wet n wild Rebel Rose Eyeshadow Quads Review

I probably looked like a cartoon with hearts-for-eyes when I received the limited edition wet n wild Rebel Rose collection at my desk. I absolutely loved the romantic edgy vibe. The color theme was definitely awakening my inner emo kid. I immediately gravitated towards the eyeshadow quads first— because we all know no edgy look is complete without sultry shadow! Plus, these were gorgeous with an embossed flower in every shadow pan. I’ve been a fan of wet n wild shadows for years. Their 3-and-6-pan palettes at the drugstore are classics.

Ya’ll. I really wanted to love these. I did. But…

These shadows just did not live up to the wet n wild quality that I’m used to! The brand has some of the best and most affordable shadows at the drugstore, but these were just… off!

But let me back up. There are three eyeshadow quads in the Rebel Rose collection.

Secret Garden Rendezvous

I’d say that Secret Garden Rendezvous is the lightest in color scheme, with a champagne, taupe, and then rosy pin and deep violet.

Bed of Roses

Next we have Bed of Roses, my personal favorite color combination with a silvery pink, a warm rose, a deep plum and deep burgundy.

House of Thorns

Finally, there’s House of Thorns which has a bronzey gold, beautiful emerald green, berry rose and black.

Each quad has two shimmer and/or satin shades and two mattes, which normally I’d praise for the sake of balance, but the formulas are a bit all over the place. Most of the satins applied pretty smoothly and with an opaque finish in one swipe, but they were pretty crumbly and the fallout was irritating. Not a huge problem, but the mattes—oh the mattes!

What happened here, wet n wild? Above I have all three quads swatched, and you can see the variety in the matte quality. First off, all the matte shades feel so stiff. It’s hard to pick up color on the brush without really digging in. With that said, you can get decent color payoff by packing on the color in layers, but it just takes a while to get it to be as rich as I’d like. You can see, especially in House of Thorns, the mattes have a tendency to apply patchy when used in a swiping motion.

I was working on creating a look with Bed of Roses, which was not only my favorite color scheme but seemed to swatch the best out of all three. I restarted the look three times before giving up because the shades tended to just blend away as I was trying to get them to blend together. It didn’t look good. I was sad.

I tried so hard to really get the wet n wild Rebel Rose Eyeshadow Quads to work for me, but this just ain’t it, chief.

Check out my review of the rest of the collection in the video below!

Did you have a different experience with these quads than I did? Leave your thoughts in the comments!