It's a little silly to admit, but I have a lot of blue cream eyeshadow, and I don't wear it all that often. Of course my definition of 'a lot' differs from everyone else's. It's a lot to me because I don't feel that my blues don't get pulled out as often as I might like. My current favorite cream blue shadow is a trade off between 'Teal Party,' a studio cream shadow by ELF and 'Tidal Rave,' a creaseless cream by Benefit. I actually like Teal Party a little bit better because it has a lot of pigmentation. With a primer and some translucent powder on top, both last about the same amount of time on my lids. Without either, the ELF will crease first, but the Benefit will crease eventually, and after 13+ hours at school, it definitely does.
I started out to compare the two, and then ended up swatching almost all my other blue creams along with them.
After the first swatch of Tenacious Teal next to Teal Party, I could see that the color profile of the two were actually really different. Teal party is much more metallic, with no shimmer; and leans more towards the indigo end of the spectrum. Tenacious Teal is extremely bright, more of what I think of as teal, with a slightly metallic base and shimmer. For those two, each had one swatch, and then were blended in a line across the arm. All were swatched without primer.
The ELF shadow is much more mousse like. If you have tried the Maybelline mousse products (foundation, blush, etc.) It's like that texture, but more dense and dry. They are nevertheless quite easy to manipulate. They crease on my oily lids without primer, but on the arm or with primer they do not crease or smudge. This retails for $3 on eyeslipsface.com and has a plastic case.
The Color Tattoo, by comparison is much creamier, denser product. They are also slick feeling, making them easy to blend, but a drier and thicker formulation than my Benefit Creaseless Cream. The one swatch is quite pigmented, more than I expected, but you can sheer the color out on the lids quite easily. I was afraid at first that they might be hard to sheer out. This is packaged in a glass jar with a plastic lid.
Once I swatched the Color Tattoo, I felt 'hmmm, that's not the same, but I've seen that blue before...'. I keep all my makeup pencils on my desk, and the NYX one was easy to find. Admittedly though, my NYX pencils have been getting neglected of late. The product was drier to swatch, and the one in the photo is two times across, then sheered out for even pigmentation. The glitter in the Electric Blue pencil is much larger, while compared to the one in Tenacious Teal which is a shimmer. The base colors are quite similar, and while a little bit different in the swatches, I think one would be hard pressed to tell them apart on the eyes.
For the heck of it I then swatched the Rimmel Eyeful pencil in 'Talk to Me' which is closer to the ELF than the Color Tattoo in color, but is more of a satin finish leaning on metallic, with no shimmer or glitter, then the long discontinued Maybelline Metallic FX in aqua which leans even more purple and has large shimmer particles. Not pictured is the Creaseless Cream in Tidal Rave, which swatched sheer, but the color is mostly made of multicolored blue shimmer with a light blue base, and when layered is quite close to the Rimmel color, although not quite as purple. The Rimmel and NYX are packaged as jumbo pencils and are encased in wood. The Metallic FX is also a jumbo pencil but is packaged in clear plastic (yeah, I have no idea how to sharpen that, maybe I'll end up depoting it....).
The Benefit is packaged in a glass jar and plastic lid, like the Color Tattoo packaging. In fact they run almost exactly the same in diameter. However the glass bottom for the Maybelline is thicker, almost 2mm worth. While I feel this may end up helping with keeping the product from drying out, the result is that the Color Tattoo is heavier than the Creaseless cream. You get 0.16oz, or 4.5g for $19 in the Benefit from online, at a counter, or Sephora. And the MSRP for the Color Tattoo from the Maybelline website is $6.99 for 0.14oz, or 4g; prices will vary by location.
After a few minutes, a rub test showed that the ELF and the Color Tattoo and the Benefit did not smear at ALL after a few seconds of rubbing, while the other three did. Those three also quickly dried down to a smooth dry feeling whereas as I'm typing this up, the other swatches are still a little bit tacky.
Final thoughts on the Color Tattoo: Do I like it? Yes, I suppose I do, but I think it's a little too bright for wearing on it's own everyday, like I can do with the Benefit or the ELF ones. However the Tattoo doesn't need to be set with anything and dries quickly, which is awesome. Technically the Benefit doesn't need to be set, but it doesn't have as fast of a dry time, especially when layered for more opacity.
If you're planning on using the Color Tattoo ONLY as a base compared to a wash of color, then I suggest instead the NYX pencil in Electric Blue, it's cheaper and in a more compact and travel friendly form. You also get more: .18oz or 5g for ~$3, depending on your retailer. (I also firmly believe that wood pencils keep creams longer than jars, there's less product exposed to evaporation.) The colors are similar enough and won't make that much of a difference if you're planning to layer shadow over it anyways. I always recommend the NYX jumbo eye pencils over a primer though, in a very sheer wash, other wise it might crease. If you set it with translucent powder the effect could be very similar, I haven't tried that yet for comparison.
Note: Color Tattoo's drying time may actually be too fast to layer with though. Even blending must be done as you put the shadow on, you can't wait on it. Which is good or bad depending on how you put your eyeshadow on. It's a great convenience for me because as a student, sometimes I need to just put it on and run out the door, and usually I do! It seems to have a problem with some primers, or so I've heard; but I use it without primer on it's own and it works fine. I doesn't last the whole school day, I go to college from about 9.30am-5pm or later, but that's ok; I don't overly mind, although some people will. Maybe over primer or a setting powder it will last even longer! But I'm lazy... I'll try it eventually, but I'm content for now.
Overall I like this, and I plan on getting more colors eventually. Meanwhile, the ELF studio ones tend to be my 'go-to' for other cream shadows.
(I am not affiliated with any of these companies and I paid for all of these products with my own money.)
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