Hello everyone! I am currently writing this blog post from the grave as I have been deathly sick over the weekend. I’ve been feeling really bad about not having posted in so long 😦 so here I am with a post appropriate for the Lunar New Year – Etude House’s Monkey Wish Eyes collection!
Released in January, the “Monkey Wish Eyes” collection is based off of 2016’s animal sign in the Chinese Zodiac, the monkey, put together with common wishes people have for the new year! I’ve separated this post into several sections – Eyeshadows, Swatches, and My Look, so if you want to skip past certain parts you can just search using those keywords.
This collection has a total of 10 shadows, of which I picked up 4. There were a heavy amount of neutrals, with 2 or 3 pops of colour! There were no true mattes in this collection.
If you spent more than 20,000 KRW at the store during the January promotion you also received this cute stuffed toy for just 5,000 KRW extra!
The toy was made in collaboration with the brand CRAFTHOLIC…
I’m obsessed with this thing! It’s so soft and fluffy ;_;
Not sure if this helps to gauge how big the monkey is – but it’s pretty big! Apparently CRAFTHOLIC is a Japanese character brand.
Their toys seem to go for quite a lot so I’d say this is a great deal! I personally love stuffed toys so couldn’t resist…
Now on to the important part of this post!
Eyeshadows
Like I mentioned earlier, each shadow has a phrase on it (ending in “mong”, the sound monkeys make in Korea!) related to a wish/resolution for the new year.
The backs of the shadows also have a cute monkey playing with bananas on them…
The best thing about this collection, besides the customized label of each, is the monkey print on the shadow itself! Etude House eyeshadows (as you can see in previous posts of mine) usually have hearts stamped on them, so these are too cute to resist!!
The first shadow I’m going to talk about is PK014 – 넘나예뻐몽 (So Pretty-mong) which the website describes as a “pink shadow containing blue and pink pearls and purple reflects.” Reading this description I didn’t see what they were talking about until I took a closer look at my eye swatch…
I’m not wearing any concealer in this photo hence the purple areas near the front of my eye but if you click on the direct photo link here (opens in new tab), you can see that the shadow kind of matches the description, if somewhat subtle. I like to use this shadow as the “star” of the look, as blending it on top of or with others makes it lose it’s charm. It’s quite complex and pretty in person!
The next shadow is BE108 – 살빠졌다몽 (I Lost Weight-mong) which is my personal goal for this year as the winter months have not been kind to me…
Described as a “matte textured skin tone shadow with delicate gold pearls that melts into the skin”, this shadow is mostly matte, although with a light as strong as mine the pearls show up really brightly in this photo!
Probably the least pigmented of the 4, I like to use this as a transition shade for my green/yellow eye looks. The pearls are subtle enough that it gives off a pretty matte effect when blended out into your crease.
GR707 – 합격했다몽 (I Passed My Exam-mong) is described as a “khaki shadow with profound green pearls.”
With my light flashing directly on the shadow, the green pearls come through VERY strongly.
However when not in the light the khaki base shines through, creating a very interesting duochrome effect when used on the eyes!
I haven’t used this shadow in a look yet, but I have a feeling that due to its sheer nature it would look best as a shadow topper (such as using it on a black cream base), which would really bring out the duochrome and green pearl effect.
The final shadow, and my favourite of the 4, is PP508 – 휴강이다몽 (Class Is Cancelled-mong).
Standing out as the seemingly most “random” shadow of the whole collection, in that everything else is relatively warm-toned and this one isn’t at first glance, PP508 is described as “a shadow that is purple when applied lightly, but turns more pink the more it is rubbed.” I haven’t actually tried rubbing this shadow to get the described effect, as the duochrome is clear to me right off the bat as you will see in the eye swatches below.
When not under the light the purple/blue shows up strongly. It’s more of a blue to me than a purple…blurple?
To capture the true beauty of this shadow it has to be looked at from several angles, although you can see that the pink reflects show up slightly in the center of my lid here.
Sorry this photo is abnormally big ・゜・(ノД`) Anyway, this photo is from the background of another eye swatch photo I was taking, but I decided to include it in the post anyway because you can really see the pink shift here! Because of its pink shift, this shadow works both with warm toned shadows as well as blue/cool toned ones!
Swatches
As you can see, the sand shadow shows up quite yellow on my skin when not exposed to light, but once under light the gold sparks come through, giving it a much warmer finish. All 4 swatch very evenly but I recommend applying the right 3 with your finger as they pick up more pigment this way.
A friend of mine gave me one of the Etude House 10th anniversary empty palettes as a present a while back, and I couldn’t think of what shadows to put in it until I realized that these 4 would be a perfect fit!
They clash slightly with the violent pink background but I don’t mind, as putting all four of them together in one palette like this made them feel like more of a “set” than they would have if I separated them among my other empty palettes.
I cut off the labels on the back of the containers and stuck them on my palette like this using tape so that I could remember the names of them!
My Look
Like everyone else, I’ve been very inspired by the Pantone 2016 colours of the year – Rose Quartz and Serenity. I thought that PK014 and PP508 would be perfect when combined together to create this kind of effect, and I was right! The pink shift in PP508 blends it seamlessly into PK014 and it looks so pretty that I’ve done this look several times since taking this photo!
Overall I have nothing negative to say about these shadows – I love them! I love the monkey concept and the “new year wish” theme, and how everything is so well thought out to the very last detail.
I will try to recover as soon as possible and get up a new post when I can! I have some exciting news to share in a future post, so stick around if you want to find out what it is 🙂 Until next time!!
Jasmineitor & Korea 
I really love how gorgeous is your makeup and it’s an inspiration to see how you put those colors to make a perfect eyeshadow.
Hope you can have a fast recovery!
LikeLike
Thank you ❤ always such nice comments hehe look forward to my next review!!
LikeLike