Innocent+Twisted Alchemy Special Lucky Pack Swatches + Review

EDIT: The “Review” portion of this post has been edited after a comment from the company owner on Reddit. Please read it, as it directly relates to my complaints!

It took a week longer than it was supposed to because USPS is terrible around the holidays, but my Innocent+Twisted order finally arrived! Here are the swatches of the ten colors I received. All swatches are taken over Darling Girl’s Primed and Primed primer.

From top to bottom:

• Elixir of Immortality (Lunar Sacrifice collection)
  • [Couldn’t find info]
• Lavish Lollipops (Endless Rain collection)
  • [Couldn’t find info]
• Shortcake Fantasy (July 2015 collection)
  • “Pale pink that has a white sheen and red shimmers”
• Saccharine Nectar (April 2014 collection)
  • [Couldn’t find info]
• Twinkle Sprinkles (June 2014 collection)
  • [Couldn’t find info]

(it’s the opposite direction, with Twinkle Sprinkles on the left and Elixir of Immortality on the right)

• Rococo Flush (February 2015 collection)
  • “Copper that has an orange duochrome and flashes red in another light”
• Shameless Illusions (May 2014 collection)
  • “Dusky green that has copper and blue sparkles”
• Insides Out (Live or Die collection)
  • “Smoky purple with a copper sheen and has bright blue sparkles”
    • I would describe this as a dark blueish gray with a red shift. I can see how the base could be a smoky purple, but the shift is definitely red to me.
• The Surgeon (Live or Die collection)
  • “Icy blue that has a gold duochrome”
    • I’m not seeing the gold duochrome yet… maybe on a larger surface area it would show up better?
• Drone (May 2015 collection)
  • “Charcoal gray with a greenish sheen”

(again, wrong direction, with Drone on the left and Rococo Flush on the right)

The good: The colors are really pretty. Even with some of the shadows being similar, they are all unique colors–none are “dupes” for anything I already own, and I have a relatively large collection. Rococo Flush and Drone in particular are my favorites. The texture of the shadows is also really nice–it’s incredibly soft and not gritty in the slightest. Application is really smooth; any patchiness in the swatches is because I was messy when applying the primer, not because of the shadow itself.

The bad*: There were three things that made me a little uncomfortable with these eyeshadows. First of all, I couldn’t find several of the shadows I received listed on the web site. I know that they existed at some point, I just couldn’t find their listings and just got an “Oops! This product could not be found” page when I tried to look them up. Although I can understand this for older shadows that aren’t being sold anymore, it does strike me as a little odd that the listings aren’t available when the shadows are still being sent out in these packs. The strangest one to me was Lavish Lollipops, since other shadows from that collection are still listed on the site. The second thing that I found off-putting was how the jars were filled. Every jar I received was full to the brim, and although this sounds like a good thing, there was a lot of shadow in the threads of the jars, which makes me question how these are being filled. This was a problem with every single jar I received. Was this just because of how much product is being put in, or is the filling process just messy? In either case, I would much prefer slightly less product than having tons of product in the threads of the jar. I’ve never had this with other companies, which leads me into the third thing. Unlike other companies, these jars didn’t come sealed with plastic. Instead, there was washi tape around the jars, which just doesn’t say “clean” to me like plastic does and again makes me question how the products are being filled and the conditions they’re being made in.

*EDIT: I received a comment from the company owner on my Reddit post linking to this post. This is what it said:

“Hi, I just wanted to comment that I’ve taken your comments into consideration and I’ve always used washi tape to seal the jars. I thought it was cute. I’ve only had one other complaint about it but that was it. I’ve posted the question on Facebook asking everyone if they would like me to discontinue the use of washi.

As for the colors that aren’t on the site any more. Once they were sold out I deleted them off the site. I had a problem with my Hard drive and it deleted all my recipes which is why I was doing the lucky packs and mentioned it on Facebook. I know not everyone has Facebook and forgot to mention it in my listing so I do apologize for that.

I really do appreciate the honest blog review and I will definitely stop filling the jars completely to the top.”

With this update, my views on the company have definitely shifted favorably. Even with the issues I faced, I’m so happy to see a brand owner taking criticisms into account and letting customers know the reasons behind certain issues.

NEW Final Verdict: Are the colors nice? Yes. Is the application good? Yes. Would I order again? Heck yeah! I’m so glad the brand owner responded to my post, otherwise I’d be missing out on more of these gorgeous shadows. I’m also definitely following the Facebook group so I can stay in the loop about issues like this in the future.

Final verdict: Are the colors nice? Yes. Is the application good? Yes. Would I order again? Based on the shadow in the jar threads and the lack of plastic seal, probably not. Although I’m sure the conditions the eyeshadows are made in are very clean, I just find these two things very off-putting personally. However, if this was fixed, I would order again.