Sydney Grace. The majority of their products (almost all!) are already made and ready to ship, so there are no long turnaround times, which I think is more of a “feature” for other indies (many of which have pre-orders).
We're here to help you make better beauty purchases that you'll enjoy and love! We recommend signing up to take advantage of personalized features like tracking products you own, viewing dupes that you already have, and more!
Here are some useful resources for you:
Curious how two shades compare to each other? Type in the shades below to get instant side-by-side swatches!
Comments that do not adhere to our comment policy may be removed. Discussion and debate are highly encouraged but we expect community members to participate respectfully. Please keep discussion on-topic, and if you have general feedback, a product review request, an off-topic question, or need technical support, please contact us!
Please help us streamline the comments' section and be more efficient: double-check the post above for more basic information like pricing, availability, and so on to make sure your question wasn't answered already. Comments alerting us to typos or small errors in the post are appreciated (!) but will typically be removed after errors are fixed (unless a response is needed).
We appreciate enthusiasm for new releases but ask readers to please hold questions regarding if/when a review will be posted as we can't commit to or guarantee product reviews. We don't want to set expectations and then disappoint readers as even products that are swatched don't always end up being reviewed due to time constraints and changes in priorities! Thank you for understanding!
We try to approve comments within 24 hours (and reply to them within 72 hours) but can sometimes get behind and appreciate your patience! 🙂 If you have general feedback, product review requests, off-topic questions, or need technical support, please contact us directly. Thank you for your patience!
I agree with you 100% about the preorders!! I really like Sydney Grace! High quality. They seem better prepared, too. I would also recommend Clionadh except, in the same vein, every single thing is out of stock!! What the what!? Will they ever get it all back together?
I too recommended Sydney Grace to a friend. She is just getting into makeup. You can’t beat their prices or quality!!!
Absolutely Sydney Grace! SG definitely gives major bang for the buck! Also, Menagerie Cosmetics and Sugarpill, as both have excellent formulas, are easy to work with, are affordable, and have some of the most beautiful and interesting shades in their ranges.
It would depend entirely on the person who is looking to purchase from an indie brand and what they’re interested in purchasing. Like even if someone said “eyeshadows” I’d need them to be more specific. Shifty shimmery sparkly reflective eyeshadows? Devinah. Intense metallics and colorful mattes? Give Me Glow. A small palette with a cohesive color story and variety of finishes? Kaleidos. A wide variety of good quality mattes/metallics? Sydney Grace. Lipsticks, blush, highlighters etc would also have multiple answers.
I’d probably recommend Syndey Grace too, unless the person was really looking for bolder and brighter colors (Sydney Grace needs more of those). Otherwise Oden’s Eye or Menagerie Cosmetics perhaps since they both have pretty packaging, premade palettes and other makeup products (blushes/highlighters/lip products) that are usually in stock.
Before I would have recommended Makeup Geek.
Definitely Sydney Grace too. I have ordered from the them a couple of time and everything arrived well packed and secure. Also their international shipping rates (unlike some of those on ebay) are quite reasonable.
Furthermore, you have reviewed all of their products and the quality overall is outstanding.
There are tons of indie brands so knowing someone’s preferences makes a huge difference in what brand I would recommend. In general, I think Devinah or Terra Moons would be great for unique single shadows that are not available by most mainstream brands. I also like Clionadh, but their site can be overwhelming for someone new, and their products are often out of stock.