Wet ‘n’ Wild Hard Being the It Girl Color Icon Eyeshadow Trio ($2.99 for 0.12 oz.) contains a light-medium pink, cobalt blue, and yellow-y beige, all with matte finishes. The eyeshadows suffer from a really poor texture that is very powdery (almost dusty!), somewhat chalky, and a pain to use. Through a lot of different attempts at using the trios from the summer collection, your best bet is applying the eyeshadows over a creamy, slightly tacky white base (whatever that may be for you), as regular primers (like Urban Decay Primer Potion, Too Faced shadow Insurance, NARS Smudge Proof) do not work well with these–they only prolong wear by a few hours but don’t boost the color payoff enough. A tackier base will help minimize the powder sheering away or not adhering to the lid, while the white coloring will amplify the colors.

Wet ‘n’ Wild proclaims long-wear and high pigment with the Color Icon formula–which has proved to be true in the past–but is a miss here. Alone, these eyeshadows are nearly gone (with some settled into the creases) within three to five hours; with a primer, make it six to seven hours with half the product remaining and it always looking like a faded version of what you see in the palette.

Hard Being the It Girl #1 is a light-medium pink with subtle cool undertones and a mostly matte finish. It had good color payoff, but it was somewhat chalky and powdery. See comparison swatches.

Hard Being the It Girl #2 a medium-dark, cobalt blue with a matte finish. It had seemingly good color payoff, but the texture was still quite powdery so this proved for difficult application–it would sheer out and disappear almost instantly. You really need a sticky/creamy base to capture all the powder before it disappears. Pat on, avoid blending a lot, just lightly diffuse along the edges. See comparison swatches.

Hard Being the It Girl #3 is a light beige with slight yellow undertones and a mostly matte finish. It performed much like the other two: incredibly powdery which made for poor application. See comparison swatches.

If you think that maybe I’m expecting too much for the price tag, consider the previous palettes Wet ‘n’ Wild has released that have been much, much better like Comfort Zone and Blue Had Me at Hello.

* Please note: This is a quick review, but I’ve still pulled dupes, I just haven’t gone through them one-by-one and broken out how they differ.

Wet ‘n’ Wild Hard Being the It Girl Color Icon Eyeshadow Trio

Wet ‘n’ Wild Hard Being the It Girl Color Icon Eyeshadow Trio

Wet ‘n’ Wild Hard Being the It Girl Color Icon Eyeshadow Trio

Wet ‘n’ Wild Hard Being the It Girl Color Icon Eyeshadow Trio

Wet ‘n’ Wild Hard Being the It Girl #1 Color Icon Eyeshadow

Wet ‘n’ Wild Hard Being the It Girl #1 Color Icon Eyeshadow

Wet ‘n’ Wild Hard Being the It Girl #2 Color Icon Eyeshadow

Wet ‘n’ Wild Hard Being the It Girl #2 Color Icon Eyeshadow

Wet ‘n’ Wild Hard Being the It Girl #3 Color Icon Eyeshadow

Wet ‘n’ Wild Hard Being the It Girl #3 Color Icon Eyeshadow