primer = NYX HD eyeshadow base, aka my one true primer love)

The primerless swatches were barely visible and simply unbuildable whether you swiped the shadow on or patted it on. Over primer, they get a little better and show some semblance of pigment but they never apply true to pan no matter what you do, which is a total bummer because in the pan they're frickin gorgeous.

(Yes I drive a minivan...so frickin sue me.)

The right side of the palette was slightly better, but still chalky as hell with a friggin snowstorm of fall-out. 

Right column of palette, once again swatched in the order they appear in the palette--first without primer and then with. Once again, look how pitiful the primerless swatches are!

Triflin'

Bottom line:

I can't for the life of me figure out how Markwins can give us such awesomeness when it comes to Wet n Wild shadows and such suckitude when it comes to Black Radiance shadows. And the really sad part is I'm a friggin pasty ass WHITE GIRL and these shadows are pale as hell on ME. Black Radiance's target market is MUCH darker than me. If anything, I expected these shadows to be MORE pigmented for that reason, not less! Primer helps redeem the shadows somewhat and, for this reason alone, I won't bother taking this back to CVS...but maybe that's just me looking for excuses to be lazy. 

I hope the other 2 palettes will be better. If all 3 of them suck, then I WILL take them back cuz I can't afford to be THAT lazy.