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These Color-Changing Pigments Are Like Expert Eye Shadow Blending Skills in a Jar

When you're a walking, talking version of an up-close eye makeup Instagram account, your friends and coworkers get tired of saying something about your colorful look every day. However, one of the simplest looks I've ever created recently received the most praise I've gotten in a while. Within half a minute of walking into the office, my eye makeup incited a flood of people around me firing off questions. Two people asked how many eye shadows I used, unable to determine the exact number of colors on my lids. Another questioned how long it took me to blend all the colors together. Others asked if my shadow was one specific shade, only to change their mind and ask if it was a different one. Most of all, they wanted to know what I used.

Here are the facts: I used one loose pigment, Alluring from Dawn Eyes Cosmetics' Premium line. Typically after listing a shade name of a shadow, I'd denote it with a specific color like a lilac or a bubblegum pink, but Alluring doesn't have a simple shade description. In the jar, the finely-milled holographic powder looks maroon. Once it's on lids, it shifts from purple to gold to green to an innumerable amount of colors in between at any given second — hence the color confusion amongst my fellow Allure editors.

<cite class="credit">Devon Abelman/<em>Allure</em></cite>
Devon Abelman/Allure

But Dawn Eyes Cosmetics' loose pigments aren't like color-changing highlighters that transform into different hues depending on how the light hits them. This eye shadow is on a different plane. Straight on, it looks like a gradient of at least a dozen colors. When you turn your head, that's when it shifts to a single shade. It's true sorcery that I've never seen before and allowed me to convince people that I have the blending skills of makeup artist Patrick Ta. In reality, all I had to do was sweep it over the thick wings I drew on with the Pat McGrath Labs Perma Precision Liquid Eyeliner. The process took me all of 10 minutes to complete, but the final result looked like it took me at least half an hour.

<h1 class="title">color-changing-pigments.gif</h1><cite class="credit">Devon Abelman/<em>Allure</em></cite>

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Devon Abelman/Allure

I first spotted swatches of the Dawn Eyes Cosmetics' color-shifting pigment on the Instagram of makeup artist Angela Tanner. I was completely mesmerized, and my mind raced with the same range of questions as my co-workers. When I found out each one of Dawn Eyes Cosmetics' pigments packed a myriad of rainbow shades, I had to have them. And I'm not the only one. Dawn Merrill, the founder of the under-the-radar beauty brand based in Missouri, tells me she watched her order count go up from eight to 25 to 50 in just a couple hours. Prior to the post, she's only received an order or two a week. "I've been up to my neck ever since," she says. Her one-woman business has turned into a two-woman business, too, with occasional help from her husband. "I had to hire someone," she says. "It was just me until two weeks ago."

For almost seven years, Merrill has been mixing up her own loose pigments out of the formulating lab in her Missouri home. Her favorite indie mineral makeup shut down in 2010, and the owner started selling her raw ingredients. "I bought all these beautiful colors that I could never use in a lifetime," she says. To remedy this situation, Merrill started experimenting with bases to make the pigments last longer on lids and mixing up custom colors for her friends. She doesn't have a background in cosmetic chemistry, so she says she "reverse engineered" her pigments by studying the ingredient labels of her favorite eye shadows and going through patents for other color-shifting products. Merrill decided early on that she didn't want to use cheap ingredients and fillers, though. You won't find talc, clays, or cornstarch in her pigments. Instead, they're high-quality, silky-smooth micas with semi-cream bases that keep the colors bright.

Over time, Merrill started selling her pigment creations and purchasing new colors to play with, building up a following on Facebook. It wasn't until a month ago when she started an Instagram account that her popularity started to grow, though. "It's been a total surprise but not an unwelcome one," she says. "I didn't start this with the intention of failure."

Alluring is one of 12 different color-shifting pigments (or the "Premiums") that Dawn Eyes Cosmetics offers. The best-selling shades are Otherworldly (a violet/cobalt/magenta/copper) and Heavenly (a maroon/gold/olive). They are opaque when used on their own, but you can intensify them by tapping them over black liner like I did. Merrill prefers to mix them with a clear mascara like Maybelline New York Great Lash to create a gel liner or she uses a pale pink liquid lipstick like the Maybelline New York SuperStay 24 Liquid Lipstick in Constant Toast as a primer. You could also use a mixing medium following these tips.

Want to see what the hype is all about? You can shop all the Premiums from Dawn Eyes Cosmetics now starting at $4 on dawneyescosmetics.com.


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