How to Use: An Eyeshadow Sample Card!

I have so many free samples from shopping online and from shopping in store and, unfortunately, many of them wait in a little bin for me to one day feel adventurous enough to test them out.  One sample that I'm offered time and time again are eyeshadow cards with a teeny, tiny amount of shadow on them to use.  I usually pass these guys up because I haven't felt like they were a worthy sample to truly try a product out.  As fate would have it, I was given one of these cards by chance in a Sephora purchase a while back, so I decided to try this out today and see if these eyeshadow testers serve any true purpose to a makeup junkie like myself!

The eyeshadow sample I have is for Smashbox trios.  This card came with three different trios, each covered in a plastic so the powders don't smudge or mix.  The first trio is Dark Room, a smoky look consisting of a shiny cream, a matte gray, and a matte black:

I used these shadows as the tester instructed; I washed color 1 all over my lid, color 2 blended into the crease, and color 3 smudged into my lashline and into my crease.  I quickly realized with this sample (and this held true for all of them in this card!), that there was only enough shadow for one eye.  There is such a thin film of shadow that for color 1, sweeping the color all over the lid means using all of it! This is the look I achieved on one eye:

I did the same with the other two samples: 

I really liked this one! For a purple, I found it to be quite pretty and easy to work with!

I liked this trio the best as it created a very pretty, muted, smoky eye.

Overall, I really enjoyed playing around with this eyeshadow tester card.  It was a little odd that I could only do the look on one eye, but I think it was enough to see how the colors would blend together and look on my skin and against my eye color.  In the future, if I have the option to receive these eyeshadow testers as a free sample I will definitely take the opportunity!  I really enjoyed getting to play with some sterile eyeshadow in the comfort of my own home rather than testing in store with a beat up sample product.  This also is a good marketing tactic for Smashbox as I now want to get my hands on the Filter and Vignette trios since I enjoyed them so much!

Don't be afraid of eyeshadow testers and don't pass them up! They could end up being your best friend, not to mention they will make you look utterly fabulous with a different eye look on either eye...haters gonna hate, so werk it.

xxSJ