Review: I Touch Roses

Before Ordering: I Touch Roses is actually a company I had never heard of until I saw mention in Phyrra’s blog, though they’ve been around since at least early 2009. Excited by the color chart on the website, I spent more time than I care to admit narrowing down which colors I wanted to try.

What I Ordered: Samples of the following eyeshadows: Best Friend, Drunk, Envy, Fantastic, Mist, Midnight Sky, Moody, No Slogan, Sacrifice, Sweet Love, Surreal, TFH, To The Core, Trooper, and Universe. I also ordered a 5g jar of Tarot eyeshadow.

Shipping Time: I placed my order on January 23rd, received a shipping notice on January 25th, and received my order on January 28th.

Packaging: My order arrived inside a bubble mailer. The sample baggies were all wrapped together in a piece of tissue paper that was sealed with a logo sticker, and the 5g jar was wrapped in a different piece of tissue paper. There was no invoice, but a handwritten note, business card with a discount code, and two extra eyeshadow samples (I Do and Midnight Sky) were included.

The sample baggies had color names written on them with a Sharpie, so I made little labels for them myself as Sharpie can rub off of baggies pretty quick. The 5g jar was square and had the color name written on one side with a gold paint pen. It had a sifter, which was sealed with a sticker (which was stamped with a rose – unexpected and cute), and seemed to be packed full.

I have to state that when I ordered, both the PayPal and website invoices failed to list any of the colors I had named for my order, due to the shopping cart the website uses. Both invoices simply list that I ordered sample sets or jars and how much I paid. This needs to either be fixed, or a paper invoice with complete order information needs to be included with orders.

Ingredients: Ingredients are given on the website as a single “may contain” list. Sample baggies do not have ingredients listed on them, nor did the 5g jar I received.

The Product:

While some of the colors are gorgeous, in swatching them I found a number of them to unexpectedly have black iron oxide as an ingredient. Black iron oxide is a matte black mineral that can clump and have issues with blending when used in mineral makeup; it usually becomes obvious as an ingredient once you rub the makeup on your skin in some way.

Having said that, No Slogan, Trooper, Drunk, and Envy all have black iron oxide. I only expected it in Trooper, and only because it looks like an ingredient from the product photo.

No Slogan – Medium army green with crystal shimmer.
Trooper – Dark army green with crystal shimmer.
Drunk – Metallic green with green sparkle.
Envy – Metallic emerald green.

It looks like the black iron oxide was added to colors to make them darker, however, color theory teaches an entirely different method for darkening colors, because black can easily make them dull. All in all, 9 of the 16 shades I swatched have black iron oxide, and as someone who tends to avoid it because of the blending issues, I didn’t mean to have that many.

On a different note, the shadows I got are very obviously original, and weren’t too close to ones I already have from other companies (Envy is probably my favorite, it’s just beautiful).

Customer Service: I did not contact Ahna, the owner, with any issues, but I would strongly recommend she update her color chart and descriptions. The current color chart does not picture all colors listed, but also pictures colors not listed, making it hard to tell what exactly is available for order.

Final Thoughts:

• Was I happy with my purchase? Overall, I’m okay with it.
• Would I order from I Touch Roses again? Possibly, but I would wait for a complete color chart to be posted before doing so.
• Rating? 4 out of 5 stars.

Edit: As of March 26th, 2010 I Touch Roses has been added to my Companies I Avoid list. Please see the list for details.

~ by shatteredshards on February 20, 2010.