Hard Candy Eye Essential Collection Review (Holiday Gift Guide)

Hard Candy has released new makeup sets for the holidays which are available exclusively at Walmart. The Eye Essential Collection comes with 2 eyeshadow palettes, 3 brushes, and a small pouch and retails for $4.88. “Fall in love with these purse friendly eye shadow palettes. Create that smoky look you desire for an evening out on the town or define your eyes with any of these coordinating shades for a natural look.”

I loved all 12 shades in this palette. The colors go on smoothly with minimal fall out and are surprisingly pigmented for this price point. I especially liked the purple shade. In my experience, the purple shades in many pallets are among the weakest shades. Not so in this pallet. Each shade was distinctively shimmery and will help create some fun looks. This is my favorite of the two pallets available in this kit. The eyeshadow had decent lasting power; actually comparable to some of the higher priced pallets in my collection. Swatches were done without primer.

In this particular palette, the shades are all very similar to each other. It’s difficult to get more than one or two looks. Eight of the shades are silvery white shimmers. The blue and purple shades are the standouts here, while the two darker black shades are so similar to each other I couldn’t tell any difference, especially on application to the eyes.

The only brush I found useful in this kit was the eyebrow brush/comb. The other two brushes were so stiff and rough that I couldn’t even get them near my eyes and face. They may be going in the giveaway bin, but the pouch they come in is adorable and I’ll be using it to carry smaller items in my purse.

In my opinion, the neutral shades palette, the eyebrow brush and comb combo and the pouch make this entire kit worthwhile and an excellent value. I plan on giving away the silver/grey pallets to a young friend to play with.

These would make great holiday gifts! Please check out their website here for more information.