It's a Cream Eye Shadow Showdown - Clinique vs Barbara Daly

I will start by saying that lunchbreaks are deadly and I should not be allowed to take one. Because things like this happen...I decided to go into Boots to get a meal deal and came out with a Clinique Chubby Stick for eyes. Whoops. THEN I went to Tesco and three Barbara Daly eyeshadows caught my eye – they look like a similar idea to the Chubby Sticks except, well as you can see, they are skinny sticks! SO, of course, I had to buy them and test them out! At only £3 per eyeshadow, compared to £17 for one Chubby Stick, how could I refuse?

Clinique’s original Chubby Sticks for lips were, of course, insanely popular, so when they launched the Chubby Stick for eyes I immediately wanted to try them. Yesterday I finally decided to bite the bullet, take the £17 price tag in my stride (ouch) and purchased just the one colour – Fuller Fudge. It took me ages to choose as a lot of the shades are lovely; there is a range from neutral browns and shimmery nudes to a green, a blue and a purple. I especially liked Lots O Latte, a taupey grey-brown, and Ample Amber a shimmery peachy-pink. The packaging is the same as the lip products – a thick pencil which you wind up to get more out, and which is the same colour as the product inside. 

Take a look below:

The texture of the Clinique Chubby Stick is really lovely and creamy and smooths on the lids easily without tugging the delicate skin, unlike some other drier stick formulas I have tried. Fuller Fudge is a really lovely mid brown shade, not too warm, with a subtly-shimmery metallic finish. I have been wearing this for a Cara Delevigne style smoky eye, as a wash all over the lid and smudged on the lower lash line, or equally it can be built up for a more intense colour. The downside for this product - it creased on me after about 4 hours. I have oily-ish lids and I find that a lot of cream eyeshadows I have tried tend to do this, and it's not a massive problem if you don't mind getting rid of the creases with your finger when you're out.  I haven't tried this with primer so perhaps that would improve the lasting time, and I would imagine those with drier lids might also get more hours wear. This wouldn't put me off wearing it though, as I really love the texture, feel and look of this product. One other downside is actually in the name – it is really “chubby” so precise application is pretty much impossible straight from the stick, but it is great for an all over lid colour and makes application super fast.

On to the Barbara Daly Long Wear Eyeshadows! At £3 each, they look and feel remarkably similar, the only real downside being the colour range – Barbara Daly has only four or five shades, whereas Clinique has about 10. I wish I had swatches of all the Clinique shades to show you, as the range is great, but for now I could only stretch to one! I have swatched them on my hand below:

Top: Clinique Chubby Stick for Eyes in Fuller Fudge
Bottom: Barbara Daly Long Wear Eyeshadow in Bronze Gold

Top Left: Clinique Chubby Stick in Fuller Fudge
Top Right: Barbara Daly Long Wear Eyeshadow in Bronze Gold
Bottom Left: Barbara Daly Long Wear Eyeshadow in Shell
Bottom Right: Barbara Daly Long Wear Eyeshadow in Shimmer Sand

I thought that the area the Barbara Daly shadows would fall down on is longevity, so I put these to the test without an eye primer. And to my surprise – ZERO creasing. Even after an 8 hour work day. Nothing. Nada. ZILCH. It looked just as good as when I applied it. I actually struggled to get this swatch off my hand. As the sticks are much thinner than the Clinique, the application is easier to direct so you can apply these more precisely, but you don't get as much product.

So overall, I think the winner has to be the surprise underdog: Barbara Daly. I can only speak for Clinique in the shade Fuller Fudge, as I haven't tried any others yet, but for now, despite the Barbara Daly eyeshadows being a lot smaller than the Chubby Stick for eyes, you can’t beat a bargain that delivers like that! I just can't justify the much higher price tag for virtually the same product. However, I would love to try a few from the larger, more adventurous shade range of Chubby Sticks - there is a beautiful navy blue that is calling out to me...perhaps next payday...

Have you tried either of these eyeshadows? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below!

You can buy the Barbara Daly shadows from Tesco stores or from Tesco Direct Online, and you can buy Clinique Chubby Stick for Eyes from Clinique.co.uk or Boots