Benefit Eye Gotta! The Annie Collection review and swatches

I bought the Eye Gotta! The Annie Collection by Benefit from Sephora some time ago with my Beauty Insider gift card. I had seen swatches of it, and was lusting after the cream shadows in the set. Since I only had one mini cream shadow in my stash at that point, I decided to indulge. Right now it's on sale at Sephora here for $24, but you can get another %20 off until January 3 if you use the code EXTRA at checkout online.

All photos in natural light

The packaging isn't particularly sturdy, and mine is starting to get a bit beaten up from bouncing around in my makeup bag. But if it gets damaged, I think it would be easy to just relocate the pressed shadows into a freestyle magnetic palette. I always like it when my makeup products have a mirror built in, since it's helpful for travel.

The set comes with two cream eyeshadows and what Benefit calls a "3 in 1 eyeshadow", which is three shades pressed into one pan. So you're getting five different shades overall with this set.  The cream shadows are minis, they're 0.11 oz versus Benefit's full size cream shadows which are 0.16 oz. Benefit calls the cream shadows "Creaseless Cream Shadows". I find that these will crease a bit by the end of the day if you don't use a primer. Even so, they hold up pretty well without a primer. The two shades in this set are Flash and Foiled.

Swatch Time! No primer.
Foiled is on the left, first swatched sheerly (one swipe, then blended) then more opaquely (about three swipes).
Flash is on the right, same drill.

I am crazy about these. They're so creamy and lovely and I love the shades. I like that they can just provide a wash of shimmer or can be built up. I think they're very versatile. Once again, I suggest using a primer. I like that they can be used alone or as a base for other shadows.

Aaannnnddd the pressed shadows now. Without a primer, the pigmentation is pretty weak.

With primer, it's definitely better, though the plummy shade requires some work to get it to show up. I wasn't entirely wowed by the formula on these.

The shadows behave better over the cream shadows from the set, it gives them some more oomph. (Flash on the top, Foiled on the bottom)

Overall, I like this set. The pressed shadows didn't wow me, but I really purchased it for the cream shadows. I'm definitely a fan of the cream shadows.

What do you think?