Review & Swatches: Cheeky Cosmetics

About the Brand

Cheeky Cosmetics is a vegan mineral makeup company.  Their products are handmade and contain no dyes, nanoparticles, ferric ferrocyanide, bismuth oxychloride, or carmine.  Their website is very clear and easy to navigate, and they can also be found on Etsy.  

First Thoughts

Cheeky Cosmetics is one of the first mineral makeup companies I ordered from.  They are Canadian, which is what first attracted me, and I've ordered twice now.  My experience has been all positive – great customer service, fast shipping, and nice products.  Shipping is also reasonable - $2 in Canada, $2.50 to the U.S., and $5 everywhere else.

Eye Shadow (3 gram jar $6, 5 gram jar $12, samples $1)

Overall, I’m impressed with the quality of Cheeky Cosmetics eye shadows.  They come in a variety of finishes (matte, glow, shimmer, and sparkle) and there is a good selection of colours.  On their website, sparkly eye shadows are described as sheer if applied dry and metallic if foiled.  I find that a lot of these really do need to be foiled to show up vibrantly, otherwise a number of them end up looking kind of silvery and pretty similar to one another.  Also, while some colours exactly match what’s shown on their website, some don't, so samples are a good idea.  Samples come in clamshell containers.  I'm not sure exactly how much product they contain - they aren’t the biggest samples offered in the MMU world, but they are plenty big enough for several applications and to see if you like a colour.   

All swatches are dry on bare skin.  Sorry for the less than perfect quality of some of them - I'm still working on lighting to make them show up the most true to colour.  
Colour Descriptions are from Cheeky Cosmetics.

  
 

Lucky – fresh clover green

Mermaid – sheer turquoise

Electric – bright blue

Starry Night – sapphire blue

Sugarplum – medium purple

Mauvelous – medium mauve

Moonlit Rose – medium rose

Coral Reef – bright coral

 

 

You can see here that Starry night applies sort of streaky,

as if not all ingredients are fully incorporated.  This is the only colour 

I've had this problem with.

 These four colours are showing up as much more similar here than in

person.  Sugarplum is more purple than the rest and Coral Reef is definitely 

the most sparkly.  Moonlit Rose is my favourite of these - to me it looks like 

a mid-toned pink with some brownish undertones

 

Lucky is my favourite of this bunch - a shimmery soft green with silver sparkle.

 

Here's Coral Reef on bare skin and over a dark base (Gabriel Color Black Eyeliner)

A dark base is another way to make the sparklier colours show up a bit more vividly

without having to foil them.

 

Sterling – medium silver

Silk – light beige shimmer

Pink Champagne – sheer pink-beige

Moroccan Sunset – pinkish-bronze

Sun Goddess – golden bronze

 Silk looks a little chalky here, but that's just because of how heavily I applied it to 

get it to show up for the photo.  It makes a really nice highlight colour.

Sun Goddess is one of my favourites.  It's a little washed out in this picture - in 
person it's a gorgeous, shimmery, almost metallic bronzey-gold colour.

Mystique – medium grey taupe

Sultry – sheer, dark grey

Little Black Dress – soft black

Espresso – deep, bronzy brown

Pebble – medium-light taupe

Honeycomb – medium golden brown

 Dry, Little Black Dress applies like a dark, smokey grey, but foiled, it makes 

a good black liner.

 A closeup of Mystique, another favourite.  I had a hard 

time trying to capture this one on camera.  It's a lovely taupe - brown,

grey, purple - depending on what you pair it with.  This photo

really doesn't do it justice...you can get a better idea of the colour here.

Lip Gloss ($12)

With my first order, I purchased a lip gloss in Pink Champagne and received a free sample in Sugar ‘n’ Spice.  Pink Champagne is described as a nude beige and it's a lovely colour.  It tones down the colour of my lips while imparting a gorgeous sparkly sheen.  Sugar ‘n’ Spice is a medium bronze-pink and has a bit less sparkle.   I somehow managed to swatch these over hair on my arm, eek!  They are not at all gloopy as they may appear in the photo.  I really like these.  At the moment, there are 11 colours to choose from – I’m definitely considering picking up a couple more soon.

Chantal also recently made a video of how she makes her lip glosses.  After all the hooplah around unsanitary conditions and certain indie makeup companies, it’s nice to be able to see where the magic happens...in a clean, appropriately professional looking setting :)

Eyebrow Powder ($12 for 5 gram jar)

I picked up two samples of eye brow powder, in blonde and light brunette.  These only come in four colours right now and I didn’t feel like either of these matched my brows perfectly.  That could've just been me though – I'm not one who messes with my brows too much.  I don't usually use a brow powder at all.

Final Thoughts

While the eye shadows aren't the most complex colours out there, the colours seem original (not repackaged) and Cheeky Cosmetics has a good selection to choose from.  I really like their lip glosses as well.   Chantal also makes foundation, blush, bronzer, mineral veils, an all-over glow, and other lip products.

Would I repurchase?

Yup!  I already have actually, to get full sizes of Mystique and Sun Goddess.  Prices are a bit higher than a lot of other indie makeup companies, but I've been very happy with everything I've tried.