Wet n Wild eyeshadows have been a drugstore beauty staple for years: incredibly affordable - not to say dirty cheap - yet good enough quality to create beautiful looks. I have a few shadows from the brand that I bought throughout the years and cherish, such as singles Nutty and Brulée or the Comfort Zone palette. I was very excited to see that Wet n Wild just reformulated and relaunched their Color Icon eyeshadow collection with new color combinations, and I grabbed two quads. Is the new formula even better than the old one? Let's find out!

When I found the Wet n Wild display at my local drugstore, I was really attracted to the new quads, even more than the 10-pan palettes. I really love the shade combos that the brand created for this launch. They're trendy but wearable, and I had a hard time choosing which ones to get. I eventually picked Petalette, a harmony of purples, and Hooked on Vinyl, a more unique combination of bronze and blue.

Each palette contains four shades with a specific purpose, which is written on the shadow pan itself: an eyelid color, a crease shade, a transition shade and a browbone highlighter. Of course you can use each shade as you please, but I think this design can be helpful, especially for beginners, when deciding how to combine the colors on the eye. Let's take a closer look at each quads.


PETALETTE


The Petalette Quad contains: a matte mauve shade marked as Transition, a warm glittery lilac shade as Eyelid, a shimmery ivory with pink shift as Browbone, and a deep shimmery plum as Crease.

This quad is plagued with poor textures throughout: all the shades seem very loosely pressed in their pans and have a tendency to cause fallout. Here's what I noticed about each shade:
- the Transition shade is very soft, but it's incredibly powdery. It's kickback fest when you try to gently dip your brush in! You'll notice in my swatches that this shade's swatch is much wider than the others. I didn't do that on purpose, it happened because the texture is so dusty that it basically "exploded" off of my finger and onto my arm. Luckily it's still workable and pigmented enough to look okay on the eye.
- the Eyelid shade is atrociously chunky to the touch. Thankfully it applies smoothly enough, but it causes a ton of fallout. The color doesn't look quite as vibrant on the lid as it appears on the pan though, and applying it with a fingertip is the way to go if you want a nice lilac hue and not just glitter to show up.
- the Browbone shade is chalky, dry and sheer. Again, it's workable (sheer is not a bad idea for a shimmery browbone highlight) but it doesn't feel great to the touch.
- the Crease shade has the best texture of all 4, but it's not very pigmented and it tends to look matte and a bit flat on the eye.

I still manage to make pretty eye looks with this palette, but I can't say that I enjoy working with the textures much. I do love the colors though, but I have to pack them on to get true-to-pan intensity.



HOOKED ON VINYL


The Hooked On Vinyl quad contains: a matte medium peach as Transition, a metallic bronze as Eyelid, a warm ivory satin for Browbone, and a deep shimmery teal as a Crease shade.

I'm completely in love with the color combination in this little palette. Browns mixed with blues have been one of my favorite combo on the eyes for years. Sadly, the textures are lacking again:
- the Transition shade, just like the one in Petalette, feels silky soft but is dusty as hell. I could easily destroy the pan if I dabbed my brush in there a little too hard. This one also has a tendency to disappear when I blend it into and over my crease.
- the Eyelid shade is one of those shimmers that disappoint if you try to apply them as usual with a brush. You have to pack it on with a fingertip to get the warm bronze to show up and the metallic finish to shine. It feels a little dry to the touch and it's the hardest pressed shade in both quads. I was also a bit surprised by how orange it looks, it's lacking the depth that you see in the pan
- the Browbone shade is a bit chalky and sheer. If I pack it on, I do get a nice satiny finish on my eye, and it's a good shade to blend the darker ones above the crease. I wish they would have made this one matte though.
- the Crease shade is a bit of a letdown. The texture is okay - it's one of the best out of these two palettes actually - but it loses its blue/teal tint and turns gray when you blend it out. In order to get the vibrant dark color you see in the pan, you'd have to apply it with a fingerip. Kind of hard for a crease shade!


I took a picture of a look I created with this quad that you can see below. For once I feel like the shadows look more colorful in pictures than it real life! The look turned out okay, but it was not really what I had hoped for with this teal turning gray.




Sadly I can't say that Wet n Wild did a great job reformulating their popular eyeshadows. I don't think the new quads are any better than the older version. If anything, I would say the textures of the shimmer shades is worse than before. That said, you can make them work with a bit of patience, a good eyeshadow primer, and an open mind. They certainly don't feel like high-end shadows, but in the end you can achieve a pretty look and that's what's most important. So if you want to try something new and only have 3 bucks in your pocket, they might be worth grabbing.





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