Student Style: No 7 Decades Collection

If there’s one aspect of beauty on which I regularly fall down, it’s eyeshadow. Going out on the town, I can use accent colours and contrasting shades galore. For regular daytime wear, though, I can never seem to wrap my head around which colours go together without being too loud, or too contrasting. Base colours confuse me utterly; shouldn’t there be some sort of ‘Eyeshadow for Dummies’ guide?

Well, about as close as you’re going to get to a Dulux colour card are the No 7 Decades anniversary eyeshadow trios, €13. The largest shade in each palette can be used as a base, with the two others as accent colours. The sets celebrate the seven decades No 7 has been around, and there are lipglosses and nail polishes in the range too.

I was vay excited when I saw the first set: ‘The Noughties’ is made up of a bright purple flagged by a deeper mauve and an olive green. I have green eyes, so the purple/green look is one of the few that even I know works well together. I used the lighter purple as a base, with the green applied wet as an accent colour along my top lid and the mauve as a liner across the bottom.

The next trio, ‘Flirty 50s’, was summer in a box. A pale, turquoise-blue base combined with a yellowy-green and a sky blue opened an entire realm of colourful possibility oh which Mr Crayola himself would’ve been proud. Really liked this.

A brown-sandy-gold combo, called ‘Feisty 90s’, didn’t impress me too much, but then I have yet to find a brown shadow that looks good on my super pale skin; this trio might work better for those with warmer skintones.

There was also a pink-purple-blue set – ‘Supreme 70s’ – which was all kinds of lovely.

As for pigmentation: the lighter colours were a bit wishy-washy in these stakes. It’s defo a case of primer needed, as you’ll be piling these on to get any intensity. The darker succeeded when applied wet, and considering I apply most of my shadows wet anyway, this was a plus.

The Decades collection is limited edition and went on counter in May, so not all Boots stores may still be carrying it. Hunt around, is our advice!