Innocent + Twisted Alchemy January Subscription Review

So I was super excited to get a slot in this subscription, her collections are right up my alley and her colors and quality are gorgeous. My sub box shipped quickly, I think I made it into the very first shipment session this month. I've actually had it for a couple of days and am just now getting around to swatching all the colors. I'm still not perfect when it comes to swatches, but I think all of these came out true-to-color for me.

With shipping, her deluxe sample size sub ran about 13$ for me, which is very affordable and still more eye shadow than I think I will ever use. I will use almost all the shadow samples given to me, and the actual value of the products in the box is conservatively 20$ retail without shipping.

 For the record, my Live or Die sample came in a clamshell, but I transferred it over to an empty jar I had because I was so excited about it. I was dying over this collection, and this is one of my favorite colors in it.

Also, looking at other reviews, the samples given varied from box to box though the collections were the same.

Left to right, Magestic Life, Wintertide, Flaming Antidote

 Magestic Life it an accurate swatch, it's just a pretty slightly muted golden color, Wintertide has a lot of extra shimmer that I don't think this swatch does justice to. It is just incredibly sparkly and really says January to me.

Flaming Antidote has a slightly more hot pink shimmer tome than I think appears in the photo.

Top to bottom, Illusionary Stars, Breathtaking
Wonders, Splendor of Life

I was drooling over Illusionary Stars on their website a couple of days ago, so super excited about this sample. All these swatches are done over the Elf Primer because its better than bare skin, dirt cheap, and most people will get the same look or better with whatever primer they make use of. However, Illusionary Stars is one I think would benefit from a glitter glue or foiling medium. It looks a lot more blue in the jar (I admittedly got distracted just staring at how beautiful it was) but I'm actually glad it swatches a little less blue and glittery, because it ends up being a bit more wearable for the average person.

Top to bottom, Chibiusa (Rini) from Victorian Disco
, Copper (Cu) from Mad Lab Cosmetics, and
Thoughts are Stars from Beauty For The Win

Finally, we have the last three swatches, which are from other companies. One of the Sailor Scout Collection shadows from Victorian Disco (who is now being distributed by Shiro, for those concerned about previous issues), it is one of the colors I probably wear the most, but I am passing it on to a friend because she loves Sailor Moon. It is a very classic pale pink with a white shimmer.

Copper is from the metallurgy collection at Mad Lab Cosmetics (5% off your order with the code EXPERIMENT), it is a very true bright copper color, a little more shimmery than the actual metal, but it's pretty cool. In real life, this is the least shimmery color.

Thoughts are Stars from Beauty For The Win is my personal favorite sample out of all of them, I am a huge sucker for incredibly sparkly silvers.This is a silver base with silver glitter, so it isn't particularly complex, but it is gorgeous.


Final Thoughts/ TL;DR

Colors: Gorgeous and high quality, I think some shades would benefit from a better primer, but I don't expect anything else from such complex and beautiful loose eyeshadows. Added bonus, having browsed through her catalog most of them seem to be easily wearable gorgeous colors.

Brand: I've heard nothing but good things about this brand, and if you are into horror or darker pop culture the collections will be right up your alley. She does a lot of anime style label art and I've heard that in the past she's done other anime/manga themed collections as well.

Packaging: Everything came well packed and completely labeled with all the associated labels not just the ingredients. There was a packing slip, hand written with a nice note.

Shipping: My shipping was super fast, but this is also for a sub box and not a traditional order. Non-subscription orders do have a 2 week+ turn around time at the moment, but that is pretty standard for a lot of independent companies

Subscription Thoughts: I love getting to test out new indies in my subscriptions, I love the collections Innocent + Twisted Alchemy has, and I was so surprised that the value was there as well. This month I paid $13 for $20+ dollars worth of product.