Review: Rouge Bunny Rouge haul - Part I

I have been dying to try Rouge Bunny Rouge (RBR) since I first read about it a while back at The Gloss Goss. RBR is a relatively new brand (it started up around 2005) from Russia, and within the last year it made its way over to the UK. RBR formulas contain a lot of natural extracts, and the products are designed to be treatment in addition to color. The brand story imagines that the collection emerged from an Enchanted Garden, weaving together "a Victorian fairytale and a whispering sense of danger." The packaging is gorgeous - dark, shiny black with white blooming flowers and fluttering butterflies - and the names are equally enticing.

RBR is a high end brand. Their products run anywhere from about 17GBP ($25)to 66GBP ($100), with many products coming in around 22GBP or so ($33). Frankly it's more than I usually prefer to spend on cosmetics, but the brand has gotten such rave reviews that I was still dying to give RBR a try.

Currently, the only place you can purchase RBR products (provided you are in the U.S. or Canada) is through a British website called Zuneta. With taxes, shipping, and the awful exchange rate, shipping the already-expensive RBR line to the U.S. has been cost-prohibitive.

Well, at the end of this past May, just in time for Memorial Day (a Bank Holiday in the UK), Zuneta announced that it would begin to offer free international shipping on orders of 100GBP (about $150) or more. They also offered a 20% off any purchase promotional code good for the Bank Holiday weekend. I had to bite.

My haul arrived yesterday, and I have to say that the products do in fact live up to the hype. I was able to swing a few items with this haul because of the code ... they ended up costing about $25 each, which I consider to be a good deal for what I received.

The products I chose are:

• When Birds Are Singing Long Lasting Eye Shadows - Unforgettable Oriole, Bejewelled Skylark, and Delicate Hummingbird
• Feline Gaze Eye Kohl in Delilah
• Succulence of Dew Sheer Lipstick in Fluttering Sighs
• Hues of Enchantment Colour Burst Lipstick in The Plot Thickens
  

First up, two of the When Birds Are Singing Long Lasting Eyeshadows (22GBP/$33):

Unforgettable Oriole (shimmering white gold):




Bejewelled Skylark (shimmering deep chocolate brown):




These eyeshadows are nothing short of amazing. I have never tried shadows that were so pigmented and blended so easily on my lids. They are an absolute dream to apply. The radiance and depth of these shadows just can't come through in pictures.

Unforgettable Oriole is a great basic shade. The color reminds me a bit of Stila's Kitten eyeshadow, but the texture completely blows away anything Stila offers. It's the perfect highlighting shade for brows, cheekbones, whatever you'd like. It's pure shimmer ... no chunks of glitter, just a pretty pearlescent sheen.

Bejewelled Skylark is perfect as a liner shadow or for a chocolatey, shimmerimg smokey eye. It's a deep chocolate-brown with reflections of copper. Also, no glitter here; all shimmer. The color is deliciously rich and multidimensional. It comes up a bit washed out with the flash on my camera; the color is a bit deeper In Real Life (tm).

Here is a swatch, with Unforgettable Oriole on top and Bejewelled Skylark on the bottom (one swipe of the brush):




RBR asserts that these shadows will last 8 hours when worn dry and 14 hours when worn wet. I have only worn them dry, and I do think they are very long lasting. It took me several minutes to remove these swatches; I had to wash my arm three times.

I love these shadows and I definitely will be purchasing more the next time Zuneta offers a promotion. In my opinion, they are worth every penny of the pricetag. I absolutely cannot wait for this brand to come to the U.S.! I hope they do it sooner rather than later; until then I will just have to wait for Zuneta codes.

About Zuneta ...

If you are considering Rouge Bunny Rouge, I highly recommend Zuneta. You can set up an account and provide your phenotype (hair color, eye color, skin tone, etc.), and they will make product recommendations for you depending on the information you supply. This is especially helpful with products you can't see and touch before buying (like RBR).

The service at Zuneta is also very good. They shipped my order very quickly, and a customer service rep sent me a personal email to let me know that one of my items was backordered. He told me that it would be shipped to me immediately when it came back into stock, and he told me when to expect the item to ship. I received a shipping confirmation exactly when he said I would receive it, and the item is now on its way to me. My first shipment arrived nicely packaged in a Zuneta gift box, and the items (and a hefty sample) were swathed in beautiful purple tissue paper. I am very pleased with the service I have received from Zuneta, and will definitely order from them again in the future.

What do you think of Rouge Bunny Rouge and/or Zuneta?