Notoriously Morbid Elegant & Wicked Collection - Review and Swatches

Notoriously Morbid has done it again!  They recently released a small eyeshadow collection based off of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.  Now I personally don't know squat about this book/movie, but I do like the fact that they have collections based off of lesser known works.  It really shows that they get inspirations from things they love rather than things that are popular at the moment.  

The whole collection was released during a Free Day Friday where you also get a free full-sized Easter shadow if you spend over a qualifying amount.  I can't resist anything limited edition and I can't have enough of NM anyway, so I added enough to my cart to qualify.  I got the whole Elegant & Wicket set (I purchased duplicates of some samples depending on if I thought they were risky to press) and I bought a mini-jar of one of the colors that I knew would not press well.  I also added a few more lip-safe colors that I already owned to mix into a lip gloss and requested lip-safe shadows as my free samples as well.

OH - I also forgot to mention that the whole collection consists of duochrome shadows!  The last full duochrome collection NM came out with was the Christmas Carol one and that really blew me away.  I was extremely excited for this one, especially after seeing the sneak peeks on their FB customer's page.  There was one that many people seem to really be drooling over because of it's similarity to Fyrinnae's Mephisto shadow.  Now I personally really love Mephisto, so yes, I was very excited to see how they compare - I will have swatches and side-by-side comparisons below :)

Full-size jar of the Easter shade.

A new thing that I noticed in this order was the label on the full-size jar.  There seems to be a pretty border around the woman's head and the label itself seems to be waterproof.  I like this label more than the old one because it has a glossy texture and just looks a lot nicer.

Bunny Hop is the exclusive Easter shade :)

My lip-safe goodies; I can't wait to turn Tempest into a gloss!

Pictures and swatches after the jump!

All pictures are taken in daylight and swatches are done over bare skin (click to enlarge)

It's the Riche

It's the Riche:  yellow with a strong pink shift

Give Me $20!

Give Me $20!:  mint with coral shift

Two Tears in a Bucket

Two Tears in a Bucket:  cornflower blue with slight rose shift.  The shift in this one wasn't very obvious and it took me awhile to figure out what color the shift really was.  However, after pressing, the rose shift becomes a little more obvious.

Bad Juju

Bad Juju:  brick red with strong fuchsia shift.  This shade is very pretty - you might be able to see the shift already in the picture (near the top of the ziplock).

The Grand Empress (Daylight)

The Grand Empress (Flash)

The Grand Empress:  deep blurple base with a strong copper shift.  Please ignore the fingerprint in the pictures, that was done by me when I was doing initial finger swatches.  I decided to take a picture with flash of this one just to show how strong the shift really was.

Daylight:  It's the Riche, Give Me $20!, Two Tears in a Bucket, Bad Juju, The Grand Empress

Flash:  It's the Riche, Give Me $20!, Two Tears in a Bucket, Bad Juju, The Grand Empress

Another angle of The Grand Empress

Bunny Hop

 Bunny Hop:  shimmery lavender with blue shimmer.  This is a very fun and pretty Spring color.  The name itself is also adorable!  The blue shimmer/sheen is very apparent in person, but my camera just couldn't capture it accurately.

Daylight - Bunny Hop

Flash - Bunny Hop

The Grand Empress v. Mephisto

Daylight:  The Grand Empress, Mephisto

Flash:  The Grand Empress, Mephisto

I was actually surprised to find that The Grand Empress was not that similar to Mephisto.  As you can tell from the swatches, Mephisto is more blurple while The Grand Empress has more of a navy base.  The copper shift in Mephisto is also more red, where The Grand Empress' shift is a true copper.  There are similarities though; I see The Grand Empress as the darker, more sinister sister of the already dark and sexy Mephisto.  As another sidenote, The Grand Empress is the only shade I got in a mini-jar because I knew it would definitely not press well based on the ingredients.  Every other color pressed extremely well and made application much easier.

Overall, I really like the Elegant & Wicked collection.  Most of the colors are fun, bold, and definitely remind me of Spring.  I've said before how well NM's collections stay true to their seasons and this collection is no different.  The only shade that doesn't scream Spring is The Grand Empress, but I really like the shade itself.  It's just so dark, intriguing, and mysterious.  I just checked NM's Upcoming Releases calendar and I'm a little sad to see that the next collection comes out in June.  I guess that's a good thing so my wallet can recuperate and I can concentrate on making more NM lip glosses in the meantime :D

- Jolie ♥