PRODUCT REVIEW: Yaby Cosmetics Concealer and Paint Pot/Eyeshadows

Yaby Cosmetics was new to me until about a few months ago, it was wildly popular all the sudden on some makeup forums, especially related to bridal makeup, and it started popping up on blogs.   It was raved about, esp the eyeshadows and pearl paints, for color payoff, blendability and longevity which I assume is why bridal artists love it so much.  

The products were developed by a Canadian makeup artist who has a huge portfolio, esp in editorial work. Their swatches are PRETTY amazing. They offer great, close up shots of the pan. I ordered from Yaby's site, on a Thursday, and got it exactly 6 days later via UPS international. The company is based in Canada and shipping was 1/3 of the total price for the order, pretty insane, so plan for that. I went with the cheaper UPS option bec I didn't want to risk extensive damage from the postal service and while it was really pricey, I am kind of glad now that I did. 

I have been playing with these now for a while, probably now several months. I don't wear heavy eyeshadow or much more than the champagne cover girl single pan daily so this is for rare mornings, but I have been really enjoying it when I do use it.

The big thing to know about this brand is that it's little refills, plus big palettes you can buy prefilled. For me, I liked the idea of the refills and I could use my own Mary Kay mini palettes and not get a bunch of shades I'd never touch.  From what I had read, they were TINY little pots, but taller than most, and extremely pigmented.  I was prepared for the size with measurements, and was glad I could get as many in that compact as I did, though I need to pick up some more magnet stuff because the finger hole in the Mary Kay palette prevents me from getting a 9th in there!

I picked up one concealer pan of which I guessed the color on a lark and was pleasantly thrilled I was bang on. I picked up 008 BUFF and it's called a neutral, it's a nice olive-y yellowish shade, it's perfect on me.   The pan is tiny,  about 3/4" round, not AS tiny as the shadows and pearl paints, but still small. And it needs to be on a magnet or that thing goes airborn! I almost lost it twice.  

The concealer itself is like a dryish cream, generally I think those are winners in terms of pigment and I was right.  I didn't get too involved with swirling my finger in it to warm it up, but it was quite well pigmented. I did one fairly "heavy" coat and didn't think it was needing too much more layering.  It dried down well,. and has yet to crease several hours later, though it doesn't seem as opaque as it did at home now. So hopefully it lasts the day. It's billed as tear proof, and today being late in August, aka ragweed season, my eyes are on fire as they seem to always be in fall, and they're watering like crazy. So far so good.  This to me might be a weekend, not-doing-anything-much-outside-of-the-house-today-but-want-good-coverage-from-very-little-makeup kind of product. For workday, I like dense and hardcore, completely bulletproof concealer.   Either way, pretty impressed, and the little dot was $4.85 and I would think would last a little while.

For eyes, they have traditional eyeshadows, and pearl paints, which are a more shimmery/metallic pigment and are billed as waterproof. I have not tested that out necessarily, but it bodes well for my devil eyes this fall. I picked up 4 from the selection eye shadows: Baby Grizzly (a light wheat), Magic Timber (even lighter wheat), Pottery (kind of a plum/gray/brown, very pretty) and Copper Wire (a red copper). All of the shades I got were shimmers, since I don't like matte eyeshadows. I also got several paint pots, which is what I was really there in search of. The ones I got were in the shades: Pink Diamond (light pink, was hoping this would be more champagne but not bad, not likely Ill use), Amber Rain (a really pretty light goldish amber color), Purple Iris (a lightish purple, kind of to me disappointing bec it was lighter and brighter than I wanted), Cappucino Dream (a purplish brown, midtone, purpler than I expected but very pretty), Chocolate Smoothie (a nice dark brown which was also more purple than I expected but in a good way), Tamarind (my favorite, a deep bronzey brown), Hematite (a shimmery black), First Snow (bright shimmer white) and Antique (a gold/pewter).   I put in the palette as shown:

top row l-r: First Snow, Purple Iris, Hematite (all pearl paints)

middle l-r: Magic Timber (eyeshadow), Antique, Chocolate Smoothie (both pearl paint)

bottom: Amber Rain and Tamarind (pearl paints)

 I also swatched them on my hand in that order.  And those swatches, with the exception of Magic Timber were me BARELY touching the top of the shadow, and I mean BARELY. And then just putting on my hand. They're that pigmented!

Today I wore a layer of my Champagne Cover Girl staple as a base, then a light wash of Magic  Timber, with a later of Amber Rain towards the outer corner and crease, then a "wedge" of Tamarind in the crease and outer corner, then some Chocolate Smoothie as liner top and bottom and a little in the outer corner "wing". I also did a SUPER light Antique in mid-lid at the end.  So far they're just as vibrant as they were 5 hours ago, and while if I touch my eye, I can get transfer, it isn't much. Hopefully it stays as nice all day!

UPDATE from later in the same day:  They lasted well into the night...I took those pics above around 7am when I got to work, an hour and a half after applying. Here is a shot from over 13 hours later obviously in better lighting. I wanted a shot before I got in the shower.

As far as texture....the eyeshadows are a drier powder than I was expecting. Pretty standard, but really in lovely shades. The pearl paints were the best shadow texture I've ever encountered and with excellent color payoff.  Almost creamy, very smooth, very easily blended while still not traveling all over. Very pleased. I am going to test out JUST shadows to see how they wear and deliver on color on their own.

Each eyeshadow is $3.15 a refill, each pearl paint is $3.85 and the concealer was $4.85 each.  So not super cheap but a decent price, esp for the payoff.  You have to have a magnetic palette of some kind though regardless, or it will go flying out of the little plastic packing thing. You can get one of theirs that is "freestyle" and put the Yaby products and others in there, but its too big for what I wanted. There are other brands, like Zpalette that are good too. I used my mary kay mini palette for 8 shades, hopefully soon 9. Ill keep playing and see which I like the best and go down with streamlining from there!

All photos my own.