COVERGIRL Cafe au Lait Eye Enhancer Trio: Review, Photos, & Swatches

These collections of great shades are handpicked by our makeup pros. Designed for a classic look, these shadows blend effortlessly to bring your eyes out beautifully, without overshadowing.

• Matte, pearl, and sparkle shades
• Handpicked by our makeup pros for a classic look
• Blends easily without overshadowing

1. Dust the most neutral shadow in your 3-Kit palette from your lash line to brow line.
2. Blend the second-darkest shade along the crease of your eyes.
3. Run the darkest shade along your upper and lower lash lines.
4. Finish the look with two coats of mascara.

Where to Buy: Drugstore.com, $4.69

COVERGIRL Cafe au Lait Eye Enhancer Trio ($4-6 depending on the drugstore for .17oz) is your average set of neutral shadows for an everyday look. You get a taupe shade that has silver shimmer, a flesh toned shade with the same silver shimmer running through it, and a frosty white.

Texture:

Being someone who has used Urban Decay eyeshadows, these are pretty crap in comparison (or compared to pretty much any other brand for that matter...)! They are quite powder-y, 'causing some fallout on the face. When you tap your brush into these shadows, they almost crumble even with the slightest pressure. When applied to the eye, they're quite a horror to attempt and blend! The taupe and white being the more pigmented shades take a lot of work to look decent once applied, its almost like once you put it down its there for good! The only thing that seems to actually move when blending is the shimmer, not the shadow.

Pigmentation:

The pigmentation in Cafe au Lait is lacking to say the least. Being the darkest color, the taupe is the most pigmented, but it will still take you multiple sweeps with a brush to get close to the color you see in the pan. The middle skin tone shade is the sheerest color of the trio, it will mostly show up as shimmer on your eye. I made various attempts at packing this particular shadow on to try and get some sort of base color other than the shimmer, but it just wasn't happening and was creating fallout like crazy! The white isn't too bad, but the texture really turns me off from using it. Even over a primer these shadows still performed poorly in the pigmentation department.

Staying Power:

I've tested this trio alone on my eye and over my Urban Decay Primer Potion, and seemed to get the same results: crease city! I have naturally oily skin so its makeup suicide to go out without an eyeshadow primer, I wasn't expecting much when I wore the Cafe au Lait shadows without anything underneath and it unsurprisingly creased in 2 hours. But I was however surprised that it had the same poor results over the UDPP. Usually I can get away with wearing any cheap eyeshadows as long as I put that under them, but even so I experienced major creasing after only 4 hours. Not only that, but the shadows faded so much it didn't look like I had anything but shimmer on my eyes!

Packaging:

I think most everyone has held some sort of COVERGIRL eyeshadow in their hand at one point, and you know the packaging looks and feels as cheap as it gets! The hinges on my trio just recently broke and I'm someone who takes extremely good care of my makeup, so if you're one to just throw it in a bag the life of your plastic cover will be short lived and you'll most likely end up getting eyeshadow all over your makeup bag. Not that the trio packaging was pretty to begin with, but it collects scratches like no other and you can all the eyeshadow that has splattered about inside due to the chalkiness of the shadows and the clear casing.

Final Verdict:

Let me just point out, the only reason I have managed to hit pan on the COVERGIRL Cafe au Lait Eye Enhancer Trio is because 1. it was one of the very first makeup items I purchased when I first really got into makeup a couple years ago and 2. because the pigmentation is incredibly poor! You never really realize how much some products fail to perform until you try something that is leagues better. I really used to think these shadows were great for everyday, but then I received my holy grail Urban Decay Naked Palette (and holy grail is most definitely not a phrase I give out easily)! Even though the cheap price tag might lure you in to giving this COVERGIRL trio a try, I would honestly skip it, other drugstore brands like Wet n Wild make better quality shadows with an even cheaper price tag. Now that I've written this review, I can't wait to go chuck these shadows in the trash!