Mini Bobbi Brown Haul - and Face of the Week

Okay, face of the fortnight, if I'm being honest ... I bought these shadows from Bobbi Brown recently, in the palette there is (L-R) Flesh, Naked and Gunmetal, and on first glance I think they look a little uninspiring, but this has been one of my very favourite purchases for a while.  I had initially been intent on buying Flesh and Woodrose from BB as some new neutral base shadows, but on swatching in House of Fraser, I realised that Woodrose is just a little too cool for my pale-custard coloured skin, so I swapped it out for Naked.  Gunmetal was a colour that I wasn't intending to buy at all (I've done two grey-eyeshadow based makeovers lately, and they got terrible feedback, who knew it was so contentious?), but I kind of fell in love with this shade in the store.

Here's how they swatch (dry, on unprimed skin) without flash and with:

You'll notice that Flesh disappears almost entirely on my skin, and you may be thinking that's a bad thing, but actually, it's not.  It's perfect for creating an even and matte base for other shadows, and when I add  Naked into the crease for a contour, I really love the effect I get, they're a lovely pair of colours for that polished and natural look I'm such a fan of.  I've mainly been using gunmetal as a softer lining alternative to black recently, and for a big night out recently (one where I knew I was going to be going out with a lot of women who don't wear an awful lot of makeup), I created this look:

Basically, I used Flesh (over Urban Decay Primer Potion), over the entire eyelid, up to the brow as a base, then defined the crease with Naked, and created a winged liner look from corner to corner with Gunmetal and I loved how the grey contrasted and brought out the brown in my eyes.  I'm also enjoying using matte shades for winter, I think they look very different to the shimmery looks I've been creating lately.

I've been doing a softer version of this look for daily office wear for the last week, combining it with Maybelline Hollywood Red, and I'll bring you a full-face version of this look soon.  I'm not showing the full face look here as I hate how shiny I am in the pics, and I've changed my foundation to a more matte formulation recently.  I'm all about the matte at the moment, it seems!

(note: I've had my eyebrows done since I took these pics, my eyebrows are the bane of my existence, Denis Healy and me, separated at birth.  Troo story)