Indie Friday | Darling Girl Glitter Glue vs. Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy: Which one is better? | Hello Pretty Bird! - A beauty and not-so-glamorous lifestyle blog

14 November, 2014

Indie Friday | Darling Girl Glitter Glue vs. Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy: Which one is better?

Bought It

For this week's Indie Friday I thought I'd focus on something really basic: Glitter eyeshadow fixatives/foiling mediums. These are typically used under really sparkly or shimmery eyeshadows to make them appear more vivid and make the glitter pop—definitely good if you want to sparkle like a vampire. But which eyeshadow medium is the best? Two of the most commonly-discussed indie products of this type are Darling Girl Glitter Glue and Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy, so today I thought I'd pit them against each other in an epic eyeshadow battle. Your eyelids will never be the same again.

Darling Girl Glitter Glue vs. Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy: Which one is better? Comparison test swatch swatches

First things first: I typically use my glitter fixative/foiling medium over a regular eyeshadow primer to reduce creasing, so I've swatched them both over Etude House Proof 10 Eye Primer (which is my current go-to basic eye primer). For testing purposes, I grabbed two random eyeshadows from my makeup drawer to swatch: Victorian Disco Cosmetics Sailor Neptune (a bright, shimmery aqua) and Fyrinnae Glitterboi (a dark blue/purple-ish base with a serious amount of blue/violet sparkle).


Pricing: Darling Girl Glitter Glue costs  $6.75 for 10ml and Fyrinnae costs $7.00 for about 9ml of product. That's reaaaaaaally close, but Darling Girl Glitter Glue is slightly cheaper so it wins in the pricing department.

Arm swatches:

fyrinnae glitterboi eyeshadow arcane magic swatch victorian disco cosmetics sailor neptune sailor moon swatches

1. Glitter Glue + Etude House Proof 10 Eye Primer
2. Fyrinnae Glitter Glue + Etude House Proof 10 Eye Primer
3. Etude House Proof 10 Eye Primer alone
4. Bare skin


Ooh, sparkly. Close-ups:



Arm swatch observations: There aren't huge differences between the swatches of Sailor Neptune with the two glitter fixatives and plain primer—all of them look a bit more intense than the one over bare skin. Glitterboi is a different story though. Darling Glue Glitter Glue and Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy + primer look nearly identical in the arm swatches. There is some glitter visible on the swatch with primer alone, but it's not nearly as intense. The bare skin swatch has very little visible glitter and the base seems much lighter—are you convinced yet that primer is a must with glittery eyeshadows?

Arm swatches are all well and good, but it probably helps to see how these perform on actual eyeballs, right? I use Etude House primer + Darling Girl Glitter Glue (DGGG) on one eye and Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy (FPE) on the other. And took photos. For science!

Wear after one hour:


Please excuse the unblended messiness—I left my makeup brushes at home like a dolt and had to apply these with a Q-tip since I'm visiting my mom this week. Fascinating! But you can clearly see that DGGG has already begun to wear down a bit around the crease.

Wear after seven hours + terrible indoor lighting:



Whoaaaa mama. The eye with Darling Girl Glitter Glue has worn off/creased a bit more, while the eye with Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy has smudged a teensy bit but is still mostly intact. I'm think Pixie Epoxy wins the wear test!

Ease of application: Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy has a tackier, more glue-like texture than Darling Girl Glitter Glue (which is thinner too). That's probably why the shadows stuck better to Fyrinnae, but the downside of that is that it's a lot harder to blend over. If you're doing a look that requires a shitload of blending then you'd probably be better off with Glitter Glue. I'm going to call this category a tie because it probably depends on what you're doing with it? Both dry clear and don't feel gunky or uncomfortable if you're careful not too use too much.

Packaging: Darling Girl Glitter Glue comes in a little squeezy tube (like Carmex) and Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy comes in a tube with a doefoot applicator wand. Personally I prefer the former, since doefoot applicators are harder to keep from getting dirty and gross. One point for Darling Girl! It's worth mentioning that Fyrinnae offers a sample size ($2 for 1.5ml) of Pixie Epoxy, which Darling Girl does not—that's not enough to be a tiebreaker for me, but it is a plus.

The wash-off test: I washed the swatches off my arm instead of wearing them down this time, and both Darling Girl Glitter Glue and Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy came off with minimal scrubbing, as did the bare skin swatch. The solo Etude House Proof 10 primer swatch WOULD NOT BUDGE though—WTF?! I wonder why. In any case, neither one of the swatches over glitter fixative was especially difficult to remove.


Let's recap the score here:


  • Pricing winner: Darling Girl Glitter Glue
  • Arm swatch test: Tie
  • Wear test winner: Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy
  • Ease of application: Tie
  • Packaging: Darling Girl Glitter Glue
  • Wash-off test: Tie

That means that the overall winner is ... Darling Girl Glitter Glue! Though I can't deny that Fyrinnae performed better in the wear test, which means it might be better to use in situations where you have to wear your makeup for hours and hours and hours. Thus, my final conclusion is that you should have BOTH in your makeup drawer. Sorry, wallets! In any case, both of them make super-glittery eyeshadows look way, way better so you should totes should pick up at least one of them. For reals.


Where to buy:

Have you tried Darling Girl Glitter Glue or Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy? What do you use with your super-sparkly eyeshadows?
 


8 comments:

  1. So cool! I've always wondered how people get crazy glittery eyeshadow--and now I know! I love that you wore it around in the name of science. That's commitment to the cause! :)

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  2. Haha thanks! I even ended up wearing my crazy-looking Q-tip shadow to dinner. For science, of course. But yes, a foiling medium is a must for super-sparkly shadows!

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  3. I haven't tried DG's Glitter Glue yet but I LOVE Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy. I should have gotten the smaller sample size, though. I can't go through a full size tube before it expires!

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  4. Yeah a little really goes a looooong way with that stuff! I wish Darling Girl Glitter Glue came in a smaller size too, but what can you do? Wear more eyeshadow, I guess.

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  5. I've never even heard of such and now I totes want both. Totes. For realsies! :D

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  6. I'm totes glad you totes want some! :P But seriously, they're really useful if you're a fan of sparkly eye makeup.

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  7. At first I was going to say the DGGG def makes the shadows/glitter more bold from the swatches but Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy def performs better so I would prob pick that one even though its a little more money.

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  8. I think DGGG and FPE looked about the same on my arm - it may just be the lighting. The swatch with just primer didn't show nearly as much glitter though. The other good thing about Pixie Epoxy is that you can get little sample vials of it, which is useful if you end finding it too fussy to work with!

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