There has to be a balance between well-lit, touched-up, and neat swatches and… ones that don’t look remotely achievable outside of Photoshop!
— Christine
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Done PROPERLY with either a brush or fingertip, especially live and on at least one deeper skintone and one light, are the swatches that I trust the most.
But those fake looking computer generated ones fall flat for me. And, I do NOT trust their accuracy in the least.
I don’t get the point of those Photoshopped swatches – these look so obviously fake so you know you can’t trust them. Does not make me trust the brand either
I really dislike MAC’s swatches. The skintones and item shade never look honest to me. Like, they add way too much saturation/contrast. I really wish more would explicitly list how the swatches were done- bare skin, primer, brush, finger, pasted on, etc. And, I don’t like swatches on one skintone. I am white and I do learn about the makeup product on other skintones from tone, pigmentation or if it’ll work on a loved one’s skintone. I love gifting things for my loved ones and I don’t like stressing whether or not it’ll work for them or further remind them the company didn’t consider or deliberately neglected them in their swatch promos.
I do like yours. I really like when you do those sneak peek swatch posts for eyeshadow palettes with all the shades are side by side. I also liked Fenty’s promo pictures in the past. Different skin tone, facial features, good angles and lighting- really nice! And Black Moon cosmetics’ swatches for their highlighters were so cool.
I would rather have finger or brush swatches that are not all that neat compared to the overly edited ones. I think lighting is more important than the neatness of the swatch (up to a point).
Generally I do like to see the swatches on differing skin tones, which is something that was never done a decade ago – so I like the recognition that shades can appear differently on lighter/deeper skintones.
However sometimes they appear too good to be true…and you have to wonder how many times a brand does the swatch to get the colour visible, when in real life the shade is patchy/uneven and poorly pigmented.
I stopped relying on brand photos altogether a few years ago because I was tired of wasting so much money on products that looked completely different in person than online. With the technology available today, there is no excuse for inaccurate photos and I just don’t trust a brand that insists on photoshopping swatches. Swatches themselves aren’t a reliable indicator of performance or even pigmentation at times but photoshopped swatches are just deceptive.
To me, swatches are only useful as a visual aid to see color and texture. Generally I prefer finger swatches because there’s less room for variation (are they using a flat brush? a fluffy brush? is it dense? it is soft? how big is it?), but it also depends on the formula and texture of the shadow at hand (creams, traditional mattes, latex mattes, satins, shimmers, metallics, etc). I refuse to trust MAC swatches or Morphe’s, because the colors are either horrifically manipulated or they don’t swatch the entire palette/range. I like the idea of Viseart’s swatches, but the owner takes photos in full daylight and the shots always come out looking so desaturated and lacklustre. Honestly, when it comes to company swatches, there aren’t many I *do* trust. Maybe Kaleidos? Indie brands tend to do their shadows justice. Klarity Kosmetics tends to swatch well, too, and they focus on multiple skin depths as well.
I find them to be fairly useless from some brands (PMG I am looking at you!). So unless it is something I really want, I wait for your swatches.
Same! I got burned so many times with what looks like a properly neutral nude from PMG only to have it be PINK AS HELL bordering on fuschia on my skin. I just can’t with brands anymore. I also wait until the swatches hit here and then compare the most interesting shades with what i already own.
Nothing? At best they offer a suggestion of what the color MIGHT represent when it’s in your hands; but as of now I haven’t seen an accurate brand promo photos in…….let’s just say years even though I’m not certain I’ve EVER seen an accurate brand photo to be fair……
It seems like most swatches don’t accurately reflect the color like MAC, or the lighting is too terrible to see it at all (PMG), not swatched on enough skin tones, or only swatched on a tones that share a single undertone (usually golden) that compliments the palate. Leaving us pink and sorta-olive-neutral-cools to guess and hope and waste money.
I agree with everything others have said and would add that do to differences in monitors, I can’t rely on any online swatches. I also recognize that arm swatches are not going to transfer to the eye so is there any point in swatching? I don’t know.
It must be how they’re created but with brand swatches I feel like I can’t see the colors, even if I blow the image up. Instead, I usually end up doing a basic google image search to see how it looks on as many different people as I can.